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Updated: May 31, 2025
The scattered Earth ships had suddenly found that they had been led into traps composed of hidden clusters of Kerothi ships. Naturally, the trick had never worked again for either side. "All right," MacMaine said when it was all over, "let's get on to Houston's World." The staff men, including Tallis, were already on their feet, congratulating MacMaine and shaking his hands.
"Thanks for trying to find an excuse for me, Tallis, but I'm afraid it isn't so. Listen. "I had to find out what Earth was up against. I had a pretty good idea already that the Kerothi would win would wipe us out or enslave us to the last man. And, after I had seen Keroth, I was certain of it.
He had no knowledge of medical or chemical terms in Kerothic, but there was a box of glass ampoules bearing instructions to "crush and allow patient to inhale fumes." That sounded right. The stuff smelled like a mixture of spirits of ammonia and butyl mercaptan, but it did the job. Tallis coughed convulsively, turned his head away, coughed again, and opened his eyes.
If you see a woman you want, you offer a price to her father or brother or husband whoever the owner might be. Then she's yours until you sell her to another. Adultery is a very serious crime on Kerothi, but only because it's an infringement of property rights. There's not much love lost there, either, is there? "I wonder if either of us knows what love is, Tallis?"
He stood up and extended both hands in the Kerothi fashion. The other did the same, and they clasped hands for a moment. "How are your guts?" he added in Kerothic. "They function smoothly, my sibling-by-choice," answered Space General Polan Tallis. "And your own?" "Smoothly, indeed. It's been far too long a time since we have touched."
Their intentions may have been of the noblest, and they may have had, for all I or anyone can know, sincere religious feeling. But they got no feeling whatever into their intolerably dreary anthems and services; and as for their intentions, the cathedrals of England might be paved with them. Tallis has often been called "the father of English Church music."
MacMaine wasn't sure he could have acknowledged superiority in another Earthman, in spite of the fact that he knew that there must be men who were his superiors in one way or another. Because of his social background, he knew that he would probably form an intense and instant dislike for any Earthman who talked the way Tallis did, but he found that he actually liked the alien officer.
Tallis might want to stand and fight death to the end, but Tallis was not carrying the monstrous weight of guilt that would stay with Sebastian MacMaine until his death, no matter how much he tried to justify his actions. On the other hand, if he had to go, he might as well do a good job of it. Since he still had a short time left, he might as well wrap the whole thing up in a neat package. How?
Their technique and mode of expression I shall say something about presently; and all the criticism I have to pass on them is that Byrde is infinitely greater than Tallis, and seems worthy indeed to stand beside Palestrina and Sweelinck. The learned branch of the English school reached its climax.
Still, there was something for them to see in Tallis; whereas in Byrde there was nothing for them to see that they had eyes to see, or to hear that they had ears to hear.
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