Shadows of Empire (by Lester del Rey)

We slipped out of the post while Mars’s sky was still harsh and black, and the morning was bitter with cold. Under us was the swish of the treads slapping the worn old sands, and from the lorries came the muttered grumbling of the men, still nursing their hangovers. The post was lost in the grayness behind us, and the town was just beginning to stir with life as we left it. But it was better that way; the Fifth had its orders back to Earth after ten generations outside, and the General wanted no civilian fuss over our going.

It had been enough, just hearing the click at the gate, and seeing the few pinch-faced, scared people along the streets as we passed. Most of us had been there well over ten years, and you can’t keep men segregated from the townspeople in the outposts. Well, they’d had their leave the night before, and now we were on our way; the less time spent thinking about going, the less chance for thoughts of desertion to ripen.

At that, two of the men had sneaked off into the wastelands with a sandtractor and lorry. I’d have liked to find them; after twenty years with the Service, things like that get under your skin. But we couldn’t wait for a week hunting them, when the Emperor had his seal on our orders.

Now a twist in the road showed the town in the dim dawn-light, with the mayor running up tardily and tripping over a scrap of a flag. And old Jake, the tavern-keeper, still stood among the empty boxes from which he’d tossed cartons of cigarettes to us as we went by. Lord knows how much we still owed him, but he’d been Service once himself, and I don’t think that was on his mind. Yeah, it was a good town, and we’d never forget it; but I was glad when the road twisted back and the rolling dunes cut it off from view. I’m just plain people myself, not one of your steel-and-ice nobility like the General.

And that was why I was still only a Sergeant Major, even though I had to take second command nowadays. In the old times, of course, they’d have sent out young nobles to take over, with proper titles, but I guess they liked it better back on Earth now. For that matter, we’d had few enough replacements in my time, except those we’d recruited ourselves from the town and country around. But what the hellwe managed. The Fifth lacked a few men and some fancy brass, but I never heard a marauding Torrakh laugh over it, even after bad fuel grounded our last helicopter.

Now the little red sun came up to a point where we could turn the heaters off our aspirators. We were passing through a pleasant enough country, little farms and canal-berry orchards. The farm folk must haye figured we were out on a raid again, because they only waved at us and went on with their work; the thick-wooled sheep went on bleating at themselves with no interest in us. Behind me, someone struck up a halfhearted marching song on an old lectrozith, and the men picked it up.

That was better. I sighed to myself, found one of my legs had gone to sleep, and nursed the prickles out of it while the miles slipped behind, and the hamlets and farms began to thin out. In a little while we were reaching the outskirts of the northern desert, and the caterpillar tracks settled down to a steady sifting slap that’s music to a man’s ears. We ate lunch out of our packs while the red dunes rolled on endlessly in front of us.

It was a couple hours later when the General’s tractor dropped abreast of me and his so-called adjutant vaulted to my seat, his usually saturnine face pinched into a wry grin. Then the radio buzzed and he lifted it to my ear with a finger across his lips.

The General’s precise voice clipped out. “Close up ranks, Sergeant; we’ve spotted a band of Torrakhi moving in the direction of the town. Probably heard we’re leaving, and they’re already moving up; but they’d be happy to stop for a straggler, so keep together.”

“Right, sir,” I answered out of habit, and added the words on the slip of paper Stanislaus was shaking under my nose. “But couldn’t we take a swipe at them first?”

“No time. This looks like the rear guard, and the main body is probably already unfiltering through the wastelands. The town will have to shift for itself.”

“Right, sir,” I said again, and the radio clicked off, while the Slav went on grinning to himself. There wasn’t a Torrakh within miles, and I knew it, but the General usually knew what he was doing; I wasn’t so dumb I couldn’t guess at it.

Stanislaus stretched his lank frame on the seat and nodded slowly. “Yeah, he’s crazy, toowhich is why he’s a good General, Major. A few like him in higher places, and we’d be on Mars for another generation or so. Though it wouldn’t make much difference in the long run … Vanitas vanitatis! There is no remembrance of former generations; neither shall there be any remembrance of the latter generations that are to come, among those that shall come after! … That’s Ecclesiastes, and worth more than the whole Book of Revelation.”

