"A única coisa que aprendemos", uma breve história de CM Kornbluth, publicado pela primeira vez em Histórias surpreendentesJulho 1949, disponível no Internet Archive. Foi reimpresso várias vezes; qualquer um estas capas Parece familiar?
Esta história veio aqui antes, como resposta à pergunta A ascensão e queda de impérios (invasões bárbaras cíclicas) em uma sala de aulae como resposta inaceitável à pergunta Os bárbaros sempre vencem.
Lembro-me de ler um conto em que a marinha espacial oficial do “Império de Ouro” só lutaria se navios de hospital estivessem por perto, para que pudessem ser apanhados e tratados.
Next to him, Arris heard his aide murmur, "It's all wrong, sir. They haven't got any pick-up boats. What happens when one of them gets shot up?"
"Just what ought to happen, Evan," snapped the wing commander. "They float in space until they dessicate in their suits. Or if they get grappled inboard with a boat hook, they don't get any medical care. As I told you, they're brigands, without decency even to care for their own." He enlarged on the theme. "Their morale must be insignificant compared with our men's. When the Service goes into action, every rating and teck knows he'll be cared for if he's hurt. Why, if we didn't have pick-up boats and hospital ships the men wouldn't—" He almost finished it with "fight," but thought, and lamely ended—"wouldn't like it."
Os colonos soldavam armas em todas as partes possíveis de seus navios, desorganizados e confusos em comparação com os navios imperiais. Um navio colono explodiu dois navios da marinha e depois entrou no navio do hospital, explodindo-o enquanto explodia.
The interceptor squadron swam into the field—a sleek, deadly needle of vessels in perfect alignment, with its little cloud of pick-ups trailing, and farther astern a white hospital ship with the ancient red cross.
The contact was immediate and shocking. One of the rebel ships lumbered into the path of the interceptors, spraying fire from what seemed to be as many points as a man has pores. The Service ships promptly riddled it and it should have drifted away—but it didn't. It kept on fighting. It rammed an interceptor with a crunch that must have killed every man before the first bulwark, but aft of the bulwark the ship kept fighting.
It took a torpedo portside and its plumbing drifted through space in a tangle. Still the starboard side kept squirting fire. Isolated weapon blisters fought on while they were obviously cut off from the rest of the ship. It was a pounded tangle of wreckage, and it had destroyed two interceptors, crippled two more, and kept fighting.
Finally, it drifted away, under feeble jets of power. Two more of the fantastic rebel fleet wandered into action, but the wing commander's horrified eyes were on the first pile of scrap. It was going somewhere—
The ship neared the thin-skinned, unarmored, gleaming hospital vessel, rammed it amidships, square in one of the red crosses, and then blew itself up, apparently with everything left in its powder magazine, taking the hospital ship with it.
Havia um historiador imperial, rindo enquanto a cidade queimava. Foi porque ele percebeu que o mesmo aconteceria com os conquistadores, mais tarde, quando eles desenvolveram um império próprio.
. . . Era uma história sobre o poder centralizado e decadente e a virilidade da fronteira.
"It means," said the fat little man with a timbre of doom in his voice, "that they've returned. They always have. They always will. You see, commander, there is always somewhere a wealthy, powerful city, or nation, or world. In it are those whose blood is not right for a wealthy, powerful place. They must seek danger and overcome it. So they go out—on the marshes, in the desert, on the tundra, the planets, or the stars. Being strong, they grow stronger by fighting the tundra, the planets or the stars. They—they change. They sing new songs. They know new heroes. And then, one day, they return to their old home."
"They return to the wealthy, powerful city, or nation or world. They fight its guardians as they fought the tundra, the planets or the stars—a way that strikes terror to the heart. Then they sack the city, nation or world and sing great, ringing sagas of their deeds. They always have. Doubtless they always will."
"But what shall we do?"
"We shall cower, I suppose, beneath the bombs they drop on us, and we shall die, some bravely, some not, defending the palace within a very few hours. But you will have your revenge."