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What is the plot of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Signal Red by Henry Guth.
Relevant chunks:
SIGNAL RED
By HENRY GUTH
They tried to stop him. Earth Flight 21 was a suicide run, a coffin ship, they told him. Uranian death lay athwart the space lanes. But Shano already knew this was his last ride.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1949. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Mercurian night settled black and thick over the Q City Spaceport. Tentative fingers of light flicked and probed the sky, and winked out.
"Here she comes," somebody in the line ahead said.
Shano coughed, his whole skeletal body jerking. Arthritic joints sent flashes of pain along his limbs. Here she comes, he thought, feeling neither glad nor sad.
He coughed and slipped polarized goggles over his eyes.
The spaceport emerged bathed in infra red. Hangars, cradles, freighter catapults and long runways stood out in sharp, diamond-clear detail. High up, beyond the cone of illumination, a detached triple row of bright specks—portholes of the liner Stardust —sank slowly down.
There was no eagerness in him. Only a tiredness. A relief. Relief from a lifetime of beating around the planets. A life of digging, lifting, lugging and pounding. Like a work-worn Martian camel, he was going home to die.
As though on oiled pistons the ship sank into the light, its long shark-like hull glowing soft and silvery, and settled with a feathery snuggle into the cradle's ribs.
The passenger line quivered as a loud-speaker boomed:
" Stardust, now arrived at Cradle Six! Stardust, Cradle Six! All passengers for Venus and Earth prepare to board in ten minutes. "
Shano coughed, and wiped phlegm from his thin lips, his hand following around the bony contours of his face, feeling the hollows and the beard stubble and loose skin of his neck. He coughed and thought of the vanium mines of Pluto, and his gum-clogged lungs. A vague, pressing desire for home overwhelmed him. It had been so long.
" Attention! Attention, Stardust passengers! The signal is red. The signal is red. Refunds now being made. Refunds now. Take-off in five minutes. "
The man ahead swore and flicked up an arm. "Red," he groaned. "By the infinite galaxies, this is the last straw!" He charged away, knocking Shano aside as he passed.
Red signal. In bewildered anxiety Shano lifted the goggles from his eyes and stared into the sudden blackness. The red signal. Danger out there. Passengers advised to ground themselves, or travel at their own risk.
He felt the passengers bump and fumble past him, grumbling vexatiously.
A hot dread assailed him, and he coughed, plucking at his chest. Plucking at an urgency there.
Dropping the goggles to his rheumy eyes, he saw that the passenger line had dissolved. He moved, shuffling, to the gate, thrust his ticket into the scanner slot, and pushed through the turnstile when it clicked.
" Flight twenty-one, now arriving from Venus ," the loud-speaker said monotonously. Shano glanced briefly upward and saw the gleaming belly of twenty-one sinking into the spaceport cone of light.
He clawed his way up the gangway and thrust out his ticket to the lieutenant standing alone at the air lock. The lieutenant, a sullen, chunky man with a queer nick in his jawbone, refused the ticket.
"Haven't you heard, mister? Red signal. Go on back."
Shano coughed, and peered through the lenses of his goggles. "Please," he said. "Want to go home. I've a right." The nicked jaw stirred faint memories within his glazed mind.
The lieutenant punched his ticket. "It's your funeral, old man."
The loud-speaker blared. " Stardust, taking off in thirty seconds. The signal is red. Stardust, taking— "
With the words dinning in his ears, Shano stepped into the air lock. The officer followed, spun wheels, and the lock closed. The outside was shut off.
Lifting goggles they entered the hull, through a series of two more locks, closing each behind them.
"We're afloat," the officer said. "We've taken off." A fleck of light danced far back in his eye. Shano felt the pressure of acceleration gradually increasing, increasing, and hurried in.
Captain Menthlo, a silver-mustached Jupiterian, broad, huge, yet crushable as a beetle, talked while his hands manipulated a panel of studs in the control room. The pilot, his back encased in leather, sat in a bucket seat before him, listening into earphones.
"Surprised to learn of a passenger aboard," the captain said, glancing briefly sideways. "You're entitled to know of the danger ahead." He flicked a final stud, spoke to the pilot and at last turned a serious, squared face to Shano. "Old man," he said. "There's a Uranian fleet out there. We don't know how many ships in this sector. Flight twenty-one, which just landed, had a skirmish with one, and got away. We may not be so lucky. You know how these Uranian devils are."
Shano coughed, and wiped his mouth. "Dirty devils," he said. "I was driv' off the planet once, before this war started. I know things about them Uranian devils. Heard them in the mines around. Hears things, a laborer does."
The captain seemed for the first time to realize the social status of his lone passenger, and he became a little gruff.
"Want you to sign this waiver, saying you're traveling at your own risk. We'll expect you to keep to your cabin as much as possible. When the trouble comes we can't bother with a passenger. In a few hours we'll shut down the ship entirely, and every mechanical device aboard, to try to avoid detection." His mustaches rose like two spears from each side of his squared nose as his face changed to an alert watchfulness. "Going home, eh?" he said. "You've knocked around some, by the looks of you. Pluto, from the sound of that cough."
Shano scrawled his signature on the waiver. "Yeah," he said. "Pluto. Where a man's lungs fights gas." He blinked watery eyes. "Captain, what's a notched jaw mean to you?"
"Well, old man," the captain grasped Shano's shoulder and turned him around. "It means somebody cut himself, shaving. You stick tight to your cabin." He nodded curtly and indicated the door.
Descending the companionway to the next deck Shano observed the nick-jawed lieutenant staring out the viewport, apparently idling. The man turned and gripped Shano's thin arm.
"A light?" he said, tapping a cigarette. Shano produced a lighter disk and the chunky man puffed. He was an Earthman and his jaw seemed cut with a knife, notched like a piece of wood. Across the breast of his tunic was a purple band, with the name Rourke . "Why are you so anxious to get aboard, old man?" He searched Shano's face. "There's trouble ahead, you know."
Shano coughed, wracking his body, as forgotten memories stirred sluggishly in his mind. "Yup," he said, and jerked free and stumbled down the steel deck.
In his cabin he lay on the bunk, lighted a cigarette and smoked, coughing and staring at the rivet-studded bulkhead. The slow movement of his mind resolved into a struggle, one idea groping for the other.
What were the things he'd heard about nicked jaws? And where had he heard them? Digging ore on Pluto; talk in the pits? Secretive suspicions voiced in smoke-laden saloons of Mars? In the labor gangs of Uranus? Where? Shano smoked and didn't know. But he knew there was a rumor, and that it was the talk of ignorant men. The captain had evaded it. Shano smoked and coughed and stared at the steel bulkhead and waited.
The ship's alarm clanged. Shano jerked from his bunk like a broken watch spring. He crouched, trembling, on arthritic joints, as a loud-speaker blared throughout the ship.
" All hands! We now maintain dead silence. Close down and stop all machinery. Power off and lights out. An enemy fleet is out there, listening and watching for mechanical and electronic disturbance. Atmosphere will be maintained from emergency oxygen cylinders. Stop pumps. "
Shano crouched and listened as the ship's steady drone ceased and the vibrations ceased. The pumps stopped, the lights went out.
Pressing the cold steel bulkhead, Shano heard oxygen hiss through the pipes. Hiss and hiss and then flow soundlessly, filling the cabin and his lungs. He choked.
The cabin was like a mine shaft, dark and cold. Feet pounded on the deck outside.
Shano clawed open the door. He peered out anxiously.
Cold blobs of light, phosphorescent bulbs held in the fists of men, glimmered by. Phosphorescent bulbs, because the power was off. Shano blinked. He saw officers and men, their faces tight and pinched, hurrying in all directions. Hurrying to shut down the ship.
He acted impulsively. A young ensign strode by, drawn blaster in hand. Shano followed him; followed the bluish glow of his bulb, through labyrinthine passages and down a companionway, coughing and leering against the pain in his joints. The blue light winked out in the distance and Shano stopped.
He was suddenly alarmed. The captain had warned him to stay in his cabin. He looked back and forth, wondering how to return.
A bell clanged.
Shano saw a cold bulb glowing down the passageway, and he shuffled hopefully toward it. The bulb moved away. He saw an indistinct figure disappear through a door marked, ENGINE ROOM.
Shano paused uncertainly at the end of the passageway. A thick cluster of vertical pipes filled the corner. He peered at the pipes and saw a gray box snuggled behind them. It had two toggle switches and a radium dial that quivered delicately.
Shano scratched his scalp as boots pounded on the decks, above and below. He listened attentively to the ship's familiar noises diminishing one by one. And finally even the pounding of feet died out; everything became still. The silence shrieked in his ears.
The ship coasted. Shano could sense it coasting. He couldn't feel it or hear it, but he knew it was sliding ghost-like through space like a submarine dead under water, slipping quietly past a listening enemy.
The ship's speaker rasped softly. " Emergency. Battle posts. "
The captain's voice. Calm, brief. It sent a tremor through Shano's body. He heard a quick scuffle of feet again, running feet, directly overhead, and the captain's voice, more urgently, "Power on. They've heard us."
The words carried no accusation, but Shano realized what they meant. A slip-up. Something left running. Vibrations picked up quickly by detectors of the Uranian space fleet.
Shano coughed and heard the ship come to life around him. He pulled himself out of the spasm, cursing Pluto. Cursing his diseased, gum-clogged lungs. Cursing the Uranian fleet that was trying to prevent his going home—even to die.
This was a strange battle. Strange indeed. It was mostly silence.
Occasionally, as though from another world, came a brief, curt order.
"Port guns alert." Then hush and tension.
The deck lurched and the ship swung this way and that. Maybe dodging, maybe maneuvering—Shano didn't know. He felt the deck lurch, that was all.
"Fire number seven."
He heard the weird scream of a ray gun, and felt the constricting terror that seemed to belt the ship like an iron band.
This was a battle in space, and out there were Uranian cruisers trying to blast the Stardust out of the sky. Trying and trying, while the captain dodged and fired back—pitted his skill and knowledge against an enemy Shano couldn't see.
He wanted desperately to help the captain break through, and get to Earth. But he could only cling to the plastic pipes and cough.
The ship jounced and slid beneath his feet, and was filled with sound. It rocked and rolled. Shano caromed off the bulkhead.
"Hold fire."
He crawled to his knees on the slippery deck, grabbed the pipes and pulled himself erect, hand over hand. His eyes came level with the gray metal box behind the pipes. He squinted, fascinated, at the quivering dial needle. "Hey!" he said.
"Stand by."
Shano puzzled it out, his mind groping. He wasn't used to thinking. Only working with his hands.
This box. This needle that had quivered when the ship was closed down....
"It's over. Chased them off. Ready guns before laying to. Third watch on duty."
Shano sighed at the sudden release of tension throughout the space liner Stardust .
Smoke spewed from his nostrils. His forehead wrinkled with concentration. Those rumors: "Man sells out to Uranus, gets a nick cut in his jaw. Ever see a man with a nick in his jaw? Watch him, he's up to something." The talk of ignorant men. Shano remembered.
He poked behind the pipes and angrily slapped the toggle switches on the box. The captain would only scoff. He'd never believe there was a traitor aboard who had planted an electronic signal box, giving away the ship's position. He'd never believe the babblings of an old man.
He straightened up, glaring angrily. He knew. And the knowledge made him cold and furious. He watched the engine room emergency exit as it opened cautiously.
A chunky man backed out, holstering a flat blaster. He turned and saw Shano, standing smoking. He walked over and nudged Shano, his face dark. Shano blew smoke into the dark face.
"Old man," said Rourke. "What're you doing down here?"
Shano blinked.
Rourke fingered the nick in his jaw, eyes glinting. "You're supposed to be in your cabin," he said. "Didn't I warn you we'd run into trouble?"
Shano smoked and contemplated the chunky man. Estimated his strength and youth and felt the anger and frustration mount in him. "Devil," he said.
"Devil," he said and dug his cigarette into the other's face.
He lunged then, clawing. He dug the cigarette into Rourke's flushed face, and clung to his body. Rourke howled. He fell backward to the deck, slapping at his blistered face. He thrashed around and Shano clung to him, battered, pressing the cigarette relentlessly, coughing, cursing the pain in his joints.
Shano grasped Rourke's neck with his hands. He twisted the neck with his gnarled hands. Strong hands that had worked.
He got up when Rourke stopped thrashing. The face was purple and he was dead. Shano shivered. He crouched in the passageway shivering and coughing.
A tremendous grinding sounded amid-ships. Loud rending noises of protesting metal. The ship bucked like a hooked fish. Then it was still. An empty clank echoed through the hull. The captain's voice came, almost yelling. "Emergency! Emergency! Back to your posts. Engine room—report! Engine room—"
Shano picked himself off the deck, his mind muddled. He coughed and put a cigarette to his lips, flicking a lighter disk jerkily from his pocket. He blew smoke from his nostrils and heard the renewed pounding of feet. What was going on now?
"Engine room! Your screen is dead! Switch onto loud-speaker system. Engine room!"
Giddily, Shano heard clicks and rasps and then a thick voice, atom motors whirring in the background.
"Selector's gone, sir. Direct hit. Heat ray through the deck plates. We've sealed the tear. Might repair selector in five hours."
Shano coughed and sent a burst of smoke from his mouth.
"Captain!" A rasping, grating sound ensued from a grill above Shano's head, then a disconnected voice. "Get the men out of there. It's useless. Hurry it up!" A series of clicks and the heavy voice of the chief engineer. "Captain! Somebody's smashed the selector chamber. Engine room's full of toxia gas!"
Shano jumped. He prodded the body on the deck with his toe.
The Stardust's mechanical voice bellowed: "Engine room!" It reproduced the captain's heavy breathing and his tired voice. "We're about midway to Venus," it said. "There were two ships and we drove them off. But there may be others. They'll be coming back. They know we've been hit. We have to get away fast!"
Shano could see the captain in his mind, worried, squared face slick with moisture. Shouting into a control room mike. Trying to find out what the matter was with his space ship.
The engineer's answer came from the grill. "Impossible, sir. Engine room full of toxia gas. Not a suit aboard prepared to withstand it. And we have to keep it in there. Selector filaments won't function without the gas. Our only chance was to put a man in the engine room to repair the broken selector valve rods or keep them running by hand."
"Blast it!" roared the captain. "No way of getting in there? Can't you by-pass the selector?"
"No. It's the heart of the new cosmic drive, sir. The fuels must pass through selector valves before entering the tube chambers. Filaments will operate so long as toxia gas is there to burn, and will keep trying to open the valves and compensate for fluctuating engine temperature. But the rod pins have melted down, sir—they're common tungsten steel—and when the rods pull a valve open, they slip off and drop down, useless. It's a mess. If we could only get a man in there he might lift up the dropped end of a rod and slip it into place each time it fell, and keep the valves working and feeding fuel."
The speaker spluttered and Shano smoked thoughtfully, listening to the talk back and forth, between the captain and the engineer. He didn't understand it, but knew that everything was ended. They were broken down in space and would never make Earth. Those Uranian devils would come streaking back. Catch them floating, helpless, and blast them to bits. And he would never get home to die.
Shano coughed, and cursed his lungs. Time was when these gum-clogged lungs had saved his life. In the Plutonian mines. Gas explosions in the tunnels. Toxia gas, seeping in, burning the men's insides. But with gum-clogged lungs he'd been able to work himself clear. Just getting sick where other men had died, their insides burned out.
Shano smoked and thought.
They wouldn't even know, he told himself, squirming through the emergency exit into the engine room, and sealing it after him. And they wouldn't understand if they did. Pink mist swirled about him. Toxia gas. Shano coughed.
He squinted around at the massive, incomprehensible machinery. The guts of the space ship.
Then he saw the shattered, gold-gleaming cylinder, gas hissing from a fine nozzle, and filaments glowing bluish inside it, still working away. He saw five heavy Carrsteel rods hanging useless, on melted-down pins, and the slots their pronged ends hooked into. He looked at his hands, and shook his head.
"One try," he said to himself. "One try, Shano. One important thing in your life. Here's your opportunity. The toxia gas will get you. It'll kill you at this concentration. But you'll last for maybe twelve hours. Another man wouldn't last a minute. Another man's lungs aren't clogged with Juno gum."
He grasped a rod and lifted it, sweating under the weight, and slipped the forked end into its slot. Going home to die, he thought. Well, maybe not going home. Couldn't remember what Earth looked like anyway.
What was that again? Oh yeah—just lift them up, and when they drop off, lift them up again.
Shano coughed, and lifted the heavy rods into position. One jerked back suddenly and smoothly, and something went, "Pop, pop," behind him and machinery whirred. He lifted the rod and slipped it back on. Another jerked, pulled open a large valve, and dropped off. Shano bent, and lifted, coughing and coughing. He forgot what he was doing, mind blank the way it went when he worked. Just rhythmically fell into the job, the way a laborer does. He waited for a rod to slip and fall, then lifted it up and slipped it in place, skin sweating, joints shooting pain along his limbs. He heard the machinery working. He heard the high, howling whine of cosmic jets. He, Shano, was making the machinery go. He was running the cosmic drive.
A bell clanged somewhere. "Engine room! Engine room! We're under way! What happened?"
Silence, while Shano coughed and made the machinery go, thinking about the Earth he hadn't seen for many years.
"Captain!" the speaker bawled. "There's a man in there! Working the valve rods! Somebody is in the engine room and the gas isn't...."
Shano grinned, feeling good. Feeling happy. Lifting the heavy steel rods, driving the ship. Keeping the jets screaming and hurtling the liner Stardust toward Venus. He wondered if they'd found Rourke yet. If he could keep going for twelve hours they would get to Venus. After that....
"Home," he coughed. "Hell! Who wants to go home?"
He plucked at his agitated chest, thinking of a whole damn Uranian fleet swooping down on a spot in space, expecting to find a crippled ship there with a spy inside it. And finding nothing. Because of Shano. A useless old man.
Coughing came out all mixed up with laughing.
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
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[
"Shano is a sickly old man in line to board the space liner Stardust to go home. There is a red signal announcement for the liner, and guests are given an option to receive a refund. Many guests leave after hearing the danger signal, but Shano sticks his ticket into the scanner and moves to get on the liner. Shano chooses to step in anyways despite the dangers, and the Stardust takes off into space again. Captain Menthlo informs him of the Uranian enemy fleets and the high possibility of running into danger with one of them. When the captain realizes Shano's role as a laborer, he makes him sign a waiver because of the possible danger his life will be when they shut off the ship and mechanical device to avoid the enemies. Once he exits to the next deck, he sees the same lieutenant from earlier speak to him again. The lieutenant's name is Rourke, and he asks why Shano is so anxious to board the ship. Later, as Shano smokes in his cabin, he tries to remember the specific saying for people with nicked jaws. Later, the ship announces that it will now maintain dead silence mode to avoid the Uranian fleets. Shano leaves his room to follow one of the young ensign, who walks by with a blaster. He then realizes that he cannot go back to his room. However, he sees an indistinguishable figure enter the engine room and notices a grey box with switches. Not soon after, the ship enters an offensive attack mode because the Uranian fleets have noticed them. Shano suddenly remembers the rumors to watch out for a man with a nicked jaw because he sells out information to Uranus. He knows that nobody will believe him about a traitor on the ship, so he faces Rourke himself. Shano digs his cigarette into the other man's body and clings to his body. He then twists Rourke's neck with his hands and kills the traitor. The frantic yelling of the other members catches his attention again, and the Stardust informs everybody on board that the ship is midway to Venus. However, there is toxic gas in the engine room now, and nobody on board can withstand the fumes to fix the engines. Although Shano continues to smoke, he does go into the engine room through the emergency exit to fix the space liner. The other crew on the ship are confused by how the liner continues to fly towards Venus. They realize that Shano is working the valve rods in the engine room. Shano thinks about how the Uranian fleet will come into the area and expect to find the Starliner but only find nothing. The fact that this escape is because of him makes him laugh and cough more. ",
"Shano awaits with confusing feelings for a spaceship to land in the spaceport and to take him home. Red signal is announced - the travel is dangerous and at one's own risk. The line dissolves and people rush for refunds, Shano decides to travel home anyway. On board the captain explains that a Uranian fleet is on their way and guesses Shano is from Pluto. Soon, there is an order to keep silent on the ship. Alarmed Shano exits the cabin and sneaks around the ship, then there is a short silence followed by emergency. Short orders and a state of anxiety last and then a sudden relief comes - the fight is over. Shano sees Rourke exiting the emergency room and remembers a nick on the jaw to be a sight of trade with Uranus. He starts a fight and chokes the traitor. The selector is gone, there is gas in the engine room and no one can enter to fix the selector. Shano decides to go in as his lungs are damaged by gas already and he will be able to last longer. He works in the engine room and gets the ship going, hoping to reach Earth and die then proving himself useful. ",
"The main character, Shano, is currently on Q City Spaceport, waiting to board his spaceship that would take him home to die. Shano has gum-clogged lungs, and it was quite an advantage to him when working inside the mines. However, before he could board the ship, an announcement is made about the signal turning red, signifying that there is danger out there, and passengers could travel at their own risk. Shano, desired to go home, decides to take this risk. \n\nHe is the only passenger aboard along with the crew members. The captain of the ship, Menthlo, told him that there is a Uranian fleet on their way. He warns Shano that they will turn the ship off later to avoid detection, and tells him to stay in his cabin. After he sees the kicked jaw of Rourke, the lieutenant of the ship, he heads towards his cabin, where he lays and thinks about the rumors he has heard about nicked jaws. Then captain’s voice comes through the speaker, telling everyone to shut down all machineries and maintain dead silence because the Uranians are listening for mechanical and electronic disturbance. Feeling anxious in his cabin, Shano follows a young man down to the Engine Room. Pausing after seeing a specious figure going into the room, he sees a gray box. Even though everything becomes silent, they are detected by the Uranians. The battle begins. He once again notices the gray box and that the needle inside did not stop, thus he assumes that someone planted it there to make sure the Uranians discover them – a man sold them out. He immediately assumes that it is the nicked jaw man, he is up to something. Then, after spotting the nicked jaw man suspiciously leaving the emergency door, Rourke, Shano digs the cigarette into his face, and grasps his neck until he stops breathing and drops dead. Then he learns from the captain that a selector has been smashed, and in order to fix it, one has to enter the Engine Room which is filled with toxia gas. He knows that his gum-clogged lungs is able to slow down he consumption of the toxia gas in comparison to other people who breaths the gas. Thus, he enters the Engine Room, and starts to work on the selector. Leaving the captain and the crew in shock, they are finally on their way again. ",
"Shano is a retired labourer on Mercury, getting ready to make the journey Home to Earth. As he gets to the spaceport, all the passengers of the spaceship \"Stardust\" are informed that there is a \"red signal\" and passengers are not advised to fly. Shano is old and tired, and just wants to get home so he can die, so he decides to board regardless. He boards the ship with a lieutenant with the notch on his jaw named Rourke, onboard he meets the captain, who advises him to stay in his cabin. The captain informs him that there is a hostile Uranian fleet waiting for them on their path, and they will have to turn all power off during the journey. Shano is intrigued by Rourke and the notch on his jaw, thinking it reminded him of something he had heard once. Shano's lungs are very weak from working on the pluto for so long. Shano goes to his cabin, and the ship goes dark. He opens his doors and walks down the corridor. He sees a figure disappear into the engine room. Suddenly, the captain's voice rings through the intercom. The ship has been spotted by the Uranians, a battle ensues. The crew of the Stardust win this round. Shano notices an electric signal box, which tells of the ships position. He realises something. He remembers what he had heard about the man with the notch on his jaw sold the crew out to Uranus. It was Rourke. Rourke arrives, and Shano attacks him, swiftly killing him. The captain's voice flashes once again that there is an emergency in the engine room. The ship has been hit and everything is dead. Someone has broken through the engine room and it has filled with toxic gas. More Uranian ships are coming, and there's no way to repair the tear in the engine room without being poisoned by the gas. They are stranded. Shano knows that unlike the other men onboard, he can withstand the effects of the gas for a dozen hours, whereas the rest would be dead in a minute. He decides to repair the ship and goes to work in the engine room. He may not die on Earth, but he will save everyone else on board, who will now make it to Venus because of him. "
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63860
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SIGNAL RED
By HENRY GUTH
They tried to stop him. Earth Flight 21 was a suicide run, a coffin ship, they told him. Uranian death lay athwart the space lanes. But Shano already knew this was his last ride.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1949. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Mercurian night settled black and thick over the Q City Spaceport. Tentative fingers of light flicked and probed the sky, and winked out.
"Here she comes," somebody in the line ahead said.
Shano coughed, his whole skeletal body jerking. Arthritic joints sent flashes of pain along his limbs. Here she comes, he thought, feeling neither glad nor sad.
He coughed and slipped polarized goggles over his eyes.
The spaceport emerged bathed in infra red. Hangars, cradles, freighter catapults and long runways stood out in sharp, diamond-clear detail. High up, beyond the cone of illumination, a detached triple row of bright specks—portholes of the liner Stardust —sank slowly down.
There was no eagerness in him. Only a tiredness. A relief. Relief from a lifetime of beating around the planets. A life of digging, lifting, lugging and pounding. Like a work-worn Martian camel, he was going home to die.
As though on oiled pistons the ship sank into the light, its long shark-like hull glowing soft and silvery, and settled with a feathery snuggle into the cradle's ribs.
The passenger line quivered as a loud-speaker boomed:
" Stardust, now arrived at Cradle Six! Stardust, Cradle Six! All passengers for Venus and Earth prepare to board in ten minutes. "
Shano coughed, and wiped phlegm from his thin lips, his hand following around the bony contours of his face, feeling the hollows and the beard stubble and loose skin of his neck. He coughed and thought of the vanium mines of Pluto, and his gum-clogged lungs. A vague, pressing desire for home overwhelmed him. It had been so long.
" Attention! Attention, Stardust passengers! The signal is red. The signal is red. Refunds now being made. Refunds now. Take-off in five minutes. "
The man ahead swore and flicked up an arm. "Red," he groaned. "By the infinite galaxies, this is the last straw!" He charged away, knocking Shano aside as he passed.
Red signal. In bewildered anxiety Shano lifted the goggles from his eyes and stared into the sudden blackness. The red signal. Danger out there. Passengers advised to ground themselves, or travel at their own risk.
He felt the passengers bump and fumble past him, grumbling vexatiously.
A hot dread assailed him, and he coughed, plucking at his chest. Plucking at an urgency there.
Dropping the goggles to his rheumy eyes, he saw that the passenger line had dissolved. He moved, shuffling, to the gate, thrust his ticket into the scanner slot, and pushed through the turnstile when it clicked.
" Flight twenty-one, now arriving from Venus ," the loud-speaker said monotonously. Shano glanced briefly upward and saw the gleaming belly of twenty-one sinking into the spaceport cone of light.
He clawed his way up the gangway and thrust out his ticket to the lieutenant standing alone at the air lock. The lieutenant, a sullen, chunky man with a queer nick in his jawbone, refused the ticket.
"Haven't you heard, mister? Red signal. Go on back."
Shano coughed, and peered through the lenses of his goggles. "Please," he said. "Want to go home. I've a right." The nicked jaw stirred faint memories within his glazed mind.
The lieutenant punched his ticket. "It's your funeral, old man."
The loud-speaker blared. " Stardust, taking off in thirty seconds. The signal is red. Stardust, taking— "
With the words dinning in his ears, Shano stepped into the air lock. The officer followed, spun wheels, and the lock closed. The outside was shut off.
Lifting goggles they entered the hull, through a series of two more locks, closing each behind them.
"We're afloat," the officer said. "We've taken off." A fleck of light danced far back in his eye. Shano felt the pressure of acceleration gradually increasing, increasing, and hurried in.
Captain Menthlo, a silver-mustached Jupiterian, broad, huge, yet crushable as a beetle, talked while his hands manipulated a panel of studs in the control room. The pilot, his back encased in leather, sat in a bucket seat before him, listening into earphones.
"Surprised to learn of a passenger aboard," the captain said, glancing briefly sideways. "You're entitled to know of the danger ahead." He flicked a final stud, spoke to the pilot and at last turned a serious, squared face to Shano. "Old man," he said. "There's a Uranian fleet out there. We don't know how many ships in this sector. Flight twenty-one, which just landed, had a skirmish with one, and got away. We may not be so lucky. You know how these Uranian devils are."
Shano coughed, and wiped his mouth. "Dirty devils," he said. "I was driv' off the planet once, before this war started. I know things about them Uranian devils. Heard them in the mines around. Hears things, a laborer does."
The captain seemed for the first time to realize the social status of his lone passenger, and he became a little gruff.
"Want you to sign this waiver, saying you're traveling at your own risk. We'll expect you to keep to your cabin as much as possible. When the trouble comes we can't bother with a passenger. In a few hours we'll shut down the ship entirely, and every mechanical device aboard, to try to avoid detection." His mustaches rose like two spears from each side of his squared nose as his face changed to an alert watchfulness. "Going home, eh?" he said. "You've knocked around some, by the looks of you. Pluto, from the sound of that cough."
Shano scrawled his signature on the waiver. "Yeah," he said. "Pluto. Where a man's lungs fights gas." He blinked watery eyes. "Captain, what's a notched jaw mean to you?"
"Well, old man," the captain grasped Shano's shoulder and turned him around. "It means somebody cut himself, shaving. You stick tight to your cabin." He nodded curtly and indicated the door.
Descending the companionway to the next deck Shano observed the nick-jawed lieutenant staring out the viewport, apparently idling. The man turned and gripped Shano's thin arm.
"A light?" he said, tapping a cigarette. Shano produced a lighter disk and the chunky man puffed. He was an Earthman and his jaw seemed cut with a knife, notched like a piece of wood. Across the breast of his tunic was a purple band, with the name Rourke . "Why are you so anxious to get aboard, old man?" He searched Shano's face. "There's trouble ahead, you know."
Shano coughed, wracking his body, as forgotten memories stirred sluggishly in his mind. "Yup," he said, and jerked free and stumbled down the steel deck.
In his cabin he lay on the bunk, lighted a cigarette and smoked, coughing and staring at the rivet-studded bulkhead. The slow movement of his mind resolved into a struggle, one idea groping for the other.
What were the things he'd heard about nicked jaws? And where had he heard them? Digging ore on Pluto; talk in the pits? Secretive suspicions voiced in smoke-laden saloons of Mars? In the labor gangs of Uranus? Where? Shano smoked and didn't know. But he knew there was a rumor, and that it was the talk of ignorant men. The captain had evaded it. Shano smoked and coughed and stared at the steel bulkhead and waited.
The ship's alarm clanged. Shano jerked from his bunk like a broken watch spring. He crouched, trembling, on arthritic joints, as a loud-speaker blared throughout the ship.
" All hands! We now maintain dead silence. Close down and stop all machinery. Power off and lights out. An enemy fleet is out there, listening and watching for mechanical and electronic disturbance. Atmosphere will be maintained from emergency oxygen cylinders. Stop pumps. "
Shano crouched and listened as the ship's steady drone ceased and the vibrations ceased. The pumps stopped, the lights went out.
Pressing the cold steel bulkhead, Shano heard oxygen hiss through the pipes. Hiss and hiss and then flow soundlessly, filling the cabin and his lungs. He choked.
The cabin was like a mine shaft, dark and cold. Feet pounded on the deck outside.
Shano clawed open the door. He peered out anxiously.
Cold blobs of light, phosphorescent bulbs held in the fists of men, glimmered by. Phosphorescent bulbs, because the power was off. Shano blinked. He saw officers and men, their faces tight and pinched, hurrying in all directions. Hurrying to shut down the ship.
He acted impulsively. A young ensign strode by, drawn blaster in hand. Shano followed him; followed the bluish glow of his bulb, through labyrinthine passages and down a companionway, coughing and leering against the pain in his joints. The blue light winked out in the distance and Shano stopped.
He was suddenly alarmed. The captain had warned him to stay in his cabin. He looked back and forth, wondering how to return.
A bell clanged.
Shano saw a cold bulb glowing down the passageway, and he shuffled hopefully toward it. The bulb moved away. He saw an indistinct figure disappear through a door marked, ENGINE ROOM.
Shano paused uncertainly at the end of the passageway. A thick cluster of vertical pipes filled the corner. He peered at the pipes and saw a gray box snuggled behind them. It had two toggle switches and a radium dial that quivered delicately.
Shano scratched his scalp as boots pounded on the decks, above and below. He listened attentively to the ship's familiar noises diminishing one by one. And finally even the pounding of feet died out; everything became still. The silence shrieked in his ears.
The ship coasted. Shano could sense it coasting. He couldn't feel it or hear it, but he knew it was sliding ghost-like through space like a submarine dead under water, slipping quietly past a listening enemy.
The ship's speaker rasped softly. " Emergency. Battle posts. "
The captain's voice. Calm, brief. It sent a tremor through Shano's body. He heard a quick scuffle of feet again, running feet, directly overhead, and the captain's voice, more urgently, "Power on. They've heard us."
The words carried no accusation, but Shano realized what they meant. A slip-up. Something left running. Vibrations picked up quickly by detectors of the Uranian space fleet.
Shano coughed and heard the ship come to life around him. He pulled himself out of the spasm, cursing Pluto. Cursing his diseased, gum-clogged lungs. Cursing the Uranian fleet that was trying to prevent his going home—even to die.
This was a strange battle. Strange indeed. It was mostly silence.
Occasionally, as though from another world, came a brief, curt order.
"Port guns alert." Then hush and tension.
The deck lurched and the ship swung this way and that. Maybe dodging, maybe maneuvering—Shano didn't know. He felt the deck lurch, that was all.
"Fire number seven."
He heard the weird scream of a ray gun, and felt the constricting terror that seemed to belt the ship like an iron band.
This was a battle in space, and out there were Uranian cruisers trying to blast the Stardust out of the sky. Trying and trying, while the captain dodged and fired back—pitted his skill and knowledge against an enemy Shano couldn't see.
He wanted desperately to help the captain break through, and get to Earth. But he could only cling to the plastic pipes and cough.
The ship jounced and slid beneath his feet, and was filled with sound. It rocked and rolled. Shano caromed off the bulkhead.
"Hold fire."
He crawled to his knees on the slippery deck, grabbed the pipes and pulled himself erect, hand over hand. His eyes came level with the gray metal box behind the pipes. He squinted, fascinated, at the quivering dial needle. "Hey!" he said.
"Stand by."
Shano puzzled it out, his mind groping. He wasn't used to thinking. Only working with his hands.
This box. This needle that had quivered when the ship was closed down....
"It's over. Chased them off. Ready guns before laying to. Third watch on duty."
Shano sighed at the sudden release of tension throughout the space liner Stardust .
Smoke spewed from his nostrils. His forehead wrinkled with concentration. Those rumors: "Man sells out to Uranus, gets a nick cut in his jaw. Ever see a man with a nick in his jaw? Watch him, he's up to something." The talk of ignorant men. Shano remembered.
He poked behind the pipes and angrily slapped the toggle switches on the box. The captain would only scoff. He'd never believe there was a traitor aboard who had planted an electronic signal box, giving away the ship's position. He'd never believe the babblings of an old man.
He straightened up, glaring angrily. He knew. And the knowledge made him cold and furious. He watched the engine room emergency exit as it opened cautiously.
A chunky man backed out, holstering a flat blaster. He turned and saw Shano, standing smoking. He walked over and nudged Shano, his face dark. Shano blew smoke into the dark face.
"Old man," said Rourke. "What're you doing down here?"
Shano blinked.
Rourke fingered the nick in his jaw, eyes glinting. "You're supposed to be in your cabin," he said. "Didn't I warn you we'd run into trouble?"
Shano smoked and contemplated the chunky man. Estimated his strength and youth and felt the anger and frustration mount in him. "Devil," he said.
"Devil," he said and dug his cigarette into the other's face.
He lunged then, clawing. He dug the cigarette into Rourke's flushed face, and clung to his body. Rourke howled. He fell backward to the deck, slapping at his blistered face. He thrashed around and Shano clung to him, battered, pressing the cigarette relentlessly, coughing, cursing the pain in his joints.
Shano grasped Rourke's neck with his hands. He twisted the neck with his gnarled hands. Strong hands that had worked.
He got up when Rourke stopped thrashing. The face was purple and he was dead. Shano shivered. He crouched in the passageway shivering and coughing.
A tremendous grinding sounded amid-ships. Loud rending noises of protesting metal. The ship bucked like a hooked fish. Then it was still. An empty clank echoed through the hull. The captain's voice came, almost yelling. "Emergency! Emergency! Back to your posts. Engine room—report! Engine room—"
Shano picked himself off the deck, his mind muddled. He coughed and put a cigarette to his lips, flicking a lighter disk jerkily from his pocket. He blew smoke from his nostrils and heard the renewed pounding of feet. What was going on now?
"Engine room! Your screen is dead! Switch onto loud-speaker system. Engine room!"
Giddily, Shano heard clicks and rasps and then a thick voice, atom motors whirring in the background.
"Selector's gone, sir. Direct hit. Heat ray through the deck plates. We've sealed the tear. Might repair selector in five hours."
Shano coughed and sent a burst of smoke from his mouth.
"Captain!" A rasping, grating sound ensued from a grill above Shano's head, then a disconnected voice. "Get the men out of there. It's useless. Hurry it up!" A series of clicks and the heavy voice of the chief engineer. "Captain! Somebody's smashed the selector chamber. Engine room's full of toxia gas!"
Shano jumped. He prodded the body on the deck with his toe.
The Stardust's mechanical voice bellowed: "Engine room!" It reproduced the captain's heavy breathing and his tired voice. "We're about midway to Venus," it said. "There were two ships and we drove them off. But there may be others. They'll be coming back. They know we've been hit. We have to get away fast!"
Shano could see the captain in his mind, worried, squared face slick with moisture. Shouting into a control room mike. Trying to find out what the matter was with his space ship.
The engineer's answer came from the grill. "Impossible, sir. Engine room full of toxia gas. Not a suit aboard prepared to withstand it. And we have to keep it in there. Selector filaments won't function without the gas. Our only chance was to put a man in the engine room to repair the broken selector valve rods or keep them running by hand."
"Blast it!" roared the captain. "No way of getting in there? Can't you by-pass the selector?"
"No. It's the heart of the new cosmic drive, sir. The fuels must pass through selector valves before entering the tube chambers. Filaments will operate so long as toxia gas is there to burn, and will keep trying to open the valves and compensate for fluctuating engine temperature. But the rod pins have melted down, sir—they're common tungsten steel—and when the rods pull a valve open, they slip off and drop down, useless. It's a mess. If we could only get a man in there he might lift up the dropped end of a rod and slip it into place each time it fell, and keep the valves working and feeding fuel."
The speaker spluttered and Shano smoked thoughtfully, listening to the talk back and forth, between the captain and the engineer. He didn't understand it, but knew that everything was ended. They were broken down in space and would never make Earth. Those Uranian devils would come streaking back. Catch them floating, helpless, and blast them to bits. And he would never get home to die.
Shano coughed, and cursed his lungs. Time was when these gum-clogged lungs had saved his life. In the Plutonian mines. Gas explosions in the tunnels. Toxia gas, seeping in, burning the men's insides. But with gum-clogged lungs he'd been able to work himself clear. Just getting sick where other men had died, their insides burned out.
Shano smoked and thought.
They wouldn't even know, he told himself, squirming through the emergency exit into the engine room, and sealing it after him. And they wouldn't understand if they did. Pink mist swirled about him. Toxia gas. Shano coughed.
He squinted around at the massive, incomprehensible machinery. The guts of the space ship.
Then he saw the shattered, gold-gleaming cylinder, gas hissing from a fine nozzle, and filaments glowing bluish inside it, still working away. He saw five heavy Carrsteel rods hanging useless, on melted-down pins, and the slots their pronged ends hooked into. He looked at his hands, and shook his head.
"One try," he said to himself. "One try, Shano. One important thing in your life. Here's your opportunity. The toxia gas will get you. It'll kill you at this concentration. But you'll last for maybe twelve hours. Another man wouldn't last a minute. Another man's lungs aren't clogged with Juno gum."
He grasped a rod and lifted it, sweating under the weight, and slipped the forked end into its slot. Going home to die, he thought. Well, maybe not going home. Couldn't remember what Earth looked like anyway.
What was that again? Oh yeah—just lift them up, and when they drop off, lift them up again.
Shano coughed, and lifted the heavy rods into position. One jerked back suddenly and smoothly, and something went, "Pop, pop," behind him and machinery whirred. He lifted the rod and slipped it back on. Another jerked, pulled open a large valve, and dropped off. Shano bent, and lifted, coughing and coughing. He forgot what he was doing, mind blank the way it went when he worked. Just rhythmically fell into the job, the way a laborer does. He waited for a rod to slip and fall, then lifted it up and slipped it in place, skin sweating, joints shooting pain along his limbs. He heard the machinery working. He heard the high, howling whine of cosmic jets. He, Shano, was making the machinery go. He was running the cosmic drive.
A bell clanged somewhere. "Engine room! Engine room! We're under way! What happened?"
Silence, while Shano coughed and made the machinery go, thinking about the Earth he hadn't seen for many years.
"Captain!" the speaker bawled. "There's a man in there! Working the valve rods! Somebody is in the engine room and the gas isn't...."
Shano grinned, feeling good. Feeling happy. Lifting the heavy steel rods, driving the ship. Keeping the jets screaming and hurtling the liner Stardust toward Venus. He wondered if they'd found Rourke yet. If he could keep going for twelve hours they would get to Venus. After that....
"Home," he coughed. "Hell! Who wants to go home?"
He plucked at his agitated chest, thinking of a whole damn Uranian fleet swooping down on a spot in space, expecting to find a crippled ship there with a spy inside it. And finding nothing. Because of Shano. A useless old man.
Coughing came out all mixed up with laughing.
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What is Celeste's attitude towards other members of her family and how does it change?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Dr. Kometevsky's Day by Fritz Leiber.
Relevant chunks:
DR. KOMETEVSKY'S DAY
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by DAVID STONE
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Before science, there was superstition. After science, there will be ... what? The biggest, most staggering , most final fact of them all!
"But it's all predicted here! It even names this century for the next reshuffling of the planets."
Celeste Wolver looked up unwillingly at the book her friend Madge Carnap held aloft like a torch. She made out the ill-stamped title, The Dance of the Planets . There was no mistaking the time of its origin; only paper from the Twentieth Century aged to that particularly nasty shade of brown. Indeed, the book seemed to Celeste a brown old witch resurrected from the Last Age of Madness to confound a world growing sane, and she couldn't help shrinking back a trifle toward her husband Theodor.
He tried to come to her rescue. "Only predicted in the vaguest way. As I understand it, Kometevsky claimed, on the basis of a lot of evidence drawn from folklore, that the planets and their moons trade positions every so often."
"As if they were playing Going to Jerusalem, or musical chairs," Celeste chimed in, but she couldn't make it sound funny.
"Jupiter was supposed to have started as the outermost planet, and is to end up in the orbit of Mercury," Theodor continued. "Well, nothing at all like that has happened."
"But it's begun," Madge said with conviction. "Phobos and Deimos have disappeared. You can't argue away that stubborn little fact."
That was the trouble; you couldn't. Mars' two tiny moons had simply vanished during a period when, as was generally the case, the eyes of astronomy weren't on them. Just some hundred-odd cubic miles of rock—the merest cosmic flyspecks—yet they had carried away with them the security of a whole world.
Looking at the lovely garden landscape around her, Celeste Wolver felt that in a moment the shrubby hills would begin to roll like waves, the charmingly aimless paths twist like snakes and sink in the green sea, the sparsely placed skyscrapers dissolve into the misty clouds they pierced.
People must have felt like this , she thought, when Aristarches first hinted and Copernicus told them that the solid Earth under their feet was falling dizzily through space. Only it's worse for us, because they couldn't see that anything had changed. We can.
"You need something to cling to," she heard Madge say. "Dr. Kometevsky was the only person who ever had an inkling that anything like this might happen. I was never a Kometevskyite before. Hadn't even heard of the man."
She said it almost apologetically. In fact, standing there so frank and anxious-eyed, Madge looked anything but a fanatic, which made it much worse.
"Of course, there are several more convincing alternate explanations...." Theodor began hesitantly, knowing very well that there weren't. If Phobos and Deimos had suddenly disintegrated, surely Mars Base would have noticed something. Of course there was the Disordered Space Hypothesis, even if it was little more than the chance phrase of a prominent physicist pounded upon by an eager journalist. And in any case, what sense of security were you left with if you admitted that moons and planets might explode, or drop through unseen holes in space? So he ended up by taking a different tack: "Besides, if Phobos and Deimos simply shot off somewhere, surely they'd have been picked up by now by 'scope or radar."
"Two balls of rock just a few miles in diameter?" Madge questioned.
"Aren't they smaller than many of the asteroids? I'm no astronomer, but I think' I'm right."
And of course she was.
She swung the book under her arm. "Whew, it's heavy," she observed, adding in slightly scandalized tones, "Never been microfilmed." She smiled nervously and looked them up and down. "Going to a party?" she asked.
Theodor's scarlet cloak and Celeste's green culottes and silver jacket justified the question, but they shook their heads.
"Just the normally flamboyant garb of the family," Celeste said, while Theodor explained, "As it happens, we're bound on business connected with the disappearance. We Wolvers practically constitute a sub-committee of the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes. And since a lot of varied material comes to our attention, we're going to see if any of it correlates with this bit of astronomical sleight-of-hand."
Madge nodded. "Give you something to do, at any rate. Well, I must be off. The Buddhist temple has lent us their place for a meeting." She gave them a woeful grin. "See you when the Earth jumps."
Theodor said to Celeste, "Come on, dear. We'll be late."
But Celeste didn't want to move too fast. "You know, Teddy," she said uncomfortably, "all this reminds me of those old myths where too much good fortune is a sure sign of coming disaster. It was just too much luck, our great-grandparents missing World III and getting the World Government started a thousand years ahead of schedule. Luck like that couldn't last, evidently. Maybe we've gone too fast with a lot of things, like space-flight and the Deep Shaft and—" she hesitated a bit—"complex marriages. I'm a woman. I want complete security. Where am I to find it?"
"In me," Theodor said promptly.
"In you?" Celeste questioned, walking slowly. "But you're just one-third of my husband. Perhaps I should look for it in Edmund or Ivan."
"You angry with me about something?"
"Of course not. But a woman wants her source of security whole. In a crisis like this, it's disturbing to have it divided."
"Well, we are a whole and, I believe, indivisible family," Theodor told her warmly. "You're not suggesting, are you, that we're going to be punished for our polygamous sins by a cosmic catastrophe? Fire from Heaven and all that?"
"Don't be silly. I just wanted to give you a picture of my feeling." Celeste smiled. "I guess none of us realized how much we've come to depend on the idea of unchanging scientific law. Knocks the props from under you."
Theodor nodded emphatically. "All the more reason to get a line on what's happening as quickly as possible. You know, it's fantastically far-fetched, but I think the experience of persons with Extra-Sensory Perception may give us a clue. During the past three or four days there's been a remarkable similarity in the dreams of ESPs all over the planet. I'm going to present the evidence at the meeting."
Celeste looked up at him. "So that's why Rosalind's bringing Frieda's daughter?"
"Dotty is your daughter, too, and Rosalind's," Theodor reminded her.
"No, just Frieda's," Celeste said bitterly. "Of course you may be the father. One-third of a chance."
Theodor looked at her sharply, but didn't comment. "Anyway, Dotty will be there," he said. "Probably asleep by now. All the ESPs have suddenly seemed to need more sleep."
As they talked, it had been growing darker, though the luminescence of the path kept it from being bothersome. And now the cloud rack parted to the east, showing a single red planet low on the horizon.
"Did you know," Theodor said suddenly, "that in Gulliver's Travels Dean Swift predicted that better telescopes would show Mars to have two moons? He got the sizes and distances and periods damned accurately, too. One of the few really startling coincidences of reality and literature."
"Stop being eerie," Celeste said sharply. But then she went on, "Those names Phobos and Deimos—they're Greek, aren't they? What do they mean?"
Theodor lost a step. "Fear and Terror," he said unwillingly. "Now don't go taking that for an omen. Most of the mythological names of major and minor ancient gods had been taken—the bodies in the Solar System are named that way, of course—and these were about all that were available."
It was true, but it didn't comfort him much.
I am a God , Dotty was dreaming, and I want to be by myself and think. I and my god-friends like to keep some of our thoughts secret, but the other gods have forbidden us to.
A little smile flickered across the lips of the sleeping girl, and the woman in gold tights and gold-spangled jacket leaned forward thoughtfully. In her dignity and simplicity and straight-spined grace, she was rather like a circus mother watching her sick child before she went out for the trapeze act.
I and my god-friends sail off in our great round silver boats , Dotty went on dreaming. The other gods are angry and scared. They are frightened of the thoughts we may think in secret. They follow us to hunt us down. There are many more of them than of us.
As Celeste and Theodor entered the committee room, Rosalind Wolver—a glitter of platinum against darkness—came in through the opposite door and softly shut it behind her. Frieda, a fair woman in blue robes, got up from the round table.
Celeste turned away with outward casualness as Theodor kissed his two other wives. She was pleased to note that Edmund seemed impatient too. A figure in close-fitting black, unrelieved except for two red arrows at the collar, he struck her as embodying very properly the serious, fateful temper of the moment.
He took two briefcases from his vest pocket and tossed them down on the table beside one of the microfilm projectors.
"I suggest we get started without waiting for Ivan," he said.
Frieda frowned anxiously. "It's ten minutes since he phoned from the Deep Space Bar to say he was starting right away. And that's hardly a two minutes walk."
Rosalind instantly started toward the outside door.
"I'll check," she explained. "Oh, Frieda, I've set the mike so you'll hear if Dotty calls."
Edmund threw up his hands. "Very well, then," he said and walked over, switched on the picture and stared out moodily.
Theodor and Frieda got out their briefcases, switched on projectors, and began silently checking through their material.
Celeste fiddled with the TV and got a newscast. But she found her eyes didn't want to absorb the blocks of print that rather swiftly succeeded each other, so, after a few moments, she shrugged impatiently and switched to audio.
At the noise, the others looked around at her with surprise and some irritation, but in a few moments they were also listening.
"The two rocket ships sent out from Mars Base to explore the orbital positions of Phobos and Deimos—that is, the volume of space they'd be occupying if their positions had remained normal—report finding masses of dust and larger debris. The two masses of fine debris are moving in the same orbits and at the same velocities as the two vanished moons, and occupy roughly the same volumes of space, though the mass of material is hardly a hundredth that of the moons. Physicists have ventured no statements as to whether this constitutes a confirmation of the Disintegration Hypothesis.
"However, we're mighty pleased at this news here. There's a marked lessening of tension. The finding of the debris—solid, tangible stuff—seems to lift the whole affair out of the supernatural miasma in which some of us have been tempted to plunge it. One-hundredth of the moons has been found.
"The rest will also be!"
Edmund had turned his back on the window. Frieda and Theodor had switched off their projectors.
"Meanwhile, Earthlings are going about their business with a minimum of commotion, meeting with considerable calm the strange threat to the fabric of their Solar System. Many, of course, are assembled in churches and humanist temples. Kometevskyites have staged helicopter processions at Washington, Peking, Pretoria, and Christiana, demanding that instant preparations be made for—and I quote—'Earth's coming leap through space.' They have also formally challenged all astronomers to produce an explanation other than the one contained in that strange book so recently conjured from oblivion, The Dance of the Planets .
"That about winds up the story for the present. There are no new reports from Interplanetary Radar, Astronomy, or the other rocket ships searching in the extended Mars volume. Nor have any statements been issued by the various groups working on the problem in Astrophysics, Cosmic Ecology, the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes, and so forth. Meanwhile, however, we can take courage from the words of a poem written even before Dr. Kometevsky's book:
"This Earth is not the steadfast place
We landsmen build upon;
From deep to deep she varies pace,
And while she comes is gone.
Beneath my feet I feel
Her smooth bulk heave and dip;
With velvet plunge and soft upreel
She swings and steadies to her keel
Like a gallant, gallant ship."
While the TV voice intoned the poem, growing richer as emotion caught it up, Celeste looked around her at the others. Frieda, with her touch of feminine helplessness showing more than ever through her business-like poise. Theodor leaning forward from his scarlet cloak thrown back, smiling the half-smile with which he seemed to face even the unknown. Black Edmund, masking a deep uncertainty with a strong show of decisiveness.
In short, her family. She knew their every quirk and foible. And yet now they seemed to her a million miles away, figures seen through the wrong end of a telescope.
Were they really a family? Strong sources of mutual strength and security to each other? Or had they merely been playing family, experimenting with their notions of complex marriage like a bunch of silly adolescents? Butterflies taking advantage of good weather to wing together in a glamorous, artificial dance—until outraged Nature decided to wipe them out?
As the poem was ending, Celeste saw the door open and Rosalind come slowly in. The Golden Woman's face was white as the paths she had been treading.
Just then the TV voice quickened with shock. "News! Lunar Observatory One reports that, although Jupiter is just about to pass behind the Sun, a good coronagraph of the planet has been obtained. Checked and rechecked, it admits of only one interpretation, which Lunar One feels duty-bound to release. Jupiter's fourteen moons are no longer visible! "
The chorus of remarks with which the Wolvers would otherwise have received this was checked by one thing: the fact that Rosalind seemed not to hear it. Whatever was on her mind prevented even that incredible statement from penetrating.
She walked shakily to the table and put down a briefcase, one end of which was smudged with dirt.
Without looking at them, she said, "Ivan left the Deep Space Bar twenty minutes ago, said he was coming straight here. On my way back I searched the path. Midway I found this half-buried in the dirt. I had to tug to get it out—almost as if it had been cemented into the ground. Do you feel how the dirt seems to be in the leather, as if it had lain for years in the grave?"
By now the others were fingering the small case of microfilms they had seen so many times in Ivan's competent hands. What Rosalind said was true. It had a gritty, unwholesome feel to it. Also, it felt strangely heavy.
"And see what's written on it," she added.
They turned it over. Scrawled with white pencil in big, hasty, frantic letters were two words:
"Going down!"
The other gods , Dotty dreamt, are combing the whole Universe for us. We have escaped them many times, but now our tricks are almost used up. There are no doors going out of the Universe and our boats are silver beacons to the hunters. So we decide to disguise them in the only way they can be disguised. It is our last chance.
Edmund rapped the table to gain the family's attention. "I'd say we've done everything we can for the moment to find Ivan. We've made a thorough local search. A wider one, which we can't conduct personally, is in progress. All helpful agencies have been alerted and descriptions are being broadcast. I suggest we get on with the business of the evening—which may very well be connected with Ivan's disappearance."
One by one the others nodded and took their places at the round table. Celeste made a great effort to throw off the feeling of unreality that had engulfed her and focus attention on her microfilms.
"I'll take over Ivan's notes," she heard Edmund say. "They're mainly about the Deep Shaft."
"How far have they got with that?" Frieda asked idly. "Twenty-five miles?"
"Nearer thirty, I believe," Edmund answered, "and still going down."
At those last two words they all looked up quickly. Then their eyes went toward Ivan's briefcase.
Our trick has succeeded , Dotty dreamt. The other gods have passed our hiding place a dozen times without noticing. They search the Universe for us many times in vain. They finally decide that we have found a door going out of the Universe. Yet they fear us all the more. They think of us as devils who will some day return through the door to destroy them. So they watch everywhere. We lie quietly smiling in our camouflaged boats, yet hardly daring to move or think, for fear that the faintest echoes of our doings will give them a clue. Hundreds of millions of years pass by. They seem to us no more than drugged hours in a prison.
Theodor rubbed his eyes and pushed his chair back from the table. "We need a break."
Frieda agreed wearily. "We've gone through everything."
"Good idea," Edmund said briskly. "I think we've hit on several crucial points along the way and half disentangled them from the great mass of inconsequential material. I'll finish up that part of the job right now and present my case when we're all a bit fresher. Say half an hour?"
Theodor nodded heavily, pushing up from his chair and hitching his cloak over a shoulder.
"I'm going out for a drink," he informed them.
After several hesitant seconds, Rosalind quietly followed him. Frieda stretched out on a couch and closed her eyes. Edmund scanned microfilms tirelessly, every now and then setting one aside.
Celeste watched him for a minute, then sprang up and started toward the room where Dotty was asleep. But midway she stopped.
Not my child , she thought bitterly. Frieda's her mother, Rosalind her nurse. I'm nothing at all. Just one of the husband's girl friends. A lady of uneasy virtue in a dissolving world.
But then she straightened her shoulders and went on.
Rosalind didn't catch up with Theodor. Her footsteps were silent and he never looked back along the path whose feeble white glow rose only knee-high, lighting a low strip of shrub and mossy tree trunk to either side, no more.
It was a little chilly. She drew on her gloves, but she didn't hurry. In fact, she fell farther and farther behind the dipping tail of his scarlet cloak and his plodding red shoes, which seemed to move disembodied, like those in the fairy tale.
When she reached the point where she had found Ivan's briefcase, she stopped altogether.
A breeze rustled the leaves, and, moistly brushing her cheek, brought forest scents of rot and mold. After a bit she began to hear the furtive scurryings and scuttlings of forest creatures.
She looked around her half-heartedly, suddenly realizing the futility of her quest. What clues could she hope to find in this knee-high twilight? And they'd thoroughly combed the place earlier in the night.
Without warning, an eerie tingling went through her and she was seized by a horror of the cold, grainy Earth underfoot—an ancestral terror from the days when men shivered at ghost stories about graves and tombs.
A tiny detail persisted in bulking larger and larger in her mind—the unnaturalness of the way the Earth had impregnated the corner of Ivan's briefcase, almost as if dirt and leather co-existed in the same space. She remembered the queer way the partly buried briefcase had resisted her first tug, like a rooted plant.
She felt cowed by the mysterious night about her, and literally dwarfed, as if she had grown several inches shorter. She roused herself and started forward.
Something held her feet.
They were ankle-deep in the path. While she looked in fright and horror, they began to sink still lower into the ground.
She plunged frantically, trying to jerk loose. She couldn't. She had the panicky feeling that the Earth had not only trapped but invaded her; that its molecules were creeping up between the molecules of her flesh; that the two were becoming one.
And she was sinking faster. Now knee-deep, thigh-deep, hip-deep, waist-deep. She beat at the powdery path with her hands and threw her body from side to side in agonized frenzy like some sinner frozen in the ice of the innermost circle of the ancients' hell. And always the sense of the dark, grainy tide rose inside as well as around her.
She thought, he'd just have had time to scribble that note on his briefcase and toss it away. She jerked off a glove, leaned out as far as she could, and made a frantic effort to drive its fingers into the powdery path. Then the Earth mounted to her chin, her nose, and covered her eyes.
She expected blackness, but it was as if the light of the path stayed with her, making a little glow all around. She saw roots, pebbles, black rot, worn tunnels, worms. Tier on tier of them, her vision penetrating the solid ground. And at the same time, the knowledge that these same sorts of things were coursing up through her.
And still she continued to sink at a speed that increased, as if the law of gravitation applied to her in a diminished way. She dropped from black soil through gray clay and into pale limestone.
Her tortured, rock-permeated lungs sucked at rock and drew in air. She wondered madly if a volume of air were falling with her through the stone.
A glitter of quartz. The momentary openness of a foot-high cavern with a trickle of water. And then she was sliding down a black basalt column, half inside it, half inside gold-flecked ore. Then just black basalt. And always faster.
It grew hot, then hotter, as if she were approaching the mythical eternal fires.
At first glance Theodor thought the Deep Space Bar was empty. Then he saw a figure hunched monkeylike on the last stool, almost lost in the blue shadows, while behind the bar, her crystal dress blending with the tiers of sparkling glasses, stood a grave-eyed young girl who could hardly have been fifteen.
The TV was saying, "... in addition, a number of mysterious disappearances of high-rating individuals have been reported. These are thought to be cases of misunderstanding, illusory apprehension, and impulse traveling—a result of the unusual stresses of the time. Finally, a few suggestible individuals in various parts of the globe, especially the Indian Peninsula, have declared themselves to be 'gods' and in some way responsible for current events.
"It is thought—"
The girl switched off the TV and took Theodor's order, explaining casually, "Joe wanted to go to a Kometevskyite meeting, so I took over for him." When she had prepared Theodor's highball, she announced,
"I'll have a drink with you gentlemen," and squeezed herself a glass of pomegranate juice.
The monkeylike figure muttered, "Scotch-and-soda," then turned toward Edmund and asked, "And what is your reaction to all this, sir?"
Theodor recognized the shrunken wrinkle-seamed face. It was Colonel Fortescue, a military antique long retired from the Peace Patrol and reputed to have seen actual fighting in the Last Age of Madness. Now, for some reason, the face sported a knowing smile.
Theodor shrugged. Just then the TV "big news" light blinked blue and the girl switched on audio. The Colonel winked at Theodor.
"... confirming the disappearance of Jupiter's moons. But two other utterly fantastic reports have just been received. First, Lunar Observatory One says that it is visually tracking fourteen small bodies which it believes may be the lost moons of Jupiter. They are moving outward from the Solar System at an incredible velocity and are already beyond the orbit of Saturn!"
The Colonel said, "Ah!"
"Second, Palomar reports a large number of dark bodies approaching the Solar System at an equally incredible velocity. They are at about twice the distance of Pluto, but closing in fast! We will be on the air with further details as soon as possible."
The Colonel said, "Ah-ha!"
Theodor stared at him. The old man's self-satisfied poise was almost amusing.
"Are you a Kometevskyite?" Theodor asked him.
The Colonel laughed. "Of course not, my boy. Those poor people are fumbling in the dark. Don't you see what's happened?"
"Frankly, no."
The Colonel leaned toward Theodor and whispered gruffly, "The Divine Plan. God is a military strategist, naturally."
Then he lifted the scotch-and-soda in his clawlike hand and took a satisfying swallow.
"I knew it all along, of course," he went on musingly, "but this last news makes it as plain as a rocket blast, at least to anyone who knows military strategy. Look here, my boy, suppose you were commanding a fleet and got wind of the enemy's approach—what would you do? Why, you'd send your scouts and destroyers fanning out toward them. Behind that screen you'd mass your heavy ships. Then—"
"You don't mean to imply—" Theodor interrupted.
The girl behind the bar looked at them both cryptically.
"Of course I do!" the Colonel cut in sharply. "It's a war between the forces of good and evil. The bright suns and planets are on one side, the dark on the other. The moons are the destroyers, Jupiter and Saturn are the big battleships, while we're on a heavy cruiser, I'm proud to say. We'll probably go into action soon. Be a corking fight, what? And all by divine strategy!"
He chuckled and took another big drink. Theodor looked at him sourly. The girl behind the bar polished a glass and said nothing.
Dotty suddenly began to turn and toss, and a look of terror came over her sleeping face. Celeste leaned forward apprehensively.
The child's lips worked and Celeste made out the sleepy-fuzzy words:
"They've found out where we're hiding. They're coming to get us. No! Please, no!"
Celeste's reactions were mixed. She felt worried about Dotty and at the same time almost in terror of her, as if the little girl were an agent of supernatural forces. She told herself that this fear was an expression of her own hostility, yet she didn't really believe it. She touched the child's hand.
Dotty's eyes opened without making Celeste feel she had quite come awake. After a bit she looked at Celeste and her little lips parted in a smile.
"Hello," she said sleepily. "I've been having such funny dreams." Then, after a pause, frowning, "I really am a god, you know. It feels very queer."
"Yes, dear?" Celeste prompted uneasily. "Shall I call Frieda?"
The smile left Dotty's lips. "Why do you act so nervous around me?" she asked. "Don't you love me, Mummy?"
Celeste started at the word. Her throat closed. Then, very slowly, her face broke into a radiant smile. "Of course I do, darling. I love you very much."
Dotty nodded happily, her eyes already closed again.
There was a sudden flurry of excited voices beyond the door. Celeste heard her name called. She stood up.
"I'm going to have to go out and talk with the others," she said. "If you want me, dear, just call."
"Yes, Mummy."
Edmund rapped for attention. Celeste, Frieda, and Theodor glanced around at him. He looked more frightfully strained, they realized, than even they felt. His expression was a study in suppressed excitement, but there were also signs of a knowledge that was almost too overpowering for a human being to bear.
His voice was clipped, rapid. "I think it's about time we stopped worrying about our own affairs and thought of those of the Solar System, partly because I think they have a direct bearing on the disappearances of Ivan end Rosalind. As I told you, I've been sorting out the crucial items from the material we've been presenting. There are roughly four of those items, as I see it. It's rather like a mystery story. I wonder if, hearing those four clues, you will come to the same conclusion I have."
The others nodded.
"First, there are the latest reports from Deep Shaft, which, as you know, has been sunk to investigate deep-Earth conditions. At approximately twenty-nine miles below the surface, the delvers have encountered a metallic obstruction which they have tentatively named the durasphere. It resists their hardest drills, their strongest corrosives. They have extended a side-tunnel at that level for a quarter of a mile. Delicate measurements, made possible by the mirror-smooth metal surface, show that the durasphere has a slight curvature that is almost exactly equal to the curvature of the Earth itself. The suggestion is that deep borings made anywhere in the world would encounter the durasphere at the same depth.
"Second, the movements of the moons of Mars and Jupiter, and particularly the debris left behind by the moons of Mars. Granting Phobos and Deimos had duraspheres proportional in size to that of Earth, then the debris would roughly equal in amount the material in those two duraspheres' rocky envelopes. The suggestion is that the two duraspheres suddenly burst from their envelopes with such titanic velocity as to leave those disrupted envelopes behind."
It was deadly quiet in the committee room.
"Thirdly, the disappearances of Ivan and Rosalind, and especially the baffling hint—from Ivan's message in one case and Rosalind's downward-pointing glove in the other—that they were both somehow drawn into the depths of the Earth.
"Finally, the dreams of the ESPs, which agree overwhelmingly in the following points: A group of beings separate themselves from a godlike and telepathic race because they insist on maintaining a degree of mental privacy. They flee in great boats or ships of some sort. They are pursued on such a scale that there is no hiding place for them anywhere in the universe. In some manner they successfully camouflage their ships. Eons pass and their still-fanatical pursuers do not penetrate their secret. Then, suddenly, they are detected."
Edmund waited. "Do you see what I'm driving at?" he asked hoarsely.
He could tell from their looks that the others did, but couldn't bring
themselves to put it into words.
"I suppose it's the time-scale and the value-scale that are so hard for
us to accept," he said softly. "Much more, even, than the size-scale.
The thought that there are creatures in the Universe to whom the whole
career of Man—in fact, the whole career of life—is no more than a few
thousand or hundred thousand years. And to whom Man is no more than a
minor stage property—a trifling part of a clever job of camouflage."
This time he went on, "Fantasy writers have at times hinted all sorts
of odd things about the Earth—that it might even be a kind of single
living creature, or honeycombed with inhabited caverns, and so on.
But I don't know that any of them have ever suggested that the Earth,
together with all the planets and moons of the Solar System, might
be...."
In a whisper, Frieda finished for him, "... a camouflaged fleet of
gigantic spherical spaceships."
" Your guess happens to be the precise truth. "
At that familiar, yet dreadly unfamiliar voice, all four of them swung
toward the inner door. Dotty was standing there, a sleep-stupefied
little girl with a blanket caught up around her and dragging behind.
Their own daughter. But in her eyes was a look from which they cringed.
She said, "I am a creature somewhat older than what your geologists
call the Archeozoic Era. I am speaking to you through a number of
telepathically sensitive individuals among your kind. In each case my
thoughts suit themselves to your level of comprehension. I inhabit the
disguised and jetless spaceship which is your Earth."
Celeste swayed a step forward. "Baby...." she implored.
Dotty went on, without giving her a glance, "It is true that we planted
the seeds of life on some of these planets simply as part of our
camouflage, just as we gave them a suitable environment for each. And
it is true that now we must let most of that life be destroyed. Our
hiding place has been discovered, our pursuers are upon us, and we must
make one last effort to escape or do battle, since we firmly believe
that the principle of mental privacy to which we have devoted our
existence is perhaps the greatest good in the whole Universe.
"But it is not true that we look with contempt upon you. Our whole race
is deeply devoted to life, wherever it may come into being, and it is
our rule never to interfere with its development. That was one of
the reasons we made life a part of our camouflage—it would make our
pursuers reluctant to examine these planets too closely.
"Yes, we have always cherished you and watched your evolution with
interest from our hidden lairs. We may even unconsciously have shaped
your development in certain ways, trying constantly to educate you away
from war and finally succeeding—which may have given the betraying
clue to our pursuers.
"Your planets must be burst asunder—this particular planet in the
area of the Pacific—so that we may have our last chance to escape.
Even if we did not move, our pursuers would destroy you with us. We
cannot invite you inside our ships—not for lack of space, but because
you could never survive the vast accelerations to which you would be
subjected. You would, you see, need very special accommodations, of
which we have enough only for a few.
"Those few we will take with us, as the seed from which a new human
race may—if we ourselves somehow survive—be born."
Rosalind and Ivan stared dumbly at each other across the egg-shaped
silver room, without apparent entrance or exit, in which they were
sprawled. But their thoughts were no longer of thirty-odd mile
journeys down through solid earth, or of how cool it was after the
heat of the passage, or of how grotesque it was to be trapped here,
the fragment of a marriage. They were both listening to the voice that
spoke inside their minds.
"In a few minutes your bodies will be separated into layers one atom
thick, capable of being shelved or stored in such a way as to endure
almost infinite accelerations. Single cells will cover acres of space.
But do not be alarmed. The process will be painless and each particle
will be catalogued for future assembly. Your consciousness will endure
throughout the process."
Rosalind looked at her gold-shod toes. She was wondering, will they go
first, or my head? Or will I be peeled like an apple?
She looked at Ivan and knew he was thinking the same thing.
Up in the committee room, the other Wolvers slumped around the table.
Only little Dotty sat straight and staring, speechless and unanswering,
quite beyond their reach, like a telephone off the hook and with the
connection open, but no voice from the other end.
They had just switched off the TV after listening to a confused
medley of denials, prayers, Kometevskyite chatterings, and a few
astonishingly realistic comments on the possibility of survival.
These last pointed out that, on the side of the Earth opposite the
Pacific, the convulsions would come slowly when the entombed spaceship
burst forth—provided, as seemed the case, that it moved without jets
or reaction.
It would be as if the Earth's vast core simply vanished. Gravity would
diminish abruptly to a fraction of its former value. The empty envelope
of rock and water and air would slowly fall together, though at the
same time the air would begin to escape from the debris because there
would no longer be the mass required to hold it.
However, there might be definite chances of temporary and even
prolonged survival for individuals in strong, hermetically sealed
structures, such as submarines and spaceships. The few spaceships on
Earth were reported to have blasted off, or be preparing to leave, with
as many passengers as could be carried.
But most persons, apparently, could not contemplate action of any sort.
They could only sit and think, like the Wolvers.
A faint smile relaxed Celeste's face. She was thinking, how beautiful!
It means the death of the Solar System, which is a horrifying
subjective concept. Objectively, though, it would be a more awesome
sight than any human being has ever seen or ever could see. It's an
absurd and even brutal thing to wish—but I wish I could see the whole
cataclysm from beginning to end. It would make death seem very small, a
tiny personal event.
Dotty's face was losing its blank expression, becoming intent and
alarmed.
"We are in contact with our pursuers," she said in the
familiar-unfamiliar voice. "Negotiations are now going on. There
seems to be—there is a change in them. Where they were harsh and
vindictive before, they now are gentle and conciliatory." She paused,
the alarm on her childish features pinching into anxious uncertainty.
"Our pursuers have always been shrewd. The change in them may be false,
intended merely to lull us into allowing them to come close enough to
destroy us. We must not fall into the trap by growing hopeful...."
They leaned forward, clutching hands, watching the little face as
though it were a television screen. Celeste had the wild feeling that
she was listening to a communique from a war so unthinkably vast and
violent, between opponents so astronomically huge and nearly immortal,
that she felt like no more than a reasoning ameba ... and then realized
with an explosive urge to laugh that that was exactly the situation.
"No!" said Dotty. Her eyes began to glow. "They have changed! During
the eons in which we lay sealed away and hidden from them, knowing
nothing of them, they have rebelled against the tyranny of a communal
mind to which no thoughts are private ... the tyranny that we ourselves
fled to escape. They come not to destroy us, but to welcome us back to
a society that we and they can make truly great!"
Frieda collapsed to a chair, trembling between laughter and hysterical
weeping. Theodor looked as blank as Dotty had while waiting for words
to speak. Edmund sprang to the picture window, Celeste toward the TV
set.
Climbing shakily out of the chair, Frieda stumbled to the picture
window and peered out beside Edmund. She saw lights bobbing along the
paths with a wild excitement.
On the TV screen, Celeste watched two brightly lit ships spinning in
the sky—whether human spaceships or Phobos and Deimos come to help
Earth rejoice, she couldn't tell.
Dotty spoke again, the joy in her strange voice forcing them to turn.
"And you, dear children, creatures of our camouflage, we welcome
you—whatever your future career on these planets or like ones—into
the society of enlightened worlds! You need not feel small and alone
and helpless ever again, for we shall always be with you!"
The outer door opened. Ivan and Rosalind reeled in, drunkenly smiling,
arm in arm.
"Like rockets," Rosalind blurted happily. "We came through the
durasphere and solid rock ... shot up right to the surface."
"They didn't have to take us along," Ivan added with a bleary grin.
"But you know that already, don't you? They're too good to let you live
in fear, so they must have told you by now."
"Yes, we know," said Theodor. "They must be almost godlike in their
goodness. I feel ... calm."
Edmund nodded soberly. "Calmer than I ever felt before. It's knowing, I
suppose, that—well, we're not alone."
Dotty blinked and looked around and smiled at them all with a wholly
little-girl smile.
"Oh, Mummy," she said, and it was impossible to tell whether she spoke
to Frieda or Rosalind or Celeste, "I've just had the funniest dream."
"No, darling," said Rosalind gently, "it's we who had the dream. We've
just awakened."
Question:
What is Celeste's attitude towards other members of her family and how does it change?
Answer:
|
[
"From the beginning, Celeste seems to struggle with her complex marriage. She finds it hard to find complete security in three men simultaneously. In a crisis, it’s disturbing for her to have her source of security divided into three. She also cannot accept that Dotty is her daughter because the girl was born from Frieda. Celeste points out that the probability of Dotty being Theodor’s daughter is only one-third. She reckons that humanity might have gone too far with some things, including monogamous marriages. While in the committee room, she tries to determine if they are a true family or just experimenting with their relationship. The family members seem both familiar and unfamiliar to her. When she wants to check up on Dotty, she thinks that she is no one to the girl but still goes on. Dotty, after a small chat, makes Celeste say that she loves her. In the end, the reader understands that, no matter what Celeste’s feelings are, Dotty loves all three women and considers them mothers. ",
"Celeste seems to not be too happy with her marital situation. At the beginning, she tells one of her husbands that she doesn’t like that her happiness lies divided with 3 people, her husbands. She is also jealous that she is the one that has the least connection with their child, as the other women are the biological mother and the nurse of the little girl. Throughout the story, these same feelings are reflected, as Celeste seems to be wary when taking care of Dotty. At the end those feelings seem to take a back seat, as they were more preoccupied with the threat of the other species. ",
"Celeste shares three husbands, Theodor, Edmund, and Ivan, with the other two women, Rosalind and Frieda. Celeste is uncomfortable with one of her husbands, Theodor, as she talks about her insecurity of facing the unknown catastrophe in the future and having three husbands when she cannot find security from a single whole man who only belongs to her. She also does not see herself as belonging to the family as she separates herself from being the mother of a child, Dotty, born from Frieda’s womb. She feels uneasy and unsecured with the polygamous family as all her husbands share one-third of the chance to be the father or a husband of any child or wife in the family. She also feels distant from her family while knowing all their quirks and habits. When she goes to watch Dotty, she feels bitter and worried. When Dotty asks her whether she is her mother, Celeste smiles with uncertainty, questioning her feeling of separation from the family. After knowing the truth from Dotty’s mouth and experiencing the terror of losing her family, Celeste changes her attitude and feels belonging to her family.",
"Celeste is initially wary about having three husbands. She is aware that as a woman, she needs to find complete security. The complex marriages are stressful because each of her husbands only have one third of a security. She also does not regard Dotty too fondly, claiming that she is just Frieda’s daughter. Although Celeste is quite casual when Theodor kisses the other two wives, she begins to think later whether or not they are actually family. She wonders if they are truly a united group or just a bunch of silly adolescents playing around with marriage. Later, she does begin to warm up to Dotty after the child asks if she loves her. She says that she loves Dotty, despite the earlier feelings, and even tries to call out to her later. Although Celeste does not explicitly admit it, she does begin to grow closer and secure with the other family members. "
] |
51353
|
DR. KOMETEVSKY'S DAY
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by DAVID STONE
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Before science, there was superstition. After science, there will be ... what? The biggest, most staggering , most final fact of them all!
"But it's all predicted here! It even names this century for the next reshuffling of the planets."
Celeste Wolver looked up unwillingly at the book her friend Madge Carnap held aloft like a torch. She made out the ill-stamped title, The Dance of the Planets . There was no mistaking the time of its origin; only paper from the Twentieth Century aged to that particularly nasty shade of brown. Indeed, the book seemed to Celeste a brown old witch resurrected from the Last Age of Madness to confound a world growing sane, and she couldn't help shrinking back a trifle toward her husband Theodor.
He tried to come to her rescue. "Only predicted in the vaguest way. As I understand it, Kometevsky claimed, on the basis of a lot of evidence drawn from folklore, that the planets and their moons trade positions every so often."
"As if they were playing Going to Jerusalem, or musical chairs," Celeste chimed in, but she couldn't make it sound funny.
"Jupiter was supposed to have started as the outermost planet, and is to end up in the orbit of Mercury," Theodor continued. "Well, nothing at all like that has happened."
"But it's begun," Madge said with conviction. "Phobos and Deimos have disappeared. You can't argue away that stubborn little fact."
That was the trouble; you couldn't. Mars' two tiny moons had simply vanished during a period when, as was generally the case, the eyes of astronomy weren't on them. Just some hundred-odd cubic miles of rock—the merest cosmic flyspecks—yet they had carried away with them the security of a whole world.
Looking at the lovely garden landscape around her, Celeste Wolver felt that in a moment the shrubby hills would begin to roll like waves, the charmingly aimless paths twist like snakes and sink in the green sea, the sparsely placed skyscrapers dissolve into the misty clouds they pierced.
People must have felt like this , she thought, when Aristarches first hinted and Copernicus told them that the solid Earth under their feet was falling dizzily through space. Only it's worse for us, because they couldn't see that anything had changed. We can.
"You need something to cling to," she heard Madge say. "Dr. Kometevsky was the only person who ever had an inkling that anything like this might happen. I was never a Kometevskyite before. Hadn't even heard of the man."
She said it almost apologetically. In fact, standing there so frank and anxious-eyed, Madge looked anything but a fanatic, which made it much worse.
"Of course, there are several more convincing alternate explanations...." Theodor began hesitantly, knowing very well that there weren't. If Phobos and Deimos had suddenly disintegrated, surely Mars Base would have noticed something. Of course there was the Disordered Space Hypothesis, even if it was little more than the chance phrase of a prominent physicist pounded upon by an eager journalist. And in any case, what sense of security were you left with if you admitted that moons and planets might explode, or drop through unseen holes in space? So he ended up by taking a different tack: "Besides, if Phobos and Deimos simply shot off somewhere, surely they'd have been picked up by now by 'scope or radar."
"Two balls of rock just a few miles in diameter?" Madge questioned.
"Aren't they smaller than many of the asteroids? I'm no astronomer, but I think' I'm right."
And of course she was.
She swung the book under her arm. "Whew, it's heavy," she observed, adding in slightly scandalized tones, "Never been microfilmed." She smiled nervously and looked them up and down. "Going to a party?" she asked.
Theodor's scarlet cloak and Celeste's green culottes and silver jacket justified the question, but they shook their heads.
"Just the normally flamboyant garb of the family," Celeste said, while Theodor explained, "As it happens, we're bound on business connected with the disappearance. We Wolvers practically constitute a sub-committee of the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes. And since a lot of varied material comes to our attention, we're going to see if any of it correlates with this bit of astronomical sleight-of-hand."
Madge nodded. "Give you something to do, at any rate. Well, I must be off. The Buddhist temple has lent us their place for a meeting." She gave them a woeful grin. "See you when the Earth jumps."
Theodor said to Celeste, "Come on, dear. We'll be late."
But Celeste didn't want to move too fast. "You know, Teddy," she said uncomfortably, "all this reminds me of those old myths where too much good fortune is a sure sign of coming disaster. It was just too much luck, our great-grandparents missing World III and getting the World Government started a thousand years ahead of schedule. Luck like that couldn't last, evidently. Maybe we've gone too fast with a lot of things, like space-flight and the Deep Shaft and—" she hesitated a bit—"complex marriages. I'm a woman. I want complete security. Where am I to find it?"
"In me," Theodor said promptly.
"In you?" Celeste questioned, walking slowly. "But you're just one-third of my husband. Perhaps I should look for it in Edmund or Ivan."
"You angry with me about something?"
"Of course not. But a woman wants her source of security whole. In a crisis like this, it's disturbing to have it divided."
"Well, we are a whole and, I believe, indivisible family," Theodor told her warmly. "You're not suggesting, are you, that we're going to be punished for our polygamous sins by a cosmic catastrophe? Fire from Heaven and all that?"
"Don't be silly. I just wanted to give you a picture of my feeling." Celeste smiled. "I guess none of us realized how much we've come to depend on the idea of unchanging scientific law. Knocks the props from under you."
Theodor nodded emphatically. "All the more reason to get a line on what's happening as quickly as possible. You know, it's fantastically far-fetched, but I think the experience of persons with Extra-Sensory Perception may give us a clue. During the past three or four days there's been a remarkable similarity in the dreams of ESPs all over the planet. I'm going to present the evidence at the meeting."
Celeste looked up at him. "So that's why Rosalind's bringing Frieda's daughter?"
"Dotty is your daughter, too, and Rosalind's," Theodor reminded her.
"No, just Frieda's," Celeste said bitterly. "Of course you may be the father. One-third of a chance."
Theodor looked at her sharply, but didn't comment. "Anyway, Dotty will be there," he said. "Probably asleep by now. All the ESPs have suddenly seemed to need more sleep."
As they talked, it had been growing darker, though the luminescence of the path kept it from being bothersome. And now the cloud rack parted to the east, showing a single red planet low on the horizon.
"Did you know," Theodor said suddenly, "that in Gulliver's Travels Dean Swift predicted that better telescopes would show Mars to have two moons? He got the sizes and distances and periods damned accurately, too. One of the few really startling coincidences of reality and literature."
"Stop being eerie," Celeste said sharply. But then she went on, "Those names Phobos and Deimos—they're Greek, aren't they? What do they mean?"
Theodor lost a step. "Fear and Terror," he said unwillingly. "Now don't go taking that for an omen. Most of the mythological names of major and minor ancient gods had been taken—the bodies in the Solar System are named that way, of course—and these were about all that were available."
It was true, but it didn't comfort him much.
I am a God , Dotty was dreaming, and I want to be by myself and think. I and my god-friends like to keep some of our thoughts secret, but the other gods have forbidden us to.
A little smile flickered across the lips of the sleeping girl, and the woman in gold tights and gold-spangled jacket leaned forward thoughtfully. In her dignity and simplicity and straight-spined grace, she was rather like a circus mother watching her sick child before she went out for the trapeze act.
I and my god-friends sail off in our great round silver boats , Dotty went on dreaming. The other gods are angry and scared. They are frightened of the thoughts we may think in secret. They follow us to hunt us down. There are many more of them than of us.
As Celeste and Theodor entered the committee room, Rosalind Wolver—a glitter of platinum against darkness—came in through the opposite door and softly shut it behind her. Frieda, a fair woman in blue robes, got up from the round table.
Celeste turned away with outward casualness as Theodor kissed his two other wives. She was pleased to note that Edmund seemed impatient too. A figure in close-fitting black, unrelieved except for two red arrows at the collar, he struck her as embodying very properly the serious, fateful temper of the moment.
He took two briefcases from his vest pocket and tossed them down on the table beside one of the microfilm projectors.
"I suggest we get started without waiting for Ivan," he said.
Frieda frowned anxiously. "It's ten minutes since he phoned from the Deep Space Bar to say he was starting right away. And that's hardly a two minutes walk."
Rosalind instantly started toward the outside door.
"I'll check," she explained. "Oh, Frieda, I've set the mike so you'll hear if Dotty calls."
Edmund threw up his hands. "Very well, then," he said and walked over, switched on the picture and stared out moodily.
Theodor and Frieda got out their briefcases, switched on projectors, and began silently checking through their material.
Celeste fiddled with the TV and got a newscast. But she found her eyes didn't want to absorb the blocks of print that rather swiftly succeeded each other, so, after a few moments, she shrugged impatiently and switched to audio.
At the noise, the others looked around at her with surprise and some irritation, but in a few moments they were also listening.
"The two rocket ships sent out from Mars Base to explore the orbital positions of Phobos and Deimos—that is, the volume of space they'd be occupying if their positions had remained normal—report finding masses of dust and larger debris. The two masses of fine debris are moving in the same orbits and at the same velocities as the two vanished moons, and occupy roughly the same volumes of space, though the mass of material is hardly a hundredth that of the moons. Physicists have ventured no statements as to whether this constitutes a confirmation of the Disintegration Hypothesis.
"However, we're mighty pleased at this news here. There's a marked lessening of tension. The finding of the debris—solid, tangible stuff—seems to lift the whole affair out of the supernatural miasma in which some of us have been tempted to plunge it. One-hundredth of the moons has been found.
"The rest will also be!"
Edmund had turned his back on the window. Frieda and Theodor had switched off their projectors.
"Meanwhile, Earthlings are going about their business with a minimum of commotion, meeting with considerable calm the strange threat to the fabric of their Solar System. Many, of course, are assembled in churches and humanist temples. Kometevskyites have staged helicopter processions at Washington, Peking, Pretoria, and Christiana, demanding that instant preparations be made for—and I quote—'Earth's coming leap through space.' They have also formally challenged all astronomers to produce an explanation other than the one contained in that strange book so recently conjured from oblivion, The Dance of the Planets .
"That about winds up the story for the present. There are no new reports from Interplanetary Radar, Astronomy, or the other rocket ships searching in the extended Mars volume. Nor have any statements been issued by the various groups working on the problem in Astrophysics, Cosmic Ecology, the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes, and so forth. Meanwhile, however, we can take courage from the words of a poem written even before Dr. Kometevsky's book:
"This Earth is not the steadfast place
We landsmen build upon;
From deep to deep she varies pace,
And while she comes is gone.
Beneath my feet I feel
Her smooth bulk heave and dip;
With velvet plunge and soft upreel
She swings and steadies to her keel
Like a gallant, gallant ship."
While the TV voice intoned the poem, growing richer as emotion caught it up, Celeste looked around her at the others. Frieda, with her touch of feminine helplessness showing more than ever through her business-like poise. Theodor leaning forward from his scarlet cloak thrown back, smiling the half-smile with which he seemed to face even the unknown. Black Edmund, masking a deep uncertainty with a strong show of decisiveness.
In short, her family. She knew their every quirk and foible. And yet now they seemed to her a million miles away, figures seen through the wrong end of a telescope.
Were they really a family? Strong sources of mutual strength and security to each other? Or had they merely been playing family, experimenting with their notions of complex marriage like a bunch of silly adolescents? Butterflies taking advantage of good weather to wing together in a glamorous, artificial dance—until outraged Nature decided to wipe them out?
As the poem was ending, Celeste saw the door open and Rosalind come slowly in. The Golden Woman's face was white as the paths she had been treading.
Just then the TV voice quickened with shock. "News! Lunar Observatory One reports that, although Jupiter is just about to pass behind the Sun, a good coronagraph of the planet has been obtained. Checked and rechecked, it admits of only one interpretation, which Lunar One feels duty-bound to release. Jupiter's fourteen moons are no longer visible! "
The chorus of remarks with which the Wolvers would otherwise have received this was checked by one thing: the fact that Rosalind seemed not to hear it. Whatever was on her mind prevented even that incredible statement from penetrating.
She walked shakily to the table and put down a briefcase, one end of which was smudged with dirt.
Without looking at them, she said, "Ivan left the Deep Space Bar twenty minutes ago, said he was coming straight here. On my way back I searched the path. Midway I found this half-buried in the dirt. I had to tug to get it out—almost as if it had been cemented into the ground. Do you feel how the dirt seems to be in the leather, as if it had lain for years in the grave?"
By now the others were fingering the small case of microfilms they had seen so many times in Ivan's competent hands. What Rosalind said was true. It had a gritty, unwholesome feel to it. Also, it felt strangely heavy.
"And see what's written on it," she added.
They turned it over. Scrawled with white pencil in big, hasty, frantic letters were two words:
"Going down!"
The other gods , Dotty dreamt, are combing the whole Universe for us. We have escaped them many times, but now our tricks are almost used up. There are no doors going out of the Universe and our boats are silver beacons to the hunters. So we decide to disguise them in the only way they can be disguised. It is our last chance.
Edmund rapped the table to gain the family's attention. "I'd say we've done everything we can for the moment to find Ivan. We've made a thorough local search. A wider one, which we can't conduct personally, is in progress. All helpful agencies have been alerted and descriptions are being broadcast. I suggest we get on with the business of the evening—which may very well be connected with Ivan's disappearance."
One by one the others nodded and took their places at the round table. Celeste made a great effort to throw off the feeling of unreality that had engulfed her and focus attention on her microfilms.
"I'll take over Ivan's notes," she heard Edmund say. "They're mainly about the Deep Shaft."
"How far have they got with that?" Frieda asked idly. "Twenty-five miles?"
"Nearer thirty, I believe," Edmund answered, "and still going down."
At those last two words they all looked up quickly. Then their eyes went toward Ivan's briefcase.
Our trick has succeeded , Dotty dreamt. The other gods have passed our hiding place a dozen times without noticing. They search the Universe for us many times in vain. They finally decide that we have found a door going out of the Universe. Yet they fear us all the more. They think of us as devils who will some day return through the door to destroy them. So they watch everywhere. We lie quietly smiling in our camouflaged boats, yet hardly daring to move or think, for fear that the faintest echoes of our doings will give them a clue. Hundreds of millions of years pass by. They seem to us no more than drugged hours in a prison.
Theodor rubbed his eyes and pushed his chair back from the table. "We need a break."
Frieda agreed wearily. "We've gone through everything."
"Good idea," Edmund said briskly. "I think we've hit on several crucial points along the way and half disentangled them from the great mass of inconsequential material. I'll finish up that part of the job right now and present my case when we're all a bit fresher. Say half an hour?"
Theodor nodded heavily, pushing up from his chair and hitching his cloak over a shoulder.
"I'm going out for a drink," he informed them.
After several hesitant seconds, Rosalind quietly followed him. Frieda stretched out on a couch and closed her eyes. Edmund scanned microfilms tirelessly, every now and then setting one aside.
Celeste watched him for a minute, then sprang up and started toward the room where Dotty was asleep. But midway she stopped.
Not my child , she thought bitterly. Frieda's her mother, Rosalind her nurse. I'm nothing at all. Just one of the husband's girl friends. A lady of uneasy virtue in a dissolving world.
But then she straightened her shoulders and went on.
Rosalind didn't catch up with Theodor. Her footsteps were silent and he never looked back along the path whose feeble white glow rose only knee-high, lighting a low strip of shrub and mossy tree trunk to either side, no more.
It was a little chilly. She drew on her gloves, but she didn't hurry. In fact, she fell farther and farther behind the dipping tail of his scarlet cloak and his plodding red shoes, which seemed to move disembodied, like those in the fairy tale.
When she reached the point where she had found Ivan's briefcase, she stopped altogether.
A breeze rustled the leaves, and, moistly brushing her cheek, brought forest scents of rot and mold. After a bit she began to hear the furtive scurryings and scuttlings of forest creatures.
She looked around her half-heartedly, suddenly realizing the futility of her quest. What clues could she hope to find in this knee-high twilight? And they'd thoroughly combed the place earlier in the night.
Without warning, an eerie tingling went through her and she was seized by a horror of the cold, grainy Earth underfoot—an ancestral terror from the days when men shivered at ghost stories about graves and tombs.
A tiny detail persisted in bulking larger and larger in her mind—the unnaturalness of the way the Earth had impregnated the corner of Ivan's briefcase, almost as if dirt and leather co-existed in the same space. She remembered the queer way the partly buried briefcase had resisted her first tug, like a rooted plant.
She felt cowed by the mysterious night about her, and literally dwarfed, as if she had grown several inches shorter. She roused herself and started forward.
Something held her feet.
They were ankle-deep in the path. While she looked in fright and horror, they began to sink still lower into the ground.
She plunged frantically, trying to jerk loose. She couldn't. She had the panicky feeling that the Earth had not only trapped but invaded her; that its molecules were creeping up between the molecules of her flesh; that the two were becoming one.
And she was sinking faster. Now knee-deep, thigh-deep, hip-deep, waist-deep. She beat at the powdery path with her hands and threw her body from side to side in agonized frenzy like some sinner frozen in the ice of the innermost circle of the ancients' hell. And always the sense of the dark, grainy tide rose inside as well as around her.
She thought, he'd just have had time to scribble that note on his briefcase and toss it away. She jerked off a glove, leaned out as far as she could, and made a frantic effort to drive its fingers into the powdery path. Then the Earth mounted to her chin, her nose, and covered her eyes.
She expected blackness, but it was as if the light of the path stayed with her, making a little glow all around. She saw roots, pebbles, black rot, worn tunnels, worms. Tier on tier of them, her vision penetrating the solid ground. And at the same time, the knowledge that these same sorts of things were coursing up through her.
And still she continued to sink at a speed that increased, as if the law of gravitation applied to her in a diminished way. She dropped from black soil through gray clay and into pale limestone.
Her tortured, rock-permeated lungs sucked at rock and drew in air. She wondered madly if a volume of air were falling with her through the stone.
A glitter of quartz. The momentary openness of a foot-high cavern with a trickle of water. And then she was sliding down a black basalt column, half inside it, half inside gold-flecked ore. Then just black basalt. And always faster.
It grew hot, then hotter, as if she were approaching the mythical eternal fires.
At first glance Theodor thought the Deep Space Bar was empty. Then he saw a figure hunched monkeylike on the last stool, almost lost in the blue shadows, while behind the bar, her crystal dress blending with the tiers of sparkling glasses, stood a grave-eyed young girl who could hardly have been fifteen.
The TV was saying, "... in addition, a number of mysterious disappearances of high-rating individuals have been reported. These are thought to be cases of misunderstanding, illusory apprehension, and impulse traveling—a result of the unusual stresses of the time. Finally, a few suggestible individuals in various parts of the globe, especially the Indian Peninsula, have declared themselves to be 'gods' and in some way responsible for current events.
"It is thought—"
The girl switched off the TV and took Theodor's order, explaining casually, "Joe wanted to go to a Kometevskyite meeting, so I took over for him." When she had prepared Theodor's highball, she announced,
"I'll have a drink with you gentlemen," and squeezed herself a glass of pomegranate juice.
The monkeylike figure muttered, "Scotch-and-soda," then turned toward Edmund and asked, "And what is your reaction to all this, sir?"
Theodor recognized the shrunken wrinkle-seamed face. It was Colonel Fortescue, a military antique long retired from the Peace Patrol and reputed to have seen actual fighting in the Last Age of Madness. Now, for some reason, the face sported a knowing smile.
Theodor shrugged. Just then the TV "big news" light blinked blue and the girl switched on audio. The Colonel winked at Theodor.
"... confirming the disappearance of Jupiter's moons. But two other utterly fantastic reports have just been received. First, Lunar Observatory One says that it is visually tracking fourteen small bodies which it believes may be the lost moons of Jupiter. They are moving outward from the Solar System at an incredible velocity and are already beyond the orbit of Saturn!"
The Colonel said, "Ah!"
"Second, Palomar reports a large number of dark bodies approaching the Solar System at an equally incredible velocity. They are at about twice the distance of Pluto, but closing in fast! We will be on the air with further details as soon as possible."
The Colonel said, "Ah-ha!"
Theodor stared at him. The old man's self-satisfied poise was almost amusing.
"Are you a Kometevskyite?" Theodor asked him.
The Colonel laughed. "Of course not, my boy. Those poor people are fumbling in the dark. Don't you see what's happened?"
"Frankly, no."
The Colonel leaned toward Theodor and whispered gruffly, "The Divine Plan. God is a military strategist, naturally."
Then he lifted the scotch-and-soda in his clawlike hand and took a satisfying swallow.
"I knew it all along, of course," he went on musingly, "but this last news makes it as plain as a rocket blast, at least to anyone who knows military strategy. Look here, my boy, suppose you were commanding a fleet and got wind of the enemy's approach—what would you do? Why, you'd send your scouts and destroyers fanning out toward them. Behind that screen you'd mass your heavy ships. Then—"
"You don't mean to imply—" Theodor interrupted.
The girl behind the bar looked at them both cryptically.
"Of course I do!" the Colonel cut in sharply. "It's a war between the forces of good and evil. The bright suns and planets are on one side, the dark on the other. The moons are the destroyers, Jupiter and Saturn are the big battleships, while we're on a heavy cruiser, I'm proud to say. We'll probably go into action soon. Be a corking fight, what? And all by divine strategy!"
He chuckled and took another big drink. Theodor looked at him sourly. The girl behind the bar polished a glass and said nothing.
Dotty suddenly began to turn and toss, and a look of terror came over her sleeping face. Celeste leaned forward apprehensively.
The child's lips worked and Celeste made out the sleepy-fuzzy words:
"They've found out where we're hiding. They're coming to get us. No! Please, no!"
Celeste's reactions were mixed. She felt worried about Dotty and at the same time almost in terror of her, as if the little girl were an agent of supernatural forces. She told herself that this fear was an expression of her own hostility, yet she didn't really believe it. She touched the child's hand.
Dotty's eyes opened without making Celeste feel she had quite come awake. After a bit she looked at Celeste and her little lips parted in a smile.
"Hello," she said sleepily. "I've been having such funny dreams." Then, after a pause, frowning, "I really am a god, you know. It feels very queer."
"Yes, dear?" Celeste prompted uneasily. "Shall I call Frieda?"
The smile left Dotty's lips. "Why do you act so nervous around me?" she asked. "Don't you love me, Mummy?"
Celeste started at the word. Her throat closed. Then, very slowly, her face broke into a radiant smile. "Of course I do, darling. I love you very much."
Dotty nodded happily, her eyes already closed again.
There was a sudden flurry of excited voices beyond the door. Celeste heard her name called. She stood up.
"I'm going to have to go out and talk with the others," she said. "If you want me, dear, just call."
"Yes, Mummy."
Edmund rapped for attention. Celeste, Frieda, and Theodor glanced around at him. He looked more frightfully strained, they realized, than even they felt. His expression was a study in suppressed excitement, but there were also signs of a knowledge that was almost too overpowering for a human being to bear.
His voice was clipped, rapid. "I think it's about time we stopped worrying about our own affairs and thought of those of the Solar System, partly because I think they have a direct bearing on the disappearances of Ivan end Rosalind. As I told you, I've been sorting out the crucial items from the material we've been presenting. There are roughly four of those items, as I see it. It's rather like a mystery story. I wonder if, hearing those four clues, you will come to the same conclusion I have."
The others nodded.
"First, there are the latest reports from Deep Shaft, which, as you know, has been sunk to investigate deep-Earth conditions. At approximately twenty-nine miles below the surface, the delvers have encountered a metallic obstruction which they have tentatively named the durasphere. It resists their hardest drills, their strongest corrosives. They have extended a side-tunnel at that level for a quarter of a mile. Delicate measurements, made possible by the mirror-smooth metal surface, show that the durasphere has a slight curvature that is almost exactly equal to the curvature of the Earth itself. The suggestion is that deep borings made anywhere in the world would encounter the durasphere at the same depth.
"Second, the movements of the moons of Mars and Jupiter, and particularly the debris left behind by the moons of Mars. Granting Phobos and Deimos had duraspheres proportional in size to that of Earth, then the debris would roughly equal in amount the material in those two duraspheres' rocky envelopes. The suggestion is that the two duraspheres suddenly burst from their envelopes with such titanic velocity as to leave those disrupted envelopes behind."
It was deadly quiet in the committee room.
"Thirdly, the disappearances of Ivan and Rosalind, and especially the baffling hint—from Ivan's message in one case and Rosalind's downward-pointing glove in the other—that they were both somehow drawn into the depths of the Earth.
"Finally, the dreams of the ESPs, which agree overwhelmingly in the following points: A group of beings separate themselves from a godlike and telepathic race because they insist on maintaining a degree of mental privacy. They flee in great boats or ships of some sort. They are pursued on such a scale that there is no hiding place for them anywhere in the universe. In some manner they successfully camouflage their ships. Eons pass and their still-fanatical pursuers do not penetrate their secret. Then, suddenly, they are detected."
Edmund waited. "Do you see what I'm driving at?" he asked hoarsely.
He could tell from their looks that the others did, but couldn't bring
themselves to put it into words.
"I suppose it's the time-scale and the value-scale that are so hard for
us to accept," he said softly. "Much more, even, than the size-scale.
The thought that there are creatures in the Universe to whom the whole
career of Man—in fact, the whole career of life—is no more than a few
thousand or hundred thousand years. And to whom Man is no more than a
minor stage property—a trifling part of a clever job of camouflage."
This time he went on, "Fantasy writers have at times hinted all sorts
of odd things about the Earth—that it might even be a kind of single
living creature, or honeycombed with inhabited caverns, and so on.
But I don't know that any of them have ever suggested that the Earth,
together with all the planets and moons of the Solar System, might
be...."
In a whisper, Frieda finished for him, "... a camouflaged fleet of
gigantic spherical spaceships."
" Your guess happens to be the precise truth. "
At that familiar, yet dreadly unfamiliar voice, all four of them swung
toward the inner door. Dotty was standing there, a sleep-stupefied
little girl with a blanket caught up around her and dragging behind.
Their own daughter. But in her eyes was a look from which they cringed.
She said, "I am a creature somewhat older than what your geologists
call the Archeozoic Era. I am speaking to you through a number of
telepathically sensitive individuals among your kind. In each case my
thoughts suit themselves to your level of comprehension. I inhabit the
disguised and jetless spaceship which is your Earth."
Celeste swayed a step forward. "Baby...." she implored.
Dotty went on, without giving her a glance, "It is true that we planted
the seeds of life on some of these planets simply as part of our
camouflage, just as we gave them a suitable environment for each. And
it is true that now we must let most of that life be destroyed. Our
hiding place has been discovered, our pursuers are upon us, and we must
make one last effort to escape or do battle, since we firmly believe
that the principle of mental privacy to which we have devoted our
existence is perhaps the greatest good in the whole Universe.
"But it is not true that we look with contempt upon you. Our whole race
is deeply devoted to life, wherever it may come into being, and it is
our rule never to interfere with its development. That was one of
the reasons we made life a part of our camouflage—it would make our
pursuers reluctant to examine these planets too closely.
"Yes, we have always cherished you and watched your evolution with
interest from our hidden lairs. We may even unconsciously have shaped
your development in certain ways, trying constantly to educate you away
from war and finally succeeding—which may have given the betraying
clue to our pursuers.
"Your planets must be burst asunder—this particular planet in the
area of the Pacific—so that we may have our last chance to escape.
Even if we did not move, our pursuers would destroy you with us. We
cannot invite you inside our ships—not for lack of space, but because
you could never survive the vast accelerations to which you would be
subjected. You would, you see, need very special accommodations, of
which we have enough only for a few.
"Those few we will take with us, as the seed from which a new human
race may—if we ourselves somehow survive—be born."
Rosalind and Ivan stared dumbly at each other across the egg-shaped
silver room, without apparent entrance or exit, in which they were
sprawled. But their thoughts were no longer of thirty-odd mile
journeys down through solid earth, or of how cool it was after the
heat of the passage, or of how grotesque it was to be trapped here,
the fragment of a marriage. They were both listening to the voice that
spoke inside their minds.
"In a few minutes your bodies will be separated into layers one atom
thick, capable of being shelved or stored in such a way as to endure
almost infinite accelerations. Single cells will cover acres of space.
But do not be alarmed. The process will be painless and each particle
will be catalogued for future assembly. Your consciousness will endure
throughout the process."
Rosalind looked at her gold-shod toes. She was wondering, will they go
first, or my head? Or will I be peeled like an apple?
She looked at Ivan and knew he was thinking the same thing.
Up in the committee room, the other Wolvers slumped around the table.
Only little Dotty sat straight and staring, speechless and unanswering,
quite beyond their reach, like a telephone off the hook and with the
connection open, but no voice from the other end.
They had just switched off the TV after listening to a confused
medley of denials, prayers, Kometevskyite chatterings, and a few
astonishingly realistic comments on the possibility of survival.
These last pointed out that, on the side of the Earth opposite the
Pacific, the convulsions would come slowly when the entombed spaceship
burst forth—provided, as seemed the case, that it moved without jets
or reaction.
It would be as if the Earth's vast core simply vanished. Gravity would
diminish abruptly to a fraction of its former value. The empty envelope
of rock and water and air would slowly fall together, though at the
same time the air would begin to escape from the debris because there
would no longer be the mass required to hold it.
However, there might be definite chances of temporary and even
prolonged survival for individuals in strong, hermetically sealed
structures, such as submarines and spaceships. The few spaceships on
Earth were reported to have blasted off, or be preparing to leave, with
as many passengers as could be carried.
But most persons, apparently, could not contemplate action of any sort.
They could only sit and think, like the Wolvers.
A faint smile relaxed Celeste's face. She was thinking, how beautiful!
It means the death of the Solar System, which is a horrifying
subjective concept. Objectively, though, it would be a more awesome
sight than any human being has ever seen or ever could see. It's an
absurd and even brutal thing to wish—but I wish I could see the whole
cataclysm from beginning to end. It would make death seem very small, a
tiny personal event.
Dotty's face was losing its blank expression, becoming intent and
alarmed.
"We are in contact with our pursuers," she said in the
familiar-unfamiliar voice. "Negotiations are now going on. There
seems to be—there is a change in them. Where they were harsh and
vindictive before, they now are gentle and conciliatory." She paused,
the alarm on her childish features pinching into anxious uncertainty.
"Our pursuers have always been shrewd. The change in them may be false,
intended merely to lull us into allowing them to come close enough to
destroy us. We must not fall into the trap by growing hopeful...."
They leaned forward, clutching hands, watching the little face as
though it were a television screen. Celeste had the wild feeling that
she was listening to a communique from a war so unthinkably vast and
violent, between opponents so astronomically huge and nearly immortal,
that she felt like no more than a reasoning ameba ... and then realized
with an explosive urge to laugh that that was exactly the situation.
"No!" said Dotty. Her eyes began to glow. "They have changed! During
the eons in which we lay sealed away and hidden from them, knowing
nothing of them, they have rebelled against the tyranny of a communal
mind to which no thoughts are private ... the tyranny that we ourselves
fled to escape. They come not to destroy us, but to welcome us back to
a society that we and they can make truly great!"
Frieda collapsed to a chair, trembling between laughter and hysterical
weeping. Theodor looked as blank as Dotty had while waiting for words
to speak. Edmund sprang to the picture window, Celeste toward the TV
set.
Climbing shakily out of the chair, Frieda stumbled to the picture
window and peered out beside Edmund. She saw lights bobbing along the
paths with a wild excitement.
On the TV screen, Celeste watched two brightly lit ships spinning in
the sky—whether human spaceships or Phobos and Deimos come to help
Earth rejoice, she couldn't tell.
Dotty spoke again, the joy in her strange voice forcing them to turn.
"And you, dear children, creatures of our camouflage, we welcome
you—whatever your future career on these planets or like ones—into
the society of enlightened worlds! You need not feel small and alone
and helpless ever again, for we shall always be with you!"
The outer door opened. Ivan and Rosalind reeled in, drunkenly smiling,
arm in arm.
"Like rockets," Rosalind blurted happily. "We came through the
durasphere and solid rock ... shot up right to the surface."
"They didn't have to take us along," Ivan added with a bleary grin.
"But you know that already, don't you? They're too good to let you live
in fear, so they must have told you by now."
"Yes, we know," said Theodor. "They must be almost godlike in their
goodness. I feel ... calm."
Edmund nodded soberly. "Calmer than I ever felt before. It's knowing, I
suppose, that—well, we're not alone."
Dotty blinked and looked around and smiled at them all with a wholly
little-girl smile.
"Oh, Mummy," she said, and it was impossible to tell whether she spoke
to Frieda or Rosalind or Celeste, "I've just had the funniest dream."
