“And the Mithrans are luckier yet, eh?”

  “I don’t know. Thus far, they are essentially a historyless race. Or are they? How can you tell? We look through our own eyes. To us, accomplishment equals exploitation of the world. Our purest science and art remain a sort of conquest. What might the Mithrans do yet, in Mithran terms?”

  “Let us keep up the base,” Thrailkill said, “and we’ll keep on reporting what they do.”

  “That would be splendid,” Kahn told him, “except for the fact that there will be no ships to take your descendants home. You have maintained yourselves as an enclave of a few hundred people for a century. You cannot do so forever. If nothing else, genetic drift in that small a population would destroy you.”

  They walked on unspeaking, till they reached the Center. It was a village within the village, clustered around the tower. Thence had sprung the maser beams, up through the sky to the relay satellite, and so to those on Earth who wondered what the universe was like. No more, Thrailkill thought. Dust will gather, nightcats will nest in corroding instruments, legends will be muttered about the tall strangers who built and departed, and one century an earthquake will bring down this tower which talked across space, and the very myths will die.

  On the far side of the Mall, close to the clear plash of Louis’ Fountain, they stopped. There lay Thrailkill’s house, long and solid, made to endure. His grandfather had begun it, his father had completed it, he himself had wanted to add rooms but had no reason, for he would be allowed only two children. The windows were aglow, and he heard a symphony of Mithran voices.

  “What the devil!” he exclaimed. “We’ve got company.” He opened the door.

  The fireplace danced with flames, against the evening cold. Their light shimmered off the beautiful grain of wainscoting, glowed on patterned rugs and the copper statue which owned one corner, and sheened along the fur of his friends. The room was full of them: Strongtail, Gleam-Of-Wings, Nightstar, Gift-Of-God, Dreamer, Elf-In-The-Forest, and more and more, all he had loved who could get here quickly enough. They sat grave on their tails, balancing cups of herb tea in their hands, while Leonie attended to the duties of a hostess

  She stopped when Thrailkill and Kahn entered. “How late you are!” she said. “I was growing worried.”

  “No need,” Thrailkill replied, largely for Kahn’s benefit. “The last prowltiger hereabouts was shot five years ago.” I did that. Another adventure—hai, what a stalk through the folded hills! (The Mithrans didn’t like it. They attached some kind of significance to the ugly brutes. But prowltigers never took a Mithran. When the Harris boy was killed, we stopped listening to objections. Our friends forgave us eventually.) He looked around. “You honor this roof,” he said with due formality. “Be welcome in good cheer.”

  Strongtail’s music was a dirge. “Is the story true that you can never return?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so,” Thrailkill said. Aside to Kahn: “They want us to stay. I’m not sure why. We haven’t done anything in particular for them.”

  “But you tried,” said Nightstar. “That was a large plenty, that you should care.”

  “And you were something to wonder at,” Elf-In-The-Forest added.

  “We have enjoyed you,” Strongtail said. “Why must you go?”

  “We took council,” sang Gift-Of-God, “and came hither to ask from house to house that you remain.”

  “But we can’t!” Leonie’s voice cracked.

  “Why can you not?” responded Dreamer.

  It burst upon Thrailkill like a nova. He stood in the home of his fathers and shouted aloud: “Why not? We can!”

  The meeting hall in Treequad was so big that the entire human population could gather within. Mounting the stage, Kahn looked between gaily muraled walls to the faces. The very graybeards, he thought, had an air of youth which did not exist for any age on Earth. Sun and wind had embraced them throughout their lives. They had had a planet to wander in, the like of which men had not owned since Columbus.

  He turned to Thrailkill, who had accompanied him. “Is everybody here?”

  Thrailkill’s gaze swept the room. Sunlight streamed in the windows, to touch women’s hair and men’s eyes with ruddiness. A quiet had fallen, underscored by rustlings and shufflings. Somewhere a baby cried, but was quickly soothed.

