Millennium Read online

  Produced by Greg Weeks, Geetu Melwani and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

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  Transcriber note.

  This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction May 1955.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed.

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  MILLENNIUM

  BY EVERETT B. COLE

  _There are devices a high-level culture could produce that simply don't belong in the hands of incompetents of lower cultural evolution. The finest, and most civilized of tools can be made a menace ..._

  Illustrated by Freas

  Liewen Konar smiled wryly as he put a battered object on the bench."Well, here's another piece recovered. Not worth much, I'd say, but hereit is."

  Obviously, it had once been a precisely fabricated piece of equipment.But its identity was almost lost. A hole was torn in the side of themetal box. Knobs were broken away from their shafts. The engravedlegends were scored and worn to illegibility, and the meter was merely ablack void in the panel. Whatever had been mounted at the top had beenbroken away, to leave ragged shards. Inside the gaping hole in the case,tiny, blackened components hung at odd angles.

  Klion Meinora looked at the wreckage and shook his head.

  "I know it's supposed to be what's left of a medium range communicator,"he said, "but I'd never believe it." He poked a finger inside the holein the case, pushing a few components aside. Beyond them, a corrodedwheel hung loosely in what had once been precision bearings.

  "Where's the power unit?"

  Konar shook his head. "No trace. Not much left of the viewsphere,either."

  "Well." Meinora shook his head resignedly. "It's salvage. But we got itback." He stood back to look at the communicator. "Someone's beenkeeping the outside clean, I see."

  Konar nodded. "It was a religious relic," he said. "Found it in anabbey." He reached into the bag he had placed on the floor.

  "And here's a mental amplifier-communicator, personnel, heavy duty.Slightly used and somewhat out of adjustment, but complete andrepairable." He withdrew a golden circlet, held it up for a moment, andcarefully laid it on the bench beside the wrecked communicator. Itsmetal was dented, but untarnished.

  "Don't want to get rough with it," he explained. "Something might beloose inside."

  He reached again into the bag. "And a body shield, protector type, modelGS/NO-10C. Again, somewhat used, but repairable. Even has itsnomenclature label."

  "Good enough." Meinora held a hand out and accepted the heavy belt. Heturned it about in his hands, examining the workmanship. Finally, helooked closely at the long, narrow case mounted on the leather.

  "See they counted this unit fairly well. Must have been using it."

  "Yes, sir. It's operative. The Earl wore it all the time. Guess he keptup his reputation as a fighter that way. Be pretty hard to nick anyonewith a sword if he had one of these running. And almost any clumsyleatherhead could slash the other guy up if he didn't have to worryabout self-protection."

  "I know." Meinora nodded quickly. "Seen it done. Anything more turnedup?"

  "One more thing. This hand weapon came from the same abbey I got thecommunicator from. I'd say it was pretty hopeless, too." Konar picked aflame-scarred frame from his bag, then reached in again, to scoop up afew odd bits of metal.

  "It was in pieces when we picked it up," he explained. "They kept itclean, but they couldn't get the flame pits out and reassembly was alittle beyond them."

  "Beyond us too, by now." Meinora looked curiously at the object. "Looksas though a couple of the boys shot it out."

  "Guess they did, sir. Not once, but several times." Konar shrugged."Malendes tells me he picked up several like this." He cocked his headto one side.

  "Say, chief, how many of these things were kicking around on thisunlucky planet?"

  Meinora grimaced. "As far as we can determine, there were ninety-twooperative sets originally issued. Each of the original native operativeswas equipped with a mentacom and a body shield. Each of the eightoperating teams had a communicator and three hand weapons, and theheadquarters group had a flier, three communicators, a field detectorset, and six hand weapons. Makes quite an equipment list."

  "Any tools or maintenance equipment?"

  Meinora shook his head. "Just operator manuals. And those will havedeteriorated long ago. An inspection team was supposed to visit once acycle for about fifty cycles, then once each five cycles after that.They would have taken care of maintenance. This operation was set upquite a while ago, you know. Operatives get a lot more training now--andwe don't use so many of them."

  "So, something went wrong." Konar looked at the equipment on the bench."How?" he asked. "How could it have happened?"

  "Oh, we've got the sequence of events pretty well figured out by now."Meinora got to his feet. "Of course, it's a virtually impossiblesituation--something no one would believe could happen. But it did." Helooked thoughtfully at the ruined communicator.

  "You know the history of the original operation on this planet?"

  "Yes, sir. I looked it over. Planet was checked out by Exploration. Theyfound a couple of civilizations in stasis and another that was about togo that way. Left alone, the natives'd have reverted to a primitivehunter stage--if they didn't go clear back to the caves. And when theydid come up again, they'd have been savage terrors."

  "Right. So a corps of native operatives was set up by Philosophical, toupset the stasis and hold a core of knowledge till the barbaric periodfollowing the collapse of one of the old empires was over. Onecivilization on one continent was chosen, because it was felt that itsimpact on the rest of the planet would be adequate to insure progress,and that any more extensive operation would tend to mold the planetaryculture."

  Konar nodded. "The old, standard procedure. It usually worked betterthan this, though. What happened this time?"

  "The Merokian Confederation happened."

  "But their penetration was nowhere near here."

  "No, it wasn't. But they did attack Sector Nine. And they did destroythe headquarters. You remember that?"

  "Yes, sir. I read about it in school. We lost a lot of people on thatone." Konar frowned. "Long before my time in the Corps, of course, but Istudied up on it. They used some sort of screen that scrambled thedetectors, didn't they?"

  "Something like that. Might have been coupled with someone'sinattention, too. But that's unimportant now. The important thing isthat the sector records were destroyed during the attack."

  "Sure. But how about the permanent files that were forwarded toAldebaran depository?"

  Meinora smiled grimly. "Something else that couldn't happen. We're stilllooking for traces of that courier ship. I suppose they ran afoul of aMerokian task force, but there's nothing to go on. They justdisappeared." He picked up the mental communicator, examining the signsof aging.

  "One by one," he continued, "the case files and property records ofSector Nine are being reconstructed. Every guardsman even remotelyassociated with the Sector before the attack is being interviewed, and alot of them are working on the reconstruction. It's been a long job, butwe're nearly done now. This is one of the last planets to be located andrechecked, and it's been over a period since the last visit they've hadfrom any of our teams. On this planet, that's some fifty-oddgenerations. Evidently the original operatives didn't demolish theirequipment, and fifty some generations of descendants have messed thingsup pretty thoroughly."

  Konar looked at the bench. Besides the equipment he had just brought in,there were other items, all in varying stages of disrepair and ruin.

  "Yes, sir," he agreed. "If this is a sample, and if the socialcond
itions I've seen since I joined the team are typical, they have. Nowwhat?"

  "We've been picking up equipment. Piece by piece, we've been accountingfor every one of those items issued. Some of 'em were lost. Some of 'emprobably wore out and were discarded, or were burned--like this, onlymore so." Meinora pointed at the wrecked communicator.

  "Local legends tell us about violent explosions, so we know a fewactually discharged. And we've tracked down the place where the fliercracked up and bit out a hole the size of a barony. Those items