Short Fiction by Algis Budrys (good story books to read .txt) 📕

“Nevertheless, Mr. Holliday,” Marlowe said, “you have done the Union a great service. We would consider it an honor if you allowed us to enter your planet in our records under the name of Holliday.”

He kept his eyes away from Mead.

Martin Holliday’s eyes were shining. “Thank you, Mr. Marlowe,” he said huskily.

Marlowe could think of no reply. Finally, he simply nodded. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Holliday. We’ve arranged transportation, and your shuttle will be taking off very shortly.”

Holliday’s face began to bead with fresh perspiration at the thought of bulkheads enclosing him once more, but he managed to smile, and then ask, hesitantly: “May I⁠ ⁠… may I wait for the shuttle out here, sir?”

“Certainly. We’ll arrange for that. Well, goodbye, Mr. Holliday.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Marlowe. Goodbye, Mr. Bussard. And goodbye, Mr. Mead. I don’t suppose you’ll be seeing me again.”

“Good luck, Mr. Holliday,” Mead said.

Marlowe twisted awkwardly on the car’s back seat, wiping futilely at the long smear of chocolate on his trouser pocket.

Well, he thought, at least he’d given the old man his name on the star maps until Earthmen stopped roving.

At least he’d given him that.

Mead was looking at him. “I don’t suppose we’ve got time to let him die in peace, have we?” he asked.

Marlowe shook his head.

“I suppose we’ll have to start breaking him immediately, won’t we?”

Marlowe nodded.

“I’ll get at it right away, sir.”

Dave! Does everyone have to hate me? Can’t anyone understand? Even you, uh⁠—Creed. Even you, Mead?

Dalish ud Klavan, stooped and withered, sat hopelessly, opposite Marlowe, who sat behind his desk like a grizzled polar bear, his thinning mane of white hair unkempt and straggling.

“Marlowe, my people are strangling,” the old Dovenilid said.

Marlowe looked at him silently.

“The Holliday Republic has signed treaty after treaty with us, and still their citizens raid our mining planets, driving away our own people, stealing the resources we must have if we are to live.”

Marlowe sighed. “There’s nothing I can do.”

“We have gone to the Holliday government repeatedly,” ud Klavan pleaded. “They tell us the raiders are criminals, that they are doing their best to stop them. But they still buy the metal the raiders bring them.”

“They have to,” Marlowe said. “There are no available resources anywhere within practicable distances. If they’re to have any civilization at all, they’ve got to buy from the outlaws.”

“But they are members of the Union!” ud Klavan protested. “Why won’t you do anything to stop them?”

“We can’t,” Marlowe said again. “They’re members of the Union, yes, but they’re also a free republic. We have no administrative jurisdiction over them, and if we attempted to establish one our citizens would rise in protest all over our territory.”

“Then we’re finished. Dovenil is a dead world.”

Marlowe nodded slowly. “I am very sorry. If there is anything I can do, or that the Ministry can do, we will do it. But we cannot save the Dovenilid state.”

Ud Klavan looked at him bitterly. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for your generous offer of a gracious funeral.

“I don’t understand you!” he burst out suddenly. “I don’t understand you people! Diplomatic lies, yes. Expediency, yes! But this⁠ ⁠… this madness, this fanatical, illogical devotion of the state in the cause of a people who will tolerate no state! This⁠ ⁠… no, this I cannot understand.”

Marlowe looked at him, his eyes full of years.

“Ud Klavan,” he said, “you are quite right. We are a race of maniacs. And that is why Earthmen rule the galaxy. For our treaties are not binding, and our promises are worthless. Our government does not represent our people. It represents our people as they once were. The delay in the democratic process is such that the treaty signed today fulfills the promise of yesterday⁠—but today the Body Politic has formed a new opinion, is following a new logic which is completely at variance with that of yesterday. An Earthman’s promise⁠—expressed in words or deeds⁠—is good only at the instant he makes it. A second later, new factors have entered into the total circumstances, and a new chain of logic has formed in his head⁠—to be altered again, a few seconds later.”

He thought, suddenly, of that poor claustrophobic devil, Holliday, harried from planet to planet, never given a moment’s rest⁠—and civilizing, civilizing, spreading the race of humankind wherever he was driven. Civilizing with a fervor no hired dummy could have accomplished, driven by his fear to sell with all the real estate agent’s talent that had been born in him, selling for the sake of money with which to buy that land he needed for his peace⁠—and always being forced to sell a little too much.

Ud Klavan rose from his chair. “You are also right, Marlowe. You are a race of maniacs, gibbering across the stars. And know, Marlowe, that the other races of the universe hate you.”

Marlowe with a tremendous effort heaved himself out of his chair.

“Hate us?” He lumbered around the desk and advanced on the frightened Dovenilid, who was retreating backwards before his path.

“Can’t you see it? Don’t you understand that, if we are to pursue any course of action over a long time⁠—if we are ever going to achieve a galaxy in which an Earthman can some day live at peace with himself⁠—we must each day violate all the moral codes and creeds which we held inviolate the day before? That we must fight against every ideal, every principle which our fathers taught us, because they no longer apply to our new logic?

“You hate us!” He thrust his fat hand, its nails bitten down to the quick and beyond, in front of the cringing alien’s eyes.

“You poor, weak, single-minded, ineffectual thing! We hate ourselves!”

It was just as he saw the Barbarian’s squat black tankette lurch hurriedly into a nest of boulders that young Giulion Geoffrey realized he had been betrayed. With the muzzle of his own cannon still hot from the shell that had jammed the Barbarian’s turret, he had yanked the starboard track lever to