yellow of those between. Everywhere there was life and profit, the Tubes reached and siphoned them away to Eron. And one massive Tube stabbed far across the galaxy into the heart of giant Canopus.
Eron. A fat gray spider , Horn thought, sitting in the center of its golden web, waiting the tremor that announced the capture of another victim.
Horn shrugged. The Golden Folk screamed their appreciation. âEron! Eron! Eron!â they shouted, until it rang against the hills.
âEron, yes!â Kohlnar said, and his amplified voice overwhelmed the shouting. âBut more than thatâman! Manâs greatest achievementâthe civilization of the stars. Eron! Man at his peak, one great culture reaching out from Eron in every direction almost five hundred light years, only possible because of Eron. And hereâEronâs most recent victory!â
He stabbed a button.
The Cluster behind. In front the colossal ruins of the last demolished fortress on Quarnon Four. The surrender of Peter Sair. Small, stout, white-haired, old, the Liberator knelt in front of a tall, stern Kohlnar and signed the articles of capitulation. Behind Sair were the kneeling ranks of his defeated troops, receiving their yellow number disks. Behind them, symbolically, were numbered slaves toiling in the fields and mines and factories beneath hovering, black, gold-banded cruisers.
âVictory!â Kohlnarâs voice was husky and low. âNot for Eron. For man. Those who challenge Eron challenge not the Empire but manâs greatness. Let this be their answer. Eron will preserve manâs goal, manâs inheritanceâthe stars, strong and united. This is Eronâs mission. She will not let it die, though we and others die to preserve it. Now, as a symbol of manâs continuity of striving, we dedicate this Tube, uniting Eron with the place from which our ancestors launched the first ships toward the stars.â
Behind him, the Directors stepped forward. Wendre stepped quickly to his side and placed her right arm around him. Duchane and Matal stood at his right, Fenelon and Ronholm at his left. Kohlnar rested his hand upon a golden switch on top of the railing; the others placed their hands on his. They pushed it closed.
The Tube. Suddenly it was there, golden and real, reaching out from the far side of the black cube toward the east, rising through the air, spearing out into space, crossing the thirty light years that separated Earth from Eron.
Hornâs eyes followed it up and up until the distance narrowed it to a thread and then the thread was gone. He wondered if it was perspective alone that shrank the one-hundred-meter diameter into nothing. He remembered, vaguely, something about a real dwindling.â¦
Earth and Eron, linked now a second time, joined by a new umbilical cord. Not to feed the mother, worn and barren from the long agonies of childbirth, but to drain away the last, slow streams of life.
The Empire, held together by these golden cords, nourishing in the womb a great, greedy child. It had grown too large to live independently. It must protect these cords or starve.
Strange, Horn thought, that strength makes weakness. Through being strong, Eron had become the most dependent world in the Empire.
And yet, looking at the Tube, Horn couldnât deny its beauty.
His eyes slid back down the golden cord. A buzzard brushed incautiously against the Tube wall and burned brilliantly. Here and there along the Tube, it flared as insects leaped at it blindly.
That was the Tube: deadly beauty. Beauty to Eron, food for the greedy child. To all others, it was death.
The guards swirled near the reviewing stand. Horn looked down in time to see Denebolan giants drag a man from under it. Horn stared through the gun sight. It was Wu. The ragged old man was protesting vigorously and clinging desperately to his battered suitcase. There was no sign of Lil. Wu was hurried away. On the back of his neck was a large,
Eron. A fat gray spider , Horn thought, sitting in the center of its golden web, waiting the tremor that announced the capture of another victim.
Horn shrugged. The Golden Folk screamed their appreciation. âEron! Eron! Eron!â they shouted, until it rang against the hills.
âEron, yes!â Kohlnar said, and his amplified voice overwhelmed the shouting. âBut more than thatâman! Manâs greatest achievementâthe civilization of the stars. Eron! Man at his peak, one great culture reaching out from Eron in every direction almost five hundred light years, only possible because of Eron. And hereâEronâs most recent victory!â
He stabbed a button.
The Cluster behind. In front the colossal ruins of the last demolished fortress on Quarnon Four. The surrender of Peter Sair. Small, stout, white-haired, old, the Liberator knelt in front of a tall, stern Kohlnar and signed the articles of capitulation. Behind Sair were the kneeling ranks of his defeated troops, receiving their yellow number disks. Behind them, symbolically, were numbered slaves toiling in the fields and mines and factories beneath hovering, black, gold-banded cruisers.
âVictory!â Kohlnarâs voice was husky and low. âNot for Eron. For man. Those who challenge Eron challenge not the Empire but manâs greatness. Let this be their answer. Eron will preserve manâs goal, manâs inheritanceâthe stars, strong and united. This is Eronâs mission. She will not let it die, though we and others die to preserve it. Now, as a symbol of manâs continuity of striving, we dedicate this Tube, uniting Eron with the place from which our ancestors launched the first ships toward the stars.â
Behind him, the Directors stepped forward. Wendre stepped quickly to his side and placed her right arm around him. Duchane and Matal stood at his right, Fenelon and Ronholm at his left. Kohlnar rested his hand upon a golden switch on top of the railing; the others placed their hands on his. They pushed it closed.
The Tube. Suddenly it was there, golden and real, reaching out from the far side of the black cube toward the east, rising through the air, spearing out into space, crossing the thirty light years that separated Earth from Eron.
Hornâs eyes followed it up and up until the distance narrowed it to a thread and then the thread was gone. He wondered if it was perspective alone that shrank the one-hundred-meter diameter into nothing. He remembered, vaguely, something about a real dwindling.â¦
Earth and Eron, linked now a second time, joined by a new umbilical cord. Not to feed the mother, worn and barren from the long agonies of childbirth, but to drain away the last, slow streams of life.
The Empire, held together by these golden cords, nourishing in the womb a great, greedy child. It had grown too large to live independently. It must protect these cords or starve.
Strange, Horn thought, that strength makes weakness. Through being strong, Eron had become the most dependent world in the Empire.
And yet, looking at the Tube, Horn couldnât deny its beauty.
His eyes slid back down the golden cord. A buzzard brushed incautiously against the Tube wall and burned brilliantly. Here and there along the Tube, it flared as insects leaped at it blindly.
That was the Tube: deadly beauty. Beauty to Eron, food for the greedy child. To all others, it was death.
The guards swirled near the reviewing stand. Horn looked down in time to see Denebolan giants drag a man from under it. Horn stared through the gun sight. It was Wu. The ragged old man was protesting vigorously and clinging desperately to his battered suitcase. There was no sign of Lil. Wu was hurried away. On the back of his neck was a large,
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