Worlds for the Taking

by Kenneth Bulmer

Genres: Science Fiction; Alien Contact; Space Opera

Synopsis

Terran Corps scattered their ships outward into the glittering galaxies. Solterra's prime objective: orbital reconstruction of the far-flung planets. They had tightened up Solterra's galaxy and had made mankind secure against alien threats - or so Terrans believed. As Chief Commander, Stephen Strang aggressively explored the cosmos for the glory of his beloved Earth. He could boast that he had moved more planets into orbit around Sol than any other. Strang felt smugly safe against alien "sharks" - until he discovered the vast time-bomb that was planet Vesta's core. . .

Release date: November 14, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 156

Sample

SOON THERE WOULD BE no sun in the planet Jethro’s sky and, taken, uprooted, ravaged, the planet would spin achingly through a man-made otherness towards an unwanted resurrection.

Colin Copping the first born of Jethro walked dreamily up from the lake in that pellucid dawn, walking consciously through the sunbeams from his sun Jezreel, knowing all argument finished and all pleading spent.

A month ago, at the end of spring, when the patiently transported and lovingly tended daffodils had been knotted over in Antheas’s garden patch, the Earthman had finished concreting out their chamber floating in molten magma at the planet’s core. Copping had experienced a traitorous excitement all during the placid winter as the Earthmen sent their borer down through the substance of Jethro. He had felt a closeness to all the scientific technology of the human galaxy then. He had been only sixteen Jethroan years old and that, as he had meticulously calculated with conscious belonging pride, made him seventeen and a quarter terrestrial years old; and the bitter humiliation of his elders had passed over him with a vague puzzlement. But now, on this last day, he felt all the trapped panic of a snared rabbit carried kitchenwards by twisted dangling legs.

Arnold Gunderson with his catch slung over one shoulder fell into step with Copping. They had known each other all their lives, had fought, quarreled, planned, sneaked off together. Their moccasins trod the trail silently.

“It’s today then.”

“Today.”

“Might not be so bad,”—Gunderson tried to inject a dead enthusiasm into his voice—“we get to ride in a spaceship—”

“I think if they could have done, they would have left us on the surface.” Copping spoke with slow deliberation.

“They couldn’t do that!” Gunderson puckered worried eyes at Copping. “We come back here … You think?”

“I don’t know what to think … All this … How can it ever be the same?” He had no need to gesture.

Beyond the Lapiz Lake, where they had just taken their last catch, the green and burgeoning slopes of the Mountains of Carmel Jones led upwards against the sky until they broke serenely in their cloud-clustering pinnacles of shining rock and shimmering snow. To the south, the land opened out, verdant and promising and empty. To the north, the country of Ebanemael, where the second colonist ship’s company had pitched their homes, stretched like the flank of a lazy well-fed cow humping comfortably against the mountains. Easy neighbors, the Ebanfolk, in their fat lands of corn and blue grass, friendly, laughing and quaffing hugely at the riotous fairs staged annually on the banks of the border river Yasmeen, that tumbled whitely to a grave slow-sliding placidity before merging into the estuary and the sea.

Copping knew this land and loved it, every winding thread of water interlacing the bending trees, the dim mysterious greenness of the forests, the errant flash of a startled faun with wide eyes blankly solemn, the smell of woodsmoke, the depth and intricacy of a sward of bluebells echoing the translucent blueness above.

This was the last day.

This was the day they moved the planet.

Through his moccasins he could feel the solid earth, the rounded bulge of the planet Jethro—his planet—and at the same time he imagined he could sense the purposeful, meaningless thrumming of the Terrans’ machinery at the heart of the world.

This afternoon they were taking his world away.

The unfairness of it all bewildered young Copping. His father and the other colonists had argued and pleaded and the siblings had looked on; but when they understood fully what was to happen, the blunt resigned anger of the small maltreated by the strong gave them pseudo-courage to carry on with their preparations for the renunciation of their birthrights.

The skein of rainbow trout slipped and the last fat juicy fish dragged in the dust of the trail. Copping hefted the fish higher, not caring that they pressed against his Lincoln green tunic and brown slacks. These fish were to be roasted and taken aboard the spaceship more as a symbol than as mere food. The Terrans being committed would take care of fellow humans, even though they were Earthpeople three times removed.

The trail broadened and the log houses of the town came into sight—a first view of home so familiar to Copping and Gunderson that they scarcely comprehended its uniqueness now; never again would they see their home just like this beneath the sun Jezreel.

