Part-4
The had been the in the viewscreens. Then somebody noticed that the spot of light on the was a coastline, and they all for a look.
Travis and Edith slept for a while; when they returned to him, Alpha was to the east of Bluelake, and the in the city was still going on. The were still and interested; Kwanns go without sleep for much longer than Terrans. The of any cycle of and on their had left them to any regular sleeping-and-waking rhythm.
"I just called in," Travis said. "Things aren't good, at all. Most of the in the have into the native city, now, and they've of a of somehow. And they're in the west, where Gonzales is occupying, and in the northeast, and we only have about to with everything. The wants to know how you're making out with the shoonoon."
"I'll call him I in the sack."
He up on the and the call. General Maith looked as as he felt; they as they each other. There wasn't much he tell the general, and it like the one from a hospital about a friend's condition.
"We'll check in with you as soon as we and our put away. We what's these frenzies, now, and in about twenty-five to thirty hours we'll be able to start doing something about it."
The general, in the screen, grimaced.
"That's a long time, Mr. Gilbert. Longer than we can to take, I'm afraid. You're not at full speed now, are you?"
"Oh, no, general. We're just trying to keep Alpha level on the horizon." He for a moment. "We don't need to keep to that. It may make an if we speed up."
He to the deck, up the PA-phone, and called for attention.
"You have seen, now, that we can travel around the world, so fast that we keep up with the Sky Fire and it is not to set. Now we will travel faster, and I will you a new wonder. I will you the Sky Fire in the west; it and the Always-Same will to go in the sky. This will not be for real; it will only be so we will be traveling faster. Watch, now, and see." He called the for full speed, and then told them to look at the Sky-Fire and then see in the screens where it over Bluelake.
That was better; now they were with the Sky-Fire and up to it. After an hour he left them still and over the gain. Five hours later, when he came after a and a breakfast, they were still whooping. Edith Shaw was excited, too; the were trying to how soon they would be to Bluelake by the position of the Sky Fire with its position in the screen.
General Maith them in his private office at Army HQ; Foxx Travis mixed drinks for the four of them while the the to make sure they had privacy.
"I myself for not having on them hundreds of hours ago," he said. "I have three brigades; the one General Gonzales had here originally, and the two I with me when I took over here. We have to keep at least a in the south, to keep the there from starting any more fires. I can't Bluelake with anything less than a brigade. Gonzales has his hands full in his area. He had a while you were off on that world cruise—natives in one village the men there off and them out, and then started another frenzy. It spread to two other villages he got it stopped. And we need the Third Brigade in the northeast; there are three of a up there, close to a square miles. And if anything here, and what's been going on in the last days is nothing what a be like, we'll have to in from everywhere. We must save the Terran-type and the plants. If we don't, we all starve."
Miles nodded. There wasn't anything he think of saying to that.
"How soon can you to results with those shoonoon, Mr. Gilbert?" the asked. "You said from twenty-five to thirty hours. Can you cut that any? In twenty-five hours, all be all over the continent."
Miles his head. "So far, I haven't anything positive," he said. "All I did with this around the world was them that I was telling the truth when I told them there was no Dark Place under the World, where Alpha and Beta go at night." He hastened, as the swearing, to add: "I know, that doesn't like much. But it was necessary. I have to them that there will be no Last Hot Time, and then—"
The shoonoon, on their drum-shaped cushions, at him in silence, aghast. All the over the in the ship, when they had the Sky Fire around the World and it over Bluelake, and their in the they had just eaten, was gone.
"No—Last—Hot—Time?"
"Mailsh Heelbare, this is not real! It cannot be!"
"The Gone Ones—"
"The Always-Cool Time, when there will be no more or hard work or death; it cannot be that this will come!"
He rose, up his hands; his action stopped the clamor.
"Why should the Gone Ones want to return to this world that they have left?" he asked. "Have they not a place in the middle of the Sky Fire, where it is always cool? And why should you want them to come to this world? Will not each one of you pass, sooner or later, to the middle of the Sky Fire; will you not there be new and join the Gone Ones? There is the Always-Cool; there the without and without the work of women; there the game come into the villages to be killed in the gathering-places, without hunting. There you will talk with the other Gone Ones, your fathers and your fathers' fathers, as I talk with you. Why do you think this must come to the World of People? Can you not wait to join the Gone Ones in the Sky Fire?"
Then he sat and his arms. They were looking at him in amazement; they all saw the logic, but none of them had of it before. Now they would have to turn it over in their minds and themselves to the new viewpoint. They among themselves. At length, old Shatresh, who had the Hot Time before, spoke:
"Mailsh Heelbare, we trust you," he said. "You have told us of wonders, and you have us that they were real. But do you know this for real?"
"Do you tell me that you do not?" he in surprise. "You have had fathers, and fathers' fathers. They have gone to join the Gone Ones. Why should you not, also? And why should the Gone Ones come and the World of People? Then your children will have no more children, and your children's children will be. It is in the World of People that the People are born; it is in the World that they and to fit themselves to live in the Place of the Gone Ones when they are through with the they use in the World. You should be happy that there will be no Last Hot Time, and that the line of your will go on and not be cut short."
