Read Online The Shores of Death by Michael Moorcock - Free Book Online

accept the death of everything—but now Sahaa’s people have given us a means of escaping, I feel we should do something more. We could broadcast the total sum of human knowledge with that transmitter of yours. Then, if the Shreelian scheme fails—as we know it can—we shall have left something worthwhile behind us.”
    “That would defeat the whole spirit of the venture,” Navo said quietly. “The simplicity is important.” He sighed. “Six months age we were all agreed, all enthusiastic, now we quibble over this point and that. We should have been transmitting by now. Perhaps I am an inadequate leader, perhaps ...”
    Fastina took his hand. “You are doing marvellously, Narvo. You know how everyone was shocked when Clovis went away—everything was confused. You got both projects going—the transmitter and the artificial gravitational field. You supervised the modifications necessary for making the computer complex function on an industrial scale, you got the plants set up and working, the machinery transported to Mercury and Pluto. In another six months the field should encompass the whole Solar System and we can begin tests. It’s everything Clovis would have achieved ...”
    Narvo shook his head. “No—Clovis was a leader— people had an almost mystical faith in his judgment. They respected me, certainly, but they do not trust me in the way they trusted Clovis. The coming six months could result in a division of the people into a dozen opposed factions. Admittedly we all have the same aims —but we are not all agreed on means ...” he glanced at Aimer.
    Aimer said: “You’re overstating the importance of these differences, Narvo. After all, we cannot just go plunging off into space in a direction chosen at random. Neither can we decide at once whether to admit every outworlder into the System. The new agricultural projects can only support so many and I’m not sure ...”
    Fastina was angry. “ Narvo has made that decision. We admit everyone. The whole race! We stand or fall as a united race. If you begin to say who should come and who shouldn’t, then ...”
    Narvo interrupted. “Fastina is right. Secondly the men of the industrial and agricultural worlds will be more useful to us than the men of Earth. Our skills are largely in abstract matters, theirs are material and, at this stage, infinitely more valuable.”
    “But Earth is being ruined by the factories and the farms. Gardens are churned up, forests are cut down, landscapes are marred by the airshafts from the underground manufacturing plants. Earth is becoming an ugly world. If we limited the numbers, we should not need to provide for so many, destroy so much.”
    Sahaa the alien looked on politely. Although he could speak Earthish and understand it, much of what was said was well below his own sonic range.
    Narvo was turning away, escorting Fastina. “You are a selfish man, Andros. Sometimes I regret accepting your offer of help.”
    As Narvo and Fastina seated themselves in their gleaming red aircar Andros shrugged and shouted: “Without me it would have taken you a very long time to understand what the Shreelians were getting at—and you might never have interpreted their science. You are ungrateful, Narvo Velusi! Luckily, the majority of the people on Earth are not! ”
    Narvo blew on his sonarkey and ignored Aimer. The carriage rose into the air. As they moved away from the shining vastness of the transmitter, Narvo rubbed his face with his hands.
    “I can’t blame him for his fears,” he sighed. “But how can I quiet them—how can I keep the race calm and moving towards the same goal? At this rate we’ll be fighting so much amongst ourselves that the Shreelians will give up helping us and leave us to our fate. It will be well-deserved.” He raised his face to look westwards and Fastina saw that his eyes had tears in them.
    He's right, she thought, we need Clovis. But, oh, my love where are you?
    She remembered on the night