  “Yes,” he said. “The last field expedition came in two hours ago, from the Ice-floe Dwellers.” He scowled at Kahn. “I don’t know why you want this assembly. Our minds are made up.”

  The spaceman consulted his watch. He had to stall for a bit. His men would not get down from orbit for some minutes yet, and then they must walk here. “I told you,” he said. “I want to make a final appeal.”

  “We’ve heard your arguments,” Thrailkill said.

  “Not formally.”

  “Oh, all right.” Thrailkill advanced to the lectern. The amplifiers boomed his words forth under the rafters.

  “The meeting will please come to order,” he said. “As you know, we’re met for the purpose of officially ratifying the decision that we have reached. I daresay Captain Kahn will need such a recorded vote. First he’d like to address you.” He bowed slightly to his guest and took a chair. Leonie was in the front row with Vivian; he winked at them.

  Kahn leaned on the stand. His body felt heavy and tired. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “you have spent many hours this past night talking things over in private groups. Quite an exciting night, no? I have asked you to come here after sleeping on the question, because your choice should be made in a calmer mood, it being irrevocable.

  “Hardly any of you have agreed to leave with us. I wonder if the majority have considered what their own desires mean. As was said long ago, ‘Il faut vouloir les conséquences de ce que l’on veut.’” Blankness met him, driving home how far these people had drifted from Earth. “I mean you must want the results of what you want. You are too few to maintain a culture at the modern level. True, your ancestors brought along the means to produce certain amenities, and you have a lot of information on microtape. But there are only so many heads among you, and each head can hold only so much. You are simply not going to have enough engineers, medical specialists, psychopediatricians, geneticists…every trained type necessary to operate a civilization, as opposed to a mere scientific base. Some of your children will die from causes that could have been prevented. Those who survive will mature ignorant of Earth’s high heritage.

  “A similar thing happened before, on the American frontier. But America was close to Europe. The new barbarism ended in a few generations, as contact strengthened. You will be alone, with no more than one thin thread of radio, a lifetime passing between message and answer. Do you want to sink back into a dark age?”

  Someone called, “We’ve done okay so far.” Others added remarks. Kahn was content to let them wrangle; thus he gained time, without drawing on his own thin resources. But Thrailkill hushed them and said:

  “I believe we’re aware of that problem, Captain. In fact, we’ve lived with it during the whole existence of this…colony.” There, Kahn thought, he had spoken the word. “We haven’t really been bothered. From what we hear about Earth, we’ve gained more than we’ve lost.” Applause. “And now that you’ve made us realize this is our home, this is where we belong, why, we won’t stay small. For purely genetic reasons we’ll have to expand our population as fast as possible. My wife and I always did want a houseful of kids. Now we can have them.” Cheering began. His reserve broke apart. “We’ll build our own civilization! And someday we’ll come back to you, as visitors. You’re giving up the stars. We’re not!

  They rose from their chairs and shouted.

  Kahn let the noise surf around him. Soon, he begged. Let it be soon. Seeing that he remained where he was, the crowd grew gradually still. He waited till the last one had finished talking to his neighbor. Then the silence was so deep that he could hear the songbirds outside.

  “Very well,” he said in a dull tone. “But what is to become of the Mithrans?”

  Thrailkill, who had also stayed on his feet, said rapidly, “You mentioned that to me before, Captain. I told you then and I tell you now, the planet has room for both races. We aren’t going to turn on our friends.”

  “My mate Bill Redfeather is an Amerind,” Kahn said. “Quite a few of his ancestors were friends to the white man. It didn’t help them in the long run. I am a Jew myself, if you know what that means. My people spent the better part of two thousand years being alien. We remember in our bones how that was. Finally some started a country of their own. The Arabs who were there objected, and lived out the rest of their lives in refugee camps. Ask Muthaswamy, my chief engineer, to explain the history of Moslem and Hindu in India. Ask his assistant Ngola to tell you what happened when Europe entered Africa. And, as far as that goes, what happened when Europe left again. You cannot intermingle two cultures. One of them will devour the other. And already, this minute, yours is the more powerful.”