“Or a dozen gloomy Slavs! There was talk of replacing the Fifth back when I was still a buck private. You should be a preacher.”

“And in a way, I was, MajorZest evil days come and the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. But a prophet’s without honor; and as you say, I’m a gloomy Slav, even though they usually send replacements before they withdraw the Service. Well, lay on, MacDuff, for the greater glory of the Empire!”

I wasn’t going to admit he had me, but I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I shut up. The gloom-birds were probably around before that stuff was written, but civilization was still going on, though there were rumors about things back on Earth. But somehow, he always managed to make me start smelling old attics piled high with rubbish and beginning to mold. I turned and looked sideways, just as the first outskirts of an old canal swung into view.

They still call them canals, at least, though even the old-time astronomers knew they weren’t, before Mars was ever reached. But they must have been quite something, ten or fifteen thousand years ago, when the V’nothi built the big earthenware pipelines thousands of miles across the planet to section it and break up the sand-shifts that were ruining it. The big osmotic pumps were still working after a fashion, and there was a trickle of moisture flowing even yet, leaking out into the bleeder lines and keeping the degenerate scrub trees going in fifty-mile swaths around them.

The V’nothi had disappeared before the Pyramids were put up, leaving only pictures of themselves in the ruins, looking like big, good-natured Vikings, complete to brawn and winged helmets. Their women folk must have been really something, even with fur all over them. Archaeologists were still swearing every time they looked at those pictures and wondered what men on horseback were doing on Mars, and why no bones had ever been found! Some of them were even guessing that the V’nothi were Earthmen, maybe from an early peak of civilization we remembered in the Atlantis myths. But even if they were, there was a lot about them to drive a man nuts without

worrying about their origins. If you ask me, they were just plain domesticated animals for some other race. Still, whoever the real boss was, it must have been quite a world in their time.

Even the canal-trees weren’t natural; no other plants on Mars had bellows growing out of them to supercharge themselves with air, ozone, and traces of watervapor. Even over the drone of the tractor motors, I could hear the dull mutter of their breathing. And at sundown, when they all got together in one long, wild groan … well, when I first heard that, I began to have dreams about what the master race was, though I’m not exactly imaginative. Now I’m older, and just don’t knownor much care.

But the air was drier and thinner here, where they desiccated it, and Stanislaus was breathing it with a sort of moral rectitude about him, and nodding as if he liked it. “Dust of Babylon, eh, Major? They went up a long way once, farther in some ways than we’ve climbed yet. In a thousand years or less they pulled themselves up to our sciences, dropped them, and began working on what we’d call sheer magic. Sometimes, just thinking of what the records hint at scares me. They built themselves up to heaven, before the curse of bigness struck them down; and being extremists, it wasn’t just a retreat, but a final rout.”

“Meaning we’re due for the same, ‘Laus?” I always did like the way he pronounced his name, to rhyme with house.

“No, Major; we’re not the samewe retreat. Nineveh, Troy, Romethey’ve gone, but the periphery always stays to hibernate and come out into another springtime. An empire decays, but it takes a long time dying, and so far there’s always been a certain amount passed on to the next surge of youthfulness. We’ve developed a racial phoenix complex. But of course you don’t believe the grumblings of a gloomy Slav who’s just bitter that his old empire is one of the later dust heaps?”

“No,” I told him. “I don’t.”

He got up, knocking ashes off his parka with long, flickering fingers, and his voice held an irritating chuckle. “Stout fella, pride of the Empire, and all that! I congratulate you, Major, and dammit, I envy you.” And he was over the treads and running toward where the General’s tractor had stopped, like a long-drawn-out cat. If he hadn’t had the grace of a devil, his tongue would have gotten him spitted on a rapier years before.

I didn’t dwell on even such pleasant thoughts. The men had stopped singing, and the first reaction of forced cheer was over. They

were good joes, all in all, but after the long years at the post among the townspeople, they couldn’t help being human. So I dropped back to the end of the line and kept my eyes peeled for any that might suddenly decide to develop engine trouble and lag behind. It’s always the first day and night that are the hardest.

