Jack Wodhams - Foundlings Father [Novelette]

It was not easy to draft a recipe to obtain the security of optimism, challenge, and cause for satisfactions. It was the duty of the Program Moderator to endeavor to, as much as possible, ensure the enduring happiness and fulfillment of the persons he directed.

He plucked his lip and pondered much. He was very, very old, poor fellow.

"No, no; I'm not complaining, of course not, my dear. Good heavens no, everything has transpired so splendidly, hasn't it? So much better than we ever anticipated." Master Oldard looked at a work-hardened hand. "In a few short years we have discovered the contentment to be found in the restoration of fundamental values. Honest toil, honest rest, honest pleasures, and sincere and honest praise for our good fortune."

His wife wound washing between large rollers. "Then why did you object to the Humble Rector's proposal? It's a most sound suggestion, isn't it? A young man past twenty has no reason to be unmarried. At that age he should assume such responsibilities. The alternative, as the Humble Rector pointed out, is a patent invitation to mischief."

"Yes, I know, my dear, but it's just that, well, I do think perhaps they ought to be given a chance to ... explore ... maybe travel ... to have a period of adventuring."

"Really," she scolded, "there'll be plenty time enough for that sort of thing later. And travel where? What good could gallivanting about do them, except perhaps to make them restless and give them unnatural ideas? No" - she tossed the wrung clothes into a basket - "the sooner they settle down, the better. People allowed to stay single are bound to get up to no good."

He had to grant that this was so. "That's true, of course. It's just that I thought a little leeway would not have hurt."

"The community helps and provides." She fed another item to the rollers and turned the handle. "It's no good having rules, and then permitting slackness. Start making exceptions, and where would it end?" She sniffed. "We wouldn't know where we were. We've seen enough chaos, and everything is nice as it is. The Humble Rector is wise to see that we do our best to keep things this way."

"Yes, my dear, of course." Oldard tried to quell the note of resignation in his voice. "Everything is fine as it is."

"We were here first." The tall man dressed in austere black sounded most reprovingly aggrieved. "Priority is indisputably ours by right of discovery. Our claim markers have been clearly spaced, and seeing these, you had no right to intrude." S.I.C. Broklin was not in any way to be easily intimidated. "We took a survey, but we couldn't find you. We didn't know how big your party was, whether you might have all died, or maybe moved on without removing your stakes. You weren't broadcasting on any wavelength, so we assumed you'd quit and we came on in."

"You couldn't have searched very diligently," the Humble Rector Galvin Khodpease answered severely. "Now you most certainly have cause to revise your thinking, and so you can remove yourself and your disgusting followers from our habitat just as soon as possible, please. This is our home, ours by right of precedence, and we will not suffer brazen trespassing."

"We'd have asked if we could have found you, but like I said, there didn't seem to be anybody at home." Broklin was very calmly reasonable. "We found the place, and it looked real good, tested out O.K., so we thought to give it a try and settle in."

"You did not find it, it had already been found, by us," Galvin corrected firmly, "and you cannot settle in because the jurisdiction for such choice is not yours. Your entitlement is nil, and permission to allow your continued presence will not be granted. Such persons, as you evidently are, are most definitely unwelcome here on Trankwiland."

Broklin scratched in the hair on his chest. "I don't see why you should be so upset. You must have had a job finding us, because we haven't been advertising. But now that you're here you can see that we don't intend to cause any trouble, and we won't bother you if you don't bother us."

Galvin reddened. "You are not wanted here, have I not made this plain?"

A tall, auburn-haired woman, munching a fruit, came to stand by Broklin's elbow. Galvin turned puce. "This is our territory, ours! You will have to leave, you and your - these others. You'll have to go somewhere else, find somewhere else. This place belongs to us."

Broklin frowned as he considered the matter. "Come now," he said, "where have you got your headquarters? It can't be very near here. We've scouted five hundred keys each side of here without coming across any sign of you. You must either be camped up north a piece or, be on one of the other continents some place."

"It is no concern of yours where we are," Galvin declared. "We can be at any place we might choose to be - particularly, very shortly, here, for instance. The right is ours. You will, therefore, pack up yourselves and your bag and baggage, and betake yourselves off to some region far from here. Do I make myself clear?"

Broklin rubbed his nose. "I guess so - but you sound like you're being awfully greedy to me. It's a great green and beautiful world, do you want to hog it all to yourselves?"

"We found it," Galvin pronounced loudly. "We traveled centuries to escape the conflictions, the impurities, the vice of other human environments. Here, far removed from the contaminations and persecutions of rooted evils, we have begun again, fresh, unsullied, to grow unspoilt in spiritual truth. It is our world, God-given to us. Our path was guided, and after the long journeying of our endless sleep, we were brought here. It was God's wish, and it is our destiny."

