Star Colony, page 1
Star Colony
(1981) *
Keith Laumer
Contents
INTRODUCTION
PREFATORY NOTE
SPECIAL NOTE
READER'S FOREWORD
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
FINAL PREFATORY NOTE
ONE – Before the Beginning
TWO – The Beginning
THREE – The Greylorn Report
FOUR – Escape from Terra
FIVE – First Contact
SIX – Grand Tour
SEVEN – A Dead City
EIGHT – Jonesu-san
NINE – Banshire's Man
TEN – Old Grove
ELEVEN – Decision and Disaster
TWELVE – In the Vaults
THIRTEEN – Genocide at Prime
FOURTEEN – Slave Raiders
FIFTEEN – The Ship Is Found
APPENDIX 1 – Extract from the Journals of Augustus Addison I
APPENDIX II – Extract from the Journals of Andrew Grail
Book information
INTRODUCTION
THE HISTORY OF COLMAR
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOLUME ONE: STAR COLONY
Being a short history of the founding of
humanity's
first extraterrestrial colony
by
Keith Laumer
This history is based on official Terran archives only recently released to scholars, as well as on letters and diaries of early settlers, supplemented by material from the Oral History Project initiated in honor of independent Colmar's Centennial celebration in CY 325 (AD 2437). For the first time, the authentic course of events has been extracted and separated from its overlay of myth and folklore. Prepared by a distinguished board of editors under the leadership of our world's preeminent chronicler, the present history, designed especially for use in the schools through post-doctorate levels, will lay to rest for all time, it is earnestly hoped, the maze of conflicting legendary and mythical accounts of Early Times, which have heretofore clogged scholarly avenues of inquiry into Colmar's settlement, the origin of the curious dichotomy that has existed between our East and North Continents, and the events leading to Unification and at last to Independence itself.
In a work of such scope, it would of course be quite impractical to recount every detail of those turbulent times. Instead the editors have chosen an anecdotal approach, at once livelier reading and most effective in communicating the spirit of long-gone times, as well as clarifying at last the early events which contributed importantly to Colmar's present global society.
It is felt that existing standard histories of the period beginning with Unification present an adequate account of Colmar's more recent years; accordingly, the present work is limited to the era prior thereto, an era in which our great Founding Families came to Omega from far-off Terra, a world toward which Omegan patriotism once seemed to require an attitude of implacable hostility, and not without reason. Latterly our relations with the mother planet have vastly improved, based on the genuine achievements of our common humanity.
The original picket vessel ordered into orbit by Captain Brill and supplied for an extended cruise was able to maintain its surveillance post for over eighty years (eighty-one years, three months, and nine days, (Standard)) without incident, before its crew of two, Commander S. Takai and Chief Yeoman Betty Pate were forced by severe shortages of food and repair parts, exacerbated by a minor meteorite strike, to make planetfall. The small scout-type boat was immediately repaired and resupplied, and returned to orbit, this time with a single man aboard, a volunteer: Ensign (later Vice Admiral) Jerry von Shimo. It was von Shimo who detected the approach of ACV Galahad, Commander (later Rear Admiral) Greylo rn commanding.
PREFATORY NOTE
For some time the need for a definitive and authoritative account of Colmar's earliest days has been evident to the lay public as well as to specialists.
Only now, with the release of key documents from Terran Naval files, has it become possible to reconstruct such a history.
While doubtless there are many who will mourn the defictionalization of these events and the loss of credulity of such tales in the Colmarian mythos as Oliver and the Space Beast, The Fallen Evil One, The Nine Deeds of Grail, and others, all should instead take pride in the reality of the nuggets of fact round which these old tales were woven.
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SPECIAL NOTE
Be it noted that, while the History has not yet been accorded the Imprimature of the Church of the Revealed, neither has it been placed on the Index, a fact sure to comfort the pious with an interest in their world's past. His Complexity has stated: "It is not the policy of the Church to attempt to suppress fact"
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READER'S FOREWORD
For the present generation of Colmarians—no less than for visitors from Terra—it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine the planet as it was a scant century and a half ago, at the time Independence was demanded and peacefully though reluctantly granted, due more to growing Colmarian military power than to enlightened Terran policy.
Where broad grain fields now glow in the greenish light of our sun, drab gray tundras once spread across a continent. It seems impossible to grasp that our great forests of oak, ash, beech, pine, and walnut are not indeed indigenous to Colmar or that the abundant wildlife—from the great elk to the timid field mouse—are all descendents of fertilized ova transported across space a few centuries ago. Where our mighty cities rise, rude huts sheltered the frightened, starving, half-frozen men and women who had left the comparative comforts of home (meaning Terra) to make new lives on an unknown and alien world.