Their grumbling sounded normal enough when we pulled off the trail away from the tree-mutterings, well after sundown, and I felt better; it’s when they stop grousing that you have to watch them. All the same, I made them dig in a lot deeper than we needed, though it gets cold enough to freeze a man solid at night. They were sweating and stepping up the power in their aspirators before I was satisfied, and the berylite tent tops barely stuck up over the sand.

That would give them something trivial to beef about, and work their muscles down to good condition for sleeping. A good meal and a double ration of grog would finish the trick nicely, and I’d already given orders for thatwhich left me nothing to do but go in where Stanislaus was sprawled out on a cot, dabbling with his food and nodding in time to the tent aspirator’s variations.

“Nice gadget, thatefficient,” he commented, and the pinched grin was on his face. “Of course, the air’s thick enough to breathe when a man’s not working, but it’s still a nice thing to have.”

I knew what he meant, of course. The old-timers had done a lot of foolish things, like baking out enough oxygen to keep the air pressure up almost to Earth normal. But it wasn’t economical, and we were modern enough to get along without such nonsense. While I ate, I told him so, along with some good advice about how to get on well with Emperors. Besides, it was a damn-sight better aspirator than they’d had in the pioneer days.

I might as well have saved my breath. He waited until I ran down, and nodded amiably. “Absolutely, absolutely. And very well put, Major. As the Romans said when Theodoric’s Goths gave them orders, we’re modern and up-to-date. Being of the present time, we’re automatically modern. As for the Emperor, I wouldn’t think of blaming him for what’s inevitable, though I’d like a chance to argue the point with him, if I didn’t have a certain fondness for my neck. Meantime, Mars rebuilds the seals in its houses and puts in little wind machines. And behold, all was vanity and a striving after vrindl You really should read Ecclesiastes. Well, sleep tight, Major!”

He ducked under a blanket and was snoring in less than five minutes. I never could sleep well under a tin tent with a man who snores; and it was worse this time, somehow, though I finally did drop off.

We were dug out and ready to march in the morning when the General’s scheme bore fruit; our deserters showed up over the dunes, hot-footing it down on us. They must have spotted my tractor, because they didn’t waste any time in coming up to me. The damned fools! Naturally, they had to bring the two women along with them, instead of dumping them near town. They must have been stinko drunk when they started, though the all-night drive had sobered them upthe drive plus half freezing to death and imagining Torrakhi behind every bush.

I’d never seen those two brig-birds salute with quite such gusto, though, as they hopped down, and Stanislaus’ amused snort echoed my sentiments. But the big guy started the ball rolling, with only a dirty look at the Slav. “Sir, we couldn’t help being AWOL, we …”

“Were caught by Torrakhi, of course,” the General’s smooth voice filled in behind me, and I stepped out of the picture on the double. “Very clever of you to escape, tractors and all! Unfortunately, there were no Torrakhi; the message your receiver was designed to unscramble was a trap, based on the assumption that you’d rather take your chances with us than with a marauding band of nomads infiltering around you. I suppose I could have you shot; and if I hear one sniveling word from you, I will. Or I could take you back to Earth in chains.”

His lips pressed out into a thin, white line, and his eyes flicked over to Stanislaus for a bare second. “You wouldn’t like that. There’s a new Emperor, not the soft one we had before. I served under him once … and I rather suspect he’d reward me for bringing you back with us, after the proper modern Imperial fashion of gratitude. However, for the good of the Fifth, you’re already listed as fatalities. Sergeant, do you know these women?”

“Their names are on our books, sir.”

“Quite so. And they knew what they were mixed up in. Very well, leave them their side arms, but fill the tractor and lorry they returned with some of your men, and prepare to break camp. You’ve already forgotten all this; and that goes for the men, as well!” He swung on his heel and mounted his tractor without another look at the deserters, who were just beginning to realize what he’d meant.

Stanislaus elected to ride with me as we swung back toward the canal road, watching the four until the dunes swallowed them. Then he shrugged and lit his cigarette. “Not orthodox, Major, but effective; you can stop worrying about desertions. And take it from me, it was the right thing to do; I happen to knowrather well, in

factwhy our precise and correct leader thought it wise to fake the books. But I won’t bore you with it. As to those fourwell, some of the pioneers were up against worse odds, but de mortuis nil nisi bonum. Nice morning, don’t you think?”

