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Join Our Gang? By: Sterling E. Lanier (1927-2007) |
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JOIN
OUR GANG? By STERLING E. LANIER They didn't exactly hold a gun at anybody's
head; all they offered was help. Of course,
they did sort of encourage people to ask for
help.... Illustrated by Douglas
Commander William Powers, subleader of Survey Group Sirian Combine 1027798
and hence first officer of its ship, the Benefactor , stared coldly
out of his cabin port. The Benefactor was resting on the bedrock of
Island Twenty seven of the world called Mureess by its natives. Like
all the other such names, it meant "the world," just as the natives'
name for themselves, Falsethsa, meant "the people," or "us," or "the
only race." To Commander Powers, fifty years old, with eleven of them
in Survey work, the world was Planet Two of a star called something
unpronounceable in the nebula of something else equally pointless. He
had not bothered to learn the native name of Island Twenty seven,
because his ship had mapped one thousand three hundred and eighty six
islands, all small, and either rocky or swampy or both. Island
Twenty seven, to him, had only one importance, and that was its being
the site of the largest city on the planet. Around the island's seven square miles, a maze of docks, buildings,
sheds, breakwaters, and artificial inlets made a maze stretching a mile
out to sea in every direction. The gray sea, now covered with fog
patches, rolled on the horizon under low lying cloud. Numerous craft,
some small, some large, moved busily about on the water, which in its
components was identical with that of Terra, far distant in the Sirius
Sector. Crude but workable atomic motors powered most of them, and
there was a high proportion of submarines. Powers thought of Earth's
oceans for a moment, but then dismissed the thought. Biological
technical data were no specialty he needed. Terra might be suitable for
the action formulating in his mind, but a thousand suns of Sirian
Combine might prove more useful. The biologists of Grand Base would
determine, assisted by data his ship provided, in their monster
computers, what was called for. Powers had been trained for different
purposes. He was, as every survey commander was, a battle hardened warrior. He
had fought in two major fleet actions in his day, and had once, as a
very junior ensign of the Sirian Grand Fleet, participated in the
ultimate horror, the destruction by obliteration of an inhabited
planet. For planetary destruction a unanimous vote of the Sirian Grand
Council, representing over four thousand worlds, was necessary. It had
been given only four times in the long history of the Confederacy.
Every intelligent being in the great Union shuddered at the thought of
its ever becoming necessary again. Powers stared moodily over the rocky
ground toward a group of figures in the distance which were moving in
his direction. The final delegation of the Mureess government, a world
government, was coming for its last meeting before the Benefactor
departed into the far reaches of space. Powers braced himself mentally for a grand effort. He held equivalent
rank to that of a Galactic admiral, and it was held for one reason
only, because of his real work and its importance. He was a
super psychologist, a trend analyzer, a salesman, a promoter, a viewer,
an expert on alien symbology and the spearhead of the most ruthless
intelligence service in the known universe. Long ago, he had
transferred from the battle fleet to the inner school at Sirius Prime
for the most intensive training ever devised. Now it would be put to
the ultimate test. He heard the air lock open and turned away from the window. He had a
long way to walk to the neutral council chamber, for the Benefactor
was a big ship, despite the fact that only twenty beings comprised the
total complement. Down the echoing corridors he paced, brow furrowed in
thought... Continue reading book >>
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Literature |
Science |
Short stories |
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