It requires an effort of will to realize that those men and women, for all their heroism and hardiness, were no more nor less human than we and that the encounters and struggles by which they mastered the manifold hostilities of their new home were to them no more than the events of the day, rather than grand epics in which the voices of strange gods were heard off-stage, directing events.
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Nonetheless, it is worthwhile to make that effort and to see in these pioneers the distant reflections of ourselves as we, no less than they, contribute to the Colmar of the future, to whose citizens we of our era will in turn seem remote and historical.
Reluctant though we, your editors as well as other Colmarians, are to abandon treasured fables like How Oliver Defied the Giant and When Grail Fought the Many-Headed Beast, we will nonetheless find it rewarding to contemplate our true history, stripped of embellishment, and to discover again our closeness to those mighty Founders, no less deserving of honor for their mere humanity. Once, they lived and breathed as we do, and in these pages they live again for those who seek them.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The editors express their gratitude for the assistance of each of the surviving descendents of Our Founders, especially that of Miss Olivia Brill-Smythe, widow of the first man born on Col-mar subsequent to Independence, and that of Colonel Harry Halland III, CAF (ret.), both of whom contributed not only extensive collections of family documents, but their own early reminiscences of their grandparents.
When—last year ( cy 331) the last recollection of Colmar's pioneer days passed from living memory with the death of Miss Brill-Smythe at the advanced age of 107 years, Miss Brill-Smythe having been the companion-nurse to Vice Admiral Jerry von Shimo (ret.) during the last five years of his astonishing life—it became apparent to all that the task of organizing and collating all extant genuine data regarding Colmar's early years could no longer be deferred. Accordingly, the present Panel for the Authentication of the Historical Record was formed by the Tey-Grall Foundation and assigned appropriate authority and responsibility for the task.
Somewhat to the surprise—and greatly to the satisfaction— of the scholars thus empowered, it was found that in addition to the several various official records, including bridge logs of Galahad, Princeton, and Special Hull 731 and other documents extant in various archives—including those of the Planetary Museum—there was also in existence a wealth of unpublished personal memoirs, journals, and letters, which amplified and completed the highly fragmentary accounts provided by the official sources.
With the availability of long-suppressed material from Terran archives, the Panel was at last able to assemble all data into a single, coherent narrative—one not without its surprises, for the actual roles of many hitherto neglected individuals were revealed, while actions traditionally ascribed to certain well-known figures were found to have been mistakenly accredited during the long era of word-of-mouth transmission. A number of well-loved traditional heroes were discovered to be either less admirable than believed, or nonexistent, while to the acknowledged delight of the Panelists, more than a few who had long been discounted as mythical were found to be, if not entirely as legend had preserved their memories, at least substantially real people.
Now, at last, the Panel can publicly acknowledge and express its gratitude for the generous assistance of the many unselfish citizens who contributed treasured family papers, informal voice-recordings, and personal recollections, if not of personally experienced pioneer days, then of long-ago conversations with relatives and others who participated in the events herein narrated. Chief among these is perhaps Miss Brill-Smythe, who had devoted many decades of her long life to the organization and clarification of just such oral history sources, including, in her youth, such pivotal figures as her grandfather, Captain A.J.R. Brill-Smythe and a number of his contempor
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It should also be mentioned that no liberties have been taken with fact. All conversation attributed to individuals can be fully authenticated in the record, although to have footnoted all such entries would, we felt, have rendered the book inacceptably cumbersome for the general reader, while the serious scholar is well aware of the avenues for authentication of such quotations. It is indeed fortunate for the present generations of Colmarians that our ancestors, well aware of the historical importance of their bold ventures, took care to make records of their times. Almost without exception, every early immigrant kept a journal or composed an after-the-fact account of events. And not only do these documents exhibit a gratifying degree of agreement and internal consistency, but in many instances, archaeological investigation has served to substantiate the recorded data. Thus, it is with confidence that the Panel offers its reconstruction of those stirring days. Let us go back, then, to those not-so-long-distant times when Terra was still "home" in the minds of Colmarians. Where they ventured with their bodies and their lives, can we be so timid as to refrain from reaching out with our minds?
