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Title: The Ties That Bind

Author: Walter Miller

Illustrator: Kelly Freas

Release Date: June 11, 2010 [EBook #32775]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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THE TIES THAT BIND

By Walter Miller, Jr.

Illustrated by Kelly Freas

[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science Fiction May 1954. Extensive

research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

The Earth was green and quiet. Nature had survived Man, and Man had survived himself. Then,

one day, the great silvery ships broke the tranquillity of the skies, bringing Man's twenty-thousand-

year-lost inheritance back to Earth....

" Why does your brand sae drop wi' blude,

Edward, Edward?

Why does your brand sae drop wi' blude,

And why sae sad gang ye, O?"

"O I hae kill'd my hawk sae gude,

Mither, mither;

O I hae kill'd my hawk sae gude,

And I had nae mair but he, O. "

—ANONYMOUS

The Horde of sleek ships arose in the west at twilight—gleaming slivers that reflected the dying sun

as they lanced across the darkling heavens. A majestic fleet of squadrons in double-vees, groups in

staggered echelon, they crossed the sky like gleaming geese, and the children of Earth came out of

their whispering gardens to gape at the splendor that marched above them.

There was fear, for no vessel out of space had crossed the skies of Earth for countless generations,

and the children of the planet had forgotten. The only memories that lingered were in the

memnoscripts, and in the unconscious kulturverlaengerung , of the people. Because of the latter

half-memory, the people knew, without knowing why, that the slivers of light in the sky were ships,

but there was not even a word in the language to name them.

The myriad voices of the planet, they cried, or whispered, or chattered in awed voices under the

elms....

The piping whine of a senile hag: "The ancient gods! The day of the judging! Repent, repent...."

The panting gasp of a frightened fat man: "The alien! We're lost, we're lost! We've got to run for the

hills!"

The voice of the child: "See the pretty birdlights? See? See?"

And a voice of wisdom in the councils of the clans: "The sons of men—they've come home from

the Star Exodus. Our brothers."

The slivers of light, wave upon wave, crept into the eclipse shadow as the twilight deepened and the

stars stung through the blackening shell of sky. When the moon rose, the people watched again as

the silhouette of a black double-vee of darts slipped across the lunar disk.

Beneath the ground, in response to the return of the ships, ancient mechanisms whirred to life, and

the tech guilds hurried to tend them. On Earth, there was a suspenseful night, pregnant with the

dissimilar twins of hope and fear, laden with awe, hushed with the expectancy of twenty thousand

years. The stargoers—they had come home.

" Kulturverlaengerung! " grunted the tense young man in the toga of an Analyst. He stood at one end

of the desk, slightly flushed, staring down at the haughty wing leader who watched him icily from a

seat at the other end. He said it again, too distinctly, as if the word were a club to hurl at the

wingsman. " Kulturverlaengerung , that's why!"

"I heard you the first time, Meikl," the officer snapped. "Watch your tongue and your tone!"

A brief hush in the cabin as hostility flowed between them. There was only the hiss of air from the

ventilators, and the low whine of the flagship's drive units somewhere below.

The erect and elderly gentleman who sat behind the desk cleared his throat politely. "Have you any

further clarifications to make, Meikl?" he asked.

"It should be clear enough to all of you," the analyst retorted hotly. He jerked his head toward the

misty crescent of Earth on the viewing screen that supplied most of the light in the small cabin.

"You can see what they are, what they've become. And you know what we are."

The two wingsmen bristled slightly at the edge of contempt in the analyst's voice. The elderly

gentlemen behind the desk remained impassive, expressionless.

The analyst leaned forward with a slow accusing glance that swept the faces of the three officers,

then centered on his antagonist at the other end of the desk. "You want to infect them, Thaüle?" he

demanded.

The wingsman darkened. His fist exploded on the desktop. "Meikl, you're in contempt! Restrict

yourself to answering questions!"

"Yes, sir."

"There will be no further breaches of military etiquette during the continuance of this conference,"

the elderly gentleman announced icily, thus seizing the situation.

After a moment's silence, he turned to the analyst again. "We've got to refuel," he said flatly. "In

order to refuel, we must land."

"Yes, sir. But why not on Mars? We can develop our own facilities for producing fuel. Why must it

be Earth?"

"Because there will be some existing facilities on Earth, even though they're out of space. The job

would take five years on Mars."

The analyst lowered his eyes, shook his head wearily. "I'm thinking of a billion earthlings. Aren't

they worth considering, sir?"