It was, as a matter of fact, and we were making good time. The trail swung out, heading due south now, and away from the canal, and the sands were no longer cluttered with the queer pits always found around the canal-trees. By noon, we’d put a hundred more miles behind us, and the men were hardening into the swing of things, though they still weren’t doing the singing I like to hear on the marchthe good, clean filth that’s somehow the backbone of Service morale. I sent a couple of tractors out to scout, just to break the monotony, though there wouldn’t be anything to see so near the end of the desert.

Surprisingly, however, they hadn’t been gone ten minutes when the report came back: Torrakhi to the left flank! A moment later, we were snapping into a tight phalanx and hitting up a rise where we could see; but by then we knew that there was no danger. They were just a small band, half a mile away, jolting along on their llama-mounts at an easy lope. Then they spotted us and beat back behind the dunes and out of sight. A small marauding band, turning back north from sacking some fool outlier’s farm, probably.

But it was unusual to see them so far south. We’d never been able to eliminate them entirely, any more than the V’nothi before us had, but we’d kept the wild quasi-human barbarians in line, pretty much. And now we were swinging back to the trail again, leaving them unchecked to grow bold in raiding; there wasn’t anything else we could do, since they hadn’t attacked and we were under Imperial seal. Well, maybe the Second Command would get them for us sometime. I hoped so.

Stanislaus might say what he would, but he was still Service, and it had hit him, too. “Notice the long rifle they pulled? What make would you say?”

“Renegade pirates on Callisto, it looked like, at a guess. But the exiles couldn’t get past the Out Fleet to trade with Torrakhi!”

He flipped his cigarette away and turned to face me, dead serious and quiet about it. “The Out Fleet’s just a propaganda myth, Major! They pulled it back before Iuh, left Earth.”

He couldn’t know that, and I had no business believing him; yet somehow, I was sure he did know, and whatever else he was, he was not a liar. But that would mean that the Earth-Mars trade…

“Exactly,” he said, as if he’d read the thought. “And now we’re going back to help put down a minor little uprising in the Empire, so I hear. Write your own ticket!”

But even if it were true, it didn’t prove anything. Sure, it looked bad, but I’ve learned you can’t judge from half-knowledge. A lot of times when I’ve gone out swearing at the orders, I’ve come back alive because they weren’t the kind I’d have given. Heck, even if the mesotron rifle was Callistan, there was no telling how old it was; maybe they’d pulled the Out Fleet back for the sound reason that it wasn’t needed. But it did look odd, their keeping up the pretense.

We camped that night at an old abandoned fort dating back to pioneer days, and then shoved on in the morning through little hamlets and the beginning of settled land. The people looked fairly hard and efficient, but it was pleasant, after the desert, and the men seemed more cheerful. Here the road was kept surfaced and the engines went all out. A little later, we took the grousers off, and by the time another night had passed, we were in well-settled country. From then on, it was all soft going and the miles dropped away as regular as clockwork, though I missed the swish of the sand under the treads.

As we went on, the land and the people got softer, with that comfortable look I’d missed up where Torrakhi are more than things to scare children with. And the farms were bigger and better kept. For that matter, I couldn’t see a man working with a rifle beside him. The Service had done that. When we first hit Mars, in the pioneer days, there hadn’t been a spot on its face where a man could close both eyes. Now even the kids went running along the road alone. Oh, sure, there were some abandoned villas, here and there, but I don’t think the nobles were too much missed.

And that was civilization and progress, whatever Stanislaus thought about it. Let them pull the Out Fleet back and call in the Fifth. As long as Mars had spots on it like this, it didn’t look too bad for the Empire. I wanted to throw it in the Slav’s face, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. He’d have some kind of answer. Better let sleeping dogs lie.

And besides, he was riding with the General again, and even at night he was busy writing in some big book and not paying attention to anything else. In a way, it was all to the good. Still, I dunno. At least, when he was spouting out his dogma, I had a chance to figure up some kind of answer to myself. There wasn’t much I could do about the look on his face.

But I noticed that we always seemed to make camp about the time we were well away from the towns, and it was something to think over, along with the guff that had begun among the men. It looked as if the General meant to keep us away from any rumors going around among the ciss, and that was odd; ordinarily, civilian scuttlebutt means nothing to the Service.