"Well it looks like our destiny also," Brofclin said. "We took the long chance to get away from it, too, so we've got something in common. We, uh," he looked about him, "like it here, great climate, ideal. I don't think any of us will want to move on. There seems to be plenty of room here, and it's unlikely that we would find another place just as good."

"But it's already been claimed!" Galvin made a stern effort to ignore the tall auburn-haired woman. "It's ours," he repeated doggedly. "It has been granted to us by divine authority, that here we may grow in harmony and in peace, and create a world of sublime simplicity, love and" - he glowered at them - "high moral integrity. Ours!" His voice rose. "We were here first, and this planet belongs to us. You and your sort cannot stay here - and that's final! You have to go!"

Broklin folded his arms. "I don't see why the rush. We're peace lovers, too, you know. We won't get in your way deliberately, you can rely on that, but as for an arbitrary order to depart, we'll have to discuss that amongst ourselves. I mean, way out here, and what we've been through already, you can't expect us to just ..."

"You have to leave!" Galvin shouted, losing his patience. "The legal title is ours and you are interlopers."

The auburn-haired woman stopped eating her fruit for a moment in order to quiz dryly: "You could meet with our passive resistance - would you use force to throw us out, bodily?"

Galvin goggled at her, involuntarily up and down, choked. "A week." He waved his fist "I'll give you a week to leave. That should be ample time for you to align suitable coordinates and adjust your hiber-static preparations. A week!" he cried, "and you'd better be gone by then, do you hear me?"

Abruptly turning his back, Humble Rector Galvin Khodpease thereupon broke the spell that had benumbed and glazed his cohorts. He gathered them up briskly and led them back to his flier.

Once upon a time space travel, if considered at all, was regarded as unrealizable, albeit at times amusing, fantasy. And then came airplanes. And then came larger and larger rockets. And then came satellites. And then came journeys to the local planets.

Initially, space vehicle and appurtenant costs were as astronomical as the field it was hoped one day to conquer. But some major developments - which were not always fully appreciated as such at the time - wrought significant changes in attitudes towards the general feasibility of celestial transportation. The cumulative knowledge, the spin-off, the end-result to disparate but related investigation, led to the greater continuing migration from Earth of live souls bound heavenwards than ever could have been imagined.

There was an odd element of seeming to do things backwards to arrive at what was to become familiar process. There was the space-shuttle program of orbital transporting vehicle retrieval and reuse. Separate and yet allied to this was research to formulate a space "lifeboat" - a life-suppbrt capsule, durable and shielding, that might return to base or home automatically and independently to its target, carrying astronauts to safety should their main craft be disabled.

Then came the photos drive, an engine compact of great practicality for space "lifeboats" - provided that escaping passengers could be kept alive for a necessarily protracted period while relative speed slowly, if unceasingly, climbed. Then came the hiberstat, the most efficient method for suspending animation ever discovered. And this hiberstat technique was polished into a Mark II series, and then to the Mark III, and so on to the Mark IV G, which theoretically - and verified experimentally - could arrest life indefinitely, barring accidents, to a reduction in aging factor of a negligible .3 to .7% - that was basing the subject-matter ratio upon the passage of one hundred years.

"It was rather a surprise contingency, eh?" their chief, Mallino, said. "Could have sworn we had the place to ourselves." He sampled other of the fruit that his foraging party brought back. "Well at least it's encouraging to know that the first arrivals didn't perish from some untraceable complaint. Something of a relief, that."

"They must have found an even better place. Superficially they looked quite healthy, from what we could see," Broklin said. "Apparently they don't use radio or pic-com, and from what I could make out, I'd say they were aiming to set up a simple, self-sufficient institution founded upon the old-fashioned verities."

"Yes. Jenny, could you pass me the sponge?"

A dark, olive-skinned young woman passed him a sponge, and he took it and wiped his sticky fingers. "Yes. And they were heavily clothed, you say?"

"They reminded me strangely of Puritans - you know, the ones from olden times. And their leader looked a bit like Abraham Lincoln. Yes, they were all in black, funny outfits, funny hats. That's what made me think they'd come from up north somewhere, somewhere cooler than here."

"Just so." Jenny passed Mallino a cloth to dry his fingers. "I see," Mallino noted with approval, "that you've discarded that bead waistband ornament, thank goodness. You did so before meeting those fellows, I hope?"

"Yes, I ... well, I thought unmistakable solidarity was called for. I mean, we shouldn't let our differences about some minor decoration make outsiders curious, should we? And they were so stuffy that they made me feel cluttered."