"I've got to consider the men in my command, Meikl. They've been through hell. We all have."

"The hell was our own making, baron."

" Meikl! "

"Sorry, sir."

Baron ven Klaeden paused ominously, then: "Besides, Meikl, your predictions of disaster rest on

certain assumptions not known to be true. You assume that the recessive determinants still linger in

the present inhabitants. Twenty thousand years is a long time. Nearly a thousand generations. I don't

know a great deal about culturetics, but I've read that kulturverlaengerung reaches a threshold of

extinction after about a dozen generations, if there's no restimulation."

"Only in laboratory cultures, sir," sighed the analyst. "Under rigid control to make certain there's no

restimulant. In practice, in a planet-wide society, there's constant accidental restimulation,

unconsciously occuring. A determinant gets restimulated, pops back to original intensity, and gets

passed on. In practice, a kult'laenger linkage never really dies out—although, it can stay recessive

and unconscious."

"That's too bad," a wingsman growled sourly. "We'll wake it up, won't we?"

"Let's not be callous," the other wingsman grunted in sarcasm. "Analyst Meikl has sensitivities."

The analyst stared from one to the other of them in growing consternation, then looked pleadingly

at the baron. "Sir, I was summoned here to offer my opinions about landing on Earth. You asked

about possible cultural dangers. I've told you."

"You discussed the danger to earthlings."

"Yes, sir."

"I meant 'danger' to the personnel of this fleet—to their esprit, their indoctrination, their group-

efficiency. I take it you see none."

"On the contrary, I see several," said the analyst, coming slowly to his feet, eyes flashing and

darting among them. "Where were you born, Wingman?" he asked the officer at the opposite end of

the desk.

"Lichter Six, Satellite," the officer grunted after a moment of irritable silence.

"And you?"

"Omega Thrush," said the other wingsman.

All knew without asking that the baron was born in space, his birthplace one of the planetoid city-

states of the Michea Dwarf. Meikl looked around at them, then ripped up his own sleeve,

unsheathed his rank-dagger, and pricked his forearm with the needle point. A red droplet appeared,

and he wiped at it with a forefinger.

"It's common stuff, gentlemen. We've shed a lot of it. And each of us is a walking sackful of it." He

paused, then turned to touch the point of his dagger to the viewer, where it left a tiny red trace on

the glass, on the bright crescent of Earth, mist-shrouded, chastely wheeling her nights into days.

"It came from there," he hissed. "She's your womb, gentlemen. Are you going back?"

"Are you an analyst or a dramatist, Meikl?" the baron asked sharply, hoping to relieve the sudden

chill in the room. "This becomes silly."

"If you land on her," Meikl promised ominously, "you'll go away with a fleet full of hate."

Meikl's arm dropped to his side. He sheathed his dagger. "Is my presence at this meeting still

imperative, sir?" he asked the baron.

"Have you anything else to say?"

"Yes— don't land on Earth ."

"That's a repetition. No further reasons?—in terms of danger to ourselves?"

The analyst paused. "I can think of nothing worse that could happen to us," he said slowly, "than

just being what we already are."

He snapped his heels formally, bowed to the baron, and stalked out of the cabin.

"I suggest," said a wingsman, "that we speak to Frewek about tightening up the discipline in the

Intelligence section. That man was in open contempt, Baron."

"But he was also probably right," sighed the graying officer and nobleman.

" Sir—! "

"Don't worry, Wingsman, there's nothing else to do. We'll have to land. Make preparations, both of

you—and try to make contact with surface. I'll dictate the message."

When the wingsmen left, it was settled. The baron arose with a sigh and went to peer morosely at

the view of Earth below. Very delicately, he wiped the tiny trace of blood from the glass. She was a

beautiful world, this Earth. She had spawned them all, as Meikl said—but for this, the baron could

feel only bitterness toward her.

But what of her inhabitants? I'm past feeling anything for them, he thought, past feeling for any of

the life-scum that creeps across the surface of a world, any world. We'll go down quickly, and take

what we need quickly, and leave quickly. We'll try not to infect them, but they've already got it in

them, the dormant disease, and any infection will be only a recurrence.

Nevertheless, he summoned a priest to his quarters. And, before going to the command deck, he

bathed sacramentally as if in preparation for battle.

" Your hawk's blude was never sae red,

Edward, Edward;

Your hawk's blude was never sae red,

My dear son, I tell thee, O."

"O I hae kill'd my red-roan steed,

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