NORMA HEMMING
It was raining when Thorval came to Earth, a thin, miserable drizzle that suggested a total lack of life or hope, even on the part of the elements. No brilliance of lightning flashed across the sky; no sullen rumble of thunder sounded a drumbeat of menace or warning. It was a planet where nothing flashed or thundered any more.
He saw one of the natives in the viewport of his ship as it touched down and the coldness that had been gnawing deep inside him since he first came to the planet, reached up an icy hand and gripped his mind with fingers of guilt.
We did this to them!
The Earthman still had the height of his ancestors, but stature was the only characteristic he shared with them. Once he had lifted his head in pride. Once his shoulders had been straight with that same pride. What was this creature of the abject, shambling walk? Was this a descendant of the ancient, glorious race?
We did this to them!
He tried to ease the heavy sense of guilt with the assurance that man was resilient, that the independent blaze of sheer, stubborn courage, the brilliant flame of genius, could and would be rekindled in the crushed and broken heart of Earth - but he could not overcome his reluctance to operate the telescopic controls of the port that would bring the pathetic figure nearer. Then he would see the expression in the man’s eyes; then he would know what a thousand years of tyranny had put there.
* * * *
Orare, in charge of the Earth-based forces, met him at the newly converted Rehabilitation Centre. They walked to the office that had been set aside for Thorval with the quietness of old friends meeting on the status of equality.
Orare looked at the new Rehabilitation Director speculatively as the younger man sat down. It was the first time he had seen anyone who bore the imprint of the ancient Moranian race so clearly. It was in the thin, hawk features and the slant of the man’s eyes, the quick decisive movements and, above all, the luminous darkness of the glance that returned his stare with faint amusement.
‘Well?’
Orare grunted. ‘I wonder how long it will take you to realise you have an impossible job here.’
‘Nothing is impossible.’
‘No?’
Orare shrugged. The answer to that could be left to time - and the people of Earth.
‘How do you intend to start?’
Thorval frowned thoughtfully. ‘I think the best thing would be to broadcast to the people first and explain why I’ve been sent here. As they would trust members of their own race more than they would us, I shall ask for assistants from among them.’
Orare gave him a strange look. ‘You expect to get Earth assistants?’
Thorval nodded. ‘They probably hate us for what we did to them, but there should be a few who’ll be able to believe we’re sincere in wishing to give them their freedom and helping them to rebuild.’
Orare grunted again. ‘You haven’t been long on Earth. Have you seen an Earthman yet? Really looked at him, I mean?’
Again he felt the rise of the chilling doubt in his mind, because he knew how reluctant he had been to use the telescopic controls which would have given him a close-up.
Orare smiled grimly. ‘I thought so.’ He leaned across the desk and punched a switch on the communications panel. ‘Bring in one of the Earthmen ... any one will do.’ He turned back to Thorval, frowning slightly now. ‘Before you came here you studied the old history tapes of Earth?’
‘Yes.’ Thorval’s eyes glowed with an enthusiasm he did not have to keep at bay. ‘They were a great people, Orare. They weren’t very advanced scientifically when they were found, but they had a streak of genius that would have made them the equal of any race in the galaxy.’
Orare gave a short laugh of morose confirmation. ‘I thought that was what was making you so optimistic’ He shook his head. ‘Those spools are over a thousand years old. You’re living in the past. The race you see in them died - to the last man, if you want to be dramatic’
Thorval looked faintly puzzled. ‘I understood the population of Earth to be in the billions.’
‘Oh, it is,’ Orare agreed. He looked grimly at the flaming twin suns of Lassor emblazoned on the wall. ‘Only it’s not the same race.’ He paused again. ‘They cannot yet be called animals,’ he said slowly, ‘because they still have intelligence - of a sort.’
* * * *
The Earthman who had been brought in gave a queer little salute that was servility and slavery in movement, then he stood with his hands hanging at his sides, his head bent, mutely waiting.
Orare dismissed the soldier and looked over at the Rehabilitation Director. When he saw the aghast realisation break over his face, he knew also the sickness and bitter regret that would be clawing inside him, as it had torn at his own mind when he had first come to Earth.