  They mumbled, down in the hall, and stared at him and did not understand. He sucked air into his lungs and tried anew:

  “Yes, you don’t intend to harm the Mithrans. Thus far there has been little conflict. But when your numbers grow, when you begin to rape the land for all the resources this hungry civilization needs, when mutual exasperation escalates into battle—can you speak for your children? Your grandchildren? Their grandchildren, to the end of time? The people of Bach and Goethe brought forth Hitler. No, you don’t know what I am talking about, do you?

  “Well, let us suppose that man on this planet reverses his entire previous record and gives the natives some fairly decent reservations and does not take them away again. Still, how much hope have they of becoming anything but miserable parasites? They cannot become one with you. The surviving Amerinds could be assimilated, but they were human. Mithrans are not. They do not and cannot think like humans. But don’t they have the right to live in their world as they wish, make their own works, hope their own hopes?

  “You call this planet underpopulated. By your standards, that is correct. But not by the natives’. How many individuals per hectare do you expect an economy like theirs to support? Take away part of a continent and you murder that many unborn sentient beings. But you won’t stop there. You will take the world, and so murder an entire way of existence. How do you know that way isn’t better than ours? Certainly you have no right to deny the universe the chance that it is better.”

  They seethed and buzzed at his feet. Thrailkill, advanced, fists clenched, and said flatly, “Have you so little pride in being a man?”

  “On the contrary,” Kahn answered. “I have so much pride that I will not see my race guilty of the ultimate crime. We are not going to make anyone else pay for our mistakes. We are going home and see if we cannot amend them ourselves.”

  “So you say!” spat Thrailkill.

  O God of mercy, send my men. Kahn looked into the eyes of the one whose salt he had eaten, and knew they would watch him for what remained of his life. And behind would gleam the Bay of Desire, and the Princess’ peak holy against a smokeless heaven, and the Weatherwomb waiting for ships to sail west. “You will be heroes on Earth,” he said. “And you will at least have memories. I—”

  The communicator in his pocket buzzed Ready. He slapped it once: Go ahead.

  Thunder crashed on the roof, shaking walls. A deep-toned whistle followed. Kahn sagged back against the lectern. That would be the warboat, with guns and nuclear bombs.

  The door flew open. Redfeather entered, and a squad of armed men. The rest had surrounded the hall.

  Kahn straightened. His voice was a stranger’s, lost in the yells and oaths: “You are still citizens of the Directorate. As master of an official ship, I have discretionary police authority. Will or no, you shall come back with me.”

  He saw Leonie clutch her child to her. He ducked Thrailkill’s roundhouse swing and stumbled off the stage, along the aisle toward his men. Hands grabbed at him. Redfeather fired a warning burst, and thereafter he walked alone. He breathed hard, but kept his face motionless. It would not do for him to weep. Not yet.

  QUIXOTE AND THE WINDMILL

  The first robot in the world came walking over green hills with sunlight aflash off his polished metal hide. He walked with a rippling grace that was almost feline, and his tread fell noiselessly—but you could feel the ground vibrate ever so faintly under the impact of that terrific mass, and the air held a subliminal quiver from the great engine that pulsed within him.

  Him. You could not think of the robot as neuter. He had the brutal maleness of a naval rifle or a blast furnace. All the smooth silent elegance of perfect design and construction did not hide the weight and strength of a two and a half-meter height. His eyes glowed, as if with inner fires of smoldering atoms, they could see in any frequency range he selected, he could turn an X-ray beam on you and look you through and through with those terrible eyes. They had built him humanoid, but had had the good taste not to give him a face; there were the eyes, with their sockets for extra lenses when he needed microscopic or telescopic vision, and there were a few other small sensory and vocal orifices, but otherwise his head was a mask of shining metal. Humanoid, but not human—man’s creation, but more than man—the first independent, volitional, nonspecialized machine—but they had dreamed of him, long ago, he had once been the jinni in the bottle or the Golem, Bacon’s brazen head or Frankenstein’s monster, the man-transcending creature who could serve or destroy with equal contemptuous ease.

