Astounding British Edition, Vol. 9, No. 7 — page 65: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ee te wo et. ~ a’ Po —- - Brad realized that he had unconsciously taken the old road, retreating from the crushing disaster of the present into the golden memory of the past. In his ap- prenticeship he had believed in the Federa- tion, in the ideology which united the three planets. Now he wanted to find his old faith again—even though reality made that impossible. } He went into the cottage. With ap- proaching nightfall, the spring air had turned chilly. Brad made a fire on the hearth and, by the light of the dancing flames, he began to leaf through the discarded books he and Ran had left in the cottage. For a long time he lingered over the yellowing pages, so damp with mildew. He found the notes he had taken in the introductory class in philosophical his- tory. Blazing across a page was a ver- batim quote he had once copied down. “The brave man is not he who feels no fear, for that were stupid and irrational; but he whose noble soul subdues its fear and bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from.—Joanna Baillie.” Furiously Brad threw the notes into the fire. He collapsed on a battered settee and wept—wept for himself and for man, who today had betrayed his heritage. He heard a light footstep outside. He looked up and saw Ran at the door. The Martian held a small envelope. Very quietly he said. “T thought I’d find you here, Brad.” “Teave me alone!” | “T brought you this.” Ran held out the envelope. “Your resignation. I knew | you wouldn’t want anyone else to see it.” “How thoughtful of you! How wonder- fully civilized!” Brad’s grief fell away into an immense gulf of strangling bitter- ness. “You can watch a colony destroyed by our enemy, and still remember the fine points of governmental etiquette.” “But the colony on Mars wasn’t de- stroyed, Brad—just the empty buildings. That’s why I asked you to speak to the Assembly for me. It was one detail Id overlooked. I wanted the director to use - his emergency power to evacuate the Centaurians before the Agonians made their attack.” an ee ee ae eee < eect —— ~~ ~ ~ - pe ee kee an gr Sl ye ee a = - a ; = - z x. =f Si ~ ee Pe : ~~ : > — “ - P - < : ~ Seo er fo < ‘ “os = 7 - ~ - ~ ~ - “4 a daa a : me aif a - = > ~~, FOR THE GLORY OF AGON “So no one was hurt.” Brad laughed. “To the last we hold to the nonsense of rationality! I’m sure the Centaurians will appreciate being saved from death—for slavery.” Ran put two hands on Brad’s shoulders; Brad jerked away. “Stop thinking with your feelings!” the Martian said sharply. “We’ve lost nothing except a few square miles of Martian desert, and the treaty has been signed. It is a Martian treaty, Brad. We’ve won the war.” Brad stared at the plastic face mask of the Martian, gleaming in the yellow light of the fire. “We’ve won the war, Brad, by con- ceding all their demands—and suggesting a few concessions of our own.” “We win by surrendering?” “We’ve surrendered only things, Brad; they’ve surrenderéd an idea—though they’re not aware of it yet, and when they do understand it’ll be too late. The solu- tion was clear as soon as my social data was compiled. Consider the problem from the Agonian point of view. Their whole society is organized for conquest. Simply that; nothing else. You saw their slogans. “Work! Work for the glory of Agon!’ They don’t promise their people comfort or booty. Nothing except glory—a totally abstract concept without any specific meaning.” “I realize they were afraid to land; we had a Rationalizer and if they contacted us directly, they would be persuaded to surrender,” Brad admitted. “But how does that keep them from destroying us as they did the Martian colony?” “Their technique has always been to take the planet and wipe out the native species. You saw how they built their Empire. In our case, if they destroyed one they had to destroy the other, too. They would end up with nothing—nothing tangible to satisfy the glory of Agon. That gave them their first new problem in cen- turies. They couldn’t solve it. They’re psychotics, Brad; and a psychotic has definite, self-imposed limitations upon his ability to improvise—to find new answers, when the old ones don’t work. — All the Agonians could do was vary the — Eomichoo SalGo) allie ~ ~~ — “< Pm es a oe eo rw - Pe - ~< i ~ > a7 4 be am Poe Pa ae Po > —— ~~ = i Ke i ~via eS a a4 Kee eos - " a - es en | AY et ty roe r Ts : ry ; - rs AN u Hy) PRIA SON a 7 Mio ¥y “ pte Wd YP