Страница 34 из 34
“Oddly enough, no few Wersgorix soon came to accept the new order. Their central government had always been a distant thing to them, a mere collector of taxes and enforcer of arbitrary laws. Many a blueskin found his imagination captured by our rich ceremonial and by a government of individual nobles whom he could meet face to face. Moreover, by loyally serving these overlords, he might hope to regain an estate, or even a title. Of the Wersgorix who have repented their sins and become valuable Christian Englishmen, I need only mention our one-time foe Huruga, whom all this world of Yorkshire honors as Archbishop William.
“But there was nothing disingenuous in Sir Roger’s proceedings. He never betrayed his allies, as some have charged. He dealt with them shrewdly, but except for the necessary concealment of our true origin (which mask he dropped as soon as we had waxed strong enough not to fear exposure) he was aboveboard. It was not his fault that God always favors the English.
’Jairs, Ashenkoghli, and Pr?°tans fell in with his proposals readily enough. They had no real concept of empire. If they could have whatever planets without natives we seized, they were quite happy to leave us humans the immensely troublesome task of governing that larger number where a slave population existed. They turned hypocritical eyes away from the often bloody necessities of such government. I am sure that many of their politicians secretly rejoiced that each new responsibility of this sort thi
“So in the end, when all these facts were pikestaff plain, it was too late. Our allies were still only three nations, each with its own language and way of life. Springing up around them were a hundred races, united in Christendom, the English tongue, and the English crown. Even if we humans had wished, we could not have changed this. Indeed, we were about as surprised as anyone.
“As proof that Sir Roger never plotted against his allies, consider how easily he could have overrun them in his old age, when he ruled the mightiest nation ever seen among these stars. But he leaned backward to be generous. It was not his doing that their own younger generation, awestruck by our successes, began more and more to imitate our ways…”
The captain put the pages aside and hurried out to the main airlock entrance. The ramp had been let down, and a red-haired human giant was striding up to greet him. Fantastically clad, bearing a florid ornamental sword, he also carried a businesslike blast gun. Behind him an honor guard of riflemen in Lincoln green stood at attention. Over their heads fluttered a ba
The captain’s hand was engulfed in a hairy ducal paw. The sociotech translated a distorted English: “At last! God be praised, they’ve finally learned to build spaceships on Old Earth! Welcome, good sir!”
“But why did you never find us … er … your grace?” stammered the captain. When it had been translated, the duke shrugged and answered:
“Oh, we searched. For generations every young knight went looking for Earth, unless he chose to look for the Holy Grail. But you know how bloody many suns there are. And even more toward the center of the galaxy — where we encountered still other starfaring peoples. Commerce, exploration, war, everything drew us inward, away from this thinly starred spiral arm. You realize this is only a poor outlying province you’ve come upon. The King and the Pope dwell away off in the Seventh Heaven… Finally the quest petered out. In past centuries, Old Earth has become little more than a tradition.” His big face beamed. “But now it’s all turned topsy-turvy. You found us! Most wonderful! Tell me at once, has the Holy Land been liberated from the paynim?”
“Well,” said Captain Yeshu haLey, who was a loyal citizen of the Israeli Empire, “yes.”
“Too bad. I’d have loved a fresh crusade. Life’s been dull since we conquered the Dragons ten years ago. They say, however, that the royal expeditions to the Sagittarian star clouds have turned up some very promising planets — But see here! You must come over to the castle. I’ll entertain you as best as I can, and outfit you for the trip to the King. That’s tricky navigation, but I’ll furnish you with an astrologer who knows the way.”
“Now what did he say?” asked Captain Halley, when the bass burble had stopped.
The sociotech explained.
Captain Halley turned fire color. “No astrologer is going to touch my ship!”
The sociotech sighed. He’d have a lot of work to do in the coming years.