"I'm glad. You were showing positive signs of backsliding, Brok. You realize that? Start by wearing a few bits of string, and soon you'd have us revert to dress and native primitivism, and so start off the terrible inhibitory cycle once again, with all the sequential conformism that that entails."

"It was only a little thing," Broklin protested mildly, "just for a touch of individuality, I thought."

"I understood, don't worry, but you must know that little things can lead to bigger things, as I told you at the time. Once wear a fig leaf and you might as well say that you have surrendered your freedom of body, and with it, your freedom of mind. Here we are. Nature's children, have thrown off the shackles, at last, permanently. Sane and supremely civilized, here we can develop a society of unconscious natural charm, clear and pure without affectation, the epitome of ultimate cultural excellence."

Mallino posed, hand on hip. "And this archaic band, they've given us a week to leave, have they?"

"That's what the man said."

"Did they give any hint that they were, uh, armed? That they could perhaps turn violent and nasty?"

"They didn't strike me that way. Nasty, yes; violent, no. Never can tell, of course, and it might not be wise to be careless."

"No." Mallino reflected briefly. "Cheeky devils. It's typical of narrow-minded zealots to try and claim a whole world. A whole world! Isn't there more than enough room for everybody?"

"Ample," Broklin agreed. "We didn't find them, although we did look in the most likely places. And they must have gone out of their way to find us."

"So they must. A week, indeed. They must think that they own the whole place. Over-clothed, mentally stunted medievalists, such fantastic claim to exclusive sovereignty almost surpasses belief. You're sure that they seemed unarmed?"

"As far as we could tell, nothing slick. And they didn't seem the 'type." ' .

"Hm-m-m. Still, it won't do to take any chances. What an annoying intrusion upon our marvelous experiment. It seems incredible that after all our efforts, we should have to contend with some blathering nannies after all..."

"They are a blot, a scandal, upon the face of this fair and unspoiled world," Galvin Khodpease informed his brethren warmly. "Master Good-chap, Master Sagewick, and those other elders of our upper council who accompanied me, were shocked, nay, astounded beyond belief, by the vulgarity and absolutely shameless display of these depraved creatures."

"Humble Rector, sir, cannot we simply ignore these neo-primitives, and keep ourselves withdrawn from them?" one rugged-visaged matron asked. "The necessity for the first contact is to be regretted, and suggestion of any further engagement at a personal level, to any purpose whatsoever, is, to my mind, to be deplored. They, are obviously deterministic heathens of a most pernicious and potentially corrupting kind."

"We cannot ignore them, Sister Janice," Galvin said. "Their presence is a menace to us. We cannot pretend that they are not there."

"But there are over one thousand miles and The Strait between us," Master Oldard ventured, "and from the account; their community is not large. They will not attempt to encroach upon us, surely? In their state, it should occupy them fully enough merely to maintain themselves where they are."

"I agree with Sister Janice," a Sister Welche interposed. "These newcomers are plainly retrogressives who have elected to take a path that will lead them inevitably to their doom. We should sever their very existence from our minds. They are far away, beyond any need or reason for us to know any form of association."

'They are a body on the way to perdition," Master Sagewick concurred. "They can safely be left to degenerate and destroy themselves in the wilderness."

"I wish I could be as sanguine that their material deterioration to vanishing point was assured," Galvin's humor was tetchy, "but it is my experience that vice uncurtailed proliferates as a runaway disease. They have not, unfortunately, established themselves in a wilderness, but in that land of natural provision that we forswore, lest its ease should damn us with the curse of idleness and sloth."

"So they will degenerate, then," Master Oldard concluded.

Galvin was irritable. "There are certain humans of low form and deviant who may thrive excessively in such congenial conditions. Humans of this type confront us here. This world was pure, pure when we found it, and we must endeavor to keep it pure. We may consider it as a sacred trust."

Galvin said, "We cannot ignore these revolting people who have descended upon us. Certainly we could be strict in keeping ourselves apart. But surely, fatally, the day would come when their numbers would be such and their profanity and flagrant licentiousness so abundant, that they would overflow as fermenting scum, to taint, and soil, and swallow every hope for the future that we might cherish, every ambition for a strong, noble and God-fearing estate that we might hold dear. If they are allowed to take root, in that very area we had designated to preserve as reward to our aged and infirm, if they be allowed to firmly establish themselves, it is they, eventually, who will doom us, with the irresistible stench of their unconstraint and their mockery."