Edison Colmar for the Panel
at East City Ma 23, CY 332
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FINAL PREFATORY NOTE
Difficult it is for Colmarians of the present generation, nurtured in our present highly sophisticated society and having enjoyed all the amenities of modern culture for all their lives, to envision a day when bare tundra and treacherous boglands represented the typical Colmarian landscape, a time when green foliage was unknown to our garden world, an era in which total ignorance of this great planet was leavened only by superstitious conjecture regarding its vast unexplored areas. Harder still, to imagine life on distant Terra during this period of population crisis, the Terra where our Founders were born and from which they voluntarily departed to venture into the unknown. Still, difficult though it is to grasp in its reality the concept of actually participating in the establishment of the first extraterrestrial human colony, the effort is rewarding, and the compilers and editors of the History would encourage all Colmarians to make that effort. We must turn our thoughts back to the beginning —or before the beginning.
The Editor-in-Chief
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ONE – Before the Beginning
•1 •
Think first of a man: middle-aged, round-shouldered, his face weather-beaten and creased from his years as a stockbreeder and fanner; uncouth, ambitious; his name is Jake Colmar and he was Special Rank aboard the great colonizing vessel Omega, thirty-seven months out of Terra with a full complement of fifty-four, and two hundred and six passenger-colonists, on a live run. During the entire three-year voyage out, Colmar had been, quite properly, the most inconspicuous man aboard. Now, in a precontact orbit about the big planet selected by the Destination Committee consisting of Captain Brill, Sub-Captain Ohara and Superchief Dan Nolan, plus the colonists ' representative, D.B. Halland, and Colmar himself, Colmar's hour had come. From now until all instruments read at rest , he was absolute dictator aboard Brill's beloved Omega, and Jake wasn't the man to slight his duty. He ordered a Senior Officers Call as soon as the first faint whisperings of atmospheric contact were audible.
"Get this straight, gentlemen," he said in a voice quite transformed from the patient and submissive tone which they had all become accustomed to hearing—and to ignoring. "There's only two tough guys aboard this tub," he stated, "and I'm both of 'em. Dismissed." He waved a weary hand and returned his attention to the high-resolution table over which he had been poring for the past ten hours.
"Brill," he called just as the tight-lipped group was crowding into the lift. Not looking up to see if his once and future captain had responded, he touched a light-scribe to the glassy photo map.
"Here," he said. "I've narrowed it down to a hundred-mile-deep stretch along the coast. Looks like fine country. Albedo says some chlorophyll; level ground, too. Chilly, but temperature readings for the whole hemisphere are well within limits. But I've got this coastal range to contend with. Young mountains, peaks over forty thousand. Someday there'll be damn fools trying to get their name in the news by climbing 'em. Right now, we have to ease in past them."
Brill listened silently, not asking the Special Rank why he didn't set up an approach from the east, thereby avoiding the troublesome range altogether.
"Can't risk a shortfall," Colmar said, as if reading the other's mind. "Desert, bogland, and a major active fault. As you can see, to the west, we have open sea; due south, this island, low ground but firm enough."
At this moment Captain R. N. Brill, FSA, OBE, CMH, felt only relief that the responsibility was not his. Colmar, he knew, was the only man who had successfully completed the five-year course of special study designed to qualify a man to conn a deep-space vessel in to a safe touchdown on unprepared ground —or open sea if need be—an unprecedented task for which no computer could be programmed due to lack of data. Brill felt a brief but profound satisfaction that he was not faced with responsibility for the task.
"Sir," he muttered, "I have, of course, perfect confidence that you will see us safely through."
"All right, Brill," Colmar replied brusquely. "I want all personnel confined to basic areas, as of—" he glanced at the master chronometer, "now," he finished. "That includes crew as well as supercargo, with the exception of my active list, which you were handed an hour ago. Execute."
• 2•
An observer on the ground noticed first a distant roll of thunder, followed almost at once by a brilliant lightning discharge which bathed the forest clearing in a blue-white glare that flickered and was gone. Lesser rumblings followed, accompanied by intermittent bursts of yellow light which glared sickly through the high cloud cover, slowly traversing south-north. Then for an hour the immemorial stillness reigned again, to be terminated this time by the shocking intrusion of a vast, moving body which broke through the low overcast and hung, impossible but real, in the misty sky.
It was not quite stationary, the observer noticed, but rotated on its long axis while sliding slowly forward beneath the opaque ceiling which had hidden it till now. It watched in total absorption as the phenomenon crawled across the sky, to disappear at last in the haze which also hid the High Places. For an instant the observer knew terror at the concept of the strange thing actually invading the sacred precincts, but that, of course, was absurd. Still, it was time now to alert the Supreme that the unthinkable had happened at last: Nestworld has been invaded!
• 3 •
On the bridge of Omega, Special Rank Jake Colmar lay exhausted in the conn chair. Captain Brill stood over him, watching him anxiously.
"Sir," he said stiffly, "I believe that under the circumstances of your indisposition at this crucial moment, it is my duty to reassume command and attempt to salvage what I can."