“I hear the Ebanfolk tried to smash up the Terrans’ camp last night.” Gunderson spoke distantly, as though such antics were reserved for a crazed minority.

“Too late for that now.” Copping searched the people moving in the streets. He could feel a pain which the sight of their faces would bring. “It was always too late. Once the Terrans wanted this planet there was nothing we could do to prevent them taking it.”

Copping spoke with a quiet reserved viciousness that was all that was left of his hatred. “When they destroyed our radio, we thought that strange. What help could we ask for from the human galaxy? These men are the accredited agents of the Human government. They are obeying the law. The Ebanfolk, by fighting for what is theirs, are breaking the law.”

Gunderson’s thick fingers closed on his fish trident. “I would like—” he said, and stopped. He swallowed. “At last year’s fair I met an Ebanfolk and we talked. I thought him a braggart then. Now, I am not sure …”

They went down into their town, the town of Happy Landings, and saw the Terrans walking and talking to the people of Jethro as though they were not stealing their world from under their feet.

Gerban Arnouf watched them walk in, his hooded eyes heavy and impatient with the affairs of the galaxy; his thick body, clad in the impeccable green uniform of the Solterran Construction Service, ponderous with authority; his brain ever demanding functions of performance beyond the limits of a normally constituted human body. Gerban Arnouf was one of Caracci’s Young Men. Perhaps only Tung Chi Leslie could compete on equal terms with Arnouf, always providing, of course, that one excepted the brilliant phenomenon of Stephen Christopher Strang.

The sun Jezreel drew higher in the sky, casting blued-steel shadows onto the beaten square from crowding log houses, striking a brazen shaft from the town clock—the old ship’s chronometer they had set up as a permanent reminder of home. Before Jethro, home to them had been SGC Seven eight nine three Baker Four—or so Arnouf thought, vaguely, not caring. Whatever name the planet had borne interested him even less. These people had not driven their colonizing ships direct from Earth. That gave Gerban Arnouf all the power he needed.

He stood now watching the people make their last preparations for evacuation. His thick body and square fringe-bearded face seemed in their power to bear down with a physical force on the town of Happy Landings. Separated by a screen of local beobab trees the ships waited on the field. Terran ships. Ships of the SCS. Ships provided by Gerban Arnouf to take the people of Jethro into safety. He considered his own thoughtfulness and kindness and wondered if he was getting soft.

(Caracci said: “The welfare and interests of Solterra override every other interest in the galaxy.”)

Arnouf watched as Copping and Gunderson marched stiffly into their log house where the smoke of cooking fires indicated some barbarous rite before embarkation. Arnouf stroked his thick short black beard. He had provided standard space rations. The men and women of Jethro had proved a stiff-necked lot and he welcomed the day he would be quit of them.

But their planet was good.

Firm footfalls on the beaten earth brought Arnouf’s attention back; he knew this must be an Earthman walking arrogantly in his hard-heeled spaceboots and not a native Jethroan in soft silent moccasins. He turned to greet Commodore Pelling, graying, rough-faced, desperately trying to make rear-admiral and knowing in his heart he had failed. Arnouf had been Space Navy himself, before transferring to the SCS; but he allowed no hint of the knowledge that he, himself, would have made vice-admiral by now to cloud his dealings with this half-failure.

“All set and ready to go, sir, as soon as you give the word.” Pelling sweated a little, not so much from the Jezreel heat, Arnouf saw with malicious amusement, as from his own inner awareness of tension and lack of moral fiber to cope with problems not alphabetically listed in the Book.

“No trouble?”

Pelling shifted uncomfortably. “Camp three was attacked by the Ebanfolk last night—nothing serious,” he added quickly as he saw the thundercloud gather on Arnouf’s face. “More in the nature of a demonstration. We chivied them away—”

“Casualties?”

“Why—none.” Pelling appeared perplexed.

“These people need a lesson to drive home to them the seriousness of the situation. They have continually pestered me—me, Gerban Arnouf!—with their fatuous arguments. Well, we know how to deal with them.”

“Yes, sir.”

Arnouf braced his stomach muscles, shoving his thumbs down behind the wide synthileather belt supporting his twin Lee Johns. They were an affectation he sometimes despised himself for countenancing, and, yet, one he could not do without. The feel of the hard-ridged butts of the guns, their drag at his hips, reassured him. He spoke now reflectively.

