The Future Makers (v1.0) by Unknown Author

Author:Unknown Author
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

When the Rosks had arrived in the solar system four and a half years before, one unambitious day in March, 2189, an epoch ended, though comparatively few people realized it at the time. Man’s time of isolation was over. No longer could he regard himself as the only sentient being in the universe. On his doorstep stood a race superior to him scientifically if not morally.

The shock of the Roskian arrival was felt most severely in those countries which for several centuries had been accustomed to regarding themselves as the world’s rulers, or the arbiters of its conduct They were now in the position of a school bully, who, looking carefully over his shoulder, finds the headmaster standing over him.

The Rosks came in one mighty ship, and a quarter of the world’s population quaked in fear; another quarter cheered with excitement; the wiser half reserved judgment, Some of them, four and a half years later, were still reserving judgment. The Rosks were no easier to sum up than Earthmen.

Superficially, a Rosk resembled a man. Not a white man but, say, a Malayan. Their appearance varied from one to another, but most of them had light brown skins, no bridge to their noses, dark eyes. Their body temperature was 105.1 degrees, a sign of the hotter planet from which they came.

When the Rosks arrived, Tyne Leslie was the youngest second secretary to an under-secretary to the Under-Secretary of the British Corps of the United Nations Council. He had witnessed the endless fluttering in ministerial dovecotes that went on all over the world as the realities of the Rosk-Man situation became apparent For the true situation emerged only gradually, while language barriers were being broken down. And the true situation was both complicated and unpleasant.

Man learnt something of this impasse from a yellow-haired Rosk, Tawdell Co Barr, who was one of the first Roskian spokesmen on the U.N.C.

“Our mother ship,” he explained, “is an interstellar vessel housing four interplanetary craft and something more than five thousand of our people, male and female. Most of them are colonists, seeking only a world to live in. We have come from a world you would call Alpha Centauri II; ours is the first interstellar voyage ever made from the beautiful but overcrowded planet We came to Sol, our nearest neighbour in the vastness of space, seeking room to live—only to find that its one habitable planet is already swarming with men. Although we are happy to meet another sentient race, the depth of our disappointment otherwise cannot be measured: our journey, our long journey, has been in vain.”

“It’s a civil speech,” Tyne commented, when he heard it And other civil speeches followed, each revealing at least one awkward fact about the Rosk visit.

To begin with, these facts almost passed unnoticed among the general run of humanity.

After the first wave of shock had passed round Earth, a tide of optimism followed. The real difficulties inherent in the situation only emerged later. Rosks were heroes; most people

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.