‘Well?’ he demanded, but Thorval did not say anything, nor did the Earthman move. He just stood there, relaxed yet somehow not relaxed. A slave did not relax in the presence of his masters.
‘Lift your head,’ Orare ordered.
The Earthman did so and Thorval met eyes that held an expression he had never seen before. It was not hopelessness, not resignation, but something that went far beyond both; something that had no name.
He looked away. He had to. It was impossible to meet that gaze any longer, knowing who and what had caused it.
‘What happened to this race has no name,’ Orare said quietly, switching to code Lassorian, so that the native could not understand them. ‘A race like the old people of Earth couldn’t bend, nor could it break. It had to go beyond both - and become this.’
Thorval glanced back at Orare sharply, seemed about to speak, but turned back to the Earthman instead.
‘What is your name?’
‘I have no name.’ He spoke in Lassorian, the only language he knew, because all languages of Earth had died, too, in the long ago. ‘I am No. 1374526 of Sector CXB3 District 57.’ The same nameless thing that was in his eyes was deeply ingrained in his voice.
‘That is your official designation. What name do you give to yourself?’
‘I do not understand. Only the Masters have names. I am No. 137 ...’
‘Yes, I know.’ Thorval’s voice was hasty, his quick nod halting the upraised arm with the branded number that was proffered as evidence.
‘Didn’t you know about their lack of names?’ Orare asked.
Thorval nodded. ‘It was just an idea. They were forbidden names; all recalcitrant races were.’ A name gave a person individuality. A number, a mere cog in the slave machine, would not be so eager to fight for personal rights - because he was not a person, just a number. ‘I was hoping they would secretly have given themselves names.’
‘But that would have meant rebellion.’
‘I know. That’s what I was hoping for as well.’ As Thorval looked at the Earthman he began to understand at last what Orare had been trying to tell him. Once Earth had been a world populated by an intelligent, progressive race, aggressive and ambitious towards their future.
That was the past.
‘What is your work?’ he asked the Earthman.
‘Third Assistant, Radio Isotopes Laboratory of the Central Hospital, District 57.’
‘Radio Isotopes Laboratory!’ There was a quick rebirth of the optimism he had felt on the journey out and he threw Orare a faintly smiling glance. ‘I thought you said the old intelligence was dead.’
‘Not the intelligence - the reason behind it. They can be taught tricks, like animals.’ Orare gave a short laugh. ‘That’s all his work is to him. He performs it without knowing the meaning of what he’s doing, or why. Try him for initiative and creative ability and you’ll get no reaction whatsoever.’
‘I still believe they can be saved.’ Thorval stood up decisively and sent the Earthman away, then turned back to Orare. ‘I shall address the people as originally planned. A week from today. That should give you time to see that receiver screens are set up in every Earth settlement.’
Yet in spite of his renewed optimism, he could not help remembering the expression in the Earthman’s eyes.
* * * *
Thorval, Lassorian Rehabilitation Director of Earth, spoke to the people of the newly freed planet, and because he was a Lassorian they listened to him with dutiful attendance. He saw them in the screens, a quiet, almost unmoving audience - and on every face within range of view he saw the same thing that had been in the eyes of the man brought into his office.
There was no need to silence them. They were too still and too quiet. No mother quietened a crying child. No child cried. Their tears had dried long ago. Eight hundred years ago.
He told them of the civilisation they had once possessed, of the names that had once given them individuality. In a controlled voice, he spoke of the coming of the invaders, of great cities smashed by his ancestors; how, even though the science of Earth had been only a child to the invading ships of the great interstellar empire that had caught them in its steel net, the Terrans had fought, viciously, with every toy weapon in their possession. The cities of Earth had been smashed to dust, their people murdered by the millions, but for years no Lassorian soldier dared to walk alone, or even in groups of less than six together when venturing out of their camps. Some hidden sniper would sell his life dearly. Retaliation meant nothing to people who fought to regain the freedom they had once possessed and prized so highly.