"No," Galvin was most positive, "for the sake of our children, and for our children's children, they must be persuaded to depart. They are as an evil serpent come upon us, and there is no place we may hide, no refuge where we may be assured safety in retreat. While they remain they pollute our atmosphere, and in the subversion of their introduced concepts they would ever threaten the communion and dedication of our Way. They must go.

Computerized navigation by star-fix was almost too easy.

The marriage of the various arts of progress and survival in space took the sharpest twist to consummation when the test-vehicle quartet of Bunch, Kraus, Witzlevy and Picker jumped the gun, overrode given instructions and set their space lifeboat out into the Milky Way, on a course to an undisclosed destination. Thus they changed a six-month space medicine sleep cruise into a voyage at once daring, romantic, and-irresolvably mysterious.

It was the crazy stuff of dreams - all the more wondrous in that it was calculated and undertaken by sober and intelligent, knowledgeable and, hitherto, one hundred percent solid, reliable people - two girls and two boys. It was a simple combination in elopement to conjure fanciful musings and, betimes, a wistful envy of such seized opportunity. Escape to an absolute freedom, no ties, a breakaway from the cramped and importuning.

Their immunity in the exercise of their disobedience was cause for much cogitation and debate. They were gone, never to be heard of again. But they had established a precedent in enterprise. They would be the first people ever to leave the home solar system and actually travel to the stars. They would be the first to reach into the bursting treasure house of the galaxy. The coordinates for their return would be locked into their computer's memory, but tens, hundreds, thousands of years could pass before they might return. They would not be waked until they had reached their chosen goal - and if no satisfaction was there, what cost to move on? Somewhere ... Somewhere they would find that which they sought, surely.

The exploit fired some minds with possibilities in a manner that conjectures of super-whizzings being ever Earth-mother-linked had not.

"We didn't come here to be dictated to by a bunch of ancient schoolmasters who pratice an outdated dogma of prudery," Mallino said. "It's stupid. We don't ask them to join in, do we? They can do what they like, please themselves. They chose to settle up north, that's their business, but trying to throw us out is taking the dog-in-the-manger bit too far. Just imagine - they want to keep the whole place to themselves?"

"They're extremists," Jenny agreed. "It's difficult to conceive such a rigidity in thinking."

Mallino nodded. "True. They're limited, very limited. We haven't a prayer of reasoning with them, they're far too inflexible."

"Do you think they might try to use force?"

"They'd better not. We don't want to fight, heaven knows, but our whole liberty hinges on the honesty of the basic freedom of our self-expression. Artiface to concealment is to self-impose unwarranted stigma. To clothe is to acknowledge a shame that an advanced and sane culture must at once recognize as totally unfounded and illogical. We are here to enjoy and manifestly prove the superiority of elemental informality, and we cannot in the least submit to any contrary outside ruling, for to do so would negate every value we believe in. It's fundamental."

"So we'll fight?" Broklin said. He did not appear overly dismayed at the thought.

"More than anything, patently, peace is our motivation - but if they pigheadedly persist in their blind insistence, then yes," Mallino confessed. "Really, they will give us no choice ..."

"They will give us no choice," Humble Rector Gaivia Khodpeace stated. "Their known condition, while they exist, will be an aching source to disturb. There, knowing where their so-called 'free-thinking' will take them, and if we do not face them now and squash their pseudo-civilized paganism, then we may forget all our aspirations to create and maintain here a decent, clean-living standard, a way of life exceptional in its felicity."

"I am against the employment of force, Humble Rector," Master Sagewick wagged his head, "it is against all our principles. Respect and obedience for the laws gives us our blessed stability, and a conflict should not be of our seeking."

"Our wish, Master Sagewick, was and is indeed the pursuit of a high state that is attainable - attainable by men of vision and exemplary character. But our intent cannot be achieved if outside influences are allowed to interfere, outside influences which through perversity, unappreciation and callous indifference can assail our carefully constructed constitution with the corrosion of diverse and haphazard license."

"I still do not care much for the notion of obliging them to our bidding by force," Sagewick objected still.

"Where they are deaf to our presented case, a physical clash must be regarded as unavoidable," Galvin observed with finality. "Where appeal to the finer sensibilities are to no avail, then there is no option but to correct and govern from strength. We owe this to our future generations, that they might have the chance to grow in a clean, sweet and considerate society."

"Just, ah, how far," Master Good-chap queried with some doubt, "and in what manner, do you think the application of force may be prosecuted?"

"Ah, yes, I have given this matter some thought. The most humane treatment, I feel now, might be for us to apprehend them and ... but then ..."

Dear, oh dear.

The Earth, as always, had its undesirables, its misfits, its forthright challengers and adventurers. The bustling Earth, as ever, more than ever, seemed to know irreconcilable strife and turmoil, a complexity that was added to rather than diminished by the resort of ever more brains to the multiplying problems.