"No, darling," said Rosalind gently, "it's we who had the dream. We've
just awakened."
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What is the plot of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Dream Town by Henry Slesar.
Relevant chunks:
Henry Slesar, young New York advertising executive and by now no
longer a new-comer to either this magazine or to this field, describes
a strange little town that you, yourself, may blunder into one of these
evenings. But, if you do, beware—beware of the Knights!
dream town
by ... HENRY SLESAR
The woman in the doorway looked so harmless. Who
was to tell she had some rather startling interests?
The
woman in the
doorway looked like Mom in
the homier political cartoons.
She was plump, apple-cheeked,
white-haired. She
wore a fussy, old-fashioned
nightgown, and was busily
clutching a worn house-robe
around her expansive middle.
She blinked at Sol Becker's
rain-flattened hair and hang-dog
expression, and said:
"What is it? What do you
want?"
"I'm sorry—" Sol's voice
was pained. "The man in the
diner said you might put me
up. I had my car stolen: a
hitchhiker; going to Salinas ..."
He was puffing.
"Hitchhiker? I don't understand."
She clucked at the
sight of the pool of water he
was creating in her foyer.
"Well, come inside, for heaven's
sake. You're soaking!"
"Thanks," Sol said gratefully.
With the door firmly shut
behind him, the warm interior
of the little house covered
him like a blanket. He
shivered, and let the warmth
seep over him. "I'm terribly
sorry. I know how late it is."
He looked at his watch, but
the face was too misty to
make out the hour.
"Must be nearly three," the
woman sniffed. "You couldn't
have come at a worse time. I
was just on my way to
court—"
The words slid by him. "If
I could just stay overnight.
Until the morning. I could
call some friends in San Fernando.
I'm very susceptible to
head colds," he added inanely.
"Well, take those shoes off,
first," the woman grumbled.
"You can undress in the parlor,
if you'll keep off the rug.
You won't mind using the
sofa?"
"No, of course not. I'd be
happy to pay—"
"Oh, tush, nobody's asking
you to pay. This isn't a hotel.
You mind if I go back upstairs?
They're gonna miss
me at the palace."
"No, of course not," Sol
said. He followed her into
the darkened parlor, and
watched as she turned the
screw on a hurricane-style
lamp, shedding a yellow pool
of light over half a flowery
sofa and a doily-covered wing
chair. "You go on up. I'll be
perfectly fine."
"Guess you can use a towel,
though. I'll get you one,
then I'm going up. We wake
pretty early in this house.
Breakfast's at seven; you'll
have to be up if you want
any."
"I really can't thank you
enough—"
"Tush," the woman said.
She scurried out, and returned
a moment later with a
thick bath towel. "Sorry I
can't give you any bedding.
But you'll find it nice and
warm in here." She squinted
at the dim face of a ship's-wheel
clock on the mantle,
and made a noise with her
tongue. "Three-thirty!" she
exclaimed. "I'll miss the
whole execution ..."
"The what?"
"Goodnight, young man,"
Mom said firmly.
She padded off, leaving Sol
holding the towel. He patted
his face, and then scrubbed
the wet tangle of brown hair.
Carefully, he stepped off the
carpet and onto the stone
floor in front of the fireplace.
He removed his
drenched coat and suit jacket,
and squeezed water out
over the ashes.
He stripped down to his
underwear, wondering about
next morning's possible embarrassment,
and decided to
use the damp bath towel as a
blanket. The sofa was downy
and comfortable. He curled
up under the towel, shivered
once, and closed his eyes.
He
was tired and very
sleepy, and his customary
nightly review was limited to
a few detached thoughts
about the wedding he was
supposed to attend in Salinas
that weekend ... the hoodlum
who had responded to his
good-nature by dumping him
out of his own car ... the slogging
walk to the village ...
the little round woman who
was hurrying off, like the
White Rabbit, to some mysterious
appointment on the
upper floor ...
Then he went to sleep.
A voice awoke him, shrill
and questioning.
"Are you nakkid ?"
His eyes flew open, and he
pulled the towel protectively
around his body and glared
at the little girl with the rust-red
pigtails.
"Huh, mister?" she said,
pushing a finger against her
freckled nose. "Are you?"
"No," he said angrily. "I'm
not naked. Will you please
go away?"
"Sally!" It was Mom, appearing
in the doorway of the
parlor. "You leave the gentleman
alone." She went off
again.
"Yes," Sol said. "Please let
me get dressed. If you don't
mind." The girl didn't move.
"What time is it?"
"Dunno," Sally shrugged.
"I like poached eggs. They're
my favorite eggs in the whole
world."
"That's good," Sol said desperately.
"Now why don't you
be a good girl and eat your
poached eggs. In the kitchen."
"Ain't ready yet. You going
to stay for breakfast?"
"I'm not going to do anything
until you get out of
here."
She put the end of a pigtail
in her mouth and sat down on
the chair opposite. "I went to
the palace last night. They
had an exelution."
"Please," Sol groaned. "Be
a good girl, Sally. If you let
me get dressed, I'll show you
how to take your thumb off."
"Oh, that's an old trick. Did
you ever see an exelution?"
"No. Did you ever see a little
girl with her hide
tanned?"
"Huh?"
" Sally! " Mom again, sterner.
"You get out of there, or
you-know-what ..."
"Okay," the girl said
blithely. "I'm goin' to the palace
again. If I brush my
teeth. Aren't you ever gonna
get up?" She skipped out of
the room, and Sol hastily sat
up and reached for his
trousers.
When he had dressed, the
clothes still damp and unpleasant
against his skin, he
went out of the parlor and
found the kitchen. Mom was
busy at the stove. He said:
"Good morning."
"Breakfast in ten minutes,"
she said cheerfully. "You like
poached eggs?"
"Sure. Do you have a telephone?"
"In the hallway. Party line,
so you may have to wait."
He tried for fifteen minutes
to get through, but there
was a woman on the line who
was terribly upset about a
cotton dress she had ordered
from Sears, and was telling
the world about it.
Finally, he got his call
through to Salinas, and a
sleepy-voiced Fred, his old
Army buddy, listened somewhat
indifferently to his tale
of woe. "I might miss the
wedding," Sol said unhappily.
"I'm awfully sorry." Fred
didn't seem to be half as sorry
as he was. When Sol hung
up, he was feeling more despondent
than ever.
A man, tall and rangy, with
a bobbing Adam's apple and
a lined face, came into the
hallway. "Hullo?" he said inquiringly.
"You the fella had
the car stolen?"
"Yes."
The man scratched his ear.
"Take you over to Sheriff
Coogan after breakfast. He'll
let the Stateys know about it.
My name's Dawes."
Sol accepted a careful
handshake.
"Don't get many people
comin' into town," Dawes
said, looking at him curiously.
"Ain't seen a stranger in
years. But you look like the
rest of us." He chuckled.
Mom called out: "Breakfast!"
At
the table, Dawes
asked his destination.
"Wedding in Salinas," he
explained. "Old Army friend
of mine. I picked this hitchhiker
up about two miles from
here. He seemed okay."
"Never can tell," Dawes
said placidly, munching egg.
"Hey, Ma. That why you
were so late comin' to court
last night?"
"That's right, Pa." She
poured the blackest coffee
Sol had ever seen. "Didn't
miss much, though."
"What court is that?" Sol
asked politely, his mouth full.
"Umagum," Sally said, a
piece of toast sticking out
from the side of her mouth.
"Don't you know nothin' ?"
" Arma gon," Dawes corrected.
He looked sheepishly at
the stranger. "Don't expect
Mister—" He cocked an eyebrow.
"What's the name?"
"Becker."
"Don't expect Mr. Becker
knows anything about Armagon.
It's just a dream, you
know." He smiled apologetically.
"Dream? You mean this—Armagon
is a place you dream
about?"
"Yep," Dawes said. He lifted
cup to lip. "Great coffee,
Ma." He leaned back with a
contented sigh. "Dream about
it every night. Got so used to
the place, I get all confused
in the daytime."
Mom said: "I get muddle-headed
too, sometimes."
"You mean—" Sol put his
napkin in his lap. "You mean you dream about the same
place?"
"Sure," Sally piped. "We
all go there at night. I'm goin'
to the palace again, too."
"If you brush your teeth,"
Mom said primly.
"If I brush my teeth. Boy,
you shoulda seen the exelution!"
"Execution," her father
said.
"Oh, my goodness!" Mom
got up hastily. "That reminds
me. I gotta call poor Mrs.
Brundage. It's the least I
could do."
"Good idea," Dawes nodded.
"And I'll have to round
up some folks and get old
Brundage out of there."
Sol was staring. He opened
his mouth, but couldn't think
of the right question to ask.
Then he blurted out: "What
execution?"
"None of your business,"
the man said coldly. "You eat
up, young man. If you want
me to get Sheriff Coogan
lookin' for your car."
The rest of the meal went
silently, except for Sally's insistence
upon singing her
school song between mouthfuls.
When Dawes was
through, he pushed back his
plate and ordered Sol to get
ready.
Sol grabbed his topcoat and
followed the man out the
door.
"Have to stop someplace
first," Dawes said. "But we'll
be pickin' up the Sheriff on
the way. Okay with you?"
"Fine," Sol said uneasily.
The rain had stopped, but
the heavy clouds seemed reluctant
to leave the skies over
the small town. There was a
skittish breeze blowing, and
Sol Becker tightened the collar
of his coat around his
neck as he tried to keep up
with the fast-stepping Dawes.
They
crossed the
street diagonally, and entered
a two-story wooden building.
Dawes took the stairs at a
brisk pace, and pushed open
the door on the second floor.
A fat man looked up from
behind a desk.
"Hi, Charlie. Thought I'd
see if you wanted to help
move Brundage."
The man batted his eyes.
"Oh, Brundage!" he said.
"You know, I clean forgot
about him?" He laughed.
"Imagine me forgetting
that?"
"Yeah." Dawes wasn't
amused. "And you Prince Regent."
"Aw, Willie—"
"Well, come on. Stir that
fat carcass. Gotta pick up
Sheriff Coogan, too. This
here gentleman has to see him
about somethin' else."
The man regarded Sol suspiciously.
"Never seen you
before. Night or day. Stranger?"
"Come on !" Dawes said.
The fat man grunted and
hoisted himself out of the
swivel chair. He followed
lamely behind the two men
as they went out into the
street again.
A woman, with an empty
market basket, nodded casually
to them. "Mornin', folks.
Enjoyed it last night.
Thought you made a right
nice speech, Mr. Dawes."
"Thanks," Dawes answered
gruffly, but obviously flattered.
"We were just goin'
over to Brundage's to pick up
the body. Ma's gonna pay a
call on Mrs. Brundage around
ten o'clock. You care to visit?"
"Why, I think that's very
nice," the woman said. "I'll
be sure and do that." She
smiled at the fat man. "Mornin',
Prince."
Sol's head was spinning. As
they left the woman and continued
their determined
march down the quiet street,
he tried to find answers.
"Look, Mr. Dawes." He was
panting; the pace was fast.
"Does she dream about this—Armagon,
too? That woman
back there?"
"Yep."
Charlie chuckled. "He's a
stranger, all right."
"And you, Mr.—" Sol
turned to the fat man. "You
also know about this palace
and everything?"
"I told you," Dawes said
testily. "Charlie here's Prince
Regent. But don't let the fancy
title fool you. He got no
more power than any Knight
of the Realm. He's just too
dern fat to do much more'n
sit on a throne and eat grapes.
That right, Charlie?"
The fat man giggled.
"Here's the Sheriff," Dawes
said.
The Sheriff, a sleepy-eyed
citizen with a long, sad face,
was rocking on a porch as
they approached his house,
trying to puff a half-lit pipe.
He lifted one hand wearily
when he saw them.
"Hi, Cookie," Dawes
grinned. "Thought you, me,
and Charlie would get Brundage's
body outa the house.
This here's Mr. Becker; he
got another problem. Mr.
Becker, meet Cookie Coogan."
The Sheriff joined the procession,
pausing only once to
inquire into Sol's predicament.
He described the hitchhiker
incident, but Coogan
listened stoically. He murmured
something about the
Troopers, and shuffled alongside
the puffing fat man.
Sol soon realized that their
destination was a barber shop.
Dawes cupped his hands
over the plate glass and
peered inside. Gold letters on
the glass advertised: HAIRCUT
SHAVE & MASSAGE
PARLOR. He reported: "Nobody
in the shop. Must be
upstairs."
The
fat man rang the
bell. It was a while before an
answer came.
It was a reedy woman in a
housecoat, her hair in curlers,
her eyes red and swollen.
"Now, now," Dawes said
gently. "Don't you take on
like that, Mrs. Brundage. You
heard the charges. It hadda
be this way."
"My poor Vincent," she
sobbed.
"Better let us up," the
Sheriff said kindly. "No use
just lettin' him lay there,
Mrs. Brundage."
"He didn't mean no harm,"
the woman snuffled. "He was
just purely ornery, Vincent
was. Just plain mean stubborn."
"The law's the law," the
fat man sighed.
Sol couldn't hold himself
in.
"What law? Who's dead?
How did it happen?"
Dawes looked at him disgustedly.
"Now is it any of your business? I mean, is it?"
"I don't know," Sol said
miserably.
"You better stay out of
this," the Sheriff warned.
"This is a local matter, young
man. You better stay in the
shop while we go up."
They filed past him and the
crying Mrs. Brundage.
When they were out of
sight, Sol pleaded with her.
"What happened? How did
your husband die?"
"Please ..."
"You must tell me! Was it
something to do with Armagon?
Do you dream about the
place, too?"
She was shocked at the
question. "Of course!"
"And your husband? Did
he have the same dream?"
Fresh tears resulted. "Can't
you leave me alone?" She
turned her back. "I got things
to do. You can make yourself
comfortable—" She indicated
the barber chairs, and left
through the back door.
Sol looked after her, and
then ambled over to the first
chair and slipped into the
high seat. His reflection in
the mirror, strangely gray in
the dim light, made him
groan. His clothes were a
mess, and he needed a shave.
If only Brundage had been
alive ...
He leaped out of the chair
as voices sounded behind the
door. Dawes was kicking it
open with his foot, his arms
laden with two rather large
feet, still encased in bedroom
slippers. Charlie was at the
other end of the burden,
which appeared to be a middle-aged
man in pajamas. The
Sheriff followed the trio up
with a sad, undertaker expression.
Behind him came Mrs.
Brundage, properly weeping.
"We'll take him to the funeral
parlor," Dawes said,
breathing hard. "Weighs a
ton, don't he?"
"What killed him?" Sol
said.
"Heart attack."
The fat man chuckled.
The tableau was grisly. Sol
looked away, towards the
comfortingly mundane atmosphere
of the barber shop. But
even the sight of the thick-padded
chairs, the shaving
mugs on the wall, the neat
rows of cutting instruments,
seemed grotesque and morbid.
"Listen," Sol said, as they
went through the doorway.
"About my car—"
The Sheriff turned and regarded
him lugubriously.
"Your car ? Young man, ain't
you got no respect ?"
Sol swallowed hard and fell
silent. He went outside with
them, the woman slamming
the barber-shop door behind
him. He waited in front of
the building while the men
toted away the corpse to some
new destination.
He
took a walk.
The town was just coming
to life. People were strolling
out of their houses, commenting
on the weather, chuckling
amiably about local affairs.
Kids on bicycles were beginning
to appear, jangling the
little bells and hooting to
each other. A woman, hanging
wash in the back yard,
called out to him, thinking
he was somebody else.
He found a little park, no
more than twenty yards in
circumference, centered
around a weatherbeaten monument
of some unrecognizable
military figure. Three
old men took their places on
the bench that circled the
General, and leaned on their
canes.
Sol was a civil engineer.
But he made like a reporter.
"Pardon me, sir." The old
man, leathery-faced, with a
fine yellow moustache, looked
at him dumbly. "Have you
ever heard of Armagon?"
"You a stranger?"
"Yes."
"Thought so."
Sol repeated the question.
"Course I did. Been goin'
there ever since I was a kid.
Night-times, that is."
"How—I mean, what kind
of place is it?"
"Said you're a stranger?"
"Yes."
"Then 'tain't your business."
That was that.
He left the park, and wandered
into a thriving luncheonette.
He tried questioning
the man behind the counter,
who merely snickered and
said: "You stayin' with the
Dawes, ain't you? Better ask
Willie, then. He knows the
place better than anybody."
He asked about the execution,
and the man stiffened.
"Don't think I can talk
about that. Fella broke one of
the Laws; that's about it.
Don't see where you come
into it."
At eleven o'clock, he returned
to the Dawes residence,
and found Mom in the
kitchen, surrounded by the
warm nostalgic odor of home-baked
bread. She told him
that her husband had left a
message for the stranger, informing
him that the State
Police would be around to get
his story.
He waited in the house,
gloomily turning the pages of
the local newspaper, searching
for references to Armagon.
He found nothing.
At eleven-thirty, a brown-faced
State Trooper came to
call, and Sol told his story.
He was promised nothing,
and told to stay in town until
he was contacted again by
the authorities.
Mom fixed him a light
lunch, the greatest feature of
which was some hot biscuits
she plucked out of the oven.
It made him feel almost normal.
He wandered around the
town some more after lunch,
trying to spark conversation
with the residents.
He learned little.
At
five-thirty, he returned
to the Dawes house, and was
promptly leaped upon by
little Sally.
"Hi! Hi! Hi!" she said,
clutching his right leg and
almost toppling him over.
"We had a party in school. I
had chocolate cake. You goin'
to stay with us?"
"Just another night," Sol
told her, trying to shake the
girl off. "If it's okay with
your folks. They haven't
found my car yet."
"Sally!" Mom was peering
out of the screen door. "You
let Mr. Becker alone and go
wash. Your Pa will be home
soon."
"Oh, pooh," the girl said,
her pigtails swinging. "Do
you got a girlfriend, mister?"
"No." Sol struggled towards
the house with her
dead weight on his leg.
"Would you mind? I can't
walk."
"Would you be my boyfriend?"
"Well, we'll talk about it.
If you let go my leg."
Inside the house, she said:
"We're having pot roast. You
stayin'?"
"Of course Mr. Becker's
stayin'," Mom said. "He's our
guest."
"That's very kind of you,"
Sol said. "I really wish you'd
let me pay something—"
"Don't want to hear another
word about pay."
Mr. Dawes
came home an
hour later, looking tired.
Mom pecked him lightly on
the forehead. He glanced at
the evening paper, and then
spoke to Sol.
"Hear you been asking
questions, Mr. Becker."
Sol nodded, embarrassed.
"Guess I have. I'm awfully
curious about this Armagon
place. Never heard of anything
like it before."
Dawes grunted. "You ain't
a reporter?"
"Oh, no. I'm an engineer. I
was just satisfying my own
curiosity."
"Uh-huh." Dawes looked
reflective. "You wouldn't be
thinkin' about writing us up
or anything. I mean, this is a
pretty private affair."
"Writing it up?" Sol
blinked. "I hadn't thought of
it. But you'll have to admit—it's
sure interesting."
"Yeah," Dawes said narrowly.
"I guess it would be."
"Supper!" Mom called.
After the meal, they spent
a quiet evening at home. Sally
went to bed, screaming her
reluctance, at eight-thirty.
Mom, dozing in the big chair
near the fireplace, padded upstairs
at nine. Then Dawes
yawned widely, stood up, and
said goodnight at quarter-of-ten.
He paused in the doorway
before leaving.
"I'd think about that," he
said. "Writing it up, I mean.
A lot of folks would think
you were just plum crazy."
Sol laughed feebly. "I
guess they would at that."
"Goodnight," Dawes said.
"Goodnight."
He read Sally's copy of Treasure Island for about
half an hour. Then he undressed,
made himself comfortable
on the sofa, snuggled
under the soft blanket
that Mom had provided, and
shut his eyes.
He reviewed the events of
the day before dropping off
to sleep. The troublesome
Sally. The strange dream
world of Armagon. The visit
to the barber shop. The removal
of Brundage's body.
The conversations with the
townspeople. Dawes' suspicious
attitude ...
Then sleep came.
He
was flanked by marble
pillars, thrusting towards
a high-domed ceiling.
The room stretched long
and wide before him, the
walls bedecked in stunning
purple draperies.
He whirled at the sound of
footsteps, echoing stridently
on the stone floor. Someone
was running towards him.
It was Sally, pigtails
streaming out behind her, the
small body wearing a flowing
white toga. She was shrieking,
laughing as she skittered
past him, clutching a gleaming
gold helmet.
He called out to her, but
she was too busy outdistancing
her pursuer. It was Sheriff
Coogan, puffing and huffing,
the metal-and-gold cloth
uniform ludicrous on his
lanky frame.
"Consarn kid!" he wheezed.
"Gimme my hat!"
Mom was following him,
her stout body regal in scarlet
robes. "Sally! You give
Sir Coogan his helmet! You
hear?"
"Mrs. Dawes!" Sol said.
"Why, Mr. Becker! How
nice to see you again! Pa! Pa! Look who's here!"
Willie Dawes appeared. No! Sol thought. This was King Dawes; nothing else
could explain the magnificence
of his attire.
"Yes," Dawes said craftily.
"So I see. Welcome to Armagon,
Mr. Becker."
"Armagon?" Sol gaped.
"Then this is the place
you've been dreaming about?"
"Yep," the King said. "And
now you're in it, too."
"Then I'm only dreaming!"
Charlie, the fat man,
clumsy as ever in his robes of
State, said: "So that's the
snooper, eh?"
"Yep," Dawes chuckled.
"Think you better round up
the Knights."
Sol said: "The Knights?"
"Exelution! Exelution!"
Sally shrieked.
"Now wait a minute—"
Charlie shouted.
Running feet, clanking of
armor. Sol backed up against
a pillar. "Now look here.
You've gone far enough—"
"Not quite," said the King.
The Knights stepped forward.
"Wait!" Sol screamed.
Familiar faces, under shining
helmets, moved towards
him; the tips of sharp-pointed
spears gleaming wickedly.
And Sol Becker wondered—would
he ever awake?
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
|
[
"The plot follows Sol, a veteran of the U.S. army who, after picking up a hitchhiker on the way to a wedding, gets his car robbed near a small town. He ends up staying in the house of a young family who are kind enough to host him. They are very nice with him, and even offer him breakfast the next morning. As Sol learns more of the town and the family, he learns that the people in the town share the same dream every night, in a place called the Armagon. He also learns that there was an execution last night in the same place. He follows Willie Dawes, the head of the family, to pick up the body of the person that was executed. They are also accompanied by the sheriff of the town and by a man named Charlie. When Sol sees the body of the executed person, he starts to get worried and starts asking people in the town questions about the Armagon. That night, Sol stays with the Dawes family again, and when he goes to sleep he meets with the townspeople in the Armagon, where it seems that he will be executed. \n\n",
"Sol Becker meets a woman at the doorway who looks like a mom from a homey cartoon. She is confused by why Sol is at her door, and he explains that he is a hitchhiker going to Salinas. She lets him come into her house, where he asks if he can stay the night. She explains that he does not have to pay and rushes back upstairs so she will not miss the execution. Sol goes to sleep and is woken up again by a little girl named Sally. He asks what time it is, but Sally responds that she likes poached eggs. Sol desperately tries to get her to leave, but Mom sends her away. Sol tries to call Fred but is met with indifference; a man named Willie Dawes offers to take him to the sheriff as Mom finishes breakfast. They talk about Armagon during breakfast, which is a place that everybody dreams about at night. Sol asks about the execution again, but Dawes tells him to eat his breakfast. They enter a wooden building to meet Charlie, and Dawes mentions that they are picking up Sheriff Coogan too. As they discuss with the other people, Sol realizes that everybody dreams about Armagon. Charlie is the Prince Regent, and they meet the sheriff too. The men go to the shop to find Mrs. Brundage, who is in grief because of her husband. Sol tries to ask what had happened in Armagon, but Mrs. Brundage refuses to tell him. Everybody is more worried about Mr. Brundage, so Sol goes on a walk and tries to ask about Armagon. Everybody says that it is none of his business, so he has no choice but to stay in the town until his car is found. Sally comes home at five thirty and asks if he is going to stay, and Mom refuses to hear anything about pay. Sol tries to ask Mr. Dawes for some more information again, but he refuses to say anything. When Sol goes to sleep that night, he finds himself awake in Armagon. Sally, Mom, and Mr. Dawes have returned wearing much finer clothing, indicating a higher status. Charlie asks if this is the snooper, and Dawes tells him that he should round up the knights. Sally screams for execution, and the knights begin to appear. They point the tips of their sharp spears at him as Sol wonders if he will ever awake.",
"Sol Becker was driving to the wedding in Salinas - his old army friend Fred was getting married. Late at night, he picked up a hitchhiker who minutes later pushed Sol out of the car and drove away, leaving the man soaking near an unknown village. He knocked at the door of a village house, and a woman - he called her Mom - let him in. Sol briefly told her what had happened, and she allowed him to sleep on the couch. Anxiously whispering that she would miss some execution, Mom went upstairs, leaving Sol confused but grateful. He got woken up by a little girl named Sally, pestering him with awkward questions - Mom told her to stop and get ready for breakfast. Minutes later, he found a telephone and called Fred, who didn’t seem very upset by the news of Sol probably missing the wedding. After hanging up the phone, Sol talked to a man called Dawes, who promised to take him to Sheriff Coogan to report the car theft after breakfast. Mom called out that the breakfast was ready. Sally told Sol about Armagon - a place both parents and the daughter dreamt about every night. She also started talking about some execution, but Dawes coldly refused to answer Sol’s questions about this. Before meeting the sheriff, Sol and Dawes crossed the street and picked up a man named Charlie or, as Dawes said, Prince Regent. As they were marching down the street, they met a woman who, Sol eventually realized, was also dreaming about Armagon. They finally came to the sheriff’s house. He listened to Sol’s story while they all were walking to a barbershop to pick up the body of a man called Brundage. They saw a crying woman - the wife of the dead, and Sol again made an attempt to understand who got killed and why. Soon, they came back with the body and told Sol to wait while they were carrying it somewhere else. Sol took a walk and again tried to ask citizens about the mystery place from their dreams but didn’t get much information. He then went back to the Dawes residence. A State Trooper asked him some questions about the car and told him to remain in town until further notice. Sol ate lunch, walked for a bit, and returned in the evening. Sally - the daughter - clutched his leg and then started telling him about her day. Mr.Dawes came later and asked Sol about his questions to the citizens and then wondered if the man was a reporter. After a quiet evening, they all went to bed. Sol fell asleep and suddenly realized he was somewhere else, surrounded by marble pillars. He saw Sally running around in a white toga, then the sheriff chasing her. He finally saw Dawes dressed as a king who welcomed Becker to Armagon. The king unexpectedly asked Charlie to round up the knights, and Sally started triumphantly screaming: “Execution!”. Sol asked them to stop, but the knights kept approaching. ",
"Sol Becker, an engineer whose car is stolen by a hitchhiker on his way to Salinas for his friend’s wedding, asks for a stay in a house. The owner of the house is a family with parents and a kid. On the first night when Sol makes himself in the house, he sleeps in the living room and notices Mom of the family hurry upstairs to join a court. The following morning, Sol is woken by their daughter, Sally, who asks him weird questions. After Mom orders Sally to leave Sol alone to let him dress, Sol borrows the phone to talk to his friend, whose wedding he will miss. After that, he meets Mr. Dawes, the father of Sally, and they eat breakfast together.\n\nAt the table, Sol learns that the family dreams of going to the same place called Armagon every night, where there is a palace, and execution happens there. After breakfast, Mr. Dawes takes Sol to seek Sheriff Coogan. On their way, they meet Charlie, who is called Prince Regent. Charlie joins them, and they find the Sheriff. They go to a barbershop, where the owner’s wife, Mrs. Brundage, is sobbing because her husband died. The three men from the town go into the house and carry the corpse out. Sol tries to know the truth by asking Mrs. Brundage, but he is scolded for not being respectful. After seeing the men deal with the corpse, he takes a walk in the town. During his walk, Sol realizes everyone in the town dreams of going to the same place every night. He learns little about the place. When he gets back to the house, he is allowed to stay for one more night. At night, after he falls asleep, he finds himself in a palace where Sally and Charlie are playing. When Mr. Dawes finds him, he orders Charlie to gather the Knights. The Knights surround Sol, and he realizes that he may not be able to wake again, just like Mr. Brundage.\n"
] |
29193
|
Henry Slesar, young New York advertising executive and by now no
longer a new-comer to either this magazine or to this field, describes
a strange little town that you, yourself, may blunder into one of these
evenings. But, if you do, beware—beware of the Knights!
dream town
by ... HENRY SLESAR
The woman in the doorway looked so harmless. Who
was to tell she had some rather startling interests?
The
woman in the
doorway looked like Mom in
the homier political cartoons.
She was plump, apple-cheeked,
white-haired. She
wore a fussy, old-fashioned
nightgown, and was busily
clutching a worn house-robe
around her expansive middle.
She blinked at Sol Becker's
rain-flattened hair and hang-dog
expression, and said:
"What is it? What do you
want?"
"I'm sorry—" Sol's voice
was pained. "The man in the
diner said you might put me
up. I had my car stolen: a
hitchhiker; going to Salinas ..."
He was puffing.
"Hitchhiker? I don't understand."
She clucked at the
sight of the pool of water he
was creating in her foyer.
"Well, come inside, for heaven's
sake. You're soaking!"
"Thanks," Sol said gratefully.
With the door firmly shut
behind him, the warm interior
of the little house covered
him like a blanket. He
shivered, and let the warmth
seep over him. "I'm terribly
sorry. I know how late it is."
He looked at his watch, but
the face was too misty to
make out the hour.
"Must be nearly three," the
woman sniffed. "You couldn't
have come at a worse time. I
was just on my way to
court—"
The words slid by him. "If
I could just stay overnight.
Until the morning. I could
call some friends in San Fernando.
I'm very susceptible to
head colds," he added inanely.
"Well, take those shoes off,
first," the woman grumbled.
"You can undress in the parlor,
if you'll keep off the rug.
You won't mind using the
sofa?"
"No, of course not. I'd be
happy to pay—"
"Oh, tush, nobody's asking
you to pay. This isn't a hotel.
You mind if I go back upstairs?
They're gonna miss
me at the palace."
"No, of course not," Sol
said. He followed her into
the darkened parlor, and
watched as she turned the
screw on a hurricane-style
lamp, shedding a yellow pool
of light over half a flowery
sofa and a doily-covered wing
chair. "You go on up. I'll be
perfectly fine."
"Guess you can use a towel,
though. I'll get you one,
then I'm going up. We wake
pretty early in this house.
Breakfast's at seven; you'll
have to be up if you want
any."
"I really can't thank you
enough—"
"Tush," the woman said.
She scurried out, and returned
a moment later with a
thick bath towel. "Sorry I
can't give you any bedding.
But you'll find it nice and
warm in here." She squinted
at the dim face of a ship's-wheel
clock on the mantle,
and made a noise with her
tongue. "Three-thirty!" she
exclaimed. "I'll miss the
whole execution ..."
"The what?"
"Goodnight, young man,"
Mom said firmly.
She padded off, leaving Sol
holding the towel. He patted
his face, and then scrubbed
the wet tangle of brown hair.
Carefully, he stepped off the
carpet and onto the stone
floor in front of the fireplace.
He removed his
drenched coat and suit jacket,
and squeezed water out
over the ashes.
He stripped down to his
underwear, wondering about
next morning's possible embarrassment,
and decided to
use the damp bath towel as a
blanket. The sofa was downy
and comfortable. He curled
up under the towel, shivered
once, and closed his eyes.
He
was tired and very
sleepy, and his customary
nightly review was limited to
a few detached thoughts
about the wedding he was
supposed to attend in Salinas
that weekend ... the hoodlum
who had responded to his
good-nature by dumping him
out of his own car ... the slogging
walk to the village ...
the little round woman who
was hurrying off, like the
White Rabbit, to some mysterious
appointment on the
upper floor ...
Then he went to sleep.
A voice awoke him, shrill
and questioning.
"Are you nakkid ?"
His eyes flew open, and he
pulled the towel protectively
around his body and glared
at the little girl with the rust-red
pigtails.
"Huh, mister?" she said,
pushing a finger against her
freckled nose. "Are you?"
"No," he said angrily. "I'm
not naked. Will you please
go away?"
"Sally!" It was Mom, appearing
in the doorway of the
parlor. "You leave the gentleman
alone." She went off
again.
"Yes," Sol said. "Please let
me get dressed. If you don't
mind." The girl didn't move.
"What time is it?"
"Dunno," Sally shrugged.
"I like poached eggs. They're
my favorite eggs in the whole
world."
"That's good," Sol said desperately.
"Now why don't you
be a good girl and eat your
poached eggs. In the kitchen."
"Ain't ready yet. You going
to stay for breakfast?"
"I'm not going to do anything
until you get out of
here."
She put the end of a pigtail
in her mouth and sat down on
the chair opposite. "I went to
the palace last night. They
had an exelution."
"Please," Sol groaned. "Be
a good girl, Sally. If you let
me get dressed, I'll show you
how to take your thumb off."
"Oh, that's an old trick. Did
you ever see an exelution?"
"No. Did you ever see a little
girl with her hide
tanned?"
"Huh?"
" Sally! " Mom again, sterner.
"You get out of there, or
you-know-what ..."
"Okay," the girl said
blithely. "I'm goin' to the palace
again. If I brush my
teeth. Aren't you ever gonna
get up?" She skipped out of
the room, and Sol hastily sat
up and reached for his
trousers.
When he had dressed, the
clothes still damp and unpleasant
against his skin, he
went out of the parlor and
found the kitchen. Mom was
busy at the stove. He said:
"Good morning."
"Breakfast in ten minutes,"
she said cheerfully. "You like
poached eggs?"
"Sure. Do you have a telephone?"
"In the hallway. Party line,
so you may have to wait."
He tried for fifteen minutes
to get through, but there
was a woman on the line who
was terribly upset about a
cotton dress she had ordered
from Sears, and was telling
the world about it.
Finally, he got his call
through to Salinas, and a
sleepy-voiced Fred, his old
Army buddy, listened somewhat
indifferently to his tale
of woe. "I might miss the
wedding," Sol said unhappily.
"I'm awfully sorry." Fred
didn't seem to be half as sorry
as he was. When Sol hung
up, he was feeling more despondent
than ever.
A man, tall and rangy, with
a bobbing Adam's apple and
a lined face, came into the
hallway. "Hullo?" he said inquiringly.
"You the fella had
the car stolen?"
"Yes."
The man scratched his ear.
"Take you over to Sheriff
Coogan after breakfast. He'll
let the Stateys know about it.
My name's Dawes."
Sol accepted a careful
handshake.
"Don't get many people
comin' into town," Dawes
said, looking at him curiously.
"Ain't seen a stranger in
years. But you look like the
rest of us." He chuckled.
Mom called out: "Breakfast!"
At
the table, Dawes
asked his destination.
"Wedding in Salinas," he
explained. "Old Army friend
of mine. I picked this hitchhiker
up about two miles from
here. He seemed okay."
"Never can tell," Dawes
said placidly, munching egg.
"Hey, Ma. That why you
were so late comin' to court
last night?"
"That's right, Pa." She
poured the blackest coffee
Sol had ever seen. "Didn't
miss much, though."
"What court is that?" Sol
asked politely, his mouth full.
"Umagum," Sally said, a
piece of toast sticking out
from the side of her mouth.
"Don't you know nothin' ?"
" Arma gon," Dawes corrected.
He looked sheepishly at
the stranger. "Don't expect
Mister—" He cocked an eyebrow.
"What's the name?"
"Becker."
"Don't expect Mr. Becker
knows anything about Armagon.
It's just a dream, you
know." He smiled apologetically.
"Dream? You mean this—Armagon
is a place you dream
about?"
"Yep," Dawes said. He lifted
cup to lip. "Great coffee,
Ma." He leaned back with a
contented sigh. "Dream about
it every night. Got so used to
the place, I get all confused
in the daytime."
Mom said: "I get muddle-headed
too, sometimes."
"You mean—" Sol put his
napkin in his lap. "You mean you dream about the same
place?"
"Sure," Sally piped. "We
all go there at night. I'm goin'
to the palace again, too."
"If you brush your teeth,"
Mom said primly.
"If I brush my teeth. Boy,
you shoulda seen the exelution!"
"Execution," her father
said.
"Oh, my goodness!" Mom
got up hastily. "That reminds
me. I gotta call poor Mrs.
Brundage. It's the least I
could do."
"Good idea," Dawes nodded.
"And I'll have to round
up some folks and get old
Brundage out of there."
Sol was staring. He opened
his mouth, but couldn't think
of the right question to ask.
Then he blurted out: "What
execution?"
"None of your business,"
the man said coldly. "You eat
up, young man. If you want
me to get Sheriff Coogan
lookin' for your car."
The rest of the meal went
silently, except for Sally's insistence
upon singing her
school song between mouthfuls.
When Dawes was
through, he pushed back his
plate and ordered Sol to get
ready.
Sol grabbed his topcoat and
followed the man out the
door.
"Have to stop someplace
first," Dawes said. "But we'll
be pickin' up the Sheriff on
the way. Okay with you?"
"Fine," Sol said uneasily.
The rain had stopped, but
the heavy clouds seemed reluctant
to leave the skies over
the small town. There was a
skittish breeze blowing, and
Sol Becker tightened the collar
of his coat around his
neck as he tried to keep up
with the fast-stepping Dawes.
They
crossed the
street diagonally, and entered
a two-story wooden building.
Dawes took the stairs at a
brisk pace, and pushed open
the door on the second floor.
A fat man looked up from
behind a desk.
"Hi, Charlie. Thought I'd
see if you wanted to help
move Brundage."
The man batted his eyes.
"Oh, Brundage!" he said.
"You know, I clean forgot
about him?" He laughed.
"Imagine me forgetting
that?"
"Yeah." Dawes wasn't
amused. "And you Prince Regent."
"Aw, Willie—"
"Well, come on. Stir that
fat carcass. Gotta pick up
Sheriff Coogan, too. This
here gentleman has to see him
about somethin' else."
The man regarded Sol suspiciously.
"Never seen you
before. Night or day. Stranger?"
"Come on !" Dawes said.
The fat man grunted and
hoisted himself out of the
swivel chair. He followed
lamely behind the two men
as they went out into the
street again.
A woman, with an empty
market basket, nodded casually
to them. "Mornin', folks.
Enjoyed it last night.
Thought you made a right
nice speech, Mr. Dawes."
"Thanks," Dawes answered
gruffly, but obviously flattered.
"We were just goin'
over to Brundage's to pick up
the body. Ma's gonna pay a
call on Mrs. Brundage around
ten o'clock. You care to visit?"
"Why, I think that's very
nice," the woman said. "I'll
be sure and do that." She
smiled at the fat man. "Mornin',
Prince."
Sol's head was spinning. As
they left the woman and continued
their determined
march down the quiet street,
he tried to find answers.
"Look, Mr. Dawes." He was
panting; the pace was fast.
"Does she dream about this—Armagon,
too? That woman
back there?"
"Yep."
Charlie chuckled. "He's a
stranger, all right."
"And you, Mr.—" Sol
turned to the fat man. "You
also know about this palace
and everything?"
"I told you," Dawes said
testily. "Charlie here's Prince
Regent. But don't let the fancy
title fool you. He got no
more power than any Knight
of the Realm. He's just too
dern fat to do much more'n
sit on a throne and eat grapes.
That right, Charlie?"
The fat man giggled.
"Here's the Sheriff," Dawes
said.
The Sheriff, a sleepy-eyed
citizen with a long, sad face,
was rocking on a porch as
they approached his house,
trying to puff a half-lit pipe.
He lifted one hand wearily
when he saw them.
"Hi, Cookie," Dawes
grinned. "Thought you, me,
and Charlie would get Brundage's
body outa the house.
This here's Mr. Becker; he
got another problem. Mr.
Becker, meet Cookie Coogan."
The Sheriff joined the procession,
pausing only once to
inquire into Sol's predicament.
He described the hitchhiker
incident, but Coogan
listened stoically. He murmured
something about the
Troopers, and shuffled alongside
the puffing fat man.
Sol soon realized that their
destination was a barber shop.
Dawes cupped his hands
over the plate glass and
peered inside. Gold letters on
the glass advertised: HAIRCUT
SHAVE & MASSAGE
PARLOR. He reported: "Nobody
in the shop. Must be
upstairs."
The
fat man rang the
bell. It was a while before an
answer came.
It was a reedy woman in a
housecoat, her hair in curlers,
her eyes red and swollen.
"Now, now," Dawes said
gently. "Don't you take on
like that, Mrs. Brundage. You
heard the charges. It hadda
be this way."
"My poor Vincent," she
sobbed.
"Better let us up," the
Sheriff said kindly. "No use
just lettin' him lay there,
Mrs. Brundage."
"He didn't mean no harm,"
the woman snuffled. "He was
just purely ornery, Vincent
was. Just plain mean stubborn."
"The law's the law," the
fat man sighed.
Sol couldn't hold himself
in.
"What law? Who's dead?
How did it happen?"
Dawes looked at him disgustedly.
"Now is it any of your business? I mean, is it?"
"I don't know," Sol said
miserably.
"You better stay out of
this," the Sheriff warned.
"This is a local matter, young
man. You better stay in the
shop while we go up."
They filed past him and the
crying Mrs. Brundage.
When they were out of
sight, Sol pleaded with her.
"What happened? How did
your husband die?"
"Please ..."
"You must tell me! Was it
something to do with Armagon?
Do you dream about the
place, too?"
She was shocked at the
question. "Of course!"
"And your husband? Did
he have the same dream?"
Fresh tears resulted. "Can't
you leave me alone?" She
turned her back. "I got things
to do. You can make yourself
comfortable—" She indicated
the barber chairs, and left
through the back door.
Sol looked after her, and
then ambled over to the first
chair and slipped into the
high seat. His reflection in
the mirror, strangely gray in
the dim light, made him
groan. His clothes were a
mess, and he needed a shave.
If only Brundage had been
alive ...
He leaped out of the chair
as voices sounded behind the
door. Dawes was kicking it
open with his foot, his arms
laden with two rather large
feet, still encased in bedroom
slippers. Charlie was at the
other end of the burden,
which appeared to be a middle-aged
man in pajamas. The
Sheriff followed the trio up
with a sad, undertaker expression.
Behind him came Mrs.
Brundage, properly weeping.
"We'll take him to the funeral
parlor," Dawes said,
breathing hard. "Weighs a
ton, don't he?"
"What killed him?" Sol
said.
"Heart attack."
The fat man chuckled.
The tableau was grisly. Sol
looked away, towards the
comfortingly mundane atmosphere
of the barber shop. But
even the sight of the thick-padded
chairs, the shaving
mugs on the wall, the neat
rows of cutting instruments,
seemed grotesque and morbid.
"Listen," Sol said, as they
went through the doorway.
"About my car—"
The Sheriff turned and regarded
him lugubriously.
"Your car ? Young man, ain't
you got no respect ?"
Sol swallowed hard and fell
silent. He went outside with
them, the woman slamming
the barber-shop door behind
him. He waited in front of
the building while the men
toted away the corpse to some
new destination.
He
took a walk.
The town was just coming
to life. People were strolling
out of their houses, commenting
on the weather, chuckling
amiably about local affairs.
Kids on bicycles were beginning
to appear, jangling the
little bells and hooting to
each other. A woman, hanging
wash in the back yard,
called out to him, thinking
he was somebody else.
He found a little park, no
more than twenty yards in
circumference, centered
around a weatherbeaten monument
of some unrecognizable
military figure. Three
old men took their places on
the bench that circled the
General, and leaned on their
canes.
Sol was a civil engineer.
But he made like a reporter.
"Pardon me, sir." The old
man, leathery-faced, with a
fine yellow moustache, looked
at him dumbly. "Have you
ever heard of Armagon?"
"You a stranger?"
"Yes."
"Thought so."
Sol repeated the question.
"Course I did. Been goin'
there ever since I was a kid.
Night-times, that is."
"How—I mean, what kind
of place is it?"
"Said you're a stranger?"
"Yes."
"Then 'tain't your business."
That was that.
He left the park, and wandered
into a thriving luncheonette.
He tried questioning
the man behind the counter,
who merely snickered and
said: "You stayin' with the
Dawes, ain't you? Better ask
Willie, then. He knows the
place better than anybody."
He asked about the execution,
and the man stiffened.
"Don't think I can talk
about that. Fella broke one of
the Laws; that's about it.
Don't see where you come
into it."
At eleven o'clock, he returned
to the Dawes residence,
and found Mom in the
kitchen, surrounded by the
warm nostalgic odor of home-baked
bread. She told him
that her husband had left a
message for the stranger, informing
him that the State
Police would be around to get
his story.
He waited in the house,
gloomily turning the pages of
the local newspaper, searching
for references to Armagon.
He found nothing.
At eleven-thirty, a brown-faced
State Trooper came to
call, and Sol told his story.
He was promised nothing,
and told to stay in town until
he was contacted again by
the authorities.
Mom fixed him a light
lunch, the greatest feature of
which was some hot biscuits
she plucked out of the oven.
It made him feel almost normal.
He wandered around the
town some more after lunch,
trying to spark conversation
with the residents.
He learned little.
At
five-thirty, he returned
to the Dawes house, and was
promptly leaped upon by
little Sally.
"Hi! Hi! Hi!" she said,
clutching his right leg and
almost toppling him over.
"We had a party in school. I
had chocolate cake. You goin'
to stay with us?"
"Just another night," Sol
told her, trying to shake the
girl off. "If it's okay with
your folks. They haven't
found my car yet."
"Sally!" Mom was peering
out of the screen door. "You
let Mr. Becker alone and go
wash. Your Pa will be home
soon."
"Oh, pooh," the girl said,
her pigtails swinging. "Do
you got a girlfriend, mister?"
"No." Sol struggled towards
the house with her
dead weight on his leg.
"Would you mind? I can't
walk."
"Would you be my boyfriend?"
"Well, we'll talk about it.
If you let go my leg."
Inside the house, she said:
"We're having pot roast. You
stayin'?"
"Of course Mr. Becker's
stayin'," Mom said. "He's our
guest."
"That's very kind of you,"
Sol said. "I really wish you'd
let me pay something—"
"Don't want to hear another
word about pay."
Mr. Dawes
came home an
hour later, looking tired.
Mom pecked him lightly on
the forehead. He glanced at
the evening paper, and then
spoke to Sol.
"Hear you been asking
questions, Mr. Becker."
Sol nodded, embarrassed.
"Guess I have. I'm awfully
curious about this Armagon
place. Never heard of anything
like it before."
Dawes grunted. "You ain't
a reporter?"
"Oh, no. I'm an engineer. I
was just satisfying my own
curiosity."
"Uh-huh." Dawes looked
reflective. "You wouldn't be
thinkin' about writing us up
or anything. I mean, this is a
pretty private affair."
"Writing it up?" Sol
blinked. "I hadn't thought of
it. But you'll have to admit—it's
sure interesting."
"Yeah," Dawes said narrowly.
"I guess it would be."
"Supper!" Mom called.
After the meal, they spent
a quiet evening at home. Sally
went to bed, screaming her
reluctance, at eight-thirty.
Mom, dozing in the big chair
near the fireplace, padded upstairs
at nine. Then Dawes
yawned widely, stood up, and
said goodnight at quarter-of-ten.
He paused in the doorway
before leaving.
"I'd think about that," he
said. "Writing it up, I mean.
A lot of folks would think
you were just plum crazy."
Sol laughed feebly. "I
guess they would at that."
"Goodnight," Dawes said.
"Goodnight."
He read Sally's copy of Treasure Island for about
half an hour. Then he undressed,
made himself comfortable
on the sofa, snuggled
under the soft blanket
that Mom had provided, and
shut his eyes.
He reviewed the events of
the day before dropping off
to sleep. The troublesome
Sally. The strange dream
world of Armagon. The visit
to the barber shop. The removal
of Brundage's body.
The conversations with the
townspeople. Dawes' suspicious
attitude ...
Then sleep came.
He
was flanked by marble
pillars, thrusting towards
a high-domed ceiling.
The room stretched long
and wide before him, the
walls bedecked in stunning
purple draperies.
He whirled at the sound of
footsteps, echoing stridently
on the stone floor. Someone
was running towards him.
It was Sally, pigtails
streaming out behind her, the
small body wearing a flowing
white toga. She was shrieking,
laughing as she skittered
past him, clutching a gleaming
gold helmet.
He called out to her, but
she was too busy outdistancing
her pursuer. It was Sheriff
Coogan, puffing and huffing,
the metal-and-gold cloth
uniform ludicrous on his
lanky frame.
"Consarn kid!" he wheezed.
"Gimme my hat!"
Mom was following him,
her stout body regal in scarlet
robes. "Sally! You give
Sir Coogan his helmet! You
hear?"
"Mrs. Dawes!" Sol said.
"Why, Mr. Becker! How
nice to see you again! Pa! Pa! Look who's here!"
Willie Dawes appeared. No! Sol thought. This was King Dawes; nothing else
could explain the magnificence
of his attire.
"Yes," Dawes said craftily.
"So I see. Welcome to Armagon,
Mr. Becker."
"Armagon?" Sol gaped.
"Then this is the place
you've been dreaming about?"
"Yep," the King said. "And
now you're in it, too."
"Then I'm only dreaming!"
Charlie, the fat man,
clumsy as ever in his robes of
State, said: "So that's the
snooper, eh?"
"Yep," Dawes chuckled.
"Think you better round up
the Knights."
Sol said: "The Knights?"
"Exelution! Exelution!"
Sally shrieked.
"Now wait a minute—"
Charlie shouted.
Running feet, clanking of
armor. Sol backed up against
a pillar. "Now look here.
You've gone far enough—"
"Not quite," said the King.
The Knights stepped forward.
"Wait!" Sol screamed.
Familiar faces, under shining
helmets, moved towards
him; the tips of sharp-pointed
spears gleaming wickedly.
And Sol Becker wondered—would
he ever awake?
|
What is the setting for this story?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Aide Memoire by Keith Laumer.
Relevant chunks:
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
AIDE MEMOIRE
BY KEITH LAUMER
The Fustians looked like turtles—but
they could move fast when they chose!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1962.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Across the table from Retief, Ambassador Magnan rustled a stiff sheet
of parchment and looked grave.
"This aide memoire," he said, "was just handed to me by the Cultural
Attache. It's the third on the subject this week. It refers to the
matter of sponsorship of Youth groups—"
"Some youths," Retief said. "Average age, seventy-five."
"The Fustians are a long-lived people," Magnan snapped. "These matters
are relative. At seventy-five, a male Fustian is at a trying age—"
"That's right. He'll try anything—in the hope it will maim somebody."
"Precisely the problem," Magnan said. "But the Youth Movement is
the important news in today's political situation here on Fust. And
sponsorship of Youth groups is a shrewd stroke on the part of the
Terrestrial Embassy. At my suggestion, well nigh every member of the
mission has leaped at the opportunity to score a few p—that is, cement
relations with this emergent power group—the leaders of the future.
You, Retief, as Councillor, are the outstanding exception."
"I'm not convinced these hoodlums need my help in organizing their
rumbles," Retief said. "Now, if you have a proposal for a pest control
group—"
"To the Fustians this is no jesting matter," Magnan cut in. "This
group—" he glanced at the paper—"known as the Sexual, Cultural, and
Athletic Recreational Society, or SCARS for short, has been awaiting
sponsorship for a matter of weeks now."
"Meaning they want someone to buy them a clubhouse, uniforms, equipment
and anything else they need to complete their sexual, cultural and
athletic development," Retief said.
"If we don't act promptly," Magnan said, "the Groaci Embassy may well
anticipate us. They're very active here."
"That's an idea," said Retief. "Let 'em. After awhile they'll go broke
instead of us."
"Nonsense. The group requires a sponsor. I can't actually order you to
step forward. However...." Magnan let the sentence hang in the air.
Retief raised one eyebrow.
"For a minute there," he said, "I thought you were going to make a
positive statement."
Magnan leaned back, lacing his fingers over his stomach. "I don't think
you'll find a diplomat of my experience doing anything so naive," he
said.
"I like the adult Fustians," said Retief. "Too bad they have to lug
half a ton of horn around on their backs. I wonder if surgery would
help."
"Great heavens, Retief," Magnan sputtered. "I'm amazed that even you
would bring up a matter of such delicacy. A race's unfortunate physical
characteristics are hardly a fit matter for Terrestrial curiosity."
"Well, of course your experience of the Fustian mentality is greater
than mine. I've only been here a month. But it's been my experience,
Mr. Ambassador, that few races are above improving on nature. Otherwise
you, for example, would be tripping over your beard."
Magnan shuddered. "Please—never mention the idea to a Fustian."
Retief stood. "My own program for the day includes going over to the
dockyards. There are some features of this new passenger liner the
Fustians are putting together that I want to look into. With your
permission, Mr. Ambassador...?"
Magnan snorted. "Your pre-occupation with the trivial disturbs me,
Retief. More interest in substantive matters—such as working with
Youth groups—would create a far better impression."
"Before getting too involved with these groups, it might be a good idea
to find out a little more about them," said Retief. "Who organizes
them? There are three strong political parties here on Fust. What's the
alignment of this SCARS organization?"
"You forget, these are merely teenagers, so to speak," Magnan said.
"Politics mean nothing to them ... yet."
"Then there are the Groaci. Why their passionate interest in a
two-horse world like Fust? Normally they're concerned with nothing but
business. But what has Fust got that they could use?"
"You may rule out the commercial aspect in this instance," said Magnan.
"Fust possesses a vigorous steel-age manufacturing economy. The Groaci
are barely ahead of them."
"Barely," said Retief. "Just over the line into crude atomics ... like
fission bombs."
Magnan shook his head, turned back to his papers. "What market exists
for such devices on a world at peace? I suggest you address your
attention to the less spectacular but more rewarding work of studying
the social patterns of the local youth."
"I've studied them," said Retief. "And before I meet any of the local
youth socially I want to get myself a good blackjack."
II
Retief left the sprawling bungalow-type building that housed the
chancery of the Terrestrial Embassy, swung aboard a passing flat-car
and leaned back against the wooden guard rail as the heavy vehicle
trundled through the city toward the looming gantries of the shipyards.
It was a cool morning. A light breeze carried the fishy odor of Fusty
dwellings across the broad cobbled avenue. A few mature Fustians
lumbered heavily along in the shade of the low buildings, audibly
wheezing under the burden of their immense carapaces. Among them,
shell-less youths trotted briskly on scaly stub legs. The driver of the
flat-car, a labor-caste Fustian with his guild colors emblazoned on his
back, heaved at the tiller, swung the unwieldy conveyance through the
shipyard gates, creaked to a halt.
"Thus I come to the shipyard with frightful speed," he said in Fustian.
"Well I know the way of the naked-backs, who move always in haste."
Retief climbed down, handed him a coin. "You should take up
professional racing," he said. "Daredevil."
He crossed the littered yard and tapped at the door of a rambling shed.
Boards creaked inside. Then the door swung back.
A gnarled ancient with tarnished facial scales and a weathered carapace
peered out at Retief.
"Long-may-you-sleep," said Retief. "I'd like to take a look around, if
you don't mind. I understand you're laying the bedplate for your new
liner today."
"May-you-dream-of-the-deeps," the old fellow mumbled. He waved a stumpy
arm toward a group of shell-less Fustians standing by a massive hoist.
"The youths know more of bedplates than do I, who but tend the place of
papers."
"I know how you feel, old-timer," said Retief. "That sounds like the
story of my life. Among your papers do you have a set of plans for the
vessel? I understand it's to be a passenger liner."
The oldster nodded. He shuffled to a drawing file, rummaged, pulled out
a sheaf of curled prints and spread them on the table. Retief stood
silently, running a finger over the uppermost drawing, tracing lines....
"What does the naked-back here?" barked a deep voice behind Retief. He
turned. A heavy-faced Fustian youth, wrapped in a mantle, stood at the
open door. Beady yellow eyes set among fine scales bored into Retief.
"I came to take a look at your new liner," said Retief.
"We need no prying foreigners here," the youth snapped. His eye fell on
the drawings. He hissed in sudden anger.
"Doddering hulk!" he snapped at the ancient. "May you toss in
nightmares! Put by the plans!"
"My mistake," Retief said. "I didn't know this was a secret project."
The youth hesitated. "It is not a secret project," he muttered. "Why
should it be secret?"
"You tell me."
The youth worked his jaws and rocked his head from side to side in the
Fusty gesture of uncertainty. "There is nothing to conceal," he said.
"We merely construct a passenger liner."
"Then you don't mind if I look over the drawings," said Retief. "Who
knows? Maybe some day I'll want to reserve a suite for the trip out."
The youth turned and disappeared. Retief grinned at the oldster. "Went
for his big brother, I guess," he said. "I have a feeling I won't get
to study these in peace here. Mind if I copy them?"
"Willingly, light-footed one," said the old Fustian. "And mine is the
shame for the discourtesy of youth."
Retief took out a tiny camera, flipped a copying lens in place, leafed
through the drawings, clicking the shutter.
"A plague on these youths," said the oldster, "who grow more virulent
day by day."
"Why don't you elders clamp down?"
"Agile are they and we are slow of foot. And this unrest is new.
Unknown in my youth was such insolence."
"The police—"
"Bah!" the ancient rumbled. "None have we worthy of the name, nor have
we needed ought ere now."
"What's behind it?"
"They have found leaders. The spiv, Slock, is one. And I fear they plot
mischief." He pointed to the window. "They come, and a Soft One with
them."
Retief pocketed the camera, glanced out the window. A pale-featured
Groaci with an ornately decorated crest stood with the youths, who eyed
the hut, then started toward it.
"That's the military attache of the Groaci Embassy," Retief said. "I
wonder what he and the boys are cooking up together?"
"Naught that augurs well for the dignity of Fust," the oldster rumbled.
"Flee, agile one, while I engage their attentions."
"I was just leaving," Retief said. "Which way out?"
"The rear door," the Fustian gestured with a stubby member. "Rest well,
stranger on these shores." He moved to the entrance.
"Same to you, pop," said Retief. "And thanks."
He eased through the narrow back entrance, waited until voices were
raised at the front of the shed, then strolled off toward the gate.
The second dark of the third cycle was lightening when Retief left the
Embassy technical library and crossed the corridor to his office. He
flipped on a light. A note was tucked under a paperweight:
"Retief—I shall expect your attendance at the IAS dinner at first
dark of the fourth cycle. There will be a brief but, I hope, impressive
Sponsorship ceremony for the SCARS group, with full press coverage,
arrangements for which I have managed to complete in spite of your
intransigence."
Retief snorted and glanced at his watch. Less than three hours. Just
time to creep home by flat-car, dress in ceremonial uniform and creep
back.
Outside he flagged a lumbering bus. He stationed himself in a corner
and watched the yellow sun, Beta, rise rapidly above the low skyline.
The nearby sea was at high tide now, under the pull of the major sun
and the three moons, and the stiff breeze carried a mist of salt spray.
Retief turned up his collar against the dampness. In half an hour he
would be perspiring under the vertical rays of a third-noon sun, but
the thought failed to keep the chill off.
Two Youths clambered up on the platform, moving purposefully toward
Retief. He moved off the rail, watching them, weight balanced.
"That's close enough, kids," he said. "Plenty of room on this scow. No
need to crowd up."
"There are certain films," the lead Fustian muttered. His voice was
unusually deep for a Youth. He was wrapped in a heavy cloak and moved
awkwardly. His adolescence was nearly at an end, Retief guessed.
"I told you once," said Retief. "Don't crowd me."
The two stepped close, slit mouths snapping in anger. Retief put out a
foot, hooked it behind the scaly leg of the overaged juvenile and threw
his weight against the cloaked chest. The clumsy Fustian tottered, fell
heavily. Retief was past him and off the flat-car before the other
Youth had completed his vain lunge toward the spot Retief had occupied.
The Terrestrial waved cheerfully at the pair, hopped aboard another
vehicle, watched his would-be assailants lumber down from their car,
tiny heads twisted to follow his retreating figure.
So they wanted the film? Retief reflected, thumbing a cigar alight.
They were a little late. He had already filed it in the Embassy vault,
after running a copy for the reference files.
And a comparison of the drawings with those of the obsolete Mark XXXV
battle cruiser used two hundred years earlier by the Concordiat Naval
Arm showed them to be almost identical, gun emplacements and all. The
term "obsolete" was a relative one. A ship which had been outmoded in
the armories of the Galactic Powers could still be king of the walk in
the Eastern Arm.
But how had these two known of the film? There had been no one present
but himself and the old-timer—and he was willing to bet the elderly
Fustian hadn't told them anything.
At least not willingly....
Retief frowned, dropped the cigar over the side, waited until the
flat-car negotiated a mud-wallow, then swung down and headed for the
shipyard.
The door, hinges torn loose, had been propped loosely back in position.
Retief looked around at the battered interior of the shed. The old
fellow had put up a struggle.
There were deep drag-marks in the dust behind the building. Retief
followed them across the yard. They disappeared under the steel door of
a warehouse.
Retief glanced around. Now, at the mid-hour of the fourth cycle, the
workmen were heaped along the edge of the refreshment pond, deep in
their siesta. He took a multi-bladed tool from a pocket, tried various
fittings in the lock. It snicked open.
He eased the door aside far enough to enter.
Heaped bales loomed before him. Snapping on the tiny lamp in the handle
of the combination tool, Retief looked over the pile. One stack seemed
out of alignment ... and the dust had been scraped from the floor
before it. He pocketed the light, climbed up on the bales, looked over
into a nest made by stacking the bundles around a clear spot. The aged
Fustian lay in it, on his back, a heavy sack tied over his head.
Retief dropped down inside the ring of bales, sawed at the tough twine
and pulled the sack free.
"It's me, old fellow," Retief said. "The nosy stranger. Sorry I got you
into this."
The oldster threshed his gnarled legs. He rocked slightly and fell
back. "A curse on the cradle that rocked their infant slumbers," he
rumbled. "But place me back on my feet and I hunt down the youth,
Slock, though he flee to the bottommost muck of the Sea of Torments."
"How am I going to get you out of here? Maybe I'd better get some help."
"Nay. The perfidious Youths abound here," said the old Fustian. "It
would be your life."
"I doubt if they'd go that far."
"Would they not?" The Fustian stretched his neck. "Cast your light
here. But for the toughness of my hide...."
Retief put the beam of the light on the leathery neck. A great smear of
thick purplish blood welled from a ragged cut. The oldster chuckled, a
sound like a seal coughing.
"Traitor, they called me. For long they sawed at me—in vain. Then
they trussed me and dumped me here. They think to return with weapons
to complete the task."
"Weapons? I thought it was illegal!"
"Their evil genius, the Soft One," said the Fustian. "He would provide
fuel to the Devil himself."
"The Groaci again," said Retief. "I wonder what their angle is."
"And I must confess, I told them of you, ere I knew their full
intentions. Much can I tell you of their doings. But first, I pray, the
block and tackle."
Retief found the hoist where the Fustian directed him, maneuvered it
into position, hooked onto the edge of the carapace and hauled away.
The immense Fustian rose slowly, teetered ... then flopped on his chest.
Slowly he got to his feet.
"My name is Whonk, fleet one," he said. "My cows are yours."
"Thanks. I'm Retief. I'd like to meet the girls some time. But right
now, let's get out of here."
Whonk leaned his bulk against the ponderous stacks of baled kelp,
bulldozed them aside. "Slow am I to anger," he said, "but implacable in
my wrath. Slock, beware!"
"Hold it," said Retief suddenly. He sniffed. "What's that odor?" He
flashed the light around, played it over a dry stain on the floor. He
knelt, sniffed at the spot.
"What kind of cargo was stacked here, Whonk? And where is it now?"
Whonk considered. "There were drums," he said. "Four of them, quite
small, painted an evil green, the property of the Soft Ones, the
Groaci. They lay here a day and a night. At full dark of the first
period they came with stevedores and loaded them aboard the barge
Moss
Rock
."
"The VIP boat. Who's scheduled to use it?"
"I know not. But what matters this? Let us discuss cargo movements
after I have settled a score with certain Youths."
"We'd better follow this up first, Whonk. There's only one substance I
know of that's transported in drums and smells like that blot on the
floor. That's titanite: the hottest explosive this side of a uranium
pile."
III
Beta was setting as Retief, Whonk puffing at his heels, came up to the
sentry box beside the gangway leading to the plush interior of the
official luxury space barge
Moss Rock
.
"A sign of the times," said Whonk, glancing inside the empty shelter.
"A guard should stand here, but I see him not. Doubtless he crept away
to sleep."
"Let's go aboard and take a look around."
They entered the ship. Soft lights glowed in utter silence. A rough box
stood on the floor, rollers and pry-bars beside it—a discordant note
in the muted luxury of the setting. Whonk rummaged in it.
"Curious," he said. "What means this?" He held up a stained cloak of
orange and green, a metal bracelet, papers.
"Orange and green," mused Relief. "Whose colors are those?"
"I know not." Whonk glanced at the arm-band. "But this is lettered." He
passed the metal band to Retief.
"SCARS," Retief read. He looked at Whonk. "It seems to me I've heard
the name before," he murmured. "Let's get back to the Embassy—fast."
Back on the ramp Retief heard a sound ... and turned in time to duck
the charge of a hulking Fustian youth who thundered past him and
fetched up against the broad chest of Whonk, who locked him in a warm
embrace.
"Nice catch, Whonk. Where'd he sneak out of?"
"The lout hid there by the storage bin," rumbled Whonk. The captive
youth thumped fists and toes fruitlessly against the oldster's carapace.
"Hang onto him," said Retief. "He looks like the biting kind."
"No fear. Clumsy I am, yet not without strength."
"Ask him where the titanite is tucked away."
"Speak, witless grub," growled Whonk, "lest I tweak you in twain."
The youth gurgled.
"Better let up before you make a mess of him," said Retief. Whonk
lifted the Youth clear of the floor, then flung him down with a thump
that made the ground quiver. The younger Fustian glared up at the
elder, mouth snapping.
"This one was among those who trussed me and hid me away for the
killing," said Whonk. "In his repentance he will tell all to his elder."
"That's the same young squirt that tried to strike up an acquaintance
with me on the bus," Retief said. "He gets around."
The youth scrambled to hands and knees, scuttled for freedom. Retief
planted a foot on his dragging cloak; it ripped free. He stared at the
bare back of the Fustian—
"By the Great Egg!" Whonk exclaimed, tripping the refugee as he tried
to rise. "This is no Youth! His carapace has been taken from him!"
Retief looked at the scarred back. "I thought he looked a little old.
But I thought—"
"This is not possible," Whonk said wonderingly. "The great nerve trunks
are deeply involved. Not even the cleverest surgeon could excise the
carapace and leave the patient living."
"It looks like somebody did the trick. But let's take this boy with us
and get out of here. His folks may come home."
"Too late," said Whonk. Retief turned.
Three youths came from behind the sheds.
"Well," Retief said. "It looks like the SCARS are out in force tonight.
Where's your pal?" he said to the advancing trio. "The sticky little
bird with the eye-stalks? Back at his Embassy, leaving you suckers
holding the bag, I'll bet."
"Shelter behind me, Retief," said Whonk.
"Go get 'em, old-timer." Retief stooped, picked up one of the pry-bars.
"I'll jump around and distract them."
Whonk let out a whistling roar and charged for the immature Fustians.
They fanned out ... and one tripped, sprawled on his face. Retief
whirled the metal bar he had thrust between the Fustian's legs, slammed
it against the skull of another, who shook his head, turned on
Retief ... and bounced off the steel hull of the
Moss Rock
as Whonk
took him in full charge.
Retief used the bar on another head. His third blow laid the Fustian
on the pavement, oozing purple. The other two club members departed
hastily, seriously dented but still mobile.
Retief leaned on his club, breathing hard. "Tough heads these kids
have got. I'm tempted to chase those two lads down, but I've got
another errand to run. I don't know who the Groaci intended to blast,
but I have a sneaking suspicion somebody of importance was scheduled
for a boat ride in the next few hours. And three drums of titanite is
enough to vaporize this tub and everyone aboard her."
"The plot is foiled," said Whonk. "But what reason did they have?"
"The Groaci are behind it. I have an idea the SCARS didn't know about
this gambit."
"Which of these is the leader?" asked Whonk. He prodded a fallen Youth
with a horny toe. "Arise, dreaming one."
"Never mind him, Whonk. We'll tie these two up and leave them here. I
know where to find the boss."
A stolid crowd filled the low-ceilinged banquet hall. Retief scanned
the tables for the pale blobs of Terrestrial faces, dwarfed by the
giant armored bodies of the Fustians. Across the room Magnan fluttered
a hand. Retief headed toward him. A low-pitched vibration filled the
air: the rumble of subsonic Fustian music.
Retief slid into his place beside Magnan. "Sorry to be late, Mr.
Ambassador."
"I'm honored that you chose to appear at all," said Magnan coldly. He
turned back to the Fustian on his left.
"Ah, yes, Mr. Minister," he said. "Charming, most charming. So joyous."
The Fustian looked at him, beady-eyed. "It is the
Lament of
Hatching
," he said; "our National Dirge."
"Oh," said Magnan. "How interesting. Such a pleasing balance of
instruments—"
"It is a droon solo," said the Fustian, eyeing the Terrestrial
Ambassador suspiciously.
"Why don't you just admit you can't hear it," Retief whispered loudly.
"And if I may interrupt a moment—"
Magnan cleared his throat. "Now that our Mr. Retief has arrived,
perhaps we could rush right along to the Sponsorship ceremonies."
"This group," said Retief, leaning across Magnan, "the SCARS. How much
do you know about them, Mr. Minister?"
"Nothing at all," the huge Fustian elder rumbled. "For my taste, all
Youths should be kept penned with the livestock until they grow a
carapace to tame their irresponsibility."
"We mustn't lose sight of the importance of channeling youthful
energies," said Magnan.
"Labor gangs," said the minister. "In my youth we were indentured to
the dredge-masters. I myself drew a muck sledge."
"But in these modern times," put in Magnan, "surely it's incumbent on
us to make happy these golden hours."
The minister snorted. "Last week I had a golden hour. They set upon me
and pelted me with overripe stench-fruit."
"But this was merely a manifestation of normal youthful frustrations,"
cried Magnan. "Their essential tenderness—"
"You'd not find a tender spot on that lout yonder," the minister
said, pointing with a fork at a newly arrived Youth, "if you drilled
boreholes and blasted."
"Why, that's our guest of honor," said Magnan, "a fine young fellow!
Slop I believe his name is."
"Slock," said Retief. "Eight feet of armor-plated orneriness. And—"
Magnan rose and tapped on his glass. The Fustians winced at the, to
them, supersonic vibrations. They looked at each other muttering.
Magnan tapped louder. The Minister drew in his head, eyes closed. Some
of the Fustians rose, tottered for the doors; the noise level rose.
Magnan redoubled his efforts. The glass broke with a clatter and green
wine gushed on the tablecloth.
"What in the name of the Great Egg!" the Minister muttered. He blinked,
breathing deeply.
"Oh, forgive me," blurted Magnan, dabbing at the wine.
"Too bad the glass gave out," said Retief. "In another minute you'd
have cleared the hall. And then maybe I could have gotten a word in
sideways. There's a matter you should know about—"
"Your attention, please," Magnan said, rising. "I see that our fine
young guest has arrived, and I hope that the remainder of his committee
will be along in a moment. It is my pleasure to announce that our Mr.
Retief has had the good fortune to win out in the keen bidding for the
pleasure of sponsoring this lovely group."
Retief tugged at Magnan's sleeve. "Don't introduce me yet," he said. "I
want to appear suddenly. More dramatic, you know."
"Well," murmured Magnan, glancing down at Retief, "I'm gratified to
see you entering into the spirit of the event at last." He turned his
attention back to the assembled guests. "If our honored guest will join
me on the rostrum...?" he said. "The gentlemen of the press may want to
catch a few shots of the presentation."
Magnan stepped up on the low platform at the center of the wide room,
took his place beside the robed Fustian youth and beamed at the cameras.
"How gratifying it is to take this opportunity to express once more the
great pleasure we have in sponsoring SCARS," he said, talking slowly
for the benefit of the scribbling reporters. "We'd like to think that
in our modest way we're to be a part of all that the SCARS achieve
during the years ahead."
Magnan paused as a huge Fustian elder heaved his bulk up the two low
steps to the rostrum, approached the guest of honor. He watched as the
newcomer paused behind Slock, who did not see the new arrival.
Retief pushed through the crowd, stepped up to face the Fustian youth.
Slock stared at him, drew back.
"You know me, Slock," said Retief loudly. "An old fellow named Whonk
told you about me, just before you tried to saw his head off, remember?
It was when I came out to take a look at that battle cruiser you're
building."
IV
With a bellow Slock reached for Retief—and choked off in mid-cry as
the Fustian elder, Whonk, pinioned him from behind, lifting him clear
of the floor.
"Glad you reporters happened along," said Retief to the gaping newsmen.
"Slock here had a deal with a sharp operator from the Groaci Embassy.
The Groaci were to supply the necessary hardware and Slock, as foreman
at the shipyards, was to see that everything was properly installed.
The next step, I assume, would have been a local take-over, followed
by a little interplanetary war on Flamenco or one of the other nearby
worlds ... for which the Groaci would be glad to supply plenty of ammo."
Magnan found his tongue. "Are you mad, Retief?" he screeched. "This
group was vouched for by the Ministry of Youth!"
"The Ministry's overdue for a purge," snapped Retief. He turned back
to Slock. "I wonder if you were in on the little diversion that was
planned for today. When the
Moss Rock
blew, a variety of clues were
to be planted where they'd be easy to find ... with SCARS written all
over them. The Groaci would thus have neatly laid the whole affair
squarely at the door of the Terrestrial Embassy ... whose sponsorship
of the SCARS had received plenty of publicity."
"The
Moss Rock
?" said Magnan. "But that was—Retief! This is idiotic.
Slock himself was scheduled to go on a cruise tomorrow!"
Slock roared suddenly, twisting violently. Whonk teetered, his grip
loosened ... and Slock pulled free and was off the platform, butting
his way through the milling oldsters on the dining room floor. Magnan
watched, open-mouthed.
"The Groaci were playing a double game, as usual," Retief said. "They
intended to dispose of this fellow Slock, once he'd served their
purpose."
"Well, don't stand there," yelped Magnan over the uproar. "If Slock is
the ring-leader of a delinquent gang...!" He moved to give chase.
Retief grabbed his arm. "Don't jump down there! You'd have as much
chance of getting through as a jack-rabbit through a threshing contest."
Ten minutes later the crowd had thinned slightly. "We can get through
now," Whonk called. "This way." He lowered himself to the floor, bulled
through to the exit. Flashbulbs popped. Retief and Magnan followed in
Whonk's wake.
In the lounge Retief grabbed the phone, waited for the operator, gave a
code letter. No reply. He tried another.
"No good," he said after a full minute had passed. "Wonder what's
loose?" He slammed the phone back in its niche. "Let's grab a cab."
In the street the blue sun, Alpha, peered like an arc light under a low
cloud layer, casting flat shadows across the mud of the avenue. The
three mounted a passing flat-car. Whonk squatted, resting the weight of
his immense shell on the heavy plank flooring.
"Would that I too could lose this burden, as has the false youth we
bludgeoned aboard the
Moss Rock
," he sighed. "Soon will I be forced
into retirement. Then a mere keeper of a place of papers such as I
will rate no more than a slab on the public strand, with once-daily
feedings. And even for a man of high position, retirement is no
pleasure. A slab in the Park of Monuments is little better. A dismal
outlook for one's next thousand years!"
"You two carry on to the police station," said Retief. "I want to play
a hunch. But don't take too long. I may be painfully right."
"What—?" Magnan started.
"As you wish, Retief," said Whonk.
The flat-car trundled past the gate to the shipyard and Retief jumped
down, headed at a run for the VIP boat. The guard post still stood
vacant. The two Youths whom he and Whonk had left trussed were gone.
"That's the trouble with a peaceful world," Retief muttered. "No police
protection." He stepped down from the lighted entry and took up a
position behind the sentry box. Alpha rose higher, shedding a glaring
blue-white light without heat. Retief shivered. Maybe he'd guessed
wrong....
There was a sound in the near distance, like two elephants colliding.
Retief looked toward the gate. His giant acquaintance, Whonk, had
reappeared and was grappling with a hardly less massive opponent. A
small figure became visible in the melee, scuttled for the gate. Headed
off by the battling titans, he turned and made for the opposite side
of the shipyard. Retief waited, jumped out and gathered in the fleeing
Groaci.
"Well, Yith," he said, "how's tricks? You should pardon the expression."
"Release me, Retief!" the pale-featured alien lisped, his throat
bladder pulsating in agitation. "The behemoths vie for the privilege of
dismembering me out of hand!"
"I know how they feel. I'll see what I can do ... for a price."
"I appeal to you," Yith whispered hoarsely. "As a fellow diplomat, a
fellow alien, a fellow soft-back—"
"Why don't you appeal to Slock, as a fellow skunk?" said Retief. "Now
keep quiet ... and you may get out of this alive."
The heavier of the two struggling Fustians threw the other to the
ground. There was another brief flurry, and then the smaller figure was
on its back, helpless.
"That's Whonk, still on his feet," said Retief. "I wonder who he's
caught—and why."
Whonk came toward the
Moss Rock
dragging the supine Fustian, who
kicked vainly. Retief thrust Yith down well out of sight behind the
sentry box. "Better sit tight, Yith. Don't try to sneak off; I can
outrun you. Stay here and I'll see what I can do." He stepped out and
hailed Whonk.
Puffing like a steam engine Whonk pulled up before him. "Sleep,
Retief!" He panted. "You followed a hunch; I did the same. I saw
something strange in this one when we passed him on the avenue. I
watched, followed him here. Look! It is Slock, strapped into a dead
carapace! Now many things become clear."
Retief whistled. "So the Youths aren't all as young as they look.
Somebody's been holding out on the rest of you Fustians!"
"The Soft One," Whonk said. "You laid him by the heels, Retief. I saw.
Produce him now."
"Hold on a minute, Whonk. It won't do you any good—"
Whonk winked broadly. "I must take my revenge!" he roared. "I shall
test the texture of the Soft One! His pulped remains will be scoured up
by the ramp-washers and mailed home in bottles!"
Retief whirled at a sound, caught up with the scuttling Yith fifty feet
away, hauled him back to Whonk.
"It's up to you, Whonk," he said. "I know how important ceremonial
revenge is to you Fustians. I will not interfere."
"Mercy!" Yith hissed, eye-stalks whipping in distress. "I claim
diplomatic immunity!"
"No diplomat am I," rumbled Whonk. "Let me see; suppose I start with
one of those obscenely active eyes—" He reached....
"I have an idea," said Retief brightly. "Do you suppose—just this
once—you could forego the ceremonial revenge if Yith promised to
arrange for a Groaci Surgical Mission to de-carapace you elders?"
"But," Whonk protested, "those eyes! What a pleasure to pluck them, one
by one!"
"Yess," hissed Yith, "I swear it! Our most expert surgeons ... platoons
of them, with the finest of equipment."
"I have dreamed of how it would be to sit on this one, to feel him
squash beneath my bulk...."
"Light as a whissle feather shall you dance," Yith whispered.
"Shell-less shall you spring in the joy of renewed youth—"
"Maybe just one eye," said Whonk grudgingly. "That would leave him
four."
"Be a sport," said Retief.
"Well."
"It's a deal then," said Retief. "Yith, on your word as a diplomat,
an alien, a soft-back and a skunk, you'll set up the mission. Groaci
surgical skill is an export that will net you more than armaments.
It will be a whissle feather in your cap—if you bring it off. And
in return, Whonk won't sit on you. And I won't prefer charges of
interference in the internal affairs of a free world."
Behind Whonk there was a movement. Slock, wriggling free of the
borrowed carapace, struggled to his feet ... in time for Whonk to seize
him, lift him high and head for the entry to the
Moss Rock
.
"Hey," Retief called. "Where are you going?"
"I would not deny this one his reward," called Whonk. "He hoped to
cruise in luxury. So be it."
"Hold on," said Retief. "That tub is loaded with titanite!"
"Stand not in my way, Retief. For this one in truth owes me a
vengeance."
Retief watched as the immense Fustian bore his giant burden up the ramp
and disappeared within the ship.
"I guess Whonk means business," he said to Yith, who hung in his grasp,
all five eyes goggling. "And he's a little too big for me to stop."
Whonk reappeared, alone, climbed down.
"What did you do with him?" said Retief. "Tell him you were going to—"
"We had best withdraw," said Whonk. "The killing radius of the drive is
fifty yards."
"You mean—"
"The controls are set for Groaci. Long-may-he-sleep."
"It was quite a bang," said Retief. "But I guess you saw it, too."
"No, confound it," Magnan said. "When I remonstrated with Hulk, or
Whelk—"
"Whonk."
"—the ruffian thrust me into an alley bound in my own cloak. I'll most
certainly complain to the Minister."
"How about the surgical mission?"
"A most generous offer," said Magnan. "Frankly, I was astonished. I
think perhaps we've judged the Groaci too harshly."
"I hear the Ministry of Youth has had a rough morning of it," said
Retief. "And a lot of rumors are flying to the effect that Youth Groups
are on the way out."
Magnan cleared his throat, shuffled papers. "I—ah—have explained to
the press that last night's—ah—"
"Fiasco."
"—affair was necessary in order to place the culprits in an untenable
position. Of course, as to the destruction of the VIP vessel and the
presumed death of, uh, Slop."
"The Fustians understand," said Retief. "Whonk wasn't kidding about
ceremonial vengeance."
"The Groaci had been guilty of gross misuse of diplomatic privilege,"
said Magnan. "I think that a note—or perhaps an Aide Memoire: less
formal...."
"The
Moss Rock
was bound for Groaci," said Retief. "She was already
in her transit orbit when she blew. The major fragments will arrive on
schedule in a month or so. It should provide quite a meteorite display.
I think that should be all the
aide
the Groaci's
memoires
will need
to keep their tentacles off Fust."
"But diplomatic usage—"
"Then, too, the less that's put in writing, the less they can blame you
for, if anything goes wrong."
"That's true," said Magnan, lips pursed. "Now you're thinking
constructively, Retief. We may make a diplomat of you yet." He smiled
expansively.
"Maybe. But I refuse to let it depress me." Retief stood up. "I'm
taking a few weeks off ... if you have no objection, Mr. Ambassador. My
pal Whonk wants to show me an island down south where the fishing is
good."
"But there are some extremely important matters coming up," said
Magnan. "We're planning to sponsor Senior Citizen Groups—"
"Count me out. All groups give me an itch."
"Why, what an astonishing remark, Retief! After all, we diplomats are
ourselves a group."
"Uh-huh," Retief said.
Magnan sat quietly, mouth open, and watched as Retief stepped into the
hall and closed the door gently behind him.
Question:
What is the setting for this story?
Answer:
|
[
"The story is set entirely on the planet Fust. The native inhabitants of Fust are described as something similar to snapping turtles that walk on their hind legs, and much of the imagery used by Fustians when speaking revolves around themes of the sea and mud. Fust is a peaceful enough world that they don’t even really have much of a police force, despite the rowdy and rebellious behavior of Fustian youths. \nNot much is known about the physical characteristics of the planet, such as the proportion of sea and dry land. We know there must be oceans, because the warehouse where Wonk was tied up and left was full of bales of kelp, a sea product. The city of the story is also near a sea, whose breezes make it a bit cool at certain times of day.\nThe city where all the action takes place is an important city, perhaps the capitol. It is full of diplomatic missions from all planets, and is apparently a place of some Fustian learning and culture, given that it has musicians for hire. There is a space ship building operation right outside the city, which can be reached by public transport that consists of flat open wagons. This is practical for the unwieldy shape of the adult Fustian, if not too comfortable for a human.\nOne of the most interesting things about Fust, and the hardest for an outsider to understand, is their assorted suns and moons. Fust is lit by a blue sun called Alpha and a yellow sun known as Beta, and three moons orbit Fust. There is also a third sun, unnamed, so that there are three “noons” on Fust.\n",
"The story takes place on the planet whose native species is a turtle-like race known as the Fustians. It is usually a peaceful planet, and does not have a police force like humans are used to--in fact, weapons are currently illegal. There are at least two other species living here as well: the Terrestrials and the Groaci. More specifically, the story takes place near the coastline, with many events taking place either in political buildings or at the docks. The sea that lines this area has strong tides controlled by a number of celestial objects: there are three moons and multiple sons. The major sun is referred to as Beta, and is yellow, but there is a blue sun called Alpha as well. This has strong impacts on the weather as well: it can be very chilly while there are no suns in the sky, but very hot when the light is at its strongest. Besides the Terrestrial Embassy, its technical library, and the banquet hall, the protagonist Retief spends most of his time near the docks. At the port, he spends some time in the new ship being built where he asks Whonk to see the plans. He also does some investigation on the Moss Rock, the luxury ship where he found false evidence planted.",
"The story takes place on the planet Fust, where a chancery houses the Terrestrial Embassy where Retief works. Fust has several suns and moons that regulate the tides of the ocean nearby. The Fustians regularly nap There is a large city surrounded by shipyards, where Retief conducts the majority of his investigation into the development of the new passenger barge. When Retief meets Whonk, they pore over blueprints for the barge in Whonk’s work hut and look out the window to see the Groaci attaché consulting with the Fustian youth that had harassed them earlier. Later, a pair of youth attack Retief at the bus station, and he returns to the shipyard to inquire after Whonk. He enters the warehouse behind Whonk’s shack and finds him injured in the midst of some hay bales. From there, Whonk and Retief go to the “Moss Rock”—a ship where the Groaci barrels filled with titanite had been taken earlier—to investigate. The “Moss Rock” is a luxurious ship dimly lit and meant for VIP guests. This is where Retief begins to uncover the plot of the Groaci to implicate SCARS in the ship’s destruction. Retief then attends the sponsorship ceremony, which is held in a banquet hall with a low-ceiling. Fustian music plays, which is inaudible to the human ear. After Slock escapes the ceremony, Retief goes back to the “Moss Rock”, and this is where Whonk ultimately apprehends Slock once more.",
"The story's setting is in the future on a space world named Fust, inhabited by creatures who look similar to turtles. Fust has oceans or seas large enough for passenger ships and barges which provide fish for the Fustians. Aliens come to Fust; Magnan and Retief work at the Terrestrial Embassy; the Groacis also have members on Fust. The planet has two suns: Beta, which is yellow, and Alpha, which is blue. There are also three moons. Part of the action in the story takes place in the Terrestrial Embassy. In contrast, other parts occur in the shipyard where the passenger ship is being built, its warehouse where Whonk is hidden after he is beaten, and where the explosive had been stored, aboard the barge the Moss Rock where the explosive has been moved and where Whonk puts Slock at the end of the story, and a low-ceiling banquet hall where the dinner is being held. Magnan announces Retief’s sponsorship of SCARS.\n\n"
] |
61198
|
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
AIDE MEMOIRE
BY KEITH LAUMER
The Fustians looked like turtles—but
they could move fast when they chose!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1962.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Across the table from Retief, Ambassador Magnan rustled a stiff sheet
of parchment and looked grave.
"This aide memoire," he said, "was just handed to me by the Cultural
Attache. It's the third on the subject this week. It refers to the
matter of sponsorship of Youth groups—"
"Some youths," Retief said. "Average age, seventy-five."
"The Fustians are a long-lived people," Magnan snapped. "These matters
are relative. At seventy-five, a male Fustian is at a trying age—"
"That's right. He'll try anything—in the hope it will maim somebody."
"Precisely the problem," Magnan said. "But the Youth Movement is
the important news in today's political situation here on Fust. And
sponsorship of Youth groups is a shrewd stroke on the part of the
Terrestrial Embassy. At my suggestion, well nigh every member of the
mission has leaped at the opportunity to score a few p—that is, cement
relations with this emergent power group—the leaders of the future.
You, Retief, as Councillor, are the outstanding exception."
"I'm not convinced these hoodlums need my help in organizing their
rumbles," Retief said. "Now, if you have a proposal for a pest control
group—"
"To the Fustians this is no jesting matter," Magnan cut in. "This
group—" he glanced at the paper—"known as the Sexual, Cultural, and
Athletic Recreational Society, or SCARS for short, has been awaiting
sponsorship for a matter of weeks now."
"Meaning they want someone to buy them a clubhouse, uniforms, equipment
and anything else they need to complete their sexual, cultural and
athletic development," Retief said.
"If we don't act promptly," Magnan said, "the Groaci Embassy may well
anticipate us. They're very active here."
"That's an idea," said Retief. "Let 'em. After awhile they'll go broke
instead of us."
"Nonsense. The group requires a sponsor. I can't actually order you to
step forward. However...." Magnan let the sentence hang in the air.
Retief raised one eyebrow.
"For a minute there," he said, "I thought you were going to make a
positive statement."
Magnan leaned back, lacing his fingers over his stomach. "I don't think
you'll find a diplomat of my experience doing anything so naive," he
said.
"I like the adult Fustians," said Retief. "Too bad they have to lug
half a ton of horn around on their backs. I wonder if surgery would
help."
"Great heavens, Retief," Magnan sputtered. "I'm amazed that even you
would bring up a matter of such delicacy. A race's unfortunate physical
characteristics are hardly a fit matter for Terrestrial curiosity."
"Well, of course your experience of the Fustian mentality is greater
than mine. I've only been here a month. But it's been my experience,
Mr. Ambassador, that few races are above improving on nature. Otherwise
you, for example, would be tripping over your beard."
Magnan shuddered. "Please—never mention the idea to a Fustian."
Retief stood. "My own program for the day includes going over to the
dockyards. There are some features of this new passenger liner the
Fustians are putting together that I want to look into. With your
permission, Mr. Ambassador...?"
Magnan snorted. "Your pre-occupation with the trivial disturbs me,
Retief. More interest in substantive matters—such as working with
Youth groups—would create a far better impression."
"Before getting too involved with these groups, it might be a good idea
to find out a little more about them," said Retief. "Who organizes
them? There are three strong political parties here on Fust. What's the
alignment of this SCARS organization?"
"You forget, these are merely teenagers, so to speak," Magnan said.
"Politics mean nothing to them ... yet."
"Then there are the Groaci. Why their passionate interest in a
two-horse world like Fust? Normally they're concerned with nothing but
business. But what has Fust got that they could use?"
"You may rule out the commercial aspect in this instance," said Magnan.
"Fust possesses a vigorous steel-age manufacturing economy. The Groaci
are barely ahead of them."
"Barely," said Retief. "Just over the line into crude atomics ... like
fission bombs."
Magnan shook his head, turned back to his papers. "What market exists
for such devices on a world at peace? I suggest you address your
attention to the less spectacular but more rewarding work of studying
the social patterns of the local youth."
"I've studied them," said Retief. "And before I meet any of the local
youth socially I want to get myself a good blackjack."
II
Retief left the sprawling bungalow-type building that housed the
chancery of the Terrestrial Embassy, swung aboard a passing flat-car
and leaned back against the wooden guard rail as the heavy vehicle
trundled through the city toward the looming gantries of the shipyards.
It was a cool morning. A light breeze carried the fishy odor of Fusty
dwellings across the broad cobbled avenue. A few mature Fustians
lumbered heavily along in the shade of the low buildings, audibly
wheezing under the burden of their immense carapaces. Among them,
shell-less youths trotted briskly on scaly stub legs. The driver of the
flat-car, a labor-caste Fustian with his guild colors emblazoned on his
back, heaved at the tiller, swung the unwieldy conveyance through the
shipyard gates, creaked to a halt.
"Thus I come to the shipyard with frightful speed," he said in Fustian.
"Well I know the way of the naked-backs, who move always in haste."
Retief climbed down, handed him a coin. "You should take up
professional racing," he said. "Daredevil."
He crossed the littered yard and tapped at the door of a rambling shed.
Boards creaked inside. Then the door swung back.
A gnarled ancient with tarnished facial scales and a weathered carapace
peered out at Retief.
"Long-may-you-sleep," said Retief. "I'd like to take a look around, if
you don't mind. I understand you're laying the bedplate for your new
liner today."
"May-you-dream-of-the-deeps," the old fellow mumbled. He waved a stumpy
arm toward a group of shell-less Fustians standing by a massive hoist.
"The youths know more of bedplates than do I, who but tend the place of
papers."
"I know how you feel, old-timer," said Retief. "That sounds like the
story of my life. Among your papers do you have a set of plans for the
vessel? I understand it's to be a passenger liner."
The oldster nodded. He shuffled to a drawing file, rummaged, pulled out
a sheaf of curled prints and spread them on the table. Retief stood
silently, running a finger over the uppermost drawing, tracing lines....
"What does the naked-back here?" barked a deep voice behind Retief. He
turned. A heavy-faced Fustian youth, wrapped in a mantle, stood at the
open door. Beady yellow eyes set among fine scales bored into Retief.
"I came to take a look at your new liner," said Retief.
"We need no prying foreigners here," the youth snapped. His eye fell on
the drawings. He hissed in sudden anger.
"Doddering hulk!" he snapped at the ancient. "May you toss in
nightmares! Put by the plans!"
"My mistake," Retief said. "I didn't know this was a secret project."
The youth hesitated. "It is not a secret project," he muttered. "Why
should it be secret?"
"You tell me."
The youth worked his jaws and rocked his head from side to side in the
Fusty gesture of uncertainty. "There is nothing to conceal," he said.
"We merely construct a passenger liner."
"Then you don't mind if I look over the drawings," said Retief. "Who
knows? Maybe some day I'll want to reserve a suite for the trip out."
The youth turned and disappeared. Retief grinned at the oldster. "Went
for his big brother, I guess," he said. "I have a feeling I won't get
to study these in peace here. Mind if I copy them?"
"Willingly, light-footed one," said the old Fustian. "And mine is the
shame for the discourtesy of youth."
Retief took out a tiny camera, flipped a copying lens in place, leafed
through the drawings, clicking the shutter.
"A plague on these youths," said the oldster, "who grow more virulent
day by day."
"Why don't you elders clamp down?"
"Agile are they and we are slow of foot. And this unrest is new.
Unknown in my youth was such insolence."
"The police—"
"Bah!" the ancient rumbled. "None have we worthy of the name, nor have
we needed ought ere now."
"What's behind it?"
"They have found leaders. The spiv, Slock, is one. And I fear they plot
mischief." He pointed to the window. "They come, and a Soft One with
them."
Retief pocketed the camera, glanced out the window. A pale-featured
Groaci with an ornately decorated crest stood with the youths, who eyed
the hut, then started toward it.
"That's the military attache of the Groaci Embassy," Retief said. "I
wonder what he and the boys are cooking up together?"
"Naught that augurs well for the dignity of Fust," the oldster rumbled.
"Flee, agile one, while I engage their attentions."
"I was just leaving," Retief said. "Which way out?"
"The rear door," the Fustian gestured with a stubby member. "Rest well,
stranger on these shores." He moved to the entrance.
"Same to you, pop," said Retief. "And thanks."
He eased through the narrow back entrance, waited until voices were
raised at the front of the shed, then strolled off toward the gate.
The second dark of the third cycle was lightening when Retief left the
Embassy technical library and crossed the corridor to his office. He
flipped on a light. A note was tucked under a paperweight:
"Retief—I shall expect your attendance at the IAS dinner at first
dark of the fourth cycle. There will be a brief but, I hope, impressive
Sponsorship ceremony for the SCARS group, with full press coverage,
arrangements for which I have managed to complete in spite of your
intransigence."
Retief snorted and glanced at his watch. Less than three hours. Just
time to creep home by flat-car, dress in ceremonial uniform and creep
back.
Outside he flagged a lumbering bus. He stationed himself in a corner
and watched the yellow sun, Beta, rise rapidly above the low skyline.
The nearby sea was at high tide now, under the pull of the major sun
and the three moons, and the stiff breeze carried a mist of salt spray.
Retief turned up his collar against the dampness. In half an hour he
would be perspiring under the vertical rays of a third-noon sun, but
the thought failed to keep the chill off.
Two Youths clambered up on the platform, moving purposefully toward
Retief. He moved off the rail, watching them, weight balanced.
"That's close enough, kids," he said. "Plenty of room on this scow. No
need to crowd up."
"There are certain films," the lead Fustian muttered. His voice was
unusually deep for a Youth. He was wrapped in a heavy cloak and moved
awkwardly. His adolescence was nearly at an end, Retief guessed.
"I told you once," said Retief. "Don't crowd me."
The two stepped close, slit mouths snapping in anger. Retief put out a
foot, hooked it behind the scaly leg of the overaged juvenile and threw
his weight against the cloaked chest. The clumsy Fustian tottered, fell
heavily. Retief was past him and off the flat-car before the other
Youth had completed his vain lunge toward the spot Retief had occupied.
The Terrestrial waved cheerfully at the pair, hopped aboard another
vehicle, watched his would-be assailants lumber down from their car,
tiny heads twisted to follow his retreating figure.
So they wanted the film? Retief reflected, thumbing a cigar alight.
They were a little late. He had already filed it in the Embassy vault,
after running a copy for the reference files.
And a comparison of the drawings with those of the obsolete Mark XXXV
battle cruiser used two hundred years earlier by the Concordiat Naval
Arm showed them to be almost identical, gun emplacements and all. The
term "obsolete" was a relative one. A ship which had been outmoded in
the armories of the Galactic Powers could still be king of the walk in
the Eastern Arm.
But how had these two known of the film? There had been no one present
but himself and the old-timer—and he was willing to bet the elderly
Fustian hadn't told them anything.
At least not willingly....
Retief frowned, dropped the cigar over the side, waited until the
flat-car negotiated a mud-wallow, then swung down and headed for the
shipyard.
The door, hinges torn loose, had been propped loosely back in position.
Retief looked around at the battered interior of the shed. The old
fellow had put up a struggle.
There were deep drag-marks in the dust behind the building. Retief
followed them across the yard. They disappeared under the steel door of
a warehouse.
Retief glanced around. Now, at the mid-hour of the fourth cycle, the
workmen were heaped along the edge of the refreshment pond, deep in
their siesta. He took a multi-bladed tool from a pocket, tried various
fittings in the lock. It snicked open.
He eased the door aside far enough to enter.
Heaped bales loomed before him. Snapping on the tiny lamp in the handle
of the combination tool, Retief looked over the pile. One stack seemed
out of alignment ... and the dust had been scraped from the floor
before it. He pocketed the light, climbed up on the bales, looked over
into a nest made by stacking the bundles around a clear spot. The aged
Fustian lay in it, on his back, a heavy sack tied over his head.
Retief dropped down inside the ring of bales, sawed at the tough twine
and pulled the sack free.
"It's me, old fellow," Retief said. "The nosy stranger. Sorry I got you
into this."
The oldster threshed his gnarled legs. He rocked slightly and fell
back. "A curse on the cradle that rocked their infant slumbers," he
rumbled. "But place me back on my feet and I hunt down the youth,
Slock, though he flee to the bottommost muck of the Sea of Torments."
"How am I going to get you out of here? Maybe I'd better get some help."
"Nay. The perfidious Youths abound here," said the old Fustian. "It
would be your life."
"I doubt if they'd go that far."
"Would they not?" The Fustian stretched his neck. "Cast your light
here. But for the toughness of my hide...."
Retief put the beam of the light on the leathery neck. A great smear of
thick purplish blood welled from a ragged cut. The oldster chuckled, a
sound like a seal coughing.
"Traitor, they called me. For long they sawed at me—in vain. Then
they trussed me and dumped me here. They think to return with weapons
to complete the task."
"Weapons? I thought it was illegal!"
"Their evil genius, the Soft One," said the Fustian. "He would provide
fuel to the Devil himself."
"The Groaci again," said Retief. "I wonder what their angle is."
"And I must confess, I told them of you, ere I knew their full
intentions. Much can I tell you of their doings. But first, I pray, the
block and tackle."
Retief found the hoist where the Fustian directed him, maneuvered it
into position, hooked onto the edge of the carapace and hauled away.
The immense Fustian rose slowly, teetered ... then flopped on his chest.
Slowly he got to his feet.
"My name is Whonk, fleet one," he said. "My cows are yours."
"Thanks. I'm Retief. I'd like to meet the girls some time. But right
now, let's get out of here."
Whonk leaned his bulk against the ponderous stacks of baled kelp,
bulldozed them aside. "Slow am I to anger," he said, "but implacable in
my wrath. Slock, beware!"
"Hold it," said Retief suddenly. He sniffed. "What's that odor?" He
flashed the light around, played it over a dry stain on the floor. He
knelt, sniffed at the spot.
"What kind of cargo was stacked here, Whonk? And where is it now?"
Whonk considered. "There were drums," he said. "Four of them, quite
small, painted an evil green, the property of the Soft Ones, the
Groaci. They lay here a day and a night. At full dark of the first
period they came with stevedores and loaded them aboard the barge
Moss
Rock
."
"The VIP boat. Who's scheduled to use it?"
"I know not. But what matters this? Let us discuss cargo movements
after I have settled a score with certain Youths."
"We'd better follow this up first, Whonk. There's only one substance I
know of that's transported in drums and smells like that blot on the
floor. That's titanite: the hottest explosive this side of a uranium
pile."
III
Beta was setting as Retief, Whonk puffing at his heels, came up to the
sentry box beside the gangway leading to the plush interior of the
official luxury space barge
Moss Rock
.
"A sign of the times," said Whonk, glancing inside the empty shelter.
"A guard should stand here, but I see him not. Doubtless he crept away
to sleep."
"Let's go aboard and take a look around."
They entered the ship. Soft lights glowed in utter silence. A rough box
stood on the floor, rollers and pry-bars beside it—a discordant note
in the muted luxury of the setting. Whonk rummaged in it.
"Curious," he said. "What means this?" He held up a stained cloak of
orange and green, a metal bracelet, papers.
"Orange and green," mused Relief. "Whose colors are those?"
"I know not." Whonk glanced at the arm-band. "But this is lettered." He
passed the metal band to Retief.
"SCARS," Retief read. He looked at Whonk. "It seems to me I've heard
the name before," he murmured. "Let's get back to the Embassy—fast."
Back on the ramp Retief heard a sound ... and turned in time to duck
the charge of a hulking Fustian youth who thundered past him and
fetched up against the broad chest of Whonk, who locked him in a warm
embrace.
"Nice catch, Whonk. Where'd he sneak out of?"
"The lout hid there by the storage bin," rumbled Whonk. The captive
youth thumped fists and toes fruitlessly against the oldster's carapace.
"Hang onto him," said Retief. "He looks like the biting kind."
"No fear. Clumsy I am, yet not without strength."
"Ask him where the titanite is tucked away."
"Speak, witless grub," growled Whonk, "lest I tweak you in twain."
The youth gurgled.
"Better let up before you make a mess of him," said Retief. Whonk
lifted the Youth clear of the floor, then flung him down with a thump
that made the ground quiver. The younger Fustian glared up at the
elder, mouth snapping.
"This one was among those who trussed me and hid me away for the
killing," said Whonk. "In his repentance he will tell all to his elder."
"That's the same young squirt that tried to strike up an acquaintance
with me on the bus," Retief said. "He gets around."
The youth scrambled to hands and knees, scuttled for freedom. Retief
planted a foot on his dragging cloak; it ripped free. He stared at the
bare back of the Fustian—
"By the Great Egg!" Whonk exclaimed, tripping the refugee as he tried
to rise. "This is no Youth! His carapace has been taken from him!"
Retief looked at the scarred back. "I thought he looked a little old.
But I thought—"
"This is not possible," Whonk said wonderingly. "The great nerve trunks
are deeply involved. Not even the cleverest surgeon could excise the
carapace and leave the patient living."
"It looks like somebody did the trick. But let's take this boy with us
and get out of here. His folks may come home."
"Too late," said Whonk. Retief turned.
Three youths came from behind the sheds.
"Well," Retief said. "It looks like the SCARS are out in force tonight.
Where's your pal?" he said to the advancing trio. "The sticky little
bird with the eye-stalks? Back at his Embassy, leaving you suckers
holding the bag, I'll bet."
"Shelter behind me, Retief," said Whonk.
"Go get 'em, old-timer." Retief stooped, picked up one of the pry-bars.
"I'll jump around and distract them."
Whonk let out a whistling roar and charged for the immature Fustians.
They fanned out ... and one tripped, sprawled on his face. Retief
whirled the metal bar he had thrust between the Fustian's legs, slammed
it against the skull of another, who shook his head, turned on
Retief ... and bounced off the steel hull of the
Moss Rock
as Whonk
took him in full charge.
Retief used the bar on another head. His third blow laid the Fustian
on the pavement, oozing purple. The other two club members departed
hastily, seriously dented but still mobile.
Retief leaned on his club, breathing hard. "Tough heads these kids
have got. I'm tempted to chase those two lads down, but I've got
another errand to run. I don't know who the Groaci intended to blast,
but I have a sneaking suspicion somebody of importance was scheduled
for a boat ride in the next few hours. And three drums of titanite is
enough to vaporize this tub and everyone aboard her."
"The plot is foiled," said Whonk. "But what reason did they have?"
"The Groaci are behind it. I have an idea the SCARS didn't know about
this gambit."
"Which of these is the leader?" asked Whonk. He prodded a fallen Youth
with a horny toe. "Arise, dreaming one."
"Never mind him, Whonk. We'll tie these two up and leave them here. I
know where to find the boss."
A stolid crowd filled the low-ceilinged banquet hall. Retief scanned
the tables for the pale blobs of Terrestrial faces, dwarfed by the
giant armored bodies of the Fustians. Across the room Magnan fluttered
a hand. Retief headed toward him. A low-pitched vibration filled the
air: the rumble of subsonic Fustian music.
Retief slid into his place beside Magnan. "Sorry to be late, Mr.
Ambassador."
"I'm honored that you chose to appear at all," said Magnan coldly. He
turned back to the Fustian on his left.
"Ah, yes, Mr. Minister," he said. "Charming, most charming. So joyous."
The Fustian looked at him, beady-eyed. "It is the
Lament of
Hatching
," he said; "our National Dirge."
"Oh," said Magnan. "How interesting. Such a pleasing balance of
instruments—"
"It is a droon solo," said the Fustian, eyeing the Terrestrial
Ambassador suspiciously.
"Why don't you just admit you can't hear it," Retief whispered loudly.
"And if I may interrupt a moment—"
Magnan cleared his throat. "Now that our Mr. Retief has arrived,
perhaps we could rush right along to the Sponsorship ceremonies."
"This group," said Retief, leaning across Magnan, "the SCARS. How much
do you know about them, Mr. Minister?"
"Nothing at all," the huge Fustian elder rumbled. "For my taste, all
Youths should be kept penned with the livestock until they grow a
carapace to tame their irresponsibility."
"We mustn't lose sight of the importance of channeling youthful
energies," said Magnan.
"Labor gangs," said the minister. "In my youth we were indentured to
the dredge-masters. I myself drew a muck sledge."
"But in these modern times," put in Magnan, "surely it's incumbent on
us to make happy these golden hours."
The minister snorted. "Last week I had a golden hour. They set upon me
and pelted me with overripe stench-fruit."
"But this was merely a manifestation of normal youthful frustrations,"
cried Magnan. "Their essential tenderness—"
"You'd not find a tender spot on that lout yonder," the minister
said, pointing with a fork at a newly arrived Youth, "if you drilled
boreholes and blasted."
"Why, that's our guest of honor," said Magnan, "a fine young fellow!
Slop I believe his name is."
"Slock," said Retief. "Eight feet of armor-plated orneriness. And—"
Magnan rose and tapped on his glass. The Fustians winced at the, to
them, supersonic vibrations. They looked at each other muttering.
Magnan tapped louder. The Minister drew in his head, eyes closed. Some
of the Fustians rose, tottered for the doors; the noise level rose.
Magnan redoubled his efforts. The glass broke with a clatter and green
wine gushed on the tablecloth.
"What in the name of the Great Egg!" the Minister muttered. He blinked,
breathing deeply.
"Oh, forgive me," blurted Magnan, dabbing at the wine.
"Too bad the glass gave out," said Retief. "In another minute you'd
have cleared the hall. And then maybe I could have gotten a word in
sideways. There's a matter you should know about—"
"Your attention, please," Magnan said, rising. "I see that our fine
young guest has arrived, and I hope that the remainder of his committee
will be along in a moment. It is my pleasure to announce that our Mr.
Retief has had the good fortune to win out in the keen bidding for the
pleasure of sponsoring this lovely group."
Retief tugged at Magnan's sleeve. "Don't introduce me yet," he said. "I
want to appear suddenly. More dramatic, you know."