There were of agreement with this. Most of them were to be that there wouldn't be a Last Hot Time, after all. Then one of the class asked:
"Do the Terrans also go to the Place of the Gone Ones, or have they a place of their own?"
He was for a long time, looking at the floor. Then he his head.
"I had that I would not have to speak of this," he said. "But, since you have asked, it is right that I should tell you." He again, until the Kwanns in of him had to fidget. Then he asked old Shatresh: "Speak of the of the People about how the World was made."
"The great Spirit the world." He up his obscenity. "He the World out of himself. This is a make-like to it."
"The Great Spirit many worlds. The which you see in dark-time are all worlds, each with many smaller worlds around it. The Great Spirit them all at one time, and people on many of them. The Great Spirit the World of People, and the Always-Same and the Sky Fire, and the Sky Fire he the Place of the Gone Ones. And when he the Place of the Gone Ones, he put an Oomphel-Mother it, to oomphel."
This a sensation. An Oomphel-Mother was something they had of before, but now they were why they hadn't. Of there'd be an Oomphel-Mother; how else would there be oomphel?
"The World of the Terrans is away from the World of People, as we have always told you. When the Great Spirit it He gave it only an Always-Same, and no Sky Fire. Since there was no Sky Fire, there was no place to put a Place of the Gone Ones, so the Great Spirit the Terrans so that they would not die, but live in their own bodies. The Oomphel-Mother for the World of the Terrans the Great Spirit in a under a great mountain.
"The Terrans the Great Spirit for a long time, and then, one day, a man and a woman a in a rock, and inside, and they the of the Oomphel-Mother, and the Oomphel-Mother in it. So they called all the other Terrans, and they the Oomphel-Mother out, and the Oomphel-Mother to Oomphel. The Oomphel-Mother metal, and cloth, and glass, and plastic; knives, and and and clothing—" He on, the of technology, the more and more wide-eyed at him. "And to make oomphel, and to teach wisdom," he finished. "They very wise and very rich.
"Then the Great Spirit saw what the Terrans had done, and angry, for it was not meant for the Terrans to do this, and the Great Spirit the Terrans with a of death. It was not death as you know it. Because the Terrans had by hands on the Oomphel-Mother, not only their must die, but their also. A Terran has a life in the body, after that no life."
"This, then, is the Oomphel Secret. The last skin of the has been away; the nut, upon which we Terrans have for more time than can count. Happy people! When you die or are slain, you go to the Place of the Gone Ones, to join your fathers and your fathers' fathers and to your children and children's children. When we die or are slain, that is the end of us."
"But you have your into this world; have you not the with it?" somebody asked, frightened.
"No. The People did not against the Great Spirit; they have not hands on an Oomphel-Mother as we did. The we you will do no harm; do you think we would be so as to the upon you? It will be good for you to learn about here; in your Place of the Gone Ones there is much oomphel."
"Why did your people come to this world, Mailsh Heelbare?" old Shatresh asked. "Was it to try to from the curse?"
"There is no from the of the Great Spirit, but we Terrans are not a people who submit without to any fate. From the time of the Curse of Death on, we have been trying to make for ourselves."
"But how can you do that?"
"We do not know. The will not teach us that, though it teaches else. We have only learned many in which it cannot be done. It cannot be done with oomphel, or with anything that is in our own world. But the Oomphel-Mother us ships to go to other worlds, and we have gone to many of them, this one among them, from which we try to make spirits. We are trying to make for ourselves from the that in the plants; we may fail with them, too. But I say this; I may die, and all the other Terrans now may die, and be as though they had been, but we will not fail. Someday our children, or our children's children, will make for themselves and live forever, as you do."
"Why were we not told this before, Mailsh Heelbare?"
"We were to have you know it. We are to be people without spirits."
"Can we help you and your people? Maybe our magic might help."
"It well might. It would be trying. But first, you must help yourselves. You and your people are against the Great Spirit as as did the Terrans of old. Be in time, you answer it as grievously."
"What do you mean, Mailsh Heelbare?" Old Shatresh was frightened.
"You are making magic to the Sky Fire to the World. Do you know what will happen? The World of People will pass whole into the place of the Gone Ones, and will be destroyed. The World of People is a world of death; that on it must die. The Place of the Gone Ones is a world of life; in it forever. The two will against each other, and will one another, and there will be nothing in the Sky Fire or the World but fire. This is which our teaches us. We know this secret, and with it we make of great destruction." He looked over the seated shoonoon, out those who the flame-colored of the fire-dance. "You—and you—and you," he said. "You have been making this magic, and leading your people in it. And which among the of you have not been guilty?"
"We did not know," one of them said. "Mailsh Heelbare, have we yet time to keep this from happening?"
"Yes. There is only a little time, but there is time. You have until the Always-Same across the of the Sky-Fire." That would be seven hundred and fifty hours. "If this happens, all is safe. If the Sky Fire Out the Always Same, we are all together. You must go among your people and tell them what they are doing, and them to stop. You must them to their arms and fighting. And you must tell them of the that was put upon the Terrans in the long-ago time, for a than they are now committing."
