Collision with Chronos

“To take your points one at a time,” Li Li-San answered, “our readiness to give assistance merely demonstrates the good regard of one intelligent species for another. Your second point: guarantees of good faith can be arranged. Our offer applies also to the other, human civilisation. If you both agree, then you’ll be cooperating with one another instead of fighting.”

“We will, if you wish, take your ambassadors to our ISS,” Wang Yat-Sen put in equably. “Then they’ll see for themselves.”

The lemur-creature ignored this last. “You expect us to retreat from the enemy? To abandon our planet?” he said, his vowel-sounds indicating considerable passion. His limbs were trembling visibly, like those of a mortally wounded animal. “It’s our planet, ours since the beginning of time. We’ll defend it to the last.”

The other lemur-creature joined in. “Never do we retreat from an enemy. A few days ago they – your biological cousins – launched an attack upon two of our large cities, using weapons, which, judging by the intensity of the energy produced, relied upon the fusion of light atomic nuclei. Our cities were utterly destroyed and there is radioactive waste for distances all around. But we’ll strike back! We’ll strike back!”

Both men from Retort City, brought up to regard everything in a detached and clinical manner, were puzzled. “But surely you realise that your emotional attitude toward your historical habitat is inappropriate in the current situation,” Wang Yat-Sen put forward. “Your ‘enemy’, as you put it, is merely reacting in the same manner, and to attacks you’ve made on him. Evacuation is the only hope for either of you.”

“We don’t accept that it’s the only hope,” chittered the lemur-leader shrilly. “We know that enemy life-forms lie in our future, and that if they continue to exist, we’ll perish. Therefore – we’ll deal with it!”

“But how?” Li Li-San asked simply.

“We’re developing viruses destructive to all life in the enemy biota,” the lemur said. “We’ll sow these viruses on a massive scale. By the time our time-system reaches the projected collision point, all trace of life in the enemy biosphere will be gone. There’ll be nothing to obstruct the passage of our own time-wave.”

Glancing at one another, Wang Yat-Sen and Li Li-San saw from each other’s expressions that they both concluded that their mission had failed. They stood up.

“Apparently your decisions are not guided by rationality and we take it that you reject our offer,” Wang Yat-Sen announced, still using the “friendly” mode of speech. “There is, then, noththing more to detain us. With your permission we’ll call down our space lighter and return to our people.”

“Oh, no!” squeaked the lemur. “You’re not returning anywhere with information that can be used against us. You’re of the same race as our enemy – so back to the bio-research unit with you!”

And so the two young men were transported back to the Biological Warfare Station, which they were never to leave.

As soon as he entered the cellar complex, Sobrie Oblomot knew that something was extraordinarily wrong.

This time the Council meeting was to have been in Sannan, Sobrie’s native city. These ancient cellars were completely unknown to the authorities; they had been sealed over during a rebuilding programme years ago. The hidden entrances were few, and known only to trusted League agents.

A printing press was run down here and Sobrie was struck, first of all, by its silence: never before had he known it not to be clattering away. And yet the place was gripped by a sense of feverish excitement: the whitewashed brick walls almost visibly shone with it.

Groups of people stood around, talking with agitation. A small thin man wormed his way between them and rushed up to Sobrie.

“Oblomot! You’re here!”

“What’s going on?” Sobrie said with deference.

“If I were you,” the small man said in a low voice, “I’d get out – now. And take your girl friend with you. Because —”

But he was interrupted by the convener, who appeared suddenly at Sobrie’s elbow. “So you made it, Oblomot. You’re late. We’d thought you might already have heard.”

“Heard what?”

“The news is all over the networks. Right across the globe. It looks like the end.”

To Sobrie’s bewildered demands for enlightenment he responded merely by guiding him across the floor and through a low archway. A door opened, closed again once Sobrie was through.

The Panhumanic Council was sitting. Eyes turned to regard Sobrie sombrely. They weren’t all there, he realised; about a third were missing.

With a start, he noticed that one of the faces was unfamiliar. It was the anonymous member, sitting for the first time without mask or voice modifier!