THE LAST VICTORY
BY TOM GODWIN
He had only two aims in life: first, to
get what he wanted; and after that to enjoy
it. But to achieve the one he'd have to
give up the other ... or would he?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The transport ship, bound for Capella with Outlander colonists fromEarth and Frontier Guards from Arcturus, struck the hyperspace vortexwithout warning. It seized her, wrenching and twisting her, and flungher across its gigantic rim at thousands of times the speed of light.She emerged into normal space in an unknown region of the galaxy,broken and driveless, but near enough a planet that she could descendby means of her antigravity plates before the last of her air wasgone.
It was sunset when she settled heavily to earth on a grassy slopebeside a forest, leaning at a dangerous angle with only her failingantigravity plates to hold her from falling. The dead had beendisposed of in space and the living filed out of her: fifty Outlandermen, women and children, eighteen ship's crewmen, and ten FrontierGuards.
The Guard officer and ship's captain came last, of equal rank andalready appraising each other with cold speculation.
The Howling things in the dark forest were coming closer. Thanelistened as he watched Curry, the ship's captain, approach across thestrip of land that separated the two camps; standing back from his fireas he waited, where he would make an uncertain target for an assassin'sblaster.
No one could be seen near any of the fires in the two camps on thehill. Only the unarmed Outlanders, at their fires in the swale below,moved about without wariness. And it was not yet three hours from thelanding of the ship.
Curry stopped before him, restrained anger on his arrogantly handsomeface.
"You failed to report to me and turn your Frontier Guards over to mycommand as you were ordered," he said.
"Since your rank is no higher than mine I saw no reason to do so,"Thane answered.
Curry smiled, very thinly. "Perhaps I can show you a reason."
"Perhaps. Let's have it."
"First, I want to remind you of our circumstances," Curry said. "Theship will never lift again and we're marooned here for centuries tocome. You know what the reaction of the Outlanders will be."
The Outlanders were the outcasts of a society that could nottolerate individuality. Two hundred years before the complexities ofcivilization had combined technocracy with integration and producedTechnogration. Technogration had abolished race, creed and color,nations and borders, had welded all into a common mass and prohibitedall individual pursuits that did not contribute to the Common Good. TheOutlanders, refusing to come under Technograte domination, lived asbest they could in the deserts, plateaus and jungles that Technogrationcould not use. The ones on the ship had been bound for Capella Fivewhere men accustomed to wrestling a living from hostile environmentswere needed. Under such circumstances Outlanders were given certainrights and freedoms. Until they were no longer needed. Then, again,they became a people without a world....
"For two hundred years the Outlanders have hated Technogration andwanted a world where they could set up their own archaic form ofsociety," Curry said. "Now, those down there will think thei