History Repeats

  Produced by Greg Weeks, Greg Bergquist, Bruce Albrecht andthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from _Astounding Science Fiction_ May 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.

  HISTORY REPEATS

  Illustrated by Martinez

  BY GEORGE O. SMITH

  _There are--and very probablywill always be--some Terrestrialswho can't, and forthat matter don't want, to calltheir souls their own...._

  Xanabar lays across the Spiral Arm, a sprawling sphere of influencevast, mighty, solid at the core. Only the far-flung boundary shows theslight ebb and flow of contingent cultures that may win a system or twotoday and lose them back tomorrow or a hundred years from now. Xanabaris the trading post of the galaxy, for only Xanabar is strong enough tostand over the trading table when belligerents meet and offer to takethem both at once if they do not sheathe their swords. For this serviceXanabar assesses her percentage, therefore Xanabar is rich. Her richesbuy her mercenaries to enforce her doctrines. Therefore Xanabar isrotten at the under-core, for mercenaries have no god but gold.

  * * * * *

  The clatter of a hundred tongues mingled with the clink of glasses andfloated through strata of smoke from the burning weeds of a hundredplanets. From one of the tables, voices rise in mild disagreement. Thereis a jeering laugh from one side and a roar of anger from the other. Twomen rise and face one another ready to follow their insults withviolence. Before the eruption can start, a mercenary steps forward onlithe feet and lightly catches the back-swung arm, a quick hand removesthe poised glass before it can be thrown into the adversary's face.

  "Sit!" says the mercenary in a cold voice, and they sit still glaring atone another.

  "Now," says the mercenary, "settle your differences by talk. Or departin opposite directions. This is Xanabar!"

  "He lies! He brags!"

  "I do not lie. They _are_ barbarians. I do not brag. I _can_ bring youone."

  "You--"

  "A wager," said the mercenary. "A wager. Xanabar can take no tax inblood." He faces one. "You claim you can do that which he says you cannot." Then not waiting for a reply he faces the other, "And if he does,how much are you willing to pay?"

  "How much is his life worth?"

  "How much are you willing to pay?" demands the mercenary coldly.

  "Five hundredweight in crystal-cut."

  "An honorable sum. Do you agree?"

  "Not enough--"

  "For a task as easy as you claim it to be," said the mercenary, "Fivehundredweight of crystal-cut seems honorable."

  "But it means--"

  "We in Xanabar are not interested in the details. Only in the tax. Anhonest wager-contract, outlanders. Otherwise I rule that your eruptionhere disturbed the peace."

  The two outlanders look at one another; schoolboys caught fighting inthe alley by a monitor who demands a bite of their apple in lieu of avisit to the principal. As if loath to touch one another they reachforward hesitantly and handshake in a quick light grip.

  "Good!" glows the mercenary. He waves a hand and his fellows convergewith contract-platen and etching stylus. "Now, gentlemen, please statethe terms for Xanabar."

  * * * * *

  Peter Hawley strolled down a side street with a dog at his heel. It wasa dog of many breeds, but not a mixture of careless parentage. Peterpaused at a cross-street and looked uncertainly to left and right. "Whatdo you make, Buregarde?"

  "The noble dog says right," replied Buregarde.

  "Right," said Peter turning up the street. "And stop this 'Noble dog'routine."

  "Man is dog's best friend," said Buregarde. "If you'd called mesomething sensible, I wouldn't have looked it up. There is a statue tome in the Okeefenokee back on Earth. I am the noble dog. Pogo says so."

  "I--"

  "Easy Peter!" said the dog in a near-whisper.

  "All right. Do we play down the chatter?"

  Buregarde sat, lifted his nose and sniffed. His natural voice gave afaint whine of discontent. "I'm supposed to have a nose," he complained."This is like trying to smell out a lone mouse in a zoological garden inmidsummer."

  "Why the warning?" asked Peter.

  "All races smell the same when they are poised for violence," said thedog. "Trouble is that man-smell isn't pointed the way it's going, onlywhere it's coming from."

  Peter grunted. "Catch any woman-smell?"

  "Just the usual whiff. Stale scent. She was here; she passed this way.But which way?"

  "We can guess they made it away from the spaceport."

  "Unless," said the dog taking another sniff of the air, "they're takingher back to some other spacecraft." Buregarde looked up at Peter. "Doyou catch anything?"

  "Just the usual mingled fright and danger, frantic despair."

  "Directional?"

  Peter shook his head. "No," he said. "The source is too close."

  "Let's stroll up this street to the end and come back on the otherside," said the dog. "Quietly."

  In a saunter they went, alert and poised. A man and his dog from allappearances. But in Xanabar, the principal city of Xanabar the Empirethey were huntsman and companion.

  Like all cities of more than ten million souls, Xanabar had itsglistening and lofty area and its slums--and what would have been awaterfront region in a seafaring city. The conditions were the same asthey'd been everywhere for a few decades of thousands of years. Only thetechnology changes. Man's cave is stainless steel and synthetic plastic;the cave's man is swinging a better axe, and his hide is protected fromthe weather by stuff far more durable than his awn skin. But he's thesame man with the same hackles; they just rise for a few more thousandreasons than the hackles of his ancestors.

  "Got it!" said Buregarde coming to a brief point at a closed door.

  "Let's go in!"

  * * * * *

  Buregarde's reply was half-snarl and half, "Look out!"

  Peter whirled to catch a glimpse of a man upon him with pencil-raycoming to point. He faded down and toward the other, almost in a fallout of the path of the pencil-ray that flicked on and began a sweepupward and in. Peter caught his balance at the same time he clutched thewrist in his right hand. Then he went on down around and over, rising onhis knees to flip the other man heels high in an arc that ended with afull-length, spine-thudding body smash on the pavement. Buregarde leapedin and slashed at the hand clutching the pencil-ray, snapped his headback and forth thrice and sent the weapon flying. Then with a savagegrowl he set a soft mouth against the other's throat and let the manfeel the pressure of his fangs.

  "Easy," said Peter.

  Buregarde backed away a few inches. "Easy nothing," he snapped. "Thisman is the noble dog's worst enemy. He wanted your blood."

  "Take it easy. I want his information."

  The man looked up. "Barbarian Terrestrial!" he snarled.

  Peter sneered. "And this is the capital city of the gloriouscivilization called Xanabar? Marble palaces with nobles of the blood,and stinking alleys with human rats. Where is she?"

  The stranger spat.

  "Buregarde, want some red meat?"

  "He'd make me upchuck. Only rodents eat their own kind."

  "Just a bite?"

  "Do I have to swallow?"

  "No. Just slash--"

  "Wait, barbarian--"

  "Barbarian Terrestrial, am I? You were maybe going to invite me for teaand cakes with that pencil-ray?"

  "I--"

  "Talk!" snapped Peter. "Where is she?"
/>
  "Who?"

  "Buregarde--?"

  "Yes, boss. The throat or the other hand?"

  "All right--for the good it'll do you. She's in there. Go on in--andwe'll have two of you!"

  Buregarde growled, "Three of us. And we might be hard to handle."

  Peter stood up and hauled the stranger to his feet. His right handdripped blood from the dog's teeth. Peter looked for, and found thepencil-ray smashed against the stone front of the building. He cuffedthe stranger across the face, turned him around, and