Free Promised Land by Brian Stableford Page A

disposed to worry about all the difficulties which this lot might yet think to throw at us.’ And that, of course, was sheer pessimism, just to even the score.
    â€˜I don’t like this world,’ she said feelingly.
    â€˜That’s the expanding civilised universe for you,’ I said, with my customary fatalism. ‘This is what worlds are like these days. What do you expect? Your brother didn’t like it either. He always used to prefer the rim, and he always liked to deal with the natives direct. He wasn’t a man-hater by any means, but he despised the second-stage invaders—the exploiters and the moneymen and the politicians. He liked things simple, not packed and predigested to some fancy recipe. You know the syndrome—primitive man against the elements. The archetypal Western hero.’
    â€˜Yes,’ she said, ‘I know.’
    I didn’t often talk to her about her brother. It was an uncomfortable issue, ever since the charming discussion we’d had in New York Port about whether or not and to what degree I’d been responsible for his death.
    â€˜You felt the same way,’ she said, after a few moments’ silence.
    â€˜Not a lot,’ I claimed. ‘Mythical man was never my type. I’m no romantic—the hell with Rousseau and the back-to-the-trees boys. I like to spend what I make, and make what I spend. We couldn’t do either very well while we were bouncing around on the rim. Sure, sharks bite and I don’t like them. But they swim where the pickings are and they’re just a hazard of the waters. There’s no point in hating them for it. These days, the universe is shrinking so fast that you have to live with everybody whether you like it or not. You can’t find a garden world on which to live out your days. Paradise is a marketable commodity now, and the companies move in, slap on a hefty slice of cosmetic streamlining and start the auction. They’re so good at it, it doesn’t even take them a year any more. Instant fairyland—just add money. Sure it’s in lousy taste—who ever made money out of aesthetic sensibilities? You can’t hide any more. Not anywhere. You have to live where the people live. Compared to the companies the Zodiac mob are a bunch of stone-age savages. They haven’t anything like the technology that someone like Caradoc can bring to bear. But how long do you think the rain forests are going to last? How long before the colonists have it all? Do you seriously think that the human race is going to leave a single galactic stone unturned? Like hell. So that’s the way it is. And you have to live with it. I don’t hold it against anybody, and I’m sure as hell not going to spend my time running away from it all to find skinny patches of sand where I can bury my head and pretend to be an ostrich. Okay?’
    â€˜Fine,’ she said. ‘Just fine. You really love people and the great human dream. You’re a part of it all. I bet you just love New Alexandria too.’
    â€˜Best of all,’ I assured her.
    â€˜But you like aliens?’ she probed. ‘You really do like aliens?’
    â€˜Sure I do. Some of them. But it’s only prejudice. Hell, everybody has prejudice. Ninety percent of people are as proud as can be about their prejudice. Can’t I have a little bit as well? I’m only human, when all said and done. I like aliens. I can approach an alien with a clean slate. I don’t know anything about him, and I can judge exactly what I see. I can estimate him as I find out what he does and says. But I can’t approach a man that way. I know far too much about him already to take him as he comes. Whatever he says, I daren’t take on the level. Whatever he does, I have a whole range of possible motives for him. I know men too well, because I am one. I don’t like that. I’m a simple man, and I like to be dealing with what I’m