‘The heart of the expanding empire was Lassor,’ he continued. ‘Its inhabitants had always been aggressive by nature and when, with the coming of space travel, another race was found in their own solar system, it was inevitable that war should break out. The Morans, who occupied the neighbouring planet, had no chance from the beginning. Their civilisation had developed along entirely different lines. Ethically and socially they were far more advanced than Lassor, but they had no physical sciences. The quick contest and absorption of the Moranian race was only the beginning. An interstellar drive was developed and Lassor took her desire for conquest out to the stars. When a race is strong and ruthless, empire comes easily.
‘It was not until a thousand years after Earth had been subjected and added to our Empire that a revolt of any significance took place and surprisingly enough, the revolt started on Lassor itself. Perhaps the Lassorian race itself had changed. In any case, we found we could no longer accept as right the way of life forced upon the subjected races of our Empire and a rebel government was formed on Lassor. Not everyone had changed, of course. The governors of most planets and their immediate retinues and bodyguard had to be overcome, since they were reluctant to give up the power they possessed, but most of the space fleet and planetary armies were with us.
‘The revolt, although started only a few Earth years ago, is now entirely successful. Rehabilitation is now doing all it can to rebuild the civilisations of subject planets to the stage reached before they were occupied, or at least to a point where it can carry on unaided. That, at the very least, is our duty towards the people our Empire once enslaved. I have been sent here to direct the rehabilitation centres of Earth. For a time, officials of Lassor will still have to administer Earth, as you have, as yet, no organisation of your own, but we shall help you to rebuild your civilisation. You will govern yourselves again and will be offered membership in the federation of free planets now being formed.’
As Thorval spoke no suspicious voices cried out to question trickery. No memory remained of the civilisation Earth had once possessed. Freedom was just a word and who could tell them what it meant? How did one explain freedom? It was not a thing to be stated in words. It was something inside heart and mind. Even if a truly semantic explanation had existed, it would still have been difficult to get it across to these people.
He moved wearily as he added his last few words to them. ‘I think we can help you to regain your old civilisation, but I shall need your help. Those of you who have understood my words should stay by the vision screens nearest to you, wherever they may be. The rest of you return to your homes and your various duties. For the time being life will go on as before, but it will not be long before the work of rebuilding commences.’
He stopped and they clapped, unreasoningly, dutifully, as they had been taught to clap when a Lassorian addressed them. They did not cheer enough. That needed enthusiasm and enthusiasm was something that had died in them long ago.
* * * *
Orare gave Thorval a quizzical glance as he came into the office. ‘Well?’
The other shrugged. ‘You were quite right. None of them stayed.’
‘The suppression took two hundred years. After that they had eight hundred years of complete slavery, both of body and mind. It’s a thousand years since the old race lived. You can’t expect to bring it back in a few days. I doubt myself whether it will ever come back.’
‘It must!’ Thorval rose to his feet abruptly at a knock on the door. ‘I wanted you here for this interview. I’m trying something else.’
A soldier brought in a man and a girl. Both were young and attractive, except for the terrible expression that seemed natural to everyone on Earth.
The manner of the Rehabilitation Director altered as he looked at them. Orare appeared startled for a moment at the air of harsh arrogance the younger Lassorian suddenly adopted, but he didn’t say anything.
‘You have chosen each other as companions and the choice has been approved by the Selectors? Your bond was to have taken place two days hence?’
They confirmed respectfully that he was correct.
‘That approval is rescinded.’ He called over the guard who had brought them in. ‘Take this girl to my quarters.’
The Earthman did not even look startled, but Orare smiled slightly.
‘You understand?’ Thorval watched the Earthman closely. ‘You are to give up all claim to the woman, No. 59471. She is of a standard of attraction suitable for Lassorians. She will become first my mistress and afterwards will provide entertainment for the soldiers of Lassor.’
The man gave the characteristic Earth salute. ‘It is as the Master wishes.’ He blinked unconcernedly. ‘May I now return to my duties?’
It was Orare who answered. ‘Yes, you may go.’ He gave approval. ‘And the girl?’
‘She’s to be taken to my quarters,’ Thorval answered curtly.
The Earthman went out, quite unperturbed at the sight of the girl being led away by the guard.
The Rehabilitation Director dropped his fake arrogance and sat down with a wry grimace. ‘All right - say it.’