And now that the novelty had worn off, there was something wrong about the number of farms we’d pass that were abandoned and that had been for a long time. There were little boarded-up stores in some of the villages, and once we went by a massive atomic by-products plant, dead and forgotten. And the softness on the people’s faces began to look less pretty; one good-sized band of Torrakhi could raise hob with a whole county, even without mesotron rifles from Callisto.

The one time I did speak to a native, I had no business doing it. We’d been rolling along, with me at the rear for the moment, and there was this fine-looking boy of about twelve walking along the road. What got me was the song he was singing and the way he came to a Service salute at the sight of us. Well, the General wasn’t in sight, and the kid took my slowing up as a hint to hop onto the lug rail.

“Fifth, isn’t it, sir?”

“Right. But where the deuce did you learn that ditty and the proper way to address a noncom?”

He grinned the way healthy kids know how, before they grow old enough to forget. “Gramps was in the Fifth when they raised the siege of Bharene, sir, and he told me all about it before he died. Gee, it must have been great when he was young!”

“And now?”

“Aw, now they say you’re going back to Earth, and Gramps wouldn’t have liked that. He was a Martian, like me… . Look, I live up there, so I gotta go. Thanks for the lift, Sergeant!”

So even the kids knew we were going back, and now we were just another Service Command, instead of the backbone of Mars. Strange, I hadn’t thought of what it would mean, going back where people had never heard of us before. But I could see where the General was right in not letting us mix with people here. Dammit, we were still the Fifth, and nothing could change that, Mars or Earth, Emperor or Torrakhi!

We didn’t spend too much time looking at the country after that, though it grew even prettier as we went on. The tractors were beginning to carbon up under the fuel we had to requisition, and we were

busy nursing them along and watching for trouble. At the post, we’d had our own purifying plant to get the gum out of the vegetable fuels, but here we had to take potluck. And it was a lot worse than I’d expected. But then, a man tends to gloss over his childhood and think things were better then. I dunno. Maybe it had always been that bad.

Anyhow, we made it, in spite of a few breakdowns. It was dusk when the lights of Marsport showed up, and we went limping through the outskirts. When we hit the main drag, a motorcop ran ahead of us with his siren open, though there wasn’t any need. I couldn’t help wondering where the cars were, and how they managed to dig up so many bicycles. We must have looked like the devil, since we’d pushed too fast to bother much with shining up, but there were some cheers from the crowds that assembled, and a few women’s faces with the look of not having seen uniforms in years. The men woke up at that, yelling the usual things, but I could feel their disappointment in the city.

Then we halted, and Stanislaus came back, while a fat and stuffy little man in noble’s regalia strode up to the General’s tractor, fairly sniffing the dirt on our gear as he came. Well, he could have used a better shave himself, and a little less hootch would have improved his dignity. The Slav chuckled. “Methinks this should be good, unless the O.M. has lost his touch. Flip the switch, Major; I left the radio turned on.”

But no sound came out of it except a surprised grunt from the fat official as he looked at the odd-patterned ring on the General’s finger. I never knew what it stood for, but all the air went out of the big shot’s sails, and he couldn’t hand over the official message fast enough after that. He was mopping sweat from his face when the crowd swallowed him. I’ve seen a bust corporal act that way when he suddenly remembered he was pulling rank he no longer had.

“Don’t bother cutting off yet, Sergeant,” the radio said quietly, and it was my turn to grin. Stanislaus should have known better than to try putting anything over on the General. “Ummm, I’m going to be tied up with official business at the Governor’s, so you’ll have to go ahead. Know where the auxiliary port is? Good. Bivouac there, and put the men to policing themselves and the hangars. No passes. That’s all.”

He moved to a waiting car, leaving the tractor to his driver, and we went on again, out through the outskirts and past the main spaceport; that was dark, and I couldn’t tell much about it, but I remembered the mess of the old auxiliary field. They’d built it thirty miles

out in barren land to handle the overflow during the old colonizing period, and it had been deserted and weed-grown for years, with hangars falling apart. It was worse than I’d remembered, though there were some lights on and a group of Blue Guards to let us in and direct us to the left side of the field.

