Inferno: A Chronicle of a Distant World (The Galactic Comedy) (24 page)

She set my plate down in front of me, then carried another plate to the other end of the table, set it down, and returned a moment later with a bottle of wine and two glasses. Finally she sat down.

"I haven't thought about Tubito in, oh, it must be thirty years," she said. "He would be proud of his nephew."

"Not if he knew all the facts," I said. "James Krakanna isn't much better that his predecessors."

"Really?" she said without looking up. "How many thousands has he slaughtered?"

"None directly," I said.

"Directly?"

I explained his position on the SLIM disease, and his refusal to accept the herbicide.

"He really refused your help?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Well, good for him!"

"I don't think you understand what I've been saying, Miss Beddoes," I said.

"I understand exactly what you've been saying."

"Then—"

"You've been saying," she continued over my objection, "that Faligor is all through accepting our help, which is what got it into this mess in the first place."

"We had nothing to do with the SLIM disease," I said.

"No, but having delivered them into the hands of three successive genocidal maniacs, you would now rob them of the last vestige of their cultural traditions."

"But he's condemning a million or more of his people to death!" I protested.

"Oh?" she said, arching an eyebrow. "Has he ordered them to kill themselves?"

"No, but—"

"So he left the choice up to them?" she continued. "And you just know that they're going to make the wrong decision."

"Look," I said. "If I see a way to save even one Faligori, don't I have an obligation to do so?"

"That's what our traditions would have you believe," she agreed.

"Well, then?"

"I wonder what the Faligori bible says?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Milton, everything bad that has happened to this planet—and that encompasses more tragedy than you'll find in the work of twenty Shakespeares—happened because we wanted nothing more than to help them."

"Maliachi says that, but that's to be expected—he's one of them. I don't see how
you
can say that." I paused. "Did Man create Gama Labu?"

"No," she said. "We didn't create him." She paused. "But we created the conditions that allowed him to come to power." She stared at me across the table. "You're a doctor, Milton. You of all people should know that no matter what hideous symptoms a patient may exhibit, you're looking for a germ or a virus that either created the condition or so weakened the patient that the condition was able to exist. Well, we're Faligor's germ, and the best way not to bring any further harm to it is to leave it alone."

"But we can do such good here," I said. "We can eradicate such suffering."

"I know we can," she said. "But we exact too high a price for it. Krakanna seems to know that, even if you don't."

"Krakanna," I said, grimacing. "Sometimes I wonder if he cares as much for his people as I do."

"Why? Because he refuses to let them use you as a crutch? Because he knows from past experience the cost of letting us help, of not allowing his people to solve their own problems?"

"Look, I don't want to spend the night arguing with you, Miss Beddoes," I said. "Let us just agree to disagree."

"Perhaps that would be best."

We finished the meal in silence. Then, later, after I'd spent a couple of hours reading through some medical texts, I saw a motion outside the back door and immediately went to investigate. It was Susan Beddoes, sitting on a porch swing, looking off to the west.

"This was such a beautiful world once," she said. "I wish you could have seen it as it was when I first saw it, Milton. It was truly a diamond in the rough." She paused. "Each time I come back, it is less and less recognizable."

"Did Arthur Cartright invite you here?" I asked.

She smiled. "I was the first. I opened this world."

"You did?" I asked, surprised.

She nodded. "That was my sin."

"If you truly feel it was a sin, why do you keep coming back?"

She looked sadly off across the plains. "That is my punishment."

A few moments later she went off to bed. The next day she hunted up Cartright's grave and placed some flowers on it, and the morning after that I drove her to the spaceport.

To tell the truth, I was relieved to see her go. For reasons I couldn't explain, she made me feel very uneasy when I was in her presence.

After her ship took off, I drove to the lab, pushed all thoughts of her from my mind, and spent the rest of the day working fruitlessly on a cure for the SLIM disease.

Epilogue

James Krakanna sat at his desk, a pile of documents to his left, an equally high pile to his right. He sighed and looked out over the city center.

