The Wild Ones
Novelet of Earth's Frontier
Science Fiction Stories – January 1958
(1958)
Tom Godwin
Once they had been heroes, holding off a Reen attack. But now Earth had to show the Federation that man was mature, and the Reens were treated with courtesy. And Whitey Howard, who'd killed a Reen in self-defense, would be hanged in the morning ...
-
Chapter One
"He'll be dead a long time and what will it gain any of you?" Clayton asked. "This is Freia, not Earth. If you would only give him a chance ..."
Colony Supervisor Martin tightened his lips, and Clayton knew that his plea was hopeless. He looked out the broad window at the quiet, orderly city of Greensdale. Children were running and playing in the green central park, and the little spires of churches could be seen lifting above the cottages beyond. Very faintly, in the silence of the room, there came to him the tolling of their bells. It was a sweet, gently sound, mocked by the gallows that stood new and ugly in the prison yard beyond Old Town. Shadows of near-sunset lay long across the city; in only ten hours it would be dawn again. They would lead Whitey Howard out to the gallows, handling him as they would some great, pale-eyed cat that had at last been captured and chained, and would soon cease to be a menace to those about him ...
Supervisor Martin spoke with deliberation: "John Howard knew, when he committed the crimes, what the penalty would be. He ..."
"The crimes!" His mouth twisted in contempt. "Is refusal to step into the gutter for a pair of gobbling Reens worth a man's life?"
"The Reen witnesses claim he killed without provocation. It certainly cannot be denied that he killed the Terran policeman who would have settled the dispute."
"By accident—the policeman ran into the line of fire. Must a man be executed by his own government if he refuses to act humble before the Reens in his own town?"
"Howard killed a policeman who was trying to preserve the peace. He killed two Reen military officers, and made an already-critical situation dangerously critical. It is a situation you consistently fail to understand. The issues at stake are far greater than the life of John Howard. The Galactic Federation is watching us now, waiting to see how we will handle this crime with the Reens. If we are to convince them we are a civilized race, eligible for admittance into the Federation, we will have to conduct ourselves in a civilized manner. The era of violence is gone—times have changed since the days you and Howard the others first landed on Freia. Surely you realize that."
"Yes," Clayton answered. "I realize it more each day."
Nostalgia for the past touched him, with the faint tolling of the bells drifting across the quiet city like a death knell for the wild, free days gone by. He had known that the wild days would go, for they always went whenever civilization followed the explorers into the frontier. But he had not expected them to go so quickly ...
How short and fleeting the years are in retrospect. Twelve years in the past, and the Space Hound crossed the first interstellar gap, carrying the men of his own selection—bonld and determined men, restless and ungentle men who were afraid of nothing. They found three yellow suns, and fought their way up from three hostile worlds, before they came to the one for which they searched, untouched, with only the wild animals to contest their claim to it. Then the semi-humanoid Reens came in their ship and disputed the Terran possession. There was battle, the Reens fleeing back to their home planet. They named their new world Thor, after the Teutonic god of thunder and might; upon their return to Earth the government changed the name to Freia, after the more gentle goddess.
Ten years in the past, and the Space Hound went back to Freia with a survey group, men who were very similar to the men of the Space Hound in their way of thinking and acting.
Seven years in the past and the new immigrant ship, the Constellation, set down beside their lusty, rowdy little town. The colonists had been selected by the Terran Colonization Board for their soberness and reliability; they brought with them a low and order than looked with disfavor on the noise and drinking in Old Town. That had been the beginning of the end.
Six years in the past, and the Reens came again, in a much larger ship and with military personnel, to build a garrison on the slope above Greendale. They calmly declared Freia to be their own discovery and the Terrans to be trespassers.
A massive ship of strange design appeared during the period of uncertainty following the Reen declaration, and a tall humanoid who called himself Valkaron made contact with both Terrans and Reens. He told them he represented the Galactic Federation, which held potential control over all the explored region of the galaxy, and that Freia would be kept under observation for an indefinite length of time.
He had said: "So far, we have found more than one hundred different intelligent species within our sphere of exploration. Some of them have space flight, and some are near it; some are sufficiently mature in their philosophies to deserve admittance into the Federation. Some are not, and some are so immature that they represent a possible menace to the Federation and will be kept under control. Admittance into the Federation entitles the race to have free access to all the technological discoveries of the other member races; to trade freely with the member races; and to be assisted whenever necessary, by the Federation Fleet in colonization of the new worlds along the Federation frontier.
