No World of Their Own by Poul Anderson Read Free Book Online

course not. But—”
    Langley shrugged. He’d met this type before, back home. Some of them wrote books.
    He mumbled an excuse and got away. Blaustein joined him, and they fell into English. “Where’s Bob?” asked Langley.
    Blaustein gave a crooked grin. “Last I saw, he was heading off-stage with one of the female entertainers. Nice-looking little girl, too. Maybe he’s got the right idea.”
    â€œFor him,” said Langley.
    â€œI can’t. Not now, anyway.” Blaustein looked sick. “You know, I thought maybe, even if everything we knew is gone, the human race would finally have learned some sense. I was a pacifist—you know, intellectual pacifist—simply because I could see what a bloody, brainless farce it was, how nobody gained anything except a few smart boys.” Blaustein was a little drunk too. “And the solution is so easy! It stares you right in the face: a universal government with teeth. That’s all. No more war. No more men getting shot and resources plundered and little children burned alive. I thought maybe in five thousand years even this dim-witted race of ours would get that lesson hammered home. Remember, they’ve never had a war at all on Holat. Are we that much stupider?”
    â€œI should think an interstellar war would be kind of hard to fight,” said Langley. “Years of travel just to get there.”
    â€œUh-huh. Also, little economic incentive. If a planet can be colonized at all, it’s going to be self-sufficient. Those two reasons are why there hasn’t been a real war for a thousand years, since the colonies broke loose.”
    Blaustein leaned closer, weaving a trifle on his feet. “But there’s one shaping up now. We may very well see it. Rich mineral resources on the planets of Sirius, and the government there weak, and Sol and Centauri strong. Both of them want those planets. Neither can let the other have them; it’d be too advantageous. I was just talking to an officer, who put it in very nearly those words, besides adding something about the Centaurians being filthy barbarians.”
    â€œSo I’d still like to know how you fight across four-plus light-years,” said Langley.
    â€œYou send a king-size fleet, complete with freighters full of supplies. You meet the enemy fleet and whip it in space. Then you bombard the enemy planets from the sky. Did you know they can disintegrate any kind of matter completely now? Nine times ten to the twentieth ergs per gram. And there are things like synthetic virus and radioactive dust. You smash civilization on those planets, land, and do what you please. Simple. The only thing to be sure of is that the enemy fleet doesn’t beat you, because then your own home is lying wide open. Sol and Centauri have been intriguing, sparring, for decades now. As soon as one of them gets a clear advantage—wham! Fireworks.” Blaustein gulped his wine and reached for more.
    â€œOf course,” he said owlishly, “there’s always the chance that even if you beat the enemy, enough of his ships will escape to go to your home system and knock out the planetary defenses and bombard. Then you have two systems gone back to the caves. But when has that prospect ever stopped a politician? Or psychotechnical administrator, as I believe they call ’em now. Lemme alone. I want to get blotto.”
    Chanthavar found Langley a few minutes later and took him by the arm. “Come,” he said. “His Fidelity, the chief of the Technon Servants, wants to meet you. His Fidelity is a very important man … Excellent Sulon, may I present Captain Edward Langley?”
    He was a tall and thin old man in a plain blue robe and cowl. His lined face was intelligent, but there was something humorless and fanatical about his mouth. “This is interesting,” he said harshly. “I understand that you wandered far in space,