Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11 (136 page)

For
some
hundreds
of
years
we
have
been
aware
that
a
loose
conspiracy
existed
among
these
three
groups,
who
have
ended
by
arrogating the
title
of
Splinter
Cultures
almost
exclusively
to
themselves,
when by
rights
it
applies
equally,
as
we
all
know,
to
hundreds
of
useful,
productive,
and
unpredatory
communities
among
the
human
race.
We

among
you
who
have
striven
quietly
to
turn
our
talents
to
the
good
of all,
we
whom
some
call
the
Others
but
whom
those
of
us
who
qualify for
that
name
think
of
only
as
an
association
of
like
minds,
thrown
together
by
a
common
use
of
talents,
have
been
particularly
aware
of this
conspiracy
over
the
past
three
hundred
years.
But
we
have
not seen
it
as
a
threat
to
the
race
as
a
whole
until
this
moment.

Now,
however,
we
have
learned
of
an
unholy
alliance,
which threatens
each
one
of
us
with
eventual
and
literal
slavery
under
the domination
of
that
institution
orbiting
Earth
under
the
name
of
the Final
Encyclopedia.
I
and
my
friends
have
long
known
that
the
Final Encyclopedia
was
conceived
for
only
one
purpose,
to
which
it
has been
devoted
ever
since
its
inception.
That
purpose
has
been
the
development
of
unimaginable
and
unnatural
means
of
controlling
the hearts
and
minds
of
normal
people.
In
fact,
its
construction
was
initially
financed
by
the
Exotics
for
that
purpose;
as
those
who
care
to investigate
the
writing
of
Mark
Torre,
its
first
Director,
will
find.

That
aim,
pursued
in
secrecy
and
isolation
which
required
even that
the
Encyclopedia
be
placed
in
orbit
above
the
surface
of
Earth, has
been
furthered
by
the
Encyclopedia's
practice
of
picking
the brains
of
the
best
minds
in
each
generation;
by
inviting
them,
ostensibly
as
visiting
scholars,
to
visit
that
institution.

"Won't
this
bring
Old
Earth
against
us?"
she
said.
She
did
not look
up
as
she
said
it,
but
continued
reading,
intent.

"I
was
hoping
Old
Earth
would
resent
that
Mayne
put
up
his shield-wall
without
getting
their
permission,"
he
said.
"For
a
while there,
the
reactions
down
there
gave
me
hope
of
that.
But
things have
calmed
down."

She
looked
up.

"You
mean
you
now
think
Old
Earth
is
going
to
accept
Mayne's acts?"
she
asked.

"Yes,"
he
said.
"That
assassination
attempt
seems
to
have
been
a watershed
event.
A
lot
of
people
there
are
still
against
the
Encyclopedia's
actions,
but
those
who
are
for
it—they're
most
for
Tamani— have
been
energized."

Her
eyes
returned
to
her
screen.

Also, it has continued to be financed by the Exotics, who, records will show, have also had a hand in financing the Dorsai, who were from the first developed with the aim of becoming a military arm that could be used to police all other, subject worlds.

Those conspirators have now been joined in their unholy work by the people of Old Earth themselves—a people whose early, bloody attempts to keep all the newly settled worlds subject to themselves were only frustrated by the courageous resistance of the peoples on all those Younger Worlds. But it took a hundred years of continuous fighting, as you all know from the history books you studied as children.

Now the people of Old Earth, under the leadership of the Final Encyclopedia, have finally thrown off all pretense of innocent purpose. They have withdrawn the unbelievable wealth accumulated by the Exotic Worlds by trade and intrigue from such people as ourselves, moving it to their treasury on Earth. They have also, openly, in one mass movement, evacuated the Dorsai from their world and brought them to Earth; to begin building the army that is intended to conquer our new worlds, one by one, and leave us enslaved forever under the steel rule of martial authority. And they have begun to ready for action those awesome weapons the Encyclopedia itself has been developing over three centuries.

They are ready to attack us—we who have been so completely without suspicion of their arrogant intentions. We stand now, essentially unarmed, unprepared, facing the imminent threat of an inhuman and immoral attempt to enslave or destroy us. We will now begin to hear thrown at us, in grim earnest, the saying that has been quietly circulated among the worlds for centuries, in order to destroy our will to resist—the phrase that not even the massed armies of all the rest of mankind can defeat the Dorsai, if the Dorsai choose to confront those armies.

But do not believe this. It was never true, only a statement circulated by the Exotics and the Dorsai for their own advantage. As for massed armies, as you all know, we have none. But we can raise them. We can raise armies in numbers and strengths never dreamed of by the population of Old Earth. We are not the impoverished, young peoples that Old Earth, with Dow deCastries, t
ried to dominate unsuccessfully
in
the
first
century
of
our
colonization.
Now,
on
all
the
worlds
our united
numbers
add
up
to
nearly
five
billion.
What
can
be
done against
the
courage
and
resistance
of
such
a
people,
even
by
the
four million
trained
and
battle-hardened
warriors
that
Old
Earth
has
just imported
from
the
Dorsai.

United,
we
of
the
Younger
Worlds
are
invincible.
We
will
arm,
we will
go
to
meet
our
enemy—and
this
time,
with
the
help
of
God,
we will
crush
this
decadent,
proud
planet
that
has
threatened
us
too long;
and,
to
the
extent
it
is
necessary,
we
will
so
deal
with
the
people
of
Old
Earth
as
to
make
sure
that
such
an
attempt
by
them
never again
occurs
to
threaten
our
lives,
our
homes,
and
the
lives
and homes
of
those
who
come
after
us.

In
this
effort,
I
and
my
friends
stand
ready
to
do
anything
that
will help.
It
has
always
been
our
nature
never
to
seek
the
limelight;
but in
the
shadow
of
this
emergency
I
have
personally
asked
all
whom you
call
the
Others,
and
they
have
agreed
with
me,
to
make
themselves
known
to
you,
to
make
themselves
available
for
any
work
or duty
in
which
they
can
be
useful
in
turning
back
this
inconceivable threat.