"Your method of settling your dispute concerning the ownership of Freia will determine whether one of you, both of you, or neither of you is entitled to become a member of the Federation. The Federation will neither interfere nor give advice. You must, without assistance, prove that you are intelligent and mature in your reactions and decisions—that you are capable of coping effectively with such situations as the present one."
The Federation ship departed, leaving a multi-faceted object hovering in space just outside of Freia's atmosphere. A force field surrounded it, a field based on some science unknown to both Terrans and Reens; it ignored all attempts in later years to communicate with it.
Five years in the past ... four ... three ... two ... one ... The Constellation brought more colonists to Freia in periodic voyages; the Reen ship brought more military personnel. The Terrans built their next city and tended their green fields, while the Reens encroached farther and farther into Terran territory. The Terran population became sharply divided into two factions: the survey group and Space Hound group in Old Town, who wanted immediate and violent action to end the cold war; and the colonists in Greendale, who still hoped and believed that diplomacy and the conference table were more effective defense than anger and the snarl of atomic rifles.
"I am neither a cruel nor an unjust man," Martin said. "I regret the necessity of punishing John Howard for his crime. But there can be no alternative; if Howard is permitted to go unpunished, it will encourage others like him in Old Town to flout the law. It might have even ore serious results: it might cause the Reens to carry out their threat to place Greendale under Reen martial rule for their own protection. We could not permit that, of course, and there would be war."
"You and the Colonization Board on Earth keep shutting your eyes to the obvious; there is going to be war, anyway. Freia is ours, and the Reens are trespassers. We could take the offensive and hit them hard and quick with the Space Hound; its' guns are longer range than those of the Reen ship. But where is the Space Hound?" Clayton was unable to keep the resentment out of his voice. "You took it away from us and put it to hauling ore from the moon mines."
"The Space Hound will not be needed. It is inconceivable that the Reen situation should not have a non-violent solution. Slaughtering the Reen, as you recommend, would hardly make a favorable impression on the Federation. It is not impossible that such an action might cause them to consider us one of the races they must keep under control. It would almost certainly make us ineligible for Federation membership, and would deny us Federation protection along our future frontiers.
"Freia is only the beginning, Clayton. Our next objective, in the due course of time, would be the yellow suns beyond Orion. And there is all the galaxy beyond them, for thousands and thousands of lightyears and lifetimes. Lone-wolf expansion is uncertain and dangerous, where expansion as a member of the Federation would be certain and steady and safe. That is our long range goal, and it is best for us here on Freia to swallow our pride for a while and insure that we reach it."
"I can't agree with you," Clayton said. "We're supposed to turn the other cheek, and impress the Federation with our civilized patience. We're supposed to act humble before the Reens and thereby become a proud race, inspected, passed and approved by the Federation. To hell with the Federation; we got this far without their help, and we can go further."
Martin answered with a deliberation greater than that of before, finality in his tone: "The day of the wild and irresponsible individual is past, whether such individuals like it or not. I had hoped for your cooperation—at least to the extent that you would try to keep your malcontents and lawbreakers in Old Town under control. I can see my hope was in vain." He glanced at the clock on the wall. "The Reen commander is due here for another conference in twenty minutes and I must ask you to go now."
Clayton stood up. "And Whitey Howard?"
"Howard will go to the gallows; there will be no stay of execution. And one last thing, Clayton"—the eyes of the supervisor were as hard as blue steel—"For your own welfare, and that of your friends, accept circumstances as they are and don't try to change them when you go back to Old Town. Do you understand?"
"Your threat is obvious enough," Clayton said; he turned away.
He almost collided with the supervisor's hurrying secretary as he went out the door. She rushed on past him, to say agitatedly to the supervisor as the door swung shut behind him: "Sir, the Reen commander and his party are already here, so far ahead of the appointed time that the escort isn't ready, and no one is ..."
Clayton went down the corridor; he was twenty feet short of the outside door when its automatic mechanism swung it open and the Reens strode through. They were almost human in form, but with an appearance that always reminded him of buzzards: scaly skin, beady reptilian eyes set toward the sides of their heads in the manner of birds, and a red, wattled neck like that of a turkey.
The Reen commander walked in the middle of the group, his uniform resplendent with insignia. Two sub-officers preceded him and two heavily-armed soldiers walked on each side of him, atomic rifles slung from their shoulders. Clayton was suddenly, acutely, aware of his empty holster—a city ordinance forbade the carrying of deadly weapons, and he had considered it unwise to risk discovery in the Administration Building—but there was nothing he could do but keep walking and know what was coming next.
