The Old Man of the Stars by John Burke Read Free Book Online Page B

be killed, and there will be nothing left on Elysium but ruins. But if we stay, in a few hundred years there will be happiness and life here again—”
    â€œAnd in a few hundred years,” said Clifford, “that planet will come swimming back along its orbit, and the destroying ships may come again. They may come along before then, because new drives will have been perfected—and new weapons of destruction.”
    â€œWell, it won’t be in my lifetime, anyway,” said the woman.
    It was not easy to be patient with such people. Nor did it do any good to smile calmly and say that they could stay behind if they wished: they became rapidly abusive, as though it had been suggested that they should be brutally murdered or left to starve.
    And in addition to this small group, there were one or two waverers. There was, for example, Alida.
    Matthew saw Alida frequently, as he went to and fro in the clamour of each energetic day, and each time he saw her his envy of Clifford increased. The girl had such a brittle, fragile appearance, and yet was so taut and full of vitality. It was not often that she smiled, but that slow reflective parting of her lips was worth waiting for. Even Elysium had rarely produced a creature so beautiful.
    And she did not want to leave Elysium.
    In the evening, when the clangour and confusion around the spaceship had ceased, Matthew would sometimes see her walking in the shadows of the wood with Clifford, They walked slowly, and talked spasmodically, in an intimate undertone. Sometimes Clifford would be moody the next day.
    On one such occasion Matthew decided to tackle the matter openly. He strolled up the slope as Clifford and Alida emerged from the woods, and waited for them to join him.
    The evening light cast a glow on Alida’s bare arms. She looked up at the splashes of colour that lay across the sky, and then glanced out across the plain as though anxious to fix it all in her memory—as though reluctant ever to be forced to leave it.
    Matthew said: “You two look glum. Getting tired of waiting for the ship to be finished?”
    Alida sensed the irony in his tone if Clifford didn’t and she said at once: “It breaks my heart to think of leaving here. These wonderful evenings; the afternoons of summer; the sounds and scents of this world....”
    â€œI should have thought,” said Matthew quietly, “that the sight of the town ruins would have depressed you. There would always be too many memories here.”
    â€œWe could go away. There are thousands of miles of the planet that have never been travelled at all.”
    â€œBut wherever you go on this planet, one day the ships will come back, and there will be destruction once more—if not for you, for those who come after you.”
    Sadly she nodded. “I know that well. I know that we must go. But it’s so hard. To turn your back on beauty and resign yourself to imprisonment for twenty-five years is a bitter thing.”
    Matthew tried to point out that they would not be in space for the whole time. They would stop on the way: they would visit other worlds and try to make contact with the other races, to find out what had happened to the pioneers from Earth who had been left behind on that outward journey. None had ever come on to Elysium: that was not surprising, as the leap to Elysium had been the longest and most arduous stretch of all; but one wanted to know, to learn, to be told the innumerable histories.
    Alida nodded her acceptance of all that he said. She would come with Clifford—there was no question of that—but she did not pretend that she was happy. Her imagination had once been kindled by the enthusiasm of the two men, but that spurt of interest had been overcome by her longing for the tranquility of life on the world she knew so well.
    Leaving them, Matthew found himself wondering if he was justified in driving these people so hard. If he were to cease