"Well," murmured Magnan, glancing down at Retief, "I'm gratified to
see you entering into the spirit of the event at last." He turned his
attention back to the assembled guests. "If our honored guest will join
me on the rostrum...?" he said. "The gentlemen of the press may want to
catch a few shots of the presentation."
Magnan stepped up on the low platform at the center of the wide room,
took his place beside the robed Fustian youth and beamed at the cameras.
"How gratifying it is to take this opportunity to express once more the
great pleasure we have in sponsoring SCARS," he said, talking slowly
for the benefit of the scribbling reporters. "We'd like to think that
in our modest way we're to be a part of all that the SCARS achieve
during the years ahead."
Magnan paused as a huge Fustian elder heaved his bulk up the two low
steps to the rostrum, approached the guest of honor. He watched as the
newcomer paused behind Slock, who did not see the new arrival.
Retief pushed through the crowd, stepped up to face the Fustian youth.
Slock stared at him, drew back.
"You know me, Slock," said Retief loudly. "An old fellow named Whonk
told you about me, just before you tried to saw his head off, remember?
It was when I came out to take a look at that battle cruiser you're
building."
IV
With a bellow Slock reached for Retief—and choked off in mid-cry as
the Fustian elder, Whonk, pinioned him from behind, lifting him clear
of the floor.
"Glad you reporters happened along," said Retief to the gaping newsmen.
"Slock here had a deal with a sharp operator from the Groaci Embassy.
The Groaci were to supply the necessary hardware and Slock, as foreman
at the shipyards, was to see that everything was properly installed.
The next step, I assume, would have been a local take-over, followed
by a little interplanetary war on Flamenco or one of the other nearby
worlds ... for which the Groaci would be glad to supply plenty of ammo."
Magnan found his tongue. "Are you mad, Retief?" he screeched. "This
group was vouched for by the Ministry of Youth!"
"The Ministry's overdue for a purge," snapped Retief. He turned back
to Slock. "I wonder if you were in on the little diversion that was
planned for today. When the
Moss Rock
blew, a variety of clues were
to be planted where they'd be easy to find ... with SCARS written all
over them. The Groaci would thus have neatly laid the whole affair
squarely at the door of the Terrestrial Embassy ... whose sponsorship
of the SCARS had received plenty of publicity."
"The
Moss Rock
?" said Magnan. "But that was—Retief! This is idiotic.
Slock himself was scheduled to go on a cruise tomorrow!"
Slock roared suddenly, twisting violently. Whonk teetered, his grip
loosened ... and Slock pulled free and was off the platform, butting
his way through the milling oldsters on the dining room floor. Magnan
watched, open-mouthed.
"The Groaci were playing a double game, as usual," Retief said. "They
intended to dispose of this fellow Slock, once he'd served their
purpose."
"Well, don't stand there," yelped Magnan over the uproar. "If Slock is
the ring-leader of a delinquent gang...!" He moved to give chase.
Retief grabbed his arm. "Don't jump down there! You'd have as much
chance of getting through as a jack-rabbit through a threshing contest."
Ten minutes later the crowd had thinned slightly. "We can get through
now," Whonk called. "This way." He lowered himself to the floor, bulled
through to the exit. Flashbulbs popped. Retief and Magnan followed in
Whonk's wake.
In the lounge Retief grabbed the phone, waited for the operator, gave a
code letter. No reply. He tried another.
"No good," he said after a full minute had passed. "Wonder what's
loose?" He slammed the phone back in its niche. "Let's grab a cab."
In the street the blue sun, Alpha, peered like an arc light under a low
cloud layer, casting flat shadows across the mud of the avenue. The
three mounted a passing flat-car. Whonk squatted, resting the weight of
his immense shell on the heavy plank flooring.
"Would that I too could lose this burden, as has the false youth we
bludgeoned aboard the
Moss Rock
," he sighed. "Soon will I be forced
into retirement. Then a mere keeper of a place of papers such as I
will rate no more than a slab on the public strand, with once-daily
feedings. And even for a man of high position, retirement is no
pleasure. A slab in the Park of Monuments is little better. A dismal
outlook for one's next thousand years!"
"You two carry on to the police station," said Retief. "I want to play
a hunch. But don't take too long. I may be painfully right."
"What—?" Magnan started.
"As you wish, Retief," said Whonk.
The flat-car trundled past the gate to the shipyard and Retief jumped
down, headed at a run for the VIP boat. The guard post still stood
vacant. The two Youths whom he and Whonk had left trussed were gone.
"That's the trouble with a peaceful world," Retief muttered. "No police
protection." He stepped down from the lighted entry and took up a
position behind the sentry box. Alpha rose higher, shedding a glaring
blue-white light without heat. Retief shivered. Maybe he'd guessed
wrong....
There was a sound in the near distance, like two elephants colliding.
Retief looked toward the gate. His giant acquaintance, Whonk, had
reappeared and was grappling with a hardly less massive opponent. A
small figure became visible in the melee, scuttled for the gate. Headed
off by the battling titans, he turned and made for the opposite side
of the shipyard. Retief waited, jumped out and gathered in the fleeing
Groaci.
"Well, Yith," he said, "how's tricks? You should pardon the expression."
"Release me, Retief!" the pale-featured alien lisped, his throat
bladder pulsating in agitation. "The behemoths vie for the privilege of
dismembering me out of hand!"
"I know how they feel. I'll see what I can do ... for a price."
"I appeal to you," Yith whispered hoarsely. "As a fellow diplomat, a
fellow alien, a fellow soft-back—"
"Why don't you appeal to Slock, as a fellow skunk?" said Retief. "Now
keep quiet ... and you may get out of this alive."
The heavier of the two struggling Fustians threw the other to the
ground. There was another brief flurry, and then the smaller figure was
on its back, helpless.
"That's Whonk, still on his feet," said Retief. "I wonder who he's
caught—and why."
Whonk came toward the
Moss Rock
dragging the supine Fustian, who
kicked vainly. Retief thrust Yith down well out of sight behind the
sentry box. "Better sit tight, Yith. Don't try to sneak off; I can
outrun you. Stay here and I'll see what I can do." He stepped out and
hailed Whonk.
Puffing like a steam engine Whonk pulled up before him. "Sleep,
Retief!" He panted. "You followed a hunch; I did the same. I saw
something strange in this one when we passed him on the avenue. I
watched, followed him here. Look! It is Slock, strapped into a dead
carapace! Now many things become clear."
Retief whistled. "So the Youths aren't all as young as they look.
Somebody's been holding out on the rest of you Fustians!"
"The Soft One," Whonk said. "You laid him by the heels, Retief. I saw.
Produce him now."
"Hold on a minute, Whonk. It won't do you any good—"
Whonk winked broadly. "I must take my revenge!" he roared. "I shall
test the texture of the Soft One! His pulped remains will be scoured up
by the ramp-washers and mailed home in bottles!"
Retief whirled at a sound, caught up with the scuttling Yith fifty feet
away, hauled him back to Whonk.
"It's up to you, Whonk," he said. "I know how important ceremonial
revenge is to you Fustians. I will not interfere."
"Mercy!" Yith hissed, eye-stalks whipping in distress. "I claim
diplomatic immunity!"
"No diplomat am I," rumbled Whonk. "Let me see; suppose I start with
one of those obscenely active eyes—" He reached....
"I have an idea," said Retief brightly. "Do you suppose—just this
once—you could forego the ceremonial revenge if Yith promised to
arrange for a Groaci Surgical Mission to de-carapace you elders?"
"But," Whonk protested, "those eyes! What a pleasure to pluck them, one
by one!"
"Yess," hissed Yith, "I swear it! Our most expert surgeons ... platoons
of them, with the finest of equipment."
"I have dreamed of how it would be to sit on this one, to feel him
squash beneath my bulk...."
"Light as a whissle feather shall you dance," Yith whispered.
"Shell-less shall you spring in the joy of renewed youth—"
"Maybe just one eye," said Whonk grudgingly. "That would leave him
four."
"Be a sport," said Retief.
"Well."
"It's a deal then," said Retief. "Yith, on your word as a diplomat,
an alien, a soft-back and a skunk, you'll set up the mission. Groaci
surgical skill is an export that will net you more than armaments.
It will be a whissle feather in your cap—if you bring it off. And
in return, Whonk won't sit on you. And I won't prefer charges of
interference in the internal affairs of a free world."
Behind Whonk there was a movement. Slock, wriggling free of the
borrowed carapace, struggled to his feet ... in time for Whonk to seize
him, lift him high and head for the entry to the
Moss Rock
.
"Hey," Retief called. "Where are you going?"
"I would not deny this one his reward," called Whonk. "He hoped to
cruise in luxury. So be it."
"Hold on," said Retief. "That tub is loaded with titanite!"
"Stand not in my way, Retief. For this one in truth owes me a
vengeance."
Retief watched as the immense Fustian bore his giant burden up the ramp
and disappeared within the ship.
"I guess Whonk means business," he said to Yith, who hung in his grasp,
all five eyes goggling. "And he's a little too big for me to stop."
Whonk reappeared, alone, climbed down.
"What did you do with him?" said Retief. "Tell him you were going to—"
"We had best withdraw," said Whonk. "The killing radius of the drive is
fifty yards."
"You mean—"
"The controls are set for Groaci. Long-may-he-sleep."
"It was quite a bang," said Retief. "But I guess you saw it, too."
"No, confound it," Magnan said. "When I remonstrated with Hulk, or
Whelk—"
"Whonk."
"—the ruffian thrust me into an alley bound in my own cloak. I'll most
certainly complain to the Minister."
"How about the surgical mission?"
"A most generous offer," said Magnan. "Frankly, I was astonished. I
think perhaps we've judged the Groaci too harshly."
"I hear the Ministry of Youth has had a rough morning of it," said
Retief. "And a lot of rumors are flying to the effect that Youth Groups
are on the way out."
Magnan cleared his throat, shuffled papers. "I—ah—have explained to
the press that last night's—ah—"
"Fiasco."
"—affair was necessary in order to place the culprits in an untenable
position. Of course, as to the destruction of the VIP vessel and the
presumed death of, uh, Slop."
"The Fustians understand," said Retief. "Whonk wasn't kidding about
ceremonial vengeance."
"The Groaci had been guilty of gross misuse of diplomatic privilege,"
said Magnan. "I think that a note—or perhaps an Aide Memoire: less
formal...."
"The
Moss Rock
was bound for Groaci," said Retief. "She was already
in her transit orbit when she blew. The major fragments will arrive on
schedule in a month or so. It should provide quite a meteorite display.
I think that should be all the
aide
the Groaci's
memoires
will need
to keep their tentacles off Fust."
"But diplomatic usage—"
"Then, too, the less that's put in writing, the less they can blame you
for, if anything goes wrong."
"That's true," said Magnan, lips pursed. "Now you're thinking
constructively, Retief. We may make a diplomat of you yet." He smiled
expansively.
"Maybe. But I refuse to let it depress me." Retief stood up. "I'm
taking a few weeks off ... if you have no objection, Mr. Ambassador. My
pal Whonk wants to show me an island down south where the fishing is
good."
"But there are some extremely important matters coming up," said
Magnan. "We're planning to sponsor Senior Citizen Groups—"
"Count me out. All groups give me an itch."
"Why, what an astonishing remark, Retief! After all, we diplomats are
ourselves a group."
"Uh-huh," Retief said.
Magnan sat quietly, mouth open, and watched as Retief stepped into the
hall and closed the door gently behind him.
|
What equipment is employed throughout the story?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Signal Red by Henry Guth.
Relevant chunks:
SIGNAL RED
By HENRY GUTH
They tried to stop him. Earth Flight 21 was a suicide run, a coffin ship, they told him. Uranian death lay athwart the space lanes. But Shano already knew this was his last ride.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1949. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Mercurian night settled black and thick over the Q City Spaceport. Tentative fingers of light flicked and probed the sky, and winked out.
"Here she comes," somebody in the line ahead said.
Shano coughed, his whole skeletal body jerking. Arthritic joints sent flashes of pain along his limbs. Here she comes, he thought, feeling neither glad nor sad.
He coughed and slipped polarized goggles over his eyes.
The spaceport emerged bathed in infra red. Hangars, cradles, freighter catapults and long runways stood out in sharp, diamond-clear detail. High up, beyond the cone of illumination, a detached triple row of bright specks—portholes of the liner Stardust —sank slowly down.
There was no eagerness in him. Only a tiredness. A relief. Relief from a lifetime of beating around the planets. A life of digging, lifting, lugging and pounding. Like a work-worn Martian camel, he was going home to die.
As though on oiled pistons the ship sank into the light, its long shark-like hull glowing soft and silvery, and settled with a feathery snuggle into the cradle's ribs.
The passenger line quivered as a loud-speaker boomed:
" Stardust, now arrived at Cradle Six! Stardust, Cradle Six! All passengers for Venus and Earth prepare to board in ten minutes. "
Shano coughed, and wiped phlegm from his thin lips, his hand following around the bony contours of his face, feeling the hollows and the beard stubble and loose skin of his neck. He coughed and thought of the vanium mines of Pluto, and his gum-clogged lungs. A vague, pressing desire for home overwhelmed him. It had been so long.
" Attention! Attention, Stardust passengers! The signal is red. The signal is red. Refunds now being made. Refunds now. Take-off in five minutes. "
The man ahead swore and flicked up an arm. "Red," he groaned. "By the infinite galaxies, this is the last straw!" He charged away, knocking Shano aside as he passed.
Red signal. In bewildered anxiety Shano lifted the goggles from his eyes and stared into the sudden blackness. The red signal. Danger out there. Passengers advised to ground themselves, or travel at their own risk.
He felt the passengers bump and fumble past him, grumbling vexatiously.
A hot dread assailed him, and he coughed, plucking at his chest. Plucking at an urgency there.
Dropping the goggles to his rheumy eyes, he saw that the passenger line had dissolved. He moved, shuffling, to the gate, thrust his ticket into the scanner slot, and pushed through the turnstile when it clicked.
" Flight twenty-one, now arriving from Venus ," the loud-speaker said monotonously. Shano glanced briefly upward and saw the gleaming belly of twenty-one sinking into the spaceport cone of light.
He clawed his way up the gangway and thrust out his ticket to the lieutenant standing alone at the air lock. The lieutenant, a sullen, chunky man with a queer nick in his jawbone, refused the ticket.
"Haven't you heard, mister? Red signal. Go on back."
Shano coughed, and peered through the lenses of his goggles. "Please," he said. "Want to go home. I've a right." The nicked jaw stirred faint memories within his glazed mind.
The lieutenant punched his ticket. "It's your funeral, old man."
The loud-speaker blared. " Stardust, taking off in thirty seconds. The signal is red. Stardust, taking— "
With the words dinning in his ears, Shano stepped into the air lock. The officer followed, spun wheels, and the lock closed. The outside was shut off.
Lifting goggles they entered the hull, through a series of two more locks, closing each behind them.
"We're afloat," the officer said. "We've taken off." A fleck of light danced far back in his eye. Shano felt the pressure of acceleration gradually increasing, increasing, and hurried in.
Captain Menthlo, a silver-mustached Jupiterian, broad, huge, yet crushable as a beetle, talked while his hands manipulated a panel of studs in the control room. The pilot, his back encased in leather, sat in a bucket seat before him, listening into earphones.
"Surprised to learn of a passenger aboard," the captain said, glancing briefly sideways. "You're entitled to know of the danger ahead." He flicked a final stud, spoke to the pilot and at last turned a serious, squared face to Shano. "Old man," he said. "There's a Uranian fleet out there. We don't know how many ships in this sector. Flight twenty-one, which just landed, had a skirmish with one, and got away. We may not be so lucky. You know how these Uranian devils are."
Shano coughed, and wiped his mouth. "Dirty devils," he said. "I was driv' off the planet once, before this war started. I know things about them Uranian devils. Heard them in the mines around. Hears things, a laborer does."
The captain seemed for the first time to realize the social status of his lone passenger, and he became a little gruff.
"Want you to sign this waiver, saying you're traveling at your own risk. We'll expect you to keep to your cabin as much as possible. When the trouble comes we can't bother with a passenger. In a few hours we'll shut down the ship entirely, and every mechanical device aboard, to try to avoid detection." His mustaches rose like two spears from each side of his squared nose as his face changed to an alert watchfulness. "Going home, eh?" he said. "You've knocked around some, by the looks of you. Pluto, from the sound of that cough."
Shano scrawled his signature on the waiver. "Yeah," he said. "Pluto. Where a man's lungs fights gas." He blinked watery eyes. "Captain, what's a notched jaw mean to you?"
"Well, old man," the captain grasped Shano's shoulder and turned him around. "It means somebody cut himself, shaving. You stick tight to your cabin." He nodded curtly and indicated the door.
Descending the companionway to the next deck Shano observed the nick-jawed lieutenant staring out the viewport, apparently idling. The man turned and gripped Shano's thin arm.
"A light?" he said, tapping a cigarette. Shano produced a lighter disk and the chunky man puffed. He was an Earthman and his jaw seemed cut with a knife, notched like a piece of wood. Across the breast of his tunic was a purple band, with the name Rourke . "Why are you so anxious to get aboard, old man?" He searched Shano's face. "There's trouble ahead, you know."
Shano coughed, wracking his body, as forgotten memories stirred sluggishly in his mind. "Yup," he said, and jerked free and stumbled down the steel deck.
In his cabin he lay on the bunk, lighted a cigarette and smoked, coughing and staring at the rivet-studded bulkhead. The slow movement of his mind resolved into a struggle, one idea groping for the other.
What were the things he'd heard about nicked jaws? And where had he heard them? Digging ore on Pluto; talk in the pits? Secretive suspicions voiced in smoke-laden saloons of Mars? In the labor gangs of Uranus? Where? Shano smoked and didn't know. But he knew there was a rumor, and that it was the talk of ignorant men. The captain had evaded it. Shano smoked and coughed and stared at the steel bulkhead and waited.
The ship's alarm clanged. Shano jerked from his bunk like a broken watch spring. He crouched, trembling, on arthritic joints, as a loud-speaker blared throughout the ship.
" All hands! We now maintain dead silence. Close down and stop all machinery. Power off and lights out. An enemy fleet is out there, listening and watching for mechanical and electronic disturbance. Atmosphere will be maintained from emergency oxygen cylinders. Stop pumps. "
Shano crouched and listened as the ship's steady drone ceased and the vibrations ceased. The pumps stopped, the lights went out.
Pressing the cold steel bulkhead, Shano heard oxygen hiss through the pipes. Hiss and hiss and then flow soundlessly, filling the cabin and his lungs. He choked.
The cabin was like a mine shaft, dark and cold. Feet pounded on the deck outside.
Shano clawed open the door. He peered out anxiously.
Cold blobs of light, phosphorescent bulbs held in the fists of men, glimmered by. Phosphorescent bulbs, because the power was off. Shano blinked. He saw officers and men, their faces tight and pinched, hurrying in all directions. Hurrying to shut down the ship.
He acted impulsively. A young ensign strode by, drawn blaster in hand. Shano followed him; followed the bluish glow of his bulb, through labyrinthine passages and down a companionway, coughing and leering against the pain in his joints. The blue light winked out in the distance and Shano stopped.
He was suddenly alarmed. The captain had warned him to stay in his cabin. He looked back and forth, wondering how to return.
A bell clanged.
Shano saw a cold bulb glowing down the passageway, and he shuffled hopefully toward it. The bulb moved away. He saw an indistinct figure disappear through a door marked, ENGINE ROOM.
Shano paused uncertainly at the end of the passageway. A thick cluster of vertical pipes filled the corner. He peered at the pipes and saw a gray box snuggled behind them. It had two toggle switches and a radium dial that quivered delicately.
Shano scratched his scalp as boots pounded on the decks, above and below. He listened attentively to the ship's familiar noises diminishing one by one. And finally even the pounding of feet died out; everything became still. The silence shrieked in his ears.
The ship coasted. Shano could sense it coasting. He couldn't feel it or hear it, but he knew it was sliding ghost-like through space like a submarine dead under water, slipping quietly past a listening enemy.
The ship's speaker rasped softly. " Emergency. Battle posts. "
The captain's voice. Calm, brief. It sent a tremor through Shano's body. He heard a quick scuffle of feet again, running feet, directly overhead, and the captain's voice, more urgently, "Power on. They've heard us."
The words carried no accusation, but Shano realized what they meant. A slip-up. Something left running. Vibrations picked up quickly by detectors of the Uranian space fleet.
Shano coughed and heard the ship come to life around him. He pulled himself out of the spasm, cursing Pluto. Cursing his diseased, gum-clogged lungs. Cursing the Uranian fleet that was trying to prevent his going home—even to die.
This was a strange battle. Strange indeed. It was mostly silence.
Occasionally, as though from another world, came a brief, curt order.
"Port guns alert." Then hush and tension.
The deck lurched and the ship swung this way and that. Maybe dodging, maybe maneuvering—Shano didn't know. He felt the deck lurch, that was all.
"Fire number seven."
He heard the weird scream of a ray gun, and felt the constricting terror that seemed to belt the ship like an iron band.
This was a battle in space, and out there were Uranian cruisers trying to blast the Stardust out of the sky. Trying and trying, while the captain dodged and fired back—pitted his skill and knowledge against an enemy Shano couldn't see.
He wanted desperately to help the captain break through, and get to Earth. But he could only cling to the plastic pipes and cough.
The ship jounced and slid beneath his feet, and was filled with sound. It rocked and rolled. Shano caromed off the bulkhead.
"Hold fire."
He crawled to his knees on the slippery deck, grabbed the pipes and pulled himself erect, hand over hand. His eyes came level with the gray metal box behind the pipes. He squinted, fascinated, at the quivering dial needle. "Hey!" he said.
"Stand by."
Shano puzzled it out, his mind groping. He wasn't used to thinking. Only working with his hands.
This box. This needle that had quivered when the ship was closed down....
"It's over. Chased them off. Ready guns before laying to. Third watch on duty."
Shano sighed at the sudden release of tension throughout the space liner Stardust .
Smoke spewed from his nostrils. His forehead wrinkled with concentration. Those rumors: "Man sells out to Uranus, gets a nick cut in his jaw. Ever see a man with a nick in his jaw? Watch him, he's up to something." The talk of ignorant men. Shano remembered.
He poked behind the pipes and angrily slapped the toggle switches on the box. The captain would only scoff. He'd never believe there was a traitor aboard who had planted an electronic signal box, giving away the ship's position. He'd never believe the babblings of an old man.
He straightened up, glaring angrily. He knew. And the knowledge made him cold and furious. He watched the engine room emergency exit as it opened cautiously.
A chunky man backed out, holstering a flat blaster. He turned and saw Shano, standing smoking. He walked over and nudged Shano, his face dark. Shano blew smoke into the dark face.
"Old man," said Rourke. "What're you doing down here?"
Shano blinked.
Rourke fingered the nick in his jaw, eyes glinting. "You're supposed to be in your cabin," he said. "Didn't I warn you we'd run into trouble?"
Shano smoked and contemplated the chunky man. Estimated his strength and youth and felt the anger and frustration mount in him. "Devil," he said.
"Devil," he said and dug his cigarette into the other's face.
He lunged then, clawing. He dug the cigarette into Rourke's flushed face, and clung to his body. Rourke howled. He fell backward to the deck, slapping at his blistered face. He thrashed around and Shano clung to him, battered, pressing the cigarette relentlessly, coughing, cursing the pain in his joints.
Shano grasped Rourke's neck with his hands. He twisted the neck with his gnarled hands. Strong hands that had worked.
He got up when Rourke stopped thrashing. The face was purple and he was dead. Shano shivered. He crouched in the passageway shivering and coughing.
A tremendous grinding sounded amid-ships. Loud rending noises of protesting metal. The ship bucked like a hooked fish. Then it was still. An empty clank echoed through the hull. The captain's voice came, almost yelling. "Emergency! Emergency! Back to your posts. Engine room—report! Engine room—"
Shano picked himself off the deck, his mind muddled. He coughed and put a cigarette to his lips, flicking a lighter disk jerkily from his pocket. He blew smoke from his nostrils and heard the renewed pounding of feet. What was going on now?
"Engine room! Your screen is dead! Switch onto loud-speaker system. Engine room!"
Giddily, Shano heard clicks and rasps and then a thick voice, atom motors whirring in the background.
"Selector's gone, sir. Direct hit. Heat ray through the deck plates. We've sealed the tear. Might repair selector in five hours."
Shano coughed and sent a burst of smoke from his mouth.
"Captain!" A rasping, grating sound ensued from a grill above Shano's head, then a disconnected voice. "Get the men out of there. It's useless. Hurry it up!" A series of clicks and the heavy voice of the chief engineer. "Captain! Somebody's smashed the selector chamber. Engine room's full of toxia gas!"
Shano jumped. He prodded the body on the deck with his toe.
The Stardust's mechanical voice bellowed: "Engine room!" It reproduced the captain's heavy breathing and his tired voice. "We're about midway to Venus," it said. "There were two ships and we drove them off. But there may be others. They'll be coming back. They know we've been hit. We have to get away fast!"
Shano could see the captain in his mind, worried, squared face slick with moisture. Shouting into a control room mike. Trying to find out what the matter was with his space ship.
The engineer's answer came from the grill. "Impossible, sir. Engine room full of toxia gas. Not a suit aboard prepared to withstand it. And we have to keep it in there. Selector filaments won't function without the gas. Our only chance was to put a man in the engine room to repair the broken selector valve rods or keep them running by hand."
"Blast it!" roared the captain. "No way of getting in there? Can't you by-pass the selector?"
"No. It's the heart of the new cosmic drive, sir. The fuels must pass through selector valves before entering the tube chambers. Filaments will operate so long as toxia gas is there to burn, and will keep trying to open the valves and compensate for fluctuating engine temperature. But the rod pins have melted down, sir—they're common tungsten steel—and when the rods pull a valve open, they slip off and drop down, useless. It's a mess. If we could only get a man in there he might lift up the dropped end of a rod and slip it into place each time it fell, and keep the valves working and feeding fuel."
The speaker spluttered and Shano smoked thoughtfully, listening to the talk back and forth, between the captain and the engineer. He didn't understand it, but knew that everything was ended. They were broken down in space and would never make Earth. Those Uranian devils would come streaking back. Catch them floating, helpless, and blast them to bits. And he would never get home to die.
Shano coughed, and cursed his lungs. Time was when these gum-clogged lungs had saved his life. In the Plutonian mines. Gas explosions in the tunnels. Toxia gas, seeping in, burning the men's insides. But with gum-clogged lungs he'd been able to work himself clear. Just getting sick where other men had died, their insides burned out.
Shano smoked and thought.
They wouldn't even know, he told himself, squirming through the emergency exit into the engine room, and sealing it after him. And they wouldn't understand if they did. Pink mist swirled about him. Toxia gas. Shano coughed.
He squinted around at the massive, incomprehensible machinery. The guts of the space ship.
Then he saw the shattered, gold-gleaming cylinder, gas hissing from a fine nozzle, and filaments glowing bluish inside it, still working away. He saw five heavy Carrsteel rods hanging useless, on melted-down pins, and the slots their pronged ends hooked into. He looked at his hands, and shook his head.
"One try," he said to himself. "One try, Shano. One important thing in your life. Here's your opportunity. The toxia gas will get you. It'll kill you at this concentration. But you'll last for maybe twelve hours. Another man wouldn't last a minute. Another man's lungs aren't clogged with Juno gum."
He grasped a rod and lifted it, sweating under the weight, and slipped the forked end into its slot. Going home to die, he thought. Well, maybe not going home. Couldn't remember what Earth looked like anyway.
What was that again? Oh yeah—just lift them up, and when they drop off, lift them up again.
Shano coughed, and lifted the heavy rods into position. One jerked back suddenly and smoothly, and something went, "Pop, pop," behind him and machinery whirred. He lifted the rod and slipped it back on. Another jerked, pulled open a large valve, and dropped off. Shano bent, and lifted, coughing and coughing. He forgot what he was doing, mind blank the way it went when he worked. Just rhythmically fell into the job, the way a laborer does. He waited for a rod to slip and fall, then lifted it up and slipped it in place, skin sweating, joints shooting pain along his limbs. He heard the machinery working. He heard the high, howling whine of cosmic jets. He, Shano, was making the machinery go. He was running the cosmic drive.
A bell clanged somewhere. "Engine room! Engine room! We're under way! What happened?"
Silence, while Shano coughed and made the machinery go, thinking about the Earth he hadn't seen for many years.
"Captain!" the speaker bawled. "There's a man in there! Working the valve rods! Somebody is in the engine room and the gas isn't...."
Shano grinned, feeling good. Feeling happy. Lifting the heavy steel rods, driving the ship. Keeping the jets screaming and hurtling the liner Stardust toward Venus. He wondered if they'd found Rourke yet. If he could keep going for twelve hours they would get to Venus. After that....
"Home," he coughed. "Hell! Who wants to go home?"
He plucked at his agitated chest, thinking of a whole damn Uranian fleet swooping down on a spot in space, expecting to find a crippled ship there with a spy inside it. And finding nothing. Because of Shano. A useless old man.
Coughing came out all mixed up with laughing.
Question:
What equipment is employed throughout the story?
Answer:
|
[
"One of the main pieces of equipment used on the Stardust liner is a loudspeaker. The primary role of the speaker is to give out instructions to the crew on the ship and makes any important announcements. The men also use phosphorescent bulbs as a light source to navigate their surroundings when the liner goes into total shutdown. Crew members also carry around a blaster for protection, most likely if there is ever a need for self-defense. There is also usage of a ray gun to fight back against the Uranian fleets. To ensure survival, emergency oxygen pipes are used to maintain atmosphere. Shano also carries a pack of cigarettes that do not seem important but later become essential to the story.",
"The ship is locked with multiple air locks. There is a panel of studs in the control room. The pilot is in earphones. A loud-speaker gives orders. Machinery is stopped and lights are out when ship is hiding from the enemy. For such cases there are emergency oxygen cylinders. Some men have blasters. There were port guns and ray guns and the battle was almost silent. Pipes are all around. There is a screen and a selector in the engine room which keep the ship going. Toxia gas is needed to make the selector work but people can't handle it. There is massive machinery and a shattered gold-gleaming cylinder in the engine room which make the whole ship move. Heavy rods are there which need to be lifted.",
"Firstly, Shano is wearing polarized goggles, but it is unclear what it is used for. Secondly, there is a gray box next to the pipes at the corner of the passageway, which is used to attract the Uranians detection since its dial needle keeps quivering when everything else went silence. It’s assumed by Shano that this device was planted by the spy of the Uranians. When Shano fights with Rourke, he first uses his cigarette to dug into Rourke’s face and uses his hand to grasp Rouke’s neck, which makes his face turn purple and choked to death. When Shano is fixing the rod, he simply uses his bare hand whenever the rods fall. ",
"There is various equipment employed throughout the story. Phosphorescent bulbs are used when the ship goes dark to light the passageways. A grey box with two switches and a radium dial is used. It is an electric signal box to give away the ship's position. An intercom is employed so the captain can speak to the crew. There are port guns used in battle. Atom motors are employed to keep the ship running. Shano uses the selector valve rods to keep the ship running. \n"
] |
63860
|
SIGNAL RED
By HENRY GUTH
They tried to stop him. Earth Flight 21 was a suicide run, a coffin ship, they told him. Uranian death lay athwart the space lanes. But Shano already knew this was his last ride.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1949. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Mercurian night settled black and thick over the Q City Spaceport. Tentative fingers of light flicked and probed the sky, and winked out.
"Here she comes," somebody in the line ahead said.
Shano coughed, his whole skeletal body jerking. Arthritic joints sent flashes of pain along his limbs. Here she comes, he thought, feeling neither glad nor sad.
He coughed and slipped polarized goggles over his eyes.
The spaceport emerged bathed in infra red. Hangars, cradles, freighter catapults and long runways stood out in sharp, diamond-clear detail. High up, beyond the cone of illumination, a detached triple row of bright specks—portholes of the liner Stardust —sank slowly down.
There was no eagerness in him. Only a tiredness. A relief. Relief from a lifetime of beating around the planets. A life of digging, lifting, lugging and pounding. Like a work-worn Martian camel, he was going home to die.
As though on oiled pistons the ship sank into the light, its long shark-like hull glowing soft and silvery, and settled with a feathery snuggle into the cradle's ribs.
The passenger line quivered as a loud-speaker boomed:
" Stardust, now arrived at Cradle Six! Stardust, Cradle Six! All passengers for Venus and Earth prepare to board in ten minutes. "
Shano coughed, and wiped phlegm from his thin lips, his hand following around the bony contours of his face, feeling the hollows and the beard stubble and loose skin of his neck. He coughed and thought of the vanium mines of Pluto, and his gum-clogged lungs. A vague, pressing desire for home overwhelmed him. It had been so long.
" Attention! Attention, Stardust passengers! The signal is red. The signal is red. Refunds now being made. Refunds now. Take-off in five minutes. "
The man ahead swore and flicked up an arm. "Red," he groaned. "By the infinite galaxies, this is the last straw!" He charged away, knocking Shano aside as he passed.
Red signal. In bewildered anxiety Shano lifted the goggles from his eyes and stared into the sudden blackness. The red signal. Danger out there. Passengers advised to ground themselves, or travel at their own risk.
He felt the passengers bump and fumble past him, grumbling vexatiously.
A hot dread assailed him, and he coughed, plucking at his chest. Plucking at an urgency there.
Dropping the goggles to his rheumy eyes, he saw that the passenger line had dissolved. He moved, shuffling, to the gate, thrust his ticket into the scanner slot, and pushed through the turnstile when it clicked.
" Flight twenty-one, now arriving from Venus ," the loud-speaker said monotonously. Shano glanced briefly upward and saw the gleaming belly of twenty-one sinking into the spaceport cone of light.
He clawed his way up the gangway and thrust out his ticket to the lieutenant standing alone at the air lock. The lieutenant, a sullen, chunky man with a queer nick in his jawbone, refused the ticket.
"Haven't you heard, mister? Red signal. Go on back."
Shano coughed, and peered through the lenses of his goggles. "Please," he said. "Want to go home. I've a right." The nicked jaw stirred faint memories within his glazed mind.
The lieutenant punched his ticket. "It's your funeral, old man."
The loud-speaker blared. " Stardust, taking off in thirty seconds. The signal is red. Stardust, taking— "
With the words dinning in his ears, Shano stepped into the air lock. The officer followed, spun wheels, and the lock closed. The outside was shut off.
Lifting goggles they entered the hull, through a series of two more locks, closing each behind them.
"We're afloat," the officer said. "We've taken off." A fleck of light danced far back in his eye. Shano felt the pressure of acceleration gradually increasing, increasing, and hurried in.
Captain Menthlo, a silver-mustached Jupiterian, broad, huge, yet crushable as a beetle, talked while his hands manipulated a panel of studs in the control room. The pilot, his back encased in leather, sat in a bucket seat before him, listening into earphones.
"Surprised to learn of a passenger aboard," the captain said, glancing briefly sideways. "You're entitled to know of the danger ahead." He flicked a final stud, spoke to the pilot and at last turned a serious, squared face to Shano. "Old man," he said. "There's a Uranian fleet out there. We don't know how many ships in this sector. Flight twenty-one, which just landed, had a skirmish with one, and got away. We may not be so lucky. You know how these Uranian devils are."
Shano coughed, and wiped his mouth. "Dirty devils," he said. "I was driv' off the planet once, before this war started. I know things about them Uranian devils. Heard them in the mines around. Hears things, a laborer does."
The captain seemed for the first time to realize the social status of his lone passenger, and he became a little gruff.
"Want you to sign this waiver, saying you're traveling at your own risk. We'll expect you to keep to your cabin as much as possible. When the trouble comes we can't bother with a passenger. In a few hours we'll shut down the ship entirely, and every mechanical device aboard, to try to avoid detection." His mustaches rose like two spears from each side of his squared nose as his face changed to an alert watchfulness. "Going home, eh?" he said. "You've knocked around some, by the looks of you. Pluto, from the sound of that cough."
Shano scrawled his signature on the waiver. "Yeah," he said. "Pluto. Where a man's lungs fights gas." He blinked watery eyes. "Captain, what's a notched jaw mean to you?"
"Well, old man," the captain grasped Shano's shoulder and turned him around. "It means somebody cut himself, shaving. You stick tight to your cabin." He nodded curtly and indicated the door.
Descending the companionway to the next deck Shano observed the nick-jawed lieutenant staring out the viewport, apparently idling. The man turned and gripped Shano's thin arm.
"A light?" he said, tapping a cigarette. Shano produced a lighter disk and the chunky man puffed. He was an Earthman and his jaw seemed cut with a knife, notched like a piece of wood. Across the breast of his tunic was a purple band, with the name Rourke . "Why are you so anxious to get aboard, old man?" He searched Shano's face. "There's trouble ahead, you know."
Shano coughed, wracking his body, as forgotten memories stirred sluggishly in his mind. "Yup," he said, and jerked free and stumbled down the steel deck.
In his cabin he lay on the bunk, lighted a cigarette and smoked, coughing and staring at the rivet-studded bulkhead. The slow movement of his mind resolved into a struggle, one idea groping for the other.
What were the things he'd heard about nicked jaws? And where had he heard them? Digging ore on Pluto; talk in the pits? Secretive suspicions voiced in smoke-laden saloons of Mars? In the labor gangs of Uranus? Where? Shano smoked and didn't know. But he knew there was a rumor, and that it was the talk of ignorant men. The captain had evaded it. Shano smoked and coughed and stared at the steel bulkhead and waited.
The ship's alarm clanged. Shano jerked from his bunk like a broken watch spring. He crouched, trembling, on arthritic joints, as a loud-speaker blared throughout the ship.
" All hands! We now maintain dead silence. Close down and stop all machinery. Power off and lights out. An enemy fleet is out there, listening and watching for mechanical and electronic disturbance. Atmosphere will be maintained from emergency oxygen cylinders. Stop pumps. "
Shano crouched and listened as the ship's steady drone ceased and the vibrations ceased. The pumps stopped, the lights went out.
Pressing the cold steel bulkhead, Shano heard oxygen hiss through the pipes. Hiss and hiss and then flow soundlessly, filling the cabin and his lungs. He choked.
The cabin was like a mine shaft, dark and cold. Feet pounded on the deck outside.
Shano clawed open the door. He peered out anxiously.
Cold blobs of light, phosphorescent bulbs held in the fists of men, glimmered by. Phosphorescent bulbs, because the power was off. Shano blinked. He saw officers and men, their faces tight and pinched, hurrying in all directions. Hurrying to shut down the ship.
He acted impulsively. A young ensign strode by, drawn blaster in hand. Shano followed him; followed the bluish glow of his bulb, through labyrinthine passages and down a companionway, coughing and leering against the pain in his joints. The blue light winked out in the distance and Shano stopped.
He was suddenly alarmed. The captain had warned him to stay in his cabin. He looked back and forth, wondering how to return.
A bell clanged.
Shano saw a cold bulb glowing down the passageway, and he shuffled hopefully toward it. The bulb moved away. He saw an indistinct figure disappear through a door marked, ENGINE ROOM.
Shano paused uncertainly at the end of the passageway. A thick cluster of vertical pipes filled the corner. He peered at the pipes and saw a gray box snuggled behind them. It had two toggle switches and a radium dial that quivered delicately.
Shano scratched his scalp as boots pounded on the decks, above and below. He listened attentively to the ship's familiar noises diminishing one by one. And finally even the pounding of feet died out; everything became still. The silence shrieked in his ears.
The ship coasted. Shano could sense it coasting. He couldn't feel it or hear it, but he knew it was sliding ghost-like through space like a submarine dead under water, slipping quietly past a listening enemy.
The ship's speaker rasped softly. " Emergency. Battle posts. "
The captain's voice. Calm, brief. It sent a tremor through Shano's body. He heard a quick scuffle of feet again, running feet, directly overhead, and the captain's voice, more urgently, "Power on. They've heard us."
The words carried no accusation, but Shano realized what they meant. A slip-up. Something left running. Vibrations picked up quickly by detectors of the Uranian space fleet.
Shano coughed and heard the ship come to life around him. He pulled himself out of the spasm, cursing Pluto. Cursing his diseased, gum-clogged lungs. Cursing the Uranian fleet that was trying to prevent his going home—even to die.
This was a strange battle. Strange indeed. It was mostly silence.
Occasionally, as though from another world, came a brief, curt order.
"Port guns alert." Then hush and tension.
The deck lurched and the ship swung this way and that. Maybe dodging, maybe maneuvering—Shano didn't know. He felt the deck lurch, that was all.
"Fire number seven."
He heard the weird scream of a ray gun, and felt the constricting terror that seemed to belt the ship like an iron band.
This was a battle in space, and out there were Uranian cruisers trying to blast the Stardust out of the sky. Trying and trying, while the captain dodged and fired back—pitted his skill and knowledge against an enemy Shano couldn't see.
He wanted desperately to help the captain break through, and get to Earth. But he could only cling to the plastic pipes and cough.
The ship jounced and slid beneath his feet, and was filled with sound. It rocked and rolled. Shano caromed off the bulkhead.
"Hold fire."
He crawled to his knees on the slippery deck, grabbed the pipes and pulled himself erect, hand over hand. His eyes came level with the gray metal box behind the pipes. He squinted, fascinated, at the quivering dial needle. "Hey!" he said.
"Stand by."
Shano puzzled it out, his mind groping. He wasn't used to thinking. Only working with his hands.
This box. This needle that had quivered when the ship was closed down....
"It's over. Chased them off. Ready guns before laying to. Third watch on duty."
Shano sighed at the sudden release of tension throughout the space liner Stardust .
Smoke spewed from his nostrils. His forehead wrinkled with concentration. Those rumors: "Man sells out to Uranus, gets a nick cut in his jaw. Ever see a man with a nick in his jaw? Watch him, he's up to something." The talk of ignorant men. Shano remembered.
He poked behind the pipes and angrily slapped the toggle switches on the box. The captain would only scoff. He'd never believe there was a traitor aboard who had planted an electronic signal box, giving away the ship's position. He'd never believe the babblings of an old man.
He straightened up, glaring angrily. He knew. And the knowledge made him cold and furious. He watched the engine room emergency exit as it opened cautiously.
A chunky man backed out, holstering a flat blaster. He turned and saw Shano, standing smoking. He walked over and nudged Shano, his face dark. Shano blew smoke into the dark face.
"Old man," said Rourke. "What're you doing down here?"
Shano blinked.
Rourke fingered the nick in his jaw, eyes glinting. "You're supposed to be in your cabin," he said. "Didn't I warn you we'd run into trouble?"
Shano smoked and contemplated the chunky man. Estimated his strength and youth and felt the anger and frustration mount in him. "Devil," he said.
"Devil," he said and dug his cigarette into the other's face.
He lunged then, clawing. He dug the cigarette into Rourke's flushed face, and clung to his body. Rourke howled. He fell backward to the deck, slapping at his blistered face. He thrashed around and Shano clung to him, battered, pressing the cigarette relentlessly, coughing, cursing the pain in his joints.
Shano grasped Rourke's neck with his hands. He twisted the neck with his gnarled hands. Strong hands that had worked.
He got up when Rourke stopped thrashing. The face was purple and he was dead. Shano shivered. He crouched in the passageway shivering and coughing.
A tremendous grinding sounded amid-ships. Loud rending noises of protesting metal. The ship bucked like a hooked fish. Then it was still. An empty clank echoed through the hull. The captain's voice came, almost yelling. "Emergency! Emergency! Back to your posts. Engine room—report! Engine room—"
Shano picked himself off the deck, his mind muddled. He coughed and put a cigarette to his lips, flicking a lighter disk jerkily from his pocket. He blew smoke from his nostrils and heard the renewed pounding of feet. What was going on now?
"Engine room! Your screen is dead! Switch onto loud-speaker system. Engine room!"
Giddily, Shano heard clicks and rasps and then a thick voice, atom motors whirring in the background.
"Selector's gone, sir. Direct hit. Heat ray through the deck plates. We've sealed the tear. Might repair selector in five hours."
Shano coughed and sent a burst of smoke from his mouth.
"Captain!" A rasping, grating sound ensued from a grill above Shano's head, then a disconnected voice. "Get the men out of there. It's useless. Hurry it up!" A series of clicks and the heavy voice of the chief engineer. "Captain! Somebody's smashed the selector chamber. Engine room's full of toxia gas!"
Shano jumped. He prodded the body on the deck with his toe.
The Stardust's mechanical voice bellowed: "Engine room!" It reproduced the captain's heavy breathing and his tired voice. "We're about midway to Venus," it said. "There were two ships and we drove them off. But there may be others. They'll be coming back. They know we've been hit. We have to get away fast!"
Shano could see the captain in his mind, worried, squared face slick with moisture. Shouting into a control room mike. Trying to find out what the matter was with his space ship.
The engineer's answer came from the grill. "Impossible, sir. Engine room full of toxia gas. Not a suit aboard prepared to withstand it. And we have to keep it in there. Selector filaments won't function without the gas. Our only chance was to put a man in the engine room to repair the broken selector valve rods or keep them running by hand."
"Blast it!" roared the captain. "No way of getting in there? Can't you by-pass the selector?"
"No. It's the heart of the new cosmic drive, sir. The fuels must pass through selector valves before entering the tube chambers. Filaments will operate so long as toxia gas is there to burn, and will keep trying to open the valves and compensate for fluctuating engine temperature. But the rod pins have melted down, sir—they're common tungsten steel—and when the rods pull a valve open, they slip off and drop down, useless. It's a mess. If we could only get a man in there he might lift up the dropped end of a rod and slip it into place each time it fell, and keep the valves working and feeding fuel."
The speaker spluttered and Shano smoked thoughtfully, listening to the talk back and forth, between the captain and the engineer. He didn't understand it, but knew that everything was ended. They were broken down in space and would never make Earth. Those Uranian devils would come streaking back. Catch them floating, helpless, and blast them to bits. And he would never get home to die.
Shano coughed, and cursed his lungs. Time was when these gum-clogged lungs had saved his life. In the Plutonian mines. Gas explosions in the tunnels. Toxia gas, seeping in, burning the men's insides. But with gum-clogged lungs he'd been able to work himself clear. Just getting sick where other men had died, their insides burned out.
Shano smoked and thought.
They wouldn't even know, he told himself, squirming through the emergency exit into the engine room, and sealing it after him. And they wouldn't understand if they did. Pink mist swirled about him. Toxia gas. Shano coughed.
He squinted around at the massive, incomprehensible machinery. The guts of the space ship.
Then he saw the shattered, gold-gleaming cylinder, gas hissing from a fine nozzle, and filaments glowing bluish inside it, still working away. He saw five heavy Carrsteel rods hanging useless, on melted-down pins, and the slots their pronged ends hooked into. He looked at his hands, and shook his head.
"One try," he said to himself. "One try, Shano. One important thing in your life. Here's your opportunity. The toxia gas will get you. It'll kill you at this concentration. But you'll last for maybe twelve hours. Another man wouldn't last a minute. Another man's lungs aren't clogged with Juno gum."
He grasped a rod and lifted it, sweating under the weight, and slipped the forked end into its slot. Going home to die, he thought. Well, maybe not going home. Couldn't remember what Earth looked like anyway.
What was that again? Oh yeah—just lift them up, and when they drop off, lift them up again.
Shano coughed, and lifted the heavy rods into position. One jerked back suddenly and smoothly, and something went, "Pop, pop," behind him and machinery whirred. He lifted the rod and slipped it back on. Another jerked, pulled open a large valve, and dropped off. Shano bent, and lifted, coughing and coughing. He forgot what he was doing, mind blank the way it went when he worked. Just rhythmically fell into the job, the way a laborer does. He waited for a rod to slip and fall, then lifted it up and slipped it in place, skin sweating, joints shooting pain along his limbs. He heard the machinery working. He heard the high, howling whine of cosmic jets. He, Shano, was making the machinery go. He was running the cosmic drive.
A bell clanged somewhere. "Engine room! Engine room! We're under way! What happened?"
Silence, while Shano coughed and made the machinery go, thinking about the Earth he hadn't seen for many years.
"Captain!" the speaker bawled. "There's a man in there! Working the valve rods! Somebody is in the engine room and the gas isn't...."
Shano grinned, feeling good. Feeling happy. Lifting the heavy steel rods, driving the ship. Keeping the jets screaming and hurtling the liner Stardust toward Venus. He wondered if they'd found Rourke yet. If he could keep going for twelve hours they would get to Venus. After that....
"Home," he coughed. "Hell! Who wants to go home?"
He plucked at his agitated chest, thinking of a whole damn Uranian fleet swooping down on a spot in space, expecting to find a crippled ship there with a spy inside it. And finding nothing. Because of Shano. A useless old man.
Coughing came out all mixed up with laughing.
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What is the setting of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Hanging Stranger by Philip K. Dick.
Relevant chunks:
THE HANGING STRANGER
BY PHILIP K. DICK
ILLUSTRATED BY SMITH
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Science Fiction Adventures Magazine December 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Ed had always been a practical man, when he saw something was wrong he tried to correct it. Then one day he saw
it
hanging in the town square.
Five o'clock Ed Loyce washed up, tossed on his hat and coat, got his car out and headed across town toward his TV sales store. He was tired. His back and shoulders ached from digging dirt out of the basement and wheeling it into the back yard. But for a forty-year-old man he had done okay. Janet could get a new vase with the money he had saved; and he liked the idea of repairing the foundations himself!
It was getting dark. The setting sun cast long rays over the scurrying commuters, tired and grim-faced, women loaded down with bundles and packages, students swarming home from the university, mixing with clerks and businessmen and drab secretaries. He stopped his Packard for a red light and then started it up again. The store had been open without him; he'd arrive just in time to spell the help for dinner, go over the records of the day, maybe even close a couple of sales himself. He drove slowly past the small square of green in the center of the street, the town park. There were no parking places in front of LOYCE TV SALES AND SERVICE. He cursed under his breath and swung the car in a U-turn. Again he passed the little square of green with its lonely drinking fountain and bench and single lamppost.
From the lamppost something was hanging. A shapeless dark bundle, swinging a little with the wind. Like a dummy of some sort. Loyce rolled down his window and peered out. What the hell was it? A display of some kind? Sometimes the Chamber of Commerce put up displays in the square.
Again he made a U-turn and brought his car around. He passed the park and concentrated on the dark bundle. It wasn't a dummy. And if it was a display it was a strange kind. The hackles on his neck rose and he swallowed uneasily. Sweat slid out on his face and hands.
It was a body. A human body.
"Look at it!" Loyce snapped. "Come on out here!"
Don Fergusson came slowly out of the store, buttoning his pin-stripe coat with dignity. "This is a big deal, Ed. I can't just leave the guy standing there."
"See it?" Ed pointed into the gathering gloom. The lamppost jutted up against the sky—the post and the bundle swinging from it. "There it is. How the hell long has it been there?" His voice rose excitedly. "What's wrong with everybody? They just walk on past!"
Don Fergusson lit a cigarette slowly. "Take it easy, old man. There must be a good reason, or it wouldn't be there."
"A reason! What kind of a reason?"
Fergusson shrugged. "Like the time the Traffic Safety Council put that wrecked Buick there. Some sort of civic thing. How would I know?"
Jack Potter from the shoe shop joined them. "What's up, boys?"
"There's a body hanging from the lamppost," Loyce said. "I'm going to call the cops."
"They must know about it," Potter said. "Or otherwise it wouldn't be there."
"I got to get back in." Fergusson headed back into the store. "Business before pleasure."
Loyce began to get hysterical. "You see it? You see it hanging there? A man's body! A dead man!"
"Sure, Ed. I saw it this afternoon when I went out for coffee."
"You mean it's been there all afternoon?"
"Sure. What's the matter?" Potter glanced at his watch. "Have to run. See you later, Ed."
Potter hurried off, joining the flow of people moving along the sidewalk. Men and women, passing by the park. A few glanced up curiously at the dark bundle—and then went on. Nobody stopped. Nobody paid any attention.
"I'm going nuts," Loyce whispered. He made his way to the curb and crossed out into traffic, among the cars. Horns honked angrily at him. He gained the curb and stepped up onto the little square of green.
The man had been middle-aged. His clothing was ripped and torn, a gray suit, splashed and caked with dried mud. A stranger. Loyce had never seen him before. Not a local man. His face was partly turned, away, and in the evening wind he spun a little, turning gently, silently. His skin was gouged and cut. Red gashes, deep scratches of congealed blood. A pair of steel-rimmed glasses hung from one ear, dangling foolishly. His eyes bulged. His mouth was open, tongue thick and ugly blue.
"For Heaven's sake," Loyce muttered, sickened. He pushed down his nausea and made his way back to the sidewalk. He was shaking all over, with revulsion—and fear.
Why? Who was the man? Why was he hanging there? What did it mean?
And—why didn't anybody notice?
He bumped into a small man hurrying along the sidewalk. "Watch it!" the man grated, "Oh, it's you, Ed."
Ed nodded dazedly. "Hello, Jenkins."
"What's the matter?" The stationery clerk caught Ed's arm. "You look sick."
"The body. There in the park."
"Sure, Ed." Jenkins led him into the alcove of LOYCE TV SALES AND SERVICE. "Take it easy."
Margaret Henderson from the jewelry store joined them. "Something wrong?"
"Ed's not feeling well."
Loyce yanked himself free. "How can you stand here? Don't you see it? For God's sake—"
"What's he talking about?" Margaret asked nervously.
"The body!" Ed shouted. "The body hanging there!"
More people collected. "Is he sick? It's Ed Loyce. You okay, Ed?"
"The body!" Loyce screamed, struggling to get past them. Hands caught at him. He tore loose. "Let me go! The police! Get the police!"
"Ed—"
"Better get a doctor!"
"He must be sick."
"Or drunk."
Loyce fought his way through the people. He stumbled and half fell. Through a blur he saw rows of faces, curious, concerned, anxious. Men and women halting to see what the disturbance was. He fought past them toward his store. He could see Fergusson inside talking to a man, showing him an Emerson TV set. Pete Foley in the back at the service counter, setting up a new Philco. Loyce shouted at them frantically. His voice was lost in the roar of traffic and the murmur around him.
"Do something!" he screamed. "Don't stand there! Do something! Something's wrong! Something's happened! Things are going on!"
The crowd melted respectfully for the two heavy-set cops moving efficiently toward Loyce.
"Name?" the cop with the notebook murmured.
"Loyce." He mopped his forehead wearily. "Edward C. Loyce. Listen to me. Back there—"
"Address?" the cop demanded. The police car moved swiftly through traffic, shooting among the cars and buses. Loyce sagged against the seat, exhausted and confused. He took a deep shuddering breath.
"1368 Hurst Road."
"That's here in Pikeville?"
"That's right." Loyce pulled himself up with a violent effort. "Listen to me. Back there. In the square. Hanging from the lamppost—"
"Where were you today?" the cop behind the wheel demanded.
"Where?" Loyce echoed.
"You weren't in your shop, were you?"
"No." He shook his head. "No, I was home. Down in the basement."
"In the basement ?"
"Digging. A new foundation. Getting out the dirt to pour a cement frame. Why? What has that to do with—"
"Was anybody else down there with you?"
"No. My wife was downtown. My kids were at school." Loyce looked from one heavy-set cop to the other. Hope flicked across his face, wild hope.
"You mean because I was down there I missed—the explanation? I didn't get in on it? Like everybody else?"
After a pause the cop with the notebook said: "That's right. You missed the explanation."
"Then it's official? The body—it's supposed to be hanging there?"
"It's supposed to be hanging there. For everybody to see."
Ed Loyce grinned weakly. "Good Lord. I guess I sort of went off the deep end. I thought maybe something had happened. You know, something like the Ku Klux Klan. Some kind of violence. Communists or Fascists taking over." He wiped his face with his breast-pocket handkerchief, his hands shaking. "I'm glad to know it's on the level."
"It's on the level." The police car was getting near the Hall of Justice. The sun had set. The streets were gloomy and dark. The lights had not yet come on.
"I feel better," Loyce said. "I was pretty excited there, for a minute. I guess I got all stirred up. Now that I understand, there's no need to take me in, is there?"
The two cops said nothing.
"I should be back at my store. The boys haven't had dinner. I'm all right, now. No more trouble. Is there any need of—"
"This won't take long," the cop behind the wheel interrupted. "A short process. Only a few minutes."
"I hope it's short," Loyce muttered. The car slowed down for a stoplight. "I guess I sort of disturbed the peace. Funny, getting excited like that and—"
Loyce yanked the door open. He sprawled out into the street and rolled to his feet. Cars were moving all around him, gaining speed as the light changed. Loyce leaped onto the curb and raced among the people, burrowing into the swarming crowds. Behind him he heard sounds, shouts, people running.
They weren't cops. He had realized that right away. He knew every cop in Pikeville. A man couldn't own a store, operate a business in a small town for twenty-five years without getting to know all the cops.
They weren't cops—and there hadn't been any explanation. Potter, Fergusson, Jenkins, none of them knew why it was there. They didn't know—and they didn't care. That was the strange part.
Loyce ducked into a hardware store. He raced toward the back, past the startled clerks and customers, into the shipping room and through the back door. He tripped over a garbage can and ran up a flight of concrete steps. He climbed over a fence and jumped down on the other side, gasping and panting.
There was no sound behind him. He had got away.
He was at the entrance of an alley, dark and strewn with boards and ruined boxes and tires. He could see the street at the far end. A street light wavered and came on. Men and women. Stores. Neon signs. Cars.
And to his right—the police station.
He was close, terribly close. Past the loading platform of a grocery store rose the white concrete side of the Hall of Justice. Barred windows. The police antenna. A great concrete wall rising up in the darkness. A bad place for him to be near. He was too close. He had to keep moving, get farther away from them.
Them?
Loyce moved cautiously down the alley. Beyond the police station was the City Hall, the old-fashioned yellow structure of wood and gilded brass and broad cement steps. He could see the endless rows of offices, dark windows, the cedars and beds of flowers on each side of the entrance.
And—something else.
Above the City Hall was a patch of darkness, a cone of gloom denser than the surrounding night. A prism of black that spread out and was lost into the sky.
He listened. Good God, he could hear something. Something that made him struggle frantically to close his ears, his mind, to shut out the sound. A buzzing. A distant, muted hum like a great swarm of bees.
Loyce gazed up, rigid with horror. The splotch of darkness, hanging over the City Hall. Darkness so thick it seemed almost solid. In the vortex something moved. Flickering shapes. Things, descending from the sky, pausing momentarily above the City Hall, fluttering over it in a dense swarm and then dropping silently onto the roof.
Shapes. Fluttering shapes from the sky. From the crack of darkness that hung above him.
He was seeing—them.
For a long time Loyce watched, crouched behind a sagging fence in a pool of scummy water.
They were landing. Coming down in groups, landing on the roof of the City Hall and disappearing inside. They had wings. Like giant insects of some kind. They flew and fluttered and came to rest—and then crawled crab-fashion, sideways, across the roof and into the building.
He was sickened. And fascinated. Cold night wind blew around him and he shuddered. He was tired, dazed with shock. On the front steps of the City Hall were men, standing here and there. Groups of men coming out of the building and halting for a moment before going on.
Were there more of them?
It didn't seem possible. What he saw descending from the black chasm weren't men. They were alien—from some other world, some other dimension. Sliding through this slit, this break in the shell of the universe. Entering through this gap, winged insects from another realm of being.
On the steps of the City Hall a group of men broke up. A few moved toward a waiting car. One of the remaining shapes started to re-enter the City Hall. It changed its mind and turned to follow the others.
Loyce closed his eyes in horror. His senses reeled. He hung on tight, clutching at the sagging fence. The shape, the man-shape, had abruptly fluttered up and flapped after the others. It flew to the sidewalk and came to rest among them.
Pseudo-men. Imitation men. Insects with ability to disguise themselves as men. Like other insects familiar to Earth. Protective coloration. Mimicry.
Loyce pulled himself away. He got slowly to his feet. It was night. The alley was totally dark. But maybe they could see in the dark. Maybe darkness made no difference to them.
He left the alley cautiously and moved out onto the street. Men and women flowed past, but not so many, now. At the bus-stops stood waiting groups. A huge bus lumbered along the street, its lights flashing in the evening gloom.
Loyce moved forward. He pushed his way among those waiting and when the bus halted he boarded it and took a seat in the rear, by the door. A moment later the bus moved into life and rumbled down the street.
Loyce relaxed a little. He studied the people around him. Dulled, tired faces. People going home from work. Quite ordinary faces. None of them paid any attention to him. All sat quietly, sunk down in their seats, jiggling with the motion of the bus.
The man sitting next to him unfolded a newspaper. He began to read the sports section, his lips moving. An ordinary man. Blue suit. Tie. A businessman, or a salesman. On his way home to his wife and family.
Across the aisle a young woman, perhaps twenty. Dark eyes and hair, a package on her lap. Nylons and heels. Red coat and white angora sweater. Gazing absently ahead of her.
A high school boy in jeans and black jacket.
A great triple-chinned woman with an immense shopping bag loaded with packages and parcels. Her thick face dim with weariness.
Ordinary people. The kind that rode the bus every evening. Going home to their families. To dinner.
Going home—with their minds dead. Controlled, filmed over with the mask of an alien being that had appeared and taken possession of them, their town, their lives. Himself, too. Except that he happened to be deep in his cellar instead of in the store. Somehow, he had been overlooked. They had missed him. Their control wasn't perfect, foolproof.
Maybe there were others.
Hope flickered in Loyce. They weren't omnipotent. They had made a mistake, not got control of him. Their net, their field of control, had passed over him. He had emerged from his cellar as he had gone down. Apparently their power-zone was limited.
A few seats down the aisle a man was watching him. Loyce broke off his chain of thought. A slender man, with dark hair and a small mustache. Well-dressed, brown suit and shiny shoes. A book between his small hands. He was watching Loyce, studying him intently. He turned quickly away.
Loyce tensed. One of them ? Or—another they had missed?
The man was watching him again. Small dark eyes, alive and clever. Shrewd. A man too shrewd for them—or one of the things itself, an alien insect from beyond.
The bus halted. An elderly man got on slowly and dropped his token into the box. He moved down the aisle and took a seat opposite Loyce.
The elderly man caught the sharp-eyed man's gaze. For a split second something passed between them.
A look rich with meaning.
Loyce got to his feet. The bus was moving. He ran to the door. One step down into the well. He yanked the emergency door release. The rubber door swung open.
"Hey!" the driver shouted, jamming on the brakes. "What the hell—"
Loyce squirmed through. The bus was slowing down. Houses on all sides. A residential district, lawns and tall apartment buildings. Behind him, the bright-eyed man had leaped up. The elderly man was also on his feet. They were coming after him.
Loyce leaped. He hit the pavement with terrific force and rolled against the curb. Pain lapped over him. Pain and a vast tide of blackness. Desperately, he fought it off. He struggled to his knees and then slid down again. The bus had stopped. People were getting off.
Loyce groped around. His fingers closed over something. A rock, lying in the gutter. He crawled to his feet, grunting with pain. A shape loomed before him. A man, the bright-eyed man with the book.
Loyce kicked. The man gasped and fell. Loyce brought the rock down. The man screamed and tried to roll away. " Stop! For God's sake listen—"
He struck again. A hideous crunching sound. The man's voice cut off and dissolved in a bubbling wail. Loyce scrambled up and back. The others were there, now. All around him. He ran, awkwardly, down the sidewalk, up a driveway. None of them followed him. They had stopped and were bending over the inert body of the man with the book, the bright-eyed man who had come after him.
Had he made a mistake?
But it was too late to worry about that. He had to get out—away from them. Out of Pikeville, beyond the crack of darkness, the rent between their world and his.
"Ed!" Janet Loyce backed away nervously. "What is it? What—"
Ed Loyce slammed the door behind him and came into the living room.
"Pull down the shades. Quick."
Janet moved toward the window. "But—"
"Do as I say. Who else is here besides you?"
"Nobody. Just the twins. They're upstairs in their room. What's happened? You look so strange. Why are you home?"
Ed locked the front door. He prowled around the house, into the kitchen. From the drawer under the sink he slid out the big butcher knife and ran his finger along it. Sharp. Plenty sharp. He returned to the living room.
"Listen to me," he said. "I don't have much time. They know I escaped and they'll be looking for me."
"Escaped?" Janet's face twisted with bewilderment and fear. "Who?"
"The town has been taken over. They're in control. I've got it pretty well figured out. They started at the top, at the City Hall and police department. What they did with the real humans they—"
"What are you talking about?"
"We've been invaded. From some other universe, some other dimension. They're insects. Mimicry. And more. Power to control minds. Your mind."
"My mind?"
"Their entrance is here , in Pikeville. They've taken over all of you. The whole town—except me. We're up against an incredibly powerful enemy, but they have their limitations. That's our hope. They're limited! They can make mistakes!"
Janet shook her head. "I don't understand, Ed. You must be insane."
"Insane? No. Just lucky. If I hadn't been down in the basement I'd be like all the rest of you." Loyce peered out the window. "But I can't stand here talking. Get your coat."
"My coat?"
"We're getting out of here. Out of Pikeville. We've got to get help. Fight this thing. They can be beaten. They're not infallible. It's going to be close—but we may make it if we hurry. Come on!" He grabbed her arm roughly. "Get your coat and call the twins. We're all leaving. Don't stop to pack. There's no time for that."
White-faced, his wife moved toward the closet and got down her coat.
"Where are we going?"
Ed pulled open the desk drawer and spilled the contents out onto the floor. He grabbed up a road map and spread it open. "They'll have the highway covered, of course. But there's a back road. To Oak Grove. I got onto it once. It's practically abandoned. Maybe they'll forget about it."
"The old Ranch Road? Good Lord—it's completely closed. Nobody's supposed to drive over it."
"I know." Ed thrust the map grimly into his coat. "That's our best chance. Now call down the twins and let's get going. Your car is full of gas, isn't it?"
Janet was dazed.
"The Chevy? I had it filled up yesterday afternoon." Janet moved toward the stairs. "Ed, I—"
"Call the twins!" Ed unlocked the front door and peered out. Nothing stirred. No sign of life. All right so far.
"Come on downstairs," Janet called in a wavering voice. "We're—going out for awhile."
"Now?" Tommy's voice came.
"Hurry up," Ed barked. "Get down here, both of you."
Tommy appeared at the top of the stairs. "I was doing my home work. We're starting fractions. Miss Parker says if we don't get this done—"
"You can forget about fractions." Ed grabbed his son as he came down the stairs and propelled him toward the door. "Where's Jim?"
"He's coming."
Jim started slowly down the stairs. "What's up, Dad?"
"We're going for a ride."
"A ride? Where?"
Ed turned to Janet. "We'll leave the lights on. And the TV set. Go turn it on." He pushed her toward the set. "So they'll think we're still—"
He heard the buzz. And dropped instantly, the long butcher knife out. Sickened, he saw it coming down the stairs at him, wings a blur of motion as it aimed itself. It still bore a vague resemblance to Jimmy. It was small, a baby one. A brief glimpse—the thing hurtling at him, cold, multi-lensed inhuman eyes. Wings, body still clothed in yellow T-shirt and jeans, the mimic outline still stamped on it. A strange half-turn of its body as it reached him. What was it doing?
A stinger.
Loyce stabbed wildly at it. It retreated, buzzing frantically. Loyce rolled and crawled toward the door. Tommy and Janet stood still as statues, faces blank. Watching without expression. Loyce stabbed again. This time the knife connected. The thing shrieked and faltered. It bounced against the wall and fluttered down.
Something lapped through his mind. A wall of force, energy, an alien mind probing into him. He was suddenly paralyzed. The mind entered his own, touched against him briefly, shockingly. An utterly alien presence, settling over him—and then it flickered out as the thing collapsed in a broken heap on the rug.
It was dead. He turned it over with his foot. It was an insect, a fly of some kind. Yellow T-shirt, jeans. His son Jimmy.... He closed his mind tight. It was too late to think about that. Savagely he scooped up his knife and headed toward the door. Janet and Tommy stood stone-still, neither of them moving.
The car was out. He'd never get through. They'd be waiting for him. It was ten miles on foot. Ten long miles over rough ground, gulleys and open fields and hills of uncut forest. He'd have to go alone.
Loyce opened the door. For a brief second he looked back at his wife and son. Then he slammed the door behind him and raced down the porch steps.
A moment later he was on his way, hurrying swiftly through the darkness toward the edge of town.
The early morning sunlight was blinding. Loyce halted, gasping for breath, swaying back and forth. Sweat ran down in his eyes. His clothing was torn, shredded by the brush and thorns through which he had crawled. Ten miles—on his hands and knees. Crawling, creeping through the night. His shoes were mud-caked. He was scratched and limping, utterly exhausted.
But ahead of him lay Oak Grove.
He took a deep breath and started down the hill. Twice he stumbled and fell, picking himself up and trudging on. His ears rang. Everything receded and wavered. But he was there. He had got out, away from Pikeville.
A farmer in a field gaped at him. From a house a young woman watched in wonder. Loyce reached the road and turned onto it. Ahead of him was a gasoline station and a drive-in. A couple of trucks, some chickens pecking in the dirt, a dog tied with a string.
The white-clad attendant watched suspiciously as he dragged himself up to the station. "Thank God." He caught hold of the wall. "I didn't think I was going to make it. They followed me most of the way. I could hear them buzzing. Buzzing and flitting around behind me."
"What happened?" the attendant demanded. "You in a wreck? A hold-up?"
Loyce shook his head wearily. "They have the whole town. The City Hall and the police station. They hung a man from the lamppost. That was the first thing I saw. They've got all the roads blocked. I saw them hovering over the cars coming in. About four this morning I got beyond them. I knew it right away. I could feel them leave. And then the sun came up."
The attendant licked his lip nervously. "You're out of your head. I better get a doctor."
"Get me into Oak Grove," Loyce gasped. He sank down on the gravel.
"We've got to get started—cleaning them out. Got to get started right away."
They kept a tape recorder going all the time he talked. When he had finished the Commissioner snapped off the recorder and got to his feet. He stood for a moment, deep in thought. Finally he got out his cigarettes and lit up slowly, a frown on his beefy face.
"You don't believe me," Loyce said.
The Commissioner offered him a cigarette. Loyce pushed it impatiently away. "Suit yourself." The Commissioner moved over to the window and stood for a time looking out at the town of Oak Grove. "I believe you," he said abruptly.
Loyce sagged. "Thank God."
"So you got away." The Commissioner shook his head. "You were down in your cellar instead of at work. A freak chance. One in a million."
Loyce sipped some of the black coffee they had brought him. "I have a theory," he murmured.
"What is it?"
"About them. Who they are. They take over one area at a time. Starting at the top—the highest level of authority. Working down from there in a widening circle. When they're firmly in control they go on to the next town. They spread, slowly, very gradually. I think it's been going on for a long time."
"A long time?"
"Thousands of years. I don't think it's new."
"Why do you say that?"
"When I was a kid.... A picture they showed us in Bible League. A religious picture—an old print. The enemy gods, defeated by Jehovah. Moloch, Beelzebub, Moab, Baalin, Ashtaroth—"
"So?"
"They were all represented by figures." Loyce looked up at the Commissioner. "Beelzebub was represented as—a giant fly."
The Commissioner grunted. "An old struggle."
"They've been defeated. The Bible is an account of their defeats. They make gains—but finally they're defeated."
"Why defeated?"
"They can't get everyone. They didn't get me. And they never got the Hebrews. The Hebrews carried the message to the whole world. The realization of the danger. The two men on the bus. I think they understood. Had escaped, like I did." He clenched his fists. "I killed one of them. I made a mistake. I was afraid to take a chance."
The Commissioner nodded. "Yes, they undoubtedly had escaped, as you did. Freak accidents. But the rest of the town was firmly in control." He turned from the window. "Well, Mr. Loyce. You seem to have figured everything out."
"Not everything. The hanging man. The dead man hanging from the lamppost. I don't understand that. Why? Why did they deliberately hang him there?"
"That would seem simple." The Commissioner smiled faintly. " Bait. "
Loyce stiffened. His heart stopped beating. "Bait? What do you mean?"
"To draw you out. Make you declare yourself. So they'd know who was under control—and who had escaped."
Loyce recoiled with horror. "Then they expected failures! They anticipated—" He broke off. "They were ready with a trap."
"And you showed yourself. You reacted. You made yourself known." The Commissioner abruptly moved toward the door. "Come along, Loyce. There's a lot to do. We must get moving. There's no time to waste."
Loyce started slowly to his feet, numbed. "And the man. Who was the man? I never saw him before. He wasn't a local man. He was a stranger. All muddy and dirty, his face cut, slashed—"
There was a strange look on the Commissioner's face as he answered.
"Maybe," he said softly, "you'll understand that, too. Come along with me, Mr. Loyce." He held the door open, his eyes gleaming. Loyce caught a glimpse of the street in front of the police station. Policemen, a platform of some sort. A telephone pole—and a rope! "Right this way," the Commissioner said, smiling coldly.
As the sun set, the vice-president of the Oak Grove Merchants' Bank came up out of the vault, threw the heavy time locks, put on his hat and coat, and hurried outside onto the sidewalk. Only a few people were there, hurrying home to dinner.
"Good night," the guard said, locking the door after him.
"Good night," Clarence Mason murmured. He started along the street toward his car. He was tired. He had been working all day down in the vault, examining the lay-out of the safety deposit boxes to see if there was room for another tier. He was glad to be finished.
At the corner he halted. The street lights had not yet come on. The street was dim. Everything was vague. He looked around—and froze.
From the telephone pole in front of the police station, something large and shapeless hung. It moved a little with the wind.
What the hell was it?
Mason approached it warily. He wanted to get home. He was tired and hungry. He thought of his wife, his kids, a hot meal on the dinner table. But there was something about the dark bundle, something ominous and ugly. The light was bad; he couldn't tell what it was. Yet it drew him on, made him move closer for a better look. The shapeless thing made him uneasy. He was frightened by it. Frightened—and fascinated.
And the strange part was that nobody else seemed to notice it.
Question:
What is the setting of the story?
Answer:
|
[
"The story happens in Pikeville town and Oak Grove town. The first scene occurs in the town park where the hanged body is. In the park, there is a lamppost, a drinking fountain, and a bench. Under the lamppost, the body is hanged. The second scene is in the car, where Ed has a conversation with the fake police. When Ed escapes from the fake police, he runs into a hardware store filled with customers and clerks. There is a back door in the shipping room, a garbage can next to the door, and concrete stairs outside the store towards the top of the fence. The other side of the fence is an entrance to an alley, which is filled with boards and ruined boxes and tires. Passing the loading platform of a grocery store stands one wall of the Hall of Justice. The wall is white with barred windows. The City Hall is next to the police station, with yellow wooden walls with brass cement steps. Cedars and flowers are planted on each side of the entrance. \n\nWhen Ed gets on the bus, the people sitting around him are all dull, tired, and quiet. No one pays attention to him. People seem to be normal: one is reading the newspaper, another with business suits sits quietly, and the other gazes absently towards the front. When Ed escapes from the bus, he runs into a residential district, pavement sides with tall apartment buildings and lawns. \n\nWhen Ed comes home, there are windows with shades in the living room. The house is a two-floor building. The twin’s room is upstairs. There is a basement in the house. In the kitchen, a butcher knife lies in the drawer under the sink. On his way to Oak Grove, rough ground, gullies, open fields, and forest are along the way. \n\nIn Oak Grove, there is a gasoline station and drive-in. Several trucks park there—some chickens on the field and a dog tied with the string. In front of the police station in Oak Grove, a telephone pole is suitable to hang a human body.\n",
"The story is set in a small town named Pikeville. The town is described as very small, composed of a town center with a square. The town’s town hall is where the aliens’ portal was, so it was covered by a swarm of them. The town also has different streets and highways, which Ed needs to take in order to leave the town. He ended up crawling out of the town because he didn’t want to be seen, and he ended up hurt and scratched because the town had a lot of shrubbery and plants. ",
"The story is first set in Pikeville, where Ed has spent the day digging dirt out of his basement and wheeling it into the backyard. His television store is also located in the town, where there are many other commuters. There is a little square of green in the center of the street that serves as the town park. The park also has a lonely drinking fountain, bench, and single lamppost. The dead body hangs from this lamppost. The town also has a Hall of Justice, City Hall, and police station. The Hall of Justice has barred windows and a police antenna. The City Hall, however, is an old-fashioned yellow structure of good, gilded brass, and cement steps. There are also buses that take commuters back home after the day. Loyce’s home has a living room, upstairs, kitchen, and basement. Later, the scene changes to Oak Grove, where there are farm fields, stations, and even a police station. It is also home to the Oak Grove Merchants’ Bank, where Clarence Mason spends the day working in the vaults.",
"The majority of the story happens in Pikeville. At five o’clock, Ed drives from his house to his TV store across town. It’s getting dark. He passes a small park where he notices the hanging body. Later, he is taken by two officers, and they are driving towards the City Hall. It’s already gloomy outside - the sun has set. After escaping, he runs through a hardware store, climbs over a fence, and moves down a street alley. He can see the City Hall’s roof. Then, he gets on a bus but soon runs away from the two suspicious passengers. He comes home and realizes that his family is under the influence of the alien flies. He crawls for ten miles, walks by a farm, and reaches a gasoline station, a couple of trucks parked near it. After that, he ends up at the police station of Oak Grove, the town near Pikeville. At the end, we meet another character who is leaving the Oak Grove Merchants’ Bank."
] |
41562
|
THE HANGING STRANGER
BY PHILIP K. DICK
ILLUSTRATED BY SMITH
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Science Fiction Adventures Magazine December 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Ed had always been a practical man, when he saw something was wrong he tried to correct it. Then one day he saw
it
hanging in the town square.
Five o'clock Ed Loyce washed up, tossed on his hat and coat, got his car out and headed across town toward his TV sales store. He was tired. His back and shoulders ached from digging dirt out of the basement and wheeling it into the back yard. But for a forty-year-old man he had done okay. Janet could get a new vase with the money he had saved; and he liked the idea of repairing the foundations himself!
It was getting dark. The setting sun cast long rays over the scurrying commuters, tired and grim-faced, women loaded down with bundles and packages, students swarming home from the university, mixing with clerks and businessmen and drab secretaries. He stopped his Packard for a red light and then started it up again. The store had been open without him; he'd arrive just in time to spell the help for dinner, go over the records of the day, maybe even close a couple of sales himself. He drove slowly past the small square of green in the center of the street, the town park. There were no parking places in front of LOYCE TV SALES AND SERVICE. He cursed under his breath and swung the car in a U-turn. Again he passed the little square of green with its lonely drinking fountain and bench and single lamppost.
From the lamppost something was hanging. A shapeless dark bundle, swinging a little with the wind. Like a dummy of some sort. Loyce rolled down his window and peered out. What the hell was it? A display of some kind? Sometimes the Chamber of Commerce put up displays in the square.
Again he made a U-turn and brought his car around. He passed the park and concentrated on the dark bundle. It wasn't a dummy. And if it was a display it was a strange kind. The hackles on his neck rose and he swallowed uneasily. Sweat slid out on his face and hands.
It was a body. A human body.
"Look at it!" Loyce snapped. "Come on out here!"
Don Fergusson came slowly out of the store, buttoning his pin-stripe coat with dignity. "This is a big deal, Ed. I can't just leave the guy standing there."
"See it?" Ed pointed into the gathering gloom. The lamppost jutted up against the sky—the post and the bundle swinging from it. "There it is. How the hell long has it been there?" His voice rose excitedly. "What's wrong with everybody? They just walk on past!"
Don Fergusson lit a cigarette slowly. "Take it easy, old man. There must be a good reason, or it wouldn't be there."
"A reason! What kind of a reason?"
Fergusson shrugged. "Like the time the Traffic Safety Council put that wrecked Buick there. Some sort of civic thing. How would I know?"
Jack Potter from the shoe shop joined them. "What's up, boys?"
"There's a body hanging from the lamppost," Loyce said. "I'm going to call the cops."
"They must know about it," Potter said. "Or otherwise it wouldn't be there."
"I got to get back in." Fergusson headed back into the store. "Business before pleasure."
Loyce began to get hysterical. "You see it? You see it hanging there? A man's body! A dead man!"
"Sure, Ed. I saw it this afternoon when I went out for coffee."
"You mean it's been there all afternoon?"
"Sure. What's the matter?" Potter glanced at his watch. "Have to run. See you later, Ed."
Potter hurried off, joining the flow of people moving along the sidewalk. Men and women, passing by the park. A few glanced up curiously at the dark bundle—and then went on. Nobody stopped. Nobody paid any attention.
"I'm going nuts," Loyce whispered. He made his way to the curb and crossed out into traffic, among the cars. Horns honked angrily at him. He gained the curb and stepped up onto the little square of green.
The man had been middle-aged. His clothing was ripped and torn, a gray suit, splashed and caked with dried mud. A stranger. Loyce had never seen him before. Not a local man. His face was partly turned, away, and in the evening wind he spun a little, turning gently, silently. His skin was gouged and cut. Red gashes, deep scratches of congealed blood. A pair of steel-rimmed glasses hung from one ear, dangling foolishly. His eyes bulged. His mouth was open, tongue thick and ugly blue.
"For Heaven's sake," Loyce muttered, sickened. He pushed down his nausea and made his way back to the sidewalk. He was shaking all over, with revulsion—and fear.
Why? Who was the man? Why was he hanging there? What did it mean?
And—why didn't anybody notice?
He bumped into a small man hurrying along the sidewalk. "Watch it!" the man grated, "Oh, it's you, Ed."
Ed nodded dazedly. "Hello, Jenkins."
"What's the matter?" The stationery clerk caught Ed's arm. "You look sick."
"The body. There in the park."
"Sure, Ed." Jenkins led him into the alcove of LOYCE TV SALES AND SERVICE. "Take it easy."
Margaret Henderson from the jewelry store joined them. "Something wrong?"
"Ed's not feeling well."
Loyce yanked himself free. "How can you stand here? Don't you see it? For God's sake—"
"What's he talking about?" Margaret asked nervously.
"The body!" Ed shouted. "The body hanging there!"
More people collected. "Is he sick? It's Ed Loyce. You okay, Ed?"
"The body!" Loyce screamed, struggling to get past them. Hands caught at him. He tore loose. "Let me go! The police! Get the police!"
"Ed—"
"Better get a doctor!"
"He must be sick."
"Or drunk."
Loyce fought his way through the people. He stumbled and half fell. Through a blur he saw rows of faces, curious, concerned, anxious. Men and women halting to see what the disturbance was. He fought past them toward his store. He could see Fergusson inside talking to a man, showing him an Emerson TV set. Pete Foley in the back at the service counter, setting up a new Philco. Loyce shouted at them frantically. His voice was lost in the roar of traffic and the murmur around him.
"Do something!" he screamed. "Don't stand there! Do something! Something's wrong! Something's happened! Things are going on!"
The crowd melted respectfully for the two heavy-set cops moving efficiently toward Loyce.
"Name?" the cop with the notebook murmured.
"Loyce." He mopped his forehead wearily. "Edward C. Loyce. Listen to me. Back there—"
"Address?" the cop demanded. The police car moved swiftly through traffic, shooting among the cars and buses. Loyce sagged against the seat, exhausted and confused. He took a deep shuddering breath.
"1368 Hurst Road."
"That's here in Pikeville?"
"That's right." Loyce pulled himself up with a violent effort. "Listen to me. Back there. In the square. Hanging from the lamppost—"
"Where were you today?" the cop behind the wheel demanded.
"Where?" Loyce echoed.
"You weren't in your shop, were you?"
"No." He shook his head. "No, I was home. Down in the basement."
"In the basement ?"
"Digging. A new foundation. Getting out the dirt to pour a cement frame. Why? What has that to do with—"
"Was anybody else down there with you?"
"No. My wife was downtown. My kids were at school." Loyce looked from one heavy-set cop to the other. Hope flicked across his face, wild hope.
"You mean because I was down there I missed—the explanation? I didn't get in on it? Like everybody else?"
After a pause the cop with the notebook said: "That's right. You missed the explanation."
"Then it's official? The body—it's supposed to be hanging there?"
"It's supposed to be hanging there. For everybody to see."
Ed Loyce grinned weakly. "Good Lord. I guess I sort of went off the deep end. I thought maybe something had happened. You know, something like the Ku Klux Klan. Some kind of violence. Communists or Fascists taking over." He wiped his face with his breast-pocket handkerchief, his hands shaking. "I'm glad to know it's on the level."
"It's on the level." The police car was getting near the Hall of Justice. The sun had set. The streets were gloomy and dark. The lights had not yet come on.
"I feel better," Loyce said. "I was pretty excited there, for a minute. I guess I got all stirred up. Now that I understand, there's no need to take me in, is there?"
The two cops said nothing.
"I should be back at my store. The boys haven't had dinner. I'm all right, now. No more trouble. Is there any need of—"
"This won't take long," the cop behind the wheel interrupted. "A short process. Only a few minutes."
"I hope it's short," Loyce muttered. The car slowed down for a stoplight. "I guess I sort of disturbed the peace. Funny, getting excited like that and—"
Loyce yanked the door open. He sprawled out into the street and rolled to his feet. Cars were moving all around him, gaining speed as the light changed. Loyce leaped onto the curb and raced among the people, burrowing into the swarming crowds. Behind him he heard sounds, shouts, people running.
They weren't cops. He had realized that right away. He knew every cop in Pikeville. A man couldn't own a store, operate a business in a small town for twenty-five years without getting to know all the cops.
They weren't cops—and there hadn't been any explanation. Potter, Fergusson, Jenkins, none of them knew why it was there. They didn't know—and they didn't care. That was the strange part.
Loyce ducked into a hardware store. He raced toward the back, past the startled clerks and customers, into the shipping room and through the back door. He tripped over a garbage can and ran up a flight of concrete steps. He climbed over a fence and jumped down on the other side, gasping and panting.
There was no sound behind him. He had got away.
He was at the entrance of an alley, dark and strewn with boards and ruined boxes and tires. He could see the street at the far end. A street light wavered and came on. Men and women. Stores. Neon signs. Cars.
And to his right—the police station.
He was close, terribly close. Past the loading platform of a grocery store rose the white concrete side of the Hall of Justice. Barred windows. The police antenna. A great concrete wall rising up in the darkness. A bad place for him to be near. He was too close. He had to keep moving, get farther away from them.
Them?
Loyce moved cautiously down the alley. Beyond the police station was the City Hall, the old-fashioned yellow structure of wood and gilded brass and broad cement steps. He could see the endless rows of offices, dark windows, the cedars and beds of flowers on each side of the entrance.
And—something else.
Above the City Hall was a patch of darkness, a cone of gloom denser than the surrounding night. A prism of black that spread out and was lost into the sky.
He listened. Good God, he could hear something. Something that made him struggle frantically to close his ears, his mind, to shut out the sound. A buzzing. A distant, muted hum like a great swarm of bees.
Loyce gazed up, rigid with horror. The splotch of darkness, hanging over the City Hall. Darkness so thick it seemed almost solid. In the vortex something moved. Flickering shapes. Things, descending from the sky, pausing momentarily above the City Hall, fluttering over it in a dense swarm and then dropping silently onto the roof.
Shapes. Fluttering shapes from the sky. From the crack of darkness that hung above him.
He was seeing—them.
For a long time Loyce watched, crouched behind a sagging fence in a pool of scummy water.
They were landing. Coming down in groups, landing on the roof of the City Hall and disappearing inside. They had wings. Like giant insects of some kind. They flew and fluttered and came to rest—and then crawled crab-fashion, sideways, across the roof and into the building.
He was sickened. And fascinated. Cold night wind blew around him and he shuddered. He was tired, dazed with shock. On the front steps of the City Hall were men, standing here and there. Groups of men coming out of the building and halting for a moment before going on.
Were there more of them?
It didn't seem possible. What he saw descending from the black chasm weren't men. They were alien—from some other world, some other dimension. Sliding through this slit, this break in the shell of the universe. Entering through this gap, winged insects from another realm of being.
On the steps of the City Hall a group of men broke up. A few moved toward a waiting car. One of the remaining shapes started to re-enter the City Hall. It changed its mind and turned to follow the others.
Loyce closed his eyes in horror. His senses reeled. He hung on tight, clutching at the sagging fence. The shape, the man-shape, had abruptly fluttered up and flapped after the others. It flew to the sidewalk and came to rest among them.
Pseudo-men. Imitation men. Insects with ability to disguise themselves as men. Like other insects familiar to Earth. Protective coloration. Mimicry.
Loyce pulled himself away. He got slowly to his feet. It was night. The alley was totally dark. But maybe they could see in the dark. Maybe darkness made no difference to them.
He left the alley cautiously and moved out onto the street. Men and women flowed past, but not so many, now. At the bus-stops stood waiting groups. A huge bus lumbered along the street, its lights flashing in the evening gloom.
Loyce moved forward. He pushed his way among those waiting and when the bus halted he boarded it and took a seat in the rear, by the door. A moment later the bus moved into life and rumbled down the street.
Loyce relaxed a little. He studied the people around him. Dulled, tired faces. People going home from work. Quite ordinary faces. None of them paid any attention to him. All sat quietly, sunk down in their seats, jiggling with the motion of the bus.
The man sitting next to him unfolded a newspaper. He began to read the sports section, his lips moving. An ordinary man. Blue suit. Tie. A businessman, or a salesman. On his way home to his wife and family.
Across the aisle a young woman, perhaps twenty. Dark eyes and hair, a package on her lap. Nylons and heels. Red coat and white angora sweater. Gazing absently ahead of her.
A high school boy in jeans and black jacket.
A great triple-chinned woman with an immense shopping bag loaded with packages and parcels. Her thick face dim with weariness.
Ordinary people. The kind that rode the bus every evening. Going home to their families. To dinner.
Going home—with their minds dead. Controlled, filmed over with the mask of an alien being that had appeared and taken possession of them, their town, their lives. Himself, too. Except that he happened to be deep in his cellar instead of in the store. Somehow, he had been overlooked. They had missed him. Their control wasn't perfect, foolproof.
Maybe there were others.
Hope flickered in Loyce. They weren't omnipotent. They had made a mistake, not got control of him. Their net, their field of control, had passed over him. He had emerged from his cellar as he had gone down. Apparently their power-zone was limited.
A few seats down the aisle a man was watching him. Loyce broke off his chain of thought. A slender man, with dark hair and a small mustache. Well-dressed, brown suit and shiny shoes. A book between his small hands. He was watching Loyce, studying him intently. He turned quickly away.
Loyce tensed. One of them ? Or—another they had missed?
The man was watching him again. Small dark eyes, alive and clever. Shrewd. A man too shrewd for them—or one of the things itself, an alien insect from beyond.
The bus halted. An elderly man got on slowly and dropped his token into the box. He moved down the aisle and took a seat opposite Loyce.
The elderly man caught the sharp-eyed man's gaze. For a split second something passed between them.
A look rich with meaning.
Loyce got to his feet. The bus was moving. He ran to the door. One step down into the well. He yanked the emergency door release. The rubber door swung open.
"Hey!" the driver shouted, jamming on the brakes. "What the hell—"
Loyce squirmed through. The bus was slowing down. Houses on all sides. A residential district, lawns and tall apartment buildings. Behind him, the bright-eyed man had leaped up. The elderly man was also on his feet. They were coming after him.
Loyce leaped. He hit the pavement with terrific force and rolled against the curb. Pain lapped over him. Pain and a vast tide of blackness. Desperately, he fought it off. He struggled to his knees and then slid down again. The bus had stopped. People were getting off.
Loyce groped around. His fingers closed over something. A rock, lying in the gutter. He crawled to his feet, grunting with pain. A shape loomed before him. A man, the bright-eyed man with the book.
Loyce kicked. The man gasped and fell. Loyce brought the rock down. The man screamed and tried to roll away. " Stop! For God's sake listen—"
He struck again. A hideous crunching sound. The man's voice cut off and dissolved in a bubbling wail. Loyce scrambled up and back. The others were there, now. All around him. He ran, awkwardly, down the sidewalk, up a driveway. None of them followed him. They had stopped and were bending over the inert body of the man with the book, the bright-eyed man who had come after him.
Had he made a mistake?
But it was too late to worry about that. He had to get out—away from them. Out of Pikeville, beyond the crack of darkness, the rent between their world and his.
"Ed!" Janet Loyce backed away nervously. "What is it? What—"
Ed Loyce slammed the door behind him and came into the living room.
"Pull down the shades. Quick."
Janet moved toward the window. "But—"
"Do as I say. Who else is here besides you?"
"Nobody. Just the twins. They're upstairs in their room. What's happened? You look so strange. Why are you home?"
Ed locked the front door. He prowled around the house, into the kitchen. From the drawer under the sink he slid out the big butcher knife and ran his finger along it. Sharp. Plenty sharp. He returned to the living room.
"Listen to me," he said. "I don't have much time. They know I escaped and they'll be looking for me."
"Escaped?" Janet's face twisted with bewilderment and fear. "Who?"
"The town has been taken over. They're in control. I've got it pretty well figured out. They started at the top, at the City Hall and police department. What they did with the real humans they—"
"What are you talking about?"
"We've been invaded. From some other universe, some other dimension. They're insects. Mimicry. And more. Power to control minds. Your mind."
"My mind?"
"Their entrance is here , in Pikeville. They've taken over all of you. The whole town—except me. We're up against an incredibly powerful enemy, but they have their limitations. That's our hope. They're limited! They can make mistakes!"
Janet shook her head. "I don't understand, Ed. You must be insane."
"Insane? No. Just lucky. If I hadn't been down in the basement I'd be like all the rest of you." Loyce peered out the window. "But I can't stand here talking. Get your coat."
"My coat?"
"We're getting out of here. Out of Pikeville. We've got to get help. Fight this thing. They can be beaten. They're not infallible. It's going to be close—but we may make it if we hurry. Come on!" He grabbed her arm roughly. "Get your coat and call the twins. We're all leaving. Don't stop to pack. There's no time for that."
White-faced, his wife moved toward the closet and got down her coat.
"Where are we going?"
Ed pulled open the desk drawer and spilled the contents out onto the floor. He grabbed up a road map and spread it open. "They'll have the highway covered, of course. But there's a back road. To Oak Grove. I got onto it once. It's practically abandoned. Maybe they'll forget about it."
"The old Ranch Road? Good Lord—it's completely closed. Nobody's supposed to drive over it."
"I know." Ed thrust the map grimly into his coat. "That's our best chance. Now call down the twins and let's get going. Your car is full of gas, isn't it?"
Janet was dazed.
"The Chevy? I had it filled up yesterday afternoon." Janet moved toward the stairs. "Ed, I—"
"Call the twins!" Ed unlocked the front door and peered out. Nothing stirred. No sign of life. All right so far.
"Come on downstairs," Janet called in a wavering voice. "We're—going out for awhile."
"Now?" Tommy's voice came.
"Hurry up," Ed barked. "Get down here, both of you."
Tommy appeared at the top of the stairs. "I was doing my home work. We're starting fractions. Miss Parker says if we don't get this done—"
"You can forget about fractions." Ed grabbed his son as he came down the stairs and propelled him toward the door. "Where's Jim?"
"He's coming."
Jim started slowly down the stairs. "What's up, Dad?"
"We're going for a ride."
"A ride? Where?"
Ed turned to Janet. "We'll leave the lights on. And the TV set. Go turn it on." He pushed her toward the set. "So they'll think we're still—"
He heard the buzz. And dropped instantly, the long butcher knife out. Sickened, he saw it coming down the stairs at him, wings a blur of motion as it aimed itself. It still bore a vague resemblance to Jimmy. It was small, a baby one. A brief glimpse—the thing hurtling at him, cold, multi-lensed inhuman eyes. Wings, body still clothed in yellow T-shirt and jeans, the mimic outline still stamped on it. A strange half-turn of its body as it reached him. What was it doing?
A stinger.
Loyce stabbed wildly at it. It retreated, buzzing frantically. Loyce rolled and crawled toward the door. Tommy and Janet stood still as statues, faces blank. Watching without expression. Loyce stabbed again. This time the knife connected. The thing shrieked and faltered. It bounced against the wall and fluttered down.
Something lapped through his mind. A wall of force, energy, an alien mind probing into him. He was suddenly paralyzed. The mind entered his own, touched against him briefly, shockingly. An utterly alien presence, settling over him—and then it flickered out as the thing collapsed in a broken heap on the rug.
It was dead. He turned it over with his foot. It was an insect, a fly of some kind. Yellow T-shirt, jeans. His son Jimmy.... He closed his mind tight. It was too late to think about that. Savagely he scooped up his knife and headed toward the door. Janet and Tommy stood stone-still, neither of them moving.
The car was out. He'd never get through. They'd be waiting for him. It was ten miles on foot. Ten long miles over rough ground, gulleys and open fields and hills of uncut forest. He'd have to go alone.
Loyce opened the door. For a brief second he looked back at his wife and son. Then he slammed the door behind him and raced down the porch steps.
A moment later he was on his way, hurrying swiftly through the darkness toward the edge of town.
The early morning sunlight was blinding. Loyce halted, gasping for breath, swaying back and forth. Sweat ran down in his eyes. His clothing was torn, shredded by the brush and thorns through which he had crawled. Ten miles—on his hands and knees. Crawling, creeping through the night. His shoes were mud-caked. He was scratched and limping, utterly exhausted.
But ahead of him lay Oak Grove.
He took a deep breath and started down the hill. Twice he stumbled and fell, picking himself up and trudging on. His ears rang. Everything receded and wavered. But he was there. He had got out, away from Pikeville.
A farmer in a field gaped at him. From a house a young woman watched in wonder. Loyce reached the road and turned onto it. Ahead of him was a gasoline station and a drive-in. A couple of trucks, some chickens pecking in the dirt, a dog tied with a string.
The white-clad attendant watched suspiciously as he dragged himself up to the station. "Thank God." He caught hold of the wall. "I didn't think I was going to make it. They followed me most of the way. I could hear them buzzing. Buzzing and flitting around behind me."
"What happened?" the attendant demanded. "You in a wreck? A hold-up?"
Loyce shook his head wearily. "They have the whole town. The City Hall and the police station. They hung a man from the lamppost. That was the first thing I saw. They've got all the roads blocked. I saw them hovering over the cars coming in. About four this morning I got beyond them. I knew it right away. I could feel them leave. And then the sun came up."
The attendant licked his lip nervously. "You're out of your head. I better get a doctor."
"Get me into Oak Grove," Loyce gasped. He sank down on the gravel.
"We've got to get started—cleaning them out. Got to get started right away."
They kept a tape recorder going all the time he talked. When he had finished the Commissioner snapped off the recorder and got to his feet. He stood for a moment, deep in thought. Finally he got out his cigarettes and lit up slowly, a frown on his beefy face.
"You don't believe me," Loyce said.
The Commissioner offered him a cigarette. Loyce pushed it impatiently away. "Suit yourself." The Commissioner moved over to the window and stood for a time looking out at the town of Oak Grove. "I believe you," he said abruptly.
Loyce sagged. "Thank God."
"So you got away." The Commissioner shook his head. "You were down in your cellar instead of at work. A freak chance. One in a million."
Loyce sipped some of the black coffee they had brought him. "I have a theory," he murmured.
"What is it?"
"About them. Who they are. They take over one area at a time. Starting at the top—the highest level of authority. Working down from there in a widening circle. When they're firmly in control they go on to the next town. They spread, slowly, very gradually. I think it's been going on for a long time."
"A long time?"
"Thousands of years. I don't think it's new."
"Why do you say that?"
"When I was a kid.... A picture they showed us in Bible League. A religious picture—an old print. The enemy gods, defeated by Jehovah. Moloch, Beelzebub, Moab, Baalin, Ashtaroth—"
"So?"
"They were all represented by figures." Loyce looked up at the Commissioner. "Beelzebub was represented as—a giant fly."
The Commissioner grunted. "An old struggle."
"They've been defeated. The Bible is an account of their defeats. They make gains—but finally they're defeated."
"Why defeated?"
"They can't get everyone. They didn't get me. And they never got the Hebrews. The Hebrews carried the message to the whole world. The realization of the danger. The two men on the bus. I think they understood. Had escaped, like I did." He clenched his fists. "I killed one of them. I made a mistake. I was afraid to take a chance."
The Commissioner nodded. "Yes, they undoubtedly had escaped, as you did. Freak accidents. But the rest of the town was firmly in control." He turned from the window. "Well, Mr. Loyce. You seem to have figured everything out."
"Not everything. The hanging man. The dead man hanging from the lamppost. I don't understand that. Why? Why did they deliberately hang him there?"
"That would seem simple." The Commissioner smiled faintly. " Bait. "
Loyce stiffened. His heart stopped beating. "Bait? What do you mean?"
"To draw you out. Make you declare yourself. So they'd know who was under control—and who had escaped."
Loyce recoiled with horror. "Then they expected failures! They anticipated—" He broke off. "They were ready with a trap."
"And you showed yourself. You reacted. You made yourself known." The Commissioner abruptly moved toward the door. "Come along, Loyce. There's a lot to do. We must get moving. There's no time to waste."
Loyce started slowly to his feet, numbed. "And the man. Who was the man? I never saw him before. He wasn't a local man. He was a stranger. All muddy and dirty, his face cut, slashed—"
There was a strange look on the Commissioner's face as he answered.
"Maybe," he said softly, "you'll understand that, too. Come along with me, Mr. Loyce." He held the door open, his eyes gleaming. Loyce caught a glimpse of the street in front of the police station. Policemen, a platform of some sort. A telephone pole—and a rope! "Right this way," the Commissioner said, smiling coldly.
As the sun set, the vice-president of the Oak Grove Merchants' Bank came up out of the vault, threw the heavy time locks, put on his hat and coat, and hurried outside onto the sidewalk. Only a few people were there, hurrying home to dinner.
"Good night," the guard said, locking the door after him.
"Good night," Clarence Mason murmured. He started along the street toward his car. He was tired. He had been working all day down in the vault, examining the lay-out of the safety deposit boxes to see if there was room for another tier. He was glad to be finished.
At the corner he halted. The street lights had not yet come on. The street was dim. Everything was vague. He looked around—and froze.
From the telephone pole in front of the police station, something large and shapeless hung. It moved a little with the wind.
What the hell was it?
Mason approached it warily. He wanted to get home. He was tired and hungry. He thought of his wife, his kids, a hot meal on the dinner table. But there was something about the dark bundle, something ominous and ugly. The light was bad; he couldn't tell what it was. Yet it drew him on, made him move closer for a better look. The shapeless thing made him uneasy. He was frightened by it. Frightened—and fascinated.
And the strange part was that nobody else seemed to notice it.
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Describe the circumstances that led to Kevin's power not being discovered until he was twenty-six years old.
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Jack of No Trades by Evelyn E. Smith.
Relevant chunks:
Jack of No Trades
By EVELYN E. SMITH
Illustrated by CAVAT
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy October 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I was psick of Psi powers, not having any. Or didn't I? Maybe they'd psee otherwise psomeday!
I walked into the dining room and collided with a floating mass of fabric, which promptly draped itself over me like a sentient shroud.
"Oh, for God's sake, Kevin!" my middle brother's voice came muffled through the folds. "If you can't help, at least don't hinder!"
I managed to struggle out of the tablecloth, even though it seemed to be trying to wrap itself around me. When Danny got excited, he lost his mental grip.
"I could help," I yelled as soon as I got my head free, "if anybody would let me and, what's more, I could set the table a damn sight faster by hand than you do with 'kinesis."
Just then Father appeared at the head of the table. He could as easily have walked downstairs as teleported, but I belonged to a family of exhibitionists. And Father tended to show off as if he were still a kid. Not that he looked his age—he was big and blond, like Danny and Tim and me, and could have passed for our older brother.
"Boys, boys!" he reproved us. "Danny, you ought to be ashamed of yourself—picking on poor Kev."
Even if it hadn't been Danny's fault, he would still have been blamed.
Nobody was ever supposed to raise a voice or a hand or a thought to poor afflicted Kev, because nature had picked on me enough. And the nicer everybody was to me, the nastier I became, since only when they lost their tempers could I get—or so I believed—their true attitude toward me.
How else could I tell?
"Sorry, fella," Dan apologized to me. The tablecloth spread itself out on the table. "Wrinkles," he grumbled to himself. "Wrinkles. And I had it so nice and smooth before. Mother will be furious."
"If she were going to be furious, she'd be furious already," Father reminded him sadly. It must be tough to be married to a deep-probe telepath, I thought, and I felt a sudden wave of sympathy for him. It was so seldom I got the chance to feel sorry for anyone except myself.
"But I think you'll find she understands."
"She knows, all right," Danny remarked as he went on into the kitchen,
"but I'm not sure she always understands."
I was surprised to find him so perceptive on the abstract level, because he wasn't what you might call an understanding person, either.
"There are tensions in this room," my sister announced as she slouched in, not quite awake yet, "and hatred. I could feel them all the way upstairs. And today I'm working on the Sleepsweet Mattress copy, so I must feel absolutely tranquil. Everyone will think beautiful thoughts, please."
She sat down just as a glass of orange juice was arriving at her place; Danny apparently didn't know she'd come in already. The glass bumped into the back of her neck, tilted and poured its contents over her shoulder and down her very considerable decolletage. Being a mere primitive, I couldn't help laughing.
"Danny, you fumbler!" she screamed.
Danny erupted from the kitchen. "How many times have I asked all of you not to sit down until I've got everything on the table? Always a lot of interfering busybodies getting in the way."
"I don't see why you have to set the table at all," she retorted. "A robot could do it better and faster than you. Even Kev could." She turned quickly toward me. "Oh, I am sorry, Kevin."
I didn't say anything; I was too busy pressing my hands down on the back of the chair to make my knuckles turn white.
Sylvia's face turned even whiter. "Father, stop him— stop him! He's hating again! I can't stand it!"
Father looked at me, then at her. "I don't think he can help it, Sylvia."
I grinned. "That's right—I'm just a poor atavism with no control over myself a-tall."
Finally my mother came in from the kitchen; she was an old-fashioned woman and didn't hold with robocooks. One quick glance at me gave her the complete details, even though I quickly protested, "It's illegal to probe anyone without permission."
"I used to probe you to find out when you needed your diapers changed," she said tartly, "and I'll probe you now. You should watch yourself, Sylvia—poor Kevin isn't responsible."
She didn't need to probe to get the blast of naked emotion that spurted out from me. My sister screamed and even Father looked uncomfortable. Danny stomped back into the kitchen, muttering to himself.
Mother's lips tightened. "Sylvia, go upstairs and change your dress. Kevin, do I have to make an appointment for you at the clinic again?" A psychiatrist never diagnosed members of his own family—that is, not officially; they couldn't help offering thumbnail diagnoses any more than they could help having thumbnails.
"No use," I said, deciding it was safe to drop into my chair. "Who can adjust me to an environment to which I'm fundamentally unsuited?"
"Maybe there is something physically wrong with him, Amy," my father suggested hopefully. "Maybe you should make an appointment for him at the cure-all?"
Mother shook her neatly coiffed head. "He's been to it dozens of times and he always checks out in splendid shape. None of us can spare the time to go with him again, just on an off-chance, and he could hardly be allowed to make such a long trip all by himself. Pity there isn't a machine in every community, but, then, we don't really need them."
Now that the virus diseases had been licked, people hardly ever got sick any more and, when they did, it was mostly psychosomatic. Life was so well organized that there weren't even many accidents these days. It was a safe, orderly existence for those who fitted into it—which accounted for more than ninety-five per cent of the population. The only ones who didn't adjust were those who couldn't, like me—psi-deficients, throwbacks to an earlier era. There were no physical cripples, because anybody could have a new arm or a new leg grafted on, but you couldn't graft psi powers onto an atavism or, if you could, the technique hadn't been developed yet.
"I feel a sense of impending doom brooding over this household," my youngest brother remarked cheerfully as he vaulted into his chair.
"You always do, Timothy," my mother said, unfolding her napkin. "And I must say it's not in good taste, especially at breakfast."
He reached for his juice. "Guess this is a doomed household. And what was all that emotional uproar about?"
"The usual," Sylvia said from the doorway before anyone else could answer. She slid warily into her chair. "Hey, Dan, I'm here!" she called. "If anything else comes in, it comes in manually, understand?"
"Oh, all right." Dan emerged from the kitchen with a tray of food floating ahead of him.
"The usual? Trouble with Kev?" Tim looked at me narrowly. "Somehow my sense of ominousness is connected with him."
"Well, that's perfectly natural—" Sylvia began, then stopped as Mother caught her eye.
"I didn't mean that," Tim said. "I still say Kev's got something we can't figure out."
"You've been saying that for years," Danny protested, "and he's been tested for every faculty under the Sun. He can't telepath or teleport or telekinesthesize or even teletype. He can't precognize or prefix or prepossess. He can't—"
"Strictly a bundle of no-talent, that's me," I interrupted, trying to keep my animal feelings from getting the better of me. That was how my family thought of me, I knew—as an animal, and not a very lovable one, either.