  He walked under a bright summer sky, over sunlit fields and through little groves that danced and whispered in the wind. The houses of men were scattered here and there, the houses which practically took care of themselves; over beyond the horizon was one of the giant, almost automatic food factories; a few self-piloting carplanes went quietly overhead. Humans were in sight, sun-browned men and their women and children going about their various errands with loose bright garments floating in the breeze. A few seemed to be at work, there was a colorist experimenting with a new chromatic harmony, a composer sitting on his verandah striking notes out of an omniplayer, a group of engineers in a transparent-walled laboratory testing some mechanisms. But with the standard work period what it was these days, most were engaged in recreation. A picnic, a dance under trees, a concert, a pair of lovers, a group of children in one of the immemorially ancient games of their age-group, an old man happily enhammocked with a book and a bottle of beer—the human race was taking it easy.

  They saw the robot go by, and often a silence fell as his tremendous shadow slipped past. His electronic detectors sensed the eddying pulses that meant nervousness, a faint unease—oh, they trusted the cybernetics men, they didn’t look for a devouring monster, but they wondered. They felt man’s old unsureness of the alien and unknown, deep in their minds they wondered what the robot was about and what his new and invincible race might mean to Earth’s dwellers—then, perhaps, as his gleaming height receded over the hills, they laughed and forgot him.

  The robot went on.

  There were not many customers in the Casanova at this hour. After sunset the tavern would fill up and the autodispensers would be kept busy, for it had a good live-talent show and television was becoming unfashionable. But at the moment only those who enjoyed a mid-afternoon glass, together with some serious drinkers, were present.

  The building stood alone on a high wooded ridge, surrounded by its gardens and a good-sized parking lot. Its colonnaded exterior was long and low and gracious; inside it was cool and dim and fairly quiet; and the general air of decorum, due entirely to lack of patronage, would probably last till evening. The manager had gone off on his own business and the girls didn’t find it worthwhile to be around till later, so the Casanova was wholly in the charge of its machines.

  Two men were giving their autodispenser a good workout. It could hardly deliver one drink before a coin was given it for another. The smaller man was drinking whiskey and soda, the larger one stuck to the most potent available ale, and both were already thoroughly soused.

  They sat in a corner booth from which they could look out the open door, but their attention was directed to the drinks. It was one of those curious barroom acquaintances which spring up between utterly diverse types. They would hardly remember each other the next day. But currently they were exchanging their troubles.

  The little dark-haired fellow, Roger Brady, finished his drink and dialed for another. “Beatcha!” he said triumphantly.

  “Gimme time,” said the big redhead, Pete Borklin. “This stuff goes down slower.”

  Brady got out a cigarette. His fingers shook as he brought it to his mouth and puffed it into lighting. “Why can’t that drink come right away?” he mumbled. “I resent a ten-second delay. Ten dry eternities! I demand instantaneously mixed drinks, delivered faster than light.”

  The glass arrived, and he raised it to his lips. “I am afraid,” he said, with the careful precision of a very drunk man, “that I am going on a weeping jag. I would much prefer a fighting jag. But unfortunately there is nobody to fight.”

  “I’ll fight you,” offered Borklin. His huge fists closed.

  “Nah—why? Wouldn’t be a fight, anyway. You’d just mop me up. And why should we fight? We’re both in the same boat.”

  “Yeah,” Borklin looked at his fists. “Not much use, anyway,” he said. “Somebody’d do a lot better job o’ killing with an autogun than I could with—these.” He unclenched them, slowly, as if with an effort, and took another drag at his glass.

  “What we want to do,” said Brady, “is to fight a world. We want to blow up all Earth and scatter the pieces from here to Pluto. Only it wouldn’t do any good, Pete. Some machine’d come along and put it back together again.”