The Star Diaries Read Online Free PDF Page B

space travel,” I began.
    “That is self-evident, without space travel you wouldn’t be here now,” he explained, a little testily I thought. “To what do you devote the bulk of your national revenue? Try to recall, any grand feat of engineering, architecture on the cosmic scale, gravitational-solar launchers, well?” he prompted.
    “Yes … that is, work is under way,” I said. “Government funds are rather limited, most of it goes into defense…”
    “Defense of what? The continents? Against meteors, earthquakes?”
    “No, not that kind of defense … armaments, armies…”
    “What is that, a hobby?”
    “Not a hobby … internal conflicts,” I muttered.
    “This is no recommendation!” he said with obvious distaste. “Really, you didn’t come flying here straight out of the cave! Your learned ones must have realized long ago that planetary cooperation is invariably more profitable than struggles for loot and supremacy!”
    “They did, they did, but there are reasons … reasons of a historical nature, you see.”
    “We are getting nowhere!” he said. “I am here, after all, not to defend you, as if you were on trial, but to commend, applaud, speak highly of, enumerate your merits and your virtues. You understand?”
    “I understand.”
    My tongue by now was as stiff as if someone had frozen it, the starched collar of my dress shirt choked me, its front was all damp with the sweat that was pouring from me; I caught my roll of credentials on one of the medals and tore the outside sheet. The Rhohch, annoyed, contemptuous, yet at the same time detached, as though thinking of other things, suddenly said with an unexpected calm and mildness (ah, the artful diplomat!):
    “I shall speak instead of your culture. Of its outstanding achievements. You do have a culture?!” he quickly added.
    “We do indeed! A splendid culture!” I assured him.
    “That’s good. Art?”
    “Oh yes! Music, poetry, architecture…”
    “So then, architecture after all!” he exclaimed. “Wonderful. I must make a note of that. Explosives?”
    “How do you mean, explosives?”
    “Creative detonations, controlled, to regulate the climate, shift continents, river beds—you have that?”
    “So far only bombs…” I said, then added in a hesitant whisper: “But there are many different kinds, napalm, phosphorus, and even with poison gas…”
    “That’s not what I had in mind,” he said coldly. “Let us stick to the intellectual life. What do you believe in?”
    This Rhohch who was supposed to recommend us was not, as I finally realized, a specialist in Earthly affairs. The thought that our fate would shortly be decided by the appearance of a creature of such ignorance before the forum of the entire Galaxy—well, it took my breath away. What rotten luck, I thought, they would have to go recall that head-chairman, the Earthist!
    “We believe in universal brotherhood, in the triumph of peace and concord over hatred and war, we consider that man should be the measure of all things…”
    He placed a heavy claw on my knee.
    “Why man?” he said. “Well never mind. Still, your catalog is negative: the absence of war, the absence of hatred—by all that’s nebular, have you no positive ideals?”
    It was stifling hot.
    “We believe in progress, in a better tomorrow, in the power of science.”
    “At last something!” he cried. “Science, yes, good … that I can use. And on which sciences do you spend the most?”
    “Physics,” I replied. “Research into atomic energy.”
    “Look … I tell you what. Say nothing. Let me do the talking. I’ll handle this. Leave everything to me. And chin up!” he said as the machine stopped in front of a building.
    My head was spinning, things swam before my eyes; I was led down crystal corridors, invisible barriers of some kind flew open with musical sighs, then I was plunging down, then up, then down again, the Rhohch stood at my side, immense, silent, wrapped in folds of