"No," Tim said, "he's just got something we haven't developed a test for. It'll come out some day, you'll see." He smiled at me.
I smiled at him gratefully; he was the only member of my family who really seemed to like me in spite of my handicap. "It won't work, Tim. I know you're trying to be kind, but—"
"He's not saying it just to be kind," my mother put in. "He means it. Not that I want to arouse false hopes, Kevin," she added with grim scrupulousness. "Tim's awfully young yet and I wouldn't trust his extracurricular prognostications too far."
Nonetheless, I couldn't help feeling a feeble renewal of old hopes. After all, young or not, Tim was a hell of a good prognosticator; he wouldn't have risen so rapidly to the position he held in the Weather Bureau if he hadn't been pretty near tops in foreboding.
Mother smiled sadly at my thoughts, but I didn't let that discourage me. As Danny had said, she knew but she didn't really understand . Nobody, for all of his or her psi power, really understood me.
Breakfast was finally over and the rest of my family dispersed to their various jobs. Father simply took his briefcase and disappeared—he was a traveling salesman and he had a morning appointment clear across the continent. The others, not having his particular gift, had to take the helibus to their different destinations. Mother, as I said, was a psychiatrist. Sylvia wrote advertising copy. Tim was a meteorologist. Dan was a junior executive in a furniture moving company and expected a promotion to senior rank as soon as he achieved a better mental grip on pianos.
Only I had no job, no profession, no place in life. Of course there were certain menial tasks a psi-negative could perform, but my parents would have none of them—partly for my sake, but mostly for the sake of their own community standing.
"We don't need what little money Kev could bring in," my father always said. "I can afford to support my family. He can stay home and take care of the house."
And that's what I did. Not that there was much to do except call a techno whenever one of the servomechanisms missed a beat. True enough, those things had to be watched mighty carefully because, if they broke down, it sometimes took days before the repair and/or replacement robots could come. There never were enough of them because ours was a constructive society. Still, being a machine-sitter isn't very much of a career. And every function that wasn't the prerogative of a machine could be done ten times more quickly and efficiently by some member of my family than I could do it. If I went ahead and did something anyway, they would just do it all over again when they got home.
So I had nothing to do all day. I had a special dispensation to take books out of the local Archives, because I was a deficient and couldn't receive the tellie programs. Almost everybody on Earth was telepathic to some degree and could get the amplified projections even if he couldn't transmit or receive with his natural powers. But I got nothing. I had to derive all my recreation from reading, and you can get awfully tired of books, especially when they're all at least a hundred years old and written by primitives. I could borrow sound tapes, but they also bored me after a while.
I thought maybe I could develop a talent for composing or painting, which would classify me as a telesensitive—artistic ability being considered as the oldest, if least important, psi power—but I couldn't even do anything like that.
About all there was left for me was to take long walks. Athletics were out of the question; I couldn't compete with psi-boys and they didn't want to compete with me. All the people in the neighborhood knew me and were nice to me, but I didn't need to be a 'path to tell what they were saying to one another when I hove into sight. "There's that oldest Faraday boy. Pity, such a talented family, to have a defective."
I didn't have a girl, either. Although some of them were sort of attracted to me—I could see that—they could hardly go out with me without exposing themselves to ridicule. In their sandals, I would have done the same thing, but that didn't stop me from hating them.
I wished I had been born a couple of hundred years ago—before people started playing around with nuclear energy and filling the air with radiations that they were afraid would turn human beings into hideous monsters. Instead, they developed the psi powers that had always been latent in the species until we developed into a race of supermen. I don't know why I say we —in 1960 or so, I might have been considered superior, but in 2102 I was just the Faradays' idiot boy.
Exploring space should have been my hope. If there had been anything useful or interesting on any of the other planets, I might have found a niche for myself there. In totally new surroundings, the psi powers geared to another environment might not be an advantage. But by the time I was ten, it was discovered that the other planets were just barren hunks of rock, with pressures and climates and atmospheres drastically unsuited to human life. A year or so before, the hyperdrive had been developed on Earth and ships had been sent out to explore the stars, but I had no hope left in that direction any more.
I was an atavism in a world of peace and plenty. Peace, because people couldn't indulge in war or even crime with so many telepaths running around—not because, I told myself, the capacity for primitive behavior wasn't just as latent in everybody else as the psi talent seemed latent in me. Tim must be right, I thought—I must have some undreamed-of power that only the right circumstances would bring out. But what was that power?
For years I had speculated on what my potential talent might be, explored every wild possibility I could conceive of and found none productive of even an ambiguous result with which I could fool myself. As I approached adulthood, I began to concede that I was probably nothing more than what I seemed to be—a simple psi-negative. Yet, from time to time, hope surged up again, as it had today, in spite of my knowledge that my hope was an impossibility. Who ever heard of latent psi powers showing themselves in an individual as old as twenty-six?
I was almost alone in the parks where I used to walk, because people liked to commune with one another those days rather than with nature. Even gardening had very little popularity. But I found myself most at home in those woodland—or, rather, pseudo-woodland—surroundings, able to identify more readily with the trees and flowers than I could with my own kind. A fallen tree or a broken blossom would excite more sympathy from me than the minor catastrophes that will beset any household, no matter how gifted, and I would shy away from bloody noses or cut fingers, thus giving myself a reputation for callousness as well as extrasensory imbecility.
However, I was no more callous in steering clear of human breakdowns than I was in not shedding tears over the household machines when they broke down, for I felt no more closely akin to my parents and siblings than I did to the mechanisms that served and, sometimes, failed us.
On that day, I walked farther than I had intended and, by the time I got back home, I found the rest of my family had returned before me. They seemed to be excited about something and were surprised to see me so calm.
"Aren't you even interested in anything outside your own immediate concerns, Kev?" Sylvia demanded, despite Father's efforts to shush her.
"Can't you remember that Kev isn't able to receive the tellies?" Tim shot back at her. "He probably doesn't even know what's happened."
"Well, what did happen?" I asked, trying not to snap.
"One starship got back from Alpha Centauri," Danny said excitedly.
"There are two inhabited Earth-type planets there!"
This was for me; this was it at last! I tried not to show my enthusiasm, though I knew that was futile. My relatives could keep their thoughts and emotions from me; I couldn't keep mine from them.
"What kind of life inhabits them? Humanoid?"
"Uh-uh." Danny shook his head. "And hostile. The crew of the starship says they were attacked immediately on landing. When they turned and left, they were followed here by one of the alien ships. Must be a pretty advanced race to have spaceships. Anyhow, the extraterrestrial ship headed back as soon as it got a fix on where ours was going."
"But if they're hostile," I said thoughtfully, "it might mean war."
"Of course. That's why everybody's so wrought up. We hope it's peace, but we'll have to prepare for war just in case."
There hadn't been a war on Earth for well over a hundred years, but we hadn't been so foolish as to obliterate all knowledge of military techniques and weapons. The alien ship wouldn't be able to come back with reinforcements—if such were its intention—in less than six months. This meant time to get together a stockpile of weapons, though we had no idea of how effective our defenses would be against the aliens' armament.
They might have strange and terrible weapons against which we would be powerless. On the other hand, our side would have the benefits of telekinetically guided missiles, teleported saboteurs, telepaths to pick up the alien strategy, and prognosticators to determine the outcome of each battle and see whether it was worth fighting in the first place.
Everybody on Earth hoped for peace. Everybody, that is, except me. I had been unable to achieve any sense of identity with the world in which I lived, and it was almost worth the loss of personal survival to know that my own smug species could look silly against a still more talented race.
"It isn't so much our defense that worries me," my mother muttered, "as lack of adequate medical machinery. War is bound to mean casualties and there aren't enough cure-alls on the planet to take care of them. It's useless to expect the government to build more right now; they'll be too busy producing weapons. Sylvia, you'd better take a leave of absence from your job and come down to Psycho Center to learn first-aid techniques. And you too, Kevin," she added, obviously a little surprised herself at what she was saying. "Probably you'd be even better at it than Sylvia since you aren't sensitive to other people's pain."
I looked at her.
"It is an ill wind," she agreed, smiling wryly, "but don't let me catch you thinking that way, Kevin. Can't you see it would be better that there should be no war and you should remain useless?"
I couldn't see it, of course, and she knew that, with her wretched talent for stripping away my feeble attempts at privacy. Psi-powers usually included some ability to form a mental shield; being without one, I was necessarily devoid of the other.
My attitude didn't matter, though, because it was definitely war. The aliens came back with a fleet clearly bent on our annihilation—even the 'paths couldn't figure out their motives, for the thought pattern was entirely different from ours—and the war was on.
I had enjoyed learning first-aid; it was the first time I had ever worked with people as an equal. And I was good at it because psi-powers aren't much of an advantage there. Telekinesis maybe a little, but I was big enough to lift anybody without needing any superhuman abilities—normal human abilities, rather.
"Gee, Mr. Faraday," one of the other students breathed, "you're so strong. And without 'kinesis or anything."
I looked at her and liked what I saw. She was blonde and pretty. "My name's not Mr. Faraday," I said. "It's Kevin."
"My name's Lucy," she giggled.
No girl had ever giggled at me in that way before. Immediately I started to envision a beautiful future for the two of us, then flushed when I realized that she might be a telepath. But she was winding a tourniquet around the arm of another member of the class with apparent unconcern.
"Hey, quit that!" the windee yelled. "You're making it too tight! I'll be mortified!"
So Lucy was obviously not a telepath. Later I found out she was only a low-grade telesensitive—just a poetess—so I had nothing to worry about as far as having my thoughts read went. I was a little afraid of Sylvia's kidding me about my first romance, but, as it happened, she got interested in one of the guys who was taking the class with us, and she was not only too busy to be bothered with me, but in too vulnerable a position herself.
However, when the actual bombs—or their alien equivalent—struck near our town, I wasn't nearly so happy, especially after they started carrying the wounded into the Psycho Center, which had been turned into a hospital for the duration. I took one look at the gory scene—I had never seen anybody really injured before; few people had, as a matter of fact—and started for the door. But Mother was already blocking the way. It was easy to see from which side of the family Tim had got his talent for prognostication.
"If the telepaths who can pick up all the pain can stand this, Kevin," she said, " you certainly can." And there was no kindness at all in the you .
She gave me a shove toward the nearest stretcher. "Go on—now's your chance to show you're of some use in this world."
Gritting my teeth, I turned to the man on the stretcher. Something had pretty near torn half his face away. It was all there, but not in the right place, and it wasn't pretty. I turned away, caught my mother's eye, and then I didn't even dare to throw up. I looked at that smashed face again and all the first-aid lessons I'd had flew out of my head as if some super-psi had plucked them from me.
The man was bleeding terribly. I had never seen blood pouring out like that before. The first thing to do, I figured sickly, was mop it up. I wet a sponge and dabbed gingerly at the face, but my hands were shaking so hard that the sponge slipped and my fingers were on the raw gaping wound. I could feel the warm viscosity of the blood and nothing, not even my mother, could keep my meal down this time, I thought.
Mother had uttered a sound of exasperation as I dropped the sponge. I could hear her coming toward me. Then I heard her gasp. I looked at my patient and my mouth dropped open. For suddenly there was no wound, no wound at all—just a little blood and the fellow's face was whole again. Not even a scar.
"Wha—wha happened?" he asked. "It doesn't hurt any more!"
He touched his cheek and looked up at me with frightened eyes. And I was frightened, too—too frightened to be sick, too frightened to do anything but stare witlessly at him.
"Touch some of the others, quick!" my mother commanded, pushing astounded attendants away from stretchers.
I touched broken limbs and torn bodies and shattered heads, and they were whole again right away. Everybody in the room was looking at me in the way I had always dreamed of being looked at. Lucy was opening and shutting her beautiful mouth like a beautiful fish. In fact, the whole thing was just like a dream, except that I was awake. I couldn't have imagined all those horrors.
But the horrors soon weren't horrors any more. I began to find them almost pleasing; the worse a wound was, the more I appreciated it. There was so much more satisfaction, virtually an esthetic thrill, in seeing a horrible jagged tear smooth away, heal, not in days, as it would have done under the cure-all, but in seconds.
"Timothy was right," my mother said, her eyes filled with tears, "and I was wrong ever to have doubted. You have a gift, son—" and she said the word son loud and clear so that everybody could hear it—"the greatest gift of all, that of healing." She looked at me proudly. And Lucy and the others looked at me as if I were a god or something.
I felt ... well, good.
"I wonder why we never thought of healing as a potential psi-power," my mother said to me later, when I was catching a snatch of rest and she was lighting cigarettes and offering me cups of coffee in an attempt to make up twenty-six years of indifference, perhaps dislike, all at once.
"The ability to heal is recorded in history, only we never paid much attention to it."
"Recorded?" I asked, a little jealously.
"Of course," she smiled. "Remember the King's Evil?"
I should have known without her reminding me, after all the old books I had read. "Scrofula, wasn't it? They called it that because the touch of certain kings was supposed to cure it ... and other diseases, too, I guess."
She nodded. "Certain people must have had the healing power and that's probably why they originally got to be the rulers."
In a very short time, I became a pretty important person. All the other deficients in the world were tested for the healing power and all of them turned out negative. I proved to be the only human healer alive, and not only that, I could work a thousand times more efficiently and effectively than any of the machines. The government built a hospital just for my work! Wounded people were ferried there from all over the world and I cured them. I could do practically everything except raise the dead and sometimes I wondered whether, with a little practice, I wouldn't be able to do even that.
When I came to my new office, whom did I find waiting there for me but Lucy, her trim figure enhanced by a snug blue and white uniform. "I'm your assistant, Kev," she said shyly.
I looked at her. "You are?"
"I—I hope you want me," she went on, coyness now mixing with apprehension.
I gave her shoulder a squeeze. "I do want you, Lucy. More than I can tell you now. After all this is over, there's something more I want to say. But right now—" I clapped her arm—"there's a job to be done."
"Yes, Kevin," she said, glaring at me for some reason I didn't have time to investigate or interpret at the moment. My patients were waiting for me.
They gave me everything else I could possibly need, except enough sleep, and I myself didn't want that. I wanted to heal. I wanted to show my fellow human beings that, though I couldn't receive or transmit thoughts or foretell the future or move things with my mind, all those powers were useless without life, and that was what I could give.
I took pride in my work. It was good to stop pain and ugliness, to know that, if it weren't for me, these people would be dead or permanently disfigured. In a sense, they were—well, my children; I felt a warm glow of affection toward them.
They felt the same way toward me. I knew because the secret of the hospital soon leaked out—during all those years of peace, the government had lost whatever facility it had for keeping secrets—and people used to come in droves, hoping for a glimpse of me.
The government pointed out that such crowds outside the building might attract the enemy's attention. I was the most important individual on Earth, they told my followers, and my safety couldn't be risked. The human race at this stage was pretty docile. The crowds went away. And it was right that they should; I didn't want to be risked any more than they wanted to risk me.
Plenty of people did come to see me officially—the President, generals, all kinds of big wheels, bringing citations, medals and other obsolete honors they'd revived primarily for me. It was wonderful. I began to love everybody.
"Don't you think you're putting too much of yourself into this, Kev?" Lucy asked me one day.
I gave her an incredulous glance. "You mean I shouldn't help people?"
"Of course you should help them. I didn't mean anything like that. Just ... well, you're getting too bound up in your work."
"Why shouldn't I be?" Then the truth, as I thought, dawned on me. "Are you jealous, Lucy?"
She lowered her eyes. "Not only that, but the war's bound to come to an end, you know, and—"
It was the first part of her sentence that interested me. "Why, do you mean—"
And just then a fresh batch of casualties arrived and I had to tend to them. For the next few days, I was so busy, I didn't get the chance to have the long talk with Lucy I'd wanted....
Then, after only four months, the war suddenly stopped. It seemed that the aliens' weapons, despite their undeniable mysteriousness, were not equal to ours. And they had the added disadvantage of being light-years away from home base. So the remnant of their fleet took off and blew itself up just outside of Mars, which we understood to be the equivalent of unconditional surrender. And it was; we never heard from the Centaurians again.
Peace once more. I had a little mopping up to do at the hospital; then I collected my possessions and went back home after a dignitary—only the Vice President this time—had thanked me on behalf of a grateful country. I wasn't needed any more.
Question:
Describe the circumstances that led to Kevin's power not being discovered until he was twenty-six years old.
Answer:
|
[
"n the year 2102, when this story takes place, 95% of the population has psi-powers. Because of the advancement of technology and medicine, physical ailments are easily and quickly remedied. There is even a cure-all that can heal most things, so it is not often that sickness or injury is relevant to life in the society that Kevin and his family live in. However, everything changes when an alien race from Alpha Centauri wages war on the humans. Unknown weapons mean unknown damage, and injury is out of the humans' control. Because Kevin does not have any psi-powers, he is encouraged to learn first aid so that he can be useful during the war. He is expected to be especially good at first aid because he does not feel the emotions of the injured in the way that telepaths do, and thus he should be able to stay more level-headed. However, he is even more effective in first aid that anyone imagined, because when he touches an injured person they heal almost instantaneously. What usually takes days with cure-all is achieved in mere seconds with a touch of Kevin's hand. It is not only the lack of violence that led to Kevin's power going unnoticed: he is the only person in the world with his powers, which makes it incredibly rare, instead of just being a power that nobody was looking for. ",
"Hundreds of years prior to the action of the story, human experimentation with nuclear energy released radiation into the air that caused people to develop psi powers, turning them \"into a race of supermen.\" By 2102, the year the story takes place, most people have some kind of unique ability, the most common of which is telepathy. This quality, coupled with the fact that viral disease and sickness have largely been eradicated, has led to the creation of a well-ordered society unused to violence and large-scale suffering. There are places called \"cure-alls\", which help people with physical ailments, but since such issues are rare, cure-alls are also limited. There are transplants and grafts for things like missing arms and legs in this new world, but there is no such treatment for psi-deficiencies. As a psi-negative, Kevin feels like an outcast in his family and in society in general. He struggles to understand what his purpose is until war comes to Earth in the form of a hostile group of aliens from two newly-discovered planets near Alpha Centauri. Kevin trains in first-aid in order to offer assistance to the war-wounded, and in the process, he discovers he has the ability to heal people physically by simply touching them with his hands.",
"In the story, Earth had not had war in well over a hundred years and all viruses had been eradicated. The planet was peaceful because there were so many telepaths that there was no longer any capacity for war or crime. Humans started showing these supernatural powers around the 1960s when nuclear energy was being developed. The powers were present, but latent, in humans until brought to life by nuclear radiation. \nBecause Earth was such a peaceful place, attending medical casualties was rare and it was never a career that Kevin had the opportunity to explore. However, after humans discover two earth-like planets in Alpha Centauri and the aliens retaliate and attack Earth, casualties start rolling into the town the Faraday family lives in. Kevin is prepared since he was rapidly trained in the field of medicine on the insistence of his mother who recognized that there would not be enough people with the relevant medical knowledge to treat war casualties should the aliens attack. However, Kevin tries to run away at the first sight of a gaping wound. His mother forces him to stay, and he reluctantly begins shakily sponging the wound of a victim missing half of their face with water. He accidentally drops the sponge and plunges his fingers into the wound, disgusting him greatly. His mother notices immediately that Kevin has healed the wounds completely without scarring. This is the first discovery of Kevin’s psi-power of healing, and he is the only person on Earth to have this ability. If it weren’t for the aliens attacking Earth and creating many casualties, Kevin would not have discovered his extremely rare psi-power.\n",
"Kevin’s long-undiscovered power is healing, which was largely useless in their society. The cure-all was invented before his birth and advanced technology meant illness, disease, and injuries were few and far between. If someone were injured or ill, they were taken to the health center in another town that contained a cure-all machine. This machine could cure anything within a few days. Frankly, his powers were not needed until the war came around. Since he did not grow up around physically hurt people, he was unable to discover his power until he placed his hands on an injured soldier. "
] |
49838
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Jack of No Trades
By EVELYN E. SMITH
Illustrated by CAVAT
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy October 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I was psick of Psi powers, not having any. Or didn't I? Maybe they'd psee otherwise psomeday!
I walked into the dining room and collided with a floating mass of fabric, which promptly draped itself over me like a sentient shroud.
"Oh, for God's sake, Kevin!" my middle brother's voice came muffled through the folds. "If you can't help, at least don't hinder!"
I managed to struggle out of the tablecloth, even though it seemed to be trying to wrap itself around me. When Danny got excited, he lost his mental grip.
"I could help," I yelled as soon as I got my head free, "if anybody would let me and, what's more, I could set the table a damn sight faster by hand than you do with 'kinesis."
Just then Father appeared at the head of the table. He could as easily have walked downstairs as teleported, but I belonged to a family of exhibitionists. And Father tended to show off as if he were still a kid. Not that he looked his age—he was big and blond, like Danny and Tim and me, and could have passed for our older brother.
"Boys, boys!" he reproved us. "Danny, you ought to be ashamed of yourself—picking on poor Kev."
Even if it hadn't been Danny's fault, he would still have been blamed.
Nobody was ever supposed to raise a voice or a hand or a thought to poor afflicted Kev, because nature had picked on me enough. And the nicer everybody was to me, the nastier I became, since only when they lost their tempers could I get—or so I believed—their true attitude toward me.
How else could I tell?
"Sorry, fella," Dan apologized to me. The tablecloth spread itself out on the table. "Wrinkles," he grumbled to himself. "Wrinkles. And I had it so nice and smooth before. Mother will be furious."
"If she were going to be furious, she'd be furious already," Father reminded him sadly. It must be tough to be married to a deep-probe telepath, I thought, and I felt a sudden wave of sympathy for him. It was so seldom I got the chance to feel sorry for anyone except myself.
"But I think you'll find she understands."
"She knows, all right," Danny remarked as he went on into the kitchen,
"but I'm not sure she always understands."
I was surprised to find him so perceptive on the abstract level, because he wasn't what you might call an understanding person, either.
"There are tensions in this room," my sister announced as she slouched in, not quite awake yet, "and hatred. I could feel them all the way upstairs. And today I'm working on the Sleepsweet Mattress copy, so I must feel absolutely tranquil. Everyone will think beautiful thoughts, please."
She sat down just as a glass of orange juice was arriving at her place; Danny apparently didn't know she'd come in already. The glass bumped into the back of her neck, tilted and poured its contents over her shoulder and down her very considerable decolletage. Being a mere primitive, I couldn't help laughing.
"Danny, you fumbler!" she screamed.
Danny erupted from the kitchen. "How many times have I asked all of you not to sit down until I've got everything on the table? Always a lot of interfering busybodies getting in the way."
"I don't see why you have to set the table at all," she retorted. "A robot could do it better and faster than you. Even Kev could." She turned quickly toward me. "Oh, I am sorry, Kevin."
I didn't say anything; I was too busy pressing my hands down on the back of the chair to make my knuckles turn white.
Sylvia's face turned even whiter. "Father, stop him— stop him! He's hating again! I can't stand it!"
Father looked at me, then at her. "I don't think he can help it, Sylvia."
I grinned. "That's right—I'm just a poor atavism with no control over myself a-tall."
Finally my mother came in from the kitchen; she was an old-fashioned woman and didn't hold with robocooks. One quick glance at me gave her the complete details, even though I quickly protested, "It's illegal to probe anyone without permission."
"I used to probe you to find out when you needed your diapers changed," she said tartly, "and I'll probe you now. You should watch yourself, Sylvia—poor Kevin isn't responsible."
She didn't need to probe to get the blast of naked emotion that spurted out from me. My sister screamed and even Father looked uncomfortable. Danny stomped back into the kitchen, muttering to himself.
Mother's lips tightened. "Sylvia, go upstairs and change your dress. Kevin, do I have to make an appointment for you at the clinic again?" A psychiatrist never diagnosed members of his own family—that is, not officially; they couldn't help offering thumbnail diagnoses any more than they could help having thumbnails.
"No use," I said, deciding it was safe to drop into my chair. "Who can adjust me to an environment to which I'm fundamentally unsuited?"
"Maybe there is something physically wrong with him, Amy," my father suggested hopefully. "Maybe you should make an appointment for him at the cure-all?"
Mother shook her neatly coiffed head. "He's been to it dozens of times and he always checks out in splendid shape. None of us can spare the time to go with him again, just on an off-chance, and he could hardly be allowed to make such a long trip all by himself. Pity there isn't a machine in every community, but, then, we don't really need them."
Now that the virus diseases had been licked, people hardly ever got sick any more and, when they did, it was mostly psychosomatic. Life was so well organized that there weren't even many accidents these days. It was a safe, orderly existence for those who fitted into it—which accounted for more than ninety-five per cent of the population. The only ones who didn't adjust were those who couldn't, like me—psi-deficients, throwbacks to an earlier era. There were no physical cripples, because anybody could have a new arm or a new leg grafted on, but you couldn't graft psi powers onto an atavism or, if you could, the technique hadn't been developed yet.
"I feel a sense of impending doom brooding over this household," my youngest brother remarked cheerfully as he vaulted into his chair.
"You always do, Timothy," my mother said, unfolding her napkin. "And I must say it's not in good taste, especially at breakfast."
He reached for his juice. "Guess this is a doomed household. And what was all that emotional uproar about?"
"The usual," Sylvia said from the doorway before anyone else could answer. She slid warily into her chair. "Hey, Dan, I'm here!" she called. "If anything else comes in, it comes in manually, understand?"
"Oh, all right." Dan emerged from the kitchen with a tray of food floating ahead of him.
"The usual? Trouble with Kev?" Tim looked at me narrowly. "Somehow my sense of ominousness is connected with him."
"Well, that's perfectly natural—" Sylvia began, then stopped as Mother caught her eye.
"I didn't mean that," Tim said. "I still say Kev's got something we can't figure out."
"You've been saying that for years," Danny protested, "and he's been tested for every faculty under the Sun. He can't telepath or teleport or telekinesthesize or even teletype. He can't precognize or prefix or prepossess. He can't—"
"Strictly a bundle of no-talent, that's me," I interrupted, trying to keep my animal feelings from getting the better of me. That was how my family thought of me, I knew—as an animal, and not a very lovable one, either.
"No," Tim said, "he's just got something we haven't developed a test for. It'll come out some day, you'll see." He smiled at me.
I smiled at him gratefully; he was the only member of my family who really seemed to like me in spite of my handicap. "It won't work, Tim. I know you're trying to be kind, but—"
"He's not saying it just to be kind," my mother put in. "He means it. Not that I want to arouse false hopes, Kevin," she added with grim scrupulousness. "Tim's awfully young yet and I wouldn't trust his extracurricular prognostications too far."
Nonetheless, I couldn't help feeling a feeble renewal of old hopes. After all, young or not, Tim was a hell of a good prognosticator; he wouldn't have risen so rapidly to the position he held in the Weather Bureau if he hadn't been pretty near tops in foreboding.
Mother smiled sadly at my thoughts, but I didn't let that discourage me. As Danny had said, she knew but she didn't really understand . Nobody, for all of his or her psi power, really understood me.
Breakfast was finally over and the rest of my family dispersed to their various jobs. Father simply took his briefcase and disappeared—he was a traveling salesman and he had a morning appointment clear across the continent. The others, not having his particular gift, had to take the helibus to their different destinations. Mother, as I said, was a psychiatrist. Sylvia wrote advertising copy. Tim was a meteorologist. Dan was a junior executive in a furniture moving company and expected a promotion to senior rank as soon as he achieved a better mental grip on pianos.
Only I had no job, no profession, no place in life. Of course there were certain menial tasks a psi-negative could perform, but my parents would have none of them—partly for my sake, but mostly for the sake of their own community standing.
"We don't need what little money Kev could bring in," my father always said. "I can afford to support my family. He can stay home and take care of the house."
And that's what I did. Not that there was much to do except call a techno whenever one of the servomechanisms missed a beat. True enough, those things had to be watched mighty carefully because, if they broke down, it sometimes took days before the repair and/or replacement robots could come. There never were enough of them because ours was a constructive society. Still, being a machine-sitter isn't very much of a career. And every function that wasn't the prerogative of a machine could be done ten times more quickly and efficiently by some member of my family than I could do it. If I went ahead and did something anyway, they would just do it all over again when they got home.
So I had nothing to do all day. I had a special dispensation to take books out of the local Archives, because I was a deficient and couldn't receive the tellie programs. Almost everybody on Earth was telepathic to some degree and could get the amplified projections even if he couldn't transmit or receive with his natural powers. But I got nothing. I had to derive all my recreation from reading, and you can get awfully tired of books, especially when they're all at least a hundred years old and written by primitives. I could borrow sound tapes, but they also bored me after a while.
I thought maybe I could develop a talent for composing or painting, which would classify me as a telesensitive—artistic ability being considered as the oldest, if least important, psi power—but I couldn't even do anything like that.
About all there was left for me was to take long walks. Athletics were out of the question; I couldn't compete with psi-boys and they didn't want to compete with me. All the people in the neighborhood knew me and were nice to me, but I didn't need to be a 'path to tell what they were saying to one another when I hove into sight. "There's that oldest Faraday boy. Pity, such a talented family, to have a defective."
I didn't have a girl, either. Although some of them were sort of attracted to me—I could see that—they could hardly go out with me without exposing themselves to ridicule. In their sandals, I would have done the same thing, but that didn't stop me from hating them.
I wished I had been born a couple of hundred years ago—before people started playing around with nuclear energy and filling the air with radiations that they were afraid would turn human beings into hideous monsters. Instead, they developed the psi powers that had always been latent in the species until we developed into a race of supermen. I don't know why I say we —in 1960 or so, I might have been considered superior, but in 2102 I was just the Faradays' idiot boy.
Exploring space should have been my hope. If there had been anything useful or interesting on any of the other planets, I might have found a niche for myself there. In totally new surroundings, the psi powers geared to another environment might not be an advantage. But by the time I was ten, it was discovered that the other planets were just barren hunks of rock, with pressures and climates and atmospheres drastically unsuited to human life. A year or so before, the hyperdrive had been developed on Earth and ships had been sent out to explore the stars, but I had no hope left in that direction any more.
I was an atavism in a world of peace and plenty. Peace, because people couldn't indulge in war or even crime with so many telepaths running around—not because, I told myself, the capacity for primitive behavior wasn't just as latent in everybody else as the psi talent seemed latent in me. Tim must be right, I thought—I must have some undreamed-of power that only the right circumstances would bring out. But what was that power?
For years I had speculated on what my potential talent might be, explored every wild possibility I could conceive of and found none productive of even an ambiguous result with which I could fool myself. As I approached adulthood, I began to concede that I was probably nothing more than what I seemed to be—a simple psi-negative. Yet, from time to time, hope surged up again, as it had today, in spite of my knowledge that my hope was an impossibility. Who ever heard of latent psi powers showing themselves in an individual as old as twenty-six?
I was almost alone in the parks where I used to walk, because people liked to commune with one another those days rather than with nature. Even gardening had very little popularity. But I found myself most at home in those woodland—or, rather, pseudo-woodland—surroundings, able to identify more readily with the trees and flowers than I could with my own kind. A fallen tree or a broken blossom would excite more sympathy from me than the minor catastrophes that will beset any household, no matter how gifted, and I would shy away from bloody noses or cut fingers, thus giving myself a reputation for callousness as well as extrasensory imbecility.
However, I was no more callous in steering clear of human breakdowns than I was in not shedding tears over the household machines when they broke down, for I felt no more closely akin to my parents and siblings than I did to the mechanisms that served and, sometimes, failed us.
On that day, I walked farther than I had intended and, by the time I got back home, I found the rest of my family had returned before me. They seemed to be excited about something and were surprised to see me so calm.
"Aren't you even interested in anything outside your own immediate concerns, Kev?" Sylvia demanded, despite Father's efforts to shush her.
"Can't you remember that Kev isn't able to receive the tellies?" Tim shot back at her. "He probably doesn't even know what's happened."
"Well, what did happen?" I asked, trying not to snap.
"One starship got back from Alpha Centauri," Danny said excitedly.
"There are two inhabited Earth-type planets there!"
This was for me; this was it at last! I tried not to show my enthusiasm, though I knew that was futile. My relatives could keep their thoughts and emotions from me; I couldn't keep mine from them.
"What kind of life inhabits them? Humanoid?"
"Uh-uh." Danny shook his head. "And hostile. The crew of the starship says they were attacked immediately on landing. When they turned and left, they were followed here by one of the alien ships. Must be a pretty advanced race to have spaceships. Anyhow, the extraterrestrial ship headed back as soon as it got a fix on where ours was going."
"But if they're hostile," I said thoughtfully, "it might mean war."
"Of course. That's why everybody's so wrought up. We hope it's peace, but we'll have to prepare for war just in case."
There hadn't been a war on Earth for well over a hundred years, but we hadn't been so foolish as to obliterate all knowledge of military techniques and weapons. The alien ship wouldn't be able to come back with reinforcements—if such were its intention—in less than six months. This meant time to get together a stockpile of weapons, though we had no idea of how effective our defenses would be against the aliens' armament.
They might have strange and terrible weapons against which we would be powerless. On the other hand, our side would have the benefits of telekinetically guided missiles, teleported saboteurs, telepaths to pick up the alien strategy, and prognosticators to determine the outcome of each battle and see whether it was worth fighting in the first place.
Everybody on Earth hoped for peace. Everybody, that is, except me. I had been unable to achieve any sense of identity with the world in which I lived, and it was almost worth the loss of personal survival to know that my own smug species could look silly against a still more talented race.
"It isn't so much our defense that worries me," my mother muttered, "as lack of adequate medical machinery. War is bound to mean casualties and there aren't enough cure-alls on the planet to take care of them. It's useless to expect the government to build more right now; they'll be too busy producing weapons. Sylvia, you'd better take a leave of absence from your job and come down to Psycho Center to learn first-aid techniques. And you too, Kevin," she added, obviously a little surprised herself at what she was saying. "Probably you'd be even better at it than Sylvia since you aren't sensitive to other people's pain."
I looked at her.
"It is an ill wind," she agreed, smiling wryly, "but don't let me catch you thinking that way, Kevin. Can't you see it would be better that there should be no war and you should remain useless?"
I couldn't see it, of course, and she knew that, with her wretched talent for stripping away my feeble attempts at privacy. Psi-powers usually included some ability to form a mental shield; being without one, I was necessarily devoid of the other.
My attitude didn't matter, though, because it was definitely war. The aliens came back with a fleet clearly bent on our annihilation—even the 'paths couldn't figure out their motives, for the thought pattern was entirely different from ours—and the war was on.
I had enjoyed learning first-aid; it was the first time I had ever worked with people as an equal. And I was good at it because psi-powers aren't much of an advantage there. Telekinesis maybe a little, but I was big enough to lift anybody without needing any superhuman abilities—normal human abilities, rather.
"Gee, Mr. Faraday," one of the other students breathed, "you're so strong. And without 'kinesis or anything."
I looked at her and liked what I saw. She was blonde and pretty. "My name's not Mr. Faraday," I said. "It's Kevin."
"My name's Lucy," she giggled.
No girl had ever giggled at me in that way before. Immediately I started to envision a beautiful future for the two of us, then flushed when I realized that she might be a telepath. But she was winding a tourniquet around the arm of another member of the class with apparent unconcern.
"Hey, quit that!" the windee yelled. "You're making it too tight! I'll be mortified!"
So Lucy was obviously not a telepath. Later I found out she was only a low-grade telesensitive—just a poetess—so I had nothing to worry about as far as having my thoughts read went. I was a little afraid of Sylvia's kidding me about my first romance, but, as it happened, she got interested in one of the guys who was taking the class with us, and she was not only too busy to be bothered with me, but in too vulnerable a position herself.
However, when the actual bombs—or their alien equivalent—struck near our town, I wasn't nearly so happy, especially after they started carrying the wounded into the Psycho Center, which had been turned into a hospital for the duration. I took one look at the gory scene—I had never seen anybody really injured before; few people had, as a matter of fact—and started for the door. But Mother was already blocking the way. It was easy to see from which side of the family Tim had got his talent for prognostication.
"If the telepaths who can pick up all the pain can stand this, Kevin," she said, " you certainly can." And there was no kindness at all in the you .
She gave me a shove toward the nearest stretcher. "Go on—now's your chance to show you're of some use in this world."
Gritting my teeth, I turned to the man on the stretcher. Something had pretty near torn half his face away. It was all there, but not in the right place, and it wasn't pretty. I turned away, caught my mother's eye, and then I didn't even dare to throw up. I looked at that smashed face again and all the first-aid lessons I'd had flew out of my head as if some super-psi had plucked them from me.
The man was bleeding terribly. I had never seen blood pouring out like that before. The first thing to do, I figured sickly, was mop it up. I wet a sponge and dabbed gingerly at the face, but my hands were shaking so hard that the sponge slipped and my fingers were on the raw gaping wound. I could feel the warm viscosity of the blood and nothing, not even my mother, could keep my meal down this time, I thought.
Mother had uttered a sound of exasperation as I dropped the sponge. I could hear her coming toward me. Then I heard her gasp. I looked at my patient and my mouth dropped open. For suddenly there was no wound, no wound at all—just a little blood and the fellow's face was whole again. Not even a scar.
"Wha—wha happened?" he asked. "It doesn't hurt any more!"
He touched his cheek and looked up at me with frightened eyes. And I was frightened, too—too frightened to be sick, too frightened to do anything but stare witlessly at him.
"Touch some of the others, quick!" my mother commanded, pushing astounded attendants away from stretchers.
I touched broken limbs and torn bodies and shattered heads, and they were whole again right away. Everybody in the room was looking at me in the way I had always dreamed of being looked at. Lucy was opening and shutting her beautiful mouth like a beautiful fish. In fact, the whole thing was just like a dream, except that I was awake. I couldn't have imagined all those horrors.
But the horrors soon weren't horrors any more. I began to find them almost pleasing; the worse a wound was, the more I appreciated it. There was so much more satisfaction, virtually an esthetic thrill, in seeing a horrible jagged tear smooth away, heal, not in days, as it would have done under the cure-all, but in seconds.
"Timothy was right," my mother said, her eyes filled with tears, "and I was wrong ever to have doubted. You have a gift, son—" and she said the word son loud and clear so that everybody could hear it—"the greatest gift of all, that of healing." She looked at me proudly. And Lucy and the others looked at me as if I were a god or something.
I felt ... well, good.
"I wonder why we never thought of healing as a potential psi-power," my mother said to me later, when I was catching a snatch of rest and she was lighting cigarettes and offering me cups of coffee in an attempt to make up twenty-six years of indifference, perhaps dislike, all at once.
"The ability to heal is recorded in history, only we never paid much attention to it."
"Recorded?" I asked, a little jealously.
"Of course," she smiled. "Remember the King's Evil?"
I should have known without her reminding me, after all the old books I had read. "Scrofula, wasn't it? They called it that because the touch of certain kings was supposed to cure it ... and other diseases, too, I guess."
She nodded. "Certain people must have had the healing power and that's probably why they originally got to be the rulers."
In a very short time, I became a pretty important person. All the other deficients in the world were tested for the healing power and all of them turned out negative. I proved to be the only human healer alive, and not only that, I could work a thousand times more efficiently and effectively than any of the machines. The government built a hospital just for my work! Wounded people were ferried there from all over the world and I cured them. I could do practically everything except raise the dead and sometimes I wondered whether, with a little practice, I wouldn't be able to do even that.
When I came to my new office, whom did I find waiting there for me but Lucy, her trim figure enhanced by a snug blue and white uniform. "I'm your assistant, Kev," she said shyly.
I looked at her. "You are?"
"I—I hope you want me," she went on, coyness now mixing with apprehension.
I gave her shoulder a squeeze. "I do want you, Lucy. More than I can tell you now. After all this is over, there's something more I want to say. But right now—" I clapped her arm—"there's a job to be done."
"Yes, Kevin," she said, glaring at me for some reason I didn't have time to investigate or interpret at the moment. My patients were waiting for me.
They gave me everything else I could possibly need, except enough sleep, and I myself didn't want that. I wanted to heal. I wanted to show my fellow human beings that, though I couldn't receive or transmit thoughts or foretell the future or move things with my mind, all those powers were useless without life, and that was what I could give.
I took pride in my work. It was good to stop pain and ugliness, to know that, if it weren't for me, these people would be dead or permanently disfigured. In a sense, they were—well, my children; I felt a warm glow of affection toward them.
They felt the same way toward me. I knew because the secret of the hospital soon leaked out—during all those years of peace, the government had lost whatever facility it had for keeping secrets—and people used to come in droves, hoping for a glimpse of me.
The government pointed out that such crowds outside the building might attract the enemy's attention. I was the most important individual on Earth, they told my followers, and my safety couldn't be risked. The human race at this stage was pretty docile. The crowds went away. And it was right that they should; I didn't want to be risked any more than they wanted to risk me.
Plenty of people did come to see me officially—the President, generals, all kinds of big wheels, bringing citations, medals and other obsolete honors they'd revived primarily for me. It was wonderful. I began to love everybody.
"Don't you think you're putting too much of yourself into this, Kev?" Lucy asked me one day.
I gave her an incredulous glance. "You mean I shouldn't help people?"
"Of course you should help them. I didn't mean anything like that. Just ... well, you're getting too bound up in your work."
"Why shouldn't I be?" Then the truth, as I thought, dawned on me. "Are you jealous, Lucy?"
She lowered her eyes. "Not only that, but the war's bound to come to an end, you know, and—"
It was the first part of her sentence that interested me. "Why, do you mean—"
And just then a fresh batch of casualties arrived and I had to tend to them. For the next few days, I was so busy, I didn't get the chance to have the long talk with Lucy I'd wanted....
Then, after only four months, the war suddenly stopped. It seemed that the aliens' weapons, despite their undeniable mysteriousness, were not equal to ours. And they had the added disadvantage of being light-years away from home base. So the remnant of their fleet took off and blew itself up just outside of Mars, which we understood to be the equivalent of unconditional surrender. And it was; we never heard from the Centaurians again.
Peace once more. I had a little mopping up to do at the hospital; then I collected my possessions and went back home after a dignitary—only the Vice President this time—had thanked me on behalf of a grateful country. I wasn't needed any more.
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How is the current McGuire version different from the previous versions and why is that important?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about His Master's Voice by Randall Garrett.
Relevant chunks:
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Analog March 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
ILLUSTRATED BY KRENKEL
HIS MASTER'S VOICE ANALOG SCIENCE FACT · SCIENCE FICTION
Spaceship McGuire had lots of knowledge—but no wisdom. He was smart—but incredibly foolish. And, as a natural consequence, tended to ask questions too profound for any philosopher—questions like "Who are you?"
By RANDALL GARRETT
I'd been in Ravenhurst's office on the mountain-sized planetoid called Raven's Rest only twice before. The third time was no better; Shalimar Ravenhurst was one of the smartest operators in the Belt, but when it came to personal relationships, he was utterly incompetent. He could make anyone dislike him without trying.
When I entered the office, he was
[3]
sitting behind his mahogany desk, his eyes focused on the operation he was going through with a wineglass and a decanter. He didn't look up at me as he said:
"Sit down, Mr. Oak. Will you have some Madeira?"
I decided I might as well observe the pleasantries. There was no point in my getting nasty until he did. "Thank you, Mr. Ravenhurst, I will."
He kept his eyes focused on his work: It isn't easy to pour wine on a planetoid where the gee-pull is measured in fractions of a centimeter per second squared. It moves slowly, like ropy molasses, but you have to be careful not to be fooled by that. The viscosity is just as low as ever, and if you pour it from any great height, it will go scooting right out of the glass
[4]
again. The momentum it builds up is enough to make it splash right out again in a slow-motion gush which gets it all over the place.
Besides which, even if it didn't splash, it would take it so long to fall a few inches that you'd die of thirst waiting for it.
Ravenhurst had evolved a technique from long years of practice. He tilted the glass and the bottle toward each other, their edges touching, like you do when you're trying to pour beer without putting a head on it. As soon as the wine wet the glass, the adhesive forces at work would pull more wine into the wine glass. To get capillary action on a low-gee asteroid, you don't need a capillary, by any means. The negative meniscus on the wine was something to see; the first time you see it, you get the eerie feeling that the glass is spinning and throwing the wine up against the walls by centrifugal force.
I took the glass he offered me (Careful! Don't slosh!) and sipped at it. Using squirt tubes would have been a hell of a lot easier and neater, but Ravenhurst liked to do things his way.
He put the stopper back in the decanter, picked up his own glass and sipped appreciatively. Not until he put it back down on the desk again did he raise his eyes and look at me for the first time since I'd come in.
"Mr. Oak, you have caused me considerable trouble."
"I thought we'd hashed all that out, Mr. Ravenhurst," I said, keeping my voice level.
[5]
"So had I. But it appears that there were more ramifications to your action than we had at first supposed." His voice had the texture of heavy linseed oil.
He waited, as if he expected me to make some reply to that. When I didn't, he sighed slightly and went on. "I fear that you have inadvertently sabotaged McGuire. You were commissioned to prevent sabotage, Mr. Oak, and I'm afraid that you abrogated your contract."
I just continued to keep my voice calm. "If you are trying to get back the fee you gave me, we can always take it to court. I don't think you'd win."
"Mr. Oak," he said heavily, "I am not a fool, regardless of what your own impression may be. If I were trying to get back that fee, I would hardly offer to pay you another one."
I didn't think he was a fool. You don't get into the managerial business and climb to the top and stay there unless you have brains. Ravenhurst was smart, all right; it was just that, when it came to personal relationships, he wasn't very wise.
"Then stop all this yak about an abrogated contract and get to the point," I told him.
"I shall. I was merely trying to point out to you that it is through your own actions that I find myself in a very trying position, and that your sense of honor and ethics should induce you to rectify the damage."
"My honor and ethics are in fine shape," I said, "but my interpretation of the concepts might not be quite
[6]
the same as yours. Get to the point."
He took another sip of Madeira. "The robotocists at Viking tell me that, in order to prevent any further ... ah ... sabotage by unauthorized persons, the MGYR-7 was constructed so that, after activation, the first man who addressed orders to it would thenceforth be considered its ... ah ... master.
"As I understand it, the problem of defining the term 'human being' unambiguously to a robot is still unsolved. The robotocists felt that it would be much easier to define a single individual. That would prevent the issuing of conflicting orders to a robot, provided the single individual were careful in giving orders himself.
"Now, it appears that you , Mr. Oak, were the first man to speak to McGuire after he had been activated. Is that correct?"
"Is that question purely rhetorical," I asked him, putting on my best expression of innocent interest. "Or are you losing your memory?" I had explained all that to him two weeks before, when I'd brought McGuire and the girl here, so that Ravenhurst would have a chance to cover up what had really happened.
My sarcasm didn't faze him in the least. "Rhetorical. It follows that you are the only man whose orders McGuire will obey."
"Your robotocists can change that," I said. This time, I was giving him my version of "genuine" innocence.
[7]
A man has to be a good actor to be a competent double agent, and I didn't want Ravenhurst to know that I knew a great deal more about the problem than he did.
He shook his head, making his jowls wobble. "No, they cannot. They realize now that there should be some way of making that change, but they failed to see that it would be necessary. Only by completely draining McGuire's memory banks and refilling them with new data can this bias be eliminated."
"Then why don't they do that?"
"There are two very good reasons," he said. And there was a shade of anger in his tone. "In the first place, that sort of operation takes time, and it costs money. If we do that, we might as well go ahead and make the slight changes in structure necessary to incorporate some of the improvements that the robotocists now feel are necessary. In other words, they might as well go ahead and build the MGYR-8, which is precisely the thing I hired you to prevent."
"It seems you have a point there, Mr. Ravenhurst." He'd hired me because things were shaky at Viking. If he lost too much more money on the McGuire experiment, he stood a good chance of losing his position as manager. If that happened some of his other managerial contracts might be canceled, too. Things like that can begin to snowball, and Ravenhurst might find himself out of the managerial business entirely.
"But," I went on, "hasn't the additional wasted time already cost you
[8]
money?"
"It has. I was reluctant to call you in again—understandably enough, I think."
"Perfectly. It's mutual."
He ignored me. "I even considered going through with the rebuilding work, now that we have traced down the source of failure of the first six models. Unfortunately, that isn't feasible, either." He scowled at me.
"It seems," he went on, "that McGuire refuses to allow his brain to be tampered with. The self-preservation 'instinct' has come to the fore. He has refused to let the technicians and robotocists enter his hull, and he has threatened to take off and leave Ceres if any further attempts are made to ... ah ... disrupt his thinking processes."
"I can't say that I blame him," I said. "What do you want me to do? Go to Ceres and tell him to submit like a good boy?"
"It is too late for that, Mr. Oak. Viking cannot stand any more of that kind of drain on its financial resources. I have been banking on the McGuire-type ships to put Viking Spacecraft ahead of every other spacecraft company in the System." He looked suddenly very grim and very determined. "Mr. Oak, I am certain that the robot ship is the answer to the transportation problems in the Solar System. For the sake of every human being in the Solar System, we must get the bugs out of McGuire!"
What's good for General Bull-moose is good for everybody , I quoted to myself. I'd have said it out loud,
[9]
but I was fairly certain that Shalimar Ravenhurst was not a student of the classics.
"Mr. Oak, I would like you to go to Ceres and co-operate with the robotocists at Viking. When the MGYR-8 is finally built, I want it to be the prototype for a fast, safe, functional robot spaceship that can be turned out commercially. You can be of great service, Mr. Oak."
"In other words, I've got you over a barrel."
"I don't deny it."
"You know what my fees are, Mr. Ravenhurst. That's what you'll be charged. I'll expect to be paid weekly; if Viking goes broke, I don't want to lose more than a week's pay. On the other hand, if the MGYR-8 is successful, I will expect a substantial bonus."
"How much?"
"Exactly half of the cost of rebuilding. Half what it would take to build a Model 8 right now, and taking a chance on there being no bugs in it."
He considered that, looking grimmer than ever. Then he said: "I will do it on the condition that the bonus be paid off in installments, one each six months for three years after the first successful commercial ship is built by Viking."
"My lawyer will nail you down on that wording," I said, "but it's a deal. Is there anything else?"
"No."
"Then I think I'll leave for Ceres before you break a blood vessel."
"You continue to amaze me, Mr. Oak," he said. And the soft oiliness
[10]
of his voice was the oil of vitriol. "Your compassion for your fellowman is a facet of your personality that I had not seen before. I shall welcome the opportunity to relax and allow my blood pressure to subside."
I could almost see Shalimar Ravenhurst suddenly exploding and adding his own touch of color to the room.
And, on that gladsome thought, I left. I let him have his small verbal triumph; if he'd known that I'd have taken on the job for almost nothing, he'd really have blown up.
Ten minutes later, I was in my vacuum suit, walking across the glaring, rough-polished rectangle of metal that was the landing field of Raven's Rest. The sun was near the zenith in the black, diamond-dusted sky, and the shadow of my flitterboat stood out like an inkblot on a bridal gown. I climbed in, started the engine, and released the magnetic anchor that held the little boat to the surface of the nickel-iron planetoid. I lifted her gently, worked her around until I was stationary in relation to the spinning planetoid, oriented myself against the stellar background, and headed toward the first blinker beacon on my way to Ceres.
For obvious economical reasons, it it impracticable to use full-sized spaceships in the Belt. A flitterboat, with a single gravitoinertial engine and the few necessities of life—air, some water, and a very little food—still costs more than a Rolls-Royce
[11]
automobile does on Earth, but there has to be some sort of individual transportation in the Belt.
They can't be used for any great distances because a man can't stay in a vac suit very long without getting uncomfortable. You have to hop from beacon to beacon, which means that your average velocity doesn't amount to much, since you spend too much time accelerating and decelerating. But a flitterboat is enough to get around the neighborhood in, and that's all that's needed.
I got the GM-187 blinker in my sights, eased the acceleration up to one gee, relaxed to watch the radar screen while I thought over my coming ordeal with McGuire.
Testing spaceships, robotic or any other kind, is strictly not my business. The sign on the door of my office in New York says: DANIEL OAK, Confidential Expediter ; I'm hired to help other people Get Things Done. Usually, if someone came to me with the problem of getting a spaceship test-piloted, I'd simply dig up the best test pilot in the business, hire him for my client, and forget about everything but collecting my fee. But I couldn't have refused this case if I'd wanted to. I'd already been assigned to it by someone a lot more important than Shalimar Ravenhurst.
Every schoolchild who has taken a course in Government Organization and Function can tell you that the Political Survey Division is a branch of the System Census Bureau of the UN Government, and that its job is to evaluate the political activities of
[12]
various sub-governments all over the System.
And every one of those poor tykes would be dead wrong.
The Political Survey Division does evaluate political activity, all right, but it is the Secret Service of the UN Government. The vast majority of
[13]
the System's citizens don't even know the Government has a Secret Service. I happen to know only because I'm an agent of the Political Survey Division.
The PSD was vitally interested in the whole McGuire project. Robots of McGuire's complexity had been built before; the robot that runs the traffic patterns of the American Eastern Seaboard is just as capable as McGuire when it comes to handling a tremendous number of variables and making decisions on them. But that robot didn't have to be given orders except in extreme emergencies. Keeping a few million cars moving and safe at the same time is actually pretty routine stuff for a robot. And a traffic robot isn't given orders verbally; it is given any orders that may be necessary via teletype by a trained programming technician. Those orders are usually in reference to a change of routing due to repair work on the highways or the like. The robot itself can take care of such emergencies as bad weather or even an accident caused by the malfunctioning of an individual automobile.
McGuire was different. In the first place, he was mobile. He was in command of a spacecraft. In a sense, he was the spacecraft, since it served him in a way that was analogous to the way a human body serves the human mind. And he wasn't in charge of millions of objects with a top velocity of a hundred and fifty miles an hour; he was in charge of a single object that moved at velocities of thousands of miles per second. Nor
[14]
did he have a set, unmoving highway as his path; his paths were variable and led through the emptiness of space.
Unforeseen emergencies can happen at any time in space, most of them having to do with the lives of passengers. A cargo ship would be somewhat less susceptible to such emergencies if there were no humans aboard; it doesn't matter much to a robot if he has no air in his hull.
But with passengers aboard, there may be times when it would be necessary to give orders— fast ! And that means verbal orders, orders that can be given anywhere in the ship and relayed immediately by microphone to the robot's brain. A man doesn't have time to run to a teletyper and type out orders when there's an emergency in space.
That meant that McGuire had to understand English, and, since there has to be feedback in communication, he had to be able to speak it as well.
And that made McGuire more than somewhat difficult to deal with.
For more than a century, robotocists have been trying to build Asimov's famous Three Laws of Robotics into a robot brain.
First Law: A robot shall not, either through action or inaction, allow harm to come to a human being.
Second Law: A robot shall obey the orders of a human being, except when such orders conflict with the First Law .
[15]
Third Law: A robot shall strive to protect its own existence, except when this conflicts with the First or Second Law.
Nobody has succeeded yet, because nobody has yet succeeded in defining the term "human being" in such a way that the logical mind of a robot can encompass the concept.
A traffic robot is useful only because the definition has been rigidly narrowed down. As far as a traffic robot is concerned, "human beings" are the automobiles on its highways. Woe betide any poor sap who tries, illegally, to cross a robot-controlled highway on foot. The robot's only concern would be with the safety of the automobiles, and if the only way to avoid destruction of an automobile were to be by nudging the pedestrian aside with a fender, that's what would happen.
And, since its orders only come from one place, I suppose that a traffic robot thinks that the guy who uses that typer is an automobile.
With the first six models of the McGuire ships, the robotocists attempted to build in the Three Laws exactly as stated. And the first six went insane.
If one human being says "jump left," and another says "jump right," the robot is unable to evaluate which human being has given the more valid order. Feed enough confusing and conflicting data into a robot brain, and it can begin behaving in ways that, in a human being, would be called paranoia or schizophrenia or catatonia or what-have-you, depending
[16]
on the symptoms. And an insane robot is fully as dangerous as an insane human being controlling the same mechanical equipment, if not more so.
So the seventh model had been modified. The present McGuire's brain was impressed with slight modifications of the First and Second Laws.
If it is difficult to define a human being, it is much more difficult to define a responsible human being. One, in other words, who can be relied upon to give wise and proper orders to a robot, who can be relied upon not to drive the robot insane.
The robotocists at Viking Spacecraft had decided to take another tack. "Very well," they'd said, "if we can't define all the members of a group, we can certainly define an individual. We'll pick one responsible person and build McGuire so that he will take orders only from that person."
As it turned out, I was that person. Just substitute "Daniel Oak" for "human being" in the First and Second Laws, and you'll see how important I was to a certain spaceship named McGuire.
When I finally caught the beam from Ceres and set my flitterboat down on the huge landing field that had been carved from the nickel-iron of the asteroid with a focused sun beam, I was itchy with my own perspiration and groggy tired. I don't like riding in flitterboats, sitting on a
[17]
bucket seat, astride the drive tube, like a witch on a broomstick, with nothing but a near-invisible transite hull between me and the stars, all cooped up in a vac suit. Unlike driving a car, you can't pull a flitterboat over and take a nap; you have to wait until you hit the next beacon station.
Ceres, the biggest rock in the Belt, is a lot more than just a beacon station. Like Eros and a few others, it's a city in its own right. And except for the Government Reservation, Viking Spacecraft owned Ceres, lock, stock, and mining rights.
Part of the reason for Viking's troubles was envy of that ownership. There were other companies in the Belt that would like to get their hands on that plum, and there were those who were doing everything short of cutting throats to get it. The PSD was afraid it might come to that, too, before very long.
Ceres is fifty-eight million cubic miles of nickel-iron, but nobody would cut her up for that. Nickel-iron is almost exactly as cheap as dirt on Earth, and, considering shipping costs, Earth soil costs a great deal more than nickel-iron in the Belt.
But, as an operations base, Ceres is second to none. Its surface gravity averages .0294 Standard Gee, as compared with Earth's .981, and that's enough to give a slight feeling of weight without unduly hampering the body with too much load. I weigh just under six pounds on Ceres, and after I've been there a while, going back to Earth is a strain that takes a
[18]
week to get used to. Kids that are brought up in the Belt are forced to exercise in a room with a one-gee spin on it at least an hour a day. They don't like it at first, but it keeps them from growing up with the strength of mice. And an adult with any sense takes a spin now and then, too. Traveling in a flitterboat will give you a one-gee pull, all right, but you don't get much exercise.
I parked my flitterboat in the space that had been assigned to me by Landing Control, and went over to the nearest air-lock dome.
After I'd cycled through and had shucked my vac suit, I went into the inner room to find Colonel Brock waiting for me.
"Have a good trip, Oak?" he asked, trying to put a smile on his scarred, battered face.
"I got here alive, if that makes it a good flitterboat trip," I said, shaking his extended hand.
"That's the definition of a good trip," he told me.
"Then the question was superfluous. Seriously, what I need is a bath and some sleep."
"You'll get that, but first let's go somewhere where we can talk. Want a drink?"
"I could use one, I guess. Your treat?"
"My treat," he said. "Come on."
I followed him out and down a ladder to a corridor that led north. By definition, any asteroid spins toward the east, and all directions follow from that, regardless of which way the axis may point.
[19]
Colonel Harrington Brock was dressed in the black-and-gold "union suit" that was the uniform of Ravenhurst's Security Guard. My own was a tasteful green, but some of the other people in the public corridor seemed to go for more flashiness; besides silver and gold, there were shocking pinks and violent mauves, with stripes and blazes of other colors.
A crowd wearing skin-tight cover-alls might shock the gentle people of Midwich-on-the-Moor, England, but they are normal dress in the Belt. You can't climb into a vac suit with bulky clothing on, and, if you did, you'd hate yourself within an hour, with a curse for every wrinkle that chafed your skin. And, in the Belt, you never know when you might have to get into a vac suit fast. In a "safe" area like the tunnels inside Ceres, there isn't much chance of losing air, but there are places where no one but a fool would ever be more than ten seconds away from his vac suit.
I read an article by a psychologist a few months back, in which he claimed that the taste for loud colors in union suits was actually due to modesty. He claimed that the bright patterns drew attention to the colors themselves, and away from the base the colors were laid over. The observer, he said, tends to see the color and pattern of the suit, rather than the body it clings to so closely. Maybe he's right; I wouldn't know, not being a psychologist. I have spent summers in nudist resorts, though, and I never noticed anyone painting themselves with lavender
[20]
and chartreuse checks. On the other hand, the people who go to nudist resorts are a self-screened group. So are the people who go to the Belt, for that matter, but the type of screening is different.
I'll just leave that problem in the hands of the psychologists, and go on wearing my immodestly quiet solid-color union suits.
Brock pushed open the inch-thick metal door beneath a sign that said
"O'Banion's Bar," and I followed him in. We sat down at a table and ordered drinks when the waiter bustled over. A cop in uniform isn't supposed to drink, but Brock figures that the head of the Security Guard ought to be able to get away with a breach of his own rules.
We had our drinks in front of us and our cigarettes lit before Brock opened up with his troubles.
"Oak," he said, "I wanted to intercept you before you went to the plant because I want you to know that there may be trouble."
"Yeah? What kind?" Sometimes it's a pain to play ignorant.
"Thurston's outfit is trying to oust Ravenhurst from the managership of Viking and take over the job. Baedecker Metals & Mining Corporation, which is managed by Baedecker himself, wants to force Viking out of business so that BM&M can take over Ceres for large-scale processing of precious metals.
"Between the two of 'em, they're raising all sorts of minor hell around
[21]
here, and it's liable to become major hell at any time. And we can't stand any hell—or sabotage—around this planetoid just now!"
"Now wait a minute," I said, still playing ignorant, "I thought we'd pretty well established that the 'sabotage' of the McGuire series was Jack Ravenhurst's fault. She was the one who was driving them nuts, not Thurston's agents."
"Perfectly true," he said agreeably. "We managed to block any attempts of sabotage by other company agents, even though it looked as though we hadn't for a while." He chuckled wryly. "We went all out to keep the McGuires safe, and all the time the boss' daughter was giving them the works." Then he looked sharply at me. "I covered that, of course. No one in the Security Guard but me knows that Jack was responsible."
"Good. But what about the Thurston and Baedecker agents, then?"
He took a hefty slug of his drink. "They're around, all right. We have our eyes on the ones we know, but those outfits are as sharp as we are, and they may have a few agents here on Ceres that we know nothing about."
"So? What does this have to do with me?"
He put his drink on the table. "Oak, I want you to help me." His onyx-brown eyes, only a shade darker than his skin, looked directly into my own. "I know it isn't part of your assignment, and you know I can't afford to pay you anything near what you're worth. It will have to come out of my
[22]
pocket because I couldn't possibly justify it from operating funds. Ravenhurst specifically told me that he doesn't want you messing around with the espionage and sabotage problem because he doesn't like your methods of operation."
"And you're going to go against his orders?"
"I am. Ravenhurst is sore at you personally because you showed him that Jack was responsible for the McGuire sabotage. It's an irrational dislike, and I am not going to let it interfere with my job. I'm going to protect Ravenhurst's interests to the best of my ability, and that means that I'll use the best of other people's abilities if I can."
I grinned at him. "The last I heard, you were sore at me for blatting it all over Ceres that Jaqueline Ravenhurst was missing, when she sneaked aboard McGuire."
He nodded perfunctorily. "I was. I still think you should have told me what you were up to. But you did it, and you got results that I'd been unable to get. I'm not going to let a momentary pique hang on as an irrational dislike. I like to think I have more sense than that."
"Thanks." There wasn't much else I could say.
"Now, I've got a little dough put away; it's not much, but I could offer you—"
I shook my head, cutting him off. "Nope. Sorry, Brock. For two reasons. In the first place, there would be a conflict of interest. I'm working for Ravenhurst, and if he doesn't want
[23]
me to work for you, then it would be unethical for me to take the job.
"In the second place, my fees are standardized. Oh, I can allow a certain amount of fluctuation, but I'm not a physician or a lawyer; my services are
[24]
not necessary to the survival of the individual, except in very rare cases, and those cases are generally arranged through a lawyer when it's a charity case.
"No, colonel, I'm afraid I couldn't
[25]
possibly work for you."
He thought that over for a long time. Finally, he nodded his head very slowly. "I see. Yeah, I get your point." He scowled down at his drink.
" But ," I said, "it would be a pleasure
[26]
to work with you."
He looked up quickly. "How's that?"
"Well, let's look at it this way: You can't hire me because I'm already working for Ravenhurst; I can't hire
[27]
you because you're working for Ravenhurst. But since we may need each other, and since we're both working for Ravenhurst, there would be no conflict of interest if we co-operate.
"Or, to put it another way, I can't take money for any service I may render you, but you can pay off in services. Am I coming through?"
His broad smile made the scars on his face fold in and deepen. "Loud and clear. It's a deal."
I held up a hand, palm toward him. "Ah, ah, ah! There's no 'deal' involved. We're just old buddies helping each other. This is for friendship, not business. I scratch your back; you scratch mine. Fair?"
"Fair. Come on down to my office; I want to give you a headful of facts and figures."
"Will do. Let me finish my guzzle."
Question:
How is the current McGuire version different from the previous versions and why is that important?
Answer:
|
[
"The most recent McGuire is the seventh edition. It is described as being more mobile as it is a spacecraft. It is potentially dangerous because it can move at thousands of miles per second. The most recent version is different from the previous six because it follows Asimov’s famous Three Laws of Robotics more closely than the other versions. The laws emphasize that a robot should define a human being and making sure the robot does not hurt a human. That has previously proven difficult. McGuire version 7 circumnavigated the issue by defining whatever first awoken the robot as a human and its controller.",
"The present iteration of the McGuire, the MGYR-7, is different in its interpretation of Asimov’s three laws of robotics. These three laws, as they are told to the reader by Daniel, are the following: firstly, a robot cannot harm a human being; secondly, a robot must obey orders from human, expect when in conflict with the first law, and thirdly, a robot shall be self-preserving, except when in conflict with the first and third laws. In the first six models of the McGuire, the engineers encoded Asimov’s laws into the machine’s directives. However, this led to erratic and insane-like behaviour from the robot when conflicting commands were issued. \n\tThe seventh iteration, however, resolves this issue by instead restricting the individuals from whom the McGuire takes orders to only that person who issues the first order. The roboticists responsible for designing the McGuire, however, have noticed issues in the MGYR-7, which they aim to resolve in the eighth iteration, the construction of which Daniel has been hired to expedite. \n",
"The previous models of McGuire struggled because of the difficulty to define what a \"human being\" is to robots. The Three Laws for robot construction state that robots must not allow harm to a human being, as well as obey orders from a human being. However, when receiving contradicting yet equally qualifying orders from two different human beings, the previous McGuire models would malfunction out of confusion. The seventh model, the current McGuire, narrowed down the definition of what a \"human being\" is, down to an individual. McGuire was constructed so that the individual he would obey would be the first individual that spoke to him when he was built. This is important because Daniel Oak, being the first human to interact with McGuire, is at the center of the robot's objectives.",
"Firstly, McGuire is different because he is mobile, in a way, he is the spaceship. Different from the traffic robot, he is in charge of one single object. But since the object is moving very fast through space where no specified pathway is determined, McGuire has to be able to react fast. Moreover, McGuire needs to understand English in order to communicate with human beings. \n\nMost importantly, the current version of the robot, McGuire, has alteration in the definition of “human being,” instead of trying to define what human being is as the previous versions did, there will be one person who McGuire takes orders from, since defining individuals are way easier. Previously, they tried to allow robots listen to any one identified as human being. However, this easily made the robots go insane. Once two people – human beings – give an opposing order, the robot does not know what to do. The robot does not know who has a higher authority, thus not knowing which order to follow. Taking order from an individual will completely avoid such problems. "
] |
48513
|
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Analog March 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
ILLUSTRATED BY KRENKEL
HIS MASTER'S VOICE ANALOG SCIENCE FACT · SCIENCE FICTION
Spaceship McGuire had lots of knowledge—but no wisdom. He was smart—but incredibly foolish. And, as a natural consequence, tended to ask questions too profound for any philosopher—questions like "Who are you?"
By RANDALL GARRETT
I'd been in Ravenhurst's office on the mountain-sized planetoid called Raven's Rest only twice before. The third time was no better; Shalimar Ravenhurst was one of the smartest operators in the Belt, but when it came to personal relationships, he was utterly incompetent. He could make anyone dislike him without trying.
When I entered the office, he was
[3]
sitting behind his mahogany desk, his eyes focused on the operation he was going through with a wineglass and a decanter. He didn't look up at me as he said:
"Sit down, Mr. Oak. Will you have some Madeira?"
I decided I might as well observe the pleasantries. There was no point in my getting nasty until he did. "Thank you, Mr. Ravenhurst, I will."
He kept his eyes focused on his work: It isn't easy to pour wine on a planetoid where the gee-pull is measured in fractions of a centimeter per second squared. It moves slowly, like ropy molasses, but you have to be careful not to be fooled by that. The viscosity is just as low as ever, and if you pour it from any great height, it will go scooting right out of the glass
[4]
again. The momentum it builds up is enough to make it splash right out again in a slow-motion gush which gets it all over the place.
Besides which, even if it didn't splash, it would take it so long to fall a few inches that you'd die of thirst waiting for it.
Ravenhurst had evolved a technique from long years of practice. He tilted the glass and the bottle toward each other, their edges touching, like you do when you're trying to pour beer without putting a head on it. As soon as the wine wet the glass, the adhesive forces at work would pull more wine into the wine glass. To get capillary action on a low-gee asteroid, you don't need a capillary, by any means. The negative meniscus on the wine was something to see; the first time you see it, you get the eerie feeling that the glass is spinning and throwing the wine up against the walls by centrifugal force.
I took the glass he offered me (Careful! Don't slosh!) and sipped at it. Using squirt tubes would have been a hell of a lot easier and neater, but Ravenhurst liked to do things his way.
He put the stopper back in the decanter, picked up his own glass and sipped appreciatively. Not until he put it back down on the desk again did he raise his eyes and look at me for the first time since I'd come in.
"Mr. Oak, you have caused me considerable trouble."
"I thought we'd hashed all that out, Mr. Ravenhurst," I said, keeping my voice level.
[5]
"So had I. But it appears that there were more ramifications to your action than we had at first supposed." His voice had the texture of heavy linseed oil.
He waited, as if he expected me to make some reply to that. When I didn't, he sighed slightly and went on. "I fear that you have inadvertently sabotaged McGuire. You were commissioned to prevent sabotage, Mr. Oak, and I'm afraid that you abrogated your contract."
I just continued to keep my voice calm. "If you are trying to get back the fee you gave me, we can always take it to court. I don't think you'd win."
"Mr. Oak," he said heavily, "I am not a fool, regardless of what your own impression may be. If I were trying to get back that fee, I would hardly offer to pay you another one."
I didn't think he was a fool. You don't get into the managerial business and climb to the top and stay there unless you have brains. Ravenhurst was smart, all right; it was just that, when it came to personal relationships, he wasn't very wise.
"Then stop all this yak about an abrogated contract and get to the point," I told him.
"I shall. I was merely trying to point out to you that it is through your own actions that I find myself in a very trying position, and that your sense of honor and ethics should induce you to rectify the damage."
"My honor and ethics are in fine shape," I said, "but my interpretation of the concepts might not be quite
[6]
the same as yours. Get to the point."
He took another sip of Madeira. "The robotocists at Viking tell me that, in order to prevent any further ... ah ... sabotage by unauthorized persons, the MGYR-7 was constructed so that, after activation, the first man who addressed orders to it would thenceforth be considered its ... ah ... master.
"As I understand it, the problem of defining the term 'human being' unambiguously to a robot is still unsolved. The robotocists felt that it would be much easier to define a single individual. That would prevent the issuing of conflicting orders to a robot, provided the single individual were careful in giving orders himself.
"Now, it appears that you , Mr. Oak, were the first man to speak to McGuire after he had been activated. Is that correct?"
"Is that question purely rhetorical," I asked him, putting on my best expression of innocent interest. "Or are you losing your memory?" I had explained all that to him two weeks before, when I'd brought McGuire and the girl here, so that Ravenhurst would have a chance to cover up what had really happened.
My sarcasm didn't faze him in the least. "Rhetorical. It follows that you are the only man whose orders McGuire will obey."
"Your robotocists can change that," I said. This time, I was giving him my version of "genuine" innocence.
[7]
A man has to be a good actor to be a competent double agent, and I didn't want Ravenhurst to know that I knew a great deal more about the problem than he did.
He shook his head, making his jowls wobble. "No, they cannot. They realize now that there should be some way of making that change, but they failed to see that it would be necessary. Only by completely draining McGuire's memory banks and refilling them with new data can this bias be eliminated."
"Then why don't they do that?"
"There are two very good reasons," he said. And there was a shade of anger in his tone. "In the first place, that sort of operation takes time, and it costs money. If we do that, we might as well go ahead and make the slight changes in structure necessary to incorporate some of the improvements that the robotocists now feel are necessary. In other words, they might as well go ahead and build the MGYR-8, which is precisely the thing I hired you to prevent."
"It seems you have a point there, Mr. Ravenhurst." He'd hired me because things were shaky at Viking. If he lost too much more money on the McGuire experiment, he stood a good chance of losing his position as manager. If that happened some of his other managerial contracts might be canceled, too. Things like that can begin to snowball, and Ravenhurst might find himself out of the managerial business entirely.
"But," I went on, "hasn't the additional wasted time already cost you
[8]
money?"
"It has. I was reluctant to call you in again—understandably enough, I think."
"Perfectly. It's mutual."
He ignored me. "I even considered going through with the rebuilding work, now that we have traced down the source of failure of the first six models. Unfortunately, that isn't feasible, either." He scowled at me.
"It seems," he went on, "that McGuire refuses to allow his brain to be tampered with. The self-preservation 'instinct' has come to the fore. He has refused to let the technicians and robotocists enter his hull, and he has threatened to take off and leave Ceres if any further attempts are made to ... ah ... disrupt his thinking processes."
"I can't say that I blame him," I said. "What do you want me to do? Go to Ceres and tell him to submit like a good boy?"
"It is too late for that, Mr. Oak. Viking cannot stand any more of that kind of drain on its financial resources. I have been banking on the McGuire-type ships to put Viking Spacecraft ahead of every other spacecraft company in the System." He looked suddenly very grim and very determined. "Mr. Oak, I am certain that the robot ship is the answer to the transportation problems in the Solar System. For the sake of every human being in the Solar System, we must get the bugs out of McGuire!"
What's good for General Bull-moose is good for everybody , I quoted to myself. I'd have said it out loud,
[9]
but I was fairly certain that Shalimar Ravenhurst was not a student of the classics.
"Mr. Oak, I would like you to go to Ceres and co-operate with the robotocists at Viking. When the MGYR-8 is finally built, I want it to be the prototype for a fast, safe, functional robot spaceship that can be turned out commercially. You can be of great service, Mr. Oak."
"In other words, I've got you over a barrel."
"I don't deny it."
"You know what my fees are, Mr. Ravenhurst. That's what you'll be charged. I'll expect to be paid weekly; if Viking goes broke, I don't want to lose more than a week's pay. On the other hand, if the MGYR-8 is successful, I will expect a substantial bonus."
"How much?"
"Exactly half of the cost of rebuilding. Half what it would take to build a Model 8 right now, and taking a chance on there being no bugs in it."
He considered that, looking grimmer than ever. Then he said: "I will do it on the condition that the bonus be paid off in installments, one each six months for three years after the first successful commercial ship is built by Viking."
"My lawyer will nail you down on that wording," I said, "but it's a deal. Is there anything else?"
"No."
"Then I think I'll leave for Ceres before you break a blood vessel."
"You continue to amaze me, Mr. Oak," he said. And the soft oiliness
[10]
of his voice was the oil of vitriol. "Your compassion for your fellowman is a facet of your personality that I had not seen before. I shall welcome the opportunity to relax and allow my blood pressure to subside."
I could almost see Shalimar Ravenhurst suddenly exploding and adding his own touch of color to the room.
And, on that gladsome thought, I left. I let him have his small verbal triumph; if he'd known that I'd have taken on the job for almost nothing, he'd really have blown up.
Ten minutes later, I was in my vacuum suit, walking across the glaring, rough-polished rectangle of metal that was the landing field of Raven's Rest. The sun was near the zenith in the black, diamond-dusted sky, and the shadow of my flitterboat stood out like an inkblot on a bridal gown. I climbed in, started the engine, and released the magnetic anchor that held the little boat to the surface of the nickel-iron planetoid. I lifted her gently, worked her around until I was stationary in relation to the spinning planetoid, oriented myself against the stellar background, and headed toward the first blinker beacon on my way to Ceres.
For obvious economical reasons, it it impracticable to use full-sized spaceships in the Belt. A flitterboat, with a single gravitoinertial engine and the few necessities of life—air, some water, and a very little food—still costs more than a Rolls-Royce
[11]
automobile does on Earth, but there has to be some sort of individual transportation in the Belt.
They can't be used for any great distances because a man can't stay in a vac suit very long without getting uncomfortable. You have to hop from beacon to beacon, which means that your average velocity doesn't amount to much, since you spend too much time accelerating and decelerating. But a flitterboat is enough to get around the neighborhood in, and that's all that's needed.
I got the GM-187 blinker in my sights, eased the acceleration up to one gee, relaxed to watch the radar screen while I thought over my coming ordeal with McGuire.
Testing spaceships, robotic or any other kind, is strictly not my business. The sign on the door of my office in New York says: DANIEL OAK, Confidential Expediter ; I'm hired to help other people Get Things Done. Usually, if someone came to me with the problem of getting a spaceship test-piloted, I'd simply dig up the best test pilot in the business, hire him for my client, and forget about everything but collecting my fee. But I couldn't have refused this case if I'd wanted to. I'd already been assigned to it by someone a lot more important than Shalimar Ravenhurst.
Every schoolchild who has taken a course in Government Organization and Function can tell you that the Political Survey Division is a branch of the System Census Bureau of the UN Government, and that its job is to evaluate the political activities of
[12]
various sub-governments all over the System.
And every one of those poor tykes would be dead wrong.
The Political Survey Division does evaluate political activity, all right, but it is the Secret Service of the UN Government. The vast majority of
[13]
the System's citizens don't even know the Government has a Secret Service. I happen to know only because I'm an agent of the Political Survey Division.
The PSD was vitally interested in the whole McGuire project. Robots of McGuire's complexity had been built before; the robot that runs the traffic patterns of the American Eastern Seaboard is just as capable as McGuire when it comes to handling a tremendous number of variables and making decisions on them. But that robot didn't have to be given orders except in extreme emergencies. Keeping a few million cars moving and safe at the same time is actually pretty routine stuff for a robot. And a traffic robot isn't given orders verbally; it is given any orders that may be necessary via teletype by a trained programming technician. Those orders are usually in reference to a change of routing due to repair work on the highways or the like. The robot itself can take care of such emergencies as bad weather or even an accident caused by the malfunctioning of an individual automobile.
McGuire was different. In the first place, he was mobile. He was in command of a spacecraft. In a sense, he was the spacecraft, since it served him in a way that was analogous to the way a human body serves the human mind. And he wasn't in charge of millions of objects with a top velocity of a hundred and fifty miles an hour; he was in charge of a single object that moved at velocities of thousands of miles per second. Nor
[14]
did he have a set, unmoving highway as his path; his paths were variable and led through the emptiness of space.
Unforeseen emergencies can happen at any time in space, most of them having to do with the lives of passengers. A cargo ship would be somewhat less susceptible to such emergencies if there were no humans aboard; it doesn't matter much to a robot if he has no air in his hull.
But with passengers aboard, there may be times when it would be necessary to give orders— fast ! And that means verbal orders, orders that can be given anywhere in the ship and relayed immediately by microphone to the robot's brain. A man doesn't have time to run to a teletyper and type out orders when there's an emergency in space.
That meant that McGuire had to understand English, and, since there has to be feedback in communication, he had to be able to speak it as well.
And that made McGuire more than somewhat difficult to deal with.
For more than a century, robotocists have been trying to build Asimov's famous Three Laws of Robotics into a robot brain.
First Law: A robot shall not, either through action or inaction, allow harm to come to a human being.
Second Law: A robot shall obey the orders of a human being, except when such orders conflict with the First Law .
[15]
Third Law: A robot shall strive to protect its own existence, except when this conflicts with the First or Second Law.
Nobody has succeeded yet, because nobody has yet succeeded in defining the term "human being" in such a way that the logical mind of a robot can encompass the concept.
A traffic robot is useful only because the definition has been rigidly narrowed down. As far as a traffic robot is concerned, "human beings" are the automobiles on its highways. Woe betide any poor sap who tries, illegally, to cross a robot-controlled highway on foot. The robot's only concern would be with the safety of the automobiles, and if the only way to avoid destruction of an automobile were to be by nudging the pedestrian aside with a fender, that's what would happen.
And, since its orders only come from one place, I suppose that a traffic robot thinks that the guy who uses that typer is an automobile.
With the first six models of the McGuire ships, the robotocists attempted to build in the Three Laws exactly as stated. And the first six went insane.
If one human being says "jump left," and another says "jump right," the robot is unable to evaluate which human being has given the more valid order. Feed enough confusing and conflicting data into a robot brain, and it can begin behaving in ways that, in a human being, would be called paranoia or schizophrenia or catatonia or what-have-you, depending
[16]
on the symptoms. And an insane robot is fully as dangerous as an insane human being controlling the same mechanical equipment, if not more so.
So the seventh model had been modified. The present McGuire's brain was impressed with slight modifications of the First and Second Laws.
If it is difficult to define a human being, it is much more difficult to define a responsible human being. One, in other words, who can be relied upon to give wise and proper orders to a robot, who can be relied upon not to drive the robot insane.
The robotocists at Viking Spacecraft had decided to take another tack. "Very well," they'd said, "if we can't define all the members of a group, we can certainly define an individual. We'll pick one responsible person and build McGuire so that he will take orders only from that person."
As it turned out, I was that person. Just substitute "Daniel Oak" for "human being" in the First and Second Laws, and you'll see how important I was to a certain spaceship named McGuire.
When I finally caught the beam from Ceres and set my flitterboat down on the huge landing field that had been carved from the nickel-iron of the asteroid with a focused sun beam, I was itchy with my own perspiration and groggy tired. I don't like riding in flitterboats, sitting on a
[17]
bucket seat, astride the drive tube, like a witch on a broomstick, with nothing but a near-invisible transite hull between me and the stars, all cooped up in a vac suit. Unlike driving a car, you can't pull a flitterboat over and take a nap; you have to wait until you hit the next beacon station.
Ceres, the biggest rock in the Belt, is a lot more than just a beacon station. Like Eros and a few others, it's a city in its own right. And except for the Government Reservation, Viking Spacecraft owned Ceres, lock, stock, and mining rights.
Part of the reason for Viking's troubles was envy of that ownership. There were other companies in the Belt that would like to get their hands on that plum, and there were those who were doing everything short of cutting throats to get it. The PSD was afraid it might come to that, too, before very long.
Ceres is fifty-eight million cubic miles of nickel-iron, but nobody would cut her up for that. Nickel-iron is almost exactly as cheap as dirt on Earth, and, considering shipping costs, Earth soil costs a great deal more than nickel-iron in the Belt.
But, as an operations base, Ceres is second to none. Its surface gravity averages .0294 Standard Gee, as compared with Earth's .981, and that's enough to give a slight feeling of weight without unduly hampering the body with too much load. I weigh just under six pounds on Ceres, and after I've been there a while, going back to Earth is a strain that takes a
[18]
week to get used to. Kids that are brought up in the Belt are forced to exercise in a room with a one-gee spin on it at least an hour a day. They don't like it at first, but it keeps them from growing up with the strength of mice. And an adult with any sense takes a spin now and then, too. Traveling in a flitterboat will give you a one-gee pull, all right, but you don't get much exercise.
I parked my flitterboat in the space that had been assigned to me by Landing Control, and went over to the nearest air-lock dome.
After I'd cycled through and had shucked my vac suit, I went into the inner room to find Colonel Brock waiting for me.
"Have a good trip, Oak?" he asked, trying to put a smile on his scarred, battered face.
"I got here alive, if that makes it a good flitterboat trip," I said, shaking his extended hand.
"That's the definition of a good trip," he told me.
"Then the question was superfluous. Seriously, what I need is a bath and some sleep."
"You'll get that, but first let's go somewhere where we can talk. Want a drink?"
"I could use one, I guess. Your treat?"
"My treat," he said. "Come on."
I followed him out and down a ladder to a corridor that led north. By definition, any asteroid spins toward the east, and all directions follow from that, regardless of which way the axis may point.
[19]
Colonel Harrington Brock was dressed in the black-and-gold "union suit" that was the uniform of Ravenhurst's Security Guard. My own was a tasteful green, but some of the other people in the public corridor seemed to go for more flashiness; besides silver and gold, there were shocking pinks and violent mauves, with stripes and blazes of other colors.
A crowd wearing skin-tight cover-alls might shock the gentle people of Midwich-on-the-Moor, England, but they are normal dress in the Belt. You can't climb into a vac suit with bulky clothing on, and, if you did, you'd hate yourself within an hour, with a curse for every wrinkle that chafed your skin. And, in the Belt, you never know when you might have to get into a vac suit fast. In a "safe" area like the tunnels inside Ceres, there isn't much chance of losing air, but there are places where no one but a fool would ever be more than ten seconds away from his vac suit.
I read an article by a psychologist a few months back, in which he claimed that the taste for loud colors in union suits was actually due to modesty. He claimed that the bright patterns drew attention to the colors themselves, and away from the base the colors were laid over. The observer, he said, tends to see the color and pattern of the suit, rather than the body it clings to so closely. Maybe he's right; I wouldn't know, not being a psychologist. I have spent summers in nudist resorts, though, and I never noticed anyone painting themselves with lavender
[20]
and chartreuse checks. On the other hand, the people who go to nudist resorts are a self-screened group. So are the people who go to the Belt, for that matter, but the type of screening is different.
I'll just leave that problem in the hands of the psychologists, and go on wearing my immodestly quiet solid-color union suits.
Brock pushed open the inch-thick metal door beneath a sign that said
"O'Banion's Bar," and I followed him in. We sat down at a table and ordered drinks when the waiter bustled over. A cop in uniform isn't supposed to drink, but Brock figures that the head of the Security Guard ought to be able to get away with a breach of his own rules.
We had our drinks in front of us and our cigarettes lit before Brock opened up with his troubles.
"Oak," he said, "I wanted to intercept you before you went to the plant because I want you to know that there may be trouble."
"Yeah? What kind?" Sometimes it's a pain to play ignorant.
"Thurston's outfit is trying to oust Ravenhurst from the managership of Viking and take over the job. Baedecker Metals & Mining Corporation, which is managed by Baedecker himself, wants to force Viking out of business so that BM&M can take over Ceres for large-scale processing of precious metals.
"Between the two of 'em, they're raising all sorts of minor hell around
[21]
here, and it's liable to become major hell at any time. And we can't stand any hell—or sabotage—around this planetoid just now!"
"Now wait a minute," I said, still playing ignorant, "I thought we'd pretty well established that the 'sabotage' of the McGuire series was Jack Ravenhurst's fault. She was the one who was driving them nuts, not Thurston's agents."
"Perfectly true," he said agreeably. "We managed to block any attempts of sabotage by other company agents, even though it looked as though we hadn't for a while." He chuckled wryly. "We went all out to keep the McGuires safe, and all the time the boss' daughter was giving them the works." Then he looked sharply at me. "I covered that, of course. No one in the Security Guard but me knows that Jack was responsible."
"Good. But what about the Thurston and Baedecker agents, then?"
He took a hefty slug of his drink. "They're around, all right. We have our eyes on the ones we know, but those outfits are as sharp as we are, and they may have a few agents here on Ceres that we know nothing about."
"So? What does this have to do with me?"
He put his drink on the table. "Oak, I want you to help me." His onyx-brown eyes, only a shade darker than his skin, looked directly into my own. "I know it isn't part of your assignment, and you know I can't afford to pay you anything near what you're worth. It will have to come out of my
[22]
pocket because I couldn't possibly justify it from operating funds. Ravenhurst specifically told me that he doesn't want you messing around with the espionage and sabotage problem because he doesn't like your methods of operation."
"And you're going to go against his orders?"
"I am. Ravenhurst is sore at you personally because you showed him that Jack was responsible for the McGuire sabotage. It's an irrational dislike, and I am not going to let it interfere with my job. I'm going to protect Ravenhurst's interests to the best of my ability, and that means that I'll use the best of other people's abilities if I can."
I grinned at him. "The last I heard, you were sore at me for blatting it all over Ceres that Jaqueline Ravenhurst was missing, when she sneaked aboard McGuire."
He nodded perfunctorily. "I was. I still think you should have told me what you were up to. But you did it, and you got results that I'd been unable to get. I'm not going to let a momentary pique hang on as an irrational dislike. I like to think I have more sense than that."
"Thanks." There wasn't much else I could say.
"Now, I've got a little dough put away; it's not much, but I could offer you—"
I shook my head, cutting him off. "Nope. Sorry, Brock. For two reasons. In the first place, there would be a conflict of interest. I'm working for Ravenhurst, and if he doesn't want
[23]
me to work for you, then it would be unethical for me to take the job.
"In the second place, my fees are standardized. Oh, I can allow a certain amount of fluctuation, but I'm not a physician or a lawyer; my services are
[24]
not necessary to the survival of the individual, except in very rare cases, and those cases are generally arranged through a lawyer when it's a charity case.
"No, colonel, I'm afraid I couldn't
[25]
possibly work for you."
He thought that over for a long time. Finally, he nodded his head very slowly. "I see. Yeah, I get your point." He scowled down at his drink.
" But ," I said, "it would be a pleasure
[26]
to work with you."
He looked up quickly. "How's that?"
"Well, let's look at it this way: You can't hire me because I'm already working for Ravenhurst; I can't hire
[27]
you because you're working for Ravenhurst. But since we may need each other, and since we're both working for Ravenhurst, there would be no conflict of interest if we co-operate.
"Or, to put it another way, I can't take money for any service I may render you, but you can pay off in services. Am I coming through?"
His broad smile made the scars on his face fold in and deepen. "Loud and clear. It's a deal."
I held up a hand, palm toward him. "Ah, ah, ah! There's no 'deal' involved. We're just old buddies helping each other. This is for friendship, not business. I scratch your back; you scratch mine. Fair?"
"Fair. Come on down to my office; I want to give you a headful of facts and figures."
"Will do. Let me finish my guzzle."
|
What is the plot of the story?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Girls from Fieu Dayol by Robert F. Young.
Relevant chunks:
The Girls From Fieu Dayol
By ROBERT F. YOUNG
They were lovely and quick to learn—and their only faults were little ones!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Up until the moment when he first looked into Hippolyte Adolphe Taine's History of English Literature , Herbert Quidley's penchant for old books had netted him nothing in the way of romance and intrigue. Not that he was a stranger to either. Far from it. But hitherto the background for both had been bedrooms and bars, not libraries.
On page 21 of the Taine tome he happened upon a sheet of yellow copy paper folded in four. Unfolding it, he read:
asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj Cai: Sities towms copeis wotnid. Gind snoll doper nckli! Wilbe Fieu Dayol fot ig habe mot toseo knwo—te bijk weil en snoll doper—Klio, asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj
Since when, Quidley wondered, refolding the paper and putting it back in the book, had high-school typing students taken to reading Taine? Thoughtfully he replaced the book on the shelf and moved deeper into the literature section.
He had just taken down Xenophon's Anabasis when he saw the girl walk in the door.
Let it be said forthwith that old books were not the only item on Herbert Quidley's penchant-list. He liked old wood, too, and old paintings, not to mention old wine and old whiskey. But most of all he liked young girls. He especially liked them when they looked the way Helen of Troy must have looked when Paris took one gander at her and started building his ladder. This one was tall, with hyacinth hair and liquid blue eyes, and she had a Grecian symmetry of shape that would have made Paris' eyes pop had he been around to take notice. Paris wasn't, but Quidley's eyes, did the job.
After coming in the door, the girl deposited a book on the librarian's desk and headed for the literature section. Quickly Quidley lowered his eyes to the Anabasis and henceforth followed her progress out of their corners. When she came to the O's she paused, took down a book and glanced through it. Then she replaced it and moved on to the P's ... the Q's ... the R's. Barely three feet from him she paused again and took down Taine's History of English Literature .
He simply could not believe it. The odds against two persons taking an interest in so esoteric a volume on a single night in a single library were ten thousand to one. And yet there was no gainsaying that the volume was in the girl's hands, and that she was riffling through it with the air of a seasoned browser.
Presently she returned the book to the shelf, selected another—seemingly at random—and took it over to the librarian's desk. She waited statuesquely while the librarian processed it, then tucked it under her arm and whisked out the door into the misty April night. As soon as she disappeared, Quidley stepped over to the T's and took Taine down once more. Just as he had suspected. The makeshift bookmark was gone.
He remembered how the asdf-;lkj exercise had given way to several lines of gibberish and then reappeared again. A camouflaged message? Or was it merely what it appeared to be on the surface—the efforts of an impatient typing student to type before his time?
He returned Taine to the shelf. After learning from the librarian that the girl's name was Kay Smith, he went out and got in his hardtop. The name rang a bell. Halfway home he realized why. The typing exercise had contained the word "Cai", and if you pronounced it with hard c, you got
"Kai"—or "Kay". Obviously, then, the exercise had been a message, and had been deliberately inserted in a book no average person would dream of borrowing.
By whom—her boy friend?
Quidley winced. He was allergic to the term. Not that he ever let the presence of a boy friend deter him when he set out to conquer, but because the term itself brought to mind the word "fiance," and the word
"fiance" brought to mind still another word, one which repelled him violently. I.e., "marriage". Just the same, he decided to keep Taine's History under observation for a while.
Her boy friend turned out to be her girl friend, and her girl friend turned out to be a tall and lissome, lovely with a Helenesque air of her own. From the vantage point of a strategically located reading table, where he was keeping company with his favorite little magazine, The Zeitgeist , Quidley watched her take a seemingly haphazard route to the shelf where Taine's History reposed, take the volume down, surreptitiously slip a folded sheet of yellow paper between its pages and return it to the shelf.
After she left he wasted no time in acquainting himself with the second message. It was as unintelligible as the first:
asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj Cai: Habe wotnid ig ist ending ifedererer te. T'lide sid Fieu Dayol po jestig toseo knwo, bijk weil en snoll doper entling—Yoolna. asdf ;lkj asdf
;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj
Well, perhaps not quite as unintelligible. He knew, at least, who Cai was, and he knew—from the reappearance of the words wotnid , Fieu Dayol and snoll doper —that the two communications were in the same code. And certainly it was reasonable to assume that the last word— Yoolna —was the name of the girl he had just seen, and that she was a different person from the Klio whose name had appended the first message.
He refolded the paper, replaced it between the pages, returned the book to the shelf and went back to the reading table and The Zeitgeist .
Kay didn't show up till almost closing time, and he was beginning to think that perhaps she wouldn't come around for the pickup till tomorrow when she finally walked in the door. She employed the same tactics she had employed the previous night, arriving, as though by chance, at the T-section and transferring the message with the same undetectable legerdemain to her purse. This time, when she walked out the door, he was not far behind her.
She climbed into a sleek convertible and pulled into the street. It took him but a moment to gain his hardtop and start out after her. When, several blocks later, she pulled to the curb in front of an all-night coffee bar, he followed suit. After that, it was merely a matter of following her inside.
He decided on Operation Spill-the-sugar. It had stood him in good stead before, and he was rather fond of it. The procedure was quite simple. First you took note of the position of the sugar dispensers, then you situated yourself so that your intended victim was between you and the nearest one, then you ordered coffee without sugar in a low voice, and after the counterman or countergirl had served you, you waited till he/she was out of earshot and asked your i.v. to please pass the sugar. When she did so you let the dispenser slip from your fingers in such a way that some of its contents spilled on her lap—
"I'm terribly sorry," he said, righting it. "Here, let me brush it off."
"It's all right, it's only sugar," she said, laughing.
"I'm hopelessly clumsy," he continued smoothly, brushing the gleaming crystals from her pleated skirt, noting the clean sweep of her thighs.
"I beseech you to forgive me."
"You're forgiven," she said, and he noticed then that she spoke with a slight accent.
"If you like, you can send it to the cleaners and have them send the bill to me. My address is 61 Park Place." He pulled out his wallet, chose an appropriate card, and handed it to her—
Herbert Quidley: Profiliste
Her forehead crinkled. " Profiliste? "
"I paint profiles with words," he said. "You may have run across some of my pieces in the Better Magazines. I employ a variety of pseudonyms, of course."
"How interesting." She pronounced it "anteresting."
"Not famous profiles, you understand. Just profiles that strike my fancy." He paused. She had raised her cup to her lips and was taking a dainty sip. "You have a rather striking profile yourself, Miss—"
"Smith. Kay Smith." She set the cup back on the counter and turned and faced him. For a second her eyes seemed to expand till they preoccupied his entire vision, till he could see nothing but their disturbingly clear—and suddenly cold—blueness. Panic touched him, then vanished when she said, "Would you really consider word-painting my profile, Mr. Quidley?"
Would he! "When can I call?"
She hesitated for a moment. Then: "I think it will be better if I call on you. There are quite a number of people living in our—our house. I'm afraid the quarters would be much too cramped for an artist like yourself to concentrate."
Quidley glowed. Usually it required two or three days, and sometimes a week, to reach the apartment phase. "Fine," he said. "When can I expect you?"
She stood up and he got to his feet beside her. She was even taller than he had thought. In fact, if he hadn't been wearing Cuban heels, she'd have been taller than he was. "I'll be in town night after next," she said. "Will nine o'clock be convenient for you?"
"Perfectly."
"Good-by for now then, Mr. Quidley."
He was so elated that when he arrived at his apartment he actually did try to write a profile. His own, of course. He sat down at his custom-built chrome-trimmed desk, inserted a blank sheet of paper in his custom-built typewriter and tried to arrange his thoughts. But as usual his mind raced ahead of the moment, and he saw the title, Self Profile , nestling noticeably on the contents page of one of the Better Magazines, and presently he saw the piece itself in all its splendid array of colorful rhetoric, sparkling imagery and scintillating wit, occupying a two-page spread.
It was some time before he returned to reality, and when he did the first thing that met his eyes was the uncompromisingly blank sheet of paper. Hurriedly he typed out a letter to his father, requesting an advance on his allowance, then, after a tall glass of vintage wine, he went to bed.
In telling him that she would be in town two nights hence, Kay had unwittingly apprised him that there would be no exchange of messages until that time, so the next evening he skipped his vigil at the library. The following evening, however, after readying his apartment for the forthcoming assignation, he hied himself to his reading-table post and took up The Zeitgeist once again.
He had not thought it possible that there could be a third such woman.
And yet there she was, walking in the door, tall and blue-eyed and graceful; dark of hair and noble of mien; browsing in the philosophy section now, now the fiction section, now moving leisurely into the literature aisle and toward the T's....
The camouflage had varied, but the message was typical enough:
fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; Cai: Gind en snoll doper nckli! Wotnid antwaterer Fieu Dayol hid jestig snoll doper ifedererer te. Dep gogensplo snoll dopers ensing!—Gorka. fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl;
Judging from the repeated use of the words, snoll dopers were the topic of the day. Annoyed, Quidley replaced the message and put the book back on the shelf. Then he returned to his apartment to await Kay.
He wondered what her reaction would be if he asked her point-blank what a snoll doper was; whether she would reveal the nature of the amateur secret society to which she and Klio and Yoolna and Gorka belonged. It virtually had to be an amateur secret society. Unless, of course, they were foreigners. But what on earth foreign organization would be quixotic enough to employ Taine's History of English Literature as a communications medium when there was a telephone in every drugstore and a mailbox on every corner?
Somehow the words "what on earth foreign organization" got turned around in his mind and became "what foreign organization on earth" and before he could summon his common sense to succor him, he experienced a rather bad moment. By the time the door chimes sounded he was his normal self again.
He straightened his tie with nervous fingers, checked to see if his shirt cuffs protruded the proper length from his coat sleeves, and looked around the room to see if everything was in place. Everything was—the typewriter uncovered and centered on the chrome-trimmed desk, with the sheaf of crinkly first-sheets beside it; the reference books stacked imposingly nearby; Harper's , The Atlantic and The Saturday Review showing conspicuously in the magazine rack; the newly opened bottle of bourbon and the two snifter glasses on the sideboard; the small table set cozily for two—
The chimes sounded again. He opened the door.
She walked in with a demure, "Hello." He took her wrap. When he saw what she was wearing he had to tilt his head back so that his eyes wouldn't fall out of their sockets.
Skin, mostly, in the upper regions. White, glowing skin on which her long hair lay like forest pools. As for her dress, it was as though she had fallen forward into immaculate snow, half-burying her breasts before catching herself on her elbows, then turning into a sitting position, the snow clinging to her skin in a glistening veneer; arising finally to her feet, resplendently attired.
He went over to the sideboard, picked up the bottle of bourbon. She followed. He set the two snifter glasses side by side and tilted the bottle. "Say when." "When!" "I admire your dress—never saw anything quite like it." "Thank you. The material is something new. Feel it."
"It's—it's almost like foam rubber. Cigarette?" "Thanks.... Is something wrong, Mr. Quidley?" "No, of course not. Why?" "Your hands are trembling." "Oh. I'm—I'm afraid it's the present company, Miss Smith." "Call me Kay."
They touched glasses: "Your liquor is as exquisite as your living room, Herbert. I shall have to come here more often." "I hope you will, Kay."
"Though such conduct, I'm told, is morally reprehensible on the planet Earth." "Not in this particular circle. Your hair is lovely." "Thank you.... You haven't mentioned my perfume yet. Perhaps I'm standing too far away.... There!" "It's—it's as lovely as your hair, Kay." "Um, kiss me again." "I—I never figured—I mean, I engaged a caterer to serve us dinner at 9:30." "Call him up. Make it 10:30."
The following evening found Quidley on tenter-hooks. The snoll-doper mystery had acquired a new tang. He could hardly wait till the next message transfer took place.
He decided to spend the evening plotting the epic novel which he intended to write someday. He set to work immediately. He plotted mentally, of course—notes were for the hacks and the other commercial non-geniuses who infested the modern literary world. Closing his eyes, he saw the whole vivid panorama of epic action and grand adventure flowing like a mighty and majestic river before his literary vision: the authentic and awe-inspiring background; the hordes of colorful characters; the handsome virile hero, the compelling Helenesque heroine.... God, it was going to be great! The best thing he'd ever done! See, already there was a crowd of book lovers in front of the bookstore, staring into the window where the new Herbert Quidley was on display, trying to force its way into the jammed interior.... Cut to interior. FIRST EAGER CUSTOMER: Tell me quickly, are there any more copies of the new Herbert Quidley left? BOOK CLERK: A few. You don't know how lucky you are to get here before the first printing ran out. FIRST EAGER CUSTOMER: Give me a dozen. I want to make sure that my children and my children's children have a plentiful supply. BOOK CLERK: Sorry. Only one to a customer. Next? SECOND EAGER CUSTOMER: Tell me quickly, are ... there ... any ... more ... copies ... of—
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ....
Message no. 4, except for a slight variation in camouflage, ran true to form:
a;sldkfj a;sldkfj a;sldkfj a;sldkfj Cai: Habe te snoll dopers ensing? Wotnid ne Fieu Dayol ist ifederereret, hid jestig snoll doper. Gind ed, olro—Jilka. a;sldkfj a;sldkfj a;sldkfj a;sldkfj
Quidley sighed. What, he asked himself, standing in the library aisle and staring at the indecipherable words, was a normal girl like Kay doing in such a childish secret society? From the way she and her correspondents carried on you'd almost think they were Martian girl scouts on an interplanetary camping trip, trying for their merit badges in communications!
You could hardly call Kay a girl scout, though.
Nevertheless, she was the key figure in the snoll-doper enigma. The fact annoyed him, especially when he considered that a snoll doper , for all he knew, could be anything from a Chinese fortune cooky to an H-bomb.
He remembered Kay's odd accent. Was that the way a person would speak English if her own language ran something like " ist ifedereret, hid jestig snoll doper adwo ?"
He remembered the way she had looked at him in the coffee bar.
He remembered the material of her dress.
He remembered how she had come to his room.
"I didn't know you had a taste for Taine."
Her voice seemed to come from far away, but she was standing right beside him, tall and bewitching; Helenesque as ever. Her blue eyes became great wells into which he found himself falling. With an effort, he pulled himself back. "You're early tonight," he said lamely.
She appropriated the message, read it. "Put the book back," she said presently. Then, when he complied: "Come on."
"Where are we going?"
"I'm going to deliver a snoll doper to Jilka. After that I'm going to take you home to meet my folks."
The relieved sigh he heard was his own.
They climbed into her convertible and she nosed it into the moving line of cars. "How long have you been reading my mail?" she asked.
"Since the night before I met you."
"Was that the reason you spilled the sugar?"
"Part of the reason," he said. "What's a snoll doper ?"
She laughed. "I don't think I'd better tell you just yet."
He sighed again. "But if Jilka wanted a snoll doper ," he said after a while, "why in the world didn't she call you up and say so?"
"Regulations." She pulled over to the curb in front of a brick apartment building. "This is where Jilka lives. I'll explain when I get back."
He watched her get out, walk up the walk to the entrance and let herself in. He leaned his head back on the seat, lit a cigarette and exhaled a mixture of smoke and relief. On the way to meet her folks. So it was just an ordinary secret society after all. And here he'd been thinking that she was the key figure in a Martian plot to blow up Earth—
Her folks !
Abruptly the full implication of the words got through to him, and he sat bolt-up-right on the seat. He was starting to climb out of the car when he saw Kay coming down the walk. Anyway, running away wouldn't solve his problem. A complete disappearing act was in order, and a complete disappearing act would take time. Meanwhile he would play along with her.
A station wagon came up behind them, slowed, and matched its speed with theirs. "Someone's following us," Quidley said.
"Probably Jilka."
Five minutes later the station wagon turned down a side street and disappeared. "She's no longer with us," Quidley said.
"She's got to pick someone up. She'll meet us later."
"At your folks'?"
"At the ship."
The city was thinning out around them now, and a few stars were visible in the night sky. Quidley watched them thoughtfully for a while. Then:
"What ship?" he said.
"The one we're going to Fieu Dayol on."
" Fieu Dayol? "
"Persei 17 to you. I said I was going to take you home to meet my folks, didn't I?"
"In other words, you're kidnapping me."
She shook her head vehemently. "I most certainly am not! Neither according to interstellar law or your own. When you compromised me, you made yourself liable in the eyes of both."
"But why pick on me? There must be plenty of men on Fieu Dayol . Why don't you marry one of them?"
"For two reasons: one, you're the particular man who compromised me. Two, there are not plenty of men on Fieu Dayol . Our race is identical to yours in everything except population-balance between the sexes. At periodic intervals the women on Fieu Dayol so greatly outnumber the men that those of us who are temperamentally and emotionally unfitted to become spinsters have to look for wotnids —or mates—on other worlds. It's quite legal and quite respectable. As a matter of fact, we even have schools specializing in alien cultures to expedite our activities. Our biggest problem is the Interstellar statute forbidding us the use of local communications services and forbidding us to appear in public places. It was devised to facilitate the prosecution of interstellar black marketeers, but we're subject to it, too, and have to contrive communications systems of our own."
"But why were all the messages addressed to you?"
"They weren't messages. They were requisitions. I'm the ship's stock girl."
April fields stretched darkly away on either side of the highway. Presently she turned down a rutted road between two of them and they bounced and swayed back to a black blur of trees. "Here we are," she said.
Gradually he made out the sphere. It blended so flawlessly with its background that he wouldn't have been able to see it at all if he hadn't been informed of its existence. A gangplank sloped down from an open lock and came to rest just within the fringe of the trees.
Lights danced in the darkness behind them as another car jounced down the rutted road. "Jilka," Kay said. "I wonder if she got him."
Apparently she had. At least there was a man with her—a rather woebegone, wilted creature who didn't even look up as they passed. Quidley watched them ascend the gangplank, the man in the lead, and disappear into the ship.
"Next," Kay said.
Quidley shook his head. "You're not taking me to another planet!"
She opened her purse and pulled out a small metallic object "A little while ago you asked me what a snoll doper was," she said.
"Unfortunately interstellar law severely limits us in our choice of marriageable males, and we can take only those who refuse to conform to the sexual mores of their own societies." She did something to the object that caused it to extend itself into a long, tubular affair.
" This is a snoll doper ."
She prodded his ribs. "March," she said.
He marched. Halfway up the plank he glanced back over his shoulder for a better look at the object pressed against his back.
It bore a striking resemblance to a shotgun.
