Robert Silverberg by The Man in the Maze

Author:The Man in the Maze
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Exiles, General, Adventure, Fiction
ISBN: 9780743497770
Publisher: I Books
Published: 2004-12-28T06:00:00+00:00

Muller said, "More. This was the grand creative triumph of their race, I believe. Their masterpiece, their monument. They must have been proud of this murderous place. It summed up the whole essence of their philosophy—kill the stranger."

"Are you just speculating, or have you found some clues to their cultural outlook?"

"The only clue I have to their cultural outlook is all around us. But I'm an expert on alien psychology, Ned. I know more about it than any other human being, because I'm the only one who ever said hello to an alien race. Kill the stranger: it's the law of the universe. And if you don't kill him, at least screw him up a little."

"We aren't like that," Rawlins said. "We don't show instinctive hostility to-"

"Crap."

"But—"

Muller said, "If an alien starship ever landed on one of our planets we'd quarantine it and imprison the crew and interrogate them to destruction. Whatever good manners we may have learned grow out of decadence and complacency. We pretend that we're too noble to hate strangers, but we have the politeness of weakness. Take the Hydrans. A substantial faction within our government was in favor of generating fusion in their cloud layer and giving their system an extra sun—before sending an emissary to scout them."

"No."

"They were overruled, and an emissary was sent, and the Hydrans wasted him. Me." An idea struck Muller suddenly. Appalled, he said, "What's happened between us and the Hydrans in the last nine years? Any contact? War?"

"Nothing," said Rawlins. "We've kept away."

"Are you telling me the truth, or did we wipe the bastards out? God knows I wouldn't mind that, but yet it wasn't their fault they did this to me. They were reacting in a standard xenophobic way. Ned, has there been a war with them?"

"No. I swear it."

Muller relaxed. After a moment he said, "All right. I won't ask you to fill me in on all the other news developments. I don't really give a damn. How long are you people staying on Lemnos?"

"We don't know yet. A few weeks, I suppose. We haven't even really begun to explore the maze. And then there's the area outside. We want to run correlations on the work of earlier archaeologists, and—"

"And you'll be here for a while. Are the others going to come into the center of the maze?"

Rawlins moistened his lips. "They sent me ahead to establish a working relationship with you. We don't have any plan yet. It all depends on you. We don't want to impose on you. So if you don't want us to work here—"

"I don't," Muller told him crisply. "Tell that to your friends. In fifty or sixty years I'll be dead, and they can sniff around here then. But while I'm here I don't want them bothering me. Let them work in the outer four or five zones. If any of them sets foot in A, B, or C, I'll kill him. I can do that, Ned."

"What about me—am I welcome?"

"Occasionally. I can't predict my moods.

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