“These humans have been on Jethro for nineteen years terran now, and they have accomplished virtually nothing! Despite their livestock, they appear to prefer a hunting culture. Decadent. Where are their universities, their transport networks, their drive into the future? They are regressing. It’s an old story. Too familiar to be painful any longer. As for their local customs—”

(Caracci said: “Respect a culture’s local traditions and customs and religions, but never, ever, allow them to interfere with the greater good of Solterra.”)

Pelling rubbed a hand down his clean-shaven jaw. He said carefully, “They’re pretty much like us, sir. Ordinary Earth-type human beings. They’re not even touched with a trace of Shurilala or Takkat blood, and that’s going about as far back in history as you can, without tangling with legends. They’re pure terrestrial—”

Commodore Pelling stopped speaking and swallowed. He had caught sight of Arnouf’s face and what he saw frightened him.

“I do not care, Commodore Pelling, if they are pure terrestrial or late-culture Utukku … We are here on Solterran government business. That is all that need concern you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I am personally supervising the evacuation. As soon as you are off-planet I shall fly to the Shaft Camp and go down to the center. I shall give you the time you need to shift into FTL, and then I shall move planet. There must be no slipups.”

Pelling sweated, said, “There won’t be, sir. It’ll all go as smooth as the drill book.”

“Just see that it does, Commodore.”

A procession began to move from the shaded side of the square with a slow limp dignity that had no power to affect Gerban Arnouf. He watched, a tiny smile stirring his lips above the close beard. Commodore Pelling saluted and marched off, his boots cracking down louder than all the Jethroans’ silent moccasins together.

Arthur Copping, Colin’s father, walked in that procession; old silver-haired Rainscarfe; hatchet-faced Dirk Tiamat; Sven Gunderson, Arnold’s father; the elders and the citizens of property and repute, they walked in solemn silence towards Gerban Arnouf, the arbiter of their destiny.

Arnouf watched them come with cynical ease. This was just another chore he must finish out quickly and as smoothly as he might; even Caracci taught the benefits of polite diplomacy.

A crowd of women and children, young men, expectant girls, formed in the background of the scene, moving like undersea fronds at the whim of the moment; their clothes subdued in color, for they had laid away their bright garments on this day of sorrow.

No real fear of violence touched Arnouf; but his organizational instincts prompted him to call over his wrist-radio. “Captain Nogu, are your men in position?”

The voice in the speaker clipped behind his ear said firmly, “All in position, sir. We have both you and the demonstration in full view.”

Arnouf had no need to turn around to check the inconspicuous company of soldiers lounging at the far gate. They had screens and energy weapons set up there and they could drop a shield around Arnouf and crisp the Jethroans before the first native could unlimber his Carpenter. Native? Well—it was a natural thought; these people were little better than barbarians despite their terrestrial ancestry and their culture. His contempt for them grew as he waited for their approach.

Cracker-jawed, silver-haired Rainscarfe spoke for the men of Jethro. He had buried three sons in the earth of this planet and he was quite prepared to be buried beside them if needs be. Arnouf knew this. Therefore he acted with a little more discretion than perhaps otherwise he would have done.

“We ask you for the last time, Commissioner Arnouf. We traveled to this world from the world of our birth freely. We know Earth and love her as the progenitor of our people in the galaxy. We are pure terrestrial. There is no blood of Takkat or Shurilala or Pallas or Octo or any other of our allied once-alien friends in the galaxy running in our veins. We have lived here on Jethro beneath the sun Jezreel and made our homes here. All the future lies before us. Will you not reconsider? Think how you would feel if not hostile aliens but your own people, your own race, took away your most precious birthright! Have pity on us, Commissioner! Leave us our world and pick another from the uncounted billions afloat in the galaxy!”

“There is nothing left to say, old man. I’ve listened to you, as I need not have done. Now pack up your things and go aboard the spaceships.”

“But will you not—”

“No! I won’t! If you’re not aboard by noon then you will have to answer for the consequences.”

Arnouf turned heavily and marched off, erect and stiff, priding himself on handling the stupid natives with firmness and decision.

The delegation stared after him as though unmoved by this final clapping of the iron door on their hopes; for they had long since ceased to hope, and their final protest had been in the form of a ritual designed to placate their own conceptions of themselves as men.

In their turn they shuffled off over the beaten earth of the square. The women and children and young people watched them. Then, like a flock of birds turning in one master-commanded aerial evolution, they all swung away towards their houses to collect their possessions and file aboard. . .