Second Game by Katherine Maclean Read Free Book Online Page B

We will try our own methods this time."
    "Torture?"
    "You will die under the torture, of course. But for the questioning it will not be necessary. You will talk."
    The secret of their method was very simple. Silence. I was led to a room within a room within a room. Each with very thick walls. And left alone. Here time meant nothing. Gradually I passed from boredom to restlessness, to anxiety, briefly through fear, to enervating frustration, and finally to stark apathy.
    When Trobt and his three accompanying guardsmen led me into the blinding daylight I talked without hesitation or consideration of consequences.
    "Did you find any weakness in the Veldians?"
    "Yes."
    I noted then a strange thing. It was the annotator—the thing in my brain that was a part of me, and yet apart from me—that had spoken. It was not concerned with matters of emotion; with sentiments of patriotism, loyalty, honor, and self-respect. It was interested only in my—and its own—survival. Its logic told it that unless I gave the answers my questioner wanted I would die. That, it intended to prevent. I made one last desperate effort to stop that other part of my mind from assuming control—and sank lower into my mental impotence.
    * * *
    "What is our weakness?"
    "Your society is doomed." With the answer I realized that the annotator had arrived at another of its conclusions.
    "Why?"
    "There are many reasons."
    "Give one."
    "Your culture is based on a need for struggle, for combat. When there is no one to fight it must fall." Trobt was dealing with a familiar culture now. He knew the questions to ask.
    "Explain that last statement."
    "Your culture is based on its impetuous need to battle . . . it is armed and set against dangers and the expectation of danger . . . fostering the pride of courage under stress. There is no danger now . . . nothing to fight, no place to spend your over-aggressiveness, except against each other in personal duels. Already your decline is about to enter the bloody circus and religion stage, already crumbling in the heart while expanding at the outside. And this is your first civilization . . . like a boy's first love . . . you have no experience of a fall in your history before to have recourse to—no cushioning of philosophy to accept it."
    For a time Trobt maintained a puzzled silence. I wondered if he had the depth of understanding to accept the truth and significance of what he had heard. "Is there no solution?" he asked at last.
    "Only a temporary one." Now it was coming.
    "Explain."
    "War with the Ten Thousand Worlds."
    "Explain."
    "Your willingness to hazard, and eagerness to battle is no weakness when you are armed with superior weapons, and are fighting against an opponent as disorganized, and as incapable of effective organization as the Ten Thousand Worlds, against your long-range weapons and subtle traps."
    "Why do you say the solution is only temporary?"
    "You cannot win the war. You will seem to win, but it will be an illusion. You will win the battles, kill billions, rape Worlds, take slaves, and destroy ships and weapons. But after that you will be forced to hold the subjection. Your numbers will not be expendable. You will be spread thin, exposed to other cultures that will influence you, change you. You will lose skirmishes, and in the end you will be forced back. Then will come a loss of old ethics, corruption and opportunism will replace your honor and you will know unspeakable shame and dishonor . . . your culture will soon be weltering back into a barbarism and disorganization which in its corruption and despair will be nothing like the proud tribal primitive life of its first barbarism. You will be aware of the difference and unable to return." I understood Trobt's perplexity as I finished. He could not accept what I told him because to him winning was only a matter of a military victory, a victory of strength; Velda had never experienced defeat as a weakness from within. My words made him uneasy, but