Short Fiction, Poul Anderson [simple e reader .TXT] 📗

face was white, and there were tears running down his cheeks.

“This is the end,” he said. “They’ve found us out, and there’s nothing left but to die. Good by, Barbara.” He kissed her, wildly, and ran for his ship. Moodily, I watched him go. He expected death, and he would get only capture, and afterward⁠—

“What are you doing here, Con?” asked Barbara.

“I’m too shaky to be any good in the artillery. Let me go with you, I can punch a computer.”

She nodded silently, and we went off together.

The floor shook under us, and a crash of rock roared down the halls. The heavy weapons on the Supernova were bloodlessly reducing our ground installations and our ships not yet in action to smashed rubble. They would kill not a single one of us, except by uncontrollable accident, and save many Valgolian and Earth lives that way, but it wasn’t pleasant to be slugged. The girl and I staggered ahead. When the lights went out, I stopped and held her.

“It’s no use,” I said. “They’ve got us.”

“Let me go!” she cried.

I hung on, and suddenly she collapsed against me, crying and shaking. We stood there with the city rumbling and shivering around us, waiting.

Presently the Valgolian commander released the interference and contacted Levinsohn, offering terms of surrender. It seemed to Levinsohn, and it was meant to seem, that further resistance would be useless butchery. His ships were gone and his foes need only bombard him to ruin. He capitulated, and one by one we laid down our arms and filed to meet the victors.

The terms, as announced by messengers⁠—the intercom was out of action⁠—were generous. Leading rebels and those judged potentially “dangerous” would go to penal colonies on various Earth-like planets. Except that they weren’t penal colonies at all, but, of course, the Earthlings wouldn’t know this. They were indoctrination centers, and, with all my bitterness, I still longed to observe a man like Levinsohn after five years in one of the centers. He’d see things in a different perspective. He’d see the Empire for what it was⁠—even if I sometimes had a little trouble seeing that now⁠—and he’d be a better rebel for it.

Someday Levinsohn and his kind would be back on Earth, the new leaders ready to lead the way to a new tomorrow. And I would be with them.

I’d be back with Levinsohn and the rest, and with Barbara, too, and we’d try to pave the way to the peace and friendship. But meanwhile there’d be other revolutions⁠—striving and hoping and breaking their hearts daring what they thought would be death to win what they called freedom and what we hoped would be evolution.

It was the fire to temper a new civilization.

We walked down the hall, Barbara and I, hand in hand, alone in spite of all the people who were shuffling the same way. Most of them were weeping. But Barbara’s head was high now.

“What will happen to us?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But, Barbara, whatever happens after this, remember that I love you. Remember that I’ll always love you.”

“I love you too,” she smiled, and kissed me. “We’ll be together, Con. That’s all that matters. We’ll be together.”

That was important⁠—and it made me feel good. Yes, we’d be together; I’d see to that. But for a while Barbara would hate me through all the long years of the indoctrination. Someday, perhaps, she would understand⁠ ⁠… the indoctrination could do it, and I could help. But by the gods of space, how would it be to take that hate all that while?

We came out into the central chamber where the prisoners were gathering to be herded up to the ships. Armed Valgolian guards stood under the glare of improvised lights. Other Imperials were going through the city, flushing out those who might be hiding and removing whatever our armed forces could use. The equipment would do no one any good here, and Boreas would be left to its darkness.

It was cold in the vast shadowy room. The heating plant had broken down and the ancient cold of Boreas was seeping in. Barbara shivered and I held her close to me. Nat Hawkins moved over to join us, wordlessly.

I was questioned in a locked room by one of the big Valgolian officers. He looked at a stereograph in his hand and he took me aside, but it was not unusual. Many of the starbound prisoners were being questioned by their guards, and I was merely one of them.

“Colonel Halgan?” the officer asked with an eagerness close to hero-worship. He was obviously fresh from school and military terminology came from his lips as if it really meant something to a Valgolian. The colonel, of course, meant that in a titular sense I had been elevated for my work. Funny, if you use the language enough, you get to believe it yourself.

“Sir,” the young officer continued, “this is one of the greatest pieces of work I’ve ever seen. I am to extend the official congratulations of⁠—”

I let him talk for a while and then I raised my hand peremptorily and I told him that the girl with the Earthling Hawkins was to go along for indoctrination, despite the fact that her name did not appear on his lists. He nodded, and I went back to Barbara, but half a dozen men had come between us.

Levinsohn and five guards. The man’s carriage was still erect, the old unbreakable pride and courage were still in him. Someone among the prisoners broke loose and rushed at him, cursing, till the Valgolians thrust him back into line.

“Levinsohn!” screamed the man. “Levinsohn, you dirty Jew, you sold us out!”

There you see why this rebellion had to be crushed. Earth still had a long way to go. The Levinsohns, the Barbaras, the more promising of the anarchs would be educated and returned and the civilizing process would go on. Earth’s best and bravest would unite and fight us, and with each defeat they would learn something