When Shadows Fall

 

And then there came a day when Earth lay dying, for planets also die. About her crept a ghost of atmosphere, the body eaten full away by iron rust and belching smoke until the plains, stretching wide, were sickly red, and no green showed from range to range and pole to pole.

 

Red as Mars.

 

Dead, or nearly so, with the broken tumble of her cities peopled with the lizard and the wind. And the spaceports, which had given birth to the empires of space, were charred and indistinct upon the breast of Mother Earth.

 

So thought Lars the Ranger sitting in the window of the Greater Council Hall, so he saw from this eminence above the world and the red plains.

 

He too was getting old. Strong and young he had voyaged far on dangerous ways to bring the treasure back, but now he voyaged no more. Science had prolonged the beating of his heart a thousand years beyond his time, but now he was old and stiff and the Council chamber was cold.

 

The voices were thin behind him. They echoed oddly in this reverberant tomb. Seats were here for all the Council members of full six hundred systems. But the seats were empty now and their metal threw back the reedy whine of the clerks who called them all to order, reading names which had been gone these seven hundred years, all formal, all precise, and noting that they were not here.

 

Mankin, Grand President of the Confederated Systems, sat hunched and aged upon his dais, looking out upon his servants, listening to the threadbare rite.

 

“Capella!”

 

Silence.

 

“Rigel Centaurus!”

 

Silence.

 

“Deneb and Kizar and Betelgeuse!"

 

Silence.

 

And onward for six hundred names.

 

Silence.

 

For they were mighty there in the stars and Mother Earth was old. They were thriving across a mighty span of ten thousand light-years. And Mother Earth had no longer any fuel. They had taken the oil from her deepest springs and the coal from her lowest mines. They had breathed her air and forged her steel and taken their argosies away. And behind them they had scant memory.

 

Earth had no power of money now, no goods, no trades, no fleet. And the finest of her strong young men had gone this long, long while. The lame, the halt, these and the dimmest of sight had stayed. And now there was nothing.

 

“Markab!”

 

“Achernar!”

 

“Polaris!”

 

No one there. No one there. No one there. No one.

 

Lars the Ranger stood and stiffly shook out his cloak. He couched the ceremonial space helmet in his crookt arm and advanced formally to the dais. He bowed.

 

He might have reported there in the ritual that the fleets were ready and the armies strong, that as General of Space he could assure them all of the peace in space.

 

But he was suddenly conscious of who they were and how things stood and he said nothing.

 

There was Greto, once a wizard of skilled finance, sitting chin on breast in an advisor’s chair. There was Smit, the valiant warrior of five hundred years ago. There was Mankin, tiny in his robe, crushed down by years and grief.

 

About Lars swirled, for an instant, the laughing staff of centuries back—young men with the giddy wine of high risk in their hearts. About Lars thundered the governing mandates of Earth to Space, to System Empires everywhere.

 

And then he saw the four of them and the clerks, alone here on a world which was nearly dead.

 

He broke ritual softly.

 

“There are no fleets and the armies have melted away. There is no fuel to burn in the homes, much less in the cannon. There is no food, there are no guns. I can no longer consider myself or this Council master of space and all that it contains.”

 

They had all come there with a vague hope that it would break. And it had broken. And Greto came to his feet, his wasted body mighty and imposing still.

 

There was silence for a while and then Greto turned to the dais. “I can report the same. For fifteen long years I could have said nearly as much. But I admit this now. Earth is no more.”

 

Smit lumbered upright. He scowled and clenched a black fist as he looked at Lars. “We have our fleets and our guns. Who has been here these last decades to know that they are without fodder? Bah! This thing can be solved!”

 

Mankin hunched lower, opened a drawer and brought out a tablet which he took. As he set down his water glass, he belched politely and looked from one to the next, bewildered, a little afraid. He had been able to handle many things in his day.

 

He fumbled with his reports and they were all the same. People were old and children were few. The food was gone and winter would be cold.

 

He cleared his throat. Hopefully he looked at Smit. “I was about to suggest that some measure be taken to remove the few thousands remaining here to some planet where food and fuel are not so dear. But I only hope that I can be advised—”