‘I don’t need to.’
‘I know - it won’t work.’
Yet for one moment it had seemed reasonable to hope that striking at the basic, biological urge of humanity would awaken, if only partially, the old spirit of Earth. If they had decided to mate, surely the feeling was strong enough to cause some resentment, even in them.
‘Perhaps it needs time,’ he said. ‘It has to sink into his mind. He needs to brood on it.’
‘Not a chance,’ Orare said decisively. ‘That kind of thing was quite usual with the soldiers of the previous governors.’ He shrugged. ‘Try letting him think she’s your mistress if you like, but I’ll wager you don’t get far. He’ll merely pick someone else.’
‘What about the girl?’
Orare grinned sardonically. ‘She’ll become your mistress if you want her to.’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ Thorval snapped shortly. ‘I haven’t an interest in the girl personally. She can be kept in my quarters for the time being though. Let the soldiers taunt him with it. The least change in his attitude is to be reported to me.’
Orare shrugged, as if he knew already what the report would be.
* * * *
Thorval wrenched open the door that led into the room where the girl was confined. She was sitting on the edge of a large chair, her hands quietly folded and somehow her attitude increased the irritation already smouldering in him.
‘Stand up!’ he ordered curtly.
Unhesitatingly, she obeyed. She was slender and healthy. A well-kept animal, he thought bitterly.
‘You remember the man you were to have mated with?’
‘I remember him.’
‘He has now requested permission to marry someone else.’
‘He knows I am no longer available.’
Thorval restrained an impulse to shake her. ‘He hasn’t remembered you for very long. Don’t you feel any resentment because of that? Don’t you hate me for preventing you mating with the man you chose?’
‘Hate and resentment?’ She looked faintly puzzled. ‘What are they? And you are one of the Masters. It is for me to do as you wish.’
‘Jaros!’ He swore in his exasperation. ‘Must you sound so much like an automaton? And, another thing, you will no longer be called by a number. You will have a name.’ He thought for a moment, then remembered a guerilla leader who had been great in Earth’s history, a woman who had died tragically. ‘Jory Kildane ... that will be your name in future.’
‘Yes, Master,’ she acknowledged tonelessly.
‘And in the name of Lassor, don’t call me Master!’ he snapped irritably, inflamed again and feeling the name he had given her was an insult to the past. That great woman and this ... this robot. ‘I have a name, too, and in future you’ll use it.’
‘Yes, Thorval,’ she replied with exactly the same shade of tonelessness as before. Already exasperated, it was enough to completely infuriate him. He shook her violently and pushed her with equal violence back into the chair. She landed in a heap and he waited tensely for any sign of resentment, for any flicker of life and hatred in the dull eyes.
With quiet acceptance, she straightened herself, mutely awaiting further orders or further violence, whatever he chose.
Grimly he pulled her up and shook her again. ‘Hit me, damn you! Hit back!’
She blinked slightly. ‘You wish me to hit you?’
He thrust her down into the chair again. Of course, she would hit him - if he ordered her to. He swore again and stalked out.
* * * *
Orare was in his office when Thorval arrived there. He looked up enquiringly. ‘How did she take it?’
‘Need I say?’
For a moment he stood there undecidedly. He had been optimistic when he first came to Earth. He still was, in a way, but he had a better understanding now of what faced him. There had to be some way to break the shell that surrounded them - and he was sure that it was a shell, not just an empty husk.
‘Perhaps we could try educating them,’ he said aloud, then quickly corrected himself. ‘No, I doubt if that would work.’ His mouth twisted wryly. ‘As you said, Orare, animals can be taught tricks, but there’s no reason behind it. Even the children ... it must be something inherited. We’ve got to find some way to break through that shell before we can do anything else to help them.’
‘Any ideas?’
‘None at all, I’m afraid ...’ He broke off suddenly, his eyes narrowing, because, quite frighteningly, he knew how it might be done; frighteningly, because it could be either inspiration or ruin.
‘There may be a way,’ he said slowly, and cautiously outlined the plan which had gradually been taking shape in his mind.
