Dark Ararat - Brian Stableford [163]
“I can certainly keep him out of this,” was Milyukov’s immediate response.
“Maybe you can and maybe you can’t,” Matthew countered, “but a brave and honest man wouldn’t even try. A man who thought he had a good case to argue would be only too pleased to take his opponent on in open forum.”
“If you say that on air I’ll cut you off immediately,” the captain insisted, stubbornly.
“In propaganda terms, that would be the next best thing to cutting your own throat,” Matthew told him. “You can’t hide any more. You can fight, but you can’t run away. It was always bound to come to this, as you should have realized before you brought the first colonist out of the freezer.”
“There was no evidence that Ararat was inhabited by intelligent aliens,” Milyukov said, mistaking the nature of the argument yet again. “We had no reason to think that the colonization could not go ahead as we had planned.”
“You live in a world with very narrow horizons, Captain Milyukov,” Matthew observed. “Maybe that’s not so surprising, given that you’re fourth- or fifth-generation spaceborn, but there’s really no excuse for it. You brought all of Earth with you, and all of the universe too. You only had to use your VE-apparatus intelligently. You really don’t understand what’s happening here, do you? If you’d had the slightest idea of the true significance of what we’ve found here, you wouldn’t have wasted a year hoping it didn’t exist and doing everything within your meager power to prevent its discovery.”
“I will not permit the colony to withdraw,” Milyukov said. “No matter what you find or what you say, I will not withdraw the colonists.”
“Because you can’t stand the thought of being outnumbered and outvoted in the corridors of your precious worldlet,” Matthew said. “If Hope were to become an observation station, manned by Shen’s Chosen People, what power and reward would there be in the rank of ship’s captain? Well, so what? Can’t you see that you have a chance to inscribe your name in the annals of human history? I can only transmit to you and yours, but you can transmit to the solar system. You won’t get a reply for a hundred and sixteen years, but you can set yourself in place as anchorman of the greatest show off Earth. Why stop me when you can simply take my place, for the only audience that really matters?”
“That’s not the kind of man I am,” the captain told him. “I repeat, I will not withdraw the colony. Disembarkation of the remaining colonists will be resumed whether you can provide final proof that the world is inhabited or not. Whatever you say while you have the attention of crew and colonists alike, I have the power and the authority to make certain of that.”
“Of course you have,” Matthew assured him, and switched off the camera’s power. He knew that he had to economize. “Let’s go,” he said to Ikram Mohammed.
The two of them started walking, immediately falling into step. They held to the same heading they’d been following all day, although they hadn’t seen any obvious sign of a trail for some time. They both knew that they had no chance of catching up with the aliens if the aliens didn’t want to be caught, but it wasn’t a topic they wanted to discuss.
Above the canopy the afternoon sky had clouded over, and the light was getting steadily worse, but their eyes had adapted to the perpetual purple twilight well enough and they hadn’t encountered any unusually treacherous ground as yet.
“Milyukov really doesn’t understand,” Matthew said, to break the silence. “He hasn’t a clue how this script is going to work out.”
“Nor have you,” said Ike, drily.
“Yes I have,” Matthew told him. “Even if the worst comes to the worst, and the aliens let me down on this particular trip, I know how the story’s going to work out.