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Herbert Quidley finds a yellow paper with unintelligible words folded in the book called History of English Literature by Hippolyte Adolphe Taine. After he continues to work, he sees a girl come in, browse randomly, and take Taine’s book. The girl quickly riffles through the book, puts it back on the shelf, and leaves the library. After the girl leaves, Quidley checks the book, noticing the disappearance of the yellow paper. He learns the girl’s name, Kay Smith, from the librarian and goes home. On his way home, he guesses that the paper is a kind of message transmitted through an esoteric book. He guesses the identity of the person who might do this message job with Kay, none of which pleases him as he has a liking for the girl, so he decides to observe this messaging action for a while.\n\nThe following day, when Quidley waits at the library, a girl different from Kay comes to the library, puts another paper in Taine’s book, and leaves. Quidley sees the paper and finds another batch of unintelligible words, from which he finds two common words, Fieu Dayol and snoll doper. He puts back the letter and goes back to his seat. When the library is about to close, Kay comes to take the paper and leaves. Quidley follows behind her into a coffee bar. He intentionally spills the sugar on her, which allows him to start talking to her. Throughout the conversation, Quidley reveals his identity as a profiliste and accepts Kay’s request to make her a profile. They set up a time to meet next time. After they separate, Quidley goes home and writes a letter to his father for the allowance.\n\nTwo days later, Quidley goes to the library again and sits at his reading-table post with his favorite magazine. He sees the third woman come in and do the same thing as the previous girls. He reads the new message and returns to his apartment waiting for Kay. He thinks about the meaning of snoll doper. When Kay comes, they do something sexually. The following day, puzzled by the secret of the snoll doper, Quidley decides to read the message before the exchange happens. Kay finds out that Quidley is reading the message. She tells him to come with her to deliver the snoll doper to Jilka and meet her folks. When Quidley waits in the car, he realizes the possible true identity of Kay and what may happen next. Quidley learns from the conversation with Kay that they are heading to the ship to Fieu Dayol. He also learns that Kay is the ship’s stock girl, and all the messages are actually requisitions for the snoll dopers. He realizes that he is kidnapped to another planet, Fieu Dayol, where women outnumber men. He sees a man with Jilka ascend the ship and disappear. Kay forces Quidley to go into the ship by pointing him with a shotgun, which is called snoll doper in Kay’s language.\n",
"The plot follows Herbert Quidley. Herbert is a man who loves to engage with women. One day, he was in the public library when he saw a weird message scribbled on a bookmark in a random book. He then saw a very beautiful lady enter the library, and go to the book which had weird writing. Herbert learnt that her name was Kay. Herbert thought this was weird, but he thought it was even weirder when the next day another girl came and left another bookmark in the same book. Herbert understood that the girls were using the book as a means of communication, but he didn’t understand the messages. After the original girl came back, Herbert decided to follow her to a bar in order to meet her. Herbert uses a trick in order to first approach her, and they end up getting to know each other. They agree to meet in a few days at Herbert’s house. Herbert was very surprised to learn that there was a third woman communicating with the other two girls. After Herbert and Kay get to know each other more on their date, Herbert decides to confront Kay about her book in their next outing. When he confronts Kay, Kay tells him that she was in fact from an alien species, and that she used the books to communicate with her crew. Kay tells Herbert that he wants to take her to her home planet and mate with him, but when Herbert tries to refuse Kay takes out a shotgun and forces him onto their ship. ",
"Herbert Quidley’s penchant for old books has never been much of a problem for him. He finds a sheet of yellow paper in one of his Taine tomes and unfolds it, making him wonder what high school students read. He notices a girl walk through the door, noting that she deposits a book at the librarian’s desk and heads towards the literature section. Although Quidley lowers his eyes, he finds that she also has picked up the book that he had earlier. When he goes to see the book again later, he notes that the makeshift bookmark is now gone. He thinks back to the message again and wonders who could have left it for her. Quidley later finds out that the girl’s friend is another girl, and he tries to figure out what the second message means. Kay shows up again to leave another message, and Quidley follows her out to an all-night coffee shop to get her attention by spilling sugar. He introduces himself to her, and she responds that her name is Kay Smith. He feels intimidated by the girl for a moment, before she asks if he is really willing to word-paint her profile. She asks if they can meet at his place, and he agrees. A date is set up, and Quidley goes home. Although Kay is not in town for the next two days, he notices that there is now a third woman involved. The message is impossible to understand again, and he wonders if they are part of some secret society. When Kay comes, she is wearing a beautiful dress. Later, as Quidley is coming up with a new novel idea, he finds the fourth message again. As he thinks about her, Kay suddenly appears and tells him to put the book back. He is curious as to why she can’t just give Jilka a snoll doper, but Kay says it is because of regulations. Soon, she tells him that she is planning to take him back to Fieu Dayol because he had compromised her and because there are not enough men back on the planet. Kay also reveals that all of the messages were requisitions because she is the ship’s stock girl. The two arrive at the ship, and Quidley watches as Jilka and another man board the ship. Quidley tries to protest against boarding the ship himself, but Kay points a snoll doper at him. He notices that the object looks strikingly like a shotgun. ",
"Herbert Quidley is at a library. He opens Taine's History of English Literature and finds a sheet of paper with unintelligible text. He picks up another book. While reading it, he sees a beautiful young girl enter the library, take the sheet of paper from Taine's book, get another random book from the shelf, and leave. The next day, he notices another girl who slips a piece of paper between the book’s pages. When she leaves, he looks at the sheet of paper - it also has some unintelligible message. Later, the first girl - he calls her Kay - shows up and takes the message from the book. He follows her into a coffee bar. Quidley spills sugar on her lap, which helps him start a conversation with her. He tells her she can send him the cleaners’ bill and gives her his business card with his name, address, and profession - profiliste. He explains that he paints profiles with words. She introduces herself and asks if we can paint her profile. They decide to meet two days later at his place. Before meeting with her, he spends some time in the library and sees another girl who leaves the third coded message. He is confused and doesn’t understand why these girls are using this medium of communication. Quidley comes back home and waits for Kay. She arrives in a pretty white dress - he is mesmerized. They drink some bourbon and soon kiss. She tells him to postpone the dinner. The following evening Quidley goes to the library. He fantasizes about his future novel and finds a new message. Kay finds him reading the message. She look at the paper and then tells him to follow her. They get in her convertible, and Kay says that she has to deliver a snoll doper to Jilka, and then she will take Quidley to meet her folks. He admits to reading all their messages. She stops the car near a brick apartment building and leaves for several minutes. Quidley thinks of running away, but Kay comes back quickly. They drive to some ship which is supposed to take them to Fieu Dayol or Persei 17. She explains that she can and has to marry him now because he compromised her and because there are very few men on Fieu Dayol. She also tells him that those papers were requisitions, not messages - Kay is the ship’s stock girl. They pull up to a ship, parked somewhere among country fields. Jilka arrives with some man who slowly walks to the ship. When Quidley refuses to go with them, Kay tells him that the Interstellar law allows them to take only the ones who do not conform to the sexual mores of their society. She presses a snoll doper - a term he saw in the messages and later asked about - against his back. He realizes it’s something similar to a shotgun and starts marching up the plank. "
] |
61048
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The Girls From Fieu Dayol
By ROBERT F. YOUNG
They were lovely and quick to learn—and their only faults were little ones!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Up until the moment when he first looked into Hippolyte Adolphe Taine's History of English Literature , Herbert Quidley's penchant for old books had netted him nothing in the way of romance and intrigue. Not that he was a stranger to either. Far from it. But hitherto the background for both had been bedrooms and bars, not libraries.
On page 21 of the Taine tome he happened upon a sheet of yellow copy paper folded in four. Unfolding it, he read:
asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj Cai: Sities towms copeis wotnid. Gind snoll doper nckli! Wilbe Fieu Dayol fot ig habe mot toseo knwo—te bijk weil en snoll doper—Klio, asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj
Since when, Quidley wondered, refolding the paper and putting it back in the book, had high-school typing students taken to reading Taine? Thoughtfully he replaced the book on the shelf and moved deeper into the literature section.
He had just taken down Xenophon's Anabasis when he saw the girl walk in the door.
Let it be said forthwith that old books were not the only item on Herbert Quidley's penchant-list. He liked old wood, too, and old paintings, not to mention old wine and old whiskey. But most of all he liked young girls. He especially liked them when they looked the way Helen of Troy must have looked when Paris took one gander at her and started building his ladder. This one was tall, with hyacinth hair and liquid blue eyes, and she had a Grecian symmetry of shape that would have made Paris' eyes pop had he been around to take notice. Paris wasn't, but Quidley's eyes, did the job.
After coming in the door, the girl deposited a book on the librarian's desk and headed for the literature section. Quickly Quidley lowered his eyes to the Anabasis and henceforth followed her progress out of their corners. When she came to the O's she paused, took down a book and glanced through it. Then she replaced it and moved on to the P's ... the Q's ... the R's. Barely three feet from him she paused again and took down Taine's History of English Literature .
He simply could not believe it. The odds against two persons taking an interest in so esoteric a volume on a single night in a single library were ten thousand to one. And yet there was no gainsaying that the volume was in the girl's hands, and that she was riffling through it with the air of a seasoned browser.
Presently she returned the book to the shelf, selected another—seemingly at random—and took it over to the librarian's desk. She waited statuesquely while the librarian processed it, then tucked it under her arm and whisked out the door into the misty April night. As soon as she disappeared, Quidley stepped over to the T's and took Taine down once more. Just as he had suspected. The makeshift bookmark was gone.
He remembered how the asdf-;lkj exercise had given way to several lines of gibberish and then reappeared again. A camouflaged message? Or was it merely what it appeared to be on the surface—the efforts of an impatient typing student to type before his time?
He returned Taine to the shelf. After learning from the librarian that the girl's name was Kay Smith, he went out and got in his hardtop. The name rang a bell. Halfway home he realized why. The typing exercise had contained the word "Cai", and if you pronounced it with hard c, you got
"Kai"—or "Kay". Obviously, then, the exercise had been a message, and had been deliberately inserted in a book no average person would dream of borrowing.
By whom—her boy friend?
Quidley winced. He was allergic to the term. Not that he ever let the presence of a boy friend deter him when he set out to conquer, but because the term itself brought to mind the word "fiance," and the word
"fiance" brought to mind still another word, one which repelled him violently. I.e., "marriage". Just the same, he decided to keep Taine's History under observation for a while.
Her boy friend turned out to be her girl friend, and her girl friend turned out to be a tall and lissome, lovely with a Helenesque air of her own. From the vantage point of a strategically located reading table, where he was keeping company with his favorite little magazine, The Zeitgeist , Quidley watched her take a seemingly haphazard route to the shelf where Taine's History reposed, take the volume down, surreptitiously slip a folded sheet of yellow paper between its pages and return it to the shelf.
After she left he wasted no time in acquainting himself with the second message. It was as unintelligible as the first:
asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj Cai: Habe wotnid ig ist ending ifedererer te. T'lide sid Fieu Dayol po jestig toseo knwo, bijk weil en snoll doper entling—Yoolna. asdf ;lkj asdf
;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj
Well, perhaps not quite as unintelligible. He knew, at least, who Cai was, and he knew—from the reappearance of the words wotnid , Fieu Dayol and snoll doper —that the two communications were in the same code. And certainly it was reasonable to assume that the last word— Yoolna —was the name of the girl he had just seen, and that she was a different person from the Klio whose name had appended the first message.
He refolded the paper, replaced it between the pages, returned the book to the shelf and went back to the reading table and The Zeitgeist .
Kay didn't show up till almost closing time, and he was beginning to think that perhaps she wouldn't come around for the pickup till tomorrow when she finally walked in the door. She employed the same tactics she had employed the previous night, arriving, as though by chance, at the T-section and transferring the message with the same undetectable legerdemain to her purse. This time, when she walked out the door, he was not far behind her.
She climbed into a sleek convertible and pulled into the street. It took him but a moment to gain his hardtop and start out after her. When, several blocks later, she pulled to the curb in front of an all-night coffee bar, he followed suit. After that, it was merely a matter of following her inside.
He decided on Operation Spill-the-sugar. It had stood him in good stead before, and he was rather fond of it. The procedure was quite simple. First you took note of the position of the sugar dispensers, then you situated yourself so that your intended victim was between you and the nearest one, then you ordered coffee without sugar in a low voice, and after the counterman or countergirl had served you, you waited till he/she was out of earshot and asked your i.v. to please pass the sugar. When she did so you let the dispenser slip from your fingers in such a way that some of its contents spilled on her lap—
"I'm terribly sorry," he said, righting it. "Here, let me brush it off."
"It's all right, it's only sugar," she said, laughing.
"I'm hopelessly clumsy," he continued smoothly, brushing the gleaming crystals from her pleated skirt, noting the clean sweep of her thighs.
"I beseech you to forgive me."
"You're forgiven," she said, and he noticed then that she spoke with a slight accent.
"If you like, you can send it to the cleaners and have them send the bill to me. My address is 61 Park Place." He pulled out his wallet, chose an appropriate card, and handed it to her—
Herbert Quidley: Profiliste
Her forehead crinkled. " Profiliste? "
"I paint profiles with words," he said. "You may have run across some of my pieces in the Better Magazines. I employ a variety of pseudonyms, of course."
"How interesting." She pronounced it "anteresting."
"Not famous profiles, you understand. Just profiles that strike my fancy." He paused. She had raised her cup to her lips and was taking a dainty sip. "You have a rather striking profile yourself, Miss—"
"Smith. Kay Smith." She set the cup back on the counter and turned and faced him. For a second her eyes seemed to expand till they preoccupied his entire vision, till he could see nothing but their disturbingly clear—and suddenly cold—blueness. Panic touched him, then vanished when she said, "Would you really consider word-painting my profile, Mr. Quidley?"
Would he! "When can I call?"
She hesitated for a moment. Then: "I think it will be better if I call on you. There are quite a number of people living in our—our house. I'm afraid the quarters would be much too cramped for an artist like yourself to concentrate."
Quidley glowed. Usually it required two or three days, and sometimes a week, to reach the apartment phase. "Fine," he said. "When can I expect you?"
She stood up and he got to his feet beside her. She was even taller than he had thought. In fact, if he hadn't been wearing Cuban heels, she'd have been taller than he was. "I'll be in town night after next," she said. "Will nine o'clock be convenient for you?"
"Perfectly."
"Good-by for now then, Mr. Quidley."
He was so elated that when he arrived at his apartment he actually did try to write a profile. His own, of course. He sat down at his custom-built chrome-trimmed desk, inserted a blank sheet of paper in his custom-built typewriter and tried to arrange his thoughts. But as usual his mind raced ahead of the moment, and he saw the title, Self Profile , nestling noticeably on the contents page of one of the Better Magazines, and presently he saw the piece itself in all its splendid array of colorful rhetoric, sparkling imagery and scintillating wit, occupying a two-page spread.
It was some time before he returned to reality, and when he did the first thing that met his eyes was the uncompromisingly blank sheet of paper. Hurriedly he typed out a letter to his father, requesting an advance on his allowance, then, after a tall glass of vintage wine, he went to bed.
In telling him that she would be in town two nights hence, Kay had unwittingly apprised him that there would be no exchange of messages until that time, so the next evening he skipped his vigil at the library. The following evening, however, after readying his apartment for the forthcoming assignation, he hied himself to his reading-table post and took up The Zeitgeist once again.
He had not thought it possible that there could be a third such woman.
And yet there she was, walking in the door, tall and blue-eyed and graceful; dark of hair and noble of mien; browsing in the philosophy section now, now the fiction section, now moving leisurely into the literature aisle and toward the T's....
The camouflage had varied, but the message was typical enough:
fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; Cai: Gind en snoll doper nckli! Wotnid antwaterer Fieu Dayol hid jestig snoll doper ifedererer te. Dep gogensplo snoll dopers ensing!—Gorka. fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl;
Judging from the repeated use of the words, snoll dopers were the topic of the day. Annoyed, Quidley replaced the message and put the book back on the shelf. Then he returned to his apartment to await Kay.
He wondered what her reaction would be if he asked her point-blank what a snoll doper was; whether she would reveal the nature of the amateur secret society to which she and Klio and Yoolna and Gorka belonged. It virtually had to be an amateur secret society. Unless, of course, they were foreigners. But what on earth foreign organization would be quixotic enough to employ Taine's History of English Literature as a communications medium when there was a telephone in every drugstore and a mailbox on every corner?
Somehow the words "what on earth foreign organization" got turned around in his mind and became "what foreign organization on earth" and before he could summon his common sense to succor him, he experienced a rather bad moment. By the time the door chimes sounded he was his normal self again.
He straightened his tie with nervous fingers, checked to see if his shirt cuffs protruded the proper length from his coat sleeves, and looked around the room to see if everything was in place. Everything was—the typewriter uncovered and centered on the chrome-trimmed desk, with the sheaf of crinkly first-sheets beside it; the reference books stacked imposingly nearby; Harper's , The Atlantic and The Saturday Review showing conspicuously in the magazine rack; the newly opened bottle of bourbon and the two snifter glasses on the sideboard; the small table set cozily for two—
The chimes sounded again. He opened the door.
She walked in with a demure, "Hello." He took her wrap. When he saw what she was wearing he had to tilt his head back so that his eyes wouldn't fall out of their sockets.
Skin, mostly, in the upper regions. White, glowing skin on which her long hair lay like forest pools. As for her dress, it was as though she had fallen forward into immaculate snow, half-burying her breasts before catching herself on her elbows, then turning into a sitting position, the snow clinging to her skin in a glistening veneer; arising finally to her feet, resplendently attired.
He went over to the sideboard, picked up the bottle of bourbon. She followed. He set the two snifter glasses side by side and tilted the bottle. "Say when." "When!" "I admire your dress—never saw anything quite like it." "Thank you. The material is something new. Feel it."
"It's—it's almost like foam rubber. Cigarette?" "Thanks.... Is something wrong, Mr. Quidley?" "No, of course not. Why?" "Your hands are trembling." "Oh. I'm—I'm afraid it's the present company, Miss Smith." "Call me Kay."
They touched glasses: "Your liquor is as exquisite as your living room, Herbert. I shall have to come here more often." "I hope you will, Kay."
"Though such conduct, I'm told, is morally reprehensible on the planet Earth." "Not in this particular circle. Your hair is lovely." "Thank you.... You haven't mentioned my perfume yet. Perhaps I'm standing too far away.... There!" "It's—it's as lovely as your hair, Kay." "Um, kiss me again." "I—I never figured—I mean, I engaged a caterer to serve us dinner at 9:30." "Call him up. Make it 10:30."
The following evening found Quidley on tenter-hooks. The snoll-doper mystery had acquired a new tang. He could hardly wait till the next message transfer took place.
He decided to spend the evening plotting the epic novel which he intended to write someday. He set to work immediately. He plotted mentally, of course—notes were for the hacks and the other commercial non-geniuses who infested the modern literary world. Closing his eyes, he saw the whole vivid panorama of epic action and grand adventure flowing like a mighty and majestic river before his literary vision: the authentic and awe-inspiring background; the hordes of colorful characters; the handsome virile hero, the compelling Helenesque heroine.... God, it was going to be great! The best thing he'd ever done! See, already there was a crowd of book lovers in front of the bookstore, staring into the window where the new Herbert Quidley was on display, trying to force its way into the jammed interior.... Cut to interior. FIRST EAGER CUSTOMER: Tell me quickly, are there any more copies of the new Herbert Quidley left? BOOK CLERK: A few. You don't know how lucky you are to get here before the first printing ran out. FIRST EAGER CUSTOMER: Give me a dozen. I want to make sure that my children and my children's children have a plentiful supply. BOOK CLERK: Sorry. Only one to a customer. Next? SECOND EAGER CUSTOMER: Tell me quickly, are ... there ... any ... more ... copies ... of—
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ....
Message no. 4, except for a slight variation in camouflage, ran true to form:
a;sldkfj a;sldkfj a;sldkfj a;sldkfj Cai: Habe te snoll dopers ensing? Wotnid ne Fieu Dayol ist ifederereret, hid jestig snoll doper. Gind ed, olro—Jilka. a;sldkfj a;sldkfj a;sldkfj a;sldkfj
Quidley sighed. What, he asked himself, standing in the library aisle and staring at the indecipherable words, was a normal girl like Kay doing in such a childish secret society? From the way she and her correspondents carried on you'd almost think they were Martian girl scouts on an interplanetary camping trip, trying for their merit badges in communications!
You could hardly call Kay a girl scout, though.
Nevertheless, she was the key figure in the snoll-doper enigma. The fact annoyed him, especially when he considered that a snoll doper , for all he knew, could be anything from a Chinese fortune cooky to an H-bomb.
He remembered Kay's odd accent. Was that the way a person would speak English if her own language ran something like " ist ifedereret, hid jestig snoll doper adwo ?"
He remembered the way she had looked at him in the coffee bar.
He remembered the material of her dress.
He remembered how she had come to his room.
"I didn't know you had a taste for Taine."
Her voice seemed to come from far away, but she was standing right beside him, tall and bewitching; Helenesque as ever. Her blue eyes became great wells into which he found himself falling. With an effort, he pulled himself back. "You're early tonight," he said lamely.
She appropriated the message, read it. "Put the book back," she said presently. Then, when he complied: "Come on."
"Where are we going?"
"I'm going to deliver a snoll doper to Jilka. After that I'm going to take you home to meet my folks."
The relieved sigh he heard was his own.
They climbed into her convertible and she nosed it into the moving line of cars. "How long have you been reading my mail?" she asked.
"Since the night before I met you."
"Was that the reason you spilled the sugar?"
"Part of the reason," he said. "What's a snoll doper ?"
She laughed. "I don't think I'd better tell you just yet."
He sighed again. "But if Jilka wanted a snoll doper ," he said after a while, "why in the world didn't she call you up and say so?"
"Regulations." She pulled over to the curb in front of a brick apartment building. "This is where Jilka lives. I'll explain when I get back."
He watched her get out, walk up the walk to the entrance and let herself in. He leaned his head back on the seat, lit a cigarette and exhaled a mixture of smoke and relief. On the way to meet her folks. So it was just an ordinary secret society after all. And here he'd been thinking that she was the key figure in a Martian plot to blow up Earth—
Her folks !
Abruptly the full implication of the words got through to him, and he sat bolt-up-right on the seat. He was starting to climb out of the car when he saw Kay coming down the walk. Anyway, running away wouldn't solve his problem. A complete disappearing act was in order, and a complete disappearing act would take time. Meanwhile he would play along with her.
A station wagon came up behind them, slowed, and matched its speed with theirs. "Someone's following us," Quidley said.
"Probably Jilka."
Five minutes later the station wagon turned down a side street and disappeared. "She's no longer with us," Quidley said.
"She's got to pick someone up. She'll meet us later."
"At your folks'?"
"At the ship."
The city was thinning out around them now, and a few stars were visible in the night sky. Quidley watched them thoughtfully for a while. Then:
"What ship?" he said.
"The one we're going to Fieu Dayol on."
" Fieu Dayol? "
"Persei 17 to you. I said I was going to take you home to meet my folks, didn't I?"
"In other words, you're kidnapping me."
She shook her head vehemently. "I most certainly am not! Neither according to interstellar law or your own. When you compromised me, you made yourself liable in the eyes of both."
"But why pick on me? There must be plenty of men on Fieu Dayol . Why don't you marry one of them?"
"For two reasons: one, you're the particular man who compromised me. Two, there are not plenty of men on Fieu Dayol . Our race is identical to yours in everything except population-balance between the sexes. At periodic intervals the women on Fieu Dayol so greatly outnumber the men that those of us who are temperamentally and emotionally unfitted to become spinsters have to look for wotnids —or mates—on other worlds. It's quite legal and quite respectable. As a matter of fact, we even have schools specializing in alien cultures to expedite our activities. Our biggest problem is the Interstellar statute forbidding us the use of local communications services and forbidding us to appear in public places. It was devised to facilitate the prosecution of interstellar black marketeers, but we're subject to it, too, and have to contrive communications systems of our own."
"But why were all the messages addressed to you?"
"They weren't messages. They were requisitions. I'm the ship's stock girl."
April fields stretched darkly away on either side of the highway. Presently she turned down a rutted road between two of them and they bounced and swayed back to a black blur of trees. "Here we are," she said.
Gradually he made out the sphere. It blended so flawlessly with its background that he wouldn't have been able to see it at all if he hadn't been informed of its existence. A gangplank sloped down from an open lock and came to rest just within the fringe of the trees.
Lights danced in the darkness behind them as another car jounced down the rutted road. "Jilka," Kay said. "I wonder if she got him."
Apparently she had. At least there was a man with her—a rather woebegone, wilted creature who didn't even look up as they passed. Quidley watched them ascend the gangplank, the man in the lead, and disappear into the ship.
"Next," Kay said.
Quidley shook his head. "You're not taking me to another planet!"
She opened her purse and pulled out a small metallic object "A little while ago you asked me what a snoll doper was," she said.
"Unfortunately interstellar law severely limits us in our choice of marriageable males, and we can take only those who refuse to conform to the sexual mores of their own societies." She did something to the object that caused it to extend itself into a long, tubular affair.
" This is a snoll doper ."
She prodded his ribs. "March," she said.
He marched. Halfway up the plank he glanced back over his shoulder for a better look at the object pressed against his back.
It bore a striking resemblance to a shotgun.
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What is the significance of the army in the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Soldier Boy by Michael Shaara.
Relevant chunks:
SOLDIER BOY
By MICHAEL SHAARA
Illustrated by EMSH
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It's one thing to laugh at a man because his job is useless and outdated—another to depend on him when it suddenly isn't.
In the northland, deep, and in a great cave, by an everburning fire the Warrior sleeps. For this is the resting time, the time of peace, and so shall it be for a thousand years. And yet we shall summon him again, my children, when we are sore in need, and out of the north he will come, and again and again, each time we call, out of the dark and the cold, with the fire in his hands, he will come.
— Scandinavian legend
Throughout the night, thick clouds had been piling in the north; in the morning, it was misty and cold. By eight o'clock a wet, heavy, snow-smelling breeze had begun to set in, and because the crops were all down and the winter planting done, the colonists brewed hot coffee and remained inside. The wind blew steadily, icily from the north. It was well below freezing when, some time after nine, an army ship landed in a field near the settlement.
There was still time. There were some last brief moments in which the colonists could act and feel as they had always done. They therefore grumbled in annoyance. They wanted no soldiers here. The few who had convenient windows stared out with distaste and a mild curiosity, but no one went out to greet them.
After a while a rather tall, frail-looking man came out of the ship and stood upon the hard ground looking toward the village. He remained there, waiting stiffly, his face turned from the wind. It was a silly thing to do. He was obviously not coming in, either out of pride or just plain orneriness.
"Well, I never," a nice lady said.
"What's he just standing there for?" another lady said.
And all of them thought: well, God knows what's in the mind of a soldier, and right away many people concluded that he must be drunk. The seed of peace was deeply planted in these people, in the children and the women, very, very deep. And because they had been taught, oh so carefully, to hate war they had also been taught, quite incidentally, to despise soldiers.
The lone man kept standing in the freezing wind.
Eventually, because even a soldier can look small and cold and pathetic, Bob Rossel had to get up out of a nice, warm bed and go out in that miserable cold to meet him.
The soldier saluted. Like most soldiers, he was not too neat and not too clean and the salute was sloppy. Although he was bigger than Rossel he did not seem bigger. And, because of the cold, there were tears gathering in the ends of his eyes.
"Captain Dylan, sir." His voice was low and did not carry. "I have a message from Fleet Headquarters. Are you in charge here?"
Rossel, a small sober man, grunted. "Nobody's in charge here. If you want a spokesman I guess I'll do. What's up?"
The captain regarded him briefly out of pale blue, expressionless eyes. Then he pulled an envelope from an inside pocket, handed it to Rossel. It was a thick, official-looking thing and Rossel hefted it idly. He was about to ask again what was it all about when the airlock of the hovering ship swung open creakily. A beefy, black-haired young man appeared unsteadily in the doorway, called to Dylan.
"C'n I go now, Jim?"
Dylan turned and nodded.
"Be back for you tonight," the young man called, and then, grinning, he yelled "Catch" and tossed down a bottle. The captain caught it and put it unconcernedly into his pocket while Rossel stared in disgust. A moment later the airlock closed and the ship prepared to lift.
"Was he drunk ?" Rossel began angrily. "Was that a bottle of liquor ?"
The soldier was looking at him calmly, coldly. He indicated the envelope in Rossel's hand. "You'd better read that and get moving. We haven't much time."
He turned and walked toward the buildings and Rossel had to follow. As Rossel drew near the walls the watchers could see his lips moving but could not hear him. Just then the ship lifted and they turned to watch that, and followed it upward, red spark-tailed, into the gray spongy clouds and the cold.
After a while the ship went out of sight, and nobody ever saw it again.
The first contact Man had ever had with an intelligent alien race occurred out on the perimeter in a small quiet place a long way from home. Late in the year 2360—the exact date remains unknown—an alien force attacked and destroyed the colony at Lupus V. The wreckage and the dead were found by a mailship which flashed off screaming for the army.
When the army came it found this: Of the seventy registered colonists, thirty-one were dead. The rest, including some women and children, were missing. All technical equipment, all radios, guns, machines, even books, were also missing. The buildings had been burned, so were the bodies. Apparently the aliens had a heat ray. What else they had, nobody knew. After a few days of walking around in the ash, one soldier finally stumbled on something.
For security reasons, there was a detonator in one of the main buildings. In case of enemy attack, Security had provided a bomb to be buried in the center of each colony, because it was important to blow a whole village to hell and gone rather than let a hostile alien learn vital facts about human technology and body chemistry. There was a bomb at Lupus V too, and though it had been detonated it had not blown. The detonating wire had been cut.
In the heart of the camp, hidden from view under twelve inches of earth, the wire had been dug up and cut.
The army could not understand it and had no time to try. After five hundred years of peace and anti-war conditioning the army was small, weak and without respect. Therefore, the army did nothing but spread the news, and Man began to fall back.
In a thickening, hastening stream he came back from the hard-won stars, blowing up his homes behind him, stunned and cursing. Most of the colonists got out in time. A few, the farthest and loneliest, died in fire before the army ships could reach them. And the men in those ships, drinkers and gamblers and veterans of nothing, the dregs of a society which had grown beyond them, were for a long while the only defense Earth had.
This was the message Captain Dylan had brought, come out from Earth with a bottle on his hip.
An obscenely cheerful expression upon his gaunt, not too well shaven face, Captain Dylan perched himself upon the edge of a table and listened, one long booted leg swinging idly. One by one the colonists were beginning to understand. War is huge and comes with great suddenness and always without reason, and there is inevitably a wait, between acts, between the news and the motion, the fear and the rage.
Dylan waited. These people were taking it well, much better than those in the cities had taken it. But then, these were pioneers. Dylan grinned. Pioneers. Before you settle a planet you boil it and bake it and purge it of all possible disease. Then you step down gingerly and inflate your plastic houses, which harden and become warm and impregnable; and send your machines out to plant and harvest; and set up automatic factories to transmute dirt into coffee; and, without ever having lifted a finger, you have braved the wilderness, hewed a home out of the living rock and become a pioneer. Dylan grinned again. But at least this was better than the wailing of the cities.
This Dylan thought, although he was himself no fighter, no man at all by any standards. This he thought because he was a soldier and an outcast; to every drunken man the fall of the sober is a happy thing. He stirred restlessly.
By this time the colonists had begun to realize that there wasn't much to say, and a tall, handsome woman was murmuring distractedly: "Lupus, Lupus—doesn't that mean wolves or something?"
Dylan began to wish they would get moving, these pioneers. It was very possible that the aliens would be here soon, and there was no need for discussion. There was only one thing to do and that was to clear the hell out, quickly and without argument. They began to see it.
But, when the fear had died down, the resentment came. A number of women began to cluster around Dylan and complain, working up their anger. Dylan said nothing. Then the man Rossel pushed forward and confronted him, speaking with a vast annoyance.
"See here, soldier, this is our planet. I mean to say, this is our home . We demand some protection from the fleet. By God, we've been paying the freight for you boys all these years and it's high time you earned your keep. We demand...."
It went on and on while Dylan looked at the clock and waited. He hoped that he could end this quickly. A big gloomy man was in front of him now and giving him that name of ancient contempt, "soldier boy." The gloomy man wanted to know where the fleet was.
"There is no fleet. There are a few hundred half-shot old tubs that were obsolete before you were born. There are four or five new jobs for the brass and the government. That's all the fleet there is."
Dylan wanted to go on about that, to remind them that nobody had wanted the army, that the fleet had grown smaller and smaller ... but this was not the time. It was ten-thirty already and the damned aliens might be coming in right now for all he knew, and all they did was talk. He had realized a long time ago that no peace-loving nation in the history of Earth had ever kept itself strong, and although peace was a noble dream, it was ended now and it was time to move.
"We'd better get going," he finally said, and there was quiet.
"Lieutenant Bossio has gone on to your sister colony at Planet Three of this system. He'll return to pick me up by nightfall and I'm instructed to have you gone by then."
For a long moment they waited, and then one man abruptly walked off and the rest followed quickly; in a moment they were all gone. One or two stopped long enough to complain about the fleet, and the big gloomy man said he wanted guns, that's all, and there wouldn't nobody get him off his planet. When he left, Dylan breathed with relief and went out to check the bomb, grateful for the action.
Most of it had to be done in the open. He found a metal bar in the radio shack and began chopping at the frozen ground, following the wire. It was the first thing he had done with his hands in weeks, and it felt fine.
Dylan had been called up out of a bar—he and Bossio—and told what had happened, and in three weeks now they had cleared four colonies. This would be the last, and the tension here was beginning to get to him. After thirty years of hanging around and playing like the town drunk, a man could not be expected to rush out and plug the breach, just like that. It would take time.
He rested, sweating, took a pull from the bottle on his hip.
Before they sent him out on this trip they had made him a captain. Well, that was nice. After thirty years he was a captain. For thirty years he had bummed all over the west end of space, had scraped his way along the outer edges of Mankind, had waited and dozed and patrolled and got drunk, waiting always for something to happen. There were a lot of ways to pass the time while you waited for something to happen, and he had done them all.
Once he had even studied military tactics.
He could not help smiling at that, even now. Damn it, he'd been green. But he'd been only nineteen when his father died—of a hernia, of a crazy fool thing like a hernia that killed him just because he'd worked too long on a heavy planet—and in those days the anti-war conditioning out on the Rim was not very strong. They talked a lot about guardians of the frontier, and they got him and some other kids and a broken-down doctor. And ... now he was a captain.
He bent his back savagely, digging at the ground. You wait and you wait and the edge goes off. This thing he had waited for all those damn days was upon him now and there was nothing he could do but say the hell with it and go home. Somewhere along the line, in some dark corner of the bars or the jails, in one of the million soul-murdering insults which are reserved especially for peacetime soldiers, he had lost the core of himself, and it didn't particularly matter. That was the point: it made no particular difference if he never got it back. He owed nobody. He was tugging at the wire and trying to think of something pleasant from the old days, when the wire came loose in his hands.
Although he had been, in his cynical way, expecting it, for a moment it threw him and he just stared. The end was clean and bright. The wire had just been cut.
Dylan sat for a long while by the radio shack, holding the ends in his hands. He reached almost automatically for the bottle on his hip and then, for the first time he could remember, let it go. This was real, there was no time for that.
When Rossel came up, Dylan was still sitting. Rossel was so excited he did not notice the wire.
"Listen, soldier, how many people can your ship take?"
Dylan looked at him vaguely. "She sleeps two and won't take off with more'n ten. Why?"
His eyes bright and worried, Rossel leaned heavily against the shack.
"We're overloaded. There are sixty of us and our ship will only take forty. We came out in groups, we never thought...."
Dylan dropped his eyes, swearing silently. "You're sure? No baggage, no iron rations; you couldn't get ten more on?"
"Not a chance. She's only a little ship with one deck—she's all we could afford."
Dylan whistled. He had begun to feel light-headed. "It 'pears that somebody's gonna find out first hand what them aliens look like."
It was the wrong thing to say and he knew it. "All right," he said quickly, still staring at the clear-sliced wire, "we'll do what we can. Maybe the colony on Three has room. I'll call Bossio and ask."
The colonist had begun to look quite pitifully at the buildings around him and the scurrying people.
"Aren't there any fleet ships within radio distance?"
Dylan shook his head. "The fleet's spread out kind of thin nowadays." Because the other was leaning on him he felt a great irritation, but he said, as kindly as he could, "We'll get 'em all out. One way or another, we won't leave anybody."
It was then that Rossel saw the wire. Thickly, he asked what had happened.
Dylan showed him the two clean ends. "Somebody dug it up, cut it, then buried it again and packed it down real nice."
"The damn fool!" Rossel exploded.
"Who?"
"Why, one of ... of us, of course. I know nobody ever liked sitting on a live bomb like this, but I never...."
"You think one of your people did it?"
Rossel stared at him. "Isn't that obvious?"
"Why?"
"Well, they probably thought it was too dangerous, and silly too, like most government rules. Or maybe one of the kids...."
It was then that Dylan told him about the wire on Lupus V. Rossel was silent. Involuntarily, he glanced at the sky, then he said shakily,
"Maybe an animal?"
Dylan shook his head. "No animal did that. Wouldn't have buried it, or found it in the first place. Heck of a coincidence, don't you think? The wire at Lupus was cut just before an alien attack, and now this one is cut too—newly cut."
The colonist put one hand to his mouth, his eyes wide and white.
"So something," said Dylan, "knew enough about this camp to know that a bomb was buried here and also to know why it was here. And that something didn't want the camp destroyed and so came right into the center of the camp, traced the wire, dug it up and cut it. And then walked right out again."
"Listen," said Rossel, "I'd better go ask."
He started away but Dylan caught his arm.
"Tell them to arm," he said, "and try not to scare hell out of them. I'll be with you as soon as I've spliced this wire."
Rossel nodded and went off, running. Dylan knelt with the metal in his hands.
He began to feel that, by God, he was getting cold. He realized that he'd better go inside soon, but the wire had to be spliced. That was perhaps the most important thing he could do now, splice the wire.
All right, he asked himself for the thousandth time, who cut it? How? Telepathy? Could they somehow control one of us?
No. If they controlled one, then they could control all, and then there would be no need for an attack. But you don't know, you don't really know.
Were they small? Little animals?
Unlikely. Biology said that really intelligent life required a sizable brain and you would have to expect an alien to be at least as large as a dog. And every form of life on this planet had been screened long before a colony had been allowed in. If any new animals had suddenly shown up, Rossel would certainly know about it.
He would ask Rossel. He would damn sure have to ask Rossel.
He finished splicing the wire and tucked it into the ground. Then he straightened up and, before he went into the radio shack, he pulled out his pistol. He checked it, primed it, and tried to remember the last time he had fired it. He never had—he never had fired a gun.
The snow began falling near noon. There was nothing anybody could do but stand in the silence and watch it come down in a white rushing wall, and watch the trees and the hills drown in the whiteness, until there was nothing on the planet but the buildings and a few warm lights and the snow.
By one o'clock the visibility was down to zero and Dylan decided to try to contact Bossio again and tell him to hurry. But Bossio still didn't answer. Dylan stared long and thoughtfully out the window through the snow at the gray shrouded shapes of bushes and trees which were beginning to become horrifying. It must be that Bossio was still drunk—maybe sleeping it off before making planetfall on Three. Dylan held no grudge. Bossio was a kid and alone. It took a special kind of guts to take a ship out into space alone, when Things could be waiting....
A young girl, pink and lovely in a thick fur jacket, came into the shack and told him breathlessly that her father, Mr. Rush, would like to know if he wanted sentries posted. Dylan hadn't thought about it but he said yes right away, beginning to feel both pleased and irritated at the same time, because now they were coming to him.
He pushed out into the cold and went to find Rossel. With the snow it was bad enough, but if they were still here when the sun went down they wouldn't have a chance. Most of the men were out stripping down their ship and that would take a while. He wondered why Rossel hadn't yet put a call through to Three, asking about room on the ship there. The only answer he could find was that Rossel knew that there was no room, and he wanted to put off the answer as long as possible. And, in a way, you could not blame him.
Rossel was in his cabin with the big, gloomy man—who turned out to be Rush, the one who had asked about sentries. Rush was methodically cleaning an old hunting rifle. Rossel was surprisingly full of hope.
"Listen, there's a mail ship due in, been due since yesterday. We might get the rest of the folks out on that."
Dylan shrugged. "Don't count on it."
"But they have a contract!"
The soldier grinned.
The big man, Rush, was paying no attention. Quite suddenly he said:
"Who cut that wire, Cap?"
Dylan swung slowly to look at him. "As far as I can figure, an alien cut it."
Rush shook his head. "No. Ain't been no aliens near this camp, and no peculiar animals either. We got a planet-wide radar, and ain't no unidentified ships come near, not since we first landed more'n a year ago." He lifted the rifle and peered through the bore. "Uh-uh. One of us did it."
The man had been thinking. And he knew the planet.
"Telepathy?" asked Dylan.
"Might be."
"Can't see it. You people live too close, you'd notice right away if one of you wasn't ... himself. And, if they've got one, why not all?"
Rush calmly—at least outwardly calmly—lit his pipe. There was a strength in this man that Dylan had missed before.
"Don't know," he said gruffly. "But these are aliens, mister. And until I know different I'm keepin' an eye on my neighbor."
He gave Rossel a sour look and Rossel stared back, uncomprehending.
Then Rossel jumped. "My God!"
Dylan moved to quiet him. "Look, is there any animal at all that ever comes near here that's as large as a dog?"
After a pause, Rush answered. "Yep, there's one. The viggle. It's like a reg'lar monkey but with four legs. Biology cleared 'em before we landed. We shoot one now and then when they get pesky." He rose slowly, the rifle held under his arm. "I b'lieve we might just as well go post them sentries."
Dylan wanted to go on with this but there was nothing much else to say. Rossel went with them as far as the radio shack, with a strained expression on his face, to put through that call to Three.
When he was gone Rush asked Dylan, "Where you want them sentries? I got Walt Halloran and Web Eggers and six others lined up."
Dylan stopped and looked around grimly at the circling wall of snow.
"You know the site better than I do. Post 'em in a ring, on rises, within calling distance. Have 'em check with each other every five minutes. I'll go help your people at the ship."
The gloomy man nodded and fluffed up his collar. "Nice day for huntin'," he said, and then he was gone with the snow quickly covering his footprints.
The Alien lay wrapped in a thick electric cocoon, buried in a wide warm room beneath the base of a tree. The tree served him as antennae; curiously he gazed into a small view-screen and watched the humans come. He saw them fan out, eight of them, and sink down in the snow. He saw that they were armed.
He pulsed thoughtfully, extending a part of himself to absorb a spiced lizard. Since the morning, when the new ship had come, he had been watching steadily, and now it was apparent that the humans were aware of their danger. Undoubtedly they were preparing to leave.
That was unfortunate. The attack was not scheduled until late that night and he could not, of course, press the assault by day. But flexibility , he reminded himself sternly, is the first principle of absorption , and therefore he moved to alter his plans. A projection reached out to dial several knobs on a large box before him, and the hour of assault was moved forward to dusk. A glance at the chronometer told him that it was already well into the night on Planet Three, and that the attack there had probably begun.
The Alien felt the first tenuous pulsing of anticipation. He lay quietly, watching the small square lights of windows against the snow, thanking the Unexplainable that matters had been so devised that he would not have to venture out into that miserable cold.
Presently an alarming thought struck him. These humans moved with uncommon speed for intelligent creatures. Even without devices, it was distinctly possible that they could be gone before nightfall. He could take no chance, of course. He spun more dials and pressed a single button, and lay back again comfortably, warmly, to watch the disabling of the colonists' ship.
When Three did not answer, Rossel was nervously gazing at the snow, thinking of other things, and he called again. Several moments later the realization of what was happening struck him like a blow. Three had never once failed to answer. All they had to do when they heard the signal buzz was go into the radio shack and say hello. That was all they had to do. He called again and again, but nobody answered. There was no static and no interference and he didn't hear a thing. He checked frenziedly through his own apparatus and tried again, but the air was as dead as deep space. He raced out to tell Dylan.
Dylan accepted it. He had known none of the people on Three and what he felt now was a much greater urgency to be out of here. He said hopeful things to Rossel, and then went out to the ship and joined the men in lightening her. About the ship at least, he knew something and he was able to tell them what partitions and frames could go and what would have to stay or the ship would never get off the planet. But even stripped down, it couldn't take them all. When he knew that, he realized that he himself would have to stay here, for it was only then that he thought of Bossio.
Three was dead. Bossio had gone down there some time ago and, if Three was dead and Bossio had not called, then the fact was that Bossio was gone too. For a long, long moment Dylan stood rooted in the snow. More than the fact that he would have to stay here was the unspoken, unalterable, heart-numbing knowledge that Bossio was dead—the one thing that Dylan could not accept. Bossio was the only friend he had. In all this dog-eared, aimless, ape-run Universe Bossio was all his friendship and his trust.
He left the ship blindly and went back to the settlement. Now the people were quiet and really frightened, and some of the women were beginning to cry. He noticed now that they had begun to look at him with hope as he passed, and in his own grief, humanly, he swore.
Bossio—a big-grinning kid with no parents, no enemies, no grudges—Bossio was already dead because he had come out here and tried to help these people. People who had kicked or ignored him all the days of his life. And, in a short while, Dylan would also stay behind and die to save the life of somebody he never knew and who, twenty-four hours earlier, would have been ashamed to be found in his company. Now, when it was far, far too late, they were coming to the army for help.
But in the end, damn it, he could not hate these people. All they had ever wanted was peace, and even though they had never understood that the Universe is unknowable and that you must always have big shoulders, still they had always sought only for peace. If peace leads to no conflict at all and then decay, well, that was something that had to be learned. So he could not hate these people.
But he could not help them either. He turned from their eyes and went into the radio shack. It had begun to dawn on the women that they might be leaving without their husbands or sons, and he did not want to see the fierce struggle that he was sure would take place. He sat alone and tried, for the last time, to call Bossio.
After a while, an old woman found him and offered him coffee. It was a very decent thing to do, to think of him at a time like this, and he was so suddenly grateful he could only nod. The woman said that he must be cold in that thin army thing and that she had brought along a mackinaw for him. She poured the coffee and left him alone.
They were thinking of him now, he knew, because they were thinking of everyone who had to stay. Throw the dog a bone. Dammit, don't be like that, he told himself. He had not had anything to eat all day and the coffee was warm and strong. He decided he might be of some help at the ship.
It was stripped down now and they were loading. He was startled to see a great group of them standing in the snow, removing their clothes. Then he understood. The clothes of forty people would change the weight by enough to get a few more aboard. There was no fighting. Some of the women were almost hysterical and a few had refused to go and were still in their cabins, but the process was orderly. Children went automatically, as did the youngest husbands and all the women. The elders were shuffling around in the snow, waving their arms to keep themselves warm. Some of them were laughing to keep their spirits up.
In the end, the ship took forty-six people.
Rossel was one of the ones that would not be going. Dylan saw him standing by the airlock holding his wife in his arms, his face buried in her soft brown hair. A sense of great sympathy, totally unexpected, rose up in Dylan, and a little of the lostness of thirty years went slipping away. These were his people. It was a thing he had never understood before, because he had never once been among men in great trouble. He waited and watched, learning, trying to digest this while there was still time. Then the semi-naked colonists were inside and the airlock closed. But when the ship tried to lift, there was a sharp burning smell—she couldn't get off the ground.
Question:
What is the significance of the army in the story?
Answer:
|
[
"The army has no respect from the colonists; they don’t want anything to do with it because they associate it with war. The people at this time have been conditioned to despise war and anything to do with it. When they see Captain Dylan standing by his ship and facing the village, they think he is ridiculous or possibly drunk. Rossel noticed that Dylan appeared like a typical soldier: not very neat and not very clean, and his salute lacked proper military precision. And when Lt. Bossio tosses Dylan a bottle of liquor, Rossel isn’t surprised because of the reputation soldiers have for being drunks; in fact, Rossel is disgusted by the liquor and Bossio’s drunkenness. When aliens attacked Lupus V in 2360, the army found the destruction and dead and discovered why their security bomb hadn’t detonated. There was little the army could do about the alien attack because the army had become so small and weak. There had been peace for 500 years when people didn’t need the army, so its equipment was old, and many of the soldiers were from the bottom of society: drinkers and gamblers. So the army is just notifying other colonies of the attack and warning them to evacuate. When the colonists learn that they have to evacuate due to the threat of an alien attack, Rossel demands that the fleet defend them, and another man named Rush asks where the army fleet is, expecting it to come to their defense. When Dylan explains there is no fleet, just a few hundred obsolete ships, he is tempted to tell them that no one wants an army until it is needed. Dylan himself has been in the army for 30 years and has never seen any action. And when Rossel realizes the colony’s ship won’t hold all of the colonists, he asks if any fleet ships are within radio distance that they could summon to help with their evacuation, hoping that the army is near enough to be of help. Ironically, the army that they despise now offers their only hope. ",
"After 500 years of peace, few saw the reason for maintaing or keeping an army intact. With anti-war and peace sentiments running abound, those that served were looked down upon, since they were paying for their seemingly worthless service. However, when the aliens attack, suddenly the long-forgotten fleets were called into action, and the drunken soldiers were called to arms. After the years of inactivity and depleted funding, the army is not what it once was and is having trouble containing the alien threat. \nThe army is both the saviour and ultimate enemy in this story, as they could offer protection, but simply don’t have the means to do so. \n",
"The army is significantly smaller than it once was due to humans having a loathing of war and thus, reducing the size of the Fleet over time. Humans have had 500 years of peace and anti-war conditioning, that have led to the army becoming “small, weak and without respect.” The army could do nothing but warn colonists of attack.\nIronically, the colonists question Captain Dylan why the Fleet isn’t coming to their rescue, to which he describes the Fleet barely exists and now only has a “few hundred half-shot old tubs that were obsolete before you were born.” In this way, the army is significant in the story because it is not wanted by many, but it comes to be called on for help anyways in their time of need.\nCaptain Dylan has worked for thirty years as a peacetime soldier and thinks to himself that peace-loving nations in the history of Earth never stay strong, but does not go on to labor the point to the colonists. He feels deeply sad that his only friend, Bossio, was already dead from trying to help these people that didn’t support the army, and that he too would soon have the same fate. Captain Dylan shakes off this mentality and in the end feels that he can’t hate the colonists for wanting peace because it is a noble thing for trying to achieve.\n",
"The people of the village have been taught over the years to hate war, and as a result, they also hate soldiers. They suspect every soldier they meet is a drunk, which Captain Dylan appears to confirm when he catches a bottle tossed to him by an associate upon first arriving at the village. Later, Dylan recalls the thirty years of his army career, which has largely been spent drinking and getting into trouble. Due to hundreds of years of anti-war conditioning, the army is under-resourced, understaffed, and underfunded. In fact, there are only a few hundred ships left that are mostly obsolete and a handful of army leadership and government jobs available. However, when the aliens attack, the army deploys Dylan and Bossio to help warn and evacuate as many colonies as possible, which they do to little fanfare. In fact, Bossio dies in the effort, and it appears that Dylan might as well."
] |
50848
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SOLDIER BOY
By MICHAEL SHAARA
Illustrated by EMSH
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It's one thing to laugh at a man because his job is useless and outdated—another to depend on him when it suddenly isn't.
In the northland, deep, and in a great cave, by an everburning fire the Warrior sleeps. For this is the resting time, the time of peace, and so shall it be for a thousand years. And yet we shall summon him again, my children, when we are sore in need, and out of the north he will come, and again and again, each time we call, out of the dark and the cold, with the fire in his hands, he will come.
— Scandinavian legend
Throughout the night, thick clouds had been piling in the north; in the morning, it was misty and cold. By eight o'clock a wet, heavy, snow-smelling breeze had begun to set in, and because the crops were all down and the winter planting done, the colonists brewed hot coffee and remained inside. The wind blew steadily, icily from the north. It was well below freezing when, some time after nine, an army ship landed in a field near the settlement.
There was still time. There were some last brief moments in which the colonists could act and feel as they had always done. They therefore grumbled in annoyance. They wanted no soldiers here. The few who had convenient windows stared out with distaste and a mild curiosity, but no one went out to greet them.
After a while a rather tall, frail-looking man came out of the ship and stood upon the hard ground looking toward the village. He remained there, waiting stiffly, his face turned from the wind. It was a silly thing to do. He was obviously not coming in, either out of pride or just plain orneriness.
"Well, I never," a nice lady said.
"What's he just standing there for?" another lady said.
And all of them thought: well, God knows what's in the mind of a soldier, and right away many people concluded that he must be drunk. The seed of peace was deeply planted in these people, in the children and the women, very, very deep. And because they had been taught, oh so carefully, to hate war they had also been taught, quite incidentally, to despise soldiers.
The lone man kept standing in the freezing wind.
Eventually, because even a soldier can look small and cold and pathetic, Bob Rossel had to get up out of a nice, warm bed and go out in that miserable cold to meet him.
The soldier saluted. Like most soldiers, he was not too neat and not too clean and the salute was sloppy. Although he was bigger than Rossel he did not seem bigger. And, because of the cold, there were tears gathering in the ends of his eyes.
"Captain Dylan, sir." His voice was low and did not carry. "I have a message from Fleet Headquarters. Are you in charge here?"
Rossel, a small sober man, grunted. "Nobody's in charge here. If you want a spokesman I guess I'll do. What's up?"
The captain regarded him briefly out of pale blue, expressionless eyes. Then he pulled an envelope from an inside pocket, handed it to Rossel. It was a thick, official-looking thing and Rossel hefted it idly. He was about to ask again what was it all about when the airlock of the hovering ship swung open creakily. A beefy, black-haired young man appeared unsteadily in the doorway, called to Dylan.
"C'n I go now, Jim?"
Dylan turned and nodded.
"Be back for you tonight," the young man called, and then, grinning, he yelled "Catch" and tossed down a bottle. The captain caught it and put it unconcernedly into his pocket while Rossel stared in disgust. A moment later the airlock closed and the ship prepared to lift.
"Was he drunk ?" Rossel began angrily. "Was that a bottle of liquor ?"
The soldier was looking at him calmly, coldly. He indicated the envelope in Rossel's hand. "You'd better read that and get moving. We haven't much time."
He turned and walked toward the buildings and Rossel had to follow. As Rossel drew near the walls the watchers could see his lips moving but could not hear him. Just then the ship lifted and they turned to watch that, and followed it upward, red spark-tailed, into the gray spongy clouds and the cold.
After a while the ship went out of sight, and nobody ever saw it again.
The first contact Man had ever had with an intelligent alien race occurred out on the perimeter in a small quiet place a long way from home. Late in the year 2360—the exact date remains unknown—an alien force attacked and destroyed the colony at Lupus V. The wreckage and the dead were found by a mailship which flashed off screaming for the army.
When the army came it found this: Of the seventy registered colonists, thirty-one were dead. The rest, including some women and children, were missing. All technical equipment, all radios, guns, machines, even books, were also missing. The buildings had been burned, so were the bodies. Apparently the aliens had a heat ray. What else they had, nobody knew. After a few days of walking around in the ash, one soldier finally stumbled on something.
For security reasons, there was a detonator in one of the main buildings. In case of enemy attack, Security had provided a bomb to be buried in the center of each colony, because it was important to blow a whole village to hell and gone rather than let a hostile alien learn vital facts about human technology and body chemistry. There was a bomb at Lupus V too, and though it had been detonated it had not blown. The detonating wire had been cut.
In the heart of the camp, hidden from view under twelve inches of earth, the wire had been dug up and cut.
The army could not understand it and had no time to try. After five hundred years of peace and anti-war conditioning the army was small, weak and without respect. Therefore, the army did nothing but spread the news, and Man began to fall back.
In a thickening, hastening stream he came back from the hard-won stars, blowing up his homes behind him, stunned and cursing. Most of the colonists got out in time. A few, the farthest and loneliest, died in fire before the army ships could reach them. And the men in those ships, drinkers and gamblers and veterans of nothing, the dregs of a society which had grown beyond them, were for a long while the only defense Earth had.
This was the message Captain Dylan had brought, come out from Earth with a bottle on his hip.
An obscenely cheerful expression upon his gaunt, not too well shaven face, Captain Dylan perched himself upon the edge of a table and listened, one long booted leg swinging idly. One by one the colonists were beginning to understand. War is huge and comes with great suddenness and always without reason, and there is inevitably a wait, between acts, between the news and the motion, the fear and the rage.
Dylan waited. These people were taking it well, much better than those in the cities had taken it. But then, these were pioneers. Dylan grinned. Pioneers. Before you settle a planet you boil it and bake it and purge it of all possible disease. Then you step down gingerly and inflate your plastic houses, which harden and become warm and impregnable; and send your machines out to plant and harvest; and set up automatic factories to transmute dirt into coffee; and, without ever having lifted a finger, you have braved the wilderness, hewed a home out of the living rock and become a pioneer. Dylan grinned again. But at least this was better than the wailing of the cities.
This Dylan thought, although he was himself no fighter, no man at all by any standards. This he thought because he was a soldier and an outcast; to every drunken man the fall of the sober is a happy thing. He stirred restlessly.
By this time the colonists had begun to realize that there wasn't much to say, and a tall, handsome woman was murmuring distractedly: "Lupus, Lupus—doesn't that mean wolves or something?"
Dylan began to wish they would get moving, these pioneers. It was very possible that the aliens would be here soon, and there was no need for discussion. There was only one thing to do and that was to clear the hell out, quickly and without argument. They began to see it.
But, when the fear had died down, the resentment came. A number of women began to cluster around Dylan and complain, working up their anger. Dylan said nothing. Then the man Rossel pushed forward and confronted him, speaking with a vast annoyance.
"See here, soldier, this is our planet. I mean to say, this is our home . We demand some protection from the fleet. By God, we've been paying the freight for you boys all these years and it's high time you earned your keep. We demand...."
It went on and on while Dylan looked at the clock and waited. He hoped that he could end this quickly. A big gloomy man was in front of him now and giving him that name of ancient contempt, "soldier boy." The gloomy man wanted to know where the fleet was.
"There is no fleet. There are a few hundred half-shot old tubs that were obsolete before you were born. There are four or five new jobs for the brass and the government. That's all the fleet there is."
Dylan wanted to go on about that, to remind them that nobody had wanted the army, that the fleet had grown smaller and smaller ... but this was not the time. It was ten-thirty already and the damned aliens might be coming in right now for all he knew, and all they did was talk. He had realized a long time ago that no peace-loving nation in the history of Earth had ever kept itself strong, and although peace was a noble dream, it was ended now and it was time to move.
"We'd better get going," he finally said, and there was quiet.
"Lieutenant Bossio has gone on to your sister colony at Planet Three of this system. He'll return to pick me up by nightfall and I'm instructed to have you gone by then."
For a long moment they waited, and then one man abruptly walked off and the rest followed quickly; in a moment they were all gone. One or two stopped long enough to complain about the fleet, and the big gloomy man said he wanted guns, that's all, and there wouldn't nobody get him off his planet. When he left, Dylan breathed with relief and went out to check the bomb, grateful for the action.
Most of it had to be done in the open. He found a metal bar in the radio shack and began chopping at the frozen ground, following the wire. It was the first thing he had done with his hands in weeks, and it felt fine.
Dylan had been called up out of a bar—he and Bossio—and told what had happened, and in three weeks now they had cleared four colonies. This would be the last, and the tension here was beginning to get to him. After thirty years of hanging around and playing like the town drunk, a man could not be expected to rush out and plug the breach, just like that. It would take time.
He rested, sweating, took a pull from the bottle on his hip.
Before they sent him out on this trip they had made him a captain. Well, that was nice. After thirty years he was a captain. For thirty years he had bummed all over the west end of space, had scraped his way along the outer edges of Mankind, had waited and dozed and patrolled and got drunk, waiting always for something to happen. There were a lot of ways to pass the time while you waited for something to happen, and he had done them all.
Once he had even studied military tactics.
He could not help smiling at that, even now. Damn it, he'd been green. But he'd been only nineteen when his father died—of a hernia, of a crazy fool thing like a hernia that killed him just because he'd worked too long on a heavy planet—and in those days the anti-war conditioning out on the Rim was not very strong. They talked a lot about guardians of the frontier, and they got him and some other kids and a broken-down doctor. And ... now he was a captain.
He bent his back savagely, digging at the ground. You wait and you wait and the edge goes off. This thing he had waited for all those damn days was upon him now and there was nothing he could do but say the hell with it and go home. Somewhere along the line, in some dark corner of the bars or the jails, in one of the million soul-murdering insults which are reserved especially for peacetime soldiers, he had lost the core of himself, and it didn't particularly matter. That was the point: it made no particular difference if he never got it back. He owed nobody. He was tugging at the wire and trying to think of something pleasant from the old days, when the wire came loose in his hands.
Although he had been, in his cynical way, expecting it, for a moment it threw him and he just stared. The end was clean and bright. The wire had just been cut.
Dylan sat for a long while by the radio shack, holding the ends in his hands. He reached almost automatically for the bottle on his hip and then, for the first time he could remember, let it go. This was real, there was no time for that.
When Rossel came up, Dylan was still sitting. Rossel was so excited he did not notice the wire.
"Listen, soldier, how many people can your ship take?"
Dylan looked at him vaguely. "She sleeps two and won't take off with more'n ten. Why?"
His eyes bright and worried, Rossel leaned heavily against the shack.
"We're overloaded. There are sixty of us and our ship will only take forty. We came out in groups, we never thought...."
Dylan dropped his eyes, swearing silently. "You're sure? No baggage, no iron rations; you couldn't get ten more on?"
"Not a chance. She's only a little ship with one deck—she's all we could afford."
Dylan whistled. He had begun to feel light-headed. "It 'pears that somebody's gonna find out first hand what them aliens look like."
It was the wrong thing to say and he knew it. "All right," he said quickly, still staring at the clear-sliced wire, "we'll do what we can. Maybe the colony on Three has room. I'll call Bossio and ask."
The colonist had begun to look quite pitifully at the buildings around him and the scurrying people.
"Aren't there any fleet ships within radio distance?"
Dylan shook his head. "The fleet's spread out kind of thin nowadays." Because the other was leaning on him he felt a great irritation, but he said, as kindly as he could, "We'll get 'em all out. One way or another, we won't leave anybody."
It was then that Rossel saw the wire. Thickly, he asked what had happened.
Dylan showed him the two clean ends. "Somebody dug it up, cut it, then buried it again and packed it down real nice."
"The damn fool!" Rossel exploded.
"Who?"
"Why, one of ... of us, of course. I know nobody ever liked sitting on a live bomb like this, but I never...."
"You think one of your people did it?"
Rossel stared at him. "Isn't that obvious?"
"Why?"
"Well, they probably thought it was too dangerous, and silly too, like most government rules. Or maybe one of the kids...."
It was then that Dylan told him about the wire on Lupus V. Rossel was silent. Involuntarily, he glanced at the sky, then he said shakily,
"Maybe an animal?"
Dylan shook his head. "No animal did that. Wouldn't have buried it, or found it in the first place. Heck of a coincidence, don't you think? The wire at Lupus was cut just before an alien attack, and now this one is cut too—newly cut."
The colonist put one hand to his mouth, his eyes wide and white.
"So something," said Dylan, "knew enough about this camp to know that a bomb was buried here and also to know why it was here. And that something didn't want the camp destroyed and so came right into the center of the camp, traced the wire, dug it up and cut it. And then walked right out again."
"Listen," said Rossel, "I'd better go ask."
He started away but Dylan caught his arm.
"Tell them to arm," he said, "and try not to scare hell out of them. I'll be with you as soon as I've spliced this wire."
Rossel nodded and went off, running. Dylan knelt with the metal in his hands.
He began to feel that, by God, he was getting cold. He realized that he'd better go inside soon, but the wire had to be spliced. That was perhaps the most important thing he could do now, splice the wire.
All right, he asked himself for the thousandth time, who cut it? How? Telepathy? Could they somehow control one of us?
No. If they controlled one, then they could control all, and then there would be no need for an attack. But you don't know, you don't really know.
Were they small? Little animals?
Unlikely. Biology said that really intelligent life required a sizable brain and you would have to expect an alien to be at least as large as a dog. And every form of life on this planet had been screened long before a colony had been allowed in. If any new animals had suddenly shown up, Rossel would certainly know about it.
He would ask Rossel. He would damn sure have to ask Rossel.
He finished splicing the wire and tucked it into the ground. Then he straightened up and, before he went into the radio shack, he pulled out his pistol. He checked it, primed it, and tried to remember the last time he had fired it. He never had—he never had fired a gun.
The snow began falling near noon. There was nothing anybody could do but stand in the silence and watch it come down in a white rushing wall, and watch the trees and the hills drown in the whiteness, until there was nothing on the planet but the buildings and a few warm lights and the snow.
By one o'clock the visibility was down to zero and Dylan decided to try to contact Bossio again and tell him to hurry. But Bossio still didn't answer. Dylan stared long and thoughtfully out the window through the snow at the gray shrouded shapes of bushes and trees which were beginning to become horrifying. It must be that Bossio was still drunk—maybe sleeping it off before making planetfall on Three. Dylan held no grudge. Bossio was a kid and alone. It took a special kind of guts to take a ship out into space alone, when Things could be waiting....
A young girl, pink and lovely in a thick fur jacket, came into the shack and told him breathlessly that her father, Mr. Rush, would like to know if he wanted sentries posted. Dylan hadn't thought about it but he said yes right away, beginning to feel both pleased and irritated at the same time, because now they were coming to him.
He pushed out into the cold and went to find Rossel. With the snow it was bad enough, but if they were still here when the sun went down they wouldn't have a chance. Most of the men were out stripping down their ship and that would take a while. He wondered why Rossel hadn't yet put a call through to Three, asking about room on the ship there. The only answer he could find was that Rossel knew that there was no room, and he wanted to put off the answer as long as possible. And, in a way, you could not blame him.
Rossel was in his cabin with the big, gloomy man—who turned out to be Rush, the one who had asked about sentries. Rush was methodically cleaning an old hunting rifle. Rossel was surprisingly full of hope.
"Listen, there's a mail ship due in, been due since yesterday. We might get the rest of the folks out on that."
Dylan shrugged. "Don't count on it."
"But they have a contract!"
The soldier grinned.
The big man, Rush, was paying no attention. Quite suddenly he said:
"Who cut that wire, Cap?"
Dylan swung slowly to look at him. "As far as I can figure, an alien cut it."
Rush shook his head. "No. Ain't been no aliens near this camp, and no peculiar animals either. We got a planet-wide radar, and ain't no unidentified ships come near, not since we first landed more'n a year ago." He lifted the rifle and peered through the bore. "Uh-uh. One of us did it."
The man had been thinking. And he knew the planet.
"Telepathy?" asked Dylan.
"Might be."
"Can't see it. You people live too close, you'd notice right away if one of you wasn't ... himself. And, if they've got one, why not all?"
Rush calmly—at least outwardly calmly—lit his pipe. There was a strength in this man that Dylan had missed before.
"Don't know," he said gruffly. "But these are aliens, mister. And until I know different I'm keepin' an eye on my neighbor."
He gave Rossel a sour look and Rossel stared back, uncomprehending.
Then Rossel jumped. "My God!"
Dylan moved to quiet him. "Look, is there any animal at all that ever comes near here that's as large as a dog?"
After a pause, Rush answered. "Yep, there's one. The viggle. It's like a reg'lar monkey but with four legs. Biology cleared 'em before we landed. We shoot one now and then when they get pesky." He rose slowly, the rifle held under his arm. "I b'lieve we might just as well go post them sentries."
Dylan wanted to go on with this but there was nothing much else to say. Rossel went with them as far as the radio shack, with a strained expression on his face, to put through that call to Three.
When he was gone Rush asked Dylan, "Where you want them sentries? I got Walt Halloran and Web Eggers and six others lined up."
Dylan stopped and looked around grimly at the circling wall of snow.
"You know the site better than I do. Post 'em in a ring, on rises, within calling distance. Have 'em check with each other every five minutes. I'll go help your people at the ship."
The gloomy man nodded and fluffed up his collar. "Nice day for huntin'," he said, and then he was gone with the snow quickly covering his footprints.
The Alien lay wrapped in a thick electric cocoon, buried in a wide warm room beneath the base of a tree. The tree served him as antennae; curiously he gazed into a small view-screen and watched the humans come. He saw them fan out, eight of them, and sink down in the snow. He saw that they were armed.
He pulsed thoughtfully, extending a part of himself to absorb a spiced lizard. Since the morning, when the new ship had come, he had been watching steadily, and now it was apparent that the humans were aware of their danger. Undoubtedly they were preparing to leave.
That was unfortunate. The attack was not scheduled until late that night and he could not, of course, press the assault by day. But flexibility , he reminded himself sternly, is the first principle of absorption , and therefore he moved to alter his plans. A projection reached out to dial several knobs on a large box before him, and the hour of assault was moved forward to dusk. A glance at the chronometer told him that it was already well into the night on Planet Three, and that the attack there had probably begun.
The Alien felt the first tenuous pulsing of anticipation. He lay quietly, watching the small square lights of windows against the snow, thanking the Unexplainable that matters had been so devised that he would not have to venture out into that miserable cold.
Presently an alarming thought struck him. These humans moved with uncommon speed for intelligent creatures. Even without devices, it was distinctly possible that they could be gone before nightfall. He could take no chance, of course. He spun more dials and pressed a single button, and lay back again comfortably, warmly, to watch the disabling of the colonists' ship.
When Three did not answer, Rossel was nervously gazing at the snow, thinking of other things, and he called again. Several moments later the realization of what was happening struck him like a blow. Three had never once failed to answer. All they had to do when they heard the signal buzz was go into the radio shack and say hello. That was all they had to do. He called again and again, but nobody answered. There was no static and no interference and he didn't hear a thing. He checked frenziedly through his own apparatus and tried again, but the air was as dead as deep space. He raced out to tell Dylan.
Dylan accepted it. He had known none of the people on Three and what he felt now was a much greater urgency to be out of here. He said hopeful things to Rossel, and then went out to the ship and joined the men in lightening her. About the ship at least, he knew something and he was able to tell them what partitions and frames could go and what would have to stay or the ship would never get off the planet. But even stripped down, it couldn't take them all. When he knew that, he realized that he himself would have to stay here, for it was only then that he thought of Bossio.
Three was dead. Bossio had gone down there some time ago and, if Three was dead and Bossio had not called, then the fact was that Bossio was gone too. For a long, long moment Dylan stood rooted in the snow. More than the fact that he would have to stay here was the unspoken, unalterable, heart-numbing knowledge that Bossio was dead—the one thing that Dylan could not accept. Bossio was the only friend he had. In all this dog-eared, aimless, ape-run Universe Bossio was all his friendship and his trust.
He left the ship blindly and went back to the settlement. Now the people were quiet and really frightened, and some of the women were beginning to cry. He noticed now that they had begun to look at him with hope as he passed, and in his own grief, humanly, he swore.
Bossio—a big-grinning kid with no parents, no enemies, no grudges—Bossio was already dead because he had come out here and tried to help these people. People who had kicked or ignored him all the days of his life. And, in a short while, Dylan would also stay behind and die to save the life of somebody he never knew and who, twenty-four hours earlier, would have been ashamed to be found in his company. Now, when it was far, far too late, they were coming to the army for help.
But in the end, damn it, he could not hate these people. All they had ever wanted was peace, and even though they had never understood that the Universe is unknowable and that you must always have big shoulders, still they had always sought only for peace. If peace leads to no conflict at all and then decay, well, that was something that had to be learned. So he could not hate these people.
But he could not help them either. He turned from their eyes and went into the radio shack. It had begun to dawn on the women that they might be leaving without their husbands or sons, and he did not want to see the fierce struggle that he was sure would take place. He sat alone and tried, for the last time, to call Bossio.
After a while, an old woman found him and offered him coffee. It was a very decent thing to do, to think of him at a time like this, and he was so suddenly grateful he could only nod. The woman said that he must be cold in that thin army thing and that she had brought along a mackinaw for him. She poured the coffee and left him alone.
They were thinking of him now, he knew, because they were thinking of everyone who had to stay. Throw the dog a bone. Dammit, don't be like that, he told himself. He had not had anything to eat all day and the coffee was warm and strong. He decided he might be of some help at the ship.
It was stripped down now and they were loading. He was startled to see a great group of them standing in the snow, removing their clothes. Then he understood. The clothes of forty people would change the weight by enough to get a few more aboard. There was no fighting. Some of the women were almost hysterical and a few had refused to go and were still in their cabins, but the process was orderly. Children went automatically, as did the youngest husbands and all the women. The elders were shuffling around in the snow, waving their arms to keep themselves warm. Some of them were laughing to keep their spirits up.
In the end, the ship took forty-six people.
Rossel was one of the ones that would not be going. Dylan saw him standing by the airlock holding his wife in his arms, his face buried in her soft brown hair. A sense of great sympathy, totally unexpected, rose up in Dylan, and a little of the lostness of thirty years went slipping away. These were his people. It was a thing he had never understood before, because he had never once been among men in great trouble. He waited and watched, learning, trying to digest this while there was still time. Then the semi-naked colonists were inside and the airlock closed. But when the ship tried to lift, there was a sharp burning smell—she couldn't get off the ground.
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What is the plot of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about THE CREATURES THAT TIME FORGOT by RAY BRADBURY.
Relevant chunks:
THE CREATURES THAT TIME FORGOT
By RAY BRADBURY
Mad, impossible world! Sun-blasted by day, cold-wracked by night—and life condensed by radiation into eight days! Sim eyed the Ship—if he only dared reach it and escape! ... but it was more than half an hour distant—the limit of life itself!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1946. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
During the night, Sim was born. He lay wailing upon the cold cave stones. His blood beat through him a thousand pulses each minute. He grew, steadily.
Into his mouth his mother with feverish hands put the food. The nightmare of living was begun. Almost instantly at birth his eyes grew alert, and then, without half understanding why, filled with bright, insistent terror. He gagged upon the food, choked and wailed. He looked about, blindly.
There was a thick fog. It cleared. The outlines of the cave appeared. And a man loomed up, insane and wild and terrible. A man with a dying face. Old, withered by winds, baked like adobe in the heat. The man was crouched in a far corner of the cave, his eyes whitening to one side of his face, listening to the far wind trumpeting up above on the frozen night planet.
Sim's mother, trembling, now and again, staring at the man, fed Sim pebble-fruits, valley-grasses and ice-nipples broken from the cavern entrances, and eating, eliminating, eating again, he grew larger, larger.
The man in the corner of the cave was his father! The man's eyes were all that was alive in his face. He held a crude stone dagger in his withered hands and his jaw hung loose and senseless.
Then, with a widening focus, Sim saw the old people sitting in the tunnel beyond this living quarter. And as he watched, they began to die.
Their agonies filled the cave. They melted like waxen images, their faces collapsed inward on their sharp bones, their teeth protruded. One minute their faces were mature, fairly smooth, alive, electric. The next minute a desication and burning away of their flesh occurred.
Sim thrashed in his mother's grasp. She held him. "No, no," she soothed him, quietly, earnestly, looking to see if this, too, would cause her husband to rise again.
With a soft swift padding of naked feet, Sim's father ran across the cave. Sim's mother screamed. Sim felt himself torn loose from her grasp. He fell upon the stones, rolling, shrieking with his new, moist lungs!
With a soft padding of naked feet Sim's father ran across the cave.
The webbed face of his father jerked over him, the knife was poised. It was like one of those prenatal nightmares he'd had while still in his mother's flesh. In the next few blazing, impossible instants questions flicked through his brain. The knife was high, suspended, ready to destroy him. But the whole question of life in this cave, the dying people, the withering and the insanity, surged through Sim's new, small head. How was it that he understood? A newborn child? Can a newborn child think, see, understand, interpret? No. It was wrong! It was impossible. Yet it was happening! To him. He had been alive an hour now. And in the next instant perhaps dead!
His mother flung herself upon the back of his father, and beat down the weapon. Sim caught the terrific backwash of emotion from both their conflicting minds. "Let me kill him!" shouted the father, breathing harshly, sobbingly. "What has he to live for?"
"No, no!" insisted the mother, and her body, frail and old as it was, stretched across the huge body of the father, tearing at his weapon.
"He must live! There may be a future for him! He may live longer than us, and be young!"
The father fell back against a stone crib. Lying there, staring, eyes glittering, Sim saw another figure inside that stone crib. A girl-child, quietly feeding itself, moving its delicate hands to procure food. His sister.
The mother wrenched the dagger from her husband's grasp, stood up, weeping and pushing back her cloud of stiffening gray hair. Her mouth trembled and jerked. "I'll kill you!" she said, glaring down at her husband. "Leave my children alone."
The old man spat tiredly, bitterly, and looked vacantly into the stone crib, at the little girl. "One-eighth of her life's over, already," he gasped. "And she doesn't know it. What's the use?"
As Sim watched, his own mother seemed to shift and take a tortured, smoke-like form. The thin bony face broke out into a maze of wrinkles. She was shaken with pain and had to sit by him, shuddering and cuddling the knife to her shriveled breasts. She, like the old people in the tunnel, was aging, dying.
Sim cried steadily. Everywhere he looked was horror. A mind came to meet his own. Instinctively he glanced toward the stone crib. Dark, his sister, returned his glance. Their minds brushed like straying fingers. He relaxed somewhat. He began to learn.
The father sighed, shut his lids down over his green eyes. "Feed the child," he said, exhaustedly. "Hurry. It is almost dawn and it is our last day of living, woman. Feed him. Make him grow."
Sim quieted, and images, out of the terror, floated to him.
This was a planet next to the sun. The nights burned with cold, the days were like torches of fire. It was a violent, impossible world. The people lived in the cliffs to escape the incredible ice and the day of flame. Only at dawn and sunset was the air breath-sweet, flower-strong, and then the cave peoples brought their children out into a stony, barren valley. At dawn the ice thawed into creeks and rivers, at sunset the day-fires died and cooled. In the intervals of even, livable temperature the people lived, ran, played, loved, free of the caverns; all life on the planet jumped, burst into life. Plants grew instantly, birds were flung like pellets across the sky. Smaller, legged animal life rushed frantically through the rocks; everything tried to get its living down in the brief hour of respite.
It was an unbearable planet. Sim understood this, a matter of hours after birth. Racial memory bloomed in him. He would live his entire life in the caves, with two hours a day outside. Here, in stone channels of air he would talk, talk incessantly with his people, sleep never, think, think and lie upon his back, dreaming; but never sleeping.
And he would live exactly eight days.
The violence of this thought evacuated his bowels. Eight days. Eight short days. It was wrong, impossible, but a fact. Even while in his mother's flesh some racial knowledge had told him he was being formed rapidly, shaped and propelled out swiftly.
Birth was quick as a knife. Childhood was over in a flash. Adolescence was a sheet of lightning. Manhood was a dream, maturity a myth, old age an inescapably quick reality, death a swift certainty.
Eight days from now he'd stand half-blind, withering, dying, as his father now stood, staring uselessly at his own wife and child.
This day was an eighth part of his total life! He must enjoy every second of it. He must search his parents' thoughts for knowledge.
Because in a few hours they'd be dead.
This was so impossibly unfair. Was this all of life? In his prenatal state hadn't he dreamed of long lives, valleys not of blasted stone but green foliage and temperate clime? Yes! And if he'd dreamed then there must be truth in the visions. How could he seek and find the long life? Where? And how could he accomplish a life mission that huge and depressing in eight short, vanishing days?
How had his people gotten into such a condition?
As if at a button pressed, he saw an image. Metal seeds, blown across space from a distant green world, fighting with long flames, crashing on this bleak planet. From their shattered hulls tumble men and women.
When? Long ago. Ten thousand days. The crash victims hid in the cliffs from the sun. Fire, ice and floods washed away the wreckage of the huge metal seeds. The victims were shaped and beaten like iron upon a forge. Solar radiations drenched them. Their pulses quickened, two hundred, five hundred, a thousand beats a minute. Their skins thickened, their blood changed. Old age came rushing. Children were born in the caves. Swifter, swifter, swifter the process. Like all this world's wild life, the men and women from the crash lived and died in a week, leaving children to do likewise.
So this is life, thought Sim. It was not spoken in his mind, for he knew no words, he knew only images, old memory, an awareness, a telepathy that could penetrate flesh, rock, metal. So I'm the five thousandth in a long line of futile sons? What can I do to save myself from dying eight days from now? Is there escape?
His eyes widened, another image came to focus.
Beyond this valley of cliffs, on a low mountain lay a perfect, unscarred metal seed. A metal ship, not rusted or touched by the avalanches. The ship was deserted, whole, intact. It was the only ship of all these that had crashed that was still a unit, still usable. But it was so far away. There was no one in it to help. This ship, then, on the far mountain, was the destiny toward which he would grow. There was his only hope of escape.
His mind flexed.
In this cliff, deep down in a confinement of solitude, worked a handful of scientists. To these men, when he was old enough and wise enough, he must go. They, too, dreamed of escape, of long life, of green valleys and temperate weathers. They, too, stared longingly at that distant ship upon its high mountain, its metal so perfect it did not rust or age.
The cliff groaned.
Sim's father lifted his eroded, lifeless face.
"Dawn's coming," he said.
II
Morning relaxed the mighty granite cliff muscles. It was the time of the Avalanche.
The tunnels echoed to running bare feet. Adults, children pushed with eager, hungry eyes toward the outside dawn. From far out, Sim heard a rumble of rock, a scream, a silence. Avalanches fell into valley. Stones that had been biding their time, not quite ready to fall, for a million years let go their bulks, and where they had begun their journey as single boulders they smashed upon the valley floor in a thousand shrapnels and friction-heated nuggets.
Every morning at least one person was caught in the downpour.
The cliff people dared the avalanches. It added one more excitement to their lives, already too short, too headlong, too dangerous.
Sim felt himself seized up by his father. He was carried brusquely down the tunnel for a thousand yards, to where the daylight appeared. There was a shining insane light in his father's eyes. Sim could not move. He sensed what was going to happen. Behind his father, his mother hurried, bringing with her the little sister, Dark. "Wait! Be careful!" she cried to her husband.
Sim felt his father crouch, listening.
High in the cliff was a tremor, a shivering.
"Now!" bellowed his father, and leaped out.
An avalanche fell down at them!
Sim had accelerated impressions of plunging walls, dust, confusion. His mother screamed! There was a jolting, a plunging.
With one last step, Sim's father hurried him forward into the day. The avalanche thundered behind him. The mouth of the cave, where mother and Dark stood back out of the way, was choked with rubble and two boulders that weighed a hundred pounds each.
The storm thunder of the avalanche passed away to a trickle of sand. Sim's father burst out into laughter. "Made it! By the Gods! Made it alive!" And he looked scornfully at the cliff and spat. "Pagh!"
Mother and sister Dark struggled through the rubble. She cursed her husband. "Fool! You might have killed Sim!"
"I may yet," retorted the father.
Sim was not listening. He was fascinated with the remains of an avalanche afront of the next tunnel. A blood stain trickled out from under a rise of boulders, soaking into the ground. There was nothing else to be seen. Someone else had lost the game.
Dark ran ahead on lithe, supple feet, naked and certain.
The valley air was like a wine filtered between mountains. The heaven was a restive blue; not the pale scorched atmosphere of full day, nor the bloated, bruised black-purple of night, a-riot with sickly shining stars.
This was a tide pool. A place where waves of varying and violent temperatures struck, receded. Now the tide pool was quiet, cool, and its life moved abroad.
Laughter! Far away, Sim heard it. Why laughter? How could any of his people find time for laughing? Perhaps later he would discover why.
The valley suddenly blushed with impulsive color. Plant-life, thawing in the precipitant dawn, shoved out from most unexpected sources. It flowered as you watched. Pale green tendrils appeared on scoured rocks. Seconds later, ripe globes of fruit twitched upon the blade-tips. Father gave Sim over to mother and harvested the momentary, volatile crop, thrust scarlet, blue, yellow fruits into a fur sack which hung at his waist. Mother tugged at the moist new grasses, laid them on Sim's tongue.
His senses were being honed to a fine edge. He stored knowledge thirstily. He understood love, marriage, customs, anger, pity, rage, selfishness, shadings and subtleties, realities and reflections. One thing suggested another. The sight of green plant life whirled his mind like a gyroscope, seeking balance in a world where lack of time for explanations made a mind seek and interpret on its own. The soft burden of food gave him knowledge of his system, of energy, of movement. Like a bird newly cracking its way from a shell, he was almost a unit, complete, all-knowing. Heredity had done all this for him. He grew excited with his ability.
They walked, mother, father and the two children, smelling the smells, watching the birds bounce from wall to wall of the valley like scurrying pebbles and suddenly the father said a strange thing:
"Remember?"
Remember what? Sim lay cradled. Was it any effort for them to remember when they'd lived only seven days!
The husband and wife looked at each other.
"Was it only three days ago?" said the woman, her body shaking, her eyes closing to think. "I can't believe it. It is so unfair." She sobbed, then drew her hand across her face and bit her parched lips. The wind played at her gray hair. "Now is my turn to cry. An hour ago it was you!"
"An hour is half a life."
"Come," she took her husband's arm. "Let us look at everything, because it will be our last looking."
"The sun'll be up in a few minutes," said the old man. "We must turn back now."
"Just one more moment," pleaded the woman.
"The sun will catch us."
"Let it catch me then!"
"You don't mean that."
"I mean nothing, nothing at all," cried the woman.
The sun was coming fast. The green in the valley burnt away. Searing wind blasted from over the cliffs. Far away where sun bolts hammered battlements of cliff, the huge stone faces shook their contents; those avalanches not already powdered down, were now released and fell like mantles.
"Dark!" shouted the father. The girl sprang over the warm floor of the valley, answering, her hair a black flag behind her. Hands full of green fruits, she joined them.
The sun rimmed the horizon with flame, the air convulsed dangerously with it, and whistled.
The cave people bolted, shouting, picking up their fallen children, bearing vast loads of fruit and grass with them back to their deep hideouts. In moments the valley was bare. Except for one small child someone had forgotten. He was running far out on the flatness, but he was not strong enough, and the engulfing heat was drifting down from the cliffs even as he was half across the valley.
Flowers were burnt into effigies, grasses sucked back into rocks like singed snakes, flower seeds whirled and fell in the sudden furnace blast of wind, sown far into gullies and crannies, ready to blossom at sunset tonight, and then go to seed and die again.
Sim's father watched that child running, alone, out on the floor of the valley. He and his wife and Dark and Sim were safe in the mouth of their tunnel.
"He'll never make it," said father. "Do not watch him, woman. It's not a good thing to watch."
They turned away. All except Sim, whose eyes had caught a glint of metal far away. His heart hammered in him, and his eyes blurred. Far away, atop a low mountain, one of those metal seeds from space reflected a dazzling ripple of light! It was like one of his intra-embryo dreams fulfilled! A metal space seed, intact, undamaged, lying on a mountain! There was his future! There was his hope for survival! There was where he would go in a few days, when he was—strange thought—a grown man!
The sun plunged into the valley like molten lava.
The little running child screamed, the sun burned, and the screaming stopped.
Sim's mother walked painfully, with sudden age, down the tunnel, paused, reached up, broke off two last icicles that had formed during the night. She handed one to her husband, kept the other. "We will drink one last toast. To you, to the children."
"To you ," he nodded to her. "To the children." They lifted the icicles. The warmth melted the ice down into their thirsty mouths.
All day the sun seemed to blaze and erupt into the valley. Sim could not see it, but the vivid pictorials in his parents' minds were sufficient evidence of the nature of the day fire. The light ran like mercury, sizzling and roasting the caves, poking inward, but never penetrating deeply enough. It lighted the caves. It made the hollows of the cliff comfortably warm.
Sim fought to keep his parents young. But no matter how hard he fought with mind and image, they became like mummies before him. His father seemed to dissolve from one stage of oldness to another. This is what will happen to me soon, though Sim in terror.
Sim grew upon himself. He felt the digestive-eliminatory movements of his body. He was fed every minute, he was continually swallowing, feeding. He began to fit words to images and processes. Such a word was love. It was not an abstraction, but a process, a stir of breath, a smell of morning air, a flutter of heart, the curve of arm holding him, the look in the suspended face of his mother. He saw the processes, then searched behind her suspended face and there was the word, in her brain, ready to use. His throat prepared to speak. Life was pushing him, rushing him along toward oblivion.
He sensed the expansion of his fingernails, the adjustments of his cells, the profusion of his hair, the multiplication of his bones and sinew, the grooving of the soft pale wax of his brain. His brain at birth as clear as a circle of ice, innocent, unmarked, was, an instant later, as if hit with a thrown rock, cracked and marked and patterned in a million crevices of thought and discovery.
His sister, Dark, ran in and out with other little hothouse children, forever eating. His mother trembled over him, not eating, she had no appetite, her eyes were webbed shut.
"Sunset," said his father, at last.
The day was over. The light faded, a wind sounded.
His mother arose. "I want to see the outside world once more ... just once more...." She stared blindly, shivering.
His father's eyes were shut, he lay against the wall.
"I cannot rise," he whispered faintly. "I cannot."
"Dark!" The mother croaked, the girl came running. "Here," and Sim was handed to the girl. "Hold to Sim, Dark, feed him, care for him." She gave Sim one last fondling touch.
Dark said not a word, holding Sim, her great green eyes shining wetly.
"Go now," said the mother. "Take him out into the sunset time. Enjoy yourselves. Pick foods, eat. Play."
Dark walked away without looking back. Sim twisted in her grasp, looking over her shoulder with unbelieving, tragic eyes. He cried out and somehow summoned from his lips the first word of his existence.
"Why...?"
He saw his mother stiffen. "The child spoke!"
"Aye," said his father. "Did you hear what he said?"
"I heard," said the mother quietly.
The last thing Sim saw of his living parents was his mother weakly, swayingly, slowly moving across the floor to lie beside her silent husband. That was the last time he ever saw them move.
IV
The night came and passed and then started the second day.
The bodies of all those who had died during the night were carried in a funeral procession to the top of a small hill. The procession was long, the bodies numerous.
Dark walked in the procession, holding the newly walking Sim by one hand. Only an hour before dawn Sim had learned to walk.
At the top of the hill, Sim saw once again the far off metal seed. Nobody ever looked at it, or spoke of it. Why? Was there some reason? Was it a mirage? Why did they not run toward it? Worship it? Try to get to it and fly away into space?
The funeral words were spoken. The bodies were placed upon the ground where the sun, in a few minutes, would cremate them.
The procession then turned and ran down the hill, eager to have their few minutes of free time running and playing and laughing in the sweet air.
Dark and Sim, chattering like birds, feeding among the rocks, exchanged what they knew of life. He was in his second day, she in her third. They were driven, as always, by the mercurial speed of their lives.
Another piece of his life opened wide.
Fifty young men ran down from the cliffs, holding sharp stones and rock daggers in their thick hands. Shouting, they ran off toward distant black, low lines of small rock cliffs.
"War!"
The thought stood in Sim's brain. It shocked and beat at him. These men were running to fight, to kill, over there in those small black cliffs where other people lived.
But why? Wasn't life short enough without fighting, killing?
From a great distance he heard the sound of conflict, and it made his stomach cold. "Why, Dark, why?"
Dark didn't know. Perhaps they would understand tomorrow. Now, there was the business of eating to sustain and support their lives. Watching Dark was like seeing a lizard forever flickering its pink tongue, forever hungry.
Pale children ran on all sides of them. One beetle-like boy scuttled up the rocks, knocking Sim aside, to take from him a particularly luscious red berry he had found growing under an outcrop.
The child ate hastily of the fruit before Sim could gain his feet. Then Sim hurled himself unsteadily, the two of them fell in a ridiculous jumble, rolling, until Dark pried them, squalling, apart.
Sim bled. A part of him stood off, like a god, and said, "This should not be. Children should not be this way. It is wrong!"
Dark slapped the little intruding boy away. "Get on!" she cried.
"What's your name, bad one?"
"Chion!" laughed the boy. "Chion, Chion, Chion!"
Sim glared at him with all the ferocity in his small, unskilled features. He choked. This was his enemy. It was as if he'd waited for an enemy of person as well as scene. He had already understood the avalanches, the heat, the cold, the shortness of life, but these were things of places, of scene—mute, extravagant manifestations of unthinking nature, not motivated save by gravity and radiation. Here, now, in this stridulent Chion he recognized a thinking enemy!
Chion darted off, turned at a distance, tauntingly crying:
"Tomorrow I will be big enough to kill you!"
And he vanished around a rock.
More children ran, giggling, by Sim. Which of them would be friends, enemies? How could friends and enemies come about in this impossible, quick life time? There was no time to make either, was there?
Dark, as if knowing his thoughts, drew him away. As they searched for desired foods, she whispered fiercely in his ear. "Enemies are made over things like stolen foods; gifts of long grasses make friends. Enemies come, too, from opinions and thoughts. In five seconds you've made an enemy for life. Life's so short enemies must be made quickly." And she laughed with an irony strange for one so young, who was growing older before her rightful time. "You must fight to protect yourself. Others, superstitious ones, will try killing you. There is a belief, a ridiculous belief, that if one kills another, the murderer partakes of the life energy of the slain, and therefore will live an extra day. You see? As long as that is believed, you're in danger."
But Sim was not listening. Bursting from a flock of delicate girls who tomorrow would be tall, quieter, and who day after that would gain breasts and the next day take husbands, Sim caught sight of one small girl whose hair was a violet blue flame.
She ran past, brushed Sim, their bodies touched. Her eyes, white as silver coins, shone at him. He knew then that he'd found a friend, a love, a wife, one who'd a week from now lie with him atop the funeral pyre as sunlight undressed their flesh from bone.
Only the glance, but it held them in mid-motion, one instant.
"Your name?" he shouted after her.
"Lyte!" she called laughingly back.
"I'm Sim," he answered, confused and bewildered.
"Sim!" she repeated it, flashing on. "I'll remember!"
Dark nudged his ribs. "Here, eat ," she said to the distracted boy.
"Eat or you'll never get big enough to catch her."
From nowhere, Chion appeared, running by. "Lyte!" he mocked, dancing malevolently along and away. "Lyte! I'll remember Lyte, too!"
Dark stood tall and reed slender, shaking her dark ebony clouds of hair, sadly. "I see your life before you, little Sim. You'll need weapons soon to fight for this Lyte one. Now, hurry—the sun's coming!"
They ran back to the caves.
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
|
[
"The story begins with Sim being born in a cold cave. He’s wailing with tears while his mom feverishly feeds him. Even though he is a newborn, he interestingly has some self-awareness. Sim looked around the cave and spotted some old people dying in a graphic, grotesque manner. He raged in angst and his mom moved to soothe him. \n\nSuddenly, his father goes to attack him and his mother with a knife. His father wants to kill him as he reasons that there is no reason to live. Sim’s mother begs him not to and tells him to have faith that their son might live longer. After this altercation, Sim notices his sister, Dark, for the first time. Afterwards, he notices that his mother goes through a painful process of aging. Sim cannot seem to find anywhere to look in the cave that is not horrifying to look at and cries himself at these revelations. \n\nBecause the people on this planet age incredibly fast, Sim goes through a lot of understanding and self-thought during the first day of his life. Eventually, the next day arrives. As an avalanche falls into the valley, Sim’s father takes him and they both jump into the avalanche and are carried by it into the valley. Sim and his family enjoy the valley during the time that it is livable to play within its borders. During this time, Sim’s mother and father become upset as there is a pressing realization that they both will die soon. They all hurriedly return back to their cave as the sun is coming out and would kill them if they are caught in its rays. A young child is caught in the sun’s rays and burned to death. \n\nUpon their return, Sim’s mother and father toast icicles to signify their last day. Throughout the day, Sim continues to grow and gain more intelligence. His mother feeds him and lovingly embraces him. Upon their mother’s instruction, Dark takes Sim out into the valley and watches over him. While they are in the valley, the two parents die from old age. In the valley, Sim wonders why no one else asks about the metal seed in the distance that he sees. He thinks it is a potential escape plan. \n\nWhile outside, Sim observes meaning screaming a war rallying cry. When he finds a red berry, a boy named Chion goes and steals it from Sim. Dark slaps the boy and scolds him for stealing the berry. Sim thinks to himself about how he does not understand the fighting nature people have when life is already so short. He then threatens Chion and acknowledges the boy as his new enemy. Dark gives him advice about enemies and friends, how quick they can be made. However, Sim gets distracted with lustful thoughts about a girl that passes him. Dark mentions that she is concerned for his future as he will have to fight Chion. They then both run back to the caves. \n",
"Sim is just born in a cave, which is a nightmare. His mother feeds him and he grows larger and larger. There is a scary man in the farther corner of the cave, Sim's father with eyes being the only alive things on his face. Behind, the old people are sitting in the tunnel and dying. The father heads towards Sim with a knife to kill the child as there is nothing for him to live for. The mother disagrees and takes the weapon away. Sim's sister, Dark, is eating in the same room. The mother is also aging and dying. Sim understands everything though he is just one hour old and he is terrified. On the planet the days are flame, and the nights are ice, with dawn and sunset being the only bearable time to go outside. For that reason people live on the cliffs and they are about to die. Sim is about to live only eight days and all without sleep. Every age passes by really fast and people get old in days on the horrible planet. Ten thousand days ago metal seeds crashed on this planet bringing the people here, who rushed to hide in the cliffs and grew old in days. The only usable ship after the crash is still beyond the valley of cliffs, with some scientists working in it. Sim is determined to go there when he grows old and wise enough. At dawn, Sim's father takes him outside, leaps out during an avalanche and makes it alive. Fruits appear and as Sim eats, he rapidly gets knowledge. The mother cries for the transiency of time and wants to take the last look at everything, as they will die soon. The sun is rising but she is not afraid to be caught by it. Everyone rushes to the hideouts, including the family, but someone's child doesn't make it and is burnt. Sim glimpses the metal ship, his dream. Sim's parents are too feeble and send Dark to play with Sim at sunset, while they die. At dawn a funeral procession takes place for all dead during the night. Sim already can walk along. Dark and Sim discuss what they know when some people run to fight others. The kids are surprised as life is too short to fight. A boy, Chion, fights Sim for a berry. Sim understands what enemies and friends are, and the boy promises to kill him the next day. Dark explains how those are made and says that people around believe they can earn another day of life by killing the other. Suddenly, Sim notices and touches a girl, who he knows will become his wife tomorrow and they will be buried together. The girl introduces herself as Lyte, and along with Sim, Chion promises to remember the name. Dark tells Sim he needs weapons to fight for Lyte.",
"The story opens with Sim being born in a cave. He immediately is aware of feelings and sensations and is introduced to the dreadful world his family lives in. Sim is fed fruits and grass by his mother as he grows larger, and he sees the others in the cave begin to die. As Sim's mother holds him, his father suddenly takes him and holds a knife to him, planning to kill him. Sim's mother pleads as his father wonders what he has to live for. Sim sees his sister, Dark, beside him, and his mother manages to grab the knife from his father. Sim soon begins to understand, through racial memory, the conditions he lives in. He understands that the planet he is on, on which the people before him had crashed, casts deadly radiation on the planet which causes the people on it to live for only eight days. The land outside the cave is too dangerous and deadly during the days and nights; only when it is dawn or sunset do the valleys bloom with nature and the people can enjoy its short life. Sim begins to age rapidly, aware of the eight days he has to live, and desperate to find a solution. He has a vision of a spaceship on a far out mountain, intact but impossible to get to, where a group of scientists struggle to find a way home. Sim longs to get to the ship and prolong his life. As dawn approaches, the people in the cave get ready to head down to the valley, where the daily Avalanche occurs; Sim's father recklessly takes him through the avalanche, barely surviving. Sim watches the valley become flooded with life as he gains more knowledge and understanding. As dawn fades, Sim's parents acknowledge that it is their last day of living, and everyone bolts back into the cave, a child being left behind and scorched by the sun. Sim's parents make a toast on their last day of life, and he watches them age until they are unable to walk and struggle to speak, while Sim himself notices his growth and ability. At sunset, Sim's parents are no longer able to go outside, and Sim says his first word, \"Why\". The next day, Sim's parents pass, and Dark becomes his caretaker. They frolic in the valley after the funeral procession, where Sim sees a group of men engage in war and is perplexed. He is then knocked to the ground by a child named Chion, making his first enemy. Dark explains that enemies are inevitable, especially due to the superstition some believe about gaining more days of life by killing others. Sim then notices a girl named Lyte, who he takes a liking to and acknowledges as his future wife.",
"Sim is born during the night. His mother feeds him with feverish hands as he realizes that he has begun the nightmare of living. As the thick fog clears, he sees a man with a dying face begin to approach them. His mother is fearful, but she continues to feed him things such as ice-nipples, pebble-fruits, and valley-grass. As his father approaches, people sitting in the tunnel all die. His father raises the knife over him and plans to kill him, but his mother flings herself upon the back of his father. He wants to kill Sim’s sister too, but seeing his wife’s state makes him change his mind. Sim begins to understand that he is on a planet next to the sun, with cold nights and hot days. Most of the people bring their children out during dawn and sunset to play because these are the only times the climate is bearable. Sim knows that he has exactly eight days to live. Sim feels that it is unfair that he only has eight days to live before he dies and wonders how the people have gotten into this situation. He gets flashbacks of a crash that brought men and women to the planet; their bodies are altered so that they live and die in a week. He tries to think about what he can do to save them and suddenly gets another image of a deserted spaceship on a low mountain. His father wakes him up to announce that it is dawn, and the Avalanche comes. As people push towards the dawn, the rocks fall too. His father lifts him up, and they narrowly avoid being killed by one. Dark runs ahead, and Sim wonders why there is laughing. Suddenly, he sees plants come to life and fruit begin to sprout, giving him new knowledge. His parents discuss how this is the last time they will see these sights again; the sun begins to rise again, and they all leave. Sim watches a young child running in the flatness, but the child dies before he makes it. His parents toast one last time, and Sim watches them age rapidly from one stage to another. Before dying, his mother tells Dark to take care of him. Sim speaks for the first time as his parents die. On the second day, there is a funeral procession for the people who have died the previous night. Dark and Sim go outside to see fifty young men go to war, which makes him bewildered as to why people fight when their lives are already so short. A small boy attacks him, and he introduces himself as Chion. Sim realizes that this is his enemy as Chion says that he will be big enough to kill him tomorrow. He sees his future wife named Lyte, and it seems that Chion is interested as well. Dark tells him to eat so he will be strong enough to fight. "
] |
63874
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THE CREATURES THAT TIME FORGOT
By RAY BRADBURY
Mad, impossible world! Sun-blasted by day, cold-wracked by night—and life condensed by radiation into eight days! Sim eyed the Ship—if he only dared reach it and escape! ... but it was more than half an hour distant—the limit of life itself!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1946. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
During the night, Sim was born. He lay wailing upon the cold cave stones. His blood beat through him a thousand pulses each minute. He grew, steadily.
Into his mouth his mother with feverish hands put the food. The nightmare of living was begun. Almost instantly at birth his eyes grew alert, and then, without half understanding why, filled with bright, insistent terror. He gagged upon the food, choked and wailed. He looked about, blindly.
There was a thick fog. It cleared. The outlines of the cave appeared. And a man loomed up, insane and wild and terrible. A man with a dying face. Old, withered by winds, baked like adobe in the heat. The man was crouched in a far corner of the cave, his eyes whitening to one side of his face, listening to the far wind trumpeting up above on the frozen night planet.
Sim's mother, trembling, now and again, staring at the man, fed Sim pebble-fruits, valley-grasses and ice-nipples broken from the cavern entrances, and eating, eliminating, eating again, he grew larger, larger.
The man in the corner of the cave was his father! The man's eyes were all that was alive in his face. He held a crude stone dagger in his withered hands and his jaw hung loose and senseless.
Then, with a widening focus, Sim saw the old people sitting in the tunnel beyond this living quarter. And as he watched, they began to die.
Their agonies filled the cave. They melted like waxen images, their faces collapsed inward on their sharp bones, their teeth protruded. One minute their faces were mature, fairly smooth, alive, electric. The next minute a desication and burning away of their flesh occurred.
Sim thrashed in his mother's grasp. She held him. "No, no," she soothed him, quietly, earnestly, looking to see if this, too, would cause her husband to rise again.
With a soft swift padding of naked feet, Sim's father ran across the cave. Sim's mother screamed. Sim felt himself torn loose from her grasp. He fell upon the stones, rolling, shrieking with his new, moist lungs!
With a soft padding of naked feet Sim's father ran across the cave.
The webbed face of his father jerked over him, the knife was poised. It was like one of those prenatal nightmares he'd had while still in his mother's flesh. In the next few blazing, impossible instants questions flicked through his brain. The knife was high, suspended, ready to destroy him. But the whole question of life in this cave, the dying people, the withering and the insanity, surged through Sim's new, small head. How was it that he understood? A newborn child? Can a newborn child think, see, understand, interpret? No. It was wrong! It was impossible. Yet it was happening! To him. He had been alive an hour now. And in the next instant perhaps dead!
His mother flung herself upon the back of his father, and beat down the weapon. Sim caught the terrific backwash of emotion from both their conflicting minds. "Let me kill him!" shouted the father, breathing harshly, sobbingly. "What has he to live for?"
"No, no!" insisted the mother, and her body, frail and old as it was, stretched across the huge body of the father, tearing at his weapon.
"He must live! There may be a future for him! He may live longer than us, and be young!"
The father fell back against a stone crib. Lying there, staring, eyes glittering, Sim saw another figure inside that stone crib. A girl-child, quietly feeding itself, moving its delicate hands to procure food. His sister.
The mother wrenched the dagger from her husband's grasp, stood up, weeping and pushing back her cloud of stiffening gray hair. Her mouth trembled and jerked. "I'll kill you!" she said, glaring down at her husband. "Leave my children alone."
The old man spat tiredly, bitterly, and looked vacantly into the stone crib, at the little girl. "One-eighth of her life's over, already," he gasped. "And she doesn't know it. What's the use?"
As Sim watched, his own mother seemed to shift and take a tortured, smoke-like form. The thin bony face broke out into a maze of wrinkles. She was shaken with pain and had to sit by him, shuddering and cuddling the knife to her shriveled breasts. She, like the old people in the tunnel, was aging, dying.
Sim cried steadily. Everywhere he looked was horror. A mind came to meet his own. Instinctively he glanced toward the stone crib. Dark, his sister, returned his glance. Their minds brushed like straying fingers. He relaxed somewhat. He began to learn.
The father sighed, shut his lids down over his green eyes. "Feed the child," he said, exhaustedly. "Hurry. It is almost dawn and it is our last day of living, woman. Feed him. Make him grow."
Sim quieted, and images, out of the terror, floated to him.
This was a planet next to the sun. The nights burned with cold, the days were like torches of fire. It was a violent, impossible world. The people lived in the cliffs to escape the incredible ice and the day of flame. Only at dawn and sunset was the air breath-sweet, flower-strong, and then the cave peoples brought their children out into a stony, barren valley. At dawn the ice thawed into creeks and rivers, at sunset the day-fires died and cooled. In the intervals of even, livable temperature the people lived, ran, played, loved, free of the caverns; all life on the planet jumped, burst into life. Plants grew instantly, birds were flung like pellets across the sky. Smaller, legged animal life rushed frantically through the rocks; everything tried to get its living down in the brief hour of respite.
It was an unbearable planet. Sim understood this, a matter of hours after birth. Racial memory bloomed in him. He would live his entire life in the caves, with two hours a day outside. Here, in stone channels of air he would talk, talk incessantly with his people, sleep never, think, think and lie upon his back, dreaming; but never sleeping.
And he would live exactly eight days.
The violence of this thought evacuated his bowels. Eight days. Eight short days. It was wrong, impossible, but a fact. Even while in his mother's flesh some racial knowledge had told him he was being formed rapidly, shaped and propelled out swiftly.
Birth was quick as a knife. Childhood was over in a flash. Adolescence was a sheet of lightning. Manhood was a dream, maturity a myth, old age an inescapably quick reality, death a swift certainty.
Eight days from now he'd stand half-blind, withering, dying, as his father now stood, staring uselessly at his own wife and child.
This day was an eighth part of his total life! He must enjoy every second of it. He must search his parents' thoughts for knowledge.
Because in a few hours they'd be dead.
This was so impossibly unfair. Was this all of life? In his prenatal state hadn't he dreamed of long lives, valleys not of blasted stone but green foliage and temperate clime? Yes! And if he'd dreamed then there must be truth in the visions. How could he seek and find the long life? Where? And how could he accomplish a life mission that huge and depressing in eight short, vanishing days?
How had his people gotten into such a condition?
As if at a button pressed, he saw an image. Metal seeds, blown across space from a distant green world, fighting with long flames, crashing on this bleak planet. From their shattered hulls tumble men and women.