Some clearing had been done, but there was work enough to keep us all busy as beavers, and there would be for days, if we stayed that long. At least it gave me a good excuse for announcing confinement to grounds, though they took it easier than I’d expected. It seemed they already knew in some way. And at last I was finished with giving orders and had a chance to join the Slav in inspecting the ships I’d already noticed down at the end of the field.

I’d seen the like of the double-turret cruiser before, but the two big ones were different, even in the dim lights of the field. They were something out of the history books, and no book could give any idea of their size. The rocket crews about them, busy with their own affairs, were like ants running around a skyscraper by comparison. Either could have held the whole Command and left room for cargo besides.

“So we’re waiting for the Second Command to go back with us, ‘Laus?”

He jerked his head back from a reverent inspection of the big hulks and nodded at me slowly. “You improve, Major, though you forgot to comment on the need of a cruiser between Mars and Earth… . Two hundred years! And those ships are still sounder than the hunk of junk sent out to protect them. There was a time when men knew how to build shipsand how to use them. Now there are only four left out of all that were built. Any idea where the other two are?”

“Yeah.” I’d failed to recognize them because of their size, but it hadn’t been quite dark enough to conceal them completely. “Back at the other port we passed, picking up the South Commands. Dammit, ‘Laus, did you have to infect me with your pessimism?”

“You’re going back to Earth, Major,” he answered, as if that were explanation enough. “The optimist sees the doughnut, the pessimist the hole; but you get a better view of things through a hole than through a hunk of sweetened dough. And, as Havelock Ellis put it, the place where optimism most flourished was the lunatic asylum. Come on back and I’ll lend you Ecclesiastes while I finish my book.”

And I was just dumb enough to read it. But I might have had the same nightmare anyway. I’d gotten a good look at the faces of the rocket gang.

In the morning, I was too busy bossing the stowing of our gear to do much thinking, though. Even with maps of the corridors, I’d have been lost in the ship without the help of one of the pilots, a bitter-faced young man who seemed glad to fill his time, but who refused to talk beyond the bare necessities. When the General came back at noon, the men were all quartered inside, except for those who were detailed to help load the collection of boxes that began to come out from Marsport.

He nodded curt approval and went to the radio in his cabin. And about an hour later, I looked up to see the Second Command come in and go straight to the second ship, a mile away. They could have saved themselves the trouble of avoiding us, as far as I was concerned. I had no desire to compare notes with them. But I guess it was better for the men, and it was a lot easier than posting guards overnight to see they didn’t mix. A hell of a way to run the Service, I thought; but of course it wasn’t the Service anymorejust the Second and Fifth Commands, soon to be spread around Earth!

It was after taps when they brought the civilians aboard, but I was still enjoying the freedom of second in command, and I was close enough to get a good look at them and the collection of special tools they were bringing along with the rest of their luggage. I’d always figured the technical crafts came out from automated Earth to the outlands where their skills were still needed. But that seemed to be just another sign that the old order was changing. I turned to make talk with the pilot who was beside me, and then thought better of it.

But for once, he was willing to break his silence, though he never took his eyes off the little group that was filing in. “They’re needed, Sergeant! Atomic technicians are in demand again, along with plutonium for the Earth reactorsor … I suppose you guessed that’s what the rear trucks are carrying, and they’ll be loading it between hulls tonightall that can be stowed safely. Of course, I’m not supposed to talkbut I was born here, and it’s not like the last job we had, ferrying back the Venus Commands. Care to join me in getting drunk?”

It was an idea. Plutonium is particularly valuable for bombs, for which it’s still the best material. And atom bombs are the messiest, lousiest, and most inefficient weapons any fighting man ever swore at. They’re only good for ruining the land until you can’t finish a decent mopping up, and poisoning the atmosphere until your own people begin dying. Not a single one had been dropped in the five centuries since we came up with the superior energy weapons. So

now we were carrying the stuff from Mars’s reactors back to Earth, where they already had the accumulated stuff from all their piles.

But I caught a signal from the car the General was using as I turned, and I changed my mind. I was in the mood for Stanislaus now, and whiskey’s a pretty poor mental cathartic, anyway. This time I could see that the information I poured out at him wasn’t something he already knew.