To get away from it all. The determination of Bunch, Kraus, Witdevy and Picker to journey independently to the design of their own initiative struck a chord too responsive to be dismissed as foolish aberration. Many years hence they would awake to a new orientation, new circumstance - they would be insulated from Earth by numberless years. They would be free people, clean, clean as it was possible to be, and fresh on an hitherto untouched scene.

Perhaps they were doomed. But they mightily stirred the minds of those they left behind. A new life. To look up at the stars was to be tempted.

"Naked savages!" one captured Junior Master bawled, purple with embarrassment. "Disgusting exhibitionists!"

The prisoners were stripped of their clothing, to subsequently be allowed a generous measure of freedom to wander if they so wished. However, the newcomers generally had no urge to wander far, and most huddled to be as inconspicuous as they might, or tried to hide behind one another. Most were without natural dark pigmentation, and were thus highly visible as new stock in the community. Having female guards keeping a motherly eye on men, and supplying them with food and unwanted conversation, had most of the prisoners fervently praying for salvation.

"They'll get used to it, and once familiarized, they'll see how ridiculous and unnecessary their imposed restrictions are."

"They're regular frightened rabbits," Broklin said. "They're so timid. I bet they even bathe in the dark at home."

"They'll get over it," Mallino was sure. "It's like shock-therapy, and they'll never be the same again. Once they get over it, have the rubbish and nonsense swept from their minds, they'll wake up, you'll see, and they won't want to go back to their old ways."

"Perhaps - if they recover."

"Yes," Mallino mused. "It's luckier for them to fall into our hands than for us to fall into theirs, I fancy. Brok, are you sure that the patrol that went out yesterday knew we were shifting our base camp here?"

"You may suit yourselves," Galvin Khodpease said grimly. "If you wish to discard your attire, then, of course, you may. On the other hand you may wish to don more, and for this, as you can see, you have a plentiful supply."

The mixed dozen of the enemy who had fallen into his hands hugged their overcoats to them and tried to look aloftly dignified, although already shivering and desiring to take advantage of the offer.

"The temperature doesn't often go below freezing, I understand, but is bracingly crisp all the year around. This part of the continent is quite hospitable, really, and with the tools and supplies we have left you, you should be able to look after yourselves quite nicely. You will have to work, of course, but we hope to be able to drop your friends nearby from time to time to give you a hand.

"For those of you who might wish to improve yourselves, this carton contains copies of our Good Book, plus all the powerfully ennobling literature that any man may require ..."

The Junior Master's flushed face registered horror. "She got away, Provost," he panted. "She was all oily and I couldn't keep a grip on her." ._

"No, I couldn't hold onto the one I had, either. Vile animals, they're literally slippery." The Provost's nostrils flared. "And yours ... did you say it was a female?"

"Yes, Provost, I ... I ... It was awful..."

aaThe brazen hussies," the Provost fumed, "depraved scarlet women!" He quivered to rising rage. "They are an abomination, a pestilence and a scourge upon us, the very embodiment of satanic malignity, attacking in strength, an unprecedented strength from fear, the fortress of righteousness that we would build in this place."

The Provost snorted. "Go wash the vile taint from yourself, my son, and then go and pray that your mind be cleansed also, and that our filthy enemy, our unspeakable enemy, may be delivered up unto us ..."

Her version was different; she was ruffled. "He stuck his hands all over me, and I had a job to get away. He was like a starving, man, and the way he clawed at me was" terrible, totally uncontrolled. I just panicked, it was so grotesque."

"It's repression," Mallino opined. "They're indoctrinated with unnatural inhibitions, and so they naturally behave unnaturally and blow their fuses, where a more widely tolerant and rational person would be much more calm and resilient ..."

"Technology unbridled, as we are only too well aware from our previous history, is to be deplored." The Humble Rector these days was a man under duress. "It had been my earnest hope and expectation that we would be free here to opt for only what usefully necessary equipment could be harmonized to simple living. But it seems we may be called upon to recollect skills we could wish to have forgotten in order to create means to subdue and eradicate these unconscionable outlaws."

"Their taunting of our punitive expeditions is nothing short of scandalous," Master Goodchap complained. "Their effect upon the morale of our younger members is not happy, Humble Rector, sir, not a happy one at all. They are being exposed to the most undesirable of circumstances, and the stress being placed upon them is most unfair."

"They should be able to withstand this test of their fortitude," Galvin said. "However, it is my mind that they should be given aid, what technological aid we may recall and temporarily concoct to assist them terminate the vicious impertinence of these invaders ..."