‘You’re crazy!’ ejaculated Orare when Thorval finished speaking.
‘Perhaps, but it might work. I can’t imagine anything else which could.’
Orare made a bewildered gesture. ‘I can’t agree with you - and frankly, you’d be staking your whole career on it. Probably your life too,’ he added grimly. ‘I suppose you know what will happen if it fails.’
Thorval smiled, but with the same grimness. ‘I’m willing to chance it. Stronger measures are needed than those we’ve been using so far. I’m certain that this is the only way.’
He had to force himself to be confident, convince himself that he would succeed, or it would not have been possible for him to take the first few steps along the road he had decided to follow.
In Factory No. 93, Sector 19, Division 21, the workers discovered their overseers had been issued with whips. None of them questioned it. It wasn’t in their nature to wonder or question. During the day, when they felt the sting of the whips, they merely, with deeply instilled obedience, increased their speed.
The stop-work sirens went two hours later than usual that evening, but they still didn’t murmur or enquire about the reason for it. More tired than usual, with the increased speed forced on them during the day and the extra hours worked, they returned to their quarters and found the evening meal cut by half. In the morning they were roused two hours earlier, still tired and sleepy.
By the end of the week their bodies were beginning to rebel, but their minds still did not question. They were slow at their work and felt the stinging blows of the whips more frequently. Still there was no reaction from them.
All over Earth it was the same. Work was heavier, the hours longer and every minute made increasingly more unbearable. Overseers and guards began to ill-treat the Terran workers with deliberate and carefully calculated cruelty. Drunken soldiers raided their settlements, smashing houses and carrying off their women. Men were also taken from their homes and reports circulated freely of the tortures they had been subjected to in the ‘sporting’ games of the soldiers.
Even the air they breathed seemed different. It lived now, and it throbbed with fear; alive with hatred and resentment.
To add to that, they suddenly found they no longer had numbers, but names. They gave their usual unconcerned blink. Some might even have gone so far as to wonder why.
* * * *
‘Still no reaction,’ Orare reported. ‘It had better happen soon.’ He shot a grim glance at his companion. ‘I suppose you realise the news of what you’re doing here has already reached Lassor? A commissioner is on the way out to investigate.’
Thorval nodded. ‘I heard.’
After what he had done during the last few weeks, it had come to a simple statement of the position. Either the people of Earth came back to life - and he retained his own - or they were both failures.
‘What about the girl?’ Orare asked.
Thorval shrugged. ‘Still the same. I’ve got the room swamped with sub-sonics, but they seem to be doing about as much good as everywhere else on the planet.’ He stood up and took a couple of helmets out of a case nearby. ‘Better wear one of these. The beams will affect us, even if they can’t seem to touch the minds of the Terrans.’
When they entered the room where she was confined, the girl who had been No. 59471 and was now Jory Kildane, was standing in front of a large screen that mirrored a tall, spreading city. The film was old and flickered slightly, but it was still clear.
‘An old city that was called New York,’ Thorval said quietly. ‘These pictures were taken by spies before the conquest and sent back to Lassor.’ He flicked a switch and another city was there, serene and gracious. ‘London ... centuries of tradition behind it.’ He caught the girl’s shoulders, turning her to face the screen again. ‘Look at it, Jory. Your people built that city.’
Obediently she looked. No comment, no expression.
‘Well - what do you think of it?’
‘It is pretty.’
‘Pretty!’ Even Orare, because of his longer association with this race, more used to their dull acceptance of whatever happened, seemed to be catching something of his companion’s irritation. ‘Is that all you can say? Doesn’t it make you feel anything? Patriotism? Pride in your race?’
Thorval smiled slightly. ‘So, it’s getting you as well.’ He looked at the girl. ‘Well, Jory? Doesn’t it make you feel any of those things?’
She blinked stupidly and began the parrot cry, ‘I do not understand ...’
‘But I hope you do one day - and fairly soon at that,’ he added somewhat grimly, remembering the Commissioner on the way from Lassor.
It seemed impossible to Thorval, belonging as he did to the alien race that had destroyed the city, that he, personally, could feel the rising excitement he was trying to instil into this woman of Earth.