“So. Even so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.” He let it sink in slowly, then shrugged. “Well, maybe it’ll be faster that way. But it won’t matter to me. I’m due in Marsport to attend my funerala lovely casket, I understand, though it’s a pity we’re so pressed for time I can’t have military honors. Only the simple dignity of civilian rites. Thought you might like to bid me fond adieu, for old times’ sake.”

“Yeah, sure. And bring me back a bottle of the same.”

He shook his head gently, and the damned fool’s voice was serious. “I wish I could, Major. I’d like nothing better than having you along to listen to my theories on our racial phoenix complex. But I’ve done the next best thing in leaving the book that’s my labor of love in your cabin. All right, I was ribbing you, let’s say, and I’m being transferred out to the Governor’s service by special orders. Does that make sense to you?”

It did, put that way. It meant that after all the years of wishing he’d clam up, I was going to miss him plenty, now that I’d been converted, and I’d probably sit alone biting my tongue to keep from spouting the same brand of pessimism. But I wasn’t much good at saying it, and he cut me off in the middle.

“Then bite it off! That stuff won’t go, back there, though you’re better off for having found out in advance. Trust the General to see you through. He made a mistake once, but he’s wiser now. Forget Ecclesiastes and remember a jingle of Kipling’s instead: Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and mighty are they; but the head and the hoof of the Law, and the haunch and the hump is Obey! Betray rhymes as wellbut it takes a lot more background and practice. Now beat it, before I really start preaching.”

I didn’t need to hunt up the pilot; I had a bottle of Martian canal juice of my own in the cabin. But I’d consumed more of the book than the bottle when morning came and a knock sounded outside.

The General came in when I grunted, his face pinched with fatigue, and his eyes red with lack of sleep. He nodded at the book,

dropped onto my cot, and poured himself a generous slug before he looked up at me.

“A remarkable book, Bill, by a remarkable man. But you know that by now. Dynamite, of course, but something we’ll have to smuggle in to save for a possible posterity. And stop looking so damned surprised! Any man Stanislaus trusted with that book is my equal or better, as far as I’m concerned. After we land, I have ways of seeing you get knighthood and a Colonel’s rank, so you’re practically an officer, anyhow. And I’m not acting as either General or Dukejust a messenger boy for the late deceased Stanislaus Korzynski. He died of canal fever day before yesterday, you know.”

It was coming too thick and fast, and I didn’t answer that. I reached for the bottle and poured a shot down my throat without bothering with a glass. The General held out his glass, watched me fill it, and downed the shot before going on again. “Not much of a Serviceman, am I, Bill? But it has to be that way. Nobody knows the name he used, but there are plenty on Earth who remember his face. Or haven’t you figured out yet who he was from the book?”

“I’ve had my suspicions,” I admitted. “Only I dunno whether I’m crazy or he was.”

“Neither. You’re right, he’s the supposedly assassinated Prince Stellius Asiaticus, rightful ruler of the Empire! Here’s a note he sent you.”

There wasn’t much to it:

Friend Major-It was over the hill for me, after all. If you have children, as I intend to, pass on my new name to them, and someday our offspring may get together and discuss the phoenix bird.

Elmer C. Clesiastes

“The phoenix,” the General muttered over my shoulder while he reached for the bottle. “Now what the deuce did he mean by that?”

“What is it, anyway?”

“A legendary bird of Grecian mythologythe only one of its kind. It lived for a few hundred years, then built itself a funeral pyre and sat fanning the flames with its wings until it was consumed. After that, a new bird hatched out of the ashes and started all over again. That’s why they used it for the symbol of immortality.”

Below us, the rockets rumbled tentatively and then bellowed out, while the force of the jets crushed us back against the wall. Beyond

the porthole, Mars dropped away from us, as the Empire turned back to its nest. But I wasn’t thinking much of that, impressive though it was.

Somehow, I was going to have the children Stanislaus had mentioned, and I’d live long enough to see that they remembered the new name he’d chosen, atom bombs or no bombs. Because I knew him at last, and the pessimist was a prince, all rightthe Prince of Optimists.

The General and I sat toasting him and discussing the phoenix legend and civilization’s ups and downs while Mars changed from a world to a round ball in the background of space. It wasn’t military or proper, but we felt much better by the time we found and confiscated the second bottle.

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