"There's no hope for it," Mallino said, "we've got to expand our manufacturing and processing facilities." He gestured to the sky in exasperation. "We just want to be left alone to mind our own business, but will they let us alone? No. They have to travel over half a continent just to chivvy us about."

"It seems one hell of a shame that they should be pushing us into becoming an industrial society," the auburn-haired woman said. "I thought, in coming here, that assembly lines and automation-cranking would be minimum features merely to remind us of the scrambling past I thought we'd left behind."

"I know, I know how you feel, but what are we to do? Play hidey-go-seek forever? They need discouraging, and very sincerely. We can play games for a while, but then it starts to get tiresome. All I want is peace, but I'm getting heartily sick of this hunted feeling."

"There ought to be a law against it," the auburn-haired woman said. "Illegal harassment, it's not right, it's obviously not right."

Mallino wiped his face with his hands. "I know that - but how do we get through to Oliver Cromwell out there? We'll call the police, huh? How long will it take to get a message through and get them here? Three hundred sixty-two years? Oy." Mallino's eyes took an extreme diagonal, up. "And there's no saying they'd be on our side when they arrived - you know how they were when we left."

She was pensive. "It just doesn't seem right. Somebody should do something to clobber those jokers."

He sighed regretfully, "If we want these vault-packed blue-noses booted up the bum, we'll have to do it ourselves. It's a blasted nuisance, if you ask me, and my patience is just about exhausted ..."

On Earth it became generally conceded that a star needed planets to maintain its equilibrium. This postulated possible worlds in a quantity too enormous to grasp, and a mind was awed by the vision of the Elysian fields that might await the random visitor from the sky.

What had been an extravagant expense became much reduced in essentials. Space was found to be brought within the range of syndicates, and organizations, and sometimes subsidy from a government relieved to give heroes a glorious dispatch down the one-way avenue provided. First one party, and then another, came forward to volunteer, to propose, to find high authority to cooperate, to sponsor a venture to venues more than a lifetime away.

And, of course, if one government could take such action to favor and promote, then so might another not wish to appear uncharitable to a comparatively low-cost gamble that might, by virtue of bloodlines, place Portugal in an advantageous position at some date long in the future.

From a crowded Earth the exporting of such vanguard had blessing in serving many interests of defiance, boldness, glamour, and in that many cheered to depart in their cluster tanks were dreamers, idealists, and frustrated elements unable to find compatibility in the disorder of extant imperfect Earth systems.

And so the space lifeboat/shuttle became modified, and in their uncomplication put prior elaborate and ambitious concepts of space-voyaging to shame. They may have been described as coffins to convey the living dead, but Drake would have been proud.

"Now the cornered rats begin to show their true temper," Galvin Khodpease deduced aloud. "They would stoop to using arrows against us, to wound, and even to perhaps kill in an effort to deter us from lawfully claiming our own land. It seems that there are no depths to which they will not sink. Of all humanity, why should we have been afflicted with so coarse a breed as these?"

"It is, mayhap, God's will, Humble Rector," Master Oldard said. "The steadfastness of our faith is put on trial, with our suffering to reveal the quality of our mercy."

Galvin breathed deep and frowned. "We will show clemency and deal more than justly with these naked vagabonds, more justly than they deserve. As unrewarding as it may be, we must endeavor to teach them humility and modesty. Possibly one or two may be found to be not beyond rescue and the discovery of Grace." Galvin did not sound optimistic.

"They can ask no more than to be given a fair chance," Oldard admitted piously. "You do well, Humble Rector, sir, to remember the poverty of spirit they must needs know to be as they are. A person with lesser consciousness of responsibility would howl for death's blood."

"You know not what torment I go through, Master Oldard, to curb the militaristic style that would seem to be being thrust upon us, so very much against our ardent desire. This flaunting outrage would goad us to distraction. They would in their flagrance remove freedom from us, by forcing us to blind ourselves, to shelter and protect ourselves from their obscenity."

Galvin clasped his hands. "I pray to God to give me strength to withstand and control the terrible wrath they arouse within me. They are vandals, despoilers of an Eden that was provided for us ..."

"Basically, what's their blubber?" Mallino asked. "I'll tell you," he answered, "we're in Eden and they're not. It's right here, but it's something the clot-heads pray to get after they're dead. For some cockeyed reason they can't accept it now. They're insane."

"At least they're keeping us fit," Broklin said. "Being kept on our toes has got us into good shape."

"Oh-ah - and what of those who couldn't run fast enough?" Mallino inquired. "Has there been any word about them? What did we get from our latest prize?"