When? Long ago. Ten thousand days. The crash victims hid in the cliffs from the sun. Fire, ice and floods washed away the wreckage of the huge metal seeds. The victims were shaped and beaten like iron upon a forge. Solar radiations drenched them. Their pulses quickened, two hundred, five hundred, a thousand beats a minute. Their skins thickened, their blood changed. Old age came rushing. Children were born in the caves. Swifter, swifter, swifter the process. Like all this world's wild life, the men and women from the crash lived and died in a week, leaving children to do likewise.
So this is life, thought Sim. It was not spoken in his mind, for he knew no words, he knew only images, old memory, an awareness, a telepathy that could penetrate flesh, rock, metal. So I'm the five thousandth in a long line of futile sons? What can I do to save myself from dying eight days from now? Is there escape?
His eyes widened, another image came to focus.
Beyond this valley of cliffs, on a low mountain lay a perfect, unscarred metal seed. A metal ship, not rusted or touched by the avalanches. The ship was deserted, whole, intact. It was the only ship of all these that had crashed that was still a unit, still usable. But it was so far away. There was no one in it to help. This ship, then, on the far mountain, was the destiny toward which he would grow. There was his only hope of escape.
His mind flexed.
In this cliff, deep down in a confinement of solitude, worked a handful of scientists. To these men, when he was old enough and wise enough, he must go. They, too, dreamed of escape, of long life, of green valleys and temperate weathers. They, too, stared longingly at that distant ship upon its high mountain, its metal so perfect it did not rust or age.
The cliff groaned.
Sim's father lifted his eroded, lifeless face.
"Dawn's coming," he said.
II
Morning relaxed the mighty granite cliff muscles. It was the time of the Avalanche.
The tunnels echoed to running bare feet. Adults, children pushed with eager, hungry eyes toward the outside dawn. From far out, Sim heard a rumble of rock, a scream, a silence. Avalanches fell into valley. Stones that had been biding their time, not quite ready to fall, for a million years let go their bulks, and where they had begun their journey as single boulders they smashed upon the valley floor in a thousand shrapnels and friction-heated nuggets.
Every morning at least one person was caught in the downpour.
The cliff people dared the avalanches. It added one more excitement to their lives, already too short, too headlong, too dangerous.
Sim felt himself seized up by his father. He was carried brusquely down the tunnel for a thousand yards, to where the daylight appeared. There was a shining insane light in his father's eyes. Sim could not move. He sensed what was going to happen. Behind his father, his mother hurried, bringing with her the little sister, Dark. "Wait! Be careful!" she cried to her husband.
Sim felt his father crouch, listening.
High in the cliff was a tremor, a shivering.
"Now!" bellowed his father, and leaped out.
An avalanche fell down at them!
Sim had accelerated impressions of plunging walls, dust, confusion. His mother screamed! There was a jolting, a plunging.
With one last step, Sim's father hurried him forward into the day. The avalanche thundered behind him. The mouth of the cave, where mother and Dark stood back out of the way, was choked with rubble and two boulders that weighed a hundred pounds each.
The storm thunder of the avalanche passed away to a trickle of sand. Sim's father burst out into laughter. "Made it! By the Gods! Made it alive!" And he looked scornfully at the cliff and spat. "Pagh!"
Mother and sister Dark struggled through the rubble. She cursed her husband. "Fool! You might have killed Sim!"
"I may yet," retorted the father.
Sim was not listening. He was fascinated with the remains of an avalanche afront of the next tunnel. A blood stain trickled out from under a rise of boulders, soaking into the ground. There was nothing else to be seen. Someone else had lost the game.
Dark ran ahead on lithe, supple feet, naked and certain.
The valley air was like a wine filtered between mountains. The heaven was a restive blue; not the pale scorched atmosphere of full day, nor the bloated, bruised black-purple of night, a-riot with sickly shining stars.
This was a tide pool. A place where waves of varying and violent temperatures struck, receded. Now the tide pool was quiet, cool, and its life moved abroad.
Laughter! Far away, Sim heard it. Why laughter? How could any of his people find time for laughing? Perhaps later he would discover why.
The valley suddenly blushed with impulsive color. Plant-life, thawing in the precipitant dawn, shoved out from most unexpected sources. It flowered as you watched. Pale green tendrils appeared on scoured rocks. Seconds later, ripe globes of fruit twitched upon the blade-tips. Father gave Sim over to mother and harvested the momentary, volatile crop, thrust scarlet, blue, yellow fruits into a fur sack which hung at his waist. Mother tugged at the moist new grasses, laid them on Sim's tongue.
His senses were being honed to a fine edge. He stored knowledge thirstily. He understood love, marriage, customs, anger, pity, rage, selfishness, shadings and subtleties, realities and reflections. One thing suggested another. The sight of green plant life whirled his mind like a gyroscope, seeking balance in a world where lack of time for explanations made a mind seek and interpret on its own. The soft burden of food gave him knowledge of his system, of energy, of movement. Like a bird newly cracking its way from a shell, he was almost a unit, complete, all-knowing. Heredity had done all this for him. He grew excited with his ability.
They walked, mother, father and the two children, smelling the smells, watching the birds bounce from wall to wall of the valley like scurrying pebbles and suddenly the father said a strange thing:
"Remember?"
Remember what? Sim lay cradled. Was it any effort for them to remember when they'd lived only seven days!
The husband and wife looked at each other.
"Was it only three days ago?" said the woman, her body shaking, her eyes closing to think. "I can't believe it. It is so unfair." She sobbed, then drew her hand across her face and bit her parched lips. The wind played at her gray hair. "Now is my turn to cry. An hour ago it was you!"
"An hour is half a life."
"Come," she took her husband's arm. "Let us look at everything, because it will be our last looking."
"The sun'll be up in a few minutes," said the old man. "We must turn back now."
"Just one more moment," pleaded the woman.
"The sun will catch us."
"Let it catch me then!"
"You don't mean that."
"I mean nothing, nothing at all," cried the woman.
The sun was coming fast. The green in the valley burnt away. Searing wind blasted from over the cliffs. Far away where sun bolts hammered battlements of cliff, the huge stone faces shook their contents; those avalanches not already powdered down, were now released and fell like mantles.
"Dark!" shouted the father. The girl sprang over the warm floor of the valley, answering, her hair a black flag behind her. Hands full of green fruits, she joined them.
The sun rimmed the horizon with flame, the air convulsed dangerously with it, and whistled.
The cave people bolted, shouting, picking up their fallen children, bearing vast loads of fruit and grass with them back to their deep hideouts. In moments the valley was bare. Except for one small child someone had forgotten. He was running far out on the flatness, but he was not strong enough, and the engulfing heat was drifting down from the cliffs even as he was half across the valley.
Flowers were burnt into effigies, grasses sucked back into rocks like singed snakes, flower seeds whirled and fell in the sudden furnace blast of wind, sown far into gullies and crannies, ready to blossom at sunset tonight, and then go to seed and die again.
Sim's father watched that child running, alone, out on the floor of the valley. He and his wife and Dark and Sim were safe in the mouth of their tunnel.
"He'll never make it," said father. "Do not watch him, woman. It's not a good thing to watch."
They turned away. All except Sim, whose eyes had caught a glint of metal far away. His heart hammered in him, and his eyes blurred. Far away, atop a low mountain, one of those metal seeds from space reflected a dazzling ripple of light! It was like one of his intra-embryo dreams fulfilled! A metal space seed, intact, undamaged, lying on a mountain! There was his future! There was his hope for survival! There was where he would go in a few days, when he was—strange thought—a grown man!
The sun plunged into the valley like molten lava.
The little running child screamed, the sun burned, and the screaming stopped.
Sim's mother walked painfully, with sudden age, down the tunnel, paused, reached up, broke off two last icicles that had formed during the night. She handed one to her husband, kept the other. "We will drink one last toast. To you, to the children."
"To you ," he nodded to her. "To the children." They lifted the icicles. The warmth melted the ice down into their thirsty mouths.
All day the sun seemed to blaze and erupt into the valley. Sim could not see it, but the vivid pictorials in his parents' minds were sufficient evidence of the nature of the day fire. The light ran like mercury, sizzling and roasting the caves, poking inward, but never penetrating deeply enough. It lighted the caves. It made the hollows of the cliff comfortably warm.
Sim fought to keep his parents young. But no matter how hard he fought with mind and image, they became like mummies before him. His father seemed to dissolve from one stage of oldness to another. This is what will happen to me soon, though Sim in terror.
Sim grew upon himself. He felt the digestive-eliminatory movements of his body. He was fed every minute, he was continually swallowing, feeding. He began to fit words to images and processes. Such a word was love. It was not an abstraction, but a process, a stir of breath, a smell of morning air, a flutter of heart, the curve of arm holding him, the look in the suspended face of his mother. He saw the processes, then searched behind her suspended face and there was the word, in her brain, ready to use. His throat prepared to speak. Life was pushing him, rushing him along toward oblivion.
He sensed the expansion of his fingernails, the adjustments of his cells, the profusion of his hair, the multiplication of his bones and sinew, the grooving of the soft pale wax of his brain. His brain at birth as clear as a circle of ice, innocent, unmarked, was, an instant later, as if hit with a thrown rock, cracked and marked and patterned in a million crevices of thought and discovery.
His sister, Dark, ran in and out with other little hothouse children, forever eating. His mother trembled over him, not eating, she had no appetite, her eyes were webbed shut.
"Sunset," said his father, at last.
The day was over. The light faded, a wind sounded.
His mother arose. "I want to see the outside world once more ... just once more...." She stared blindly, shivering.
His father's eyes were shut, he lay against the wall.
"I cannot rise," he whispered faintly. "I cannot."
"Dark!" The mother croaked, the girl came running. "Here," and Sim was handed to the girl. "Hold to Sim, Dark, feed him, care for him." She gave Sim one last fondling touch.
Dark said not a word, holding Sim, her great green eyes shining wetly.
"Go now," said the mother. "Take him out into the sunset time. Enjoy yourselves. Pick foods, eat. Play."
Dark walked away without looking back. Sim twisted in her grasp, looking over her shoulder with unbelieving, tragic eyes. He cried out and somehow summoned from his lips the first word of his existence.
"Why...?"
He saw his mother stiffen. "The child spoke!"
"Aye," said his father. "Did you hear what he said?"
"I heard," said the mother quietly.
The last thing Sim saw of his living parents was his mother weakly, swayingly, slowly moving across the floor to lie beside her silent husband. That was the last time he ever saw them move.
IV
The night came and passed and then started the second day.
The bodies of all those who had died during the night were carried in a funeral procession to the top of a small hill. The procession was long, the bodies numerous.
Dark walked in the procession, holding the newly walking Sim by one hand. Only an hour before dawn Sim had learned to walk.
At the top of the hill, Sim saw once again the far off metal seed. Nobody ever looked at it, or spoke of it. Why? Was there some reason? Was it a mirage? Why did they not run toward it? Worship it? Try to get to it and fly away into space?
The funeral words were spoken. The bodies were placed upon the ground where the sun, in a few minutes, would cremate them.
The procession then turned and ran down the hill, eager to have their few minutes of free time running and playing and laughing in the sweet air.
Dark and Sim, chattering like birds, feeding among the rocks, exchanged what they knew of life. He was in his second day, she in her third. They were driven, as always, by the mercurial speed of their lives.
Another piece of his life opened wide.
Fifty young men ran down from the cliffs, holding sharp stones and rock daggers in their thick hands. Shouting, they ran off toward distant black, low lines of small rock cliffs.
"War!"
The thought stood in Sim's brain. It shocked and beat at him. These men were running to fight, to kill, over there in those small black cliffs where other people lived.
But why? Wasn't life short enough without fighting, killing?
From a great distance he heard the sound of conflict, and it made his stomach cold. "Why, Dark, why?"
Dark didn't know. Perhaps they would understand tomorrow. Now, there was the business of eating to sustain and support their lives. Watching Dark was like seeing a lizard forever flickering its pink tongue, forever hungry.
Pale children ran on all sides of them. One beetle-like boy scuttled up the rocks, knocking Sim aside, to take from him a particularly luscious red berry he had found growing under an outcrop.
The child ate hastily of the fruit before Sim could gain his feet. Then Sim hurled himself unsteadily, the two of them fell in a ridiculous jumble, rolling, until Dark pried them, squalling, apart.
Sim bled. A part of him stood off, like a god, and said, "This should not be. Children should not be this way. It is wrong!"
Dark slapped the little intruding boy away. "Get on!" she cried.
"What's your name, bad one?"
"Chion!" laughed the boy. "Chion, Chion, Chion!"
Sim glared at him with all the ferocity in his small, unskilled features. He choked. This was his enemy. It was as if he'd waited for an enemy of person as well as scene. He had already understood the avalanches, the heat, the cold, the shortness of life, but these were things of places, of scene—mute, extravagant manifestations of unthinking nature, not motivated save by gravity and radiation. Here, now, in this stridulent Chion he recognized a thinking enemy!
Chion darted off, turned at a distance, tauntingly crying:
"Tomorrow I will be big enough to kill you!"
And he vanished around a rock.
More children ran, giggling, by Sim. Which of them would be friends, enemies? How could friends and enemies come about in this impossible, quick life time? There was no time to make either, was there?
Dark, as if knowing his thoughts, drew him away. As they searched for desired foods, she whispered fiercely in his ear. "Enemies are made over things like stolen foods; gifts of long grasses make friends. Enemies come, too, from opinions and thoughts. In five seconds you've made an enemy for life. Life's so short enemies must be made quickly." And she laughed with an irony strange for one so young, who was growing older before her rightful time. "You must fight to protect yourself. Others, superstitious ones, will try killing you. There is a belief, a ridiculous belief, that if one kills another, the murderer partakes of the life energy of the slain, and therefore will live an extra day. You see? As long as that is believed, you're in danger."
But Sim was not listening. Bursting from a flock of delicate girls who tomorrow would be tall, quieter, and who day after that would gain breasts and the next day take husbands, Sim caught sight of one small girl whose hair was a violet blue flame.
She ran past, brushed Sim, their bodies touched. Her eyes, white as silver coins, shone at him. He knew then that he'd found a friend, a love, a wife, one who'd a week from now lie with him atop the funeral pyre as sunlight undressed their flesh from bone.
Only the glance, but it held them in mid-motion, one instant.
"Your name?" he shouted after her.
"Lyte!" she called laughingly back.
"I'm Sim," he answered, confused and bewildered.
"Sim!" she repeated it, flashing on. "I'll remember!"
Dark nudged his ribs. "Here, eat ," she said to the distracted boy.
"Eat or you'll never get big enough to catch her."
From nowhere, Chion appeared, running by. "Lyte!" he mocked, dancing malevolently along and away. "Lyte! I'll remember Lyte, too!"
Dark stood tall and reed slender, shaking her dark ebony clouds of hair, sadly. "I see your life before you, little Sim. You'll need weapons soon to fight for this Lyte one. Now, hurry—the sun's coming!"
They ran back to the caves.
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Who are the Thinkers and how are they significant to the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Appointment In Tomorrow by Fritz Leiber.
Relevant chunks:
Appointment in Tomorrow
BY FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by ED ALEXANDER
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction July 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Is it possible to have a world without moral values? Or does lack of morality become a moral value, also?
The first angry rays of the sun—which, startlingly enough, still rose in the east at 24 hour intervals—pierced the lacy tops of Atlantic combers and touched thousands of sleeping Americans with unconscious fear, because of their unpleasant similarity to the rays from World War III's atomic bombs.
They turned to blood the witch-circle of rusty steel skeletons around Inferno in Manhattan. Without comment, they pointed a cosmic finger at the tarnished brass plaque commemorating the martyrdom of the Three Physicists after the dropping of the Hell Bomb. They tenderly touched the rosy skin and strawberry bruises on the naked shoulders of a girl sleeping off a drunk on the furry and radiantly heated floor of a nearby roof garden. They struck green magic from the glassy blot that was Old Washington. Twelve hours before, they had revealed things as eerily beautiful, and as ravaged, in Asia and Russia. They pinked the white walls of the Colonial dwelling of Morton Opperly near the Institute for Advanced Studies; upstairs they slanted impartially across the Pharoahlike and open-eyed face of the elderly physicist and the ugly, sleep-surly one of young Willard Farquar in the next room. And in nearby New Washington they made of the spire of the Thinkers' Foundation a blue and optimistic glory that outshone White House, Jr.
It was America approaching the end of the Twentieth Century. America of juke-box burlesque and your local radiation hospital. America of the mask-fad for women and Mystic Christianity. America of the off-the-bosom dress and the New Blue Laws. America of the Endless War and the loyalty detector. America of marvelous Maizie and the monthly rocket to Mars. America of the Thinkers and (a few remembered) the Institute. "Knock on titanium," "Whadya do for black-outs," "Please, lover, don't think when I'm around," America, as combat-shocked and crippled as the rest of the bomb-shattered planet.
Not one impudent photon of the sunlight penetrated the triple-paned, polarizing windows of Jorj Helmuth's bedroom in the Thinker's Foundation, yet the clock in his brain awakened him to the minute, or almost. Switching off the Educational Sandman in the midst of the phrase, "... applying tensor calculus to the nucleus," he took a deep, even breath and cast his mind to the limits of the world and his knowledge. It was a somewhat shadowy vision, but, he noted with impartial approval, definitely less shadowy than yesterday morning.
Employing a rapid mental scanning technique, he next cleared his memory chains of false associations, including those acquired while asleep. These chores completed, he held his finger on a bedside button, which rotated the polarizing window panes until the room slowly filled with a muted daylight. Then, still flat on his back, he turned his head until he could look at the remarkably beautiful blonde girl asleep beside him.
Remembering last night, he felt a pang of exasperation, which he instantly quelled by taking his mind to a higher and dispassionate level from which he could look down on the girl and even himself as quaint, clumsy animals. Still, he grumbled silently, Caddy might have had enough consideration to clear out before he awoke. He wondered if he shouldn't have used his hypnotic control of the girl to smooth their relationship last night, and for a moment the word that would send her into deep trance trembled on the tip of his tongue. But no, that special power of his over her was reserved for far more important purposes.
Pumping dynamic tension into his 20-year-old muscles and confidence into his 60-year-old mind, the 40-year-old Thinker rose from bed. No covers had to be thrown off; the nuclear heating unit made them unnecessary. He stepped into his clothing—the severe tunic, tights and sockassins of the modern business man. Next he glanced at the message tape beside his phone, washed down with ginger ale a vita-amino-enzyme tablet, and walked to the window. There, gazing along the rows of newly planted mutant oaks lining Decontamination Avenue, his smooth face broke into a smile.
It had come to him, the next big move in the intricate game making up his life—and mankind's. Come to him during sleep, as so many of his best decisions did, because he regularly employed the time-saving technique of somno-thought, which could function at the same time as somno-learning.
He set his who?-where? robot for "Rocket Physicist" and "Genius Class." While it worked, he dictated to his steno-robot the following brief message:
Dear Fellow Scientist:
A project is contemplated that will have a crucial bearing on man's future in deep space. Ample non-military Government funds are available. There was a time when professional men scoffed at the Thinkers. Then there was a time when the Thinkers perforce neglected the professional men. Now both times are past. May they never return! I would like to consult you this afternoon, three o'clock sharp, Thinkers' Foundation I.
Jorj Helmuth
Meanwhile the who?-where? had tossed out a dozen cards. He glanced through them, hesitated at the name "Willard Farquar," looked at the sleeping girl, then quickly tossed them all into the addresso-robot and plugged in the steno-robot.
The buzz-light blinked green and he switched the phone to audio.
"The President is waiting to see Maizie, sir," a clear feminine voice announced. "He has the general staff with him."
"Martian peace to him," Jorj Helmuth said. "Tell him I'll be down in a few minutes."
Huge as a primitive nuclear reactor, the great electronic brain loomed above the knot of hush-voiced men. It almost filled a two-story room in the Thinkers' Foundation. Its front was an orderly expanse of controls, indicators, telltales, and terminals, the upper ones reached by a chair on a boom.
Although, as far as anyone knew, it could sense only the information and questions fed into it on a tape, the human visitors could not resist the impulse to talk in whispers and glance uneasily at the great cryptic cube. After all, it had lately taken to moving some of its own controls—the permissible ones—and could doubtless improvise a hearing apparatus if it wanted to.
For this was the thinking machine beside which the Marks and Eniacs and Maniacs and Maddidas and Minervas and Mimirs were less than Morons. This was the machine with a million times as many synapses as the human brain, the machine that remembered by cutting delicate notches in the rims of molecules (instead of kindergarten paper-punching or the Coney Island shimmying of columns of mercury). This was the machine that had given instructions on building the last three-quarters of itself. This was the goal, perhaps, toward which fallible human reasoning and biased human judgment and feeble human ambition had evolved.
This was the machine that really thought—a million-plus!
This was the machine that the timid cyberneticists and stuffy professional scientists had said could not be built. Yet this was the machine that the Thinkers, with characteristic Yankee push, had built. And nicknamed, with characteristic Yankee irreverence and girl-fondness, "Maizie."
Gazing up at it, the President of the United States felt a chord plucked within him that hadn't been sounded for decades, the dark and shivery organ chord of his Baptist childhood. Here, in a strange sense, although his reason rejected it, he felt he stood face to face with the living God: infinitely stern with the sternness of reality, yet infinitely just. No tiniest error or wilful misstep could ever escape the scrutiny of this vast mentality. He shivered.
The grizzled general—there was also one who was gray—was thinking that this was a very odd link in the chain of command. Some shadowy and usually well-controlled memories from World War II faintly stirred his ire. Here he was giving orders to a being immeasurably more intelligent than himself. And always orders of the "Tell me how to kill that man" rather than the "Kill that man" sort. The distinction bothered him obscurely. It relieved him to know that Maizie had built-in controls which made her always the servant of humanity, or of humanity's right-minded leaders—even the Thinkers weren't certain which.
The gray general was thinking uneasily, and, like the President, at a more turbid level, of the resemblance between Papal infallibility and the dictates of the machine. Suddenly his bony wrists began to tremble. He asked himself: Was this the Second Coming? Mightn't an incarnation be in metal rather than flesh?
The austere Secretary of State was remembering what he'd taken such pains to make everyone forget: his youthful flirtation at Lake Success with Buddhism. Sitting before his guru , his teacher, feeling the Occidental's awe at the wisdom of the East, or its pretense, he had felt a little like this.
The burly Secretary of Space, who had come up through United Rockets, was thanking his stars that at any rate the professional scientists weren't responsible for this job. Like the grizzled general, he'd always felt suspicious of men who kept telling you how to do things, rather than doing them themselves. In World War III he'd had his fill of the professional physicists, with their eternal taint of a misty sort of radicalism and free-thinking. The Thinkers were better—more disciplined, more human. They'd called their brain-machine Maizie, which helped take the curse off her. Somewhat.
The President's Secretary, a paunchy veteran of party caucuses, was also glad that it was the Thinkers who had created the machine, though he trembled at the power that it gave them over the Administration. Still, you could do business with the Thinkers. And nobody (not even the Thinkers) could do business (that sort of business) with Maizie!
Before that great square face with its thousands of tiny metal features, only Jorj Helmuth seemed at ease, busily entering on the tape the complex Questions of the Day that the high officials had handed him: logistics for the Endless War in Pakistan, optimum size for next year's sugar-corn crop, current thought trends in average Soviet minds—profound questions, yet many of them phrased with surprising simplicity. For figures, technical jargon, and layman's language were alike to Maizie; there was no need to translate into mathematical shorthand, as with the lesser brain-machines.
The click of the taper went on until the Secretary of State had twice nervously fired a cigaret with his ultrasonic lighter and twice quickly put it away. No one spoke.
Jorj looked up at the Secretary of Space. "Section Five, Question Four—whom would that come from?"
The burly man frowned. "That would be the physics boys, Opperly's group. Is anything wrong?"
Jorj did not answer. A bit later he quit taping and began to adjust controls, going up on the boom-chair to reach some of them. Eventually he came down and touched a few more, then stood waiting.
From the great cube came a profound, steady purring. Involuntarily the six officials backed off a bit. Somehow it was impossible for a man to get used to the sound of Maizie starting to think.
Jorj turned, smiling. "And now, gentlemen, while we wait for Maizie to celebrate, there should be just enough time for us to watch the takeoff of the Mars rocket." He switched on a giant television screen. The others made a quarter turn, and there before them glowed the rich ochres and blues of a New Mexico sunrise and, in the middle distance, a silvery mighty spindle.
Like the generals, the Secretary of Space suppressed a scowl. Here was something that ought to be spang in the center of his official territory, and the Thinkers had locked him completely out of it. That rocket there—just an ordinary Earth satellite vehicle commandeered from the Army, but equipped by the Thinkers with Maizie-designed nuclear motors capable of the Mars journey and more. The first spaceship—and the Secretary of Space was not in on it!
Still, he told himself, Maizie had decreed it that way. And when he remembered what the Thinkers had done for him in rescuing him from breakdown with their mental science, in rescuing the whole Administration from collapse he realized he had to be satisfied. And that was without taking into consideration the amazing additional mental discoveries that the Thinkers were bringing down from Mars.
"Lord," the President said to Jorj as if voicing the Secretary's feeling, "I wish you people could bring a couple of those wise little devils back with you this trip. Be a good thing for the country."
Jorj looked at him a bit coldly. "It's quite unthinkable," he said.
"The telepathic abilities of the Martians make them extremely sensitive. The conflicts of ordinary Earth minds would impinge on them psychotically, even fatally. As you know, the Thinkers were able to contact them only because of our degree of learned mental poise and errorless memory-chains. So for the present it must be our task alone to glean from the Martians their astounding mental skills. Of course, some day in the future, when we have discovered how to armor the minds of the Martians—"
"Sure, I know," the President said hastily. "Shouldn't have mentioned it, Jorj."
Conversation ceased. They waited with growing tension for the great violet flames to bloom from the base of the silvery shaft.
Meanwhile the question tape, like a New Year's streamer tossed out a high window into the night, sped on its dark way along spinning rollers. Curling with an intricate aimlessness curiously like that of such a streamer, it tantalized the silvery fingers of a thousand relays, saucily evaded the glances of ten thousand electric eyes, impishly darted down a narrow black alleyway of memory banks, and, reaching the center of the cube, suddenly emerged into a small room where a suave fat man in shorts sat drinking beer.
He flipped the tape over to him with practiced finger, eyeing it as a stockbroker might have studied a ticker tape. He read the first question, closed his eyes and frowned for five seconds. Then with the staccato self-confidence of a hack writer, he began to tape out the answer.
For many minutes the only sounds were the rustle of the paper ribbon and the click of the taper, except for the seconds the fat man took to close his eyes, or to drink or pour beer. Once, too, he lifted a phone, asked a concise question, waited half a minute, listened to an answer, then went back to the grind.
Until he came to Section Five, Question Four. That time he did his thinking with his eyes open.
The question was: "Does Maizie stand for Maelzel?"
He sat for a while slowly scratching his thigh. His loose, persuasive lips tightened, without closing, into the shape of a snarl.
Suddenly he began to tape again.
"Maizie does not stand for Maelzel. Maizie stands for amazing, humorously given the form of a girl's name. Section Six, Answer One: The mid-term election viewcasts should be spaced as follows...."
But his lips didn't lose the shape of a snarl.
Five hundred miles above the ionosphere, the Mars rocket cut off its fuel and slumped gratefully into an orbit that would carry it effortlessly around the world at that altitude. The pilot unstrapped himself and stretched, but he didn't look out the viewport at the dried-mud disc that was Earth, cloaked in its haze of blue sky. He knew he had two maddening months ahead of him in which to do little more than that. Instead, he unstrapped Sappho.
Used to free fall from two previous experiences, and loving it, the fluffy little cat was soon bounding about the cabin in curves and gyrations that would have made her the envy of all back-alley and parlor felines on the planet below. A miracle cat in the dream world of free fall. For a long time she played with a string that the man would toss out lazily. Sometimes she caught the string on the fly, sometimes she swam for it frantically.
After a while the man grew bored with the game. He unlocked a drawer and began to study the details of the wisdom he would discover on Mars this trip—priceless spiritual insights that would be balm to war-battered mankind.
The cat carefully selected a spot three feet off the floor, curled up on the air, and went to sleep.
Jorj Helmuth snipped the emerging answer tape into sections and handed each to the appropriate man. Most of them carefully tucked theirs away with little more than a glance, but the Secretary of Space puzzled over his.
"Who the devil would Maelzel be?" he asked.
A remote look came into the eyes of the Secretary of State. "Edgar Allen Poe," he said frowningly, with eyes half-closed.
The grizzled general snapped his fingers. "Sure! Maelzel's Chess player. Read it when I was a kid. About an automaton that was supposed to play chess. Poe proved it hid a man inside it."
The Secretary of Space frowned. "Now what's the point in a fool question like that?"
"You said it came from Opperly's group?" Jorj asked sharply.
The Secretary of Space nodded. The others looked at the two men puzzledly.
"Who would that be?" Jorj pressed. "The group, I mean."
The Secretary of Space shrugged. "Oh, the usual little bunch over at the Institute. Hindeman, Gregory, Opperly himself. Oh, yes, and young Farquar."
"Sounds like Opperly's getting senile," Jorj commented coldly. "I'd investigate."
The Secretary of Space nodded. He suddenly looked tough. "I will. Right away."
Sunlight striking through French windows spotlighted a ballet of dust motes untroubled by air-conditioning. Morton Opperly's living room was well-kept but worn and quite behind the times. Instead of reading tapes there were books; instead of steno-robots, pen and ink; while in place of a four by six TV screen, a Picasso hung on the wall. Only Opperly knew that the painting was still faintly radioactive, that it had been riskily so when he'd smuggled it out of his bomb-singed apartment in New York City.
The two physicists fronted each other across a coffee table. The face of the elder was cadaverous, large-eyed, and tender—fined down by a long life of abstract thought. That of the younger was forceful, sensuous, bulky as his body, and exceptionally ugly. He looked rather like a bear.
Opperly was saying, "So when he asked who was responsible for the Maelzel question, I said I didn't remember." He smiled. "They still allow me my absent-mindedness, since it nourishes their contempt. Almost my sole remaining privilege." The smile faded. "Why do you keep on teasing the zoo animals, Willard?" he asked without rancor. "I've maintained many times that we shouldn't truckle to them by yielding to their demand that we ask Maizie questions. You and the rest have overruled me. But then to use those questions to convey veiled insults isn't reasonable. Apparently the Secretary of Space was bothered enough about this last one to pay me a 'copter call within twenty minutes of this morning's meeting at the Foundation. Why do you do it, Willard?"
The features of the other convulsed unpleasantly. "Because the Thinkers are charlatans who must be exposed," he rapped out. "We know their Maizie is no more than a tealeaf-reading fake. We've traced their Mars rockets and found they go nowhere. We know their Martian mental science is bunk."
"But we've already exposed the Thinkers very thoroughly," Opperly interposed quietly. "You know the good it did."
Farquar hunched his Japanese-wrestler shoulders. "Then it's got to be done until it takes."
Opperly studied the bowl of mutated flowers by the coffee pot. "I think you just want to tease the animals, for some personal reason of which you probably aren't aware."
Farquar scowled. "We're the ones in the cages."
Opperly continued his inspection of the flowers' bells. "All the more reason not to poke sticks through the bars at the lions and tigers strolling outside. No, Willard, I'm not counseling appeasement. But consider the age in which we live. It wants magicians." His voice grew especially tranquil. "A scientist tells people the truth. When times are good—that is, when the truth offers no threat—people don't mind. But when times are very, very bad...." A shadow darkened his eyes.
"Well, we all know what happened to—" And he mentioned three names that had been household words in the middle of the century. They were the names on the brass plaque dedicated to the martyred three physicists.
He went on, "A magician, on the other hand, tells people what they wish were true—that perpetual motion works, that cancer can be cured by colored lights, that a psychosis is no worse than a head cold, that they'll live forever. In good times magicians are laughed at. They're a luxury of the spoiled wealthy few. But in bad times people sell their souls for magic cures, and buy perpetual motion machines to power their war rockets."
Farquar clenched his fist. "All the more reason to keep chipping away at the Thinkers. Are we supposed to beg off from a job because it's difficult and dangerous?"
Opperly shook his head. "We're to keep clear of the infection of violence. In my day, Willard, I was one of the Frightened Men. Later I was one of the Angry Men and then one of the Minds of Despair. Now I'm convinced that all my reactions were futile."
"Exactly!" Farquar agreed harshly. "You reacted. You didn't act. If you men who discovered atomic energy had only formed a secret league, if you'd only had the foresight and the guts to use your tremendous bargaining position to demand the power to shape mankind's future...."
"By the time you were born, Willard," Opperly interrupted dreamily,
"Hitler was merely a name in the history books. We scientists weren't the stuff out of which cloak-and-dagger men are made. Can you imagine Oppenheimer wearing a mask or Einstein sneaking into the Old White House with a bomb in his briefcase?" He smiled. "Besides, that's not the way power is seized. New ideas aren't useful to the man bargaining for power—only established facts or lies are."
"Just the same, it would have been a good thing if you'd had a little violence in you."
"No," Opperly said.
"I've got violence in me," Farquar announced, shoving himself to his feet.
Opperly looked up from the flowers. "I think you have," he agreed.
"But what are we to do?" Farquar demanded. "Surrender the world to charlatans without a struggle?"
Opperly mused for a while. "I don't know what the world needs now. Everyone knows Newton as the great scientist. Few remember that he spent half his life muddling with alchemy, looking for the philosopher's stone. Which Newton did the world need then?"
"Now you are justifying the Thinkers!"
"No, I leave that to history."
"And history consists of the actions of men," Farquar concluded. "I intend to act. The Thinkers are vulnerable, their power fantastically precarious. What's it based on? A few lucky guesses. Faith-healing. Some science hocus-pocus, on the level of those juke-box burlesque acts between the strips. Dubious mental comfort given to a few nerve-torn neurotics in the Inner Cabinet—and their wives. The fact that the Thinkers' clever stage-managing won the President a doubtful election. The erroneous belief that the Soviets pulled out of Iraq and Iran because of the Thinkers' Mind Bomb threat. A brain-machine that's just a cover for Jan Tregarron's guesswork. Oh, yes, and that hogwash of
'Martian wisdom.' All of it mere bluff! A few pushes at the right times and points are all that are needed—and the Thinkers know it! I'll bet they're terrified already, and will be more so when they find that we're gunning for them. Eventually they'll be making overtures to us, turning to us for help. You wait and see."
"I am thinking again of Hitler," Opperly interposed quietly. "On his first half dozen big steps, he had nothing but bluff. His generals were against him. They knew they were in a cardboard fort. Yet he won every battle, until the last. Moreover," he pressed on, cutting Farquar short, "the power of the Thinkers isn't based on what they've got, but on what the world hasn't got—peace, honor, a good conscience...."
The front-door knocker clanked. Farquar answered it. A skinny old man with a radiation scar twisting across his temple handed him a tiny cylinder. "Radiogram for you, Willard." He grinned across the hall at Opperly. "When are you going to get a phone put in, Mr. Opperly?"
The physicist waved to him. "Next year, perhaps, Mr. Berry."
The old man snorted with good-humored incredulity and trudged off.
"What did I tell you about the Thinkers making overtures?" Farquar chortled suddenly. "It's come sooner than I expected. Look at this."
He held out the radiogram, but the older man didn't take it. Instead he asked, "Who's it from? Tregarron?"
"No, from Helmuth. There's a lot of sugar corn about man's future in deep space, but the real reason is clear. They know that they're going to have to produce an actual nuclear rocket pretty soon, and for that they'll need our help."
"An invitation?"
Farquar nodded. "For this afternoon." He noticed Opperly's anxious though distant frown. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Are you bothered about my going? Are you thinking it might be a trap—that after the Maelzel question they may figure I'm better rubbed out?"
The older man shook his head. "I'm not afraid for your life, Willard. That's yours to risk as you choose. No, I'm worried about other things they might do to you."
"What do you mean?" Farquar asked.
Opperly looked at him with a gentle appraisal. "You're a strong and vital man, Willard, with a strong man's prides and desires." His voice trailed off for a bit. Then, "Excuse me, Willard, but wasn't there a girl once? A Miss Arkady?"
Farquar's ungainly figure froze. He nodded curtly, face averted.
"And didn't she go off with a Thinker?"
"If girls find me ugly, that's their business," Farquar said harshly, still not looking at Opperly. "What's that got to do with this invitation?"
Opperly didn't answer the question. His eyes got more distant. Finally he said, "In my day we had it a lot easier. A scientist was an academician, cushioned by tradition."
Willard snorted. "Science had already entered the era of the police inspectors, with laboratory directors and political appointees stifling enterprise."
"Perhaps," Opperly agreed. "Still, the scientist lived the safe, restricted, highly respectable life of a university man. He wasn't exposed to the temptations of the world."
Farquar turned on him. "Are you implying that the Thinkers will somehow be able to buy me off?"
"Not exactly."
"You think I'll be persuaded to change my aims?" Farquar demanded angrily.
Opperly shrugged his helplessness. "No, I don't think you'll change your aims."
Clouds encroaching from the west blotted the parallelogram of sunlight between the two men.
As the slideway whisked him gently along the corridor toward his apartment, Jorj was thinking of his spaceship. For a moment the silver-winged vision crowded everything else out of his mind.
Just think, a spaceship with sails! He smiled a bit, marveling at the paradox.
Direct atomic power. Direct utilization of the force of the flying neutrons. No more ridiculous business of using a reactor to drive a steam engine, or boil off something for a jet exhaust—processes that were as primitive and wasteful as burning gunpowder to keep yourself warm.
Chemical jets would carry his spaceship above the atmosphere. Then would come the thrilling order, "Set sail for Mars!" The vast umbrella would unfold and open out around the stern, its rear or Earthward side a gleaming expanse of radioactive ribbon perhaps only an atom thick and backed with a material that would reflect neutrons. Atoms in the ribbon would split, blasting neutrons astern at fantastic velocities. Reaction would send the spaceship hurtling forward.
In airless space, the expanse of sails would naturally not retard the ship. More radioactive ribbon, manufactured as needed in the ship itself, would feed out onto the sail as that already there became exhausted.
A spaceship with direct nuclear drive—and he, a Thinker, had conceived it completely except for the technical details! Having strengthened his mind by hard years of somno-learning, mind-casting, memory-straightening, and sensory training, he had assured himself of the executive power to control the technicians and direct their specialized abilities. Together they would build the true Mars rocket.
But that would only be a beginning. They would build the true Mind Bomb. They would build the true Selective Microbe Slayer. They would discover the true laws of ESP and the inner life. They would even—his imagination hesitated a moment, then strode boldly forward—build the true Maizie!
And then ... then the Thinkers would be on even terms with the scientists. Rather, they'd be far ahead. No more deception.
He was so exalted by this thought that he almost let the slideway carry him past his door. He stepped inside and called, "Caddy!" He waited a moment, then walked through the apartment, but she wasn't there.
Confound the girl, he couldn't help thinking. This morning, when she should have made herself scarce, she'd sprawled about sleeping. Now, when he felt like seeing her, when her presence would have added a pleasant final touch to his glowing mood, she chose to be absent. He really should use his hypnotic control on her, he decided, and again there sprang into his mind the word—a pet form of her name—that would send her into obedient trance.
No, he told himself again, that was to be reserved for some moment of crisis or desperate danger, when he would need someone to strike suddenly and unquestioningly for himself and mankind. Caddy was merely a wilful and rather silly girl, incapable at present of understanding the tremendous tensions under which he operated. When he had time for it, he would train her up to be a fitting companion without hypnosis.
Yet the fact of her absence had a subtly disquieting effect. It shook his perfect self-confidence just a fraction. He asked himself if he'd been wise in summoning the rocket physicists without consulting Tregarron.
But this mood, too, he conquered quickly. Tregarron wasn't his boss, but just the Thinker's most clever salesman, an expert in the mumbo-jumbo so necessary for social control in this chaotic era. He himself, Jorj Helmuth, was the real leader in theoretics and all-over strategy, the mind behind the mind behind Maizie.
He stretched himself on the bed, almost instantly achieved maximum relaxation, turned on the somno-learner, and began the two hour rest he knew would be desirable before the big conference.
Question:
Who are the Thinkers and how are they significant to the story?
Answer:
|
[
"The Thinkers are magicians who dominate the current society. When America was in crisis post-World War III, they provided solutions to problems and questions, and acted as a more structured, moral, \"human\" group for leadership than physicists prior. The Thinkers are the creators of Maizie, a brain-like computer that answers any question; Maizie is used by many in government to make drastic decisions with the goal of preserving humanity. The Thinkers are also working towards a larger plan of moving their work to Mars, ultimately dominating Martians the same way they dominated Earth. There is also controversy surrounding the Thinkers, mainly from the Physicists, who believe that their work relies on the desperation of society and is fraudulent.",
"The Thinkers are a group of individuals led by Jorj Helmuth. Their members include Helmuth, a man who is an intermediary between government officials and the Thinkers’ super-intelligent machine Maizie, Tregarron, the man inside Maizie who produces its responses, and an unnamed astronaut who the world thinks travels to Mars and returns with Martian wisdom, when in fact he merely floats in the upper atmosphere. \nThe Thinkers have deceived government officials, including the President of the United States and his cabinet, with the use of Maizie, a machine which is advertised as being able to solve complex problems of every type. In fact, Maizie is operated by a man who writes its responses. The story revolves around an interaction between the President, his cabinet and Maizie; a discussion is also had between two physicists, Farquar and Opperly, who are aware of the Thinkers’ deception but are in disagreement with one another about whether their information should be more thoroughly shared. \n",
"The Thinkers are a group of people that won a Presidential election. Farquar exclaims that their power was not earned because of their technology but because the world is not at peace. The Thinkers are significant to the story because they make many claims about their technologies and innovations. They claim they built a cube called Maizie which is a brain machine. In addition, they have told people that they built Mars rockets with nuclear motors designed by Maizie. Neither of the two inventions are true, but rather they are deceptions. Farquar calls them Charlatans for the magician-like trickery they practice. ",
"The Thinkers are a group of charlatans that tells people what they wish to hear. But because of the times that they are in, people chooses to believe in magic. As Opperly mentions, when the time is good, people don’t need magicians. But when the time is bad, people would do anything just to get the magic cures. As Farquar sees, the Thinkers are simply lucky and are talented with their stage-managing skills. They uses the brain-machine to justify their guesses. The Thinkers have faked Maizie as well as rocket landing on Mars in order to have control over the government. All government officials would do exactly as what the Thinkers order them to do. However, the physicists knew what the Thinkers are doing, they know that their rocket did not go to Mars, Maizie is not a human-brain machine, and the mental science of the Martians is fake. But since they got the government’s support, Jorj sends an invitation to the physicists to support Jorj and the other Thinkers in building those actual machineries. Farquar thinks he should go while Opperly suggests it might be a trap. "
] |
51152
|
Appointment in Tomorrow
BY FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by ED ALEXANDER
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction July 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Is it possible to have a world without moral values? Or does lack of morality become a moral value, also?
The first angry rays of the sun—which, startlingly enough, still rose in the east at 24 hour intervals—pierced the lacy tops of Atlantic combers and touched thousands of sleeping Americans with unconscious fear, because of their unpleasant similarity to the rays from World War III's atomic bombs.
They turned to blood the witch-circle of rusty steel skeletons around Inferno in Manhattan. Without comment, they pointed a cosmic finger at the tarnished brass plaque commemorating the martyrdom of the Three Physicists after the dropping of the Hell Bomb. They tenderly touched the rosy skin and strawberry bruises on the naked shoulders of a girl sleeping off a drunk on the furry and radiantly heated floor of a nearby roof garden. They struck green magic from the glassy blot that was Old Washington. Twelve hours before, they had revealed things as eerily beautiful, and as ravaged, in Asia and Russia. They pinked the white walls of the Colonial dwelling of Morton Opperly near the Institute for Advanced Studies; upstairs they slanted impartially across the Pharoahlike and open-eyed face of the elderly physicist and the ugly, sleep-surly one of young Willard Farquar in the next room. And in nearby New Washington they made of the spire of the Thinkers' Foundation a blue and optimistic glory that outshone White House, Jr.
It was America approaching the end of the Twentieth Century. America of juke-box burlesque and your local radiation hospital. America of the mask-fad for women and Mystic Christianity. America of the off-the-bosom dress and the New Blue Laws. America of the Endless War and the loyalty detector. America of marvelous Maizie and the monthly rocket to Mars. America of the Thinkers and (a few remembered) the Institute. "Knock on titanium," "Whadya do for black-outs," "Please, lover, don't think when I'm around," America, as combat-shocked and crippled as the rest of the bomb-shattered planet.
Not one impudent photon of the sunlight penetrated the triple-paned, polarizing windows of Jorj Helmuth's bedroom in the Thinker's Foundation, yet the clock in his brain awakened him to the minute, or almost. Switching off the Educational Sandman in the midst of the phrase, "... applying tensor calculus to the nucleus," he took a deep, even breath and cast his mind to the limits of the world and his knowledge. It was a somewhat shadowy vision, but, he noted with impartial approval, definitely less shadowy than yesterday morning.
Employing a rapid mental scanning technique, he next cleared his memory chains of false associations, including those acquired while asleep. These chores completed, he held his finger on a bedside button, which rotated the polarizing window panes until the room slowly filled with a muted daylight. Then, still flat on his back, he turned his head until he could look at the remarkably beautiful blonde girl asleep beside him.
Remembering last night, he felt a pang of exasperation, which he instantly quelled by taking his mind to a higher and dispassionate level from which he could look down on the girl and even himself as quaint, clumsy animals. Still, he grumbled silently, Caddy might have had enough consideration to clear out before he awoke. He wondered if he shouldn't have used his hypnotic control of the girl to smooth their relationship last night, and for a moment the word that would send her into deep trance trembled on the tip of his tongue. But no, that special power of his over her was reserved for far more important purposes.
Pumping dynamic tension into his 20-year-old muscles and confidence into his 60-year-old mind, the 40-year-old Thinker rose from bed. No covers had to be thrown off; the nuclear heating unit made them unnecessary. He stepped into his clothing—the severe tunic, tights and sockassins of the modern business man. Next he glanced at the message tape beside his phone, washed down with ginger ale a vita-amino-enzyme tablet, and walked to the window. There, gazing along the rows of newly planted mutant oaks lining Decontamination Avenue, his smooth face broke into a smile.
It had come to him, the next big move in the intricate game making up his life—and mankind's. Come to him during sleep, as so many of his best decisions did, because he regularly employed the time-saving technique of somno-thought, which could function at the same time as somno-learning.
He set his who?-where? robot for "Rocket Physicist" and "Genius Class." While it worked, he dictated to his steno-robot the following brief message:
Dear Fellow Scientist:
A project is contemplated that will have a crucial bearing on man's future in deep space. Ample non-military Government funds are available. There was a time when professional men scoffed at the Thinkers. Then there was a time when the Thinkers perforce neglected the professional men. Now both times are past. May they never return! I would like to consult you this afternoon, three o'clock sharp, Thinkers' Foundation I.
Jorj Helmuth
Meanwhile the who?-where? had tossed out a dozen cards. He glanced through them, hesitated at the name "Willard Farquar," looked at the sleeping girl, then quickly tossed them all into the addresso-robot and plugged in the steno-robot.
The buzz-light blinked green and he switched the phone to audio.
"The President is waiting to see Maizie, sir," a clear feminine voice announced. "He has the general staff with him."
"Martian peace to him," Jorj Helmuth said. "Tell him I'll be down in a few minutes."
Huge as a primitive nuclear reactor, the great electronic brain loomed above the knot of hush-voiced men. It almost filled a two-story room in the Thinkers' Foundation. Its front was an orderly expanse of controls, indicators, telltales, and terminals, the upper ones reached by a chair on a boom.
Although, as far as anyone knew, it could sense only the information and questions fed into it on a tape, the human visitors could not resist the impulse to talk in whispers and glance uneasily at the great cryptic cube. After all, it had lately taken to moving some of its own controls—the permissible ones—and could doubtless improvise a hearing apparatus if it wanted to.
For this was the thinking machine beside which the Marks and Eniacs and Maniacs and Maddidas and Minervas and Mimirs were less than Morons. This was the machine with a million times as many synapses as the human brain, the machine that remembered by cutting delicate notches in the rims of molecules (instead of kindergarten paper-punching or the Coney Island shimmying of columns of mercury). This was the machine that had given instructions on building the last three-quarters of itself. This was the goal, perhaps, toward which fallible human reasoning and biased human judgment and feeble human ambition had evolved.
This was the machine that really thought—a million-plus!
This was the machine that the timid cyberneticists and stuffy professional scientists had said could not be built. Yet this was the machine that the Thinkers, with characteristic Yankee push, had built. And nicknamed, with characteristic Yankee irreverence and girl-fondness, "Maizie."
Gazing up at it, the President of the United States felt a chord plucked within him that hadn't been sounded for decades, the dark and shivery organ chord of his Baptist childhood. Here, in a strange sense, although his reason rejected it, he felt he stood face to face with the living God: infinitely stern with the sternness of reality, yet infinitely just. No tiniest error or wilful misstep could ever escape the scrutiny of this vast mentality. He shivered.
The grizzled general—there was also one who was gray—was thinking that this was a very odd link in the chain of command. Some shadowy and usually well-controlled memories from World War II faintly stirred his ire. Here he was giving orders to a being immeasurably more intelligent than himself. And always orders of the "Tell me how to kill that man" rather than the "Kill that man" sort. The distinction bothered him obscurely. It relieved him to know that Maizie had built-in controls which made her always the servant of humanity, or of humanity's right-minded leaders—even the Thinkers weren't certain which.
The gray general was thinking uneasily, and, like the President, at a more turbid level, of the resemblance between Papal infallibility and the dictates of the machine. Suddenly his bony wrists began to tremble. He asked himself: Was this the Second Coming? Mightn't an incarnation be in metal rather than flesh?
The austere Secretary of State was remembering what he'd taken such pains to make everyone forget: his youthful flirtation at Lake Success with Buddhism. Sitting before his guru , his teacher, feeling the Occidental's awe at the wisdom of the East, or its pretense, he had felt a little like this.
The burly Secretary of Space, who had come up through United Rockets, was thanking his stars that at any rate the professional scientists weren't responsible for this job. Like the grizzled general, he'd always felt suspicious of men who kept telling you how to do things, rather than doing them themselves. In World War III he'd had his fill of the professional physicists, with their eternal taint of a misty sort of radicalism and free-thinking. The Thinkers were better—more disciplined, more human. They'd called their brain-machine Maizie, which helped take the curse off her. Somewhat.
The President's Secretary, a paunchy veteran of party caucuses, was also glad that it was the Thinkers who had created the machine, though he trembled at the power that it gave them over the Administration. Still, you could do business with the Thinkers. And nobody (not even the Thinkers) could do business (that sort of business) with Maizie!
Before that great square face with its thousands of tiny metal features, only Jorj Helmuth seemed at ease, busily entering on the tape the complex Questions of the Day that the high officials had handed him: logistics for the Endless War in Pakistan, optimum size for next year's sugar-corn crop, current thought trends in average Soviet minds—profound questions, yet many of them phrased with surprising simplicity. For figures, technical jargon, and layman's language were alike to Maizie; there was no need to translate into mathematical shorthand, as with the lesser brain-machines.
The click of the taper went on until the Secretary of State had twice nervously fired a cigaret with his ultrasonic lighter and twice quickly put it away. No one spoke.
Jorj looked up at the Secretary of Space. "Section Five, Question Four—whom would that come from?"
The burly man frowned. "That would be the physics boys, Opperly's group. Is anything wrong?"
Jorj did not answer. A bit later he quit taping and began to adjust controls, going up on the boom-chair to reach some of them. Eventually he came down and touched a few more, then stood waiting.
From the great cube came a profound, steady purring. Involuntarily the six officials backed off a bit. Somehow it was impossible for a man to get used to the sound of Maizie starting to think.
Jorj turned, smiling. "And now, gentlemen, while we wait for Maizie to celebrate, there should be just enough time for us to watch the takeoff of the Mars rocket." He switched on a giant television screen. The others made a quarter turn, and there before them glowed the rich ochres and blues of a New Mexico sunrise and, in the middle distance, a silvery mighty spindle.
Like the generals, the Secretary of Space suppressed a scowl. Here was something that ought to be spang in the center of his official territory, and the Thinkers had locked him completely out of it. That rocket there—just an ordinary Earth satellite vehicle commandeered from the Army, but equipped by the Thinkers with Maizie-designed nuclear motors capable of the Mars journey and more. The first spaceship—and the Secretary of Space was not in on it!
Still, he told himself, Maizie had decreed it that way. And when he remembered what the Thinkers had done for him in rescuing him from breakdown with their mental science, in rescuing the whole Administration from collapse he realized he had to be satisfied. And that was without taking into consideration the amazing additional mental discoveries that the Thinkers were bringing down from Mars.
"Lord," the President said to Jorj as if voicing the Secretary's feeling, "I wish you people could bring a couple of those wise little devils back with you this trip. Be a good thing for the country."
Jorj looked at him a bit coldly. "It's quite unthinkable," he said.
"The telepathic abilities of the Martians make them extremely sensitive. The conflicts of ordinary Earth minds would impinge on them psychotically, even fatally. As you know, the Thinkers were able to contact them only because of our degree of learned mental poise and errorless memory-chains. So for the present it must be our task alone to glean from the Martians their astounding mental skills. Of course, some day in the future, when we have discovered how to armor the minds of the Martians—"
"Sure, I know," the President said hastily. "Shouldn't have mentioned it, Jorj."
Conversation ceased. They waited with growing tension for the great violet flames to bloom from the base of the silvery shaft.
Meanwhile the question tape, like a New Year's streamer tossed out a high window into the night, sped on its dark way along spinning rollers. Curling with an intricate aimlessness curiously like that of such a streamer, it tantalized the silvery fingers of a thousand relays, saucily evaded the glances of ten thousand electric eyes, impishly darted down a narrow black alleyway of memory banks, and, reaching the center of the cube, suddenly emerged into a small room where a suave fat man in shorts sat drinking beer.
He flipped the tape over to him with practiced finger, eyeing it as a stockbroker might have studied a ticker tape. He read the first question, closed his eyes and frowned for five seconds. Then with the staccato self-confidence of a hack writer, he began to tape out the answer.
For many minutes the only sounds were the rustle of the paper ribbon and the click of the taper, except for the seconds the fat man took to close his eyes, or to drink or pour beer. Once, too, he lifted a phone, asked a concise question, waited half a minute, listened to an answer, then went back to the grind.
Until he came to Section Five, Question Four. That time he did his thinking with his eyes open.
The question was: "Does Maizie stand for Maelzel?"
He sat for a while slowly scratching his thigh. His loose, persuasive lips tightened, without closing, into the shape of a snarl.
Suddenly he began to tape again.
"Maizie does not stand for Maelzel. Maizie stands for amazing, humorously given the form of a girl's name. Section Six, Answer One: The mid-term election viewcasts should be spaced as follows...."
But his lips didn't lose the shape of a snarl.
Five hundred miles above the ionosphere, the Mars rocket cut off its fuel and slumped gratefully into an orbit that would carry it effortlessly around the world at that altitude. The pilot unstrapped himself and stretched, but he didn't look out the viewport at the dried-mud disc that was Earth, cloaked in its haze of blue sky. He knew he had two maddening months ahead of him in which to do little more than that. Instead, he unstrapped Sappho.
Used to free fall from two previous experiences, and loving it, the fluffy little cat was soon bounding about the cabin in curves and gyrations that would have made her the envy of all back-alley and parlor felines on the planet below. A miracle cat in the dream world of free fall. For a long time she played with a string that the man would toss out lazily. Sometimes she caught the string on the fly, sometimes she swam for it frantically.
After a while the man grew bored with the game. He unlocked a drawer and began to study the details of the wisdom he would discover on Mars this trip—priceless spiritual insights that would be balm to war-battered mankind.
The cat carefully selected a spot three feet off the floor, curled up on the air, and went to sleep.
Jorj Helmuth snipped the emerging answer tape into sections and handed each to the appropriate man. Most of them carefully tucked theirs away with little more than a glance, but the Secretary of Space puzzled over his.
"Who the devil would Maelzel be?" he asked.
A remote look came into the eyes of the Secretary of State. "Edgar Allen Poe," he said frowningly, with eyes half-closed.
The grizzled general snapped his fingers. "Sure! Maelzel's Chess player. Read it when I was a kid. About an automaton that was supposed to play chess. Poe proved it hid a man inside it."
The Secretary of Space frowned. "Now what's the point in a fool question like that?"
"You said it came from Opperly's group?" Jorj asked sharply.
The Secretary of Space nodded. The others looked at the two men puzzledly.
"Who would that be?" Jorj pressed. "The group, I mean."
The Secretary of Space shrugged. "Oh, the usual little bunch over at the Institute. Hindeman, Gregory, Opperly himself. Oh, yes, and young Farquar."
"Sounds like Opperly's getting senile," Jorj commented coldly. "I'd investigate."
The Secretary of Space nodded. He suddenly looked tough. "I will. Right away."
Sunlight striking through French windows spotlighted a ballet of dust motes untroubled by air-conditioning. Morton Opperly's living room was well-kept but worn and quite behind the times. Instead of reading tapes there were books; instead of steno-robots, pen and ink; while in place of a four by six TV screen, a Picasso hung on the wall. Only Opperly knew that the painting was still faintly radioactive, that it had been riskily so when he'd smuggled it out of his bomb-singed apartment in New York City.
The two physicists fronted each other across a coffee table. The face of the elder was cadaverous, large-eyed, and tender—fined down by a long life of abstract thought. That of the younger was forceful, sensuous, bulky as his body, and exceptionally ugly. He looked rather like a bear.
Opperly was saying, "So when he asked who was responsible for the Maelzel question, I said I didn't remember." He smiled. "They still allow me my absent-mindedness, since it nourishes their contempt. Almost my sole remaining privilege." The smile faded. "Why do you keep on teasing the zoo animals, Willard?" he asked without rancor. "I've maintained many times that we shouldn't truckle to them by yielding to their demand that we ask Maizie questions. You and the rest have overruled me. But then to use those questions to convey veiled insults isn't reasonable. Apparently the Secretary of Space was bothered enough about this last one to pay me a 'copter call within twenty minutes of this morning's meeting at the Foundation. Why do you do it, Willard?"
The features of the other convulsed unpleasantly. "Because the Thinkers are charlatans who must be exposed," he rapped out. "We know their Maizie is no more than a tealeaf-reading fake. We've traced their Mars rockets and found they go nowhere. We know their Martian mental science is bunk."
"But we've already exposed the Thinkers very thoroughly," Opperly interposed quietly. "You know the good it did."
Farquar hunched his Japanese-wrestler shoulders. "Then it's got to be done until it takes."
Opperly studied the bowl of mutated flowers by the coffee pot. "I think you just want to tease the animals, for some personal reason of which you probably aren't aware."
Farquar scowled. "We're the ones in the cages."
Opperly continued his inspection of the flowers' bells. "All the more reason not to poke sticks through the bars at the lions and tigers strolling outside. No, Willard, I'm not counseling appeasement. But consider the age in which we live. It wants magicians." His voice grew especially tranquil. "A scientist tells people the truth. When times are good—that is, when the truth offers no threat—people don't mind. But when times are very, very bad...." A shadow darkened his eyes.
"Well, we all know what happened to—" And he mentioned three names that had been household words in the middle of the century. They were the names on the brass plaque dedicated to the martyred three physicists.
He went on, "A magician, on the other hand, tells people what they wish were true—that perpetual motion works, that cancer can be cured by colored lights, that a psychosis is no worse than a head cold, that they'll live forever. In good times magicians are laughed at. They're a luxury of the spoiled wealthy few. But in bad times people sell their souls for magic cures, and buy perpetual motion machines to power their war rockets."
Farquar clenched his fist. "All the more reason to keep chipping away at the Thinkers. Are we supposed to beg off from a job because it's difficult and dangerous?"
Opperly shook his head. "We're to keep clear of the infection of violence. In my day, Willard, I was one of the Frightened Men. Later I was one of the Angry Men and then one of the Minds of Despair. Now I'm convinced that all my reactions were futile."
"Exactly!" Farquar agreed harshly. "You reacted. You didn't act. If you men who discovered atomic energy had only formed a secret league, if you'd only had the foresight and the guts to use your tremendous bargaining position to demand the power to shape mankind's future...."
"By the time you were born, Willard," Opperly interrupted dreamily,
"Hitler was merely a name in the history books. We scientists weren't the stuff out of which cloak-and-dagger men are made. Can you imagine Oppenheimer wearing a mask or Einstein sneaking into the Old White House with a bomb in his briefcase?" He smiled. "Besides, that's not the way power is seized. New ideas aren't useful to the man bargaining for power—only established facts or lies are."
"Just the same, it would have been a good thing if you'd had a little violence in you."
"No," Opperly said.
"I've got violence in me," Farquar announced, shoving himself to his feet.
Opperly looked up from the flowers. "I think you have," he agreed.
"But what are we to do?" Farquar demanded. "Surrender the world to charlatans without a struggle?"
Opperly mused for a while. "I don't know what the world needs now. Everyone knows Newton as the great scientist. Few remember that he spent half his life muddling with alchemy, looking for the philosopher's stone. Which Newton did the world need then?"
"Now you are justifying the Thinkers!"
"No, I leave that to history."
"And history consists of the actions of men," Farquar concluded. "I intend to act. The Thinkers are vulnerable, their power fantastically precarious. What's it based on? A few lucky guesses. Faith-healing. Some science hocus-pocus, on the level of those juke-box burlesque acts between the strips. Dubious mental comfort given to a few nerve-torn neurotics in the Inner Cabinet—and their wives. The fact that the Thinkers' clever stage-managing won the President a doubtful election. The erroneous belief that the Soviets pulled out of Iraq and Iran because of the Thinkers' Mind Bomb threat. A brain-machine that's just a cover for Jan Tregarron's guesswork. Oh, yes, and that hogwash of
'Martian wisdom.' All of it mere bluff! A few pushes at the right times and points are all that are needed—and the Thinkers know it! I'll bet they're terrified already, and will be more so when they find that we're gunning for them. Eventually they'll be making overtures to us, turning to us for help. You wait and see."
"I am thinking again of Hitler," Opperly interposed quietly. "On his first half dozen big steps, he had nothing but bluff. His generals were against him. They knew they were in a cardboard fort. Yet he won every battle, until the last. Moreover," he pressed on, cutting Farquar short, "the power of the Thinkers isn't based on what they've got, but on what the world hasn't got—peace, honor, a good conscience...."
The front-door knocker clanked. Farquar answered it. A skinny old man with a radiation scar twisting across his temple handed him a tiny cylinder. "Radiogram for you, Willard." He grinned across the hall at Opperly. "When are you going to get a phone put in, Mr. Opperly?"
The physicist waved to him. "Next year, perhaps, Mr. Berry."
The old man snorted with good-humored incredulity and trudged off.
"What did I tell you about the Thinkers making overtures?" Farquar chortled suddenly. "It's come sooner than I expected. Look at this."
He held out the radiogram, but the older man didn't take it. Instead he asked, "Who's it from? Tregarron?"
"No, from Helmuth. There's a lot of sugar corn about man's future in deep space, but the real reason is clear. They know that they're going to have to produce an actual nuclear rocket pretty soon, and for that they'll need our help."
"An invitation?"
Farquar nodded. "For this afternoon." He noticed Opperly's anxious though distant frown. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Are you bothered about my going? Are you thinking it might be a trap—that after the Maelzel question they may figure I'm better rubbed out?"
The older man shook his head. "I'm not afraid for your life, Willard. That's yours to risk as you choose. No, I'm worried about other things they might do to you."
"What do you mean?" Farquar asked.
Opperly looked at him with a gentle appraisal. "You're a strong and vital man, Willard, with a strong man's prides and desires." His voice trailed off for a bit. Then, "Excuse me, Willard, but wasn't there a girl once? A Miss Arkady?"
Farquar's ungainly figure froze. He nodded curtly, face averted.
"And didn't she go off with a Thinker?"
"If girls find me ugly, that's their business," Farquar said harshly, still not looking at Opperly. "What's that got to do with this invitation?"
Opperly didn't answer the question. His eyes got more distant. Finally he said, "In my day we had it a lot easier. A scientist was an academician, cushioned by tradition."
Willard snorted. "Science had already entered the era of the police inspectors, with laboratory directors and political appointees stifling enterprise."
"Perhaps," Opperly agreed. "Still, the scientist lived the safe, restricted, highly respectable life of a university man. He wasn't exposed to the temptations of the world."
Farquar turned on him. "Are you implying that the Thinkers will somehow be able to buy me off?"
"Not exactly."
"You think I'll be persuaded to change my aims?" Farquar demanded angrily.
Opperly shrugged his helplessness. "No, I don't think you'll change your aims."
Clouds encroaching from the west blotted the parallelogram of sunlight between the two men.
As the slideway whisked him gently along the corridor toward his apartment, Jorj was thinking of his spaceship. For a moment the silver-winged vision crowded everything else out of his mind.
Just think, a spaceship with sails! He smiled a bit, marveling at the paradox.
Direct atomic power. Direct utilization of the force of the flying neutrons. No more ridiculous business of using a reactor to drive a steam engine, or boil off something for a jet exhaust—processes that were as primitive and wasteful as burning gunpowder to keep yourself warm.
Chemical jets would carry his spaceship above the atmosphere. Then would come the thrilling order, "Set sail for Mars!" The vast umbrella would unfold and open out around the stern, its rear or Earthward side a gleaming expanse of radioactive ribbon perhaps only an atom thick and backed with a material that would reflect neutrons. Atoms in the ribbon would split, blasting neutrons astern at fantastic velocities. Reaction would send the spaceship hurtling forward.
In airless space, the expanse of sails would naturally not retard the ship. More radioactive ribbon, manufactured as needed in the ship itself, would feed out onto the sail as that already there became exhausted.
A spaceship with direct nuclear drive—and he, a Thinker, had conceived it completely except for the technical details! Having strengthened his mind by hard years of somno-learning, mind-casting, memory-straightening, and sensory training, he had assured himself of the executive power to control the technicians and direct their specialized abilities. Together they would build the true Mars rocket.
But that would only be a beginning. They would build the true Mind Bomb. They would build the true Selective Microbe Slayer. They would discover the true laws of ESP and the inner life. They would even—his imagination hesitated a moment, then strode boldly forward—build the true Maizie!
And then ... then the Thinkers would be on even terms with the scientists. Rather, they'd be far ahead. No more deception.
He was so exalted by this thought that he almost let the slideway carry him past his door. He stepped inside and called, "Caddy!" He waited a moment, then walked through the apartment, but she wasn't there.
Confound the girl, he couldn't help thinking. This morning, when she should have made herself scarce, she'd sprawled about sleeping. Now, when he felt like seeing her, when her presence would have added a pleasant final touch to his glowing mood, she chose to be absent. He really should use his hypnotic control on her, he decided, and again there sprang into his mind the word—a pet form of her name—that would send her into obedient trance.
No, he told himself again, that was to be reserved for some moment of crisis or desperate danger, when he would need someone to strike suddenly and unquestioningly for himself and mankind. Caddy was merely a wilful and rather silly girl, incapable at present of understanding the tremendous tensions under which he operated. When he had time for it, he would train her up to be a fitting companion without hypnosis.
Yet the fact of her absence had a subtly disquieting effect. It shook his perfect self-confidence just a fraction. He asked himself if he'd been wise in summoning the rocket physicists without consulting Tregarron.
But this mood, too, he conquered quickly. Tregarron wasn't his boss, but just the Thinker's most clever salesman, an expert in the mumbo-jumbo so necessary for social control in this chaotic era. He himself, Jorj Helmuth, was the real leader in theoretics and all-over strategy, the mind behind the mind behind Maizie.
He stretched himself on the bed, almost instantly achieved maximum relaxation, turned on the somno-learner, and began the two hour rest he knew would be desirable before the big conference.
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Describe Michael and Mary's relationship and their conflicting preferences
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Valley by Richard Stockham.
Relevant chunks:
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science Fiction June 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
THE VALLEY
By Richard Stockham
Illustrated by Ed Emsh
If you can't find it countless millions of miles in space, come back to Earth. You might find it just on the other side of the fence—where the grass is always greener.
The Ship dove into Earth's sea of atmosphere like a great, silver fish.
Inside the ship, a man and woman stood looking down at the expanse of land that curved away to a growing horizon. They saw the yellow ground cracked like a dried skin; and the polished stone of the mountains and the seas that were shrunken away in the dust. And they saw how the city circled the sea, as a circle of men surround a water hole in a desert under a blazing sun.
The ship's radio cried out. "You've made it! Thank God! You've made it!"
Another voice, shaking, said, "President—Davis is—overwhelmed. He can't go on. On his behalf and on behalf of all the people—with our hope that was almost dead, we greet you." A pause. "Please come in!"
The voice was silent. The air screamed against the hull of the ship.
"I can't tell them," said the man.
"Please come in!" said the radio. "Do you hear me?"
The woman looked up at the man. "You've got to Michael!"
"Two thousand years. From one end of the galaxy to the other. Not one grain of dust we can live on. Just Earth. And it's burned to a cinder."
A note of hysteria stabbed into the radio voice. "Are you all right? Stand by! We're sending a rescue ship."
"They've got a right to know what we've found," said the woman. "They sent us out. They've waited so long—."
He stared into space. "It's hopeless. If we'd found another planet they could live on, they'd do the same as they've done here."
He touched the tiny golden locket that hung around his neck. "Right now, I could press this and scratch myself and the whole farce would be over."
"No. A thousand of us died. You've got to think of them."
"We'll go back out into space," he said. "It's clean out there. I'm tired. Two thousand years of reincarnation."
She spoke softly. "We've been together for a long time. I've loved you. I've asked very little. But I need to stay on Earth. Please, Michael."
He looked at her for a moment. Then he flipped a switch. "Milky Way to Earth. Never mind the rescue ship. We're all right. We're coming in."
The great, white ship settled to Earth that was like a plain after flood waters have drained away.
The man and woman came out into the blazing sunlight.
A shout, like the crashing of a thousand surfs, rose and broke over them. The man and woman descended the gang-plank toward the officials gathered on the platform. They glanced around at the massed field of white faces beneath them; saw those same faces that had been turned toward them two thousand years past; remembered the cheers and the cries that had crashed around them then, as they and the thousand had stood before the towering spires of the ships, before the takeoff.
And, as then, there were no children among the milling, grasping throng. Only the same clutching hands and voices and arms, asking for an answer, a salvation, a happy end.
Now the officials gathered around the man and the woman, and spoke to them in voices of reverence.
A microphone was thrust into Michael's hand with the whispered admonition to tell the people of the great new life waiting for them, open and green and moist, on a virgin planet.
The cries of the people were slipping away and a stillness growing like an ocean calm and, within it, the sound of the pumps, throbbing, sucking the water from the seas.
And then Michael's voice, "The thousand who left with us are dead. For some time we've known the other planets in our solar system were uninhabitable. Now we've been from one end of the galaxy to the other. And this is what we've found.... We were given Earth. There's no place else for us. The rest of the planets in the galaxy were given to others. There's no place else for them. We've all had a chance to make the best of Earth. Instead we've made the worst of it. So we're here to stay—and die." He handed the microphone back.
The silence did not change.
The President grasped Michael's arm. "What're you saying?"
A buzzing rose up from the people like that of a swarm of frightened bees. The sea of white faces swayed and their voices began to cry. The din and motion held, long and drawn out, with a wail now and a fluttering beneath it.
Michael and the woman stood above them in the center of the pale, hovering faces of the officials.
"Good God," said the President. "You've got to tell them what you said isn't true!"
"We've been searching two thousand years for a truth," said Michael.
"A thousand of us have died finding it. I've told it. That's the way it's got to be."
The President swayed, took the microphone in his hands.
"There's been some mistake!" he cried. "Go back to the pumps and the distilleries! Go back to the water vats and the gardens and the flocks! Go back! Work and wait! We'll get the full truth to you. Everything's going to be all right !"
Obediently the mass of faces separated, as though they were being spun away on a whirling disk. Michael and the woman were swallowed up, like pebbles inside a closing hand, and carried away from the great, white ship.
They ushered the man and woman into the beamed and paneled council chambers and sat them in thick chairs before the wall of polished wood desks across which stared the line of faces, silent and waiting. And on a far wall, facing them all, hung a silver screen, fifty feet square.
The President stood. "Members of the council." He paused. "As you heard, they report—complete failure." He turned to Michael. "And now, the proof."
Michael stood beside the motion picture projector, close to his chair. The lights dimmed. There was only the sound of the pumps throbbing in the darkness close and far away, above and beneath and all around. Suddenly on the screen appeared an endless depth of blackness filled with a mass of glowing white, which extended into the room around the watching people, seeming to touch them and then spreading, like an ocean, farther away and out and out into an endless distance.
Now streaks of yellow fire shot into the picture, like a swarm of lightning bugs, the thin sharp nosed shadows of space ships, hurtling, like comets, toward the clustered star smear. And then silent thoughts flashed from the screen into the minds of the spectators; of time passing in months, years and centuries, passing and passing until they themselves seemed to be rushing and rushing into the blackness toward blinding balls of white light, the size of moons.
The dark shapes of smaller spheres circling the blinding ones moved forward into the picture; red, blue, green, yellow, purple and many mixtures of all these, and then one planet filled the screen, seeming to be inflated, like a balloon, into a shining red ball. There was a razor edge of horizon then and pink sky and an expanse of crimson. Flat, yellow creatures lay all around, expanding and contracting. A roaring rose and fell like the roaring of a million winds. Then fear flowed out of the picture into the minds of the watchers so that they gasped and cringed, and a silent voice told them that the atmosphere of this planet would disintegrate a human being.
Now the red ball seemed to pull away from them into the blackness and the blinding balls of light, and all around could be seen the streaks of rocket flame shooting away in all directions.
Suddenly a flash cut the blackness, like the flare of a match, and died, and the watchers caught from the screen the awareness of the death of a ship.
They were also aware of the rushing of time through centuries and they saw the streaking rocket flames and planets rushing at them; saw creatures in squares and circles, in threads wriggling, in lumps and blobs, rolling jumping and crawling; saw them in cloud forms whisking about, changing their shapes, and in flowing wavelets of water. They saw creatures hopping about on one leg and others crawling at incredible speeds on a thousand; saw some with all the numbers of legs and arms in between; and were aware of creatures that were there but invisible.
And those watching the screen on which time and distance were a compressed and distilled kaleidoscope, saw planet after planet and thousands at a time; heard strange noises; rasping and roaring, clinks and whistles, screams and crying, sighing and moaning. And they were aware through all this of atmosphere and ground inimical to man, some that would evaporate at the touch of a human body, or would burst into flame, or swallow, or turn from liquid to solid or solid to liquid. They saw and heard chemical analyses, were aware of this ocean of blackness and clouds of white through which man might move, and must ever move, because he could live only upon this floating dust speck that was Earth.
The picture faded in, close to one of the long, needle nosed crafts, showing inside, a man and a woman. Time was telescoped again while the man cut a tiny piece of scar tissue from his arm and that of the woman, put them in bottles and set them into compartments where solutions dripped rhythmically into the bottles, the temperature was held at that of the human body, and synthetic sunlight focused upon them from many pencil like tubes.
The watchers in the council chamber saw the bits of tissue swell into human embryos in a few seconds, and grow arms and legs and faces and extend themselves into babies. Saw them taken from the bottles and cared for, and become replicas of the man and woman controlling the ship, who, all this time were aging, until life went out of their bodies. Then the ones who had been the scar tissue disintegrated them in the coffin-like tubes and let their dust be sucked out into space—all this through millions of miles and a hundred years, compressed for the watchers into sixty seconds and a few feet of space.
Instantly there was black space on the screen again, with the fingers of flame pointing out behind the dark bodies of the ships.
And then the spectators saw one ship shudder and swerve into a blazing, bluish white star, like a gnat flying into a white hot poker; saw another drop away and away, out and out into the blackness past the swirling white rim of the galaxy, and sink into a dark nothingness.
Great balls of rock showered like hail onto other ships, smashing them into grotesque tin cans. The stream of fire at the tail of another ship suddenly died and the ship floated into an orbit around a great, yellow planet, ten times the size of Jupiter, then was sucked into it. Another burst like a bomb, flinging a man and woman out into the darkness, where they hung suspended, frozen into statues, like bodies drowned in the depths of an Arctic sea.
At this instant from the watching council, there were screams of horror and voices crying out, "Shut it off! Shut it off!" There was a moving about in the darkness. Murmurs and harsh cries of disapproval grew in volume.
Another ship in the picture was split down the side by a meteor and the bodies inside were impaled on jagged blades of steel, the contorted, bloody faces lighted by bursts of flame. And the screams and cries of the spectators rose higher, "Shut it off.... Oh Lord...."
Lights flashed through the room and the picture died.
Michael and Mary, both staring, saw, along the line of desks, the agonized faces, some staring like white stones, others hidden in clutching fingers, as though they had been confronted by a Medusa. There was the sound of heavy breathing that mixed with the throbbing of the pumps. The President held tightly to the edges of his desk to quiet his trembling.
"There—there've been changes," he said, "since you've been out in space. There isn't a person on Earth who's seen a violent death for hundreds of years."
Michael faced him, frowning. "I don't follow you."
"Dying violently happened so seldom on Earth that, after a long time, the sight of it began to drive some people mad. And then one day a man was struck by one of the ground cars and everyone who saw it went insane. Since then we've eliminated accidents, even the idea. Now, no one is aware that death by violence is even a possibility."
"I'm sorry," said Michael, "we've been so close to violent death for so long.... What you've seen is part of the proof you asked for."
"What you showed us was a picture," said the President. "If it had been real, we'd all be insane by now. If it were shown to the people there'd be mass hysteria."
"But even if we'd found another habitable planet, getting to it would involve just what we've shown you. Maybe only a tenth of the people who left Earth, or a hundredth, would ever reach a destination out in space."
"We couldn't tolerate such a possibility," said the President gravely. "We'd have to find a way around it."
The pumps throbbed like giant hearts all through the stillness in the council chambers. The faces along the line of desks were smoothing out; the terror in them was fading away.
"And yet the Earth is almost dead," said Michael quietly, "and you can't bring it back to life."
"The sins of our past, Mr. Nelson," said the President. "The Atomic wars five thousand years ago. And the greed. It was too late a long time ago. That, of course, is why the expedition was sent out. And now you've come back to us with this terrible news." He looked around, slowly, then back to Michael. "Can you give us any hope at all?"
"None."
"Another expedition? To Andromeda perhaps? With you the leader?"
Michael shook his head. "We're finished with expeditions, Mr. President."
There were mutterings in the council, and hastily whispered consultations. Now they were watching the man and woman again.
"We feel," said the President, "it would be dangerous to allow you to go out among the people. They've been informed that your statement wasn't entirely true. This was necessary, to avoid a panic. The people simply must not know the whole truth." He paused. "Now we ask you to keep in mind that whatever we decide about the two of you will be for the good of the people."
Michael and Mary were silent.
"You'll wait outside the council chambers," the President went on,
"until we have reached our decision."
As the man and woman were led away, the pumps beat in the stillness, and at the edge of the shrinking seas the salt thick waters were being pulled into the distilleries, and from them into the tier upon tier of artificial gardens that sat like giant bee hives all around the shoreline; and the mounds of salt glistening in the sunlight behind the gardens were growing into mountains.
In their rooms, Michael and Mary were talking through the hours, and waiting. All around them were fragile, form-fitting chairs and translucent walls and a ceiling that, holding the light of the sun when they had first seen it, was now filled with moonlight.
Standing at a circular window, ten feet in diameter, Michael saw, far below, the lights of the city extending into the darkness along the shoreline of the sea.
"We should have delivered our message by radio," he said, "and gone back into space."
"You could probably still go," she said quietly.
He came and stood beside her. "I couldn't stand being out in space, or anywhere, without you."
She looked up at him. "We could go out into the wilderness, Michael, outside the force walls. We could go far away."
He turned from her. "It's all dead. What would be the use?"
"I came from the Earth," she said quietly. "And I've got to go back to it. Space is so cold and frightening. Steel walls and blackness and the rockets and the little pinpoints of light. It's a prison."
"But to die out there in the desert, in that dust." Then he paused and looked away from her. "We're crazy—talking as though we had a choice."
"Maybe they'll have to give us a choice."
"What're you talking about?"
"They went into hysterics at the sight of those bodies in the picture. Those young bodies that didn't die of old age."
He waited.
"They can't stand the sight of people dying violently."
Her hand went to her throat and touched the tiny locket.
"These lockets were given to us so we'd have a choice between suffering or quick painless death.... We still have a choice."
He touched the locket at his own throat and was very still for a long moment. "So we threaten to kill ourselves, before their eyes. What would it do to them?"
He was still for a long time. "Sometimes, Mary, I think I don't know you at all." A pause. "And so now you and I are back where we started. Which'll it be, space or Earth?"
"Michael." Her voice trembled. "I—I don't know how to say this."
He waited, frowning, watching her intently.
"I'm—going to have a child."
His face went blank.
Then he stepped forward and took her by the shoulders. He saw the softness there in her face; saw her eyes bright as though the sun were shining in them; saw a flush in her cheeks, as though she had been running. And suddenly his throat was full.
"No," he said thickly. "I can't believe it."
"It's true."
He held her for a long time, then he turned his eyes aside.
"Yes, I can see it is."
"I—I can't put into words why I let it happen, Michael."
He shook his head. "I don't know—what to—to say. It's so incredible."
"Maybe—I got so—tired—just seeing the two of us over and over again and the culturing of the scar tissue, for twenty centuries. Maybe that was it. It was just—something I felt I had to do. Some— real life again. Something new. I felt a need to produce something out of myself. It all started way out in space, while we were getting close to the solar system. I began to wonder if we'd ever get out of the ship alive or if we'd ever see a sunset again or a dawn or the night or morning like we'd seen on Earth—so—so long ago. And then I had to let it happen. It was a vague and strange thing. There was something forcing me. But at the same time I wanted it, too. I seemed to be willing it, seemed to be feeling it was a necessary thing." She paused, frowning. "I didn't stop to think—it would be like this."
"Such a thing," he said, smiling grimly, "hasn't happened on Earth for three thousand years. I can remember in school, reading in the history books, how the whole Earth was overcrowded and how the food and water had to be rationed and then how the laws were passed forbidding birth and after that how the people died and there weren't any more babies born, until at last there was plenty of what the Earth had to give, for everyone. And then the news was broken to everyone about the culturing of the scar tissue, and there were a few dissenters but they were soon conditioned out of their dissension and the population was stabilized." He paused. "After all this past history, I don't think the council could endure what you've done."
"No," she said quietly. "I don't think they could."
"And so this will be just for us ." He took her in his arms. "If I remember rightly, this is a traditional action." A pause. "Now I'll go with you out onto the Earth—if we can swing it. When we get outside the city, or if we do—Well, we'll see."
They were very still together and then he turned and stood by the window and looked down upon the city and she came and stood beside him.
They both saw it at the same time. And they watched, without speaking, both knowing what was in the other's mind and heart. They watched the giant four dimensional screens all through the city. A green, lush planet showed bright and clear on them and there were ships standing among the trees and men walking through the grass, that moved gently like the swells on a calm ocean, while into their minds came the thoughts projected from the screen:
"This will be your new home. It was found and then lost. But another expedition will be sent out to find it again. Be of good hope. Everything will be all right."
Michael turned from the window. "So there's our evidence. Two thousand years. All the others killed getting it. And with a simple twist, it becomes a lie."
Mary sat down and buried her face in her hands.
"What a terrible failure there's been here," said Michael. "The neglect and destruction of a whole planet. It's like a family letting their home decay all around them, and living in smaller and smaller rooms of it, until at last the rooms are all gone, and since they can't find another home, they all die in the ruins of the last room."
"I can't face dying," Mary said quietly, "squeezed in with all these people, in this tomb they've made around the seas. I want to have the open sky and the quiet away from those awful pounding pumps when I die. I want the spread of the Earth all around and the clean air. I want to be a real part of the Earth again."
Michael barely nodded in agreement. He was standing very still now.
And then there was the sound of the door opening.
They both rose, like mourners at a funeral, and went into the council chambers.
Again they sat in the thick chairs before the wall of desks with the faces of the council looking across it like defenders.
The pumps were beating, beating all through the room and the quiet.
The President was standing. He faced Michael and Mary, and seemed to set himself as though to deliver a blow, or to receive one.
"Michael and Mary," he said, his voice struggling against a tightness,
"we've considered a long time concerning what is to be done with you and the report you brought back to us from the galaxy." He took another swallow of water. "To protect the sanity of the people, we've changed your report. We've also decided that the people must be protected from the possibility of your spreading the truth, as you did at the landing field. So, for the good of the people, you'll be isolated. All comforts will be given you. After all, in a sense, you are heroes and martyrs. Your scar tissue will be cultured as it has been in the past, and you will stay in solitary confinement until the time when, perhaps, we can migrate to another planet. We feel that hope must not be destroyed. And so another expedition is being sent out. It may be that, in time, on another planet, you'll be able to take your place in our society."
He paused. "Is there anything you wish to say?"
"Yes, there is."
"Proceed."
Michael stared straight at the President. After a long moment, he raised his hand to the tiny locket at his throat.
"Perhaps you remember," he said, "the lockets given to every member of the expedition the night before we left. I still have mine." He raised it. "So does my wife. They were designed to kill the wearer instantly and painlessly if he were ever faced with pain or a terror he couldn't endure."
The President was standing again. A stir ran along the barricade of desks.
"We can't endure the city," went on Michael, "or its life and the ways of the people." He glanced along the line of staring faces.
"If what I think you're about to say is true," said the President in a shaking voice, "it would have been better if you'd never been born."
"Let's face facts, Mr. President. We were born and haven't died—yet." A pause. "And we can kill ourselves right here before your eyes. It'd be painless to us. We'd be unconscious. But there would be horrible convulsions and grimaces. Our bodies would be twisted and torn. They'd thresh about. The deaths you saw in the picture happened a long time ago, in outer space. You all went into hysterics at the sight of them. Our deaths now would be close and terrible to see."
The President staggered as though about to faint. There was a stirring and muttering and a jumping up along the desks. Voices cried out, in anger and fear. Arms waved and fists pounded. Hands clasped and unclasped and clawed at collars, and there was a pell mell rushing around the President. They yelled at each other and clasped each other by the shoulders, turned away and back again, and then suddenly became very still.
Now they began to step down from the raised line of desks, the President leading them, and came close to the man and woman, gathering around them in a wide half circle.
Michael and Mary were holding the lockets close to their throats. The half circle of people, with the President at its center was moving closer and closer. They were sweaty faces and red ones and dry white ones and hands were raised to seize them.
Michael put his arm around Mary's waist. He felt the trembling in her body and the waiting for death.
"Stop!" he said quietly.
They halted, in slight confusion, barely drawing back.
"If you want to see us die—just come a step closer.... And remember what'll happen to you."
The faces began turning to each other and there was an undertone of muttering and whispering. "A ghastly thing.... Instant.... Nothing to do.... Space's broken their minds.... They'll do it.... Eyes're mad.... What can we do?... What?..." The sweaty faces, the cold white ones, the flushed hot ones: all began to turn to the President, who was staring at the two before him like a man watching himself die in a mirror.
"I command you," he suddenly said, in a choked voice, "to—to give me those—lockets! It's your—duty!"
"We've only one duty, Mr. President," said Michael sharply. "To ourselves."
"You're sick. Give yourselves over to us. We'll help you."
"We've made our choice. We want an answer. Quickly! Now!"
The President's body sagged. "What—what is it you want?"
Michael threw the words. "To go beyond the force fields of the city. To go far out onto the Earth and live as long as we can, and then to die a natural death."
The half circle of faces turned to each other and muttered and whispered again. "In the name of God.... Let them go.... Contaminate us.... Like animals.... Get them out of here.... Let them be finished.... Best for us all.... And them...."
There was a turning to the President again and hands thrusting him forward to within one step of Michael and Mary, who were standing there close together, as though attached.
Haltingly he said, "Go. Please go. Out onto the Earth—to die. You will die. The Earth is dead out there. You'll never see the city or your people again."
"We want a ground car," said Michael. "And supplies."
"A ground car," repeated the President. "And—supplies.... Yes."
"You can give us an escort, if you want to, out beyond the first range of mountains."
"There will be no escort," said the President firmly. "No one has been allowed to go out upon the Earth or to fly above it for many hundreds of years. We know it's there. That's enough. We couldn't bear the sight of it." He took a step back. "And we can't bear the sight of you any longer. Go now. Quickly!"
Michael and Mary did not let go of the lockets as they watched the half circle of faces move backward, staring, as though at corpses that should sink to the floor.
It was night. The city had been lost beyond the dead mounds of Earth that rolled away behind them, like a thousand ancient tombs. The ground car sat still on a crumbling road.
Looking up through the car's driving blister, they saw the stars sunk into the blue black ocean of space; saw the path of the Milky Way along which they had rushed, while they had been searching frantically for the place of salvation.
"If any one of the other couples had made it back," said Mary, "do you think they'd be with us?"
"I think they'd either be with us," he said, "or out in space again—or in prison."
She stared ahead along the beam of headlight that stabbed out into the night over the decaying road.
"How sorry are you," she said quietly, "coming with me?"
"All I know is, if I were out in space for long without you, I'd kill myself."
"Are we going to die out here, Michael?" she said, gesturing toward the wall of night that stood at the end of the headlight, "with the land?"
He turned from her, frowning, and drove the ground car forward, watching the headlights push back the darkness.
They followed the crumbling highway all night until light crept across the bald and cracked hills. The morning sun looked down upon the desolation ten feet above the horizon when the car stopped. They sat for a long time then, looking out upon the Earth's parched and inflamed skin. In the distance a wall of mountains rose like a great pile of bleached bones. Close ahead the rolling plains were motionless waves of dead Earth with a slight breeze stirring up little swirls of dust.
"I'm getting out," she said.
"I haven't the slightest idea how much farther to go, or why," said Michael shrugging. "It's all the same. Dirt and hills and mountains and sun and dust. It's really not much different from being out in space. We live in the car just like in a space ship. We've enough concentrated supplies to last for a year. How far do we go? Why? When?"
They stepped upon the Earth and felt the warmth of the sun and strolled toward the top of the hill.
"The air smells clean," he said.
"The ground feels good. I think I'll take off my shoes." She did.
"Take off your boots, Michael. Try it."
Wearily he pulled off his boots, stood in his bare feet. "It takes me back."
"Yes," she said and began walking toward the hilltop.
He followed, his boots slung around his neck. "There was a road somewhere, with the dust between my toes. Or was it a dream?"
"I guess when the past is old enough," she said, "it becomes a dream."
He watched her footprints in the dust. "God, listen to the quiet."
"I can't seem to remember so much quiet around me. There's always been the sound of a space ship, or the pumps back in the cities."
He did not answer but continued to watch her footsteps and to feel the dust squishing up between his toes. Then suddenly:
"Mary!"
She stopped, whirling around.
He was staring down at her feet.
She followed his gaze.
"It's grass!" He bent down. "Three blades."
She knelt beside him. They touched the green blades.
"They're new," he said.
They stared, like religious devotees concentrating upon some sacred object.
He rose, pulling her up with him. They hurried to the top of the hill and stood very still, looking down into a valley. There were tiny patches of green and little trees sprouting, and here and there, a pale flower. The green was in a cluster, in the center of the valley and there was a tiny glint of sunlight in its center.
"Oh!"
Her hand found his.
They ran down the gentle slope, feeling the patches of green touch their feet, smelling a new freshness in the air. And coming to the little spring, they stood beside it and watched the crystal water that trickled along the valley floor and lost itself around a bend. They saw a furry, little animal scurry away and heard the twitter of a bird and saw it resting on a slim, bending branch. They heard the buzz of a bee, saw it light on a pale flower at their feet and work at the sweetness inside.
Mary knelt down and drank from the spring.
"It's so cool. It must come from deep down."
"It does," he said. There were tears in his eyes and a tightness in his throat. "From deep down."
"We can live here, Michael!"
Slowly he looked all around until his sight stopped at the bottom of a hill. "We'll build our house just beyond those rocks. We'll dig and plant and you'll have the child."
"Yes!" she said. "Oh yes!"
"And the ones back in the city will know the Earth again. Sometime we'll lead them back here and show them the Earth is coming alive." He paused. "By following what we had to do for ourselves, we've found a way to save them."
They remained kneeling in the silence beside the pool for a long time. They felt the sun on their backs and looked into the clean depth of the water deeply aware of the new life breathing all around them and of themselves absorbing it, and at the same time giving back to it the life that was their own.
There was only this quiet and breathing and warmth until Michael stood and picked up a rock and walked toward the base of the hill where he had decided to build the house.
... THE END
Question:
Describe Michael and Mary's relationship and their conflicting preferences
Answer:
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[
"Michael and Mary are two humans who were sent on an expedition to find a habitable planet elsewhere in the solar system after humans destroyed their own planet during the Atomic Wars, and continued to drive it into the ground through their own greed for resources. Three thousand years after the Wars, the expedition was sent out (so five thousand years have passed in total since the Wars). Michael and Mary are the only two people who survived, and their return was two thousand years after they left Earth. They are married, though contemporary relationships do not involve much physical touching as compared to the twenty-first century, in a few ways. When Michael hugs Mary to comfort her, he mentions that it is a custom of the past. In their society, it is illegal to have children through sexual intercourse, so it is a surprise at the end of the story when Mary admits that she might be pregnant. They have endured a lot together on their mission in outer space, and have had to watch a lot of people die. It was very isolating to be in space, living on a ship, and this is part of their other major discussion: what to do when their mission was over. Michael had some desire to stay in space and not return to the scorched planet. However, Mary wanted to return to Earth, and the two of them wanted to stay together no matter what. This turned out to work in their favor: staying on Earth but wanting to stay alive is what gave them the opportunity to find the patches of life they found at the end of the story. ",
"The first initial conflict of the story is the debate between Michael and Mary as to whether or not to return to the stars or stay on Earth. Mary wants to place her feet on solid ground again and die with the earth as humans were meant to do, but Michael wants to return to space and escape the burden of sharing their catastrophic news with their fellow man. Mary wins the debate, claiming that she hasn’t asked much of Michael over their 2,000-year relationship. \nAs the story continues, the reader sees how they deal with their trauma differently. Michael still wants to return to space and asks Mary if they can after presenting their findings to the President’s council. She says he can go without her, but he doesn’t think he could be away from her. Mary wants to die on the earth, while Michael wants to escape to space once again. When Michael hears that Mary is pregnant, he hops on board with her idea to stay on Earth. \nMichael and Mary are clearly a team. They have worked and existed together for 2,000 years without change and have watched all their friends and colleagues die. This trauma clearly bonded them, as Michael says he could never return to space without Mary. Although they may differ, they reach compromises and work together to find the best solution for the two of them. \n",
"Michael and Mary are two humans from Earth who have effectively become immortal through a scar tissue culturing technology that allows them to continually regenerate entirely new bodies for themselves as their bodies grow old and die. They have been regenerating their bodies like this, and living on a spaceship together exploring the Milky Way for 2000 years. They love each other deeply.\nWhen they finally return to Earth to deliver the horrible news that there is no other planet in the galaxy that humans can live on, Mary declares to him that she must stay on Earth. She insists that she has loved him for so long (thousands of years) and has asked for very little except for them to now remain on Earth. \nMichael feels as though they should not have ever landed on Earth, but instead wishes they just delivered their message by radio and returned back into space. He can’t understand why she wants to live on Earth when it is so desolate. However, he says that he can not be without her and will kill himself if he were to go back into space alone. When Mary reveals in private to Michael that she is pregnant, they know they will not be accepted by society and hatch a plan to leave the city together. A human has not given birth to a child for 3000 years on Earth. Pregnancy was forbidden to reduce the population until it was low enough that there were sufficient resources available to sustain those that remained.\nThey successfully escape their city and the fate of solitary confinement from the council by threatening to kill themselves with their lockets, which would be a violent death that would cause the onlookers to go insane. This is so shocking and unacceptable to the council that the President grants them a ground car and a year of supplies to leave the city and never return. Michael and Mary find an oasis with vegetation and fresh spring water not far on their journey outside the city. It is a place for them to build a house and raise their child, which is joyful for both of them.\n",
"Michael and Mary are a couple deeply in love. They join a crew of one thousand other humans, also comprised of couples, who leave Earth in order to find another habitable planet. As their fellow travelers slowly die over the course of 2,000 years, Michael and Mary continue to reincarnate through a special process of culturing their scar tissue. They also carry lockets that can kill them instantly when triggered and help them avoid a painful death. When they realize their mission has failed, Michael and Mary return to Earth to announce the news. Michael wishes to go back to space since he cannot stand the desolation of Earth and would rather spend the rest of his existence with Mary exploring the universe. Mary wants to stay on Earth because she misses her home and because she is pregnant, although she does not reveal this to Michael until just before President Davis reveals his decision to place the couple in solitary confinement. Michael is shocked because pregnancy had been banned on Earth at the time that atomic war and human greed had laid bare the planet's essential resources. Together, they decide to use their lockets as leverage against the council to force them to permit them to leave the city. Soon after doing so, they discover Earth is regenerating, and they will be able to make a new home for their child."
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32744
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Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science Fiction June 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
THE VALLEY
By Richard Stockham
Illustrated by Ed Emsh
If you can't find it countless millions of miles in space, come back to Earth. You might find it just on the other side of the fence—where the grass is always greener.
The Ship dove into Earth's sea of atmosphere like a great, silver fish.
Inside the ship, a man and woman stood looking down at the expanse of land that curved away to a growing horizon. They saw the yellow ground cracked like a dried skin; and the polished stone of the mountains and the seas that were shrunken away in the dust. And they saw how the city circled the sea, as a circle of men surround a water hole in a desert under a blazing sun.
The ship's radio cried out. "You've made it! Thank God! You've made it!"
Another voice, shaking, said, "President—Davis is—overwhelmed. He can't go on. On his behalf and on behalf of all the people—with our hope that was almost dead, we greet you." A pause. "Please come in!"
The voice was silent. The air screamed against the hull of the ship.
"I can't tell them," said the man.
"Please come in!" said the radio. "Do you hear me?"
The woman looked up at the man. "You've got to Michael!"
"Two thousand years. From one end of the galaxy to the other. Not one grain of dust we can live on. Just Earth. And it's burned to a cinder."
A note of hysteria stabbed into the radio voice. "Are you all right? Stand by! We're sending a rescue ship."
"They've got a right to know what we've found," said the woman. "They sent us out. They've waited so long—."
He stared into space. "It's hopeless. If we'd found another planet they could live on, they'd do the same as they've done here."
He touched the tiny golden locket that hung around his neck. "Right now, I could press this and scratch myself and the whole farce would be over."
"No. A thousand of us died. You've got to think of them."
"We'll go back out into space," he said. "It's clean out there. I'm tired. Two thousand years of reincarnation."
She spoke softly. "We've been together for a long time. I've loved you. I've asked very little. But I need to stay on Earth. Please, Michael."
He looked at her for a moment. Then he flipped a switch. "Milky Way to Earth. Never mind the rescue ship. We're all right. We're coming in."
The great, white ship settled to Earth that was like a plain after flood waters have drained away.
The man and woman came out into the blazing sunlight.
A shout, like the crashing of a thousand surfs, rose and broke over them. The man and woman descended the gang-plank toward the officials gathered on the platform. They glanced around at the massed field of white faces beneath them; saw those same faces that had been turned toward them two thousand years past; remembered the cheers and the cries that had crashed around them then, as they and the thousand had stood before the towering spires of the ships, before the takeoff.
And, as then, there were no children among the milling, grasping throng. Only the same clutching hands and voices and arms, asking for an answer, a salvation, a happy end.
Now the officials gathered around the man and the woman, and spoke to them in voices of reverence.
A microphone was thrust into Michael's hand with the whispered admonition to tell the people of the great new life waiting for them, open and green and moist, on a virgin planet.
The cries of the people were slipping away and a stillness growing like an ocean calm and, within it, the sound of the pumps, throbbing, sucking the water from the seas.
And then Michael's voice, "The thousand who left with us are dead. For some time we've known the other planets in our solar system were uninhabitable. Now we've been from one end of the galaxy to the other. And this is what we've found.... We were given Earth. There's no place else for us. The rest of the planets in the galaxy were given to others. There's no place else for them. We've all had a chance to make the best of Earth. Instead we've made the worst of it. So we're here to stay—and die." He handed the microphone back.
The silence did not change.
The President grasped Michael's arm. "What're you saying?"
A buzzing rose up from the people like that of a swarm of frightened bees. The sea of white faces swayed and their voices began to cry. The din and motion held, long and drawn out, with a wail now and a fluttering beneath it.
Michael and the woman stood above them in the center of the pale, hovering faces of the officials.
"Good God," said the President. "You've got to tell them what you said isn't true!"
"We've been searching two thousand years for a truth," said Michael.
"A thousand of us have died finding it. I've told it. That's the way it's got to be."
The President swayed, took the microphone in his hands.
"There's been some mistake!" he cried. "Go back to the pumps and the distilleries! Go back to the water vats and the gardens and the flocks! Go back! Work and wait! We'll get the full truth to you. Everything's going to be all right !"
Obediently the mass of faces separated, as though they were being spun away on a whirling disk. Michael and the woman were swallowed up, like pebbles inside a closing hand, and carried away from the great, white ship.
They ushered the man and woman into the beamed and paneled council chambers and sat them in thick chairs before the wall of polished wood desks across which stared the line of faces, silent and waiting. And on a far wall, facing them all, hung a silver screen, fifty feet square.
The President stood. "Members of the council." He paused. "As you heard, they report—complete failure." He turned to Michael. "And now, the proof."
Michael stood beside the motion picture projector, close to his chair. The lights dimmed. There was only the sound of the pumps throbbing in the darkness close and far away, above and beneath and all around. Suddenly on the screen appeared an endless depth of blackness filled with a mass of glowing white, which extended into the room around the watching people, seeming to touch them and then spreading, like an ocean, farther away and out and out into an endless distance.
Now streaks of yellow fire shot into the picture, like a swarm of lightning bugs, the thin sharp nosed shadows of space ships, hurtling, like comets, toward the clustered star smear. And then silent thoughts flashed from the screen into the minds of the spectators; of time passing in months, years and centuries, passing and passing until they themselves seemed to be rushing and rushing into the blackness toward blinding balls of white light, the size of moons.
The dark shapes of smaller spheres circling the blinding ones moved forward into the picture; red, blue, green, yellow, purple and many mixtures of all these, and then one planet filled the screen, seeming to be inflated, like a balloon, into a shining red ball. There was a razor edge of horizon then and pink sky and an expanse of crimson. Flat, yellow creatures lay all around, expanding and contracting. A roaring rose and fell like the roaring of a million winds. Then fear flowed out of the picture into the minds of the watchers so that they gasped and cringed, and a silent voice told them that the atmosphere of this planet would disintegrate a human being.
Now the red ball seemed to pull away from them into the blackness and the blinding balls of light, and all around could be seen the streaks of rocket flame shooting away in all directions.
Suddenly a flash cut the blackness, like the flare of a match, and died, and the watchers caught from the screen the awareness of the death of a ship.
They were also aware of the rushing of time through centuries and they saw the streaking rocket flames and planets rushing at them; saw creatures in squares and circles, in threads wriggling, in lumps and blobs, rolling jumping and crawling; saw them in cloud forms whisking about, changing their shapes, and in flowing wavelets of water. They saw creatures hopping about on one leg and others crawling at incredible speeds on a thousand; saw some with all the numbers of legs and arms in between; and were aware of creatures that were there but invisible.
And those watching the screen on which time and distance were a compressed and distilled kaleidoscope, saw planet after planet and thousands at a time; heard strange noises; rasping and roaring, clinks and whistles, screams and crying, sighing and moaning. And they were aware through all this of atmosphere and ground inimical to man, some that would evaporate at the touch of a human body, or would burst into flame, or swallow, or turn from liquid to solid or solid to liquid. They saw and heard chemical analyses, were aware of this ocean of blackness and clouds of white through which man might move, and must ever move, because he could live only upon this floating dust speck that was Earth.
The picture faded in, close to one of the long, needle nosed crafts, showing inside, a man and a woman. Time was telescoped again while the man cut a tiny piece of scar tissue from his arm and that of the woman, put them in bottles and set them into compartments where solutions dripped rhythmically into the bottles, the temperature was held at that of the human body, and synthetic sunlight focused upon them from many pencil like tubes.
The watchers in the council chamber saw the bits of tissue swell into human embryos in a few seconds, and grow arms and legs and faces and extend themselves into babies. Saw them taken from the bottles and cared for, and become replicas of the man and woman controlling the ship, who, all this time were aging, until life went out of their bodies. Then the ones who had been the scar tissue disintegrated them in the coffin-like tubes and let their dust be sucked out into space—all this through millions of miles and a hundred years, compressed for the watchers into sixty seconds and a few feet of space.
Instantly there was black space on the screen again, with the fingers of flame pointing out behind the dark bodies of the ships.
And then the spectators saw one ship shudder and swerve into a blazing, bluish white star, like a gnat flying into a white hot poker; saw another drop away and away, out and out into the blackness past the swirling white rim of the galaxy, and sink into a dark nothingness.
Great balls of rock showered like hail onto other ships, smashing them into grotesque tin cans. The stream of fire at the tail of another ship suddenly died and the ship floated into an orbit around a great, yellow planet, ten times the size of Jupiter, then was sucked into it. Another burst like a bomb, flinging a man and woman out into the darkness, where they hung suspended, frozen into statues, like bodies drowned in the depths of an Arctic sea.
At this instant from the watching council, there were screams of horror and voices crying out, "Shut it off! Shut it off!" There was a moving about in the darkness. Murmurs and harsh cries of disapproval grew in volume.
Another ship in the picture was split down the side by a meteor and the bodies inside were impaled on jagged blades of steel, the contorted, bloody faces lighted by bursts of flame. And the screams and cries of the spectators rose higher, "Shut it off.... Oh Lord...."
Lights flashed through the room and the picture died.
Michael and Mary, both staring, saw, along the line of desks, the agonized faces, some staring like white stones, others hidden in clutching fingers, as though they had been confronted by a Medusa. There was the sound of heavy breathing that mixed with the throbbing of the pumps. The President held tightly to the edges of his desk to quiet his trembling.
"There—there've been changes," he said, "since you've been out in space. There isn't a person on Earth who's seen a violent death for hundreds of years."
Michael faced him, frowning. "I don't follow you."
"Dying violently happened so seldom on Earth that, after a long time, the sight of it began to drive some people mad. And then one day a man was struck by one of the ground cars and everyone who saw it went insane. Since then we've eliminated accidents, even the idea. Now, no one is aware that death by violence is even a possibility."
"I'm sorry," said Michael, "we've been so close to violent death for so long.... What you've seen is part of the proof you asked for."
"What you showed us was a picture," said the President. "If it had been real, we'd all be insane by now. If it were shown to the people there'd be mass hysteria."
"But even if we'd found another habitable planet, getting to it would involve just what we've shown you. Maybe only a tenth of the people who left Earth, or a hundredth, would ever reach a destination out in space."
"We couldn't tolerate such a possibility," said the President gravely. "We'd have to find a way around it."
The pumps throbbed like giant hearts all through the stillness in the council chambers. The faces along the line of desks were smoothing out; the terror in them was fading away.
"And yet the Earth is almost dead," said Michael quietly, "and you can't bring it back to life."
"The sins of our past, Mr. Nelson," said the President. "The Atomic wars five thousand years ago. And the greed. It was too late a long time ago. That, of course, is why the expedition was sent out. And now you've come back to us with this terrible news." He looked around, slowly, then back to Michael. "Can you give us any hope at all?"
"None."
"Another expedition? To Andromeda perhaps? With you the leader?"
Michael shook his head. "We're finished with expeditions, Mr. President."
There were mutterings in the council, and hastily whispered consultations. Now they were watching the man and woman again.
"We feel," said the President, "it would be dangerous to allow you to go out among the people. They've been informed that your statement wasn't entirely true. This was necessary, to avoid a panic. The people simply must not know the whole truth." He paused. "Now we ask you to keep in mind that whatever we decide about the two of you will be for the good of the people."
Michael and Mary were silent.
"You'll wait outside the council chambers," the President went on,
"until we have reached our decision."
As the man and woman were led away, the pumps beat in the stillness, and at the edge of the shrinking seas the salt thick waters were being pulled into the distilleries, and from them into the tier upon tier of artificial gardens that sat like giant bee hives all around the shoreline; and the mounds of salt glistening in the sunlight behind the gardens were growing into mountains.
