Read Online Murray Leinster by The Best of Murray Leinster (1976) - Free Book Online
Authors: The Best of Murray Leinster (1976)
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beautifully tailored. He did not belong in the office of the provincial governor of Kantolia, whose desk was still littered with papers concerning such local affairs as the price of pigs and crops and an outbreak of measles in the public schools. The office was slightly grubby, despite a certain plebeian attempt at elegance. General Vladek seemed fastidiously detached from his surroundings. And he was amused.
‘I assure you,’ said General Vladek, ‘that I am duly solicitous of my men’s health.’ f lf you are solicitous enough,’ said Surgeon General Mors curtly, ‘you will get them out of here as quickly as they came in! But I can hardly expect you to comply with that wish. What I have to say is that your troops had better have as little to do with the civilian population as possible - no communication of any sort that can possibly be avoided.’
‘You are ridiculous,’ said General Vladek, annoyed. ‘Kantolia is now part of my country. Its people are the fellow citizens of my troops. Isolate them? Ridiculous!’
Surgeon General Mors stood up and shrugged.
‘Very well,’ he said heavily. ‘I advised you. Now, either I am a prisoner or I am not. If not, I would like a pass allowing me to
go about freely. The sudden entry of so large an invading force introduces problems of public health—’ r Which my medical corps/ said General Vladek scornfully, ‘is quite able to cope with! You are a prisoner, and I think a fool! Good day!’
Surgeon General Mors marched stolidly to the door____
Since the invasion was not yet one day old, there had been no time to build concentration camps. Surgeon General Mors was confined, therefore, in a school which had been closed to education that it might be taken over and used as a prison. He found himself in company with the provincial governor of Kantolia, with the mayor of Stadheim, and various other officials arrested by the invaders. There were private citizens in confinement, too - mosdy people whom the small number of quislings in Kantolia had denounced. They were not accused of crimes, as yet. Even the invading army did not yet pretend that they had committed any offense against either military or civilian law. But most of them were frantic. It was not easy to forget tales of hostages shot for acts of resistance by conquered populations. They knew of places where leading citizens had been exterminated for the crime of being leading citizens, and educated men destroyed because they rejected propaganda that outraged all reason. The fate of Kantolia had precedents. If precedent were followed, those first arrested when the land was overrun were in no enviable situation.
Surgeon General Mors tried to reassure them, but he had not much success. The entire situation looked hopeless. The seizure of a single province of a very minor nation would appear to the rest of the world either as a crisis, or an affront to the United Nations, or as a rectification of frontiers - according to the nationality and political persuasion of the commentator. It would go on the agenda of the United Nations Council; defdy it would be intermixed with other matters so that it could not be untangled and considered separately. Ultimately it would be the subject of a compromise - one item in a complicated Great-Power deal - which would leave matters exacdy as the invaders wished them. Practically speaking, that was the prospect.
‘‘But the fact/ said Surgeon General Mors, ‘is that such things cannot continue forever. The life of humanity is a symbiosis, a living-together, in all its stages. It begins with the symbiotic relationship of members of a family, each of whom helps and is helped by all the rest. But it rises to the symbiotic relationship of nations, of which each is an organism necessary to the others, and all are mutually helpful.’
‘But there is parasitic symbiosis, in which one organism seeks to prey upon another as our enemy seeks to prey upon us,’ interjected an amateur
‘I assure you,’ said General Vladek, ‘that I am duly solicitous of my men’s health.’ f lf you are solicitous enough,’ said Surgeon General Mors curtly, ‘you will get them out of here as quickly as they came in! But I can hardly expect you to comply with that wish. What I have to say is that your troops had better have as little to do with the civilian population as possible - no communication of any sort that can possibly be avoided.’
‘You are ridiculous,’ said General Vladek, annoyed. ‘Kantolia is now part of my country. Its people are the fellow citizens of my troops. Isolate them? Ridiculous!’
Surgeon General Mors stood up and shrugged.
‘Very well,’ he said heavily. ‘I advised you. Now, either I am a prisoner or I am not. If not, I would like a pass allowing me to
go about freely. The sudden entry of so large an invading force introduces problems of public health—’ r Which my medical corps/ said General Vladek scornfully, ‘is quite able to cope with! You are a prisoner, and I think a fool! Good day!’
Surgeon General Mors marched stolidly to the door____
Since the invasion was not yet one day old, there had been no time to build concentration camps. Surgeon General Mors was confined, therefore, in a school which had been closed to education that it might be taken over and used as a prison. He found himself in company with the provincial governor of Kantolia, with the mayor of Stadheim, and various other officials arrested by the invaders. There were private citizens in confinement, too - mosdy people whom the small number of quislings in Kantolia had denounced. They were not accused of crimes, as yet. Even the invading army did not yet pretend that they had committed any offense against either military or civilian law. But most of them were frantic. It was not easy to forget tales of hostages shot for acts of resistance by conquered populations. They knew of places where leading citizens had been exterminated for the crime of being leading citizens, and educated men destroyed because they rejected propaganda that outraged all reason. The fate of Kantolia had precedents. If precedent were followed, those first arrested when the land was overrun were in no enviable situation.
Surgeon General Mors tried to reassure them, but he had not much success. The entire situation looked hopeless. The seizure of a single province of a very minor nation would appear to the rest of the world either as a crisis, or an affront to the United Nations, or as a rectification of frontiers - according to the nationality and political persuasion of the commentator. It would go on the agenda of the United Nations Council; defdy it would be intermixed with other matters so that it could not be untangled and considered separately. Ultimately it would be the subject of a compromise - one item in a complicated Great-Power deal - which would leave matters exacdy as the invaders wished them. Practically speaking, that was the prospect.
‘‘But the fact/ said Surgeon General Mors, ‘is that such things cannot continue forever. The life of humanity is a symbiosis, a living-together, in all its stages. It begins with the symbiotic relationship of members of a family, each of whom helps and is helped by all the rest. But it rises to the symbiotic relationship of nations, of which each is an organism necessary to the others, and all are mutually helpful.’
‘But there is parasitic symbiosis, in which one organism seeks to prey upon another as our enemy seeks to prey upon us,’ interjected an amateur
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