The Project Gutenberg EBook of History Repeats, by George Oliver Smith

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Title: History Repeats

Author: George Oliver Smith

Illustrator: Martinez

Release Date: December 17, 2007 [EBook #23884]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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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.

[Illustration]

HISTORY REPEATS

Illustrated by Martinez

[Illustration]

BY GEORGE O. SMITH

_There are--and very probably
will always be--some Terrestrials
who can't, and for
that matter don't want, to call
their souls their own...._

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

* * * * *

The clatter of a hundred tongues mingled with the clink of glasses and
floated through strata of smoke from the burning weeds of a hundred
planets. From one of the tables, voices rise in mild disagreement. There
is a jeering laugh from one side and a roar of anger from the other. Two
men rise and face one another ready to follow their insults with
violence. Before the eruption can start, a mercenary steps forward on
lithe feet and lightly catches the back-swu