In their rooms, Michael and Mary were talking through the hours, and waiting. All around them were fragile, form-fitting chairs and translucent walls and a ceiling that, holding the light of the sun when they had first seen it, was now filled with moonlight.
Standing at a circular window, ten feet in diameter, Michael saw, far below, the lights of the city extending into the darkness along the shoreline of the sea.
"We should have delivered our message by radio," he said, "and gone back into space."
"You could probably still go," she said quietly.
He came and stood beside her. "I couldn't stand being out in space, or anywhere, without you."
She looked up at him. "We could go out into the wilderness, Michael, outside the force walls. We could go far away."
He turned from her. "It's all dead. What would be the use?"
"I came from the Earth," she said quietly. "And I've got to go back to it. Space is so cold and frightening. Steel walls and blackness and the rockets and the little pinpoints of light. It's a prison."
"But to die out there in the desert, in that dust." Then he paused and looked away from her. "We're crazy—talking as though we had a choice."
"Maybe they'll have to give us a choice."
"What're you talking about?"
"They went into hysterics at the sight of those bodies in the picture. Those young bodies that didn't die of old age."
He waited.
"They can't stand the sight of people dying violently."
Her hand went to her throat and touched the tiny locket.
"These lockets were given to us so we'd have a choice between suffering or quick painless death.... We still have a choice."
He touched the locket at his own throat and was very still for a long moment. "So we threaten to kill ourselves, before their eyes. What would it do to them?"
He was still for a long time. "Sometimes, Mary, I think I don't know you at all." A pause. "And so now you and I are back where we started. Which'll it be, space or Earth?"
"Michael." Her voice trembled. "I—I don't know how to say this."
He waited, frowning, watching her intently.
"I'm—going to have a child."
His face went blank.
Then he stepped forward and took her by the shoulders. He saw the softness there in her face; saw her eyes bright as though the sun were shining in them; saw a flush in her cheeks, as though she had been running. And suddenly his throat was full.
"No," he said thickly. "I can't believe it."
"It's true."
He held her for a long time, then he turned his eyes aside.
"Yes, I can see it is."
"I—I can't put into words why I let it happen, Michael."
He shook his head. "I don't know—what to—to say. It's so incredible."
"Maybe—I got so—tired—just seeing the two of us over and over again and the culturing of the scar tissue, for twenty centuries. Maybe that was it. It was just—something I felt I had to do. Some— real life again. Something new. I felt a need to produce something out of myself. It all started way out in space, while we were getting close to the solar system. I began to wonder if we'd ever get out of the ship alive or if we'd ever see a sunset again or a dawn or the night or morning like we'd seen on Earth—so—so long ago. And then I had to let it happen. It was a vague and strange thing. There was something forcing me. But at the same time I wanted it, too. I seemed to be willing it, seemed to be feeling it was a necessary thing." She paused, frowning. "I didn't stop to think—it would be like this."
"Such a thing," he said, smiling grimly, "hasn't happened on Earth for three thousand years. I can remember in school, reading in the history books, how the whole Earth was overcrowded and how the food and water had to be rationed and then how the laws were passed forbidding birth and after that how the people died and there weren't any more babies born, until at last there was plenty of what the Earth had to give, for everyone. And then the news was broken to everyone about the culturing of the scar tissue, and there were a few dissenters but they were soon conditioned out of their dissension and the population was stabilized." He paused. "After all this past history, I don't think the council could endure what you've done."
"No," she said quietly. "I don't think they could."
"And so this will be just for us ." He took her in his arms. "If I remember rightly, this is a traditional action." A pause. "Now I'll go with you out onto the Earth—if we can swing it. When we get outside the city, or if we do—Well, we'll see."
They were very still together and then he turned and stood by the window and looked down upon the city and she came and stood beside him.
They both saw it at the same time. And they watched, without speaking, both knowing what was in the other's mind and heart. They watched the giant four dimensional screens all through the city. A green, lush planet showed bright and clear on them and there were ships standing among the trees and men walking through the grass, that moved gently like the swells on a calm ocean, while into their minds came the thoughts projected from the screen:
"This will be your new home. It was found and then lost. But another expedition will be sent out to find it again. Be of good hope. Everything will be all right."
Michael turned from the window. "So there's our evidence. Two thousand years. All the others killed getting it. And with a simple twist, it becomes a lie."
Mary sat down and buried her face in her hands.
"What a terrible failure there's been here," said Michael. "The neglect and destruction of a whole planet. It's like a family letting their home decay all around them, and living in smaller and smaller rooms of it, until at last the rooms are all gone, and since they can't find another home, they all die in the ruins of the last room."
"I can't face dying," Mary said quietly, "squeezed in with all these people, in this tomb they've made around the seas. I want to have the open sky and the quiet away from those awful pounding pumps when I die. I want the spread of the Earth all around and the clean air. I want to be a real part of the Earth again."
Michael barely nodded in agreement. He was standing very still now.
And then there was the sound of the door opening.
They both rose, like mourners at a funeral, and went into the council chambers.
Again they sat in the thick chairs before the wall of desks with the faces of the council looking across it like defenders.
The pumps were beating, beating all through the room and the quiet.
The President was standing. He faced Michael and Mary, and seemed to set himself as though to deliver a blow, or to receive one.
"Michael and Mary," he said, his voice struggling against a tightness,
"we've considered a long time concerning what is to be done with you and the report you brought back to us from the galaxy." He took another swallow of water. "To protect the sanity of the people, we've changed your report. We've also decided that the people must be protected from the possibility of your spreading the truth, as you did at the landing field. So, for the good of the people, you'll be isolated. All comforts will be given you. After all, in a sense, you are heroes and martyrs. Your scar tissue will be cultured as it has been in the past, and you will stay in solitary confinement until the time when, perhaps, we can migrate to another planet. We feel that hope must not be destroyed. And so another expedition is being sent out. It may be that, in time, on another planet, you'll be able to take your place in our society."
He paused. "Is there anything you wish to say?"
"Yes, there is."
"Proceed."
Michael stared straight at the President. After a long moment, he raised his hand to the tiny locket at his throat.
"Perhaps you remember," he said, "the lockets given to every member of the expedition the night before we left. I still have mine." He raised it. "So does my wife. They were designed to kill the wearer instantly and painlessly if he were ever faced with pain or a terror he couldn't endure."
The President was standing again. A stir ran along the barricade of desks.
"We can't endure the city," went on Michael, "or its life and the ways of the people." He glanced along the line of staring faces.
"If what I think you're about to say is true," said the President in a shaking voice, "it would have been better if you'd never been born."
"Let's face facts, Mr. President. We were born and haven't died—yet." A pause. "And we can kill ourselves right here before your eyes. It'd be painless to us. We'd be unconscious. But there would be horrible convulsions and grimaces. Our bodies would be twisted and torn. They'd thresh about. The deaths you saw in the picture happened a long time ago, in outer space. You all went into hysterics at the sight of them. Our deaths now would be close and terrible to see."
The President staggered as though about to faint. There was a stirring and muttering and a jumping up along the desks. Voices cried out, in anger and fear. Arms waved and fists pounded. Hands clasped and unclasped and clawed at collars, and there was a pell mell rushing around the President. They yelled at each other and clasped each other by the shoulders, turned away and back again, and then suddenly became very still.
Now they began to step down from the raised line of desks, the President leading them, and came close to the man and woman, gathering around them in a wide half circle.
Michael and Mary were holding the lockets close to their throats. The half circle of people, with the President at its center was moving closer and closer. They were sweaty faces and red ones and dry white ones and hands were raised to seize them.
Michael put his arm around Mary's waist. He felt the trembling in her body and the waiting for death.
"Stop!" he said quietly.
They halted, in slight confusion, barely drawing back.
"If you want to see us die—just come a step closer.... And remember what'll happen to you."
The faces began turning to each other and there was an undertone of muttering and whispering. "A ghastly thing.... Instant.... Nothing to do.... Space's broken their minds.... They'll do it.... Eyes're mad.... What can we do?... What?..." The sweaty faces, the cold white ones, the flushed hot ones: all began to turn to the President, who was staring at the two before him like a man watching himself die in a mirror.
"I command you," he suddenly said, in a choked voice, "to—to give me those—lockets! It's your—duty!"
"We've only one duty, Mr. President," said Michael sharply. "To ourselves."
"You're sick. Give yourselves over to us. We'll help you."
"We've made our choice. We want an answer. Quickly! Now!"
The President's body sagged. "What—what is it you want?"
Michael threw the words. "To go beyond the force fields of the city. To go far out onto the Earth and live as long as we can, and then to die a natural death."
The half circle of faces turned to each other and muttered and whispered again. "In the name of God.... Let them go.... Contaminate us.... Like animals.... Get them out of here.... Let them be finished.... Best for us all.... And them...."
There was a turning to the President again and hands thrusting him forward to within one step of Michael and Mary, who were standing there close together, as though attached.
Haltingly he said, "Go. Please go. Out onto the Earth—to die. You will die. The Earth is dead out there. You'll never see the city or your people again."
"We want a ground car," said Michael. "And supplies."
"A ground car," repeated the President. "And—supplies.... Yes."
"You can give us an escort, if you want to, out beyond the first range of mountains."
"There will be no escort," said the President firmly. "No one has been allowed to go out upon the Earth or to fly above it for many hundreds of years. We know it's there. That's enough. We couldn't bear the sight of it." He took a step back. "And we can't bear the sight of you any longer. Go now. Quickly!"
Michael and Mary did not let go of the lockets as they watched the half circle of faces move backward, staring, as though at corpses that should sink to the floor.
It was night. The city had been lost beyond the dead mounds of Earth that rolled away behind them, like a thousand ancient tombs. The ground car sat still on a crumbling road.
Looking up through the car's driving blister, they saw the stars sunk into the blue black ocean of space; saw the path of the Milky Way along which they had rushed, while they had been searching frantically for the place of salvation.
"If any one of the other couples had made it back," said Mary, "do you think they'd be with us?"
"I think they'd either be with us," he said, "or out in space again—or in prison."
She stared ahead along the beam of headlight that stabbed out into the night over the decaying road.
"How sorry are you," she said quietly, "coming with me?"
"All I know is, if I were out in space for long without you, I'd kill myself."
"Are we going to die out here, Michael?" she said, gesturing toward the wall of night that stood at the end of the headlight, "with the land?"
He turned from her, frowning, and drove the ground car forward, watching the headlights push back the darkness.
They followed the crumbling highway all night until light crept across the bald and cracked hills. The morning sun looked down upon the desolation ten feet above the horizon when the car stopped. They sat for a long time then, looking out upon the Earth's parched and inflamed skin. In the distance a wall of mountains rose like a great pile of bleached bones. Close ahead the rolling plains were motionless waves of dead Earth with a slight breeze stirring up little swirls of dust.
"I'm getting out," she said.
"I haven't the slightest idea how much farther to go, or why," said Michael shrugging. "It's all the same. Dirt and hills and mountains and sun and dust. It's really not much different from being out in space. We live in the car just like in a space ship. We've enough concentrated supplies to last for a year. How far do we go? Why? When?"
They stepped upon the Earth and felt the warmth of the sun and strolled toward the top of the hill.
"The air smells clean," he said.
"The ground feels good. I think I'll take off my shoes." She did.
"Take off your boots, Michael. Try it."
Wearily he pulled off his boots, stood in his bare feet. "It takes me back."
"Yes," she said and began walking toward the hilltop.
He followed, his boots slung around his neck. "There was a road somewhere, with the dust between my toes. Or was it a dream?"
"I guess when the past is old enough," she said, "it becomes a dream."
He watched her footprints in the dust. "God, listen to the quiet."
"I can't seem to remember so much quiet around me. There's always been the sound of a space ship, or the pumps back in the cities."
He did not answer but continued to watch her footsteps and to feel the dust squishing up between his toes. Then suddenly:
"Mary!"
She stopped, whirling around.
He was staring down at her feet.
She followed his gaze.
"It's grass!" He bent down. "Three blades."
She knelt beside him. They touched the green blades.
"They're new," he said.
They stared, like religious devotees concentrating upon some sacred object.
He rose, pulling her up with him. They hurried to the top of the hill and stood very still, looking down into a valley. There were tiny patches of green and little trees sprouting, and here and there, a pale flower. The green was in a cluster, in the center of the valley and there was a tiny glint of sunlight in its center.
"Oh!"
Her hand found his.
They ran down the gentle slope, feeling the patches of green touch their feet, smelling a new freshness in the air. And coming to the little spring, they stood beside it and watched the crystal water that trickled along the valley floor and lost itself around a bend. They saw a furry, little animal scurry away and heard the twitter of a bird and saw it resting on a slim, bending branch. They heard the buzz of a bee, saw it light on a pale flower at their feet and work at the sweetness inside.
Mary knelt down and drank from the spring.
"It's so cool. It must come from deep down."
"It does," he said. There were tears in his eyes and a tightness in his throat. "From deep down."
"We can live here, Michael!"
Slowly he looked all around until his sight stopped at the bottom of a hill. "We'll build our house just beyond those rocks. We'll dig and plant and you'll have the child."
"Yes!" she said. "Oh yes!"
"And the ones back in the city will know the Earth again. Sometime we'll lead them back here and show them the Earth is coming alive." He paused. "By following what we had to do for ourselves, we've found a way to save them."
They remained kneeling in the silence beside the pool for a long time. They felt the sun on their backs and looked into the clean depth of the water deeply aware of the new life breathing all around them and of themselves absorbing it, and at the same time giving back to it the life that was their own.
There was only this quiet and breathing and warmth until Michael stood and picked up a rock and walked toward the base of the hill where he had decided to build the house.
... THE END
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What is the history of POSAT?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about What is POSAT? by Phyllis Sterling Smith.
Relevant chunks:
What is POSAT?
By PHYLLIS STERLING SMITH
Illustrated by ED ALEXANDER
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Of course coming events cast their shadows before, but this shadow was 400 years long!
The following advertisement appeared in the July 1953 issue of several magazines:
MASTERY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE CAN BE YOURS!
What is the secret source of those profound principles that can solve the problems of life? Send for our FREE booklet of explanation.
Do not be a leaf in the wind! YOU can alter the course of your life!
Tap the treasury of Wisdom through the ages!
The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth
POSAT
an ancient secret society
Most readers passed it by with scarcely a glance. It was, after all, similar to the many that had appeared through the years under the name of that same society. Other readers, as their eyes slid over the familiar format of the ad, speculated idly about the persistent and mildly mysterious organization behind it. A few even resolved to clip the attached coupon and send for the booklet—sometime—when a pen or pencil was nearer at hand.
Bill Evans, an unemployed pharmacist, saw the ad in a copy of Your Life and Psychology that had been abandoned on his seat in the bus. He filled out the blanks on the coupon with a scrap of stubby pencil.
"You can alter the course of your life!" he read again. He particularly liked that thought, even though he had long since ceased to believe it. He actually took the trouble to mail the coupon. After all, he had, literally, nothing to lose, and nothing else to occupy his time.
Miss Elizabeth Arnable was one of the few to whom the advertisement was unfamiliar. As a matter of fact, she very seldom read a magazine. The radio in her room took the place of reading matter, and she always liked to think that it amused her cats as well as herself. Reading would be so selfish under the circumstances, wouldn't it? Not but what the cats weren't almost smart enough to read, she always said.
It just so happened, however, that she had bought a copy of the Antivivisectionist Gazette the day before. She pounced upon the POSAT ad as a trout might snap at a particularly attractive fly. Having filled out the coupon with violet ink, she invented an errand that would take her past the neighborhood post office so that she could post it as soon as possible.
Donald Alford, research physicist, came across the POSAT ad tucked at the bottom of a column in The Bulletin of Physical Research . He was engrossed in the latest paper by Dr. Crandon, a man whom he admired from the point of view of both a former student and a fellow research worker. Consequently, he was one of the many who passed over the POSAT ad with the disregard accorded to any common object.
He read with interest to the end of the article before he realized that some component of the advertisement had been noted by a region of his brain just beyond consciousness. It teased at him like a tickle that couldn't be scratched until he turned back to the page.
It was the symbol or emblem of POSAT, he realized, that had caught his attention. The perpendicularly crossed ellipses centered with a small black circle might almost be a conventionalized version of the Bohr atom of helium. He smiled with mild skepticism as he read through the printed matter that accompanied it.
"I wonder what their racket is," he mused. Then, because his typewriter was conveniently at hand, he carefully tore out the coupon and inserted it in the machine. The spacing of the typewriter didn't fit the dotted lines on the coupon, of course, but he didn't bother to correct it. He addressed an envelope, laid it with other mail to be posted, and promptly forgot all about it. Since he was a methodical man, it was entrusted to the U.S. mail early the next morning, together with his other letters.
Three identical forms accompanied the booklet which POSAT sent in response to the three inquiries. The booklet gave no more information than had the original advertisement, but with considerable more volubility. It promised the recipient the secrets of the Cosmos and the key that would unlock the hidden knowledge within himself—if he would merely fill out the enclosed form.
Bill Evans, the unemployed pharmacist, let the paper lie unanswered for several days. To be quite honest, he was disappointed. Although he had mentally disclaimed all belief in anything that POSAT might offer, he had watched the return mails with anticipation. His own resources were almost at an end, and he had reached the point where intervention by something supernatural, or at least superhuman, seemed the only hope.
He had hoped, unreasonably, that POSAT had an answer. But time lay heavily upon him, and he used it one evening to write the requested information—about his employment (ha!), his religious beliefs, his reason for inquiring about POSAT, his financial situation. Without quite knowing that he did so, he communicated in his terse answers some of his desperation and sense of futility.
Miss Arnable was delighted with the opportunity for autobiographical composition. It required five extra sheets of paper to convey all the information that she wished to give—all about her poor, dear father who had been a missionary to China, and the kinship that she felt toward the mystic cults of the East, her belief that her cats were reincarnations of her loved ones (which, she stated, derived from a religion of the Persians; or was it the Egyptians?) and in her complete and absolute acceptance of everything that POSAT had stated in their booklet. And what would the dues be? She wished to join immediately. Fortunately, dear father had left her in a comfortable financial situation.
To Donald Alford, the booklet seemed to confirm his suspicion that POSAT was a racket of some sort. Why else would they be interested in his employment or financial position? It also served to increase his curiosity.
"What do you suppose they're driving at?" he asked his wife Betty, handing her the booklet and questionnaire.
"I don't really know what to say," she answered, squinting a little as she usually did when puzzled. "I know one thing, though, and that's that you won't stop until you find out!"
"The scientific attitude," he acknowledged with a grin.
"Why don't you fill out this questionnaire incognito, though?" she suggested. "Pretend that we're wealthy and see if they try to get our money. Do they have anything yet except your name and address?"
Don was shocked. "If I send this back to them, it will have to be with correct answers!"
"The scientific attitude again," Betty sighed. "Don't you ever let your imagination run away with the facts a bit? What are you going to give for your reasons for asking about POSAT?"
"Curiosity," he replied, and, pulling his fountain pen from his vest pocket, he wrote exactly that, in small, neat script.
It was unfortunate for his curiosity that Don could not see the contents of the three envelopes that were mailed from the offices of POSAT the following week. For this time they differed.
Bill Evans was once again disappointed. The pamphlet that was enclosed gave what apparently meant to be final answers to life's problems. They were couched in vaguely metaphysical terms and offered absolutely no help to him.
His disappointment was tempered, however, by the knowledge that he had unexpectedly found a job. Or, rather, it had fallen into his lap. When he had thought that every avenue of employment had been tried, a position had been offered him in a wholesale pharmacy in the older industrial part of the city. It was not a particularly attractive place to work, located as it was next to a large warehouse, but to him it was hope for the future.
It amused him to discover that the offices of POSAT were located on the other side of the same warehouse, at the end of a blind alley. Blind alley indeed! He felt vaguely ashamed for having placed any confidence in them.
Miss Arnable was thrilled to discover that her envelope contained not only several pamphlets, (she scanned the titles rapidly and found that one of them concerned the sacred cats of ancient Egypt), but that it contained also a small pin with the symbol of POSAT wrought in gold and black enamel. The covering letter said that she had been accepted as an active member of POSAT and that the dues were five dollars per month; please remit by return mail. She wrote a check immediately, and settled contentedly into a chair to peruse the article on sacred cats.
After a while she began to read aloud so that her own cats could enjoy it, too.
Don Alford would not have been surprised if his envelope had shown contents similar to the ones that the others received. The folded sheets of paper that he pulled forth, however, made him stiffen with sharp surprise.
"Come here a minute, Betty," he called, spreading them out carefully on the dining room table. "What do you make of these?"
She came, dish cloth in hand, and thoughtfully examined them, one by one. "Multiple choice questions! It looks like a psychological test of some sort."
"This isn't the kind of thing I expected them to send me," worried Don. "Look at the type of thing they ask. 'If you had discovered a new and virulent poison that could be compounded from common household ingredients, would you (1) publish the information in a daily newspaper, (2) manufacture it secretly and sell it as rodent exterminator, (3) give the information to the armed forces for use as a secret weapon, or (4) withhold the information entirely as too dangerous to be passed on?'"
"Could they be a spy ring?" asked Betty. "Subversive agents? Anxious to find out your scientific secrets like that classified stuff that you're so careful of when you bring it home from the lab?"
Don scanned the papers quickly. "There's nothing here that looks like an attempt to get information. Besides, I've told them nothing about my work except that I do research in physics. They don't even know what company I work for. If this is a psychological test, it measures attitudes, nothing else. Why should they want to know my attitudes?"
"Do you suppose that POSAT is really what it claims to be—a secret society—and that they actually screen their applicants?"
He smiled wryly. "Wouldn't it be interesting if I didn't make the grade after starting out to expose their racket?"
He pulled out his pen and sat down to the task of resolving the dilemmas before him.
His next communication from POSAT came to his business address and, paradoxically, was more personal than its forerunners.
Dear Doctor Alford:
We have examined with interest the information that you have sent to us. We are happy to inform you that, thus far, you have satisfied the requirements for membership in the Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth. Before accepting new members into this ancient and honorable secret society, we find it desirable that they have a personal interview with the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
Accordingly, you are cordially invited to an audience with our Grand Chairman on Tuesday, July 10, at 2:30 P.M. Please let us know if this arrangement is acceptable to you. If not, we will attempt to make another appointment for you.
The time specified for the appointment was hardly a convenient one for Don. At 2:30 P.M. on most Tuesdays, he would be at work in the laboratory. And while his employers made no complaint if he took his research problems home with him and worried over them half the night, they were not equally enthusiastic when he used working hours for pursuing unrelated interests. Moreover, the headquarters of POSAT was in a town almost a hundred miles distant. Could he afford to take a whole day off for chasing will-o-wisps?
It hardly seemed worth the trouble. He wondered if Betty would be disappointed if he dropped the whole matter. Since the letter had been sent to the laboratory instead of his home, he couldn't consult her about it without telephoning.
Since the letter had been sent to the laboratory instead of his home! But it was impossible!
He searched feverishly through his pile of daily mail for the envelope in which the letter had come. The address stared up at him, unmistakably and fearfully legible. The name of his company. The number of the room he worked in. In short, the address that he had never given them!
"Get hold of yourself," he commanded his frightened mind. "There's some perfectly logical, easy explanation for this. They looked it up in the directory of the Institute of Physics. Or in the alumni directory of the university. Or—or—"
But the more he thought about it, the more sinister it seemed. His laboratory address was available, but why should POSAT take the trouble of looking it up? Some prudent impulse had led him to withhold that particular bit of information, yet now, for some reason of their own, POSAT had unearthed the information.
His wife's words echoed in his mind, "Could they be a spy ring? Subversive agents?"
Don shook his head as though to clear away the confusion. His conservative habit of thought made him reject that explanation as too melodramatic.
At least one decision was easier to reach because of his doubts. Now he knew he had to keep his appointment with the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
He scribbled a memo to the department office stating that he would not be at work on Tuesday.
At first Don Alford had some trouble locating the POSAT headquarters. It seemed to him that the block in which the street number would fall was occupied entirely by a huge sprawling warehouse, of concrete construction, and almost entirely windowless. It was recessed from the street in several places to make room for the small, shabby buildings of a wholesale pharmacy, a printer's plant, an upholstering shop, and was also indented by alleys lined with loading platforms.
It was at the back of one of the alleys that he finally found a door marked with the now familiar emblem of POSAT.
He opened the frosted glass door with a feeling of misgiving, and faced a dark flight of stairs leading to the upper floor. Somewhere above him a buzzer sounded, evidently indicating his arrival. He picked his way up through the murky stairwell.
The reception room was hardly a cheerful place, with its battered desk facing the view of the empty alley, and a film of dust obscuring the pattern of the gray-looking wallpaper and worn rug. But the light of the summer afternoon filtering through the window scattered the gloom somewhat, enough to help Don doubt that he would find the menace here that he had come to expect.
The girl addressing envelopes at the desk looked very ordinary. Not the Mata-Hari type , thought Don, with an inward chuckle at his own suspicions. He handed her the letter.
She smiled. "We've been expecting you, Dr. Alford. If you'll just step into the next room—"
She opened a door opposite the stairwell, and Don stepped through it.
The sight of the luxurious room before him struck his eyes with the shock of a dentist's drill, so great was the contrast between it and the shabby reception room. For a moment Don had difficulty breathing. The rug—Don had seen one like it before, but it had been in a museum. The paintings on the walls, ornately framed in gilt carving, were surely old masters—of the Renaissance period, he guessed. Although he recognized none of the pictures, he felt that he could almost name the artists. That glowing one near the corner would probably be a Titian. Or was it Tintorretto? He regretted for a moment the lost opportunities of his college days, when he had passed up Art History in favor of Operational Circuit Analysis.
The girl opened a filing cabinet, the front of which was set flush with the wall, and, selecting a folder from it, disappeared through another door.
Don sprang to examine the picture near the corner. It was hung at eye level—that is, at the eye level of the average person. Don had to bend over a bit to see it properly. He searched for a signature. Apparently there was none. But did artists sign their pictures back in those days? He wished he knew more about such things.
Each of the paintings was individually lighted by a fluorescent tube held on brackets directly above it. As Don straightened up from his scrutiny of the picture, he inadvertently hit his head against the light. The tube, dislodged from its brackets, fell to the rug with a muffled thud.
Now I've done it! thought Don with dismay. But at least the tube hadn't shattered.
In fact—it was still glowing brightly! His eyes registered the fact, even while his mind refused to believe it. He raised his eyes to the brackets. They were simple pieces of solid hardware designed to support the tube.
There were no wires!
Don picked up the slender, glowing cylinder and held it between trembling fingers. Although it was delivering as much light as a two or three hundred watt bulb, it was cool to the touch. He examined it minutely. There was no possibility of concealed batteries.
The thumping of his heart was caused not by the fact that he had never seen a similar tube before, but because he had. He had never held one in his hands, though. The ones which his company had produced as experimental models had been unsuccessful at converting all of the radioactivity into light, and had, of necessity, been heavily shielded.
Right now, two of his colleagues back in the laboratory would still be searching for the right combination of fluorescent material and radioactive salts with which to make the simple, efficient, self-contained lighting unit that he was holding in his hand at this moment!
But this is impossible! he thought. We're the only company that's working on this, and it's secret. There can't be any in actual production!
And even if one had actually been successfully produced, how would it have fallen into the possession of POSAT, an Ancient Secret Society, The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth?
The conviction grew in Don's mind that here was something much deeper and more sinister than he would be able to cope with. He should have asked for help, should have stated his suspicions to the police or the F.B.I. Even now—
With sudden decision, he thrust the lighting tube into his pocket and stepped swiftly to the outer door. He grasped the knob and shook it impatiently when it stuck and refused to turn. He yanked at it. His impatience changed to panic. It was locked!
A soft sound behind him made him whirl about. The secretary had entered again through the inner door. She glanced at the vacant light bracket, then significantly at his bulging pocket. Her gaze was still as bland and innocent as when he had entered, but to Don she no longer seemed ordinary. Her very calmness in the face of his odd actions was distressingly ominous.
"Our Grand Chairman will see you now," she said in a quiet voice.
Don realized that he was half crouched in the position of an animal expecting attack. He straightened up with what dignity he could manage to find.
She opened the inner door again and Don followed her into what he supposed to be the office of the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
Instead he found himself on a balcony along the side of a vast room, which must have been the interior of the warehouse that he had noted outside. The girl motioned him toward the far end of the balcony, where a frosted glass door marked the office of the Grand Chairman.
But Don could not will his legs to move. His heart beat at the sight of the room below him. It was a laboratory, but a laboratory the like of which he had never seen before. Most of the equipment was unfamiliar to him. Whatever he did recognize was of a different design than he had ever used, and there was something about it that convinced him that this was more advanced. The men who bent busily over their instruments did not raise their eyes to the figures on the balcony.
"Good Lord!" Don gasped. "That's an atomic reactor down there!" There could be no doubt about it, even though he could see it only obscurely through the bluish-green plastic shielding it.
His thoughts were so clamorous that he hardly realized that he had spoken aloud, or that the door at the end of the balcony had opened.
He was only dimly aware of the approaching footsteps as he speculated wildly on the nature of the shielding material. What could be so dense that only an inch would provide adequate shielding and yet remain semitransparent?
His scientist's mind applauded the genius who had developed it, even as the alarming conviction grew that he wouldn't—couldn't—be allowed to leave here any more. Surely no man would be allowed to leave this place alive to tell the fantastic story to the world!
"Hello, Don," said a quiet voice beside him. "It's good to see you again."
"Dr. Crandon!" he heard his own voice reply. " You're the Grand Chairman of POSAT?"
He felt betrayed and sick at heart. The very voice with which Crandon had spoken conjured up visions of quiet lecture halls and his own youthful excitement at the masterful and orderly disclosure of scientific facts. To find him here in this mad and treacherous place—didn't anything make sense any longer?
"I think we have rather abused you, Don," Dr. Crandon continued. His voice sounded so gentle that Don found it hard to think there was any evil in it. "I can see that you are suspicious of us, and—yes—afraid."
Don stared at the scene below him. After his initial glance to confirm his identification of Crandon, Don could not bear to look at him.
Crandon's voice suddenly hardened, became abrupt. "You're partly right about us, of course. I hate to think how many laws this organization has broken. Don't condemn us yet, though. You'll be a member yourself before the day is over."
Don was shocked by such confidence in his corruptibility.
"What do you use?" he asked bitterly. "Drugs? Hypnosis?"
Crandon sighed. "I forgot how little you know, Don. I have a long story to tell you. You'll find it hard to believe at first. But try to trust me. Try to believe me, as you once did. When I say that much of what POSAT does is illegal, I do not mean immoral. We're probably the most moral organization in the world. Get over the idea that you have stumbled into a den of thieves."
Crandon paused as though searching for words with which to continue.
"Did you notice the paintings in the waiting room as you entered?"
Don nodded, too bewildered to speak.
"They were donated by the founder of our Organization. They were part of his personal collection—which, incidentally, he bought from the artists themselves. He also designed the atomic reactor we use for power here in the laboratory."
"Then the pictures are modern," said Don, aware that his mouth was hanging open foolishly. "I thought one was a Titian—"
"It is," said Crandon. "We have several original Titians, although I really don't know too much about them."
"But how could a man alive today buy paintings from an artist of the Renaissance?"
"He is not alive today. POSAT is actually what our advertisements claim—an ancient secret society. Our founder has been dead for over four centuries."
"But you said that he designed your atomic reactor."
"Yes. This particular one has been in use for only twenty years, however."
Don's confusion was complete. Crandon looked at him kindly. "Let's start at the beginning," he said, and Don was back again in the classroom with the deep voice of Professor Crandon unfolding the pages of knowledge in clear and logical manner. "Four hundred years ago, in the time of the Italian Renaissance, a man lived who was a super-genius. His was the kind of incredible mentality that appears not in every generation, or even every century, but once in thousands of years.
"Probably the man who invented what we call the phonetic alphabet was one like him. That man lived seven thousand years ago in Mesopotamia, and his discovery was so original, so far from the natural course of man's thinking, that not once in the intervening seven thousand years has that device been rediscovered. It still exists only in the civilizations to which it has been passed on directly.
"The super-genius who was our founder was not a semanticist. He was a physical scientist and mathematician. Starting with the meager heritage that existed in these fields in his time, he began tackling physical puzzles one by one. Sitting in his study, using as his principal tool his own great mind, he invented calculus, developed the quantum theory of light, moved on to electromagnetic radiation and what we call Maxwell's equations—although, of course, he antedated Maxwell by centuries—developed the special and general theories of relativity, the tool of wave mechanics, and finally, toward the end of his life, he mathematically derived the packing fraction that describes the binding energy of nuclei—"
"But it can't be done," Don objected. "It's an observed phenomenon. It hasn't been derived." Every conservative instinct that he possessed cried out against this impossible fantasy. And yet—there sat the reactor, sheathed in its strange shield. Crandon watched the direction of Don's glance.
"Yes, the reactor," said Crandon. "He built one like it. It confirmed his theories. His calculations showed him something else too. He saw the destructive potentialities of an atomic explosion. He himself could not have built an atomic bomb; he didn't have the facilities. But his knowledge would have enabled other men to do so. He looked about him. He saw a political setup of warring principalities, rival states, intrigue, and squabbles over political power. Giving the men of his time atomic energy would have been like handing a baby a firecracker with a lighted fuse.
"What should he have done? Let his secrets die with him? He didn't think so. No one else in his age could have derived the knowledge that he did. But it was an age of brilliant men. Leonardo. Michelangelo. There were men capable of learning his science, even as men can learn it today. He gathered some of them together and founded this society. It served two purposes. It perpetuated his discoveries and at the same time it maintained the greatest secrecy about them. He urged that the secrets be kept until the time when men could use them safely. The other purpose was to make that time come about as soon as possible."
Crandon looked at Don's unbelieving face. "How can I make you see that it is the truth? Think of the eons that man or manlike creatures have walked the Earth. Think what a small fraction of that time is four hundred years. Is it so strange that atomic energy was discovered a little early, by this displacement in time that is so tiny after all?"
"But by one man," Don argued.
Crandon shrugged. "Compared with him, Don, you and I are stupid men. So are the scientists who slowly plodded down the same road he had come, stumbling first on one truth and then the succeeding one. We know that inventions and discoveries do not occur at random. Each is based on the one that preceded it. We are all aware of the phenomenon of simultaneous invention. The path to truth is a straight one. It is only our own stupidity that makes it seem slow and tortuous.
"He merely followed the straight path," Crandon finished simply.
Don's incredulity thawed a little. It was not entirely beyond the realm of possibility.
But if it were true! A vast panorama of possible achievements spread before him.
"Four hundred years!" he murmured with awe. "You've had four hundred years head-start on the rest of the world! What wonders you must have uncovered in that time!"
"Our technical achievements may disappoint you," warned Crandon.
"Oh, they're way beyond anything that you are familiar with. You've undoubtedly noticed the shielding material on the reactor. That's a fairly recent development of our metallurgical department. There are other things in the laboratory that I can't even explain to you until you have caught up on the technical basis for understanding them.
"Our emphasis has not been on physical sciences, however, except as they contribute to our central project. We want to change civilization so that it can use physical science without disaster."
For a moment Don had been fired with enthusiasm. But at these words his heart sank.
"Then you've failed," he said bitterly. "In spite of centuries of advance warning, you've failed to change the rest of us enough to prevent us from trying to blow ourselves off the Earth. Here we are, still snarling and snapping at our neighbors' throats—and we've caught up with you. We have the atomic bomb. What's POSAT been doing all that time? Or have you found that human nature really can't be changed?"
"Come with me," said Crandon.
He led the way along the narrow balcony to another door, then down a steep flight of stairs. He opened a door at the bottom, and Don saw what must have been the world's largest computing machine.
"This is our answer," said Crandon. "Oh, rather, it's the tool by which we find our answer. For two centuries we have been working on the newest of the sciences—that of human motivation. Soon we will be ready to put some of our new knowledge to work. But you are right in one respect, we are working now against time. We must hurry if we are to save our civilization. That's why you are here. We have work for you to do. Will you join us, Don?"
"But why the hocus-pocus?" asked Don. "Why do you hide behind such a weird front as POSAT? Why do you advertise in magazines and invite just anyone to join? Why didn't you approach me directly, if you have work for me to do? And if you really have the answers to our problems, why haven't you gathered together all the scientists in the world to work on this project—before it's too late?"
Crandon took a sighing breath. "How I wish that we could do just that! But you forget that one of the prime purposes of our organization is to maintain the secrecy of our discoveries until they can be safely disclosed. We must be absolutely certain that anyone who enters this building will have joined POSAT before he leaves. What if we approached the wrong scientist? Centuries of accomplishment might be wasted if they attempted either to reveal it or to exploit it!
"Do you recall the questionnaires that you answered before you were invited here? We fed the answers to this machine and, as a result, we know more about how you will react in any given situation than you do yourself. Even if you should fail to join us, our secrets would be safe with you. Of course, we miss a few of the scientists who might be perfect material for our organization. You'd be surprised, though, at how clever our advertisements are at attracting exactly the men we want. With the help of our new science, we have baited our ads well, and we know how to maintain interest. Curiosity is, to the men we want, a powerful motivator."
"But what about the others?" asked Don. "There must be hundreds of applicants who would be of no use to you at all."
"Oh, yes," replied Crandon. "There are the mild religious fanatics. We enroll them as members and keep them interested by sending pamphlets in line with their interests. We even let them contribute to our upkeep, if they seem to want to. They never get beyond the reception room if they come to call on us. But they are additional people through whom we can act when the time finally comes.
"There are also the desperate people who try POSAT as a last resort—lost ones who can't find their direction in life. For them we put into practice some of our newly won knowledge. We rehabilitate them—anonymously, of course. Even find jobs or patch up homes. It's good practice for us.
"I think I've answered most of your questions, Don. But you haven't answered mine. Will you join us?"
Don looked solemnly at the orderly array of the computer before him. He had one more question.
"Will it really work? Can it actually tell you how to motivate the stubborn, quarrelsome, opinionated people one finds on this Earth?"
Crandon smiled. "You're here, aren't you?"
Don nodded, his tense features relaxing.
"Enroll me as a member," he said.
Question:
What is the history of POSAT?
Answer:
|
[
"The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth, POSAT, is an ancient secret society. It was founded by a genius of a man who lived during the Italian Renaissance, roughly 400 years ago. The founder was a mathematician and scientist, and he invented calculus, created the quantum theory of light, and wrote Maxwell’s equations. However, he did not get credit for any of these ideas. He also designed the atomic reactor that Don sees in the laboratory of the building. The founder understood how dangerous the atomic bomb was, and he did not want to give his peers the tools to create such a powerful weapon. He did not trust men who were at war with one another over political power. Still, he did not want his knowledge to vanish when he died, so he created POSAT. He was willing to share his scientific and mathematical secrets, but he did not wish for untrustworthy people to get their hands on the information until it would be safe to do so. The founder also wanted POSAT to work towards a more peaceful society where everyone could be trusted to share knowledge and information without the fear of it leading to catastrophic events. \n\nIn the centuries since the society was founded, the members have invented new tools and technologies that are not available anywhere else in the world, like the atomic reactor shield and the lightbulbs that hang above each Renaissance painting in the waiting room. Yet, the secret society’s main goal is to create a civilized society, not new inventions. In an effort to make that vision a reality, members of POSAT created a very large computer that seeks to decode human motivation. The computer used Don’s multiple choice questionnaire to determine that Don would be a good fit for the society because he is trustworthy. Although it seems like POSAT should involve more renowned scientists and peacekeepers to make sure it accomplishes its mission, it must also guard all of its secrets, and in an increasingly surveilled state, that would be nearly impossible to do while also including great thought leaders. \n",
"POSAT, or The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth, is a secret society that considers itself \"ancient and honorable\", which has been active since the Renaissance Era. They put ads in magazines to attract new members, stating that anyone can unlock the key to life through their pamphlets. The organization is led by a Grand Chairman, a spot currently filled by Dr. Crandon. When the organization was founded in the Renaissance Era, some four hundred years before the time in which the story takes place, the technology did not exist to act on the founder's theories. For instance, the atomic reactor that powers the headquarters has only been in use for twenty years, but was designed four hundred years ago. This was how the founder operated, well ahead of his time, developing ideas in the physical sciences far past what anyone would have expected, even of a genius. He donated a number of paintings from his personal collection, so much of the contemporary headquarters has his mark on it, even from an aesthetic standpoint. ",
"POSAT was founded four hundred years prior to the events of the story by a genius mathematician and physical scientist and a group of fellow \"brilliant men\" capable of advancing his scientific discoveries and committing them to secrecy. The founder lived during the Italian Renaissance and used his own mind to invent and discover, among other things, calculus, the quantum theory of light, the theory of relativity, wave mechanics, and nuclear reactions. The founder realized mankind was not able to wield this knowledge responsibly, so POSAT was designed to withhold this information until the time came in history when they could be trusted with it. POSAT operates its headquarters in a large warehouse, in the center of which is a large lab full of researchers where Dr. Crandon oversees the continuing work of the founder. The warehouse also houses businesses like the pharmacy that employs desperate people like Bill Evans, who turns to POSAT as a last resort, and the print shop that publishes advertisements that reach people like Elizabeth Arnable, whose belief in mysticism borders on religious.",
"The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth was founded four centuries ago by a genius. He discovered radioactivity and nuclear bombs hundreds of years before the rest of the world, designed the atomic reactor, invented calculus, and more. Impossible things that have yet to be discovered or invented in the 21st Century. The idea behind POSAT was to keep this man’s inventions a secret from the rest of the world, as well as continue making such amazing technological advances. \nSo, POSAT continued as a secret society, committing members who were dedicated to maintaining secrecy and developing ideas and theories that could be used to save the world, not harm it. They are currently dedicated to discovering more about the human motivation and how it can be used to perpetual world peace. This way all discoveries that are made in the future (however dangerous or wonderful they may be) will not be used to incite war, human disaster, or violence. \n"
] |
51336
|
What is POSAT?
By PHYLLIS STERLING SMITH
Illustrated by ED ALEXANDER
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Of course coming events cast their shadows before, but this shadow was 400 years long!
The following advertisement appeared in the July 1953 issue of several magazines:
MASTERY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE CAN BE YOURS!
What is the secret source of those profound principles that can solve the problems of life? Send for our FREE booklet of explanation.
Do not be a leaf in the wind! YOU can alter the course of your life!
Tap the treasury of Wisdom through the ages!
The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth
POSAT
an ancient secret society
Most readers passed it by with scarcely a glance. It was, after all, similar to the many that had appeared through the years under the name of that same society. Other readers, as their eyes slid over the familiar format of the ad, speculated idly about the persistent and mildly mysterious organization behind it. A few even resolved to clip the attached coupon and send for the booklet—sometime—when a pen or pencil was nearer at hand.
Bill Evans, an unemployed pharmacist, saw the ad in a copy of Your Life and Psychology that had been abandoned on his seat in the bus. He filled out the blanks on the coupon with a scrap of stubby pencil.
"You can alter the course of your life!" he read again. He particularly liked that thought, even though he had long since ceased to believe it. He actually took the trouble to mail the coupon. After all, he had, literally, nothing to lose, and nothing else to occupy his time.
Miss Elizabeth Arnable was one of the few to whom the advertisement was unfamiliar. As a matter of fact, she very seldom read a magazine. The radio in her room took the place of reading matter, and she always liked to think that it amused her cats as well as herself. Reading would be so selfish under the circumstances, wouldn't it? Not but what the cats weren't almost smart enough to read, she always said.
It just so happened, however, that she had bought a copy of the Antivivisectionist Gazette the day before. She pounced upon the POSAT ad as a trout might snap at a particularly attractive fly. Having filled out the coupon with violet ink, she invented an errand that would take her past the neighborhood post office so that she could post it as soon as possible.
Donald Alford, research physicist, came across the POSAT ad tucked at the bottom of a column in The Bulletin of Physical Research . He was engrossed in the latest paper by Dr. Crandon, a man whom he admired from the point of view of both a former student and a fellow research worker. Consequently, he was one of the many who passed over the POSAT ad with the disregard accorded to any common object.
He read with interest to the end of the article before he realized that some component of the advertisement had been noted by a region of his brain just beyond consciousness. It teased at him like a tickle that couldn't be scratched until he turned back to the page.
It was the symbol or emblem of POSAT, he realized, that had caught his attention. The perpendicularly crossed ellipses centered with a small black circle might almost be a conventionalized version of the Bohr atom of helium. He smiled with mild skepticism as he read through the printed matter that accompanied it.
"I wonder what their racket is," he mused. Then, because his typewriter was conveniently at hand, he carefully tore out the coupon and inserted it in the machine. The spacing of the typewriter didn't fit the dotted lines on the coupon, of course, but he didn't bother to correct it. He addressed an envelope, laid it with other mail to be posted, and promptly forgot all about it. Since he was a methodical man, it was entrusted to the U.S. mail early the next morning, together with his other letters.
Three identical forms accompanied the booklet which POSAT sent in response to the three inquiries. The booklet gave no more information than had the original advertisement, but with considerable more volubility. It promised the recipient the secrets of the Cosmos and the key that would unlock the hidden knowledge within himself—if he would merely fill out the enclosed form.
Bill Evans, the unemployed pharmacist, let the paper lie unanswered for several days. To be quite honest, he was disappointed. Although he had mentally disclaimed all belief in anything that POSAT might offer, he had watched the return mails with anticipation. His own resources were almost at an end, and he had reached the point where intervention by something supernatural, or at least superhuman, seemed the only hope.
He had hoped, unreasonably, that POSAT had an answer. But time lay heavily upon him, and he used it one evening to write the requested information—about his employment (ha!), his religious beliefs, his reason for inquiring about POSAT, his financial situation. Without quite knowing that he did so, he communicated in his terse answers some of his desperation and sense of futility.
Miss Arnable was delighted with the opportunity for autobiographical composition. It required five extra sheets of paper to convey all the information that she wished to give—all about her poor, dear father who had been a missionary to China, and the kinship that she felt toward the mystic cults of the East, her belief that her cats were reincarnations of her loved ones (which, she stated, derived from a religion of the Persians; or was it the Egyptians?) and in her complete and absolute acceptance of everything that POSAT had stated in their booklet. And what would the dues be? She wished to join immediately. Fortunately, dear father had left her in a comfortable financial situation.
To Donald Alford, the booklet seemed to confirm his suspicion that POSAT was a racket of some sort. Why else would they be interested in his employment or financial position? It also served to increase his curiosity.
"What do you suppose they're driving at?" he asked his wife Betty, handing her the booklet and questionnaire.
"I don't really know what to say," she answered, squinting a little as she usually did when puzzled. "I know one thing, though, and that's that you won't stop until you find out!"
"The scientific attitude," he acknowledged with a grin.
"Why don't you fill out this questionnaire incognito, though?" she suggested. "Pretend that we're wealthy and see if they try to get our money. Do they have anything yet except your name and address?"
Don was shocked. "If I send this back to them, it will have to be with correct answers!"
"The scientific attitude again," Betty sighed. "Don't you ever let your imagination run away with the facts a bit? What are you going to give for your reasons for asking about POSAT?"
"Curiosity," he replied, and, pulling his fountain pen from his vest pocket, he wrote exactly that, in small, neat script.
It was unfortunate for his curiosity that Don could not see the contents of the three envelopes that were mailed from the offices of POSAT the following week. For this time they differed.
Bill Evans was once again disappointed. The pamphlet that was enclosed gave what apparently meant to be final answers to life's problems. They were couched in vaguely metaphysical terms and offered absolutely no help to him.
His disappointment was tempered, however, by the knowledge that he had unexpectedly found a job. Or, rather, it had fallen into his lap. When he had thought that every avenue of employment had been tried, a position had been offered him in a wholesale pharmacy in the older industrial part of the city. It was not a particularly attractive place to work, located as it was next to a large warehouse, but to him it was hope for the future.
It amused him to discover that the offices of POSAT were located on the other side of the same warehouse, at the end of a blind alley. Blind alley indeed! He felt vaguely ashamed for having placed any confidence in them.
Miss Arnable was thrilled to discover that her envelope contained not only several pamphlets, (she scanned the titles rapidly and found that one of them concerned the sacred cats of ancient Egypt), but that it contained also a small pin with the symbol of POSAT wrought in gold and black enamel. The covering letter said that she had been accepted as an active member of POSAT and that the dues were five dollars per month; please remit by return mail. She wrote a check immediately, and settled contentedly into a chair to peruse the article on sacred cats.
After a while she began to read aloud so that her own cats could enjoy it, too.
Don Alford would not have been surprised if his envelope had shown contents similar to the ones that the others received. The folded sheets of paper that he pulled forth, however, made him stiffen with sharp surprise.
"Come here a minute, Betty," he called, spreading them out carefully on the dining room table. "What do you make of these?"
She came, dish cloth in hand, and thoughtfully examined them, one by one. "Multiple choice questions! It looks like a psychological test of some sort."
"This isn't the kind of thing I expected them to send me," worried Don. "Look at the type of thing they ask. 'If you had discovered a new and virulent poison that could be compounded from common household ingredients, would you (1) publish the information in a daily newspaper, (2) manufacture it secretly and sell it as rodent exterminator, (3) give the information to the armed forces for use as a secret weapon, or (4) withhold the information entirely as too dangerous to be passed on?'"
"Could they be a spy ring?" asked Betty. "Subversive agents? Anxious to find out your scientific secrets like that classified stuff that you're so careful of when you bring it home from the lab?"
Don scanned the papers quickly. "There's nothing here that looks like an attempt to get information. Besides, I've told them nothing about my work except that I do research in physics. They don't even know what company I work for. If this is a psychological test, it measures attitudes, nothing else. Why should they want to know my attitudes?"
"Do you suppose that POSAT is really what it claims to be—a secret society—and that they actually screen their applicants?"
He smiled wryly. "Wouldn't it be interesting if I didn't make the grade after starting out to expose their racket?"
He pulled out his pen and sat down to the task of resolving the dilemmas before him.
His next communication from POSAT came to his business address and, paradoxically, was more personal than its forerunners.
Dear Doctor Alford:
We have examined with interest the information that you have sent to us. We are happy to inform you that, thus far, you have satisfied the requirements for membership in the Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth. Before accepting new members into this ancient and honorable secret society, we find it desirable that they have a personal interview with the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
Accordingly, you are cordially invited to an audience with our Grand Chairman on Tuesday, July 10, at 2:30 P.M. Please let us know if this arrangement is acceptable to you. If not, we will attempt to make another appointment for you.
The time specified for the appointment was hardly a convenient one for Don. At 2:30 P.M. on most Tuesdays, he would be at work in the laboratory. And while his employers made no complaint if he took his research problems home with him and worried over them half the night, they were not equally enthusiastic when he used working hours for pursuing unrelated interests. Moreover, the headquarters of POSAT was in a town almost a hundred miles distant. Could he afford to take a whole day off for chasing will-o-wisps?
It hardly seemed worth the trouble. He wondered if Betty would be disappointed if he dropped the whole matter. Since the letter had been sent to the laboratory instead of his home, he couldn't consult her about it without telephoning.
Since the letter had been sent to the laboratory instead of his home! But it was impossible!
He searched feverishly through his pile of daily mail for the envelope in which the letter had come. The address stared up at him, unmistakably and fearfully legible. The name of his company. The number of the room he worked in. In short, the address that he had never given them!
"Get hold of yourself," he commanded his frightened mind. "There's some perfectly logical, easy explanation for this. They looked it up in the directory of the Institute of Physics. Or in the alumni directory of the university. Or—or—"
But the more he thought about it, the more sinister it seemed. His laboratory address was available, but why should POSAT take the trouble of looking it up? Some prudent impulse had led him to withhold that particular bit of information, yet now, for some reason of their own, POSAT had unearthed the information.
His wife's words echoed in his mind, "Could they be a spy ring? Subversive agents?"
Don shook his head as though to clear away the confusion. His conservative habit of thought made him reject that explanation as too melodramatic.
At least one decision was easier to reach because of his doubts. Now he knew he had to keep his appointment with the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
He scribbled a memo to the department office stating that he would not be at work on Tuesday.
At first Don Alford had some trouble locating the POSAT headquarters. It seemed to him that the block in which the street number would fall was occupied entirely by a huge sprawling warehouse, of concrete construction, and almost entirely windowless. It was recessed from the street in several places to make room for the small, shabby buildings of a wholesale pharmacy, a printer's plant, an upholstering shop, and was also indented by alleys lined with loading platforms.
It was at the back of one of the alleys that he finally found a door marked with the now familiar emblem of POSAT.
He opened the frosted glass door with a feeling of misgiving, and faced a dark flight of stairs leading to the upper floor. Somewhere above him a buzzer sounded, evidently indicating his arrival. He picked his way up through the murky stairwell.
The reception room was hardly a cheerful place, with its battered desk facing the view of the empty alley, and a film of dust obscuring the pattern of the gray-looking wallpaper and worn rug. But the light of the summer afternoon filtering through the window scattered the gloom somewhat, enough to help Don doubt that he would find the menace here that he had come to expect.
The girl addressing envelopes at the desk looked very ordinary. Not the Mata-Hari type , thought Don, with an inward chuckle at his own suspicions. He handed her the letter.
She smiled. "We've been expecting you, Dr. Alford. If you'll just step into the next room—"
She opened a door opposite the stairwell, and Don stepped through it.
The sight of the luxurious room before him struck his eyes with the shock of a dentist's drill, so great was the contrast between it and the shabby reception room. For a moment Don had difficulty breathing. The rug—Don had seen one like it before, but it had been in a museum. The paintings on the walls, ornately framed in gilt carving, were surely old masters—of the Renaissance period, he guessed. Although he recognized none of the pictures, he felt that he could almost name the artists. That glowing one near the corner would probably be a Titian. Or was it Tintorretto? He regretted for a moment the lost opportunities of his college days, when he had passed up Art History in favor of Operational Circuit Analysis.
The girl opened a filing cabinet, the front of which was set flush with the wall, and, selecting a folder from it, disappeared through another door.
Don sprang to examine the picture near the corner. It was hung at eye level—that is, at the eye level of the average person. Don had to bend over a bit to see it properly. He searched for a signature. Apparently there was none. But did artists sign their pictures back in those days? He wished he knew more about such things.
Each of the paintings was individually lighted by a fluorescent tube held on brackets directly above it. As Don straightened up from his scrutiny of the picture, he inadvertently hit his head against the light. The tube, dislodged from its brackets, fell to the rug with a muffled thud.
Now I've done it! thought Don with dismay. But at least the tube hadn't shattered.
In fact—it was still glowing brightly! His eyes registered the fact, even while his mind refused to believe it. He raised his eyes to the brackets. They were simple pieces of solid hardware designed to support the tube.
There were no wires!
Don picked up the slender, glowing cylinder and held it between trembling fingers. Although it was delivering as much light as a two or three hundred watt bulb, it was cool to the touch. He examined it minutely. There was no possibility of concealed batteries.
The thumping of his heart was caused not by the fact that he had never seen a similar tube before, but because he had. He had never held one in his hands, though. The ones which his company had produced as experimental models had been unsuccessful at converting all of the radioactivity into light, and had, of necessity, been heavily shielded.
Right now, two of his colleagues back in the laboratory would still be searching for the right combination of fluorescent material and radioactive salts with which to make the simple, efficient, self-contained lighting unit that he was holding in his hand at this moment!
But this is impossible! he thought. We're the only company that's working on this, and it's secret. There can't be any in actual production!
And even if one had actually been successfully produced, how would it have fallen into the possession of POSAT, an Ancient Secret Society, The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth?
The conviction grew in Don's mind that here was something much deeper and more sinister than he would be able to cope with. He should have asked for help, should have stated his suspicions to the police or the F.B.I. Even now—
With sudden decision, he thrust the lighting tube into his pocket and stepped swiftly to the outer door. He grasped the knob and shook it impatiently when it stuck and refused to turn. He yanked at it. His impatience changed to panic. It was locked!
A soft sound behind him made him whirl about. The secretary had entered again through the inner door. She glanced at the vacant light bracket, then significantly at his bulging pocket. Her gaze was still as bland and innocent as when he had entered, but to Don she no longer seemed ordinary. Her very calmness in the face of his odd actions was distressingly ominous.
"Our Grand Chairman will see you now," she said in a quiet voice.
Don realized that he was half crouched in the position of an animal expecting attack. He straightened up with what dignity he could manage to find.
She opened the inner door again and Don followed her into what he supposed to be the office of the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
Instead he found himself on a balcony along the side of a vast room, which must have been the interior of the warehouse that he had noted outside. The girl motioned him toward the far end of the balcony, where a frosted glass door marked the office of the Grand Chairman.
But Don could not will his legs to move. His heart beat at the sight of the room below him. It was a laboratory, but a laboratory the like of which he had never seen before. Most of the equipment was unfamiliar to him. Whatever he did recognize was of a different design than he had ever used, and there was something about it that convinced him that this was more advanced. The men who bent busily over their instruments did not raise their eyes to the figures on the balcony.
"Good Lord!" Don gasped. "That's an atomic reactor down there!" There could be no doubt about it, even though he could see it only obscurely through the bluish-green plastic shielding it.
His thoughts were so clamorous that he hardly realized that he had spoken aloud, or that the door at the end of the balcony had opened.
He was only dimly aware of the approaching footsteps as he speculated wildly on the nature of the shielding material. What could be so dense that only an inch would provide adequate shielding and yet remain semitransparent?
His scientist's mind applauded the genius who had developed it, even as the alarming conviction grew that he wouldn't—couldn't—be allowed to leave here any more. Surely no man would be allowed to leave this place alive to tell the fantastic story to the world!
"Hello, Don," said a quiet voice beside him. "It's good to see you again."
"Dr. Crandon!" he heard his own voice reply. " You're the Grand Chairman of POSAT?"
He felt betrayed and sick at heart. The very voice with which Crandon had spoken conjured up visions of quiet lecture halls and his own youthful excitement at the masterful and orderly disclosure of scientific facts. To find him here in this mad and treacherous place—didn't anything make sense any longer?
"I think we have rather abused you, Don," Dr. Crandon continued. His voice sounded so gentle that Don found it hard to think there was any evil in it. "I can see that you are suspicious of us, and—yes—afraid."
Don stared at the scene below him. After his initial glance to confirm his identification of Crandon, Don could not bear to look at him.
Crandon's voice suddenly hardened, became abrupt. "You're partly right about us, of course. I hate to think how many laws this organization has broken. Don't condemn us yet, though. You'll be a member yourself before the day is over."
Don was shocked by such confidence in his corruptibility.
"What do you use?" he asked bitterly. "Drugs? Hypnosis?"
Crandon sighed. "I forgot how little you know, Don. I have a long story to tell you. You'll find it hard to believe at first. But try to trust me. Try to believe me, as you once did. When I say that much of what POSAT does is illegal, I do not mean immoral. We're probably the most moral organization in the world. Get over the idea that you have stumbled into a den of thieves."
Crandon paused as though searching for words with which to continue.
"Did you notice the paintings in the waiting room as you entered?"
Don nodded, too bewildered to speak.
"They were donated by the founder of our Organization. They were part of his personal collection—which, incidentally, he bought from the artists themselves. He also designed the atomic reactor we use for power here in the laboratory."
"Then the pictures are modern," said Don, aware that his mouth was hanging open foolishly. "I thought one was a Titian—"
"It is," said Crandon. "We have several original Titians, although I really don't know too much about them."
"But how could a man alive today buy paintings from an artist of the Renaissance?"
"He is not alive today. POSAT is actually what our advertisements claim—an ancient secret society. Our founder has been dead for over four centuries."
"But you said that he designed your atomic reactor."
"Yes. This particular one has been in use for only twenty years, however."
Don's confusion was complete. Crandon looked at him kindly. "Let's start at the beginning," he said, and Don was back again in the classroom with the deep voice of Professor Crandon unfolding the pages of knowledge in clear and logical manner. "Four hundred years ago, in the time of the Italian Renaissance, a man lived who was a super-genius. His was the kind of incredible mentality that appears not in every generation, or even every century, but once in thousands of years.
"Probably the man who invented what we call the phonetic alphabet was one like him. That man lived seven thousand years ago in Mesopotamia, and his discovery was so original, so far from the natural course of man's thinking, that not once in the intervening seven thousand years has that device been rediscovered. It still exists only in the civilizations to which it has been passed on directly.
"The super-genius who was our founder was not a semanticist. He was a physical scientist and mathematician. Starting with the meager heritage that existed in these fields in his time, he began tackling physical puzzles one by one. Sitting in his study, using as his principal tool his own great mind, he invented calculus, developed the quantum theory of light, moved on to electromagnetic radiation and what we call Maxwell's equations—although, of course, he antedated Maxwell by centuries—developed the special and general theories of relativity, the tool of wave mechanics, and finally, toward the end of his life, he mathematically derived the packing fraction that describes the binding energy of nuclei—"
"But it can't be done," Don objected. "It's an observed phenomenon. It hasn't been derived." Every conservative instinct that he possessed cried out against this impossible fantasy. And yet—there sat the reactor, sheathed in its strange shield. Crandon watched the direction of Don's glance.
"Yes, the reactor," said Crandon. "He built one like it. It confirmed his theories. His calculations showed him something else too. He saw the destructive potentialities of an atomic explosion. He himself could not have built an atomic bomb; he didn't have the facilities. But his knowledge would have enabled other men to do so. He looked about him. He saw a political setup of warring principalities, rival states, intrigue, and squabbles over political power. Giving the men of his time atomic energy would have been like handing a baby a firecracker with a lighted fuse.
"What should he have done? Let his secrets die with him? He didn't think so. No one else in his age could have derived the knowledge that he did. But it was an age of brilliant men. Leonardo. Michelangelo. There were men capable of learning his science, even as men can learn it today. He gathered some of them together and founded this society. It served two purposes. It perpetuated his discoveries and at the same time it maintained the greatest secrecy about them. He urged that the secrets be kept until the time when men could use them safely. The other purpose was to make that time come about as soon as possible."
Crandon looked at Don's unbelieving face. "How can I make you see that it is the truth? Think of the eons that man or manlike creatures have walked the Earth. Think what a small fraction of that time is four hundred years. Is it so strange that atomic energy was discovered a little early, by this displacement in time that is so tiny after all?"
"But by one man," Don argued.
Crandon shrugged. "Compared with him, Don, you and I are stupid men. So are the scientists who slowly plodded down the same road he had come, stumbling first on one truth and then the succeeding one. We know that inventions and discoveries do not occur at random. Each is based on the one that preceded it. We are all aware of the phenomenon of simultaneous invention. The path to truth is a straight one. It is only our own stupidity that makes it seem slow and tortuous.
"He merely followed the straight path," Crandon finished simply.
Don's incredulity thawed a little. It was not entirely beyond the realm of possibility.
But if it were true! A vast panorama of possible achievements spread before him.
"Four hundred years!" he murmured with awe. "You've had four hundred years head-start on the rest of the world! What wonders you must have uncovered in that time!"
"Our technical achievements may disappoint you," warned Crandon.
"Oh, they're way beyond anything that you are familiar with. You've undoubtedly noticed the shielding material on the reactor. That's a fairly recent development of our metallurgical department. There are other things in the laboratory that I can't even explain to you until you have caught up on the technical basis for understanding them.
"Our emphasis has not been on physical sciences, however, except as they contribute to our central project. We want to change civilization so that it can use physical science without disaster."
For a moment Don had been fired with enthusiasm. But at these words his heart sank.
"Then you've failed," he said bitterly. "In spite of centuries of advance warning, you've failed to change the rest of us enough to prevent us from trying to blow ourselves off the Earth. Here we are, still snarling and snapping at our neighbors' throats—and we've caught up with you. We have the atomic bomb. What's POSAT been doing all that time? Or have you found that human nature really can't be changed?"
"Come with me," said Crandon.
He led the way along the narrow balcony to another door, then down a steep flight of stairs. He opened a door at the bottom, and Don saw what must have been the world's largest computing machine.
"This is our answer," said Crandon. "Oh, rather, it's the tool by which we find our answer. For two centuries we have been working on the newest of the sciences—that of human motivation. Soon we will be ready to put some of our new knowledge to work. But you are right in one respect, we are working now against time. We must hurry if we are to save our civilization. That's why you are here. We have work for you to do. Will you join us, Don?"
"But why the hocus-pocus?" asked Don. "Why do you hide behind such a weird front as POSAT? Why do you advertise in magazines and invite just anyone to join? Why didn't you approach me directly, if you have work for me to do? And if you really have the answers to our problems, why haven't you gathered together all the scientists in the world to work on this project—before it's too late?"
Crandon took a sighing breath. "How I wish that we could do just that! But you forget that one of the prime purposes of our organization is to maintain the secrecy of our discoveries until they can be safely disclosed. We must be absolutely certain that anyone who enters this building will have joined POSAT before he leaves. What if we approached the wrong scientist? Centuries of accomplishment might be wasted if they attempted either to reveal it or to exploit it!
"Do you recall the questionnaires that you answered before you were invited here? We fed the answers to this machine and, as a result, we know more about how you will react in any given situation than you do yourself. Even if you should fail to join us, our secrets would be safe with you. Of course, we miss a few of the scientists who might be perfect material for our organization. You'd be surprised, though, at how clever our advertisements are at attracting exactly the men we want. With the help of our new science, we have baited our ads well, and we know how to maintain interest. Curiosity is, to the men we want, a powerful motivator."
"But what about the others?" asked Don. "There must be hundreds of applicants who would be of no use to you at all."
"Oh, yes," replied Crandon. "There are the mild religious fanatics. We enroll them as members and keep them interested by sending pamphlets in line with their interests. We even let them contribute to our upkeep, if they seem to want to. They never get beyond the reception room if they come to call on us. But they are additional people through whom we can act when the time finally comes.
"There are also the desperate people who try POSAT as a last resort—lost ones who can't find their direction in life. For them we put into practice some of our newly won knowledge. We rehabilitate them—anonymously, of course. Even find jobs or patch up homes. It's good practice for us.
"I think I've answered most of your questions, Don. But you haven't answered mine. Will you join us?"
Don looked solemnly at the orderly array of the computer before him. He had one more question.
"Will it really work? Can it actually tell you how to motivate the stubborn, quarrelsome, opinionated people one finds on this Earth?"
Crandon smiled. "You're here, aren't you?"
Don nodded, his tense features relaxing.
"Enroll me as a member," he said.
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What is the relationship between Dark and Sim?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about THE CREATURES THAT TIME FORGOT by RAY BRADBURY.
Relevant chunks:
THE CREATURES THAT TIME FORGOT
By RAY BRADBURY
Mad, impossible world! Sun-blasted by day, cold-wracked by night—and life condensed by radiation into eight days! Sim eyed the Ship—if he only dared reach it and escape! ... but it was more than half an hour distant—the limit of life itself!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1946. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
During the night, Sim was born. He lay wailing upon the cold cave stones. His blood beat through him a thousand pulses each minute. He grew, steadily.
Into his mouth his mother with feverish hands put the food. The nightmare of living was begun. Almost instantly at birth his eyes grew alert, and then, without half understanding why, filled with bright, insistent terror. He gagged upon the food, choked and wailed. He looked about, blindly.
There was a thick fog. It cleared. The outlines of the cave appeared. And a man loomed up, insane and wild and terrible. A man with a dying face. Old, withered by winds, baked like adobe in the heat. The man was crouched in a far corner of the cave, his eyes whitening to one side of his face, listening to the far wind trumpeting up above on the frozen night planet.
Sim's mother, trembling, now and again, staring at the man, fed Sim pebble-fruits, valley-grasses and ice-nipples broken from the cavern entrances, and eating, eliminating, eating again, he grew larger, larger.
The man in the corner of the cave was his father! The man's eyes were all that was alive in his face. He held a crude stone dagger in his withered hands and his jaw hung loose and senseless.
Then, with a widening focus, Sim saw the old people sitting in the tunnel beyond this living quarter. And as he watched, they began to die.
Their agonies filled the cave. They melted like waxen images, their faces collapsed inward on their sharp bones, their teeth protruded. One minute their faces were mature, fairly smooth, alive, electric. The next minute a desication and burning away of their flesh occurred.
Sim thrashed in his mother's grasp. She held him. "No, no," she soothed him, quietly, earnestly, looking to see if this, too, would cause her husband to rise again.
With a soft swift padding of naked feet, Sim's father ran across the cave. Sim's mother screamed. Sim felt himself torn loose from her grasp. He fell upon the stones, rolling, shrieking with his new, moist lungs!
With a soft padding of naked feet Sim's father ran across the cave.
The webbed face of his father jerked over him, the knife was poised. It was like one of those prenatal nightmares he'd had while still in his mother's flesh. In the next few blazing, impossible instants questions flicked through his brain. The knife was high, suspended, ready to destroy him. But the whole question of life in this cave, the dying people, the withering and the insanity, surged through Sim's new, small head. How was it that he understood? A newborn child? Can a newborn child think, see, understand, interpret? No. It was wrong! It was impossible. Yet it was happening! To him. He had been alive an hour now. And in the next instant perhaps dead!
His mother flung herself upon the back of his father, and beat down the weapon. Sim caught the terrific backwash of emotion from both their conflicting minds. "Let me kill him!" shouted the father, breathing harshly, sobbingly. "What has he to live for?"
"No, no!" insisted the mother, and her body, frail and old as it was, stretched across the huge body of the father, tearing at his weapon.
"He must live! There may be a future for him! He may live longer than us, and be young!"
The father fell back against a stone crib. Lying there, staring, eyes glittering, Sim saw another figure inside that stone crib. A girl-child, quietly feeding itself, moving its delicate hands to procure food. His sister.
The mother wrenched the dagger from her husband's grasp, stood up, weeping and pushing back her cloud of stiffening gray hair. Her mouth trembled and jerked. "I'll kill you!" she said, glaring down at her husband. "Leave my children alone."
The old man spat tiredly, bitterly, and looked vacantly into the stone crib, at the little girl. "One-eighth of her life's over, already," he gasped. "And she doesn't know it. What's the use?"
As Sim watched, his own mother seemed to shift and take a tortured, smoke-like form. The thin bony face broke out into a maze of wrinkles. She was shaken with pain and had to sit by him, shuddering and cuddling the knife to her shriveled breasts. She, like the old people in the tunnel, was aging, dying.
Sim cried steadily. Everywhere he looked was horror. A mind came to meet his own. Instinctively he glanced toward the stone crib. Dark, his sister, returned his glance. Their minds brushed like straying fingers. He relaxed somewhat. He began to learn.
The father sighed, shut his lids down over his green eyes. "Feed the child," he said, exhaustedly. "Hurry. It is almost dawn and it is our last day of living, woman. Feed him. Make him grow."
Sim quieted, and images, out of the terror, floated to him.
This was a planet next to the sun. The nights burned with cold, the days were like torches of fire. It was a violent, impossible world. The people lived in the cliffs to escape the incredible ice and the day of flame. Only at dawn and sunset was the air breath-sweet, flower-strong, and then the cave peoples brought their children out into a stony, barren valley. At dawn the ice thawed into creeks and rivers, at sunset the day-fires died and cooled. In the intervals of even, livable temperature the people lived, ran, played, loved, free of the caverns; all life on the planet jumped, burst into life. Plants grew instantly, birds were flung like pellets across the sky. Smaller, legged animal life rushed frantically through the rocks; everything tried to get its living down in the brief hour of respite.
It was an unbearable planet. Sim understood this, a matter of hours after birth. Racial memory bloomed in him. He would live his entire life in the caves, with two hours a day outside. Here, in stone channels of air he would talk, talk incessantly with his people, sleep never, think, think and lie upon his back, dreaming; but never sleeping.
And he would live exactly eight days.
The violence of this thought evacuated his bowels. Eight days. Eight short days. It was wrong, impossible, but a fact. Even while in his mother's flesh some racial knowledge had told him he was being formed rapidly, shaped and propelled out swiftly.
Birth was quick as a knife. Childhood was over in a flash. Adolescence was a sheet of lightning. Manhood was a dream, maturity a myth, old age an inescapably quick reality, death a swift certainty.
Eight days from now he'd stand half-blind, withering, dying, as his father now stood, staring uselessly at his own wife and child.
This day was an eighth part of his total life! He must enjoy every second of it. He must search his parents' thoughts for knowledge.
Because in a few hours they'd be dead.
This was so impossibly unfair. Was this all of life? In his prenatal state hadn't he dreamed of long lives, valleys not of blasted stone but green foliage and temperate clime? Yes! And if he'd dreamed then there must be truth in the visions. How could he seek and find the long life? Where? And how could he accomplish a life mission that huge and depressing in eight short, vanishing days?
How had his people gotten into such a condition?
As if at a button pressed, he saw an image. Metal seeds, blown across space from a distant green world, fighting with long flames, crashing on this bleak planet. From their shattered hulls tumble men and women.
When? Long ago. Ten thousand days. The crash victims hid in the cliffs from the sun. Fire, ice and floods washed away the wreckage of the huge metal seeds. The victims were shaped and beaten like iron upon a forge. Solar radiations drenched them. Their pulses quickened, two hundred, five hundred, a thousand beats a minute. Their skins thickened, their blood changed. Old age came rushing. Children were born in the caves. Swifter, swifter, swifter the process. Like all this world's wild life, the men and women from the crash lived and died in a week, leaving children to do likewise.
So this is life, thought Sim. It was not spoken in his mind, for he knew no words, he knew only images, old memory, an awareness, a telepathy that could penetrate flesh, rock, metal. So I'm the five thousandth in a long line of futile sons? What can I do to save myself from dying eight days from now? Is there escape?
His eyes widened, another image came to focus.
Beyond this valley of cliffs, on a low mountain lay a perfect, unscarred metal seed. A metal ship, not rusted or touched by the avalanches. The ship was deserted, whole, intact. It was the only ship of all these that had crashed that was still a unit, still usable. But it was so far away. There was no one in it to help. This ship, then, on the far mountain, was the destiny toward which he would grow. There was his only hope of escape.
His mind flexed.
In this cliff, deep down in a confinement of solitude, worked a handful of scientists. To these men, when he was old enough and wise enough, he must go. They, too, dreamed of escape, of long life, of green valleys and temperate weathers. They, too, stared longingly at that distant ship upon its high mountain, its metal so perfect it did not rust or age.
The cliff groaned.
Sim's father lifted his eroded, lifeless face.
"Dawn's coming," he said.
II
Morning relaxed the mighty granite cliff muscles. It was the time of the Avalanche.
The tunnels echoed to running bare feet. Adults, children pushed with eager, hungry eyes toward the outside dawn. From far out, Sim heard a rumble of rock, a scream, a silence. Avalanches fell into valley. Stones that had been biding their time, not quite ready to fall, for a million years let go their bulks, and where they had begun their journey as single boulders they smashed upon the valley floor in a thousand shrapnels and friction-heated nuggets.
Every morning at least one person was caught in the downpour.
The cliff people dared the avalanches. It added one more excitement to their lives, already too short, too headlong, too dangerous.
Sim felt himself seized up by his father. He was carried brusquely down the tunnel for a thousand yards, to where the daylight appeared. There was a shining insane light in his father's eyes. Sim could not move. He sensed what was going to happen. Behind his father, his mother hurried, bringing with her the little sister, Dark. "Wait! Be careful!" she cried to her husband.
Sim felt his father crouch, listening.
High in the cliff was a tremor, a shivering.
"Now!" bellowed his father, and leaped out.
An avalanche fell down at them!
Sim had accelerated impressions of plunging walls, dust, confusion. His mother screamed! There was a jolting, a plunging.
With one last step, Sim's father hurried him forward into the day. The avalanche thundered behind him. The mouth of the cave, where mother and Dark stood back out of the way, was choked with rubble and two boulders that weighed a hundred pounds each.
The storm thunder of the avalanche passed away to a trickle of sand. Sim's father burst out into laughter. "Made it! By the Gods! Made it alive!" And he looked scornfully at the cliff and spat. "Pagh!"
Mother and sister Dark struggled through the rubble. She cursed her husband. "Fool! You might have killed Sim!"
"I may yet," retorted the father.
Sim was not listening. He was fascinated with the remains of an avalanche afront of the next tunnel. A blood stain trickled out from under a rise of boulders, soaking into the ground. There was nothing else to be seen. Someone else had lost the game.
Dark ran ahead on lithe, supple feet, naked and certain.
The valley air was like a wine filtered between mountains. The heaven was a restive blue; not the pale scorched atmosphere of full day, nor the bloated, bruised black-purple of night, a-riot with sickly shining stars.
This was a tide pool. A place where waves of varying and violent temperatures struck, receded. Now the tide pool was quiet, cool, and its life moved abroad.
Laughter! Far away, Sim heard it. Why laughter? How could any of his people find time for laughing? Perhaps later he would discover why.
The valley suddenly blushed with impulsive color. Plant-life, thawing in the precipitant dawn, shoved out from most unexpected sources. It flowered as you watched. Pale green tendrils appeared on scoured rocks. Seconds later, ripe globes of fruit twitched upon the blade-tips. Father gave Sim over to mother and harvested the momentary, volatile crop, thrust scarlet, blue, yellow fruits into a fur sack which hung at his waist. Mother tugged at the moist new grasses, laid them on Sim's tongue.
His senses were being honed to a fine edge. He stored knowledge thirstily. He understood love, marriage, customs, anger, pity, rage, selfishness, shadings and subtleties, realities and reflections. One thing suggested another. The sight of green plant life whirled his mind like a gyroscope, seeking balance in a world where lack of time for explanations made a mind seek and interpret on its own. The soft burden of food gave him knowledge of his system, of energy, of movement. Like a bird newly cracking its way from a shell, he was almost a unit, complete, all-knowing. Heredity had done all this for him. He grew excited with his ability.
They walked, mother, father and the two children, smelling the smells, watching the birds bounce from wall to wall of the valley like scurrying pebbles and suddenly the father said a strange thing:
"Remember?"
Remember what? Sim lay cradled. Was it any effort for them to remember when they'd lived only seven days!
The husband and wife looked at each other.
"Was it only three days ago?" said the woman, her body shaking, her eyes closing to think. "I can't believe it. It is so unfair." She sobbed, then drew her hand across her face and bit her parched lips. The wind played at her gray hair. "Now is my turn to cry. An hour ago it was you!"
"An hour is half a life."
"Come," she took her husband's arm. "Let us look at everything, because it will be our last looking."
"The sun'll be up in a few minutes," said the old man. "We must turn back now."
"Just one more moment," pleaded the woman.
"The sun will catch us."
"Let it catch me then!"
"You don't mean that."
"I mean nothing, nothing at all," cried the woman.
The sun was coming fast. The green in the valley burnt away. Searing wind blasted from over the cliffs. Far away where sun bolts hammered battlements of cliff, the huge stone faces shook their contents; those avalanches not already powdered down, were now released and fell like mantles.
"Dark!" shouted the father. The girl sprang over the warm floor of the valley, answering, her hair a black flag behind her. Hands full of green fruits, she joined them.
The sun rimmed the horizon with flame, the air convulsed dangerously with it, and whistled.
The cave people bolted, shouting, picking up their fallen children, bearing vast loads of fruit and grass with them back to their deep hideouts. In moments the valley was bare. Except for one small child someone had forgotten. He was running far out on the flatness, but he was not strong enough, and the engulfing heat was drifting down from the cliffs even as he was half across the valley.
Flowers were burnt into effigies, grasses sucked back into rocks like singed snakes, flower seeds whirled and fell in the sudden furnace blast of wind, sown far into gullies and crannies, ready to blossom at sunset tonight, and then go to seed and die again.
Sim's father watched that child running, alone, out on the floor of the valley. He and his wife and Dark and Sim were safe in the mouth of their tunnel.
"He'll never make it," said father. "Do not watch him, woman. It's not a good thing to watch."
They turned away. All except Sim, whose eyes had caught a glint of metal far away. His heart hammered in him, and his eyes blurred. Far away, atop a low mountain, one of those metal seeds from space reflected a dazzling ripple of light! It was like one of his intra-embryo dreams fulfilled! A metal space seed, intact, undamaged, lying on a mountain! There was his future! There was his hope for survival! There was where he would go in a few days, when he was—strange thought—a grown man!
The sun plunged into the valley like molten lava.
The little running child screamed, the sun burned, and the screaming stopped.
Sim's mother walked painfully, with sudden age, down the tunnel, paused, reached up, broke off two last icicles that had formed during the night. She handed one to her husband, kept the other. "We will drink one last toast. To you, to the children."
"To you ," he nodded to her. "To the children." They lifted the icicles. The warmth melted the ice down into their thirsty mouths.
All day the sun seemed to blaze and erupt into the valley. Sim could not see it, but the vivid pictorials in his parents' minds were sufficient evidence of the nature of the day fire. The light ran like mercury, sizzling and roasting the caves, poking inward, but never penetrating deeply enough. It lighted the caves. It made the hollows of the cliff comfortably warm.
Sim fought to keep his parents young. But no matter how hard he fought with mind and image, they became like mummies before him. His father seemed to dissolve from one stage of oldness to another. This is what will happen to me soon, though Sim in terror.
Sim grew upon himself. He felt the digestive-eliminatory movements of his body. He was fed every minute, he was continually swallowing, feeding. He began to fit words to images and processes. Such a word was love. It was not an abstraction, but a process, a stir of breath, a smell of morning air, a flutter of heart, the curve of arm holding him, the look in the suspended face of his mother. He saw the processes, then searched behind her suspended face and there was the word, in her brain, ready to use. His throat prepared to speak. Life was pushing him, rushing him along toward oblivion.
He sensed the expansion of his fingernails, the adjustments of his cells, the profusion of his hair, the multiplication of his bones and sinew, the grooving of the soft pale wax of his brain. His brain at birth as clear as a circle of ice, innocent, unmarked, was, an instant later, as if hit with a thrown rock, cracked and marked and patterned in a million crevices of thought and discovery.
His sister, Dark, ran in and out with other little hothouse children, forever eating. His mother trembled over him, not eating, she had no appetite, her eyes were webbed shut.
"Sunset," said his father, at last.
The day was over. The light faded, a wind sounded.
His mother arose. "I want to see the outside world once more ... just once more...." She stared blindly, shivering.
His father's eyes were shut, he lay against the wall.
"I cannot rise," he whispered faintly. "I cannot."
"Dark!" The mother croaked, the girl came running. "Here," and Sim was handed to the girl. "Hold to Sim, Dark, feed him, care for him." She gave Sim one last fondling touch.
Dark said not a word, holding Sim, her great green eyes shining wetly.
"Go now," said the mother. "Take him out into the sunset time. Enjoy yourselves. Pick foods, eat. Play."
Dark walked away without looking back. Sim twisted in her grasp, looking over her shoulder with unbelieving, tragic eyes. He cried out and somehow summoned from his lips the first word of his existence.
"Why...?"
He saw his mother stiffen. "The child spoke!"
"Aye," said his father. "Did you hear what he said?"
"I heard," said the mother quietly.
The last thing Sim saw of his living parents was his mother weakly, swayingly, slowly moving across the floor to lie beside her silent husband. That was the last time he ever saw them move.
IV
The night came and passed and then started the second day.
The bodies of all those who had died during the night were carried in a funeral procession to the top of a small hill. The procession was long, the bodies numerous.
Dark walked in the procession, holding the newly walking Sim by one hand. Only an hour before dawn Sim had learned to walk.
At the top of the hill, Sim saw once again the far off metal seed. Nobody ever looked at it, or spoke of it. Why? Was there some reason? Was it a mirage? Why did they not run toward it? Worship it? Try to get to it and fly away into space?
The funeral words were spoken. The bodies were placed upon the ground where the sun, in a few minutes, would cremate them.
The procession then turned and ran down the hill, eager to have their few minutes of free time running and playing and laughing in the sweet air.
Dark and Sim, chattering like birds, feeding among the rocks, exchanged what they knew of life. He was in his second day, she in her third. They were driven, as always, by the mercurial speed of their lives.
Another piece of his life opened wide.
Fifty young men ran down from the cliffs, holding sharp stones and rock daggers in their thick hands. Shouting, they ran off toward distant black, low lines of small rock cliffs.
"War!"
The thought stood in Sim's brain. It shocked and beat at him. These men were running to fight, to kill, over there in those small black cliffs where other people lived.
But why? Wasn't life short enough without fighting, killing?
From a great distance he heard the sound of conflict, and it made his stomach cold. "Why, Dark, why?"
Dark didn't know. Perhaps they would understand tomorrow. Now, there was the business of eating to sustain and support their lives. Watching Dark was like seeing a lizard forever flickering its pink tongue, forever hungry.
Pale children ran on all sides of them. One beetle-like boy scuttled up the rocks, knocking Sim aside, to take from him a particularly luscious red berry he had found growing under an outcrop.
The child ate hastily of the fruit before Sim could gain his feet. Then Sim hurled himself unsteadily, the two of them fell in a ridiculous jumble, rolling, until Dark pried them, squalling, apart.
Sim bled. A part of him stood off, like a god, and said, "This should not be. Children should not be this way. It is wrong!"
Dark slapped the little intruding boy away. "Get on!" she cried.
"What's your name, bad one?"
"Chion!" laughed the boy. "Chion, Chion, Chion!"
Sim glared at him with all the ferocity in his small, unskilled features. He choked. This was his enemy. It was as if he'd waited for an enemy of person as well as scene. He had already understood the avalanches, the heat, the cold, the shortness of life, but these were things of places, of scene—mute, extravagant manifestations of unthinking nature, not motivated save by gravity and radiation. Here, now, in this stridulent Chion he recognized a thinking enemy!
Chion darted off, turned at a distance, tauntingly crying:
"Tomorrow I will be big enough to kill you!"
And he vanished around a rock.
More children ran, giggling, by Sim. Which of them would be friends, enemies? How could friends and enemies come about in this impossible, quick life time? There was no time to make either, was there?
Dark, as if knowing his thoughts, drew him away. As they searched for desired foods, she whispered fiercely in his ear. "Enemies are made over things like stolen foods; gifts of long grasses make friends. Enemies come, too, from opinions and thoughts. In five seconds you've made an enemy for life. Life's so short enemies must be made quickly." And she laughed with an irony strange for one so young, who was growing older before her rightful time. "You must fight to protect yourself. Others, superstitious ones, will try killing you. There is a belief, a ridiculous belief, that if one kills another, the murderer partakes of the life energy of the slain, and therefore will live an extra day. You see? As long as that is believed, you're in danger."
But Sim was not listening. Bursting from a flock of delicate girls who tomorrow would be tall, quieter, and who day after that would gain breasts and the next day take husbands, Sim caught sight of one small girl whose hair was a violet blue flame.
She ran past, brushed Sim, their bodies touched. Her eyes, white as silver coins, shone at him. He knew then that he'd found a friend, a love, a wife, one who'd a week from now lie with him atop the funeral pyre as sunlight undressed their flesh from bone.
Only the glance, but it held them in mid-motion, one instant.
"Your name?" he shouted after her.
"Lyte!" she called laughingly back.
"I'm Sim," he answered, confused and bewildered.
"Sim!" she repeated it, flashing on. "I'll remember!"
Dark nudged his ribs. "Here, eat ," she said to the distracted boy.
"Eat or you'll never get big enough to catch her."
From nowhere, Chion appeared, running by. "Lyte!" he mocked, dancing malevolently along and away. "Lyte! I'll remember Lyte, too!"
Dark stood tall and reed slender, shaking her dark ebony clouds of hair, sadly. "I see your life before you, little Sim. You'll need weapons soon to fight for this Lyte one. Now, hurry—the sun's coming!"
They ran back to the caves.
Question:
What is the relationship between Dark and Sim?
Answer:
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[
"Dark is the older sister to Sim. When both of their parents die from old age, on the eighth day of their existence, Dark takes over as a carrying role for Sim. She tries her best to impart knowledge to him about friends and enemies. Noticing the interactions Sim is having with other kids his age, she warns him about the violence that his future surely holds due to a new enemy. While she is not his mother and was not born much before him, she does take a protective role. She makes sure he is fed and defends him when he is being bullied. ",
"Dark and Sim are brother and sister. They have a one-day difference, which is a lot on the planet. As other children, they are constantly eating to get knowledge. While the parents are alive, the two are too little to be close. When the parents die, the leave Dark to take care for Sim. She teaches him what she already knows and they share their thoughts about the knowledge they gain. They become really close during the day without parents. Dark is a friend, while Sim already has enemies. She warns her brother and says him what he should do. ",
"Dark and Sim are siblings, Dark being one day older than Sim. Even when Sim is just born, he is able to see Dark and feel a connection with her, describing the feeling of their minds brushing. As Sim grows, he watches Dark model life for him. As they play in the valley, he notices the way she interacts with other children, and watches her eat in the cave. Though Dark is only one day older than Sim, time moves quickly, and she eventually must care for him when their parents die. She acts as a motherly figure to him, explaining life and making sure he eats and is protected.",
"Dark and Sim have a good sibling relationship. Dark is one day older than Sim, therefore making her age even faster than him. Before she dies, their mother tells Dark to look after Sim because he is younger. When their parents die, she holds Sim and cries. However, she does not disobey her parents and goes when they tell her to go play. Dark also does not let go of Sim, even when he tries to twist out of her grasp. She holds his hand during the funeral procession, and they stick together afterward. They chatter like birds, feed among the rocks, and exchange what they know about life. Later, Dark tries to break Chion apart from Sim and tells her brother that these enemies are made over small things such as food. She says that he must eat in order to defend himself and also catch up to Lyte. Dark is sad that her brother may very well have to fight for Lyte, so she tells him that he needs weapons. She worries a lot for her brother and always looks out for him."
] |
63874
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THE CREATURES THAT TIME FORGOT
By RAY BRADBURY
Mad, impossible world! Sun-blasted by day, cold-wracked by night—and life condensed by radiation into eight days! Sim eyed the Ship—if he only dared reach it and escape! ... but it was more than half an hour distant—the limit of life itself!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1946. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
During the night, Sim was born. He lay wailing upon the cold cave stones. His blood beat through him a thousand pulses each minute. He grew, steadily.
Into his mouth his mother with feverish hands put the food. The nightmare of living was begun. Almost instantly at birth his eyes grew alert, and then, without half understanding why, filled with bright, insistent terror. He gagged upon the food, choked and wailed. He looked about, blindly.
There was a thick fog. It cleared. The outlines of the cave appeared. And a man loomed up, insane and wild and terrible. A man with a dying face. Old, withered by winds, baked like adobe in the heat. The man was crouched in a far corner of the cave, his eyes whitening to one side of his face, listening to the far wind trumpeting up above on the frozen night planet.
Sim's mother, trembling, now and again, staring at the man, fed Sim pebble-fruits, valley-grasses and ice-nipples broken from the cavern entrances, and eating, eliminating, eating again, he grew larger, larger.
The man in the corner of the cave was his father! The man's eyes were all that was alive in his face. He held a crude stone dagger in his withered hands and his jaw hung loose and senseless.
Then, with a widening focus, Sim saw the old people sitting in the tunnel beyond this living quarter. And as he watched, they began to die.
Their agonies filled the cave. They melted like waxen images, their faces collapsed inward on their sharp bones, their teeth protruded. One minute their faces were mature, fairly smooth, alive, electric. The next minute a desication and burning away of their flesh occurred.
Sim thrashed in his mother's grasp. She held him. "No, no," she soothed him, quietly, earnestly, looking to see if this, too, would cause her husband to rise again.
With a soft swift padding of naked feet, Sim's father ran across the cave. Sim's mother screamed. Sim felt himself torn loose from her grasp. He fell upon the stones, rolling, shrieking with his new, moist lungs!
With a soft padding of naked feet Sim's father ran across the cave.
The webbed face of his father jerked over him, the knife was poised. It was like one of those prenatal nightmares he'd had while still in his mother's flesh. In the next few blazing, impossible instants questions flicked through his brain. The knife was high, suspended, ready to destroy him. But the whole question of life in this cave, the dying people, the withering and the insanity, surged through Sim's new, small head. How was it that he understood? A newborn child? Can a newborn child think, see, understand, interpret? No. It was wrong! It was impossible. Yet it was happening! To him. He had been alive an hour now. And in the next instant perhaps dead!
His mother flung herself upon the back of his father, and beat down the weapon. Sim caught the terrific backwash of emotion from both their conflicting minds. "Let me kill him!" shouted the father, breathing harshly, sobbingly. "What has he to live for?"
"No, no!" insisted the mother, and her body, frail and old as it was, stretched across the huge body of the father, tearing at his weapon.
"He must live! There may be a future for him! He may live longer than us, and be young!"
The father fell back against a stone crib. Lying there, staring, eyes glittering, Sim saw another figure inside that stone crib. A girl-child, quietly feeding itself, moving its delicate hands to procure food. His sister.
The mother wrenched the dagger from her husband's grasp, stood up, weeping and pushing back her cloud of stiffening gray hair. Her mouth trembled and jerked. "I'll kill you!" she said, glaring down at her husband. "Leave my children alone."
The old man spat tiredly, bitterly, and looked vacantly into the stone crib, at the little girl. "One-eighth of her life's over, already," he gasped. "And she doesn't know it. What's the use?"
As Sim watched, his own mother seemed to shift and take a tortured, smoke-like form. The thin bony face broke out into a maze of wrinkles. She was shaken with pain and had to sit by him, shuddering and cuddling the knife to her shriveled breasts. She, like the old people in the tunnel, was aging, dying.
Sim cried steadily. Everywhere he looked was horror. A mind came to meet his own. Instinctively he glanced toward the stone crib. Dark, his sister, returned his glance. Their minds brushed like straying fingers. He relaxed somewhat. He began to learn.
The father sighed, shut his lids down over his green eyes. "Feed the child," he said, exhaustedly. "Hurry. It is almost dawn and it is our last day of living, woman. Feed him. Make him grow."
Sim quieted, and images, out of the terror, floated to him.
This was a planet next to the sun. The nights burned with cold, the days were like torches of fire. It was a violent, impossible world. The people lived in the cliffs to escape the incredible ice and the day of flame. Only at dawn and sunset was the air breath-sweet, flower-strong, and then the cave peoples brought their children out into a stony, barren valley. At dawn the ice thawed into creeks and rivers, at sunset the day-fires died and cooled. In the intervals of even, livable temperature the people lived, ran, played, loved, free of the caverns; all life on the planet jumped, burst into life. Plants grew instantly, birds were flung like pellets across the sky. Smaller, legged animal life rushed frantically through the rocks; everything tried to get its living down in the brief hour of respite.
It was an unbearable planet. Sim understood this, a matter of hours after birth. Racial memory bloomed in him. He would live his entire life in the caves, with two hours a day outside. Here, in stone channels of air he would talk, talk incessantly with his people, sleep never, think, think and lie upon his back, dreaming; but never sleeping.
And he would live exactly eight days.
The violence of this thought evacuated his bowels. Eight days. Eight short days. It was wrong, impossible, but a fact. Even while in his mother's flesh some racial knowledge had told him he was being formed rapidly, shaped and propelled out swiftly.
Birth was quick as a knife. Childhood was over in a flash. Adolescence was a sheet of lightning. Manhood was a dream, maturity a myth, old age an inescapably quick reality, death a swift certainty.
Eight days from now he'd stand half-blind, withering, dying, as his father now stood, staring uselessly at his own wife and child.
This day was an eighth part of his total life! He must enjoy every second of it. He must search his parents' thoughts for knowledge.
Because in a few hours they'd be dead.
This was so impossibly unfair. Was this all of life? In his prenatal state hadn't he dreamed of long lives, valleys not of blasted stone but green foliage and temperate clime? Yes! And if he'd dreamed then there must be truth in the visions. How could he seek and find the long life? Where? And how could he accomplish a life mission that huge and depressing in eight short, vanishing days?
How had his people gotten into such a condition?
As if at a button pressed, he saw an image. Metal seeds, blown across space from a distant green world, fighting with long flames, crashing on this bleak planet. From their shattered hulls tumble men and women.
When? Long ago. Ten thousand days. The crash victims hid in the cliffs from the sun. Fire, ice and floods washed away the wreckage of the huge metal seeds. The victims were shaped and beaten like iron upon a forge. Solar radiations drenched them. Their pulses quickened, two hundred, five hundred, a thousand beats a minute. Their skins thickened, their blood changed. Old age came rushing. Children were born in the caves. Swifter, swifter, swifter the process. Like all this world's wild life, the men and women from the crash lived and died in a week, leaving children to do likewise.
So this is life, thought Sim. It was not spoken in his mind, for he knew no words, he knew only images, old memory, an awareness, a telepathy that could penetrate flesh, rock, metal. So I'm the five thousandth in a long line of futile sons? What can I do to save myself from dying eight days from now? Is there escape?
His eyes widened, another image came to focus.
Beyond this valley of cliffs, on a low mountain lay a perfect, unscarred metal seed. A metal ship, not rusted or touched by the avalanches. The ship was deserted, whole, intact. It was the only ship of all these that had crashed that was still a unit, still usable. But it was so far away. There was no one in it to help. This ship, then, on the far mountain, was the destiny toward which he would grow. There was his only hope of escape.
His mind flexed.
In this cliff, deep down in a confinement of solitude, worked a handful of scientists. To these men, when he was old enough and wise enough, he must go. They, too, dreamed of escape, of long life, of green valleys and temperate weathers. They, too, stared longingly at that distant ship upon its high mountain, its metal so perfect it did not rust or age.
The cliff groaned.
Sim's father lifted his eroded, lifeless face.
"Dawn's coming," he said.
II
Morning relaxed the mighty granite cliff muscles. It was the time of the Avalanche.
The tunnels echoed to running bare feet. Adults, children pushed with eager, hungry eyes toward the outside dawn. From far out, Sim heard a rumble of rock, a scream, a silence. Avalanches fell into valley. Stones that had been biding their time, not quite ready to fall, for a million years let go their bulks, and where they had begun their journey as single boulders they smashed upon the valley floor in a thousand shrapnels and friction-heated nuggets.
Every morning at least one person was caught in the downpour.
The cliff people dared the avalanches. It added one more excitement to their lives, already too short, too headlong, too dangerous.
Sim felt himself seized up by his father. He was carried brusquely down the tunnel for a thousand yards, to where the daylight appeared. There was a shining insane light in his father's eyes. Sim could not move. He sensed what was going to happen. Behind his father, his mother hurried, bringing with her the little sister, Dark. "Wait! Be careful!" she cried to her husband.
Sim felt his father crouch, listening.
High in the cliff was a tremor, a shivering.
"Now!" bellowed his father, and leaped out.
An avalanche fell down at them!
Sim had accelerated impressions of plunging walls, dust, confusion. His mother screamed! There was a jolting, a plunging.
With one last step, Sim's father hurried him forward into the day. The avalanche thundered behind him. The mouth of the cave, where mother and Dark stood back out of the way, was choked with rubble and two boulders that weighed a hundred pounds each.
The storm thunder of the avalanche passed away to a trickle of sand. Sim's father burst out into laughter. "Made it! By the Gods! Made it alive!" And he looked scornfully at the cliff and spat. "Pagh!"
Mother and sister Dark struggled through the rubble. She cursed her husband. "Fool! You might have killed Sim!"
"I may yet," retorted the father.
Sim was not listening. He was fascinated with the remains of an avalanche afront of the next tunnel. A blood stain trickled out from under a rise of boulders, soaking into the ground. There was nothing else to be seen. Someone else had lost the game.
Dark ran ahead on lithe, supple feet, naked and certain.
The valley air was like a wine filtered between mountains. The heaven was a restive blue; not the pale scorched atmosphere of full day, nor the bloated, bruised black-purple of night, a-riot with sickly shining stars.
This was a tide pool. A place where waves of varying and violent temperatures struck, receded. Now the tide pool was quiet, cool, and its life moved abroad.
Laughter! Far away, Sim heard it. Why laughter? How could any of his people find time for laughing? Perhaps later he would discover why.
The valley suddenly blushed with impulsive color. Plant-life, thawing in the precipitant dawn, shoved out from most unexpected sources. It flowered as you watched. Pale green tendrils appeared on scoured rocks. Seconds later, ripe globes of fruit twitched upon the blade-tips. Father gave Sim over to mother and harvested the momentary, volatile crop, thrust scarlet, blue, yellow fruits into a fur sack which hung at his waist. Mother tugged at the moist new grasses, laid them on Sim's tongue.
His senses were being honed to a fine edge. He stored knowledge thirstily. He understood love, marriage, customs, anger, pity, rage, selfishness, shadings and subtleties, realities and reflections. One thing suggested another. The sight of green plant life whirled his mind like a gyroscope, seeking balance in a world where lack of time for explanations made a mind seek and interpret on its own. The soft burden of food gave him knowledge of his system, of energy, of movement. Like a bird newly cracking its way from a shell, he was almost a unit, complete, all-knowing. Heredity had done all this for him. He grew excited with his ability.
They walked, mother, father and the two children, smelling the smells, watching the birds bounce from wall to wall of the valley like scurrying pebbles and suddenly the father said a strange thing:
"Remember?"
Remember what? Sim lay cradled. Was it any effort for them to remember when they'd lived only seven days!
The husband and wife looked at each other.
"Was it only three days ago?" said the woman, her body shaking, her eyes closing to think. "I can't believe it. It is so unfair." She sobbed, then drew her hand across her face and bit her parched lips. The wind played at her gray hair. "Now is my turn to cry. An hour ago it was you!"
"An hour is half a life."
"Come," she took her husband's arm. "Let us look at everything, because it will be our last looking."
"The sun'll be up in a few minutes," said the old man. "We must turn back now."
"Just one more moment," pleaded the woman.
"The sun will catch us."
"Let it catch me then!"
"You don't mean that."
"I mean nothing, nothing at all," cried the woman.
The sun was coming fast. The green in the valley burnt away. Searing wind blasted from over the cliffs. Far away where sun bolts hammered battlements of cliff, the huge stone faces shook their contents; those avalanches not already powdered down, were now released and fell like mantles.
"Dark!" shouted the father. The girl sprang over the warm floor of the valley, answering, her hair a black flag behind her. Hands full of green fruits, she joined them.
The sun rimmed the horizon with flame, the air convulsed dangerously with it, and whistled.
The cave people bolted, shouting, picking up their fallen children, bearing vast loads of fruit and grass with them back to their deep hideouts. In moments the valley was bare. Except for one small child someone had forgotten. He was running far out on the flatness, but he was not strong enough, and the engulfing heat was drifting down from the cliffs even as he was half across the valley.
Flowers were burnt into effigies, grasses sucked back into rocks like singed snakes, flower seeds whirled and fell in the sudden furnace blast of wind, sown far into gullies and crannies, ready to blossom at sunset tonight, and then go to seed and die again.
Sim's father watched that child running, alone, out on the floor of the valley. He and his wife and Dark and Sim were safe in the mouth of their tunnel.
"He'll never make it," said father. "Do not watch him, woman. It's not a good thing to watch."
They turned away. All except Sim, whose eyes had caught a glint of metal far away. His heart hammered in him, and his eyes blurred. Far away, atop a low mountain, one of those metal seeds from space reflected a dazzling ripple of light! It was like one of his intra-embryo dreams fulfilled! A metal space seed, intact, undamaged, lying on a mountain! There was his future! There was his hope for survival! There was where he would go in a few days, when he was—strange thought—a grown man!
The sun plunged into the valley like molten lava.
The little running child screamed, the sun burned, and the screaming stopped.
Sim's mother walked painfully, with sudden age, down the tunnel, paused, reached up, broke off two last icicles that had formed during the night. She handed one to her husband, kept the other. "We will drink one last toast. To you, to the children."
"To you ," he nodded to her. "To the children." They lifted the icicles. The warmth melted the ice down into their thirsty mouths.
All day the sun seemed to blaze and erupt into the valley. Sim could not see it, but the vivid pictorials in his parents' minds were sufficient evidence of the nature of the day fire. The light ran like mercury, sizzling and roasting the caves, poking inward, but never penetrating deeply enough. It lighted the caves. It made the hollows of the cliff comfortably warm.
Sim fought to keep his parents young. But no matter how hard he fought with mind and image, they became like mummies before him. His father seemed to dissolve from one stage of oldness to another. This is what will happen to me soon, though Sim in terror.
Sim grew upon himself. He felt the digestive-eliminatory movements of his body. He was fed every minute, he was continually swallowing, feeding. He began to fit words to images and processes. Such a word was love. It was not an abstraction, but a process, a stir of breath, a smell of morning air, a flutter of heart, the curve of arm holding him, the look in the suspended face of his mother. He saw the processes, then searched behind her suspended face and there was the word, in her brain, ready to use. His throat prepared to speak. Life was pushing him, rushing him along toward oblivion.
He sensed the expansion of his fingernails, the adjustments of his cells, the profusion of his hair, the multiplication of his bones and sinew, the grooving of the soft pale wax of his brain. His brain at birth as clear as a circle of ice, innocent, unmarked, was, an instant later, as if hit with a thrown rock, cracked and marked and patterned in a million crevices of thought and discovery.
His sister, Dark, ran in and out with other little hothouse children, forever eating. His mother trembled over him, not eating, she had no appetite, her eyes were webbed shut.
"Sunset," said his father, at last.
The day was over. The light faded, a wind sounded.
His mother arose. "I want to see the outside world once more ... just once more...." She stared blindly, shivering.
His father's eyes were shut, he lay against the wall.
"I cannot rise," he whispered faintly. "I cannot."
"Dark!" The mother croaked, the girl came running. "Here," and Sim was handed to the girl. "Hold to Sim, Dark, feed him, care for him." She gave Sim one last fondling touch.
Dark said not a word, holding Sim, her great green eyes shining wetly.
"Go now," said the mother. "Take him out into the sunset time. Enjoy yourselves. Pick foods, eat. Play."
Dark walked away without looking back. Sim twisted in her grasp, looking over her shoulder with unbelieving, tragic eyes. He cried out and somehow summoned from his lips the first word of his existence.
"Why...?"
He saw his mother stiffen. "The child spoke!"
"Aye," said his father. "Did you hear what he said?"
"I heard," said the mother quietly.
The last thing Sim saw of his living parents was his mother weakly, swayingly, slowly moving across the floor to lie beside her silent husband. That was the last time he ever saw them move.
IV
The night came and passed and then started the second day.
The bodies of all those who had died during the night were carried in a funeral procession to the top of a small hill. The procession was long, the bodies numerous.
Dark walked in the procession, holding the newly walking Sim by one hand. Only an hour before dawn Sim had learned to walk.
At the top of the hill, Sim saw once again the far off metal seed. Nobody ever looked at it, or spoke of it. Why? Was there some reason? Was it a mirage? Why did they not run toward it? Worship it? Try to get to it and fly away into space?
The funeral words were spoken. The bodies were placed upon the ground where the sun, in a few minutes, would cremate them.
The procession then turned and ran down the hill, eager to have their few minutes of free time running and playing and laughing in the sweet air.
Dark and Sim, chattering like birds, feeding among the rocks, exchanged what they knew of life. He was in his second day, she in her third. They were driven, as always, by the mercurial speed of their lives.
Another piece of his life opened wide.
Fifty young men ran down from the cliffs, holding sharp stones and rock daggers in their thick hands. Shouting, they ran off toward distant black, low lines of small rock cliffs.
"War!"
The thought stood in Sim's brain. It shocked and beat at him. These men were running to fight, to kill, over there in those small black cliffs where other people lived.
But why? Wasn't life short enough without fighting, killing?
From a great distance he heard the sound of conflict, and it made his stomach cold. "Why, Dark, why?"
Dark didn't know. Perhaps they would understand tomorrow. Now, there was the business of eating to sustain and support their lives. Watching Dark was like seeing a lizard forever flickering its pink tongue, forever hungry.
Pale children ran on all sides of them. One beetle-like boy scuttled up the rocks, knocking Sim aside, to take from him a particularly luscious red berry he had found growing under an outcrop.
The child ate hastily of the fruit before Sim could gain his feet. Then Sim hurled himself unsteadily, the two of them fell in a ridiculous jumble, rolling, until Dark pried them, squalling, apart.
Sim bled. A part of him stood off, like a god, and said, "This should not be. Children should not be this way. It is wrong!"
Dark slapped the little intruding boy away. "Get on!" she cried.
"What's your name, bad one?"
"Chion!" laughed the boy. "Chion, Chion, Chion!"
Sim glared at him with all the ferocity in his small, unskilled features. He choked. This was his enemy. It was as if he'd waited for an enemy of person as well as scene. He had already understood the avalanches, the heat, the cold, the shortness of life, but these were things of places, of scene—mute, extravagant manifestations of unthinking nature, not motivated save by gravity and radiation. Here, now, in this stridulent Chion he recognized a thinking enemy!
Chion darted off, turned at a distance, tauntingly crying:
"Tomorrow I will be big enough to kill you!"