"He confirms that they're not stringing us up. According to Marie, they've transported Goldie and Mick and some of the others to strand them some place on the Third Continent, like they've been telling us, to start a new life."

Mailing shook his head. "Screw - balls. It denies comprehension, it really does. We've still had no luck tracking their flier?"

"Gangi should have his pickup tracer perfected shortly. With luck we should be able to follow their next night flights when they make them."

"I wish we could afford the scouts to make a full-scale search." Mallino said. "How's the puncher situation progressing? If we could keep them grounded for a while, maybe we could get some place."

"These things can't be rushed, Chief. The teams are doing as best they can - but we sure could use some of Mick's electronics know-how, though ..."

"Exchange of prisoners?" Galvin cried, aghast "They'd like us to free those we've caught?"

"In return for an equal number of ours, Humble Rector," Master Goodchap advised.

"Oh, yes? No! We're not doing any deals with those devils. It would be utterly senseless to start such a cycle. It would never end, Master Goodchap. Once begun, that sort of thing could go on and on, replenishing itself at the intervals the collections became large enough."

"But, sir, we must think of our own, what they must be going through at the hands of these ... these ... in constant ... Humble Rector, it doesn't bear thinking about. The younger ones particularly could become permanently, irrevocably scarred."

"They know, do they not, the cause that they fight? Do you think the faith of our members is so weak that they will succumb to such pitiful onslaught?"

Master Goodchap made no reply, so giving Galvin pause to reconsider the matter.

Then Galvin smote his palm. "Damn these filthy swine and the wretched habits they forcefully impose. Such disgusting behavior is a crime, a loathsome offense before the eyes of God and man. There can be no forgiveness for the deliberate corruption of the innocent, especially the young."

"No, Humble Rector." Galvin faced his dilemma. He pressed his palms together, scowling. "Our artifacts, our countermeasures and hunting instruments - there is continuing advancement in their fashioning?"

"As well as can be expected, Humble Rector, sir. We should be able to conduct some field tests on schedule."

Galvin wrenched his hands apart. "Damn it! Very well then," he snarled, "For this once we may engage them in mutual repatriation. But let us see to it that soon thereafter the superiority of our devised equipment will enable us to arrest them in crippling numbers ..."

"I can understand three of theirs wanting to defect to us, but I can't for the life of me see why two of ours should wish to defect to them," Mallino said. "I just don't believe it. They must have used some powerful coercion."

"No," Mick assured him, "they just wanted to. They asked to stay."

"But why? What for?"

Mick shrugged. "I don't know. I suppose there's something about an indestructibly rigid format that duffs for security. Some people are kinky enough to find it attractive."

"I'm glad you weren't one, we want you back here. Hm-m-m. Well it's nice to know that the swaps freedom would seem to have a fifty percent edge in preference."

"My preference was for climate," Mike said. "I'd have taken any place that was warm after that hellish chill, even if it meant going around in a Mother Hubbard."

"Don't say that! That's the kind of talk that leads straight to capitulation. Take one backward step, make an excuse to relinquish one vital liberty, and the consequence is descent into shallowness, pettiness, false values and hypocrisy. Never forget that. It is a crucial condition of our happiness."

"Yes," Mick said placatingly, "sure, Chief, sure ..."

"They've done what? Shot down one of our fliers? Shot down? Great heavens ..."

"It was an ambush, and suddenly the place was full of this sticky, string-like stuff, and then with clouds of this downy confetti going off everywhere. I was on the fringe and managed to break away, but the others ..."

"That's right, sir, they found Camp Three, it seems, and they've managed to lift off over half of the prisoners we had there ..."

"Keep your fire low, fellows, if you possibly can. If they no runnee, they no catchee ..."

"Pay particular attention always to the wind direction, and lob the canisters accordingly. Whatever you do, don't remove your masks until the last captive has been strapped into a blanket, and only then after one of you has made tests to make quite sure that dispersal ..."

"There we are, one hundred thousand assorted leaflet flims to supplement their meager literary diet. If the words don't get them, then the pictures will. It's a pity they're still restricting radio to their military business ..."

Things were warming nicely, the forces of Good ranging against the forces of Evil in a manner most convenient to whichever side a protagonist happened to belong.

But the picture was not yet complete, and there was still something missing. This part, to remedy such absence that might be felt, was providentially shortly supplied. And before long the warring factions gleaned news and information and made discovery that another was nigh upon them, to make three a crowd.

"Wouldn't you know it?" Mallino threw up his hands. "All right, so the hossanah hooters have been a damned pest, but they've only been chasing us with bloomers. That's it, in essence. But this new lot, they're a different bundle of crud peddlers altogether.