The Reen group was five in width, the flanking soldiers close to the walls of the corridor and giving no indication of making room for him to pass. He could, of course, shoulder one of them aside and then drop to the floor a second later, hole through him, while the Reens continued on without having lost a step in their advance.
Later, one of the sub-officers would say to Martin: "Reen soldier when attacked unprovoked by Terran must defend self and commander. Incident very regretful. In future avoid my meeting Reens with proper escort."
The two sub-officers in the lead passed Clayton, their black, yellow-rimmed eyes dismissing him with one arrogant glance. The commander seemed not to see him at all, but the broad feet of the outside soldier made a quick sideward shuffle so that the butt of the slung rifle would strike him across the stomach. Already, he was so close to the wall that his shoulder was brushing it; he could take the blow or ignominiously turn and run.
Clayton took it painfully, keeping his face expressionless. The face of the soldier was very close as he passed, the round little eyes gleaming with amusement. He felt an almost overpowering desire to smash the scaly face, to watch the amusement change to pain and hear the Reen squawk and gobble in fear as he bent its wattled neck back until it broke.
Behind the desire came the vision of Whitey's gallows, the sound of the dry voice of the Colonial judge: "A real or fancied slight to the dignity is not justification for deliberately taking the life of another intelligent being ... the defense council's plea for clemency cannot be granted ... this court sentences the defendant, James Frederick Clayton, to be hanged by the neck until dead ..."
The Reens passed on, and he resumed his own progress, recalling the first time the Reens and Terrans had met in conflict, realizing the true extent to which the times had changed. Clayton would never have believed, twelve years before, that the time could ever come when he would let a Reen strike him ...
He went out the door, the setting sun bright in his face. The Reen aircar had been set down near the door, its landing gear crushing the carefully-tended grass. Once Supervisor Martin had suggested the aircar be left in the nearby parking lot and had been told: "Is not necessary that Reens walk long distance from aircar."
Chapter Two
It was almost half a mile from the Administration Building to Old Town, with a long east-west trending strip of wooded land dividing Old Town from Greendale, and separating the rough buildings of the former from the trim, neat houses of the latter. The little prison was at the east end of the wooded strip and the spaceship field at the west end—a field now empty, with the Constellation gone back to Earth and the Space Hound off on its run to the moon mines. The Reen garrison set to the slope above Old Town, the Reen-Terran border within a stones' throw of Old Town's north side.
Clayton came to the wooded strip and found Red O'Hara waiting restlessly for him, his beard like flaming copper in the last rays of the sun.
"What did he say?" Red asked.
"No dice."
"They can't hang him," Red said. They walked together through the trees and into the clearing, where the broken stump of the piper tree had been. "Whitey was the one who went into that crater on Centauri Four and fought his way through the medusa-beasts to Ramon. Whitey was the one who stood back-to-back with me the day the Reens had us hemmed in. And it was Whitey, more than anyone else, who made the Reen pay five to one the night they broke the truce. Do you remember that night, Clay?"
It was not a question that required an answer. None of them would ever forget that night. It had been a surprise raid by the Reens, the truce suddenly null and void, and only Billy Gaylord and three sentries between the Reens and the sleeping camp. They had held the attack off, Billy and Delmont and the others, crouched under the piper tree, hearing it sing to them with tiny, fairy flutings as the breeze drifted through its curiously shaped leaves and knowing the time had come for all of them.
They held back the Reens until the forces in camp could be organized, dying with grim stubbornness under the tree that no longer sang but had become a shattered stump. Whitey had led the counter-attacking force, going ahead of the others like a swift, silent ghost in the darkness, making no sound until he was among the Reens with his blaster swinging and hissing and lighting up the night and their startled buzzard faces.
They had buried Billy Gaylord and the others beside the shattered piper tree the next day. They had drunk a toast to them and turned down four empty glasses, setting them over the stump's jagged splinters so the wind would not move them. Later, when the Space Hound returned with the survey group, the glasses were still there so
were still there so they built a little fence around the tree and the graves.
Now, the broken tree and the glasses and the graves were gone, removed three months before by order of the city council. The council had stated: A public display of this nature can serve only to remind Terrans and Reens alike of past enmity. In the interests of our efforts to establish friendly relations with the Reens, we find it advisable to order the bodies removed to a more suitable resting place.
All that was left in the clearing was a lop-sided circle of transplanted sod, the grass as yet a little paler and shorter than the other grass.
"You can still tell that something used to be there," Red said. "But by late summer it will all look the same and the city co...
widez2