He flicked over the switch again and this time one of the small, ancient spacefields appeared on the screen. Slender rockets stood on their tails and blaring, stirring music rolled around the room.
‘Look at them,’ he said. ‘That is your race, Jory. Reaching for the stars - a right we denied them. Look at it and keep on looking.’ He swung round. ‘Come on, Orare.’
They went out and he locked the door after them, while inside the room the girl stood still and silent before the screen, with the music beating around her and invisible sub-sonics tearing at her mind.
Factory 93 was drawing near to the end of its day shift. No. 19567, now commanded to take the name of Paul Hilton, worked a machine that hissed out clouds of hot blinding steam. In the past it had not done so, but something had gone wrong and the overseer had not bothered to have it rectified. Almost dropping with fatigue and pain, he staggered as another boiling blast washed over him, stinging and scalding his exposed skin. A numbing bewilderment had been growing in his mind for days and with it a strange memory of a girl. He had chosen someone else as companion, but their union had not yet received official approval - and now he found he didn’t want this second choice. It was the girl he had chosen first he wanted, the girl he had been ordered to give up.
But he shouldn’t want anything that the Masters owned, nor should he resent the fact that they had the power to take what they wanted. It was strange. Why should it come to him now when it never had before?
His mind was so preoccupied with these new thoughts that it did not follow what his hands were doing and a second blast of steam scalded his skin. He staggered aback with the shock of it and something that stung more than the boiling steam licked across his back. He winced, looked up and saw a Lassorian uniform. He thought of the weeks of pain and hunger, of the blows and the taunts - above all of another Lassorian and the girl he had chosen first.
The whip fell again - and then it happened.
He had never felt anything like it before. Something snapped like an over-taut rein and tearing fury boiled up in his mind. It was a red mist that deadened everything but the need and the desire to kill. He wanted to destroy anything and everything within reach and his hands reached out for that purpose. An incoherent noise growled deep in his throat and his weakened hands found maniacal strength to catch the thronged whip and swing it wildly against its owner. Then he dropped the whip, because that was not enough. He wanted to kill with his bare hands ... to tear and scratch and see blood on them. Then something caught him from behind, slipped over his head and down his body to bind his hands at his sides, where they still twitched spasmodically as the growls muttered hoarsely in his throat.
It had happened at last.
What would he be like, Thorval wondered, as he waited for the man to be brought to him, this first of them, after a thousand years? He remembered them striding proudly through the old film-shots and he smiled, knowing that his faith in the spirit of the old race had been justified at last. It had been crushed for two hundred years and sat on for another eight hundred but, given the chance, it had sprung back with all the triumphant resiliency humanity had been famous for.
They brought the Earthman in at last, but the Lassorian found none of the triumph he had expected. Eagerness died and cold apprehension crawled in his mind. The Earthman’s tunic was torn from the fight with his guards and there were streaks of dirt on his face and clothing. That did not matter. It was the sign of his awakening. It was his eyes. They were no longer lifeless.
They were the eyes of a feral, mad animal.
‘His mind ...?’ Thorval’s voice was quiet. Had we won and lost at the same time?
One of the guards shook his head. ‘The doctor at the factory thinks it’s just a temporary state, brought on by desperation.’
Some of the disquiet died and he walked nearer to the Earthman, who promptly spat something incoherent at him and struggled with the guards.
‘Take him to the Dorik Rehabilitation Centre,’ Thorval instructed and they took the Earthman away.
The communicator jangled and he reached out a hand to it. While he was speaking Orare entered. The old soldier waited until Thorval had finished, then he said quietly:
‘It’s the girl. One of the guards took some food into her ...’
Thorval looked up quickly.
‘... and she tore him to pieces,’ Orare finished with a grin.
* * * *
Some hours later the communicator on Thorval’s desk rang again, ‘This is Dorik Centre reporting. The man and the girl have both come out of the madness stage. It was only temporary. They’re both of high intelligence and are learning quickly under the hypno-tutors.’
‘Let me know as soon as they are ready for discharge.’ The Rehabilitation Director switched off and looked across at Orare. ‘Well, it paid off, Orare.’
