Stepsons of Terra

5.

A jetcar waited outside the hotel for them—sleek, stylishly toned, and yet to Ewing’s eyes old-fashioned in appearance. The robot opened the rear door and Ewing climbed in.

To his surprise the robot did not join him inside the car; he simply closed the door and glided away into the gathering dusk. Ewing frowned and peered through the door window at the retreating robot. He rattled the doorknob experimentally and discovered that he was locked in.

A bland robot voice said, “Your destination, please?” Ewing hesitated. “Ah—take me to Governor-General Mellis.”

A rumble of turbogenerators was the only response; the car quivered gently and slid forward, moving as if it ran on a track of oil. Ewing felt no perceptible sensation of motion, but the spaceport and the towering bulk of the hotel grew small behind him, and soon they emerged on a broad twelve-level superhighway a hundred feet above the ground level.

Ewing stared nervously out the window. “Exactly where is the Governor-General located?” he asked, turning to peer at the dashboard. The jetcar did not even have room for a driver, he noted, nor a set of manual controls. It was operated totally by remote control.

“Governor-General Mellis’ residence is in Capital City,” came the precise, measured reply. “It is located one hundred ninety-three miles to the north of the City of Valloin. We will be there in forty-one minutes.”

The jetcar was strict in its schedule. Exactly forty-one minutes after it had pulled away from the plaza facing the Grand Valloin Hotel, it shot off the highway and onto a smaller trunk road that plunged downward at a steep angle. Ewing saw a city before him—a city of spacious buildings spaced far apart, radiating spirally out from one towering, silver-hued palace.

A few minutes later the car came to a sudden halt, giving Ewing a mild jolt.

The robot voice said, “This is the palace of the Governor-General. The door at your left is open. Please leave the car now and you will be taken to the Governor-General.”

Ewing nudged the door-panel and it swung open. He stepped out. The night air was fresh and cool, and the street about him gave off a soft gentle glow. Accumulator batteries beneath the pavement were discharging the illumination the sun had shed on them during the day.

“You will come this way, please,” a new robot said.

He was ushered speedily and efficiently through the swinging door of the palace, into a lift, and upward. The lift opened out onto a velvet-hung corridor that extended through a series of accordion-like pleats into a large and austerely furnished room.

A small man stood alone in the center of the room. He was gray haired but unwrinkled, and his body bore no visible sign of the surgical distortions that were so common among the Earthers. He smiled courteously.

“I am Governor-General Mellis,” he said. His voice was light and flexible, a good vehicle for public speaking. “Will you come in?”

“Thanks,” Ewing said. He stepped inside. The doors immediately closed behind him.

Mellis came forward—he stood no higher than the middle of Ewing’s chest—and proffered a drink. Ewing took it. It was a sparkling purplish liquid, with a mildly carbonated texture. He settled himself comfortably in the chair Mellis drew up for him, and looked up at the Governor-General, who remained standing.

“You wasted no time in sending for me,” Ewing remarked.

The Governor-General shrugged gracefully. “I learned of your arrival this morning. It is not often that an ambassador from an outworld colony arrives on Earth. In truth”—he seemed to sigh—“you are the first in more than three hundred years. You have aroused considerable curiosity, you know.”

“I’m aware of that.” Casually he sipped at his drink, letting the warmth trickle down his throat. “I intended to contact you tomorrow, or perhaps the next day. But you’ve saved me that trouble.”

“My curiosity got the better of me,” Mellis admitted with a smile. “There is so little for me to do, you see, in the way of official duties.”

“I’ll make my visit brief by starting at the beginning,” Ewing said. “I’m here to ask for Earth’s help, in behalf of my planet, the Free World of Corwin.”

“Help?” The Governor-General looked alarmed.

“We face invasion by extra-galactic foes,” Ewing said. Quickly he sketched out an account of the Klodni depredations thus far, adding, “And we sent several messages to Earth to let you know what the situation was. We assume those messages must have gone astray en route. And so I’ve come in person to ask for Earth’s aid.”

Mellis moved about the room in impatient birdlike strutting motions before replying. He whirled suddenly, then calmed himself, and said, “The messages did not go astray, Mr. Ewing.”

“No?”

“They were duly received and forwarded to my office. I read them!”

“You didn’t answer,” Ewing interrupted accusingly. “You deliberately ignored them. Why?”

Mellis spread his fingers on his thighs and seemed to come stiffly to attention. In a quiet, carefully modulated voice he said, “Because there is no possible way we can help you or anyone else, Mr. Ewing. Will you believe that?”

“I don’t understand.”

“We have no weapons, no military forces, no ability or desire to fight. We have no spaceships.”

