Citizen in Spase. Stories / Гражданин в Космосе. Рассказы. Книга для чтения на английском языке

“We don’t have no little schoolhouse,” Billy argued, halfway down the ladder.

“We’ll just have to build one,” the mayor said. “We’ll have to hurry, too.” He glanced at the sky. Involuntarily the crowd glanced upward. But there was still nothing in sight.

“Where are the Carpenter boys?” the mayor asked. “Sid, Sam, Marv – where are you?”

Sid Carpenter’s head appeared through the crowd. He was still on crutches from last month when he had fallen out of a tree looking for threstle’s eggs; no Carpenter was worth a damn at tree-climbing.

“The other boys are at Ed Beer’s Tavern,” Sid said.

“Where else would they be?” Mary Waterman called from the crowd.

“Well, you gather them up,” the mayor said. “They gotta build up a little schoolhouse, and quick. Tell them to put it up beside the jail.” He turned to Billy Painter, who was back on the ground. “Billy, you paint that schoolhouse a good bright red, inside and out. It’s very important.”

“When do I get a police chief badge?” Billy demanded. “I read that police chiefs always get badges.”

“Make yourself one,” the mayor said. He mopped his face with his shirttail. “Sure hot. Don’t know why that inspector couldn’t have come in winter… Tom! Tom Fisher! Got an important job for you. Come on, I’ll tell you all about it.”

He put an arm around Tom’s shoulders and they walked to the mayor’s cottage past the empty market, along the village’s single paved road. In the old days, that road had been of packed dirt. But the old days had ended two weeks ago and now the road was paved with crushed rock. It made barefoot walking so uncomfortable that the villagers simply cut across each other’s lawns. The mayor, though, walked on it out of principle.

“Now look, Mayor, I’m on my vacation —”

“Can’t have any vacations now,” the mayor said. “Not now. He’s due any day.” He ushered Tom inside his cottage and sat down in the big armchair, which had been pushed as close to the interstellar radio as possible.

“Tom,” the mayor said directly, “how would you like to be a criminal?”

“I don’t know,” said Tom. “What’s a criminal?”

Squirming uncomfortably in his chair, the mayor rested a hand on the radio for authority. “It’s this way,” he said, and began to explain.

Tom listened, but the more he heard, the less he liked. It was all the fault of that interstellar radio, he decided. Why hadn’t it really been broken?

No one had believed it could work. It had gathered dust in the ofifce of one mayor after another, for generations, the last silent link with Mother Earth. Two hundred years ago Earth talked with New Delaware, and with Ford IV, Alpha Centauri, Nueva Espana, and the other colonies that made up the United Democracies of Earth. Then all conversations stopped.

There seemed to be a war on Earth. New Delaware, with its one village, was too small and too distant to take part. They waited for news, but no news came. And then plague struck the village, wiping out three-quarters of the inhabitants.

Slowly the village healed. The villagers adopted their own ways of doing things. They forgot Earth.

Two hundred years passed.

And then, two weeks ago, the ancient radio had coughed itself into life. For hours, it growled and spat static, while the inhabitants of the village gathered around the mayor’s cottage, finally words came out: “…hear me, New Delaware? Do you hear me?”

“Yes, yes, we hear you,” the mayor said.

“The colony is still there?”

“It certainly is,” the mayor said proudly.

The voice became stern and official. “There has been no contact with the Outer Colonies for some time, due to unsettled conditions here. But that’s over, except for a little mopping up. You of New Delaware are still a colony of Imperial Earth and subject to her laws. Do you acknowledge the status?”

The mayor hesitated. All the books referred to Earth as the United Democracies. Well, in two centuries, names could change.

“We are still loyal to Earth,” the mayor said with dignity.

“Excellent. That saves us the trouble of sending an expeditionary force. A resident inspector will be dispatched to you from the nearest point, to ascertain whether you conform to the customs, institutions and traditions of Earth.”

“What?” the mayor asked, worried.

The stern voice became higher-pitched. “You realize, of course, that there is room for only one intelligent species in the Universe – Man! All others must be suppressed, wiped out, annihilated. We can tolerate no aliens sneaking around us. I’m sure you understand, General.”

“I’m not a general. I’m a mayor.”

“You’re in charge, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but —”

“Then you are a general. Permit me to continue. In this galaxy, there is no room for aliens. None! Nor is there room for deviant human cultures, which, by definition, are alien. It is impossible to administer an empire when everyone does as he pleases. There must be order, no matter what the cost.”

The mayor gulped hard and stared at the radio.