THE BARBARIANS
BY TOM GODWIN
The execution violated the basic laws of Tharnar.
But the danger was too great—The Terrans couldn't
be permitted to live under any circumstances....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, December 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Tal-Karanth, Supreme Executive of Tharnar, signed the paper and droppedit in to the out-going slot of the message dispatch tube. It was an actthat would terminate one hundred and eighty days of studying the tapesand records on the Terran ship and would set the final hearing of theTerran man and woman for that day.
And, since the Terrans were guilty, their execution would take placebefore the sun rose again on Tharnar.
He went to the wide windows which had automatically opened with thecoming of the day's warmth and looked out across the City. The City hada name, to be found in the books and tapes of history, but for fiftythousand years it had been known as the City. It was the city of allcities, the center and soul of Tharnarian civilization. It was a cityof architectural beauty, of flowered gardens and landscaped parks, acity of five hundred centuries of learning, a city of eternal peace.
The gentle summer breeze brought the sweet scent of the floweringlana trees through the window and the familiar sound of the City asit went about its day's routine; a sound soft and unhurried, like aslow whisper. Peace for fifty thousand years; peace and the unhurriedquiet. It would always be so for the City. The Supreme Executives ofthe past had been chosen for their ability to insure the safety of theCity and so had he.
He turned away from the window and back to his desk, to brush his handacross the gleaming metal top of it. No faintest scratch marred theeternalloy surface, although the desk had been there for more thanthirty thousand years. It was permanent and never-changing, like therobot-operated fleet that guarded Tharnar, like the white and massiveExecutive Building, like the way of life on Tharnar.
The Terrans would have to die, lest the peace and the way of life onTharnar be destroyed. They were of a young race; a race so young thathis desk had already been in place for fifteen thousand years whenthey began emerging from their caves. They were a dangerously immaturerace; it had been only three hundred years since their last war withthemselves. Three hundred years—three normal Tharnarian lifetimes. Andthe Tharnarians had not known war for six hundred lifetimes.
A race so young could not possess a civilized culture. The Terranswere—he searched for a suitable description—barbarians in spaceships.They lacked the refinement and wisdom of the Tharnarians; they were adangerous and unpredictable race. It could be seen in their history;could be seen in the way the two Terrans had reacted to their capture.
He pressed one of the many buttons along the edge of his desk and athree-dimensional projection appeared; the scene that had taken placeone hundred and eighty days before when the Terrans were brought toTharnar.
The ship of the Terrans stood bright silver in the sunlight, slim andgraceful against the bulk of the Executive Building behind it. TheTerrans descended the boarding ramp, the left wrist of the man chainedto the right wrist of the girl. Two armed robots walked behind them,their faces metallically impassive, and four armed Tharnarian guardswaited at the bottom of the r