"Oh my word," his head sank as he put his fists up by his ears, "why here? There must be millions of other places. We were promised that we could found our own society here, monsters permitting, and with the odds against seeing any other humans for a millennia being so remote as to be not worth considering. So how come we not only have Holy Harry and his boys, as if that's not enough, but now plopping in like they have reserved seats, this mob putting up its big-top on the Second Continent?"

"I've been thinking about that," Broklin said. "It could be the longdistance navigational selector being too good in picking out the best sun to compare with the one at home. It could tend to shorten the odds over a certain launching arc."

"Oh great, dandy." Mallino flapped a hand. "So what do we do now? They'll gang up on us for sure ..."

But the Humble Rector Calvin Khodpease and his Merry Men were not of the least mind to woo the latest arrivals for an ally. To the contrary, these well-meaning fellows burdened with good intentions were most discommoded to learn the nature of the latest uninvited tenants to their world.

"This is insufferable. They must be programming them to this spot on purpose. It's ... It's criminal thoughtlessness, criminal carelessness, criminal negligence." Galvin agitatedly paced. "It's too much, it's not fair. We were most explicitly assured before departure that we alone would pioneer our new world, freely as circumstances permitted, to build unhindered a global community in common bond of brotherhood and understanding."

Galvin flung out a handful of spread fingers. "Now this. I cannot condone the willful defiance of the unclothed shortsighted - but they are as children, ultimately, certainly, to be taught their lesson, and possibly to be assimilated and properly educated. But these new people, they bring a godless negation and a proven belligerence towards any who would differ from them. They will probably dupe the foolish nature-lovers by offering to join them against us. Their type are masters at such a deceitful ploy ..."

There was uneasy recognition of a need to conserve resource and share talent. There was much girding of loins, a temporary truce between the two original contestants, and an unlikely but jointly agreed approach to the newest visitors, to bluntly request them to clear off. The world had already been claimed, and these fresh fellows were cordially invited to betake themselves elsewhere, to as fine unoccupied and unclaimed real estate that beyond question awaited the explorer in the bountiful heavens. There was plenty, and the choice surely infinite, and there was no need for these emigrants to remain, to stay, plainly, regrettably, unavoidably only to cause friction with the established owners.

"We," the older residents declaimed stoutly, "were here first!"

The new group responded not with deference or apology, but with an aggravating unhurry that telegraphed their intended fixity. Their reply, when it came, was couched in sugary terms of professed friendship, but giving no hint at all that re-embarkation was imminent, or even being contemplated.

"Comrades, to you we extend our warmest greetings and we endorse your wishes for peaceful coexistence, that we may enjoy this glorious world with you and live together in lasting goodwill.

"We shall respect your joint possession of your continent, as we are sure you will respect our possession of ours. Later we hope to peacefully discuss the division of the Great Northern Land, to where you seem already to have removed certain dissidents in your communities. It would be wise, we think, to have more positive control over the productive capacity of these outcasts.

"There is, we have learned, an unfortunate difference of opinion between your two regimes. Here we would be prepared to offer our services as mediator, for we are very distressed that there should be such bitterness in so broad and fruitful a land. At the same time we must stress that we cannot stand idly by while imperialistic soldiers wantonly attempt to crush the free expression of our worker-nudist comrades. We may trust that we may achieve an agreeable understanding between the combatants, and that we shall not be forced to intervene and to supply troops as a deterrent to avaricious aggressors.

"At the outset let it be clearly known that we will not tolerate warmongering, nor will we see an underdeveloped people exploited. Chairman Zole warns that we are not unprepared to retaliate should there be any undeclared act of war against us, and any would-be enemy of The Peoples Republic of New Albania is hereby urged to redefine and purify their ambitions ..."

"Underdeveloped worker-nudists?" Mallio exploded. "What's he talking about? Our least citizen has got more brains than Old King Zole."

And to the north some ways Humble Recter Galvin Khodpease was of somewhat like mind. "That does it. Upstarts. The nerve of those people. One way or another, separately or in bulk, these we have to get rid of. The whole Second Continent indeed! And kindly giving us permission to retain a little corner all to ourselves! The nerve! Division of the Northland! Why ..."

The effrontery rendered him speechless.

On the new world there was now plenty to do. There was contention, argument and dispute, alliances of expedience, plot, intrigue, counterplot, physical clashes, verbal battles, fierce technological competition in the juggling and management of the resource /capability/priority juxtapositions. There were rude words, denunciations, propaganda blastings - in short there was action, spur to keen alertness, and more than enough at stake to occupy a mind to staunch purpose.

It had become a live world. The Program Moderator could chalk another victory to his score. He had created another Utopia.