"If we say that Mailsh Heelbare told us this, the people may not us. He is not to all, and some would take no Terran's word, not his."
"Would tell a of this sort, about his own people, if it were not real?"
"We had say nothing about Mailsh Heelbare. We will say that the Gone Ones told us in dreams."
"Let us say that the Great Spirit sent a of to each of us," another said. "There has been too much talk about from the Gone Ones already."
"But the Great Spirit has sent a dream—"
"Nothing like this has before, either."
He rose, and they were silent. "Go to your living-place, now," he told them. "Talk of how best you may your people." He pointed to the clock. "You have an like that in your living-place; when the has moved three places, I will speak with you again, and then you will be sent in air to your people to speak to them."
They up the and the to Miles' office on the third without talking. Foxx Travis was softly, almost inaudibly:
"You will ... in the ... bye-and-bye,
You'll ... in the sky ... when you die!"
Inside, Edith Shaw in a chair. Foxx Travis to the coffee-maker and started it. Miles on the screen and the of General Maith's headquarters. As soon as the girl who appeared in it saw him, her hands moved quickly; the screen flickered, and the appeared in it.
"We have it made, general. They're sold; we're to start them out in three hours."
Maith's thin, lighted. "You they are going to co-operate?"
He his head. "They think they're saving the world; they think we're co-operating with them."
The laughed. "That's better! How do you want them sent out?"
"The ones in the Bluelake area first. Better have some K.N.I. in native costume, with pistols, to go with them. They'll need protection, till they're able to a for themselves. After they're all out, the ones from Gonzales' area can be started." He for a moment. "I'll want four or five of them left here to help me when you start more in from other areas. How soon do you think you'll have another class for me?"
"Two or three days, if goes all right. We have the villages and in the south under tight now; we can start them up right away. As soon as we here, we can send to the north. We'll have transport for you in three hours."
The out. He from the screen. Travis was laughing happily.
"Miles, did tell you you were a genius?" he asked. "That last you gave them was perfect. Why didn't you tell us about it in advance?"
"I didn't know about it in advance; I didn't think of it till I'd started talking to them. No or sugar for me."
"Cream," Edith said, lifelessly. "Why did you do it? Why didn't you just tell them the truth?"
Travis asked her to the term. She started to say something about Jesting Pilate. Miles interrupted.
"In of Lord Beacon, Pilate wasn't jesting," he said. "And he didn't for an answer he he'd die of old age waiting for one. What of truth should I have told them?"
"Why, what you started to tell them. That Beta moves in a and can't any closer to Alpha—"
"There's been some work done on the question since Pilate's time," Travis said. "My at Command College had the start of an answer. He truth as a having a practical with on the physical of and and the order of under consideration."
"He truth as a statement. A only in the mind of the person making it, and the mind of the person to it is made. If the person to it is can't or accept it, it isn't the truth."
"They when you them that the is round, and they that tri-dimensional model of the system. Why didn't you let it go at that?"
"They it intellectually. But when I told them that there wasn't any of Kwannon any closer to Alpha, they emotionally. It doesn't how you prove anything, if the person to you prove it can't accept your proof emotionally, it's still false. Not-real."
"They had all their in this Always-Cool Time," Travis told her. "They couldn't let Miles that out for them. So he it from this world to the next, and them that they were a that way. You saw how they it up. And he didn't have the of telling children there is no Easter Bunny on his conscience, either."
"But why did you tell them that about the Oomphel Mother?" she insisted. "Now they'll go out and tell all the other natives, and they'll it."
"Would they have it if I'd told them about Terran scientific technology? Your people have been doing that for close to a century. You see what it's made."
"But you told them—You told them that Terrans have no souls!"
"Can you prove that was a lie?" Travis asked. "Let's see yours. Draw—soul! Inspection—soul!"
Naturally. Foxx Travis would a to be in a holster.
"But they'll look on us, now. They'll say we're just like animals," Edith almost wailed.
"Now it comes out," Travis said. "We won't be the Terrans, any more, helping the Kwanns out of the of our hearts, largess, the Terran's Burden—new model, a give-away of a gun. Now they'll us; they'll think we're beings."
"I don't think the are beings!" She was almost in tears.
"If you don't, why did you come all the way to Kwannon to try to make them more like Terrans?"
"Knock it off, Foxx; stop her." Travis looked surprised. Maybe he hadn't realized, before, that a to talk like a officer. "You what Ramón Gonzales was saying, out at Sanders', about the inferior's for the as superior? It's no wonder these Kwanns us. They have a right to; we've done them all an injury. We've let them see us doing they can't do. Of they us. But now I've them something to about. When they die, they'll go to the Place of the Gone Ones, and have in the sky, and they will live in new bodies, but when we die, we just die, period. So they'll us and try to their toward us.
"And they to us, they'll want to help us. They'll work hard on the plantations, so that we can have of biocrystals, and their will work magic for us, to help us Terrans to for ourselves, so that we can almost be like them. Of course, they'll have a to us, and from us, too, but the thing will be to help the Terrans. Maybe they'll a Spiritual and Magical Assistance Agency."
