He had to give them a choice because the Keidi were proud and independent to a fault, but they were not stupid. Martin sighed and took the final, irrevocable step.
He said briskly, “Will everyone who has chosen to go please form into groups of twenty persons or less and move with your possessions into the matter transmitter compartments. Don’t worry about being separated, everyone who is presently occupying a center will be sent to the same destination. Shelters and basic needs will be fabricated and supplied shortly after your arrival…”
He ignored the attention signal winking impatiently on the comm panel. The First was trying to talk to him.
“… Since you have not been accepted as Federation Citizens,” he went on, “you will be placed at a sufficient distance from the descendants of the Keidi who preceded you so that you will not be able to meet or influence them until such contact is mutually desired. But the distances separating your new towns and settlements will be similar to those you are accustomed to on Keida, that is, within a few days’ or weeks’ journey by land. The sole exception to this will be the First, his Family, and the specially chosen members of his Estate. They, for the reasons I have already outlined, will be placed together at a very great distance from everyone else.”
He pressed his accept button and said, “Speak, First Father.”
“There has been gross misdirection, off-worlder!” the
First said angrily. “For my help with the evacuation you are obligated to allow me to stay with my people, with all of my people!”
“My obligation,” Martin said firmly, “was to allow you to keep your Family and your organization intact wherever I sent you. That obligation will be discharged.”
“Listen to me, you treacherous off-worlder,” the First said in a voice that was so calm and controlled that it made Martin shiver. “My people need me on this new, safe, comfortable world. More than ever they must be organized, disciplined, toughened, welded together into one tight family unit that will be the fear and envy of the countless millions of soft, spineless Federation creatures all around them. Be warned, off-worlder, my Estate will cover even your great Federation World. Mere distance will not keep me from my Keidi, and from fulfilling my destiny.”
“Mere distance…” Martin began, and stopped.
The First had not realized the awful size of the super-world-nobody, himself included, could. A diameter in excess of two hundred and eighty million miles and a useable surface area of nearly two hundred fifty quadrillion square miles, or well over one billion times the entire surface area of Keida. He would place the First one million miles, or maybe more, from the other Keidi settlements. It would be a very long walk, over fallow, synthesized soil or the as yet uncovered metal shell of the world itself, to reach them-if he knew which direction to take. But suddenly Martin felt sorry for this fanatical old Keidi Undesirable who honestly believed that he knew what was best for his people, and he resisted the temptation to gloat.
Instead, he said, “It is possible that, without your influence, the Keidi will become full Citizens in time. And it is possible that the descendants of your organization, with nobody but themselves to organize and order around, will also grow to maturity and sanity and become eligible. That is my belief and my hope.
“The other centers are emptying quickly,” he went on. “Your building’s foundations have been severely weakened and it may collapse at the next shock. You must leave with your people at once. “We will not meet or speak again.”
Even though it seemed that a couple of the centers were disintegrating around the last few Keidi to leave them, the evacuation was completed without injuries or loss of life. With the planet emptied of potential Citizens requiring transport, the great, orbiting matter transmitters disappeared one by one as they began the long hyper- jump back to their Federation World maintenance docks. The doctor had been delighted to learn that he would be able to rejoin his city people in their new home, but not for several days because he would have to travel back on the hypership. There was no need for them to wait for the eruption, but under the circumstances neither Martin nor Beth were in any hurry to return.
“Volcanic activity is always difficult to predict with accuracy,” Beth said, trying to make conversation with a life-mate who had seemingly taken a vow of silence. “Even with our deep probes it isn’t possible to be sure of the exact timing or size of the energy release. But it will be a big one.”
After another lengthy silence the doctor, for the first time, called him by name.
“Now I believe that my understanding of your situation is complete, friend Martin,” he said. “When you spoke of your concern over a great wrong you were about to commit, I assumed that it would be a serious misdirection against the First for imprisoning both of you. That would have been understandable if not praiseworthy. But now I realize that the wrong is directed against your superior, your own First Father, for the benefit of the Keidi, and that the offense is both unprecedented and so serious that chastisement of an unimaginable kind is likely to result.”
The strange puckerings which briefly distorted the alien features must be an expression of deep, personal concern, Martin thought. He sighed and said, “That’s true. Whatever is decided it is certain to come as a surprise. But don’t worry, they might not be too hard on us.”
The old Keidi rose to his feet and unfolded his long, strangely jointed arms until one hand rested gently on Beth’s head and the other on Martin’s. He did not point his speaking horn at them as he said, “Please turn off your recorders, this knowledge is for you alone. My name is Thretagartha. You are my Family.”
Martin swallowed but did not speak. Beth said, “You honor us, Thretagartha.”
“Martin and Beth,” the old Keidi went on, “as your advisor, assistant, and Father on Keida, the responsibility for what has happened is partly mine. I shall speak, therefore, to the horrendous, highly intelligent but morally confused off-worlder who is your supervisor, and explain that…”
He broke off. Beth was pointing wordlessly at the main screen.
A great, black flower flecked with the bright red streaks of molten lava, rooted in the site of the buried arsenal, was growing out and upward into the stratosphere. For hundreds of miles around the eruption the central continent was behaving, not as land surface but as a sea on which there rolled long, green, forested waves. As they watched the original fault line opened up in both directions like an enormous, ragged-edged wound oozing with the angry red sores of secondary eruptions, widening and lengthening until the land mass was split open from coast to coast.
The ocean poured in to fill the wound, exploding into steam as the water met the molten core stuff and setting off further eruptions. Then gradually the violently dying continent was covered by a streaked and dirty shroud of smoke and steam and stratospheric dust. And radiating from its devastated coastline came the tidal waves, mountainous and irresistible as they thundered toward the habitable coastal strips of the north and south continents.
“And we,” Beth said numbly, “were worried about the effects of residual radiation.”
“Martin,” the doctor said. “No Keidi could have survived this, and no wrong has been done here.”
A few minutes later they left the Keida system, and except for the persistency of mental vision which projected the events of the last few hours onto the flickering gray blur that was hyperspace, there was nothing to see or say because nobody wanted to talk. Martin’s chest and shoulder began paining him again, and he decided to pay an overdue visit to the medical module.
As he climbed into the treatment cabinet he still could not rid himself of those ghastly mind-pictures of Keida’s destruction. But now they were interspersed with those of the First interrogating them in the cell at Camp Eleven; and organizing, directing, bullying, and encouraging the Keidi refugees like the military officer he once had been; and his words and manner as he had boasted that his Family Estate would one day include the entire Keidi species, and even the Federation World itself. Then just before the anesthetic took effect there was the picture of Thretagartha and the last words that the Doctor had spoken to him.
No wrong has been done here,
But had there been?
The doctor was returned to his people by a robot spacecraft and the hypership was instructed to remain Outside, where it hung between the black metal of the superworld and the breathtaking starshine of the galactic core. In the past such an order had meant an early reassignment, but this time it could mean anything.
Their supervisor did not keep them waiting.
RECORDINGS OF ALL SENSOR DATA. VISUALS. AND CONVERSATIONS PERTINENT TO THE CURRENT ASSIGNMENT HAVE BEEN STUDIED AND EVALUATED. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION IS REQUIRED REGARDING