Ewing’s eyes widened. He had found it impossible to believe it when the Sirian Firnik had told him Earth was defenseless; but to hear it from the lips of the Governor-General himself!

“There must be some assistance Earth can give. There are only eighteen million of us on Corwin,” Ewing said. “We have a defense corps, of course, but it’s hardly adequate. Our stockpile of nuclear weapons is low—”

“Ours is nonexistent,” Mellis interrupted. “Such fissionable material as we have is allocated to operation of the municipal atom piles.”

Ewing stared at the tips of his fingers. Chill crept over him, reminding him of the year spent locked in the grip of frost as he slept through a crossing of fifty light-years. For nothing.

Mellis smiled sadly. “There is one additional aspect to your request for help. You say the Klodni will not attack your world for a decade, nor ours for a century.”

Ewing nodded.

“In that case,” Mellis said, “the situation becomes academic from our viewpoint. Before a decade’s time has gone by, Earth will be a Sirian protectorate anyway. We will be in no position to help anybody.”

The Corwinite looked up at the melancholy face of Earth’s Governor-General. There were depths to Mellis’ eyes that told Ewing much; Mellis was deeply conscious of his position as ruler in the declining days of Terrestrial power. Ewing said, “How sure can you be of that?”

“Certain as I am of my name,” Mellis replied. “The Sirians are infiltrating Earth steadily. There are more than a million of them here now. Any day I expect to be notified that I am no longer even to be Earth’s figurehead.”

“Can’t you prevent them from coming to Earth?”

Mellis shook his head. “We’re powerless. The events to come are inevitable. And so your Klodni worry us very little, friend Corwinite. I’ll be long since dead before they arrive—and with me Earth’s glories.”

“And you don’t care about the colony worlds?” Ewing snapped angrily. “You’ll just sit back and let us be gobbled up by the aliens? Earth’s name still means something among the colony worlds; if you issued a general declaration of war, all the colonies would send forces to defend us. As it is, the scattered worlds can’t think of the common good; they only worry about themselves. They don’t see that if they band together against the Klodni they can destroy them, while singly they will be overwhelmed. A declaration from Earth—”

“—would be meaningless, hollow, invalid, null, void, and empty,” Mellis said. “Believe that, Mr. Ewing. You face an unfortunate fate. Officially, I weep for you. But as an old man soon to be pushed from his throne, I can’t help you.” Ewing felt the muscles of his jaw tighten. He said nothing. He realized there was nothing at all for him to say.

He stood up. “I guess we’ve reached the end of our interview, then. I’m sorry to have taken up your time, Governor-General Mellis. If I had known the situation as if stood on Earth, perhaps I might not have made this trip across space.”

“I had hoped—” Mellis began. He broke off, then shook his head. “No. It was foolish.”

“Sir?”

The older man smiled palely. “There had been a silly thought in my mind today, ever since I learned that an ambassador from Corwin had landed in Valloin. I see clearly now how wild a thought it was.”

“Might I ask—”

Mellis shrugged. “The thought I had was that perhaps you had come in the name of Terrestrial independence—to offer us a pledge of your world’s aid against the encroachments of the Sirians. But you need aid yourself. It was foolish of me to expect to find a defender in the stars.”

“I’m sorry,” Ewing said quietly.

“For what? For being unable to help? We owe each other apologies, in that case.” Mellis shook his head. “We have known brightness too long. Now the shadows start to lengthen. Aliens steal forth out of Andromeda to destroy, and children of Earth turn on their mother.”

He peered through the increasing gloom of the room at Ewing. “But I must be boring you with my ramblings, Mr. Ewing. You had better leave, now. Leave Earth, I mean. Go to defend your homeworld against its enemies. We are beyond help.”

He pulled a wall switch and a robot servitor appeared, gliding noiselessly through the opening doors. The Governor-General turned to it.

“Conduct Mr. Ewing back to the car, and see that he is transported to his residence in Valloin as comfortably as possible.”

Ewing felt a flood of pity for the old man whose misfortune it was to hold the supreme office of Earth at this dark time. He clenched his fists; he said nothing. Corwin now seemed strangely remote. His wife, his son, living under the menace of alien hordes, hardly mattered now compared with Earth and the fate, less violent but more painful, that was befalling it.

In silence he left the old man and followed the robot through the corridors to the lift. He descended on a shaft of magnetic radiance to the street level.

The car was waiting for him. He got in; the turbos thrummed briefly and the homeward journey began.

He amused himself on the way home by drafting the text of the message he would send via subradio to Corwin in the morning. In the afternoon he would leave Earth forever, setting out on the year-long return trip to Corwin, bringing with him sad confirmation of the fact that there was no help for them against the Klodni horde.