There was so much work to be done, so much more than he had anticipated out there in the forest, when his enemies were Barioke and then Dushu—tangible, palpable things. Now his only enemy was failure, for while Faligor could live with Dushu's army in the north and the disease that was eating away at its core, it had hope for the future again, and the only thing it couldn't tolerate was another undermining of that hope.

How did I chance to be sitting here, he asked himself. I'm just a schoolteacher. I never aspired to the presidency, never wanted it, and now I seem unable to relinquish it. I suppose it is that while my skills may not be up to the task, my vision is clear. I see where we came from and where we are, and I see where we must go. It is a twisting, winding road with many obstacles, but we must traverse it, and we must do so on our own.

We have come a long way since Susan Beddoes first met with the Sitate Disanko. It is but one lifetime, yet it has encompassed almost five million lives. We have had a mirror held up to our collective soul, and we have not liked what we have seen there.

I don't know what the future holds for me, or even if I can stay the course—but I know the diamond still exists, washed clean with the blood of my people. It has survived the worst intentions of ourselves and the best intentions of others, so doubtless it will survive me too.

Krakanna sighed again, and he picked a document off the top of the pile. The future would have to take care of itself. His job was here in the present, and it was time to go back to work.

Still, he wished he could be here to see what his world had become in the next fifty or eighty years. He was almost certain that he would be proud of it.

—The End—

CHRONOLOGY

Chronology of the universe created in BIRTHRIGHT: THE BOOK OF MAN (through May 1, 2010), showing the year, the era, and the title:

1885 A.D. "The Hunter" (IVORY)

1898 A.D. "Himself" (IVORY)

1982 A.D. SIDESHOW

1983 A.D. THE THREE-LEGGED HOOTCH DANCER

1985 A.D. THE WILD ALIEN TAMER

1987 A.D. THE BEST ROOTIN' TOOTIN' SHOOTIN'

GUNSLINGER IN THE WHOLE DAMNED GALAXY

2057 A.D. "The Politician" (IVORY)

2908 A.D. 1 G.E.

16 G.E. Republic "The Curator" (IVORY)

264 G.E. Republic "The Pioneers" (BIRTHRIGHT)

332 G.E. Republic "The Cartographers" (BIRTHRIGHT)

346 G.E. Republic WALPURGIS III

367 G.E. Republic EROS ASCENDING

396 G.E. Republic "The Miners" (BIRTHRIGHT)

401 G.E. Republic EROS AT ZENITH

442 G.E. Republic EROS DESCENDING

465 G.E. Republic EROS AT NADIR

522 G.E. Republic "All the Things You Are"

588 G.E. Republic "The Psychologists" (BIRTHRIGHT)

616 G.E. Republic A MIRACLE OF RARE DESIGN

882 G.E. Republic "The Potentate" (IVORY)

962 G.E. Republic "The Merchants" (BIRTHRIGHT)

1150 G.E. Republic "Cobbling Together a Solution"

1151 G.E. Republic "Nowhere in Particular"

1152 G.E. Republic "The God Biz"

1394 G.E. Republic "Keepsakes"

1701 G.E. Republic "The Artist" (IVORY)

1813 G.E. Republic "Dawn" (PARADISE)

1826 G.E. Republic PURGATORY

1859 G.E. Republic "Noon" (PARADISE)

1888 G.E. Republic "Midafternoon" (PARADISE)

1902 G.E. Republic "Dusk" (PARADISE)

1921 G.E. Republic INFERNO

1966 G.E. Republic STARSHIP: MUTINY

1967 G.E. Republic STARSHIP: PIRATE

1968 G.E. Republic STARSHIP: MERCENARY

1969 G.E. Republic STARSHIP: REBEL

1970 G.E. Republic STARSHIP: FLAGSHIP

2122 G.E. Democracy "The 43 Antarean Dynasties"

2154 G.E. Democracy "The Diplomats" (BIRTHRIGHT)

2239 G.E. Democracy "Monuments of Flesh and Stone"

2275 G.E. Democracy "The Olympians" (BIRTHRIGHT)

2469 G.E. Democracy "The Barristers" (BIRTHRIGHT)

2885 G.E. Democracy "Robots Don't Cry"

2911 G.E. Democracy "The Medics" (BIRTHRIGHT)

3004 G.E. Democracy "The Policitians" (BIRTHRIGHT)

3042 G.E. Democracy "The Gambler" (IVORY)

3286 G.E. Democracy SANTIAGO

3322 G.E. Democracy A HUNGER IN THE SOUL

3324 G.E. Democracy THE SOUL EATER

3324 G.E. Democracy "Nicobar Lane: The Soul Eater's Story"

3407 G.E. Democracy THE RETURN OF SANTIAGO

3427 G.E. Democracy SOOTHSAYER

3441 G.E. Democracy ORACLE

3447 G.E. Democracy PROPHET

3502 G.E. Democracy "Guardian Angel"

3504 G.E. Democracy "A Locked-Planet Mystery"

3504 G.E. Democracy "Honorable Enemies"

3505 G.E. Democracy "If the Frame Fits…"

3719 G.E. Democracy "Hunting the Snark"

4375 G.E. Democracy "The Graverobber" (IVORY)

4822 G.E. Oligarchy "The Administrators" (BIRTHRIGHT)

4839 G.E. Oligarchy THE DARK LADY

5101 G.E. Oligarchy THE WIDOWMAKER

5103 G.E. Oligarchy THE WIDOWMAKER REBORN

5106 G.E. Oligarchy THE WIDOWMAKER UNLEASHED

5108 G.E. Oligarchy A GATHERING OF WIDOWMAKERS

5461 G.E. Oligarchy "The Media" (BIRTHRIGHT)

5492 G.E. Oligarchy "The Artists" (BIRTHRIGHT)

5521 G.E. Oligarchy "The Warlord" (IVORY)

5655 G.E. Oligarchy "The Biochemists" (BIRTHRIGHT)

5912 G.E. Oligarchy "The Warlords" (BIRTHRIGHT)

5993 G.E. Oligarchy "The Conspirators" (BIRTHRIGHT)

6304 G.E. Monarchy IVORY

6321 G.E. Monarchy "The Rulers" (BIRTHRIGHT)

6400 G.E. Monarchy "The Symbiotics" (BIRTHRIGHT)

6521 G.E. Monarchy "Catastrophe Baker and the Cold Equations

6523 G.E. Monarchy THE OUTPOST

6524 G.E. Monarchy "Catastrophe Baker and a Canticle for

Leibowitz

6599 G.E. Monarchy "The Philosophers" (BIRTHRIGHT)

6746 G.E. Monarchy "The Architects" (BIRTHRIGHT)

6962 G.E. Monarchy "The Collectors" (BIRTHRIGHT)

7019 G.E. Monarchy "The Rebels" (BIRTHRIGHT)

16201 G.E. Anarchy "The Archaeologists" (BIRTHRIGHT)

16673 G.E. Anarchy "The Priests" (BIRTHRIGHT)

16888 G.E. Anarchy "The Pacifists" (BIRTHRIGHT)

17001 G.E. Anarchy "The Destroyers" (BIRTHRIGHT)

21703 G.E. "Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge"

Novels not set in this future:

ADVENTURES (1922-1926 A.D.)

EXPLOITS (1926-1931 A.D.)

ENCOUNTERS (1931-1934 A.D.)

HAZARDS (1934-1939 A.D.)

STALKING THE UNICORN ("Tonight")

STALKING THE VAMPIRE ("Tonight")

STALKING THE DRAGON ("Tonight")

THE BRANCH (2047-2051 A.D.)

SECOND CONTACT (2065 A.D.)

BULLY! (1910-1912 A.D.)

KIRINYAGA (2123-2137 A.D.)

KILIMANJARO (2234-2241 A.D.)

LADY WITH AN ALIEN (1490 A.D.)

A CLUB IN MONTMARTRE (1890-1901 A.D.)

DRAGON AMERICA: REVOLUTION (1779-1780 A.D.)

THE WORLD BEHIND THE DOOR (1928 A.D.)

THE OTHER TEDDY ROOSEVELTS (1888-1919 A.D.)

THE BUNTLINE SPECIAL (1881 A.D.)