The other nodded. ‘Yes.’ Abruptly he frowned. ‘There’s something else has me worried. What’s it going to be like when we finally have this planet restored to its former civilisation? It’s not beyond reason to wonder if they’ll strike back at Lassor. They might even unite with other planets to do so. We’d have difficulty defending ourselves against all of them.’
Thorval shook his head. ‘I don’t think it will happen, but if it ever does, we still have our space forces. Central Government will have made some sort of provision for the situation, if it ever turns up.’
Some provision that would avoid the use of force, if at all possible, he thought. The last thing they wanted to do was fight the races they had set free.
* * * *
Jory came into the office first, followed by the man Paul. For a moment they looked at the Lassorians silently and the latter knew they were at last facing the living reality of the old film spools.
Finally Paul spoke. ‘I heard the recording of your speech,’ he said quietly. ‘I can understand it now.’
‘And you?’ Thorval looked at the girl.
She nodded. ‘Yes. What do you want us to do?’
‘Go out among your people, talk rebellion, stir them up to revolt; say anything you like to incite them to break through the barriers. You’ll also be living proof of what they can become. That in itself might be a help. Notify us immediately anyone does break and we’ll “capture” them and take them off to the Centres for treatment. As you’ve probably already realised yourselves, a kind of temporary madness is going to be usual when the old conditioning breaks, but simple treatment soon completely clears it... with no damage likely to crop up later.’
‘There is one thing though ...’ Paul hesitated. ‘Why did you choose the way you did to ... bring us through?’
Thorval hesitated a moment. Finally he got up and stood by the window, with his back to them.
‘It goes back a long way and ... it’s something I find difficult to talk about.’ He turned and faced them. ‘It was the Year of Terror that gave me the idea,’ he added deliberately. He waved a hand towards chairs at his desk. ‘Sit down.’ Seated himself, he went on, ‘You know that the original suppression of your planet took two hundred years. Rebellions were always breaking out. In desperation, the central government on Lassor decided to put a stop to this insubordination once and for all. They sent a succession of specially trained governors and occupation troops to Earth. We have old records that tell us in rather too clear detail some of the things done during that two hundred years. It was two centuries of murder and terror for your people. Children were burned in full view of their parents, men forced to watch their wives and daughters violated only to be tortured themselves later, radioactive dust was sprinkled on what villages and settlements still survived. Some of the atrocities were too revolting to commit to record, but they came down more or less by word of mouth. There was a final year worse than anything that had gone before. They called it the Year of Terror and that is what finally made your race what they’ve been for the last eight hundred years. A new governor took over then, with normal occupation troops.’ He paused and they waited patiently for him to go on. ‘For eight hundred years you lived a quiet, peaceful life, although, of course, you had no willpower and no initiative. I tried everything else to bring you back and then decided to use the process that had made you what you were. Further cruelty. I had to bring you out of the dull, obedient rut you seemed so firmly settled in, so I faked another reign of terror. I had to make you live again, even if it was by hatred.’ He shrugged. ‘It worked.’
That was all. No mention of what it would have meant if it had failed. But, surprisingly, they thought of that.
‘What if it had failed though?’ Jory asked. ‘What would it have meant for you personally?’
‘Court-martial and a firing squad,’ Orare said shortly, before Thorval could evade the answer. ‘If you ever get around to planning to attack us, just stop and think for a moment that a Lassorian was willing to risk his career and his life for Earth.’
‘Don’t get dramatic, Orare,’ Thorval interrupted, with a gesture that dismissed the matter. ‘It was something that had to be done.’
‘We won’t forget that Lassor gave us back what they once took from us.’ Paul smiled. ‘We may even like to think it was the old Moranian race, assimilated by Lassor, that brought about the change in the Lassorian race.’
The communicator on the desk awoke with an excited chatter. Thorval reached out a hand to it, glad of the interruption. ‘What is it?’
‘The Commissioner from Lassor has arrived, sir.’
He looked at the two facing him on the other side of the desk and he smiled, because the flame had never died. It still burned behind locked doors and slowly those doors were opening.
‘Ask the Commissioner to come in,’ he said.
First published 1958.