overlooked. Finally, their commander had gently picked up the Federation ships and turned them around, even giving them a good send-off of speed toward their own base. This was intended to show that they really meant not to accept the challenge, as well as to indicate that they bore no hard feelings toward the Federation.
Then right in the midst of this act of courtesy, the Federation ships had opened fire—and with weapons so terrible that they had long been outlawed on Thule— weapons which were dangerous to use, and to manufacture, since a few of them could ruin a whole planet. It had been a sneaking act, an act of pure treachery.
Thule had defended herself, as had been necessary. But when the Federation forces turned to flee, she had not followed them to demand that they be captives, as she had a right to do.
Instead, she had let them go back unharmed. That should have convinced them that she had no desire to fight, and that they should send no more forces until she could make up her mind what to do about the Federation.
But now ships were assembling on a moon of Neptune to attack Thule probably. After the challenge had been repeatedly refused, these strange humans were going ahead with a war anyhow. It was unthinkable.
And it seemed to prove once and for all that these humans could never be trusted. They were still savages at heart. The only safe thing to do, according to the views of the periodical, was to use their own weapons— to make the outlawed lithium bombs and to carry enough to all the planets to kill off life there. It would take years before the planets could be used by Thule, of course, but this was the only reasonable action.
Other writers differed, but there was no way of knowing which represented the majority. Bob saw only that all of them were shaken by what his father had tried as a method of finding peace and which they were completely convinced was an act of war, and it looked as if those who favored extermination of the human race might win the debate.
He wondered how a human account of the engagement would sound to a Thulian. On the way back, he tried to explain to Valin what had really happened.
The man listened politely. At the end he nodded thoughtfully. “I am glad all your people are not so discourteous, Bob. Your father sounds rather barbarous, but like an ethical man. Still… you admit your leaders cannot control your underleaders. Your father could not keep this captain from firing? Yes. And you admit that your people decided on war before they listened to his account in the first place? And you also admit that your race uses the same men to make peace as to start a war—which means that you do not really separate peace and war, but get them all confused?”
He shook his head sadly. “I’ll have to think this over. I have always hoped that we could learn to live with your people, Bob. But after your account, I wonder if they can accept peace with us, or whether we dare let them go on beside us.”
He turned into his own suite, still puzzled.
Bob had the answer as to how one Thulian, at least, reacted to man.
And the trouble was that he couldn’t be sure that Valin wasn’t right He’d seen that Thule had many confused ideas, and a mixture of strange sense and traditional nonsense. If they couldn’t help it, how could he help having false values of his own. Maybe clear logic would place the same interpretation on events as Valin had placed on them.
He suspected that the truth was somewhere in between, or that both were wrong. But this didn’t help any. Certainly he couldn’t go around explaining things to everyone here—it would only lead to more trouble.
As far as he could see, neither side wanted war. And yet both sides were being driven closer and closer to what they didn’t want. Each felt that the other was too dangerous for them to share a sun with.
And the way it was working out, both were right.
He remembered the idea of sending lithium bombs against the planets. With their ships, they might succeed; but not before some of the Federation forces had managed to send suicide squads in on Thule with the same medicine.
It might wind up with the sun having ten planets instead of nine, and no living intelligence on any of them!
CHAPTER 14
In Silken Chains
JUAN SEEMED TO LOSE INTEREST after the first day, which was no particular surprise to Bob. The boy had been pushed from pillar to post, from his own world into life on a freighter, then in tragedy to the inner circle of a military machine. He’d been tossed back to the outskirts of that machine, and had gone to work, only to go out on a mad chase. Now he was in still another life. This one, at least, had some advantages for him. He was no more a stranger than Simon or Bob, and life here was a comfortable one, even a pleasant one.
Most of his time seemed to be spent in seeing the pre-migration films made by Thule—outright romance and adventure stories which were always given a touch of fantasy by the difference in the Thule point of view. There were millions of such films in the near-by vault, and Juan seemed to go no further. He did take care of the suite for them, however, and neither Bob nor Simon had any objections to that.
Simon and Bob roamed around, sometimes together and sometimes alone. On the surface, they had complete freedom. Nobody stopped them from anything, except that they were barred from one building. It had something to do with high scientific policy, but it seemed to be more a matter of safety, as Valin said, than of secrecy. The Thulians themselves were barred from the building, unless they had special reasons for being there.
Nobody tried to keep them from examining anything they wanted. And most of the citizens were apparently eager to explain anything they didn’t understand.
On the theory that this city might be specially selected for them, Bob asked permission to fly halfway around their world and visit another. Valin spent several hours arranging for special transportation, but there was no objection at any point. They were flown in a stratosphere rocket, making the trip with no one else on board, and Bob found the second city to be no different from the first, except that it was smaller and even more sparsely inhabited. With ninety-nine per cent of the population still in suspended animation, it wasn’t too surprising that the world seemed rather empty, and that most of the factory cities were entirely shut down.
Yet there were always the guards. Wherever Bob went, he found Valin tagging along, always with a legitimate excuse. Jakes was having the same trouble with Ondu. Bob came back from his flying visit to find Jakes stamping around, demanding to be let alone, or at least given someone younger. That seemed like a safe request, since neither one of the boys had met anyone who wasn’t at least thirty. The young men were still in suspended animation, it seemed.
Ondu shrugged mildly. “I’m only trying to help you, Simon. This is a big world, and a new one.
You might get lost or in trouble. I’m responsible for your safety.” He reflected then, hands outspread. “But if you’re tired of me, we’ll have to find someone else. Someone younger, you want?”
“That’s right. Someone younger—plenty younger!” Simon told him.
His request was granted the next day. Ondu came in with a boy of about thirteen, who seemed both afraid and eager to meet the men from the Federation. “This is Emo, our president’s son,” he told Simon, “He is the only young one we have revived.”
Bob grinned, in spite of himself. The Thulians always managed to find some way, it seemed—even if they had to enlist their president’s family. He waited for Jakes to blow up at having a boy that much younger.
But Simon only grinned, and held out his hand after a second’s thought. “That’s fine, Ondu. Couldn’t be better. Hi, Emo, I hope you won’t mind wasting time on someone who needs a little help?”
Emo broke out in a toothy smile, and they went off together, while Juan and Bob stared at each other, trying to figure Jakes out.
News came through from Outpost, finally. A Thulian ship had made a quick night trip—technically night for Outpost, since it was when most of the officers slept. With the aid of high-speed photography, they had come back with some information. Bob and the others were furnished with copies of it at once, but there was nothing very impressive there. From the photographs and groupings of the ships, it looked as if Outpost was about halfway along with its preparations to invade Thule. But none of them were trained to interpret such matters.