And he vanished around a rock.
More children ran, giggling, by Sim. Which of them would be friends, enemies? How could friends and enemies come about in this impossible, quick life time? There was no time to make either, was there?
Dark, as if knowing his thoughts, drew him away. As they searched for desired foods, she whispered fiercely in his ear. "Enemies are made over things like stolen foods; gifts of long grasses make friends. Enemies come, too, from opinions and thoughts. In five seconds you've made an enemy for life. Life's so short enemies must be made quickly." And she laughed with an irony strange for one so young, who was growing older before her rightful time. "You must fight to protect yourself. Others, superstitious ones, will try killing you. There is a belief, a ridiculous belief, that if one kills another, the murderer partakes of the life energy of the slain, and therefore will live an extra day. You see? As long as that is believed, you're in danger."
But Sim was not listening. Bursting from a flock of delicate girls who tomorrow would be tall, quieter, and who day after that would gain breasts and the next day take husbands, Sim caught sight of one small girl whose hair was a violet blue flame.
She ran past, brushed Sim, their bodies touched. Her eyes, white as silver coins, shone at him. He knew then that he'd found a friend, a love, a wife, one who'd a week from now lie with him atop the funeral pyre as sunlight undressed their flesh from bone.
Only the glance, but it held them in mid-motion, one instant.
"Your name?" he shouted after her.
"Lyte!" she called laughingly back.
"I'm Sim," he answered, confused and bewildered.
"Sim!" she repeated it, flashing on. "I'll remember!"
Dark nudged his ribs. "Here, eat ," she said to the distracted boy.
"Eat or you'll never get big enough to catch her."
From nowhere, Chion appeared, running by. "Lyte!" he mocked, dancing malevolently along and away. "Lyte! I'll remember Lyte, too!"
Dark stood tall and reed slender, shaking her dark ebony clouds of hair, sadly. "I see your life before you, little Sim. You'll need weapons soon to fight for this Lyte one. Now, hurry—the sun's coming!"
They ran back to the caves.
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What is the plot of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Lost Tribes of Venus by Erik Fennel.
Relevant chunks:
THE LOST TRIBES OF VENUS
By ERIK FENNEL
On mist-shrouded Venus, where hostile swamp meets hostile sea ... there did Barry Barr—Earthman transmuted—swap his Terran heritage for the deep dark waters of Tana; for the strangely beautiful Xintel of the blue-brown skin.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories May 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Evil luck brought the meteorite to those particular space-time coordinates as Number Four rode the downhill spiral toward Venus. The football-sized chunk of nickel-iron and rock overtook the ship at a relative speed of only a few hundred miles per hour and passed close enough to come within the tremendous pseudo-gravatic fields of the idling drivers.
It swerved into a paraboloid course, following the flux lines, and was dragged directly against one of the three projecting nozzles. Energy of motion was converted to heat and a few meteoric fragments fused themselves to the nonmetallic tube casing.
In the jet room the positronic line accelerator for that particular driver fouled under the intolerable overload, and the backsurge sent searing heat and deadly radiation blasting through the compartment before the main circuit breakers could clack open.
The bellow of the alarm horn brought Barry Barr fully awake, shattering a delightfully intimate dream of the dark haired girl he hoped to see again soon in Venus Colony. As he unbuckled his bunk straps and started aft at a floating, bounding run his weightlessness told him instantly that Number Four was in free fall with dead drivers.
Red warning lights gleamed wickedly above the safety-locked jet room door, and Nick Podtiaguine, the air machines specialist, was manipulating the emergency controls with Captain Reno at his elbow. One by one the crew crowded into the corridor and watched in tense silence.
The automatic lock clicked off as the jet room returned to habitable conditions, and at Captain Reno's gesture two men swung the door open. Quickly the commander entered the blasted jet room. Barry Barr was close behind him.
Robson Hind, jet chief of Four and electronics expert for Venus Colony, hung back until others had gone in first. His handsome, heavy face had lost its usual ruddiness.
Captain Reno surveyed the havoc. Young Ryan's body floated eerily in the zero gravity, charred into instant death by the back-blast. The line accelerator was a shapeless ruin, but except for broken meter glasses and scorched control handles other mechanical damage appeared minor. They had been lucky.
"Turnover starts in six hours twelve minutes," the captain said meaningfully.
Robson Hind cleared his throat. "We can change accelerators in two hours," he declared. With a quick reassumption of authority he began to order his crew into action.
It took nearer three hours than two to change accelerators despite Hind's shouted orders.
At last the job was completed. Hind made a final check, floated over to the control panel and started the fuel feed. With a confident smile he threw in the accelerator switch.
The meter needles climbed, soared past the red lines without pausing, and just in time to prevent a second blowback, Hind cut the power.
" There's metal in the field! " His voice was high and unsteady.
Everyone knew what that meant. The slightest trace of magnetic material would distort the delicately balanced cylinder of force that contained and directed the Hoskins blast, making it suicidal to operate.
Calmly Captain Reno voiced the thought in every mind.
"It must be cleared. From the outside."
Several of the men swore under their breaths. Interplanetary space was constantly bombarded, with an intensity inverse to the prevailing gravitation, by something called Sigma radiation. Man had never encountered it until leaving Earth, and little was known of it except that short exposure killed test animals and left their bodies unpredictably altered.
Inside the ship it was safe enough, for the sleek hull was charged with a Kendall power-shield, impervious to nearly any Sigma concentration. But the shielding devices in the emergency spacesuits were small and had never been space-tested in a region of nearly equalized gravitations.
The man who emerged from the airlock would be flipping a coin with a particularly unpleasant form of death.
Many pairs of eyes turned toward Robson Hind. He was jet chief.
"I'm assigned, not expendable," he protested hastily. "If there were more trouble later...." His face was pasty.
Assigned. That was the key word. Barry Barr felt a lump tightening in his stomach as the eyes shifted to him. He had some training in Hoskins drivers. He knew alloys and power tools. And he was riding Four unassigned after that broken ankle had made him miss Three. He was the logical man.
"For the safety of the ship." That phrase, taken from the ancient Earthbound code of the sea, had occurred repeatedly in the indoctrination manual at Training Base. He remembered it, and remembered further the contingent plans regarding assigned and unassigned personnel.
For a moment he stood indecisively, the nervous, unhumorous smile quirking across his angular face making him look more like an untried boy than a structural engineer who had fought his way up through some of the toughest tropical construction camps of Earth. His lean body, built more for quick, neatly coordinated action than brute power, balanced handily in the zero gravity as he ran one hand through his sandy hair in a gesture of uncertainty.
He knew that not even the captain would order him through the airlock.
But the members of the Five Ship Plan had been selected in part for a sense of responsibility.
"Nick, will you help me button up?" he asked with forced calmness.
For an instant he thought he detected a sly gleam in Hind's eyes. But then the jet chief was pressing forward with the others to shake his hand.
Rebellious reluctance flared briefly in Barry's mind. Dorothy Voorhees had refused to make a definite promise before blasting off in Three—in fact he hadn't even seen her during her last few days on Earth. But still he felt he had the inside track despite Hind's money and the brash assurance that went with it. But if Hind only were to reach Venus alive—
The blazing disc of Sol, the minor globes of the planets, the unwinking pinpoints of the stars, all stared with cosmic disinterest at the tiny figure crawling along the hull. His spacesuit trapped and amplified breathing and heartbeats into a roaring chaos that was an invitation to blind panic, and all the while there was consciousness of the insidiously deadly Sigma radiations.
Barry found the debris of the meteorite, an ugly shining splotch against the dull superceramic tube, readied his power chisel, started cutting. Soon it became a tedious, torturingly strenuous manual task requiring little conscious thought, and Barry's mind touched briefly on the events that had brought him here.
First Luna, and that had been murderous. Man had encountered Sigma for the first time, and many had died before the Kendall-shield was perfected. And the chemical-fueled rockets of those days had been inherently poor.
Hoskins semi-atomics had made possible the next step—to Mars. But men had found Mars barren, swept clear of all life in the cataclysm that had shattered the trans-Martian planet to form the Asteroid Belt.
Venus, its true surface forever hidden by enshrouding mists, had been well within one-way range. But Hoskins fuel requirements for a round trip added up to something beyond critical mass. Impossible.
But the Five Ship Plan had evolved, a joint enterprise of government and various private groups. Five vessels were to go out, each fueled to within a whiskered neutron of spontaneous detonation, manned by specialists who, it was hoped, could maintain themselves under alien conditions.
On Venus the leftover fuel from all five would be transferred to whichever ship had survived the outbound voyage in best condition. That one would return to Earth. Permanent base or homeward voyage with colonists crowded aboard like defeated sardines? Only time would tell.
Barry Barr had volunteered, and because the enlightened guesses of the experts called for men and women familiar with tropical conditions, he had survived the rigorous weeding-out process. His duties in Venus Colony would be to refabricate the discarded ships into whatever form was most needed—most particularly a launching ramp—and to study native Venusian materials.
Dorothy Voorhees had signed on as toxicologist and dietician. When the limited supply of Earth food ran out the Colony would be forced to rely upon Venusian plants and animals. She would guard against subtle delayed-action poisons, meanwhile devising ways of preparing Venusian materials to suit Earth tastes and digestions.
Barry had met her at Training Base and known at once that his years of loneliness had come to an end.
She seemed utterly independent, self-contained, completely intellectual despite her beauty, but Barry had not been deceived. From the moment of first meeting he had sensed within her deep springs of suppressed emotion, and he had understood. He too had come up the hard way, alone, and been forced to develop a shell of hardness and cold, single-minded devotion to his work. Gradually, often unwillingly under his insistence, her aloofness had begun to melt.
But Robson Hind too had been attracted. He was the only son of the business manager of the great Hoskins Corporation which carried a considerable share in the Five Ship Plan. Dorothy's failure to virtually fall into his arms had only piqued his desires.
The man's smooth charm had fascinated the girl and his money had opened to her an entirely new world of lavish nightclubs and extravagantly expensive entertainments, but her inborn shrewdness had sensed some factor in his personality that had made her hesitate.
Barry had felt a distrust of Hind apart from the normal dislike of rivalry. He had looked forward to being with Dorothy aboard Three, and had made no secret of his satisfaction when Hind's efforts to have himself transferred to Three also or the girl to Four had failed.
But then a scaffold had slipped while Three was being readied, and with a fractured ankle he had been forced to miss the ship.
He unclipped the magnetic detector from his belt and ran it inch by inch over the nozzle. He found one spot of metal, pinhead-sized, but enough to cause trouble, and once more swung his power chisel into stuttering action.
Then it was done.
As quickly as possible he inched back to the airlock. Turnover had to start according to calculations.
Barry opened his eyes. The ship was in normal deceleration and Nick Podtiaguine was watching him from a nearby bunk.
"I could eat a cow with the smallpox," Barry declared.
Nick grinned. "No doubt. You slept around the clock and more. Nice job of work out there."
Barry unhitched his straps and sat up.
"Say," he asked anxiously. "What's haywire with the air?"
Nick looked startled. "Nothing. Everything checked out when I came off watch a few minutes ago."
Barry shrugged. "Probably just me. Guess I'll go see if I can mooch a handout."
He found himself a hero. The cook was ready to turn the galley inside out while a radio engineer and an entomologist hovered near to wait on him. But he couldn't enjoy the meal. The sensations of heat and dryness he had noticed on awakening grew steadily worse. It became difficult to breathe.
He started to rise, and abruptly the room swirled and darkened around him. Even as he sank into unconsciousness he knew the answer.
The suit's Kendall-shield had leaked!
Four plunged toward Venus tail first, the Hoskins jets flaring ahead. The single doctor for the Colony had gone out in Two and the crewmen trained in first aid could do little to relieve Barry's distress. Fainting spells alternated with fever and delirium and an unquenchable thirst. His breathing became increasingly difficult.
A few thousand miles out Four picked up a microbeam. A feeling of exultation surged through the ship as Captain Reno passed the word, for the beam meant that some Earthmen were alive upon Venus. They were not necessarily diving straight toward oblivion. Barry, sick as he was, felt the thrill of the unknown world that lay ahead.
Into a miles-thick layer of opacity Four roared, with Captain Reno himself jockeying throttles to keep it balanced on its self-created support of flame.
"You're almost in," a voice chanted into his headphones through crackling, sizzling static. "Easy toward spherical one-thirty. Hold it! Lower. Lower. CUT YOUR POWER!"
The heavy hull dropped sickeningly, struck with a mushy thud, settled, steadied.
Barry was weak, but with Nick Podtiaguine steadying him he was waiting with the others when Captain Reno gave the last order.
"Airlock open. Both doors."
Venusian air poured in.
"For this I left Panama?" one of the men yelped.
"Enough to gag a maggot," another agreed with hand to nose.
It was like mid-summer noon in a tropical mangrove swamp, hot and unbearably humid and overpowering with the stench of decaying vegetation.
But Barry took one deep breath, then another. The stabbing needles in his chest blunted, and the choking band around his throat loosened.
The outer door swung wide. He blinked, and a shift in the encompassing vapors gave him his first sight of a world bathed in subdued light.
Four had landed in a marsh with the midships lock only a few feet above a quagmire surface still steaming from the final rocket blast. Nearby the identical hulls of Two and Three stood upright in the mud. The mist shifted again and beyond the swamp he could see the low, rounded outlines of the collapsible buildings Two and Three had carried in their cargo pits. They were set on a rock ledge rising a few feet out of the marsh. The Colony!
Men were tossing sections of lattice duckboard out upon the swamp, extending a narrow walkway toward Four's airlock, and within a few minutes the new arrivals were scrambling down.
Barry paid little attention to the noisy greetings and excited talk. Impatiently he trotted toward the rock ledge, searching for one particular figure among the men and women who waited.
"Dorothy!" he said fervently.
Then his arms were around her and she was responding to his kiss.
Then unexpected pain tore at his chest. Her lovely face took on an expression of fright even as it wavered and grew dim. The last thing he saw was Robson Hind looming beside her.
By the glow of an overhead tubelight he recognized the kindly, deeply lined features of the man bending over him. Dr. Carl Jensen, specialist in tropical diseases. He tried to sit up but the doctor laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.
"Water!" Barry croaked.
The doctor held out a glass. Then his eyes widened incredulously as his patient deliberately drew in a breath while drinking, sucking water directly into his lungs.
"Doctor," he asked, keeping his voice low to spare his throat. "What are my chances? On the level."
Dr. Jensen shook his head thoughtfully. "There's not a thing—not a damned solitary thing—I can do. It's something new to medical science."
Barry lay still.
"Your body is undergoing certain radical changes," the doctor continued, "and you know as much—more about your condition than I do. If a normal person who took water into his lungs that way didn't die of a coughing spasm, congestive pneumonia would get him sure. But it seems to give you relief."
Barry scratched his neck, where a thickened, darkening patch on each side itched infuriatingly.
"What are these changes?" he asked. "What's this?"
"Those things seem to be—" the doctor began hesitantly. "Damn it, I know it sounds crazy but they're rudimentary gills."
Barry accepted the outrageous statement unemotionally. He was beyond shock.
"But there must be—"
Pain struck again, so intense his body twisted and arched involuntarily. Then the prick of a needle brought merciful oblivion.
II
Barry's mind was working furiously. The changes the Sigma radiations had inflicted upon his body might reverse themselves spontaneously, Dr. Jensen had mentioned during a second visit—but for that to happen he must remain alive. That meant easing all possible strains.
When the doctor came in again Barry asked him to find Nick Podtiaguine. Within a few minutes the mechanic appeared.
"Cheez, it's good to see you, Barry," he began.
"Stuff it," the sick man interrupted. "I want favors. Can do?"
Nick nodded vigorously.
"First cut that air conditioner and get the window open."
Nick stared as though he were demented, but obeyed, unbolting the heavy plastic window panel and lifting it aside. He made a face at the damp, malodorous Venusian air but to Barry it brought relief.
It was not enough, but it indicated he was on the right track. And he was not an engineer for nothing.
"Got a pencil?" he asked.
He drew only a rough sketch, for Nick was far too competent to need detailed drawings.
"Think you can get materials?"
Nick glanced at the sketch. "Hell, man, for you I can get anything the Colony has. You saved Four and everybody knows it."
"Two days?"
Nick looked insulted.
He was back in eight hours, and with him came a dozen helpers. A power line and water tube were run through the metal partition to the corridor, connections were made, and the machine Barry had sketched was ready.
Nick flipped the switch. The thing whined shrilly. From a fanshaped nozzle came innumerable droplets of water, droplets of colloidal size that hung in the air and only slowly coalesced into larger drops that fell toward the metal floor.
Barry nodded, a smile beginning to spread across his drawn features.
"Perfect. Now put the window back."
Outside lay the unknown world of Venus, and an open, unguarded window might invite disaster.
A few hours later Dr. Jensen found his patient in a normal sleep. The room was warm and the air was so filled with water-mist it was almost liquid. Coalescing drops dripped from the walls and curving ceiling and furniture, from the half clad body of the sleeping man, and the scavenger pump made greedy gulping sounds as it removed excess water from the floor.
The doctor shook his head as he backed out, his clothes clinging wet from the short exposure.
It was abnormal.
But so was Barry Barr.
With breathing no longer a continuous agony Barry began to recover some of his strength. But for several days much of his time was spent in sleep and Dorothy Voorhees haunted his dreams.
Whenever he closed his eyes he could see her as clearly as though she were with him—her face with the exotic high cheek-bones—her eyes a deep gray in fascinating contrast to her raven hair—lips that seemed to promise more of giving than she had ever allowed herself to fulfil—her incongruously pert, humorous little nose that was a legacy from some venturesome Irishman—her slender yet firmly lithe body.
After a few days Dr. Jensen permitted him to have visitors. They came in a steady stream, the people from Four and men he had not seen since Training Base days, and although none could endure his semi-liquid atmosphere more than a few minutes at a time Barry enjoyed their visits.
But the person for whom he waited most anxiously did not arrive. At each knock Barry's heart would leap, and each time he settled back with a sigh of disappointment. Days passed and still Dorothy did not come to him. He could not go to her, and stubborn pride kept him from even inquiring. All the while he was aware of Robson Hind's presence in the Colony, and only weakness kept him from pacing his room like a caged animal.
Through his window he could see nothing but the gradual brightening and darkening of the enveloping fog as the slow 82-hour Venusian day progressed, but from his visitors' words he learned something of Venusian conditions and the story of the Colony.
Number One had bumbled in on visual, the pilot depending on the smeary images of infra-sight goggles. An inviting grassy plain had proved to be a layer of algae floating on quicksand. Frantically the crew had blasted down huge balsa-like marsh trees, cutting up the trunks with flame guns to make crude rafts. They had performed fantastic feats of strength and endurance but managed to salvage only half their equipment before the shining nose of One had vanished in the gurgling ooze.
Lost in a steaming, stinking marsh teeming with alien creatures that slithered and crawled and swam and flew, blinded by the eternal fog, the crew had proved the rightness of their choice as pioneers. For weeks they had floundered across the deadly terrain until at last, beside a stagnant-looking slough that drained sluggishly into a warm, almost tideless sea a mile away, they had discovered an outcropping of rock. It was the only solid ground they had encountered.
One man had died, his swamp suit pierced by a poisonous thorn, but the others had hand-hauled the radio beacon piece by piece and set it up in time to guide Two to a safe landing. Houses had been assembled, the secondary power units of the spaceship put to work, and the colony had established a tenuous foothold.
Three had landed beside Two a few months later, bringing reinforcements, but the day-by-day demands of the little colony's struggle for survival had so far been too pressing to permit extended or detailed explorations. Venus remained a planet of unsolved mysteries.
The helicopter brought out in Three had made several flights which by radar and sound reflection had placed vague outlines on the blank maps. The surface appeared to be half water, with land masses mainly jungle-covered swamp broken by a few rocky ledges, but landings away from base had been judged too hazardous.
Test borings from the ledge had located traces of oil and radioactive minerals, while enough Venusian plants had proven edible to provide an adequate though monotonous food source.
Venus was the diametric opposite of lifeless Mars. Through the fog gigantic insects hummed and buzzed like lost airplanes, but fortunately they were harmless and timid.
In the swamps wildly improbable life forms grew and reproduced and fought and died, and many of those most harmless in appearance possessed surprisingly venomous characteristics.
The jungle had been flamed away in a huge circle around the colony to minimize the chances of surprise by anything that might attack, but the blasting was an almost continuous process. The plants of Venus grew with a vigor approaching fury.
Most spectacular of the Venusian creatures were the amphibious armored monsters, saurian or semi-saurians with a slight resemblance to the brontosauri that had once lived on Earth, massive swamp-dwellers that used the slough beside the colony's ledge as a highway. They were apparently vegetarians, but thorough stupidity in tremendous bulk made them dangerous. One had damaged a building by blundering against it, and since then the colony had remained alert, using weapons to repel the beasts.
The most important question—that of the presence or absence of intelligent, civilized Venusians—remained unanswered. Some of the men reported a disquieting feeling of being watched, particularly when near open water, but others argued that any intelligent creatures would have established contact.
Barry developed definite external signs of what the Sigma radiation had done to him. The skin between his fingers and toes spread, grew into membranous webs. The swellings in his neck became more pronounced and dark parallel lines appeared.
But despite the doctor's pessimistic reports that the changes had not stopped, Barry continued to tell himself he was recovering. He had to believe and keep on believing to retain sanity in the face of the weird, unclassifiable feelings that surged through his body. Still he was subject to fits of almost suicidal depression, and Dorothy's failure to visit him did not help his mental condition.
Then one day he woke from a nap and thought he was still dreaming. Dorothy was leaning over him.
"Barry! Barry!" she whispered. "I can't help it. I love you even if you do have a wife and child in Philadelphia. I know it's wrong but all that seems so far away it doesn't matter any more." Tears glistened in her eyes.
"Huh?" he grunted. "Who? Me?"
"Please, Barry, don't lie. She wrote to me before Three blasted off—oh, the most piteous letter!"
Barry was fully awake now. "I'm not married. I have no child. I've never been in Philadelphia," he shouted. His lips thinned.
"I—think—I—know—who—wrote—that—letter!" he declared grimly.
"Robson wouldn't!" she objected, shocked, but there was a note of doubt in her voice.
Then she was in his arms, sobbing openly.
"I believe you, Barry."
She stayed with him for hours, and she had changed since the days at Training Base. Long months away from the patterned restraints of civilization, living each day on the edge of unknown perils, had awakened in her the realization that she was a human being and a woman, as well as a toxicologist.
When the water-mist finally forced her departure she left Barry joyous and confident of his eventual recovery. For a few minutes anger simmered in his brain as he contemplated the pleasure of rearranging Robson Hind's features.
The accident with the scaffold had been remarkably convenient, but this time the ruthless, restless, probably psychopathic drive that had made Robson Hind more than just another rich man's spoiled son had carried him too far. Barry wondered whether it had been inefficiency or judiciously distributed money that had made the psychometrists overlook some undesirable traits in Hind's personality in accepting him for the Five Ship Plan.
But even with his trickery Hind had lost.
He slept, and woke with a feeling of doom.
The slow Venusian twilight had ended in blackness and the overhead tubelight was off.
He sat up, and apprehension gave way to burning torture in his chest.
Silence! He fumbled for the light switch, then knelt beside the mist machine that no longer hummed. Power and water supplies were both dead, cut off outside his room.
Floating droplets were merging and falling to the floor. Soon the air would be dry, and he would be choking and strangling. He turned to call for help.
The door was locked!
He tugged and the knob came away in his hand. The retaining screw had been removed.
He beat upon the panel, first with his fists and then with the metal doorknob, but the insulation between the double alloy sheets was efficient soundproofing. Furiously he hurled himself upon it, only to bounce back with a bruised shoulder. He was trapped.
Working against time and eventual death he snatched a metal chair and swung with all his force at the window, again, again, yet again. A small crack appeared in the transparent plastic, branched under continued hammering, became a rough star. He gathered his waning strength, then swung once more. The tough plastic shattered.
He tugged at the jagged pieces still clinging to the frame. Fog-laden Venusian air poured in—but it was not enough!
He dragged himself head first through the narrow opening, landed sprawling on hands and knees in the darkness. In his ears a confused rustling drone from the alien swamp mingled with the roar of approaching unconsciousness.
There was a smell in his nostrils. The smell of water. He lurched forward at a shambling run, stumbling over the uneven ground.
Then he plunged from the rocky ledge into the slough. Flashes of colored light flickered before his eyes as he went under. But Earth habits were still strong; instinctively he held his breath.
Then he fainted. Voluntary control of his body vanished. His mouth hung slack and the breathing reflex that had been an integral part of his life since the moment of birth forced him to inhale.
Bubbles floated upward and burst. Then Barry Barr was lying in the ooze of the bottom. And he was breathing, extracting vital oxygen from the brackish, silt-clouded water.
III
Slowly his racing heartbeat returned to normal. Gradually he became aware of the stench of decaying plants and of musky taints he knew instinctively were the scents of underwater animals. Then with a shock the meaning became clear. He had become a water-breather, cut off from all other Earthmen, no longer entirely human. His fellows in the colony were separated from him now by a gulf more absolute than the airless void between Earth and Venus.
Something slippery and alive touched him near one armpit. He opened his eyes in the black water and his groping hand clutched something burrowing into his skin. With a shudder of revulsion he crushed a fat worm between his fingers.
Then dozens of them—hundreds—were upon him from all sides. He was wearing only a pair of khaki pants but the worms ignored his chest to congregate around his face, intent on attacking the tender skin of his eyelids.
For a minute his flailing hands fought them off, but they came in increasing numbers and clung like leeches. Pain spread as they bit and burrowed, and blindly he began to swim.
Faster and faster. He could sense the winding banks of the slough and kept to midchannel, swimming with his eyes tightly closed. One by one the worms dropped off.
He stopped, opened his eyes, not on complete darkness this time but on a faint blue-green luminescence from far below. The water was saltier here, and clearer.
He had swum down the slough and out into the ocean. He tried to turn back, obsessed by a desire to be near the colony even though he could not go ashore without strangling, but he had lost all sense of direction.
He was still weak and his lungs were not completely adjusted to underwater life. Again he grew dizzy and faint. The slow movements of hands and feet that held him just below the surface grew feeble and ceased. He sank.
Down into dimly luminous water he dropped, and with his respiratory system completely water-filled there was no sensation of pressure. At last he floated gently to the bottom and lay motionless.
Shouting voices awakened him, an exultant battle cry cutting through a gasping scream of anguish. Streaks of bright orange light were moving toward him in a twisting pattern. At the head of each trail was a figure. A human figure that weaved and swam in deadly moving combat. One figure drifted limply bottomward.
Hallucination, Barry told himself. Then one of the figures broke from the group. Almost overhead it turned sharply downward and the feet moved in a powerful flutter-kick. A slender spear aimed directly at the Earthman.
Barry threw himself aside. The spear point plunged deep into the sticky, yielding bottom and Barry grappled with its wielder.
Pointed fingernails raked his cheek. Barry's balled fist swung in a roundhouse blow but water resistance slowed the punch to ineffectiveness. The creature only shook its head and came in kicking and clawing.
Barry braced his feet against the bottom and leaped. His head butted the attacker's chest and at the same instant he lashed a short jab to the creature's belly. It slumped momentarily, its face working.
Human—or nearly so—the thing was, with a stocky, powerful body and webbed hands and feet. A few scraps of clothing, seemingly worn more for ornament than covering, clung to the fishbelly-white skin. The face was coarse and savage.
It shook off the effects of Barry's punch and one webbed hand snatched a short tube from its belt.
Barry remembered the spring-opening knife in his pocket, and even as he flicked the blade out the tube-weapon fired. Sound thrummed in the water and the water grew milky with a myriad of bubbles. Something zipped past his head, uncomfortably close.
Then Barry struck, felt his knife slice flesh and grate against bone. He struck again even as the undersea being screamed and went limp.
Barry stared through the reddening water.
Another figure plunged toward him. Barry jerked the dead Venusian's spear from the mud and raised it defensively.
But the figure paid no attention. This one was a female who fled desperately from two men closing in from opposite sides. One threw his spear, using an odd pushing motion, and as she checked and dodged, the other was upon her from behind.
One arm went around her neck in a strangler's hold, bending her slender body backward. Together captor and struggling captive sank toward the bottom. The other recovered his thrown spear and moved in to help secure her arms and legs with lengths of cord.
One scooped up the crossbow the girl had dropped. The other ripped at her brief skirt and from her belt took a pair of tubes like the one the dead Venusian had fired at Barry, handling them as though they were loot of the greatest value. He jerked cruelly at the slender metallic necklace the girl wore but it did not break.
He punched the helpless girl in the abdomen with the butt of his spear. The girl writhed but she did not attempt to cry out.
Barry bounded toward them in a series of soaring leaps, knife and spear ready. One Venusian turned to meet him, grinning maliciously.
Barry dug one foot into the bottom and sidestepped a spear thrust. His own lunge missed completely. Then he and the Venusian were inside each other's spear points, chest to chest. A pointed hook strapped to the inside of the creature's wrist just missed Barry's throat. The Earthman arched his body backward and his knife flashed upward. The creature gasped and pulled away, clutching with both hands at a gaping wound in its belly.
The other one turned too late as Barry leaped.
Barry's hilt cracked against its jawbone.
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
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"Engineer Barry Barr is one of the chosen few to ride on Number Three to Venus. His beloved Dorothy Voorhees would have been riding with him, but Barry had a piece of scaffolding drop on his ankle. Unable to make the first flight, Barry hops onto Number Four instead. \nOn the journey to Venus, a small meteor crashes into their hull at several hundreds of miles an hour. The effect is immediate: Ryan is killed in the jet room and traces of the meteor are stuck in the field. Barry wakes up when the alarm bells are sounded, and rushes to join the rest of the crew to figure out what’s going on. Nick Podtaguine is steering the ship with emergency controls while Captain Reno looks on. Once the jet room stabilized, Captain Reno opens the doors to find Ryan’s body and ruin. After fixing all that they could, Reno hit the accelerator, only to watch in dismay at it soared out of proportions. Captain Reno cut off the power, realizing that the meteor had left metal particles in the cylinder of force. He asks for volunteers to work outside of the ship and remove all traces of the meteor. No one volunteers at first because of how dangerous a task it is; Sigma radiation affects man in ways still unknown and incurable. After Robson Hind turns the task down, Barry volunteers. He steps outside in his spacesuit equipped to block radiation and removes them with the chisel. \nOnce he returns inside, he falls asleep and wakes a day later already feeling the effects of the radiation. His symptoms only increase: dryness, heat, and breathing difficulties. He faints upon standing and realizes that the Sigma radiation had seeped into his spacesuit. \nFour heads toward Venus while Barry suffers from an insatiable thirst. Finally, upon landing, they throw open the doors to let in the muggy Venusian air, and Barry feels like he can breathe again. Two and Three welcome them, and Barry throws his arms around Dorothy before fainting. Dr. Carl Jensen gives him water which Barry inhales. He’s growing gills on the sides of his neck, and dry air is becoming more intolerable. \nBarry asks Nick to build him a machine to let in moisture, allowing him to breathe better. He grows webbed fingers and toes. Dorothy doesn’t visit him while in hospital until she can’t bear it anymore. She bursts open the door and reveals she still loves him even though he has a wife and family back in Philadelphia. Barry reveals the falsehood and believes that Hind sent her a letter detailing this lie. One night, he wakes up to realize his moisture machine was broken and the door locked. He escapes by breaking the window and runs to the water. He dives in and inhales the water. Worms attack him, but he swims away to the ocean. He battles humanoid Venusians and kills one of them. He rescues a girl from being robbed. \n",
"People are settling Venus, and those aboard ship Four have a close call when the ship is struck by a meteorite that damages the accelerators and leaves metal in a shaft. After the accelerator is repaired under the leadership of Robson Hind, they discover the metal. Barry Barr volunteers to do the spacewalk to remove the metal that is wedged in the shaft since he is unassigned on this voyage. Assigned members are considered unexpendable, so they are expected to stay and protect the ship. The spacewalk is dangerous due to the high concentration of deadly Sigma outside. Although their spacesuits have Kendall shields, no one knows how effective they are. Animals briefly exposed to Sigma die almost right away. Barr completes the work and returns to a hero’s welcome. \n\tSoon, Barr begins feeling strange. He’s ravenously hungry, extremely thirsty, and having difficulty breathing. He tries to eat, but the sense that the air is extraordinarily hot and dry makes it harder for him to breathe, and he passes out. However, when the ship reaches Venus, Barr breathes in the hot, humid air, and his breathing becomes much less labored. Feeling stronger, he seeks out the woman he loves, Dorothy Voorhees, who arrived at the colony on Three. They kiss, but then he passes out again, and when he wakes, Barr asks for water which he pours into his lungs. The doctor tells him that would normally kill a person. Barr scratches his neck and notices something growing there, which the doctor identifies as the beginnings of gills.\n\tBarr asks his friend to gather materials and build him a humidifier in the infirmary. With this device, Barr can breathe better. Barr longs to see Dorothy, especially since he knows Robson Hind is probably wooing her; the two men have been competing for her affections. At last, Dorothy comes to see him, claiming she loves him and can’t stay away even though he is married and has a child. Barr isn’t married and suspects that Hind planted the story to win Dorothy for himself. Later that night, Barr awakens, unable to breathe. An investigation shows that his humidifier’s water and power lines have been cut, and the door to his room is locked from the outside. Barr knocks out the window with a chair, runs outside, and dives into the slough. There, at last, he can breathe. He realizes that he has become a water breather, meaning he is no longer completely human. He stays in the slough until some worms start biting his eyelids, then makes his way to the ocean. He wants to stay close to the colony even though he can’t breathe on land anymore, but suddenly a group of human-like creatures with webbed fingers and toes like his descend on him and begin attacking with their spears and tube weapons. He kills one but sees two other males capture a female, and Barr attacks her attackers.\n",
"Barry Barr is a structural engineer serving on Number Four, a ship taking part in the Five Ship Plan headed for Venus. The Five Ship Plan had been designed to avoid filling one ship to critical mass with fuel; instead, five ships would fill their tanks as much as safely possible, land on Venus, and the ship that had sustained the least amount of damage would take on the fuel reserves of the other four for the return trip to Earth unless a successful colony could be established on Venus. Barry had originally been assigned to Number Three, but an ankle injury caused him to take the later ship. A meteorite strikes Number Four, and since Barry is unassigned and therefore expendable, he goes outside the ship to remove the debris in spite of the dangerous presence of Sigma radiation, which had been known to kill animals. As he is outside, he thinks about Dorothy Voorhees, a toxicologist on Number Three with whom Barry is in love. The wealthy jet chief Robson Hind is also in love with Dorothy, although Dorothy only has a shallow interest in what he has to offer. Barry's spacesuit offers minimal protection against the radiation, and when he returns, he discovers he has indeed developed a kind of sickness that causes him to struggle to breathe in the ship's air. When Number Four finally lands on Venus, Barry is surprised to discover he can breathe much easier in the thick, humid atmosphere there. As Number Four reconnects with the makeshift colony the previous ships have constructed, Barry is reunited with Dorothy briefly before passing out. Dr. Carl Jensen examines Barry and keeps him on bed rest for several days. When Barry awakens, he recruits his friend Nick to help him fashion a machine that will transfer the Venusian atmosphere into his room so that he may breathe easier. Dr. Jensen is shocked at the physical changes in Barry; over time, he grows gills and webbed feet. Finally, Dorothy visits him in his room and reveals her true love for him; she had been hesitant to do so because she had received a communication from his wife in Philadelphia revealing Barry was married with a child. This news surprises Barry since he is not married; Robson must have written the letter to drive a wedge between him and Dorothy. When Barry awakens the next day, he discovers his door is locked and the machine drawing Venusian air into his room has been shut off. Desperate to breathe, Barry breaks out of his room and jumps into the nearby slough, where he is attacked by hundreds of hostile worms. He swims further out into an ocean, amazed by his ability to breathe underwater. Underwater, Barry runs into two Venusians who attack him and a female Venusian. Barry helps her and saves himself by fighting off the attackers.",
"The spaceship Number Four is in free fall; its crew is doing everything they can to get it working again. As they tend to various systems, the outside threat is brought to the reader's attention: Sigma radiation, which is not well understood by humans but it is known to be dangerous. Barry Barr is selected to leave the ship to clear the meteorite debris for the sake of the crew. He works on cutting the meteorite debris, reflecting on the growing tension between himself and Robson Hind, the jet chief, over their mutual interest in Dorothy Voorhees, the dietician and toxicologist. Barry wakes up later feeling like he doesn't have enough air, and searches for a meal. As he tries to eat, he realizes he can't breathe, and it occurs to him that his suit's Kendall-shield, which was supposed to protect him from Sigma radiation, had leaked. Nobody knew quite what would happen to Barry after exposure to Sigma radiation. His breathing got worse over time and nobody could do anything for him without a doctor. The ship successfully lands on Venus, and Barry finds that the humid atmosphere makes it easier for him to breathe. He finds Dorothy, kissing her before Robson Hind shows up, then passes out and wakes up in a doctor's office. Barry inhales the water he was handed (literally ingesting it), surprising the doctor, who doesn't know what to do for Barry. They notice gills on Barry's neck, and Barry passes out again. Barry asks Nick Podtaguine, the mechanic, for help in building a machine. It seems Barry is now known for having saved the ship, so Nick figures he can get all the materials he needs, which only took him eight hours. The machine keeps Barry's room wet while keeping the excess water off of the floor. Barry recovers some energy now that he can breathe, and dreams of Dorothy Voorhees as he rests. He starts to develop webs on his hands and feet, and a full set of gills, but Dorothy still comes to visit him one day after having avoided Barry the entire time he'd been under the doctor's care. This helps his mood, but then he wakes up one day finding his machine turned off, and is unable to escape. Eventually he breaks a plastic window but the air doesn't have enough moisture for him, so he breaks out and jumps into the water. He faints again, inhales, and realizes his gills work just fine, which also makes him realize he is officially no longer human. He swims away from some worms who are interested in his eyelids, and eventually makes it to the ocean even though he wants to stay near the people. His lungs have not adjusted yet so he sinks again, awoken by yells of people. Barry finds a creature who looked a lot like Barry, with webbed limbs and pieces of clothing. The story ends in a skirmish with various Venusians and one other Earthman. "
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63932
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THE LOST TRIBES OF VENUS
By ERIK FENNEL
On mist-shrouded Venus, where hostile swamp meets hostile sea ... there did Barry Barr—Earthman transmuted—swap his Terran heritage for the deep dark waters of Tana; for the strangely beautiful Xintel of the blue-brown skin.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories May 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Evil luck brought the meteorite to those particular space-time coordinates as Number Four rode the downhill spiral toward Venus. The football-sized chunk of nickel-iron and rock overtook the ship at a relative speed of only a few hundred miles per hour and passed close enough to come within the tremendous pseudo-gravatic fields of the idling drivers.
It swerved into a paraboloid course, following the flux lines, and was dragged directly against one of the three projecting nozzles. Energy of motion was converted to heat and a few meteoric fragments fused themselves to the nonmetallic tube casing.
In the jet room the positronic line accelerator for that particular driver fouled under the intolerable overload, and the backsurge sent searing heat and deadly radiation blasting through the compartment before the main circuit breakers could clack open.
The bellow of the alarm horn brought Barry Barr fully awake, shattering a delightfully intimate dream of the dark haired girl he hoped to see again soon in Venus Colony. As he unbuckled his bunk straps and started aft at a floating, bounding run his weightlessness told him instantly that Number Four was in free fall with dead drivers.
Red warning lights gleamed wickedly above the safety-locked jet room door, and Nick Podtiaguine, the air machines specialist, was manipulating the emergency controls with Captain Reno at his elbow. One by one the crew crowded into the corridor and watched in tense silence.
The automatic lock clicked off as the jet room returned to habitable conditions, and at Captain Reno's gesture two men swung the door open. Quickly the commander entered the blasted jet room. Barry Barr was close behind him.
Robson Hind, jet chief of Four and electronics expert for Venus Colony, hung back until others had gone in first. His handsome, heavy face had lost its usual ruddiness.
Captain Reno surveyed the havoc. Young Ryan's body floated eerily in the zero gravity, charred into instant death by the back-blast. The line accelerator was a shapeless ruin, but except for broken meter glasses and scorched control handles other mechanical damage appeared minor. They had been lucky.
"Turnover starts in six hours twelve minutes," the captain said meaningfully.
Robson Hind cleared his throat. "We can change accelerators in two hours," he declared. With a quick reassumption of authority he began to order his crew into action.
It took nearer three hours than two to change accelerators despite Hind's shouted orders.
At last the job was completed. Hind made a final check, floated over to the control panel and started the fuel feed. With a confident smile he threw in the accelerator switch.
The meter needles climbed, soared past the red lines without pausing, and just in time to prevent a second blowback, Hind cut the power.
" There's metal in the field! " His voice was high and unsteady.
Everyone knew what that meant. The slightest trace of magnetic material would distort the delicately balanced cylinder of force that contained and directed the Hoskins blast, making it suicidal to operate.
Calmly Captain Reno voiced the thought in every mind.
"It must be cleared. From the outside."
Several of the men swore under their breaths. Interplanetary space was constantly bombarded, with an intensity inverse to the prevailing gravitation, by something called Sigma radiation. Man had never encountered it until leaving Earth, and little was known of it except that short exposure killed test animals and left their bodies unpredictably altered.
Inside the ship it was safe enough, for the sleek hull was charged with a Kendall power-shield, impervious to nearly any Sigma concentration. But the shielding devices in the emergency spacesuits were small and had never been space-tested in a region of nearly equalized gravitations.
The man who emerged from the airlock would be flipping a coin with a particularly unpleasant form of death.
Many pairs of eyes turned toward Robson Hind. He was jet chief.
"I'm assigned, not expendable," he protested hastily. "If there were more trouble later...." His face was pasty.
Assigned. That was the key word. Barry Barr felt a lump tightening in his stomach as the eyes shifted to him. He had some training in Hoskins drivers. He knew alloys and power tools. And he was riding Four unassigned after that broken ankle had made him miss Three. He was the logical man.
"For the safety of the ship." That phrase, taken from the ancient Earthbound code of the sea, had occurred repeatedly in the indoctrination manual at Training Base. He remembered it, and remembered further the contingent plans regarding assigned and unassigned personnel.
For a moment he stood indecisively, the nervous, unhumorous smile quirking across his angular face making him look more like an untried boy than a structural engineer who had fought his way up through some of the toughest tropical construction camps of Earth. His lean body, built more for quick, neatly coordinated action than brute power, balanced handily in the zero gravity as he ran one hand through his sandy hair in a gesture of uncertainty.
He knew that not even the captain would order him through the airlock.
But the members of the Five Ship Plan had been selected in part for a sense of responsibility.
"Nick, will you help me button up?" he asked with forced calmness.
For an instant he thought he detected a sly gleam in Hind's eyes. But then the jet chief was pressing forward with the others to shake his hand.
Rebellious reluctance flared briefly in Barry's mind. Dorothy Voorhees had refused to make a definite promise before blasting off in Three—in fact he hadn't even seen her during her last few days on Earth. But still he felt he had the inside track despite Hind's money and the brash assurance that went with it. But if Hind only were to reach Venus alive—
The blazing disc of Sol, the minor globes of the planets, the unwinking pinpoints of the stars, all stared with cosmic disinterest at the tiny figure crawling along the hull. His spacesuit trapped and amplified breathing and heartbeats into a roaring chaos that was an invitation to blind panic, and all the while there was consciousness of the insidiously deadly Sigma radiations.
Barry found the debris of the meteorite, an ugly shining splotch against the dull superceramic tube, readied his power chisel, started cutting. Soon it became a tedious, torturingly strenuous manual task requiring little conscious thought, and Barry's mind touched briefly on the events that had brought him here.
First Luna, and that had been murderous. Man had encountered Sigma for the first time, and many had died before the Kendall-shield was perfected. And the chemical-fueled rockets of those days had been inherently poor.
Hoskins semi-atomics had made possible the next step—to Mars. But men had found Mars barren, swept clear of all life in the cataclysm that had shattered the trans-Martian planet to form the Asteroid Belt.
Venus, its true surface forever hidden by enshrouding mists, had been well within one-way range. But Hoskins fuel requirements for a round trip added up to something beyond critical mass. Impossible.
But the Five Ship Plan had evolved, a joint enterprise of government and various private groups. Five vessels were to go out, each fueled to within a whiskered neutron of spontaneous detonation, manned by specialists who, it was hoped, could maintain themselves under alien conditions.
On Venus the leftover fuel from all five would be transferred to whichever ship had survived the outbound voyage in best condition. That one would return to Earth. Permanent base or homeward voyage with colonists crowded aboard like defeated sardines? Only time would tell.
Barry Barr had volunteered, and because the enlightened guesses of the experts called for men and women familiar with tropical conditions, he had survived the rigorous weeding-out process. His duties in Venus Colony would be to refabricate the discarded ships into whatever form was most needed—most particularly a launching ramp—and to study native Venusian materials.
Dorothy Voorhees had signed on as toxicologist and dietician. When the limited supply of Earth food ran out the Colony would be forced to rely upon Venusian plants and animals. She would guard against subtle delayed-action poisons, meanwhile devising ways of preparing Venusian materials to suit Earth tastes and digestions.
Barry had met her at Training Base and known at once that his years of loneliness had come to an end.
She seemed utterly independent, self-contained, completely intellectual despite her beauty, but Barry had not been deceived. From the moment of first meeting he had sensed within her deep springs of suppressed emotion, and he had understood. He too had come up the hard way, alone, and been forced to develop a shell of hardness and cold, single-minded devotion to his work. Gradually, often unwillingly under his insistence, her aloofness had begun to melt.
But Robson Hind too had been attracted. He was the only son of the business manager of the great Hoskins Corporation which carried a considerable share in the Five Ship Plan. Dorothy's failure to virtually fall into his arms had only piqued his desires.
The man's smooth charm had fascinated the girl and his money had opened to her an entirely new world of lavish nightclubs and extravagantly expensive entertainments, but her inborn shrewdness had sensed some factor in his personality that had made her hesitate.
Barry had felt a distrust of Hind apart from the normal dislike of rivalry. He had looked forward to being with Dorothy aboard Three, and had made no secret of his satisfaction when Hind's efforts to have himself transferred to Three also or the girl to Four had failed.
But then a scaffold had slipped while Three was being readied, and with a fractured ankle he had been forced to miss the ship.
He unclipped the magnetic detector from his belt and ran it inch by inch over the nozzle. He found one spot of metal, pinhead-sized, but enough to cause trouble, and once more swung his power chisel into stuttering action.
Then it was done.
As quickly as possible he inched back to the airlock. Turnover had to start according to calculations.
Barry opened his eyes. The ship was in normal deceleration and Nick Podtiaguine was watching him from a nearby bunk.
"I could eat a cow with the smallpox," Barry declared.
Nick grinned. "No doubt. You slept around the clock and more. Nice job of work out there."
Barry unhitched his straps and sat up.
"Say," he asked anxiously. "What's haywire with the air?"
Nick looked startled. "Nothing. Everything checked out when I came off watch a few minutes ago."
Barry shrugged. "Probably just me. Guess I'll go see if I can mooch a handout."
He found himself a hero. The cook was ready to turn the galley inside out while a radio engineer and an entomologist hovered near to wait on him. But he couldn't enjoy the meal. The sensations of heat and dryness he had noticed on awakening grew steadily worse. It became difficult to breathe.
He started to rise, and abruptly the room swirled and darkened around him. Even as he sank into unconsciousness he knew the answer.
The suit's Kendall-shield had leaked!
Four plunged toward Venus tail first, the Hoskins jets flaring ahead. The single doctor for the Colony had gone out in Two and the crewmen trained in first aid could do little to relieve Barry's distress. Fainting spells alternated with fever and delirium and an unquenchable thirst. His breathing became increasingly difficult.
A few thousand miles out Four picked up a microbeam. A feeling of exultation surged through the ship as Captain Reno passed the word, for the beam meant that some Earthmen were alive upon Venus. They were not necessarily diving straight toward oblivion. Barry, sick as he was, felt the thrill of the unknown world that lay ahead.
Into a miles-thick layer of opacity Four roared, with Captain Reno himself jockeying throttles to keep it balanced on its self-created support of flame.
"You're almost in," a voice chanted into his headphones through crackling, sizzling static. "Easy toward spherical one-thirty. Hold it! Lower. Lower. CUT YOUR POWER!"
The heavy hull dropped sickeningly, struck with a mushy thud, settled, steadied.
Barry was weak, but with Nick Podtiaguine steadying him he was waiting with the others when Captain Reno gave the last order.
"Airlock open. Both doors."
Venusian air poured in.
"For this I left Panama?" one of the men yelped.
"Enough to gag a maggot," another agreed with hand to nose.
It was like mid-summer noon in a tropical mangrove swamp, hot and unbearably humid and overpowering with the stench of decaying vegetation.
But Barry took one deep breath, then another. The stabbing needles in his chest blunted, and the choking band around his throat loosened.
The outer door swung wide. He blinked, and a shift in the encompassing vapors gave him his first sight of a world bathed in subdued light.
Four had landed in a marsh with the midships lock only a few feet above a quagmire surface still steaming from the final rocket blast. Nearby the identical hulls of Two and Three stood upright in the mud. The mist shifted again and beyond the swamp he could see the low, rounded outlines of the collapsible buildings Two and Three had carried in their cargo pits. They were set on a rock ledge rising a few feet out of the marsh. The Colony!
Men were tossing sections of lattice duckboard out upon the swamp, extending a narrow walkway toward Four's airlock, and within a few minutes the new arrivals were scrambling down.
Barry paid little attention to the noisy greetings and excited talk. Impatiently he trotted toward the rock ledge, searching for one particular figure among the men and women who waited.
"Dorothy!" he said fervently.
Then his arms were around her and she was responding to his kiss.
Then unexpected pain tore at his chest. Her lovely face took on an expression of fright even as it wavered and grew dim. The last thing he saw was Robson Hind looming beside her.
By the glow of an overhead tubelight he recognized the kindly, deeply lined features of the man bending over him. Dr. Carl Jensen, specialist in tropical diseases. He tried to sit up but the doctor laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.
"Water!" Barry croaked.
The doctor held out a glass. Then his eyes widened incredulously as his patient deliberately drew in a breath while drinking, sucking water directly into his lungs.
"Doctor," he asked, keeping his voice low to spare his throat. "What are my chances? On the level."
Dr. Jensen shook his head thoughtfully. "There's not a thing—not a damned solitary thing—I can do. It's something new to medical science."
Barry lay still.
"Your body is undergoing certain radical changes," the doctor continued, "and you know as much—more about your condition than I do. If a normal person who took water into his lungs that way didn't die of a coughing spasm, congestive pneumonia would get him sure. But it seems to give you relief."
Barry scratched his neck, where a thickened, darkening patch on each side itched infuriatingly.
"What are these changes?" he asked. "What's this?"
"Those things seem to be—" the doctor began hesitantly. "Damn it, I know it sounds crazy but they're rudimentary gills."
Barry accepted the outrageous statement unemotionally. He was beyond shock.
"But there must be—"
Pain struck again, so intense his body twisted and arched involuntarily. Then the prick of a needle brought merciful oblivion.
II
Barry's mind was working furiously. The changes the Sigma radiations had inflicted upon his body might reverse themselves spontaneously, Dr. Jensen had mentioned during a second visit—but for that to happen he must remain alive. That meant easing all possible strains.
When the doctor came in again Barry asked him to find Nick Podtiaguine. Within a few minutes the mechanic appeared.
"Cheez, it's good to see you, Barry," he began.
"Stuff it," the sick man interrupted. "I want favors. Can do?"
Nick nodded vigorously.
"First cut that air conditioner and get the window open."
Nick stared as though he were demented, but obeyed, unbolting the heavy plastic window panel and lifting it aside. He made a face at the damp, malodorous Venusian air but to Barry it brought relief.
It was not enough, but it indicated he was on the right track. And he was not an engineer for nothing.
"Got a pencil?" he asked.
He drew only a rough sketch, for Nick was far too competent to need detailed drawings.
"Think you can get materials?"
Nick glanced at the sketch. "Hell, man, for you I can get anything the Colony has. You saved Four and everybody knows it."
"Two days?"
Nick looked insulted.
He was back in eight hours, and with him came a dozen helpers. A power line and water tube were run through the metal partition to the corridor, connections were made, and the machine Barry had sketched was ready.
Nick flipped the switch. The thing whined shrilly. From a fanshaped nozzle came innumerable droplets of water, droplets of colloidal size that hung in the air and only slowly coalesced into larger drops that fell toward the metal floor.
Barry nodded, a smile beginning to spread across his drawn features.
"Perfect. Now put the window back."
Outside lay the unknown world of Venus, and an open, unguarded window might invite disaster.
A few hours later Dr. Jensen found his patient in a normal sleep. The room was warm and the air was so filled with water-mist it was almost liquid. Coalescing drops dripped from the walls and curving ceiling and furniture, from the half clad body of the sleeping man, and the scavenger pump made greedy gulping sounds as it removed excess water from the floor.
The doctor shook his head as he backed out, his clothes clinging wet from the short exposure.
It was abnormal.
But so was Barry Barr.
With breathing no longer a continuous agony Barry began to recover some of his strength. But for several days much of his time was spent in sleep and Dorothy Voorhees haunted his dreams.
Whenever he closed his eyes he could see her as clearly as though she were with him—her face with the exotic high cheek-bones—her eyes a deep gray in fascinating contrast to her raven hair—lips that seemed to promise more of giving than she had ever allowed herself to fulfil—her incongruously pert, humorous little nose that was a legacy from some venturesome Irishman—her slender yet firmly lithe body.
After a few days Dr. Jensen permitted him to have visitors. They came in a steady stream, the people from Four and men he had not seen since Training Base days, and although none could endure his semi-liquid atmosphere more than a few minutes at a time Barry enjoyed their visits.
But the person for whom he waited most anxiously did not arrive. At each knock Barry's heart would leap, and each time he settled back with a sigh of disappointment. Days passed and still Dorothy did not come to him. He could not go to her, and stubborn pride kept him from even inquiring. All the while he was aware of Robson Hind's presence in the Colony, and only weakness kept him from pacing his room like a caged animal.
Through his window he could see nothing but the gradual brightening and darkening of the enveloping fog as the slow 82-hour Venusian day progressed, but from his visitors' words he learned something of Venusian conditions and the story of the Colony.
Number One had bumbled in on visual, the pilot depending on the smeary images of infra-sight goggles. An inviting grassy plain had proved to be a layer of algae floating on quicksand. Frantically the crew had blasted down huge balsa-like marsh trees, cutting up the trunks with flame guns to make crude rafts. They had performed fantastic feats of strength and endurance but managed to salvage only half their equipment before the shining nose of One had vanished in the gurgling ooze.
Lost in a steaming, stinking marsh teeming with alien creatures that slithered and crawled and swam and flew, blinded by the eternal fog, the crew had proved the rightness of their choice as pioneers. For weeks they had floundered across the deadly terrain until at last, beside a stagnant-looking slough that drained sluggishly into a warm, almost tideless sea a mile away, they had discovered an outcropping of rock. It was the only solid ground they had encountered.
One man had died, his swamp suit pierced by a poisonous thorn, but the others had hand-hauled the radio beacon piece by piece and set it up in time to guide Two to a safe landing. Houses had been assembled, the secondary power units of the spaceship put to work, and the colony had established a tenuous foothold.
Three had landed beside Two a few months later, bringing reinforcements, but the day-by-day demands of the little colony's struggle for survival had so far been too pressing to permit extended or detailed explorations. Venus remained a planet of unsolved mysteries.
The helicopter brought out in Three had made several flights which by radar and sound reflection had placed vague outlines on the blank maps. The surface appeared to be half water, with land masses mainly jungle-covered swamp broken by a few rocky ledges, but landings away from base had been judged too hazardous.
Test borings from the ledge had located traces of oil and radioactive minerals, while enough Venusian plants had proven edible to provide an adequate though monotonous food source.
Venus was the diametric opposite of lifeless Mars. Through the fog gigantic insects hummed and buzzed like lost airplanes, but fortunately they were harmless and timid.
In the swamps wildly improbable life forms grew and reproduced and fought and died, and many of those most harmless in appearance possessed surprisingly venomous characteristics.
The jungle had been flamed away in a huge circle around the colony to minimize the chances of surprise by anything that might attack, but the blasting was an almost continuous process. The plants of Venus grew with a vigor approaching fury.
Most spectacular of the Venusian creatures were the amphibious armored monsters, saurian or semi-saurians with a slight resemblance to the brontosauri that had once lived on Earth, massive swamp-dwellers that used the slough beside the colony's ledge as a highway. They were apparently vegetarians, but thorough stupidity in tremendous bulk made them dangerous. One had damaged a building by blundering against it, and since then the colony had remained alert, using weapons to repel the beasts.
The most important question—that of the presence or absence of intelligent, civilized Venusians—remained unanswered. Some of the men reported a disquieting feeling of being watched, particularly when near open water, but others argued that any intelligent creatures would have established contact.
Barry developed definite external signs of what the Sigma radiation had done to him. The skin between his fingers and toes spread, grew into membranous webs. The swellings in his neck became more pronounced and dark parallel lines appeared.
But despite the doctor's pessimistic reports that the changes had not stopped, Barry continued to tell himself he was recovering. He had to believe and keep on believing to retain sanity in the face of the weird, unclassifiable feelings that surged through his body. Still he was subject to fits of almost suicidal depression, and Dorothy's failure to visit him did not help his mental condition.
Then one day he woke from a nap and thought he was still dreaming. Dorothy was leaning over him.
"Barry! Barry!" she whispered. "I can't help it. I love you even if you do have a wife and child in Philadelphia. I know it's wrong but all that seems so far away it doesn't matter any more." Tears glistened in her eyes.
"Huh?" he grunted. "Who? Me?"
"Please, Barry, don't lie. She wrote to me before Three blasted off—oh, the most piteous letter!"
Barry was fully awake now. "I'm not married. I have no child. I've never been in Philadelphia," he shouted. His lips thinned.
"I—think—I—know—who—wrote—that—letter!" he declared grimly.
"Robson wouldn't!" she objected, shocked, but there was a note of doubt in her voice.
Then she was in his arms, sobbing openly.
"I believe you, Barry."
She stayed with him for hours, and she had changed since the days at Training Base. Long months away from the patterned restraints of civilization, living each day on the edge of unknown perils, had awakened in her the realization that she was a human being and a woman, as well as a toxicologist.
When the water-mist finally forced her departure she left Barry joyous and confident of his eventual recovery. For a few minutes anger simmered in his brain as he contemplated the pleasure of rearranging Robson Hind's features.
The accident with the scaffold had been remarkably convenient, but this time the ruthless, restless, probably psychopathic drive that had made Robson Hind more than just another rich man's spoiled son had carried him too far. Barry wondered whether it had been inefficiency or judiciously distributed money that had made the psychometrists overlook some undesirable traits in Hind's personality in accepting him for the Five Ship Plan.
But even with his trickery Hind had lost.
He slept, and woke with a feeling of doom.
The slow Venusian twilight had ended in blackness and the overhead tubelight was off.
He sat up, and apprehension gave way to burning torture in his chest.
Silence! He fumbled for the light switch, then knelt beside the mist machine that no longer hummed. Power and water supplies were both dead, cut off outside his room.
Floating droplets were merging and falling to the floor. Soon the air would be dry, and he would be choking and strangling. He turned to call for help.
The door was locked!
He tugged and the knob came away in his hand. The retaining screw had been removed.
He beat upon the panel, first with his fists and then with the metal doorknob, but the insulation between the double alloy sheets was efficient soundproofing. Furiously he hurled himself upon it, only to bounce back with a bruised shoulder. He was trapped.
Working against time and eventual death he snatched a metal chair and swung with all his force at the window, again, again, yet again. A small crack appeared in the transparent plastic, branched under continued hammering, became a rough star. He gathered his waning strength, then swung once more. The tough plastic shattered.
He tugged at the jagged pieces still clinging to the frame. Fog-laden Venusian air poured in—but it was not enough!
He dragged himself head first through the narrow opening, landed sprawling on hands and knees in the darkness. In his ears a confused rustling drone from the alien swamp mingled with the roar of approaching unconsciousness.
There was a smell in his nostrils. The smell of water. He lurched forward at a shambling run, stumbling over the uneven ground.
Then he plunged from the rocky ledge into the slough. Flashes of colored light flickered before his eyes as he went under. But Earth habits were still strong; instinctively he held his breath.
Then he fainted. Voluntary control of his body vanished. His mouth hung slack and the breathing reflex that had been an integral part of his life since the moment of birth forced him to inhale.
Bubbles floated upward and burst. Then Barry Barr was lying in the ooze of the bottom. And he was breathing, extracting vital oxygen from the brackish, silt-clouded water.
III
Slowly his racing heartbeat returned to normal. Gradually he became aware of the stench of decaying plants and of musky taints he knew instinctively were the scents of underwater animals. Then with a shock the meaning became clear. He had become a water-breather, cut off from all other Earthmen, no longer entirely human. His fellows in the colony were separated from him now by a gulf more absolute than the airless void between Earth and Venus.
Something slippery and alive touched him near one armpit. He opened his eyes in the black water and his groping hand clutched something burrowing into his skin. With a shudder of revulsion he crushed a fat worm between his fingers.
Then dozens of them—hundreds—were upon him from all sides. He was wearing only a pair of khaki pants but the worms ignored his chest to congregate around his face, intent on attacking the tender skin of his eyelids.
For a minute his flailing hands fought them off, but they came in increasing numbers and clung like leeches. Pain spread as they bit and burrowed, and blindly he began to swim.
Faster and faster. He could sense the winding banks of the slough and kept to midchannel, swimming with his eyes tightly closed. One by one the worms dropped off.
He stopped, opened his eyes, not on complete darkness this time but on a faint blue-green luminescence from far below. The water was saltier here, and clearer.
He had swum down the slough and out into the ocean. He tried to turn back, obsessed by a desire to be near the colony even though he could not go ashore without strangling, but he had lost all sense of direction.
He was still weak and his lungs were not completely adjusted to underwater life. Again he grew dizzy and faint. The slow movements of hands and feet that held him just below the surface grew feeble and ceased. He sank.
Down into dimly luminous water he dropped, and with his respiratory system completely water-filled there was no sensation of pressure. At last he floated gently to the bottom and lay motionless.
Shouting voices awakened him, an exultant battle cry cutting through a gasping scream of anguish. Streaks of bright orange light were moving toward him in a twisting pattern. At the head of each trail was a figure. A human figure that weaved and swam in deadly moving combat. One figure drifted limply bottomward.
Hallucination, Barry told himself. Then one of the figures broke from the group. Almost overhead it turned sharply downward and the feet moved in a powerful flutter-kick. A slender spear aimed directly at the Earthman.
Barry threw himself aside. The spear point plunged deep into the sticky, yielding bottom and Barry grappled with its wielder.
Pointed fingernails raked his cheek. Barry's balled fist swung in a roundhouse blow but water resistance slowed the punch to ineffectiveness. The creature only shook its head and came in kicking and clawing.
Barry braced his feet against the bottom and leaped. His head butted the attacker's chest and at the same instant he lashed a short jab to the creature's belly. It slumped momentarily, its face working.
Human—or nearly so—the thing was, with a stocky, powerful body and webbed hands and feet. A few scraps of clothing, seemingly worn more for ornament than covering, clung to the fishbelly-white skin. The face was coarse and savage.
It shook off the effects of Barry's punch and one webbed hand snatched a short tube from its belt.
Barry remembered the spring-opening knife in his pocket, and even as he flicked the blade out the tube-weapon fired. Sound thrummed in the water and the water grew milky with a myriad of bubbles. Something zipped past his head, uncomfortably close.
Then Barry struck, felt his knife slice flesh and grate against bone. He struck again even as the undersea being screamed and went limp.
Barry stared through the reddening water.
Another figure plunged toward him. Barry jerked the dead Venusian's spear from the mud and raised it defensively.
But the figure paid no attention. This one was a female who fled desperately from two men closing in from opposite sides. One threw his spear, using an odd pushing motion, and as she checked and dodged, the other was upon her from behind.
One arm went around her neck in a strangler's hold, bending her slender body backward. Together captor and struggling captive sank toward the bottom. The other recovered his thrown spear and moved in to help secure her arms and legs with lengths of cord.
One scooped up the crossbow the girl had dropped. The other ripped at her brief skirt and from her belt took a pair of tubes like the one the dead Venusian had fired at Barry, handling them as though they were loot of the greatest value. He jerked cruelly at the slender metallic necklace the girl wore but it did not break.
He punched the helpless girl in the abdomen with the butt of his spear. The girl writhed but she did not attempt to cry out.
Barry bounded toward them in a series of soaring leaps, knife and spear ready. One Venusian turned to meet him, grinning maliciously.
Barry dug one foot into the bottom and sidestepped a spear thrust. His own lunge missed completely. Then he and the Venusian were inside each other's spear points, chest to chest. A pointed hook strapped to the inside of the creature's wrist just missed Barry's throat. The Earthman arched his body backward and his knife flashed upward. The creature gasped and pulled away, clutching with both hands at a gaping wound in its belly.
The other one turned too late as Barry leaped.
Barry's hilt cracked against its jawbone.
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What is the significance of Janis's character on the rest of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Plague by Teddy Keller.
Relevant chunks:
THE PLAGUE
By TEDDY KELLER
Suppose a strictly one hundred per cent American plague showed up.... One that attacked only people within the political borders of the United States!
Illustrated by Schoenherr
Sergeant Major Andrew McCloud ignored the jangling telephones and the excited jabber of a room full of brass, and lit a cigarette. Somebody had to keep his head in this mess. Everybody was about to flip.
Like the telephone. Two days ago Corporal Bettijean Baker had been answering the rare call on the single line—in that friendly, husky voice that gave even generals pause—by saying, "Good morning. Office of the Civil Health and Germ Warfare Protection Co-ordinator." Now there was a switchboard out in the hall with a web of lines running to a dozen girls at a half dozen desks wedged into the outer office. And now the harried girls answered with a hasty, "Germ War Protection."
All the brass hats in Washington had suddenly discovered this office deep in the recesses of the Pentagon. And none of them could quite comprehend what had happened. The situation might have been funny, or at least pathetic, if it hadn't been so desperate. Even so, Andy McCloud's nerves and patience had frayed thin.
"I told you, general," he snapped to the flustered brigadier, "Colonel Patterson was retired ten days ago. I don't know what happened. Maybe this replacement sawbones got strangled in red tape. Anyhow, the brand-new lieutenant hasn't showed up here. As far as I know, I'm in charge."
"But this is incredible," a two-star general wailed. "A mysterious epidemic is sweeping the country, possibly an insidious germ attack timed to precede an all-out invasion, and a noncom is sitting on top of the whole powder keg."
Andy's big hands clenched into fists and he had to wait a moment before he could speak safely. Doggone the freckles and the unruly mop of hair that give him such a boyish look. "May I remind you, general," he said, "that I've been entombed here for two years. My staff and I know what to do. If you'll give us some co-operation and a priority, we'll try to figure this thing out."
"But good heavens," a chicken colonel moaned, "this is all so irregular. A noncom!" He said it like a dirty word.
"Irregular, hell," the brigadier snorted, the message getting through.
"There're ways. Gentlemen, I suggest we clear out of here and let the sergeant get to work." He took a step toward the door, and the other officers, protesting and complaining, moved along after him. As they drifted out, he turned and said, "We'll clear your office for top priority." Then dead serious, he added, "Son, a whole nation could panic at any moment. You've got to come through."
Andy didn't waste time standing. He merely nodded to the general, snubbed out his cigarette, and buzzed the intercom. "Bettijean, will you bring me all the latest reports, please?" Then he peeled out of his be-ribboned blouse and rolled up his sleeves. He allowed himself one moment to enjoy the sight of the slim, black-headed corporal who entered his office.
Bettijean crossed briskly to his desk. She gave him a motherly smile as she put down a thick sheaf of papers. "You look beat," she said.
"Brass give you much trouble?"
"Not much. We're top priority now." He ran fingers through the thick, brown hair and massaged his scalp, trying to generate stimulation to his wary and confused brain. "What's new?"
"I've gone though some of these," she said. "Tried to save you a little time."
"Thanks. Sit down."
She pulled up a chair and thumbed through the papers. "So far, no fatalities. That's why there's no panic yet, I guess. But it's spreading like ... well, like a plague." Fear flickered deep in her dark eyes.
"Any water reports?" Andy asked.
"Wichita O.K., Indianapolis O.K., Tulsa O.K., Buffalo O.K.,—and a bunch more. No indication there. Except"—she fished out a one-page report—"some little town in Tennessee. Yesterday there was a campaign for everybody to write their congressman about some deal and today they were to vote on a new water system. Hardly anybody showed up at the polls. They've all got it."
Andy shrugged. "You can drink water, but don't vote for it. Oh, that's a big help." He rummaged through the clutter on his desk and came up with a crude chart. "Any trends yet?"
"It's hitting everybody," Bettijean said helplessly. "Not many kids so far, thank heavens. But housewives, businessmen, office workers, teachers, preachers—rich, poor—from Florida to Alaska. Just when you called me in, one of the girls thought she had a trend. The isolated mountain areas of the West and South. But reports are too fragmentary."
"What is it?" he cried suddenly, banging the desk. "People deathly ill, but nobody dying. And doctors can't identify the poison until they have a fatality for an autopsy. People stricken in every part of the country, but the water systems are pure. How does it spread?"
"In food?"
"How? There must be hundreds of canneries and dairies and packing plants over the country. How could they all goof at the same time—even if it was sabotage?"
"On the wind?"
"But who could accurately predict every wind over the entire country—even Alaska and Hawaii—without hitting Canada or Mexico? And why wouldn't everybody get it in a given area?"
Bettijean's smooth brow furrowed and she reached across the desk to grip his icy, sweating hands. "Andy, do ... do you think it's ... well, an enemy?"
"I don't know," he said. "I just don't know."
For a long moment he sat there, trying to draw strength from her, punishing his brain for the glimmer of an idea. Finally, shaking his head, he pushed back into his chair and reached for the sheaf of papers.
"We've got to find a clue—a trend—an inkling of something." He nodded toward the outer office. "Stop all in-coming calls. Get those girls on lines to hospitals in every city and town in the country. Have them contact individual doctors in rural areas. Then line up another relief crew, and get somebody carting in more coffee and sandwiches. And on those calls, be sure we learn the sex, age, and occupation of the victims. You and I'll start with Washington."
Bettijean snapped to her feet, grinned her encouragement and strode from the room. Andy could hear her crisp instructions to the girls on the phones. Sucking air through his teeth, he reached for his phone and directory.
He dialed until every finger of his right hand was sore. He spoke to worried doctors and frantic hospital administrators and hysterical nurses. His firm, fine penmanship deteriorated to a barely legible scrawl as writer's cramp knotted his hand and arm. His voice burned down to a rasping whisper. But columns climbed up his rough chart and broken lines pointed vaguely to trends.
It was hours later when Bettijean came back into the office with another stack of papers. Andy hung up his phone and reached for a cigarette. At that moment the door banged open. Nerves raw, Bettijean cried out. Andy's cigarette tumbled from his trembling fingers.
"Sergeant," the chicken colonel barked, parading into the office.
Andy swore under his breath and eyed the two young officers who trailed after the colonel. Emotionally exhausted, he had to clamp his jaw against a huge laugh that struggled up in his throat. For just an instant there, the colonel had reminded him of a movie version of General Rommel strutting up and down before his tanks. But it wasn't a swagger stick the colonel had tucked under his arm. It was a folded newspaper. Opening it, the colonel flung it down on Andy's desk.
"RED PLAGUE SWEEPS NATION," the scare headline screamed. Andy's first glance caught such phrases as "alleged Russian plot" and "germ warfare" and "authorities hopelessly baffled."
Snatching the paper, Andy balled it and hurled it from him. "That'll help a lot," he growled hoarsely.
"Well, then, Sergeant." The colonel tried to relax his square face, but tension rode every weathered wrinkle and fear glinted behind the pale gray eyes. "So you finally recognize the gravity of the situation."
Andy's head snapped up, heated words searing towards his lips. Bettijean stepped quickly around the desk and laid a steady hand on his shoulder.
"Colonel," she said levelly, "you should know better than that."
A shocked young captain exploded, "Corporal. Maybe you'd better report to—"
"All right," Andy said sharply.
For a long moment he stared at his clenched fists. Then he exhaled slowly and, to the colonel, flatly and without apology, he said,
"You'll have to excuse the people in this office if they overlook some of the G.I. niceties. We've been without sleep for two days, we're surviving on sandwiches and coffee, and we're fighting a war here that makes every other one look like a Sunday School picnic." He felt Bettijean's hand tighten reassuringly on his shoulder and he gave her a tired smile. Then he hunched forward and picked up a report. "So say what you came here to say and let us get back to work."
"Sergeant," the captain said, as if reading from a manual,
"insubordination cannot be tolerated, even under emergency conditions. Your conduct here will be noted and—"
"Oh, good heavens!" Bettijean cried, her fingers biting into Andy's shoulder. "Do you have to come in here trying to throw your weight around when this man—"
"That's enough," the colonel snapped. "I had hoped that you two would co-operate, but...." He let the sentence trail off as he swelled up a bit with his own importance. "I have turned Washington upside down to get these two officers from the surgeon general's office. Sergeant. Corporal. You are relieved of your duties as of this moment. You will report to my office at once for suitable disciplinary action."
Bettijean sucked in a strained breath and her hand flew to her mouth.
"But you can't—"
"Let's go," Andy said, pushing up from his chair. Ignoring the brass, he turned to her and brushed his lips across hers. "Let them sweat a while. Let 'em have the whole stinking business. Whatever they do to us, at least we can get some sleep."
"But you can't quit now," Bettijean protested. "These brass hats don't know from—"
"Corporal!" the colonel roared.
And from the door, an icy voice said, "Yes, colonel?"
The colonel and his captains wheeled, stared and saluted. "Oh, general," the colonel said. "I was just—"
"I know," the brigadier said, stepping into the room. "I've been listening to you. And I thought I suggested that everybody leave the sergeant and his staff alone."
"But, general, I—"
The general showed the colonel his back and motioned Andy into his chair. He glanced to Bettijean and a smile warmed his wedge face.
"Corporal, were you speaking just then as a woman or as a soldier?"
Crimson erupted into Bettijean's face and her tight laugh said many things. She shrugged. "Both I guess."
The general waved her to a chair and, oblivious of the colonel, pulled up a chair for himself. The last trace of humor drained from his face as he leaned elbows on the desk. "Andy, this is even worse than we had feared."
Andy fumbled for a cigarette and Bettijean passed him a match. A captain opened his mouth to speak, but the colonel shushed him.
"I've just come from Intelligence," the general said. "We haven't had a report—nothing from our agents, from the Diplomatic Corps, from the civilian newspapermen—not a word from any Iron Curtain country for a day and half. Everybody's frantic. The last item we had—it was a coded message the Reds'd tried to censor—was an indication of something big in the works."
"A day and half ago," Andy mused. "Just about the time we knew we had an epidemic. And about the time they knew it."
"It could be just propaganda," Bettijean said hopefully, "proving that they could cripple us from within."
The general nodded. "Or it could be the softening up for an all-out effort. Every American base in the world is alerted and every serviceman is being issued live ammunition. If we're wrong, we've still got an epidemic and panic that could touch it off. If we're right ... well, we've got to know. What can you do?"
Andy dropped his haggard face into his hands. His voice came through muffled. "I can sit here and cry." For an eternity he sat there, futility piling on helplessness, aware of Bettijean's hand on his arm. He heard the colonel try to speak and sensed the general's movement that silenced him.
Suddenly he sat upright and slapped a palm down on the desk. "We'll find your answers, sir. All we ask is co-operation."
The general gave both Andy and Bettijean a long, sober look, then launched himself from the chair. Pivoting, he said, "Colonel, you and your captains will be stationed by that switchboard out there. For the duration of this emergency, you will take orders only from the sergeant and the corporal here."
"But, general," the colonel wailed, "a noncom? I'm assigned—"
The general snorted. "Insubordination cannot be tolerated—unless you find a two-star general to outrank me. Now, as I said before, let's get out of here and let these people work."
The brass exited wordlessly. Bettijean sighed noisily. Andy found his cigarette dead and lit another. He fancied a tiny lever in his brain and he shifted gears to direct his thinking back into the proper channel. Abruptly his fatigue began to lift. He picked up the new pile of reports Bettijean had brought in.
She move around the desk and sat, noting the phone book he had used, studying the names he had crossed off. "Did you learn anything?" she asked.
Andy coughed, trying to clear his raw throat. "It's crazy," he said.
"From the Senate and House on down, I haven't found a single government worker sick."
"I found a few," she said. "Over in a Virginia hospital."
"But I did find," Andy said, flipping through pages of his own scrawl, "a society matron and her social secretary, a whole flock of office workers—business, not government—and new parents and newly engaged girls and...." He shrugged.
"Did you notice anything significant about those office workers?"
Andy nodded. "I was going to ask you the same, since I was just guessing. I hadn't had time to check it out."
"Well, I checked some. Practically none of my victims came from big offices, either business or industry. They were all out of one and two-girl offices or small businesses."
"That was my guess. And do you know that I didn't find a doctor, dentist or attorney?"
"Nor a single postal worker."
Andy tried to smile. "One thing we do know. It's not a communicable thing. Thank heaven for—"
He broke off as a cute blonde entered and put stacks of reports before both Andy and Bettijean. The girl hesitated, fidgeting, fingers to her teeth. Then, without speaking, she hurried out.
Andy stared at the top sheet and groaned. "This may be something. Half the adult population of Aspen, Colorado, is down."
"What?" Bettijean frowned over the report in her hands. "It's the same thing—only not quite as severe—in Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico."
"Writers?"
"Mostly. Some artists, too, and musicians. And poets are among the hard hit."
"This is insane," Andy muttered. "Doctors and dentists are fine—writers and poets are sick. Make sense out of that."
Bettijean held up a paper and managed a confused smile. "Here's a country doctor in Tennessee. He doesn't even know what it's all about. Nobody's sick in his valley."
"Somebody in our outer office is organized," Andy said, pulling at his cigarette. "Here're reports from a dozen military installations all lumped together."
"What does it show?"
"Black-out. By order of somebody higher up—no medical releases. Must mean they've got it." He scratched the growing stubble on his chin.
"If this were a fifth column setup, wouldn't the armed forces be the first hit?"
"Sure," Bettijean brightened, then sobered. "Maybe not. The brass could keep it secret if an epidemic hit an army camp. And they could slap a control condition on any military area. But the panic will come from the general public."
"Here's another batch," Andy said. "Small college towns under twenty-five thousand population. All hard hit."
"Well, it's not split intellectually. Small colleges and small offices and writers get it. Doctors don't and dentists don't. But we can't tell who's got it on the military bases."
"And it's not geographical. Look, remember those two reports from Tennessee? That place where they voted on water bonds or something, everybody had it. But the country doctor in another section hadn't even heard of it." Andy could only shake his head.
Bettijean heaved herself up from the chair and trudged back to the outer office. She returned momentarily with a tray of food. Putting a paper cup of coffee and a sandwich in front of Andy, she sat down and nibbled at her snack like an exhausted chipmunk.
Andy banged a fist at his desk again. Coffee splashed over the rim of his cup onto the clutter of papers. "It's here," he said angrily.
"It's here somewhere, but we can't find it."
"The answer?"
"Of course. What is it that girls in small offices do or eat or drink or wear that girls in large offices don't do or eat or drink or wear? What do writers and doctors do differently? Or poets and dentists? What are we missing? What—"
In the outer office a girl cried out. A body thumped against a desk, then a chair, then to the floor. Two girls screamed.
Andy bolted up from his chair. Racing to the door, he shouted back to Bettijean, "Get a staff doctor and a chemist from the lab."
It was the girl who had been so nervous in his office earlier. Now she lay in a pathetic little heap between her desk and chair, whimpering, shivering, eyes wide with horror. The other girls clustered at the hall door, plainly ready to stampede.
"It's not contagious," Andy growled. "Find some blankets or coats to cover her. And get a glass of water."
The other girls, glad for the excuse, dashed away. Andy scooped up the fallen girl and put her down gently on the close-jammed desks. He used a chair cushion for a pillow. By then the other girls were back with a blanket and the glass of water. He covered the girl, gave her a sip of water and heard somebody murmur, "Poor Janis."
"Now," Andy said brightly, "how's that, Janis?"
She mustered a smile, and breathed, "Better. I ... I was so scared. Fever and dizzy ... symptoms like the epidemic."
"Now you know there's nothing to be afraid of," Andy said, feeling suddenly and ridiculously like a pill roller with a practiced bedside manner. "You know you may feel pretty miserable, but nobody's conked out with this stuff yet."
Janis breathed out and her taut body relaxed.
"Don't hurry," Andy said, "but I want you to tell me everything that you did—everything you ate or drank—in the last ... oh, twelve hours." He felt a pressure behind him and swiveled his head to see Bettijean standing there. He tried to smile.
"What time is it?" Janis asked weakly.
Andy glanced to a wall clock, then gave it a double take.
One of the girls said, "It's three o'clock in the morning." She edged nearer Andy, obviously eager to replace Janis as the center of attention. Andy ignored her.
"I ... I've been here since ... golly, yesterday morning at nine," Janis said. "I came to work as usual and...."
Slowly, haltingly, she recited the routine of a routine work day, then told about the quick snack that sufficed for supper and about staying on her phone and typewriter for another five hours. "It was about eleven when the relief crew came in."
"What did you do then?" Andy asked.
"I ... I took a break and...." Her ivory skin reddened, the color spreading into the roots of her fluffy curls, and she turned her face away from Andy. "And I had a sandwich and some coffee and got a little nap in the ladies' lounge and ... and that's all."
"And that's not all," Andy prompted. "What else?"
"Nothing," Janis said too quickly.
Andy shook his head. "Tell it all and maybe it'll help."
"But ... but...."
"Was it something against regulations?"
"I ... I don't know. I think...."
"I'll vouch for your job in this office."
"Well...." She seemed on the verge of tears and her pleading glance sought out Andy, then Bettijean, then her co-workers. Finally, resigned, she said, "I ... I wrote a letter to my mother."
Andy swallowed against his groan of disappointment. "And you told her about what we were doing here."
Janis nodded, and tears welled into her wide eyes.
"Did you mail it?"
"Y ... yes."
"You didn't use a government envelope to save a stamp?"
"Oh, no. I always carry a few stamps with me." She choked down a sob.
"Did I do wrong?"
"No, I don't think so," Andy said, patting her shoulder. "There's certainly nothing secret about this epidemic. Now you just take it easy and—. Oh, here's a doctor now."
The doctor, a white-headed Air Force major, bustled into the room. A lab technician in a white smock was close behind. Andy could only shrug and indicate the girl.
Turning away, lighting a cigarette, he tried to focus on the tangle of thoughts that spun through his head. Doctors, writers, society matrons, office workers—Aspen, Taos and college towns—thousands of people sick—but none in that valley in Tennessee—and few government workers—just one girl in his office—and she was sicker and more frightened about a letter—and....
"Hey, wait!" Andy yelled.
Everyone in the room froze as Andy spun around, dashed to Bettijean's desk and yanked out the wide, top drawer. He pawed through it, straightened, then leaped across to the desk Janis had used. He snatched open drawer after drawer. In a bottom one he found her purse. Ripping it open, he dumped the contents on the desk and clawed through the pile until he found what he wanted. Handing it to the lab technician, he said, "Get me a report. Fast."
The technician darted out.
Andy wheeled to Bettijean. "Get the brass in here. And call the general first." To the doctor, he said, "Give that girl the best of everything."
Then he ducked back to his own office and to the pile of reports. He was still poring over them when the general arrived. Half a dozen other brass hats, none of whom had been to bed, were close behind. The lab technician arrived a minute later. He shook his head as he handed his hastily scribbled report to Andy.
It was Bettijean who squeezed into the office and broke the brittle silence. "Andy, for heaven's sake, what is it?" Then she moved around the desk to stand behind him as he faced the officers.
"Have you got something?" the brigadier asked. "Some girl outside was babbling about writers and doctors, and dentists and college students, and little secretaries and big secretaries. Have you established a trend?"
Andy glanced at the lab report and his smile was as relieved as it was weary. "Our problem," he said, "was in figuring out what a writer does that a doctor doesn't—why girls from small offices were sick—and why senators and postal workers weren't—why college students caught the bug and people in a Tennessee community didn't.
"The lab report isn't complete. They haven't had time to isolate the poison and prescribe medication. But"—he held up a four-cent stamp—"here's the villain, gentlemen."
The big brass stood stunned and shocked. Mouths flapped open and eyes bugged at Andy, at the stamp.
Bettijean said, "Sure. College kids and engaged girls and new parents and especially writers and artists and poets—they'd all lick lots of stamps. Professional men have secretaries. Big offices have postage-meter machines. And government offices have free franking. And"—she threw her arms around the sergeant's neck—"Andy, you're wonderful."
"The old American ingenuity," the colonel said, reaching for Andy's phone. "I knew we could lick it. Now all we have to do—"
"At ease, colonel," the brigadier said sharply. He waited until the colonel had retreated, then addressed Andy. "It's your show. What do you suggest?"
"Get somebody—maybe even the President—on all radio and TV networks. Explain frankly about the four-centers and warn against licking any stamps. Then—"
He broke off as his phone rang. Answering, he listened for a moment, then hung up and said, "But before the big announcement, get somebody checking on the security clearances at whatever plant it is where they print stamps. This's a big deal. Somebody may've been planted years ago for this operation. It shouldn't be too hard.
"But there's no evidence it was a plot yet. Could be pure accident—some chemical in the stickum spoiled. Do they keep the stickum in barrels? Find out who had access. And ... oh, the phone call. That was the lab. The antidote's simple and the cure should be quick. They can phone or broadcast the medical information to doctors. The man on the phone said they could start emptying hospitals in six hours. And maybe we should release some propaganda. "United States whips mystery virus," or something like that. And we could send the Kremlin a stamp collection and.... Aw, you take it, sir. I'm pooped."
The general wheeled to fire a salvo of commands. Officers poured into the corridor. Only the brigadier remained, a puzzled frown crinkling his granite brow.
"But you said that postal workers weren't getting sick."
Andy chucked. "That's right. Did you ever see a post office clerk lick a stamp? They always use a sponge."
The general looked to Bettijean, to Andy, to the stamp. He grinned and the grin became a rumbling laugh. "How would you two like a thirty-day furlough to rest up—or to get better acquainted?"
Bettijean squealed. Andy reached for her hand.
"And while you're gone," the general continued, "I'll see what strings I can pull. If I can't wangle you a couple of battlefield commissions, I'll zip you both through O.C.S. so fast you won't even have time to pin on the bars."
But neither Andy nor Bettijean had heard a word after the mention of furlough. Like a pair of puppy-lovers, they were sinking into the depths of each other's eyes.
And the general was still chuckling as he picked up the lone four-cent stamp in his left hand, made a gun of his right hand, and marched the stamp out of the office under guard.
THE END
Question:
What is the significance of Janis's character on the rest of the story?
Answer:
|
[
"In short, without Janis, Sergeant Andrew McCloud would not have discovered the cause of the epidemic as quickly or at all. \n\tNear the end of the story, Janis, an attractive blonde woman, enters Sergeant Andy’s office to deliver another stack of reports before him and Corporal Bettijean. The two of them had been analyzing the reports and statistics for several hours now, desperate to find a trend amongst those infected. So far, they had come up with nothing concrete, except for the types of people who were getting infected. Working people, artists, poets, newly engaged women, and small office workers were all turning up sick. Bigger offices, postal workers, doctors, dentists, and government workers were all fine. So, what’s the connection? \n\tAfter nervously delivering the reports, Janis quickly scurries out of the office and back to her desk elsewhere. Bettijean and Andy notice that the adult population in Aspen, Colorado; Taos; and Santa Fe, New Mexico is rapidly falling ill, all towns with prominent artistic industries. \n\tThey keep pouring over the reports, making new discoveries but still not coming up with any answers. Suddenly, a girl cries out from beyond his office. They hear a body fall to the floor, and they quickly rush out as the sounds of screaming emerge. Andy sends Bettijean to retrieve a doctor and a chemist, while he runs to help. Janis was lying on the floor, in pain and scared. Luckily, the virus is not contagious, so Andy and the others were able to help her. \n\tAndy interrogates her, asking detailed questions about her day and the past 12 hours. He tries to ascertain all the moments of her life, so he can pinpoint where and how she got infected. Her symptoms match up with the epidemic at hand (a fever and feeling dizzy), so Andy knows this is his best shot to find the origin. \n\tSlowly, she recounts her day and tells them all about what she did, where she was, and what she ate. She hides one thing though, which Andy quickly forces out of her. She wrote a letter to her mother, telling her about the epidemic and how scary it was. This is against regulations, as shown through Andy’s grunt of disapproval. She mailed it with her own stamps, not with a government envelope. \n\tAndy puts all the puzzle pieces together in his mind and realizes that all those people, Janis included, had one thing in common: writing letters. The poison was in the stamp. Without Janis, Andy would have struggled far longer to discover the illness and halt the production and sale of all stamps nationwide. \n\t\n",
"Janis is the first person to fall sick with the mysterious disease in the Office of Civil Health and Germ Warfare Protection. She had been one of the people delivering reports to Andy’s office, and head seemed nervous when she had entered last. She had fallen at her desk, and was shivering and horrified at what had happened. Once she was able to talk with Andy, he was able to ask her questions about her day. This was important because Andy had not yet found a connection that tied the victims of the epidemic together. He insisted that he tell her everything, and the fact that she sent a letter to her mother was the crucial fact that allowed Andy to put the story together. He was able to have Janis’ postage stamps tested for a toxin on the glued side, allowing him to finally find the root of the sickness and start the nationwide response, including giving the lab enough information to find out what was needed for a treatment. ",
"Janis is the phone operator who falls ill as they are working to solve the mystery of the pandemic. She becomes the key to unlocking the mystery as she describes her day to Andy. She informs him that she sent a letter to her mother earlier in the day. This, along with the trends that are becoming apparent in the sick populations allows Andy to deduce that licking stamp adhesive is what is making people sick.",
"Janis is the first person in McCloud’s office to become sick. First, she comes in to give him a report, and she fidgets and moves like she is nervous. Only a few minutes later, she collapses in the hallway. She is feverish and dizzy. \n\nWhen McCloud pressures her to tell him everything that she has consumed and done in the last day or so, Janis admits that she broke government regulations when she mailed a letter to her mother that detailed the epidemic. McCloud points out that she hardly let out a secret. The news of the epidemic has spread far and wide at this point. \n\nHe contemplates her story for several minutes and realizes that in order to send the letter, Janis must have licked a stamp. Janis’s illness turned out to be the essential clue. Without her explanation of the steps she took before she became sick, McCloud would not have the information he needed to solve the puzzle. \n"
] |
30062
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THE PLAGUE
By TEDDY KELLER
Suppose a strictly one hundred per cent American plague showed up.... One that attacked only people within the political borders of the United States!
Illustrated by Schoenherr
Sergeant Major Andrew McCloud ignored the jangling telephones and the excited jabber of a room full of brass, and lit a cigarette. Somebody had to keep his head in this mess. Everybody was about to flip.
Like the telephone. Two days ago Corporal Bettijean Baker had been answering the rare call on the single line—in that friendly, husky voice that gave even generals pause—by saying, "Good morning. Office of the Civil Health and Germ Warfare Protection Co-ordinator." Now there was a switchboard out in the hall with a web of lines running to a dozen girls at a half dozen desks wedged into the outer office. And now the harried girls answered with a hasty, "Germ War Protection."
All the brass hats in Washington had suddenly discovered this office deep in the recesses of the Pentagon. And none of them could quite comprehend what had happened. The situation might have been funny, or at least pathetic, if it hadn't been so desperate. Even so, Andy McCloud's nerves and patience had frayed thin.
"I told you, general," he snapped to the flustered brigadier, "Colonel Patterson was retired ten days ago. I don't know what happened. Maybe this replacement sawbones got strangled in red tape. Anyhow, the brand-new lieutenant hasn't showed up here. As far as I know, I'm in charge."
"But this is incredible," a two-star general wailed. "A mysterious epidemic is sweeping the country, possibly an insidious germ attack timed to precede an all-out invasion, and a noncom is sitting on top of the whole powder keg."
Andy's big hands clenched into fists and he had to wait a moment before he could speak safely. Doggone the freckles and the unruly mop of hair that give him such a boyish look. "May I remind you, general," he said, "that I've been entombed here for two years. My staff and I know what to do. If you'll give us some co-operation and a priority, we'll try to figure this thing out."
"But good heavens," a chicken colonel moaned, "this is all so irregular. A noncom!" He said it like a dirty word.
"Irregular, hell," the brigadier snorted, the message getting through.
"There're ways. Gentlemen, I suggest we clear out of here and let the sergeant get to work." He took a step toward the door, and the other officers, protesting and complaining, moved along after him. As they drifted out, he turned and said, "We'll clear your office for top priority." Then dead serious, he added, "Son, a whole nation could panic at any moment. You've got to come through."
Andy didn't waste time standing. He merely nodded to the general, snubbed out his cigarette, and buzzed the intercom. "Bettijean, will you bring me all the latest reports, please?" Then he peeled out of his be-ribboned blouse and rolled up his sleeves. He allowed himself one moment to enjoy the sight of the slim, black-headed corporal who entered his office.
Bettijean crossed briskly to his desk. She gave him a motherly smile as she put down a thick sheaf of papers. "You look beat," she said.
"Brass give you much trouble?"
"Not much. We're top priority now." He ran fingers through the thick, brown hair and massaged his scalp, trying to generate stimulation to his wary and confused brain. "What's new?"
"I've gone though some of these," she said. "Tried to save you a little time."
"Thanks. Sit down."
She pulled up a chair and thumbed through the papers. "So far, no fatalities. That's why there's no panic yet, I guess. But it's spreading like ... well, like a plague." Fear flickered deep in her dark eyes.
"Any water reports?" Andy asked.
"Wichita O.K., Indianapolis O.K., Tulsa O.K., Buffalo O.K.,—and a bunch more. No indication there. Except"—she fished out a one-page report—"some little town in Tennessee. Yesterday there was a campaign for everybody to write their congressman about some deal and today they were to vote on a new water system. Hardly anybody showed up at the polls. They've all got it."
Andy shrugged. "You can drink water, but don't vote for it. Oh, that's a big help." He rummaged through the clutter on his desk and came up with a crude chart. "Any trends yet?"
"It's hitting everybody," Bettijean said helplessly. "Not many kids so far, thank heavens. But housewives, businessmen, office workers, teachers, preachers—rich, poor—from Florida to Alaska. Just when you called me in, one of the girls thought she had a trend. The isolated mountain areas of the West and South. But reports are too fragmentary."
"What is it?" he cried suddenly, banging the desk. "People deathly ill, but nobody dying. And doctors can't identify the poison until they have a fatality for an autopsy. People stricken in every part of the country, but the water systems are pure. How does it spread?"
"In food?"
"How? There must be hundreds of canneries and dairies and packing plants over the country. How could they all goof at the same time—even if it was sabotage?"
"On the wind?"
"But who could accurately predict every wind over the entire country—even Alaska and Hawaii—without hitting Canada or Mexico? And why wouldn't everybody get it in a given area?"
Bettijean's smooth brow furrowed and she reached across the desk to grip his icy, sweating hands. "Andy, do ... do you think it's ... well, an enemy?"
"I don't know," he said. "I just don't know."
For a long moment he sat there, trying to draw strength from her, punishing his brain for the glimmer of an idea. Finally, shaking his head, he pushed back into his chair and reached for the sheaf of papers.
"We've got to find a clue—a trend—an inkling of something." He nodded toward the outer office. "Stop all in-coming calls. Get those girls on lines to hospitals in every city and town in the country. Have them contact individual doctors in rural areas. Then line up another relief crew, and get somebody carting in more coffee and sandwiches. And on those calls, be sure we learn the sex, age, and occupation of the victims. You and I'll start with Washington."
Bettijean snapped to her feet, grinned her encouragement and strode from the room. Andy could hear her crisp instructions to the girls on the phones. Sucking air through his teeth, he reached for his phone and directory.
He dialed until every finger of his right hand was sore. He spoke to worried doctors and frantic hospital administrators and hysterical nurses. His firm, fine penmanship deteriorated to a barely legible scrawl as writer's cramp knotted his hand and arm. His voice burned down to a rasping whisper. But columns climbed up his rough chart and broken lines pointed vaguely to trends.
It was hours later when Bettijean came back into the office with another stack of papers. Andy hung up his phone and reached for a cigarette. At that moment the door banged open. Nerves raw, Bettijean cried out. Andy's cigarette tumbled from his trembling fingers.
"Sergeant," the chicken colonel barked, parading into the office.
Andy swore under his breath and eyed the two young officers who trailed after the colonel. Emotionally exhausted, he had to clamp his jaw against a huge laugh that struggled up in his throat. For just an instant there, the colonel had reminded him of a movie version of General Rommel strutting up and down before his tanks. But it wasn't a swagger stick the colonel had tucked under his arm. It was a folded newspaper. Opening it, the colonel flung it down on Andy's desk.
"RED PLAGUE SWEEPS NATION," the scare headline screamed. Andy's first glance caught such phrases as "alleged Russian plot" and "germ warfare" and "authorities hopelessly baffled."
Snatching the paper, Andy balled it and hurled it from him. "That'll help a lot," he growled hoarsely.
"Well, then, Sergeant." The colonel tried to relax his square face, but tension rode every weathered wrinkle and fear glinted behind the pale gray eyes. "So you finally recognize the gravity of the situation."
Andy's head snapped up, heated words searing towards his lips. Bettijean stepped quickly around the desk and laid a steady hand on his shoulder.
"Colonel," she said levelly, "you should know better than that."
A shocked young captain exploded, "Corporal. Maybe you'd better report to—"
"All right," Andy said sharply.
For a long moment he stared at his clenched fists. Then he exhaled slowly and, to the colonel, flatly and without apology, he said,
"You'll have to excuse the people in this office if they overlook some of the G.I. niceties. We've been without sleep for two days, we're surviving on sandwiches and coffee, and we're fighting a war here that makes every other one look like a Sunday School picnic." He felt Bettijean's hand tighten reassuringly on his shoulder and he gave her a tired smile. Then he hunched forward and picked up a report. "So say what you came here to say and let us get back to work."
"Sergeant," the captain said, as if reading from a manual,
"insubordination cannot be tolerated, even under emergency conditions. Your conduct here will be noted and—"
"Oh, good heavens!" Bettijean cried, her fingers biting into Andy's shoulder. "Do you have to come in here trying to throw your weight around when this man—"
"That's enough," the colonel snapped. "I had hoped that you two would co-operate, but...." He let the sentence trail off as he swelled up a bit with his own importance. "I have turned Washington upside down to get these two officers from the surgeon general's office. Sergeant. Corporal. You are relieved of your duties as of this moment. You will report to my office at once for suitable disciplinary action."
Bettijean sucked in a strained breath and her hand flew to her mouth.
"But you can't—"
"Let's go," Andy said, pushing up from his chair. Ignoring the brass, he turned to her and brushed his lips across hers. "Let them sweat a while. Let 'em have the whole stinking business. Whatever they do to us, at least we can get some sleep."
"But you can't quit now," Bettijean protested. "These brass hats don't know from—"
"Corporal!" the colonel roared.
And from the door, an icy voice said, "Yes, colonel?"
The colonel and his captains wheeled, stared and saluted. "Oh, general," the colonel said. "I was just—"
"I know," the brigadier said, stepping into the room. "I've been listening to you. And I thought I suggested that everybody leave the sergeant and his staff alone."
"But, general, I—"
The general showed the colonel his back and motioned Andy into his chair. He glanced to Bettijean and a smile warmed his wedge face.
"Corporal, were you speaking just then as a woman or as a soldier?"
Crimson erupted into Bettijean's face and her tight laugh said many things. She shrugged. "Both I guess."
The general waved her to a chair and, oblivious of the colonel, pulled up a chair for himself. The last trace of humor drained from his face as he leaned elbows on the desk. "Andy, this is even worse than we had feared."
Andy fumbled for a cigarette and Bettijean passed him a match. A captain opened his mouth to speak, but the colonel shushed him.
"I've just come from Intelligence," the general said. "We haven't had a report—nothing from our agents, from the Diplomatic Corps, from the civilian newspapermen—not a word from any Iron Curtain country for a day and half. Everybody's frantic. The last item we had—it was a coded message the Reds'd tried to censor—was an indication of something big in the works."
"A day and half ago," Andy mused. "Just about the time we knew we had an epidemic. And about the time they knew it."
"It could be just propaganda," Bettijean said hopefully, "proving that they could cripple us from within."
The general nodded. "Or it could be the softening up for an all-out effort. Every American base in the world is alerted and every serviceman is being issued live ammunition. If we're wrong, we've still got an epidemic and panic that could touch it off. If we're right ... well, we've got to know. What can you do?"
Andy dropped his haggard face into his hands. His voice came through muffled. "I can sit here and cry." For an eternity he sat there, futility piling on helplessness, aware of Bettijean's hand on his arm. He heard the colonel try to speak and sensed the general's movement that silenced him.
Suddenly he sat upright and slapped a palm down on the desk. "We'll find your answers, sir. All we ask is co-operation."
The general gave both Andy and Bettijean a long, sober look, then launched himself from the chair. Pivoting, he said, "Colonel, you and your captains will be stationed by that switchboard out there. For the duration of this emergency, you will take orders only from the sergeant and the corporal here."
"But, general," the colonel wailed, "a noncom? I'm assigned—"
The general snorted. "Insubordination cannot be tolerated—unless you find a two-star general to outrank me. Now, as I said before, let's get out of here and let these people work."
The brass exited wordlessly. Bettijean sighed noisily. Andy found his cigarette dead and lit another. He fancied a tiny lever in his brain and he shifted gears to direct his thinking back into the proper channel. Abruptly his fatigue began to lift. He picked up the new pile of reports Bettijean had brought in.
She move around the desk and sat, noting the phone book he had used, studying the names he had crossed off. "Did you learn anything?" she asked.
Andy coughed, trying to clear his raw throat. "It's crazy," he said.
"From the Senate and House on down, I haven't found a single government worker sick."
"I found a few," she said. "Over in a Virginia hospital."
"But I did find," Andy said, flipping through pages of his own scrawl, "a society matron and her social secretary, a whole flock of office workers—business, not government—and new parents and newly engaged girls and...." He shrugged.
"Did you notice anything significant about those office workers?"
Andy nodded. "I was going to ask you the same, since I was just guessing. I hadn't had time to check it out."
"Well, I checked some. Practically none of my victims came from big offices, either business or industry. They were all out of one and two-girl offices or small businesses."
"That was my guess. And do you know that I didn't find a doctor, dentist or attorney?"
"Nor a single postal worker."
Andy tried to smile. "One thing we do know. It's not a communicable thing. Thank heaven for—"
He broke off as a cute blonde entered and put stacks of reports before both Andy and Bettijean. The girl hesitated, fidgeting, fingers to her teeth. Then, without speaking, she hurried out.
Andy stared at the top sheet and groaned. "This may be something. Half the adult population of Aspen, Colorado, is down."
"What?" Bettijean frowned over the report in her hands. "It's the same thing—only not quite as severe—in Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico."
"Writers?"
"Mostly. Some artists, too, and musicians. And poets are among the hard hit."
"This is insane," Andy muttered. "Doctors and dentists are fine—writers and poets are sick. Make sense out of that."
Bettijean held up a paper and managed a confused smile. "Here's a country doctor in Tennessee. He doesn't even know what it's all about. Nobody's sick in his valley."
"Somebody in our outer office is organized," Andy said, pulling at his cigarette. "Here're reports from a dozen military installations all lumped together."
"What does it show?"
"Black-out. By order of somebody higher up—no medical releases. Must mean they've got it." He scratched the growing stubble on his chin.
"If this were a fifth column setup, wouldn't the armed forces be the first hit?"
"Sure," Bettijean brightened, then sobered. "Maybe not. The brass could keep it secret if an epidemic hit an army camp. And they could slap a control condition on any military area. But the panic will come from the general public."
"Here's another batch," Andy said. "Small college towns under twenty-five thousand population. All hard hit."
"Well, it's not split intellectually. Small colleges and small offices and writers get it. Doctors don't and dentists don't. But we can't tell who's got it on the military bases."
"And it's not geographical. Look, remember those two reports from Tennessee? That place where they voted on water bonds or something, everybody had it. But the country doctor in another section hadn't even heard of it." Andy could only shake his head.
Bettijean heaved herself up from the chair and trudged back to the outer office. She returned momentarily with a tray of food. Putting a paper cup of coffee and a sandwich in front of Andy, she sat down and nibbled at her snack like an exhausted chipmunk.
Andy banged a fist at his desk again. Coffee splashed over the rim of his cup onto the clutter of papers. "It's here," he said angrily.
"It's here somewhere, but we can't find it."
"The answer?"
"Of course. What is it that girls in small offices do or eat or drink or wear that girls in large offices don't do or eat or drink or wear? What do writers and doctors do differently? Or poets and dentists? What are we missing? What—"
In the outer office a girl cried out. A body thumped against a desk, then a chair, then to the floor. Two girls screamed.
Andy bolted up from his chair. Racing to the door, he shouted back to Bettijean, "Get a staff doctor and a chemist from the lab."
It was the girl who had been so nervous in his office earlier. Now she lay in a pathetic little heap between her desk and chair, whimpering, shivering, eyes wide with horror. The other girls clustered at the hall door, plainly ready to stampede.
"It's not contagious," Andy growled. "Find some blankets or coats to cover her. And get a glass of water."
The other girls, glad for the excuse, dashed away. Andy scooped up the fallen girl and put her down gently on the close-jammed desks. He used a chair cushion for a pillow. By then the other girls were back with a blanket and the glass of water. He covered the girl, gave her a sip of water and heard somebody murmur, "Poor Janis."
"Now," Andy said brightly, "how's that, Janis?"
She mustered a smile, and breathed, "Better. I ... I was so scared. Fever and dizzy ... symptoms like the epidemic."
"Now you know there's nothing to be afraid of," Andy said, feeling suddenly and ridiculously like a pill roller with a practiced bedside manner. "You know you may feel pretty miserable, but nobody's conked out with this stuff yet."
Janis breathed out and her taut body relaxed.
"Don't hurry," Andy said, "but I want you to tell me everything that you did—everything you ate or drank—in the last ... oh, twelve hours." He felt a pressure behind him and swiveled his head to see Bettijean standing there. He tried to smile.
"What time is it?" Janis asked weakly.
Andy glanced to a wall clock, then gave it a double take.
One of the girls said, "It's three o'clock in the morning." She edged nearer Andy, obviously eager to replace Janis as the center of attention. Andy ignored her.
"I ... I've been here since ... golly, yesterday morning at nine," Janis said. "I came to work as usual and...."
Slowly, haltingly, she recited the routine of a routine work day, then told about the quick snack that sufficed for supper and about staying on her phone and typewriter for another five hours. "It was about eleven when the relief crew came in."
"What did you do then?" Andy asked.
"I ... I took a break and...." Her ivory skin reddened, the color spreading into the roots of her fluffy curls, and she turned her face away from Andy. "And I had a sandwich and some coffee and got a little nap in the ladies' lounge and ... and that's all."
"And that's not all," Andy prompted. "What else?"
"Nothing," Janis said too quickly.
Andy shook his head. "Tell it all and maybe it'll help."
"But ... but...."
"Was it something against regulations?"
"I ... I don't know. I think...."
"I'll vouch for your job in this office."
"Well...." She seemed on the verge of tears and her pleading glance sought out Andy, then Bettijean, then her co-workers. Finally, resigned, she said, "I ... I wrote a letter to my mother."
Andy swallowed against his groan of disappointment. "And you told her about what we were doing here."
Janis nodded, and tears welled into her wide eyes.
"Did you mail it?"
"Y ... yes."
"You didn't use a government envelope to save a stamp?"
"Oh, no. I always carry a few stamps with me." She choked down a sob.
"Did I do wrong?"
"No, I don't think so," Andy said, patting her shoulder. "There's certainly nothing secret about this epidemic. Now you just take it easy and—. Oh, here's a doctor now."
The doctor, a white-headed Air Force major, bustled into the room. A lab technician in a white smock was close behind. Andy could only shrug and indicate the girl.
Turning away, lighting a cigarette, he tried to focus on the tangle of thoughts that spun through his head. Doctors, writers, society matrons, office workers—Aspen, Taos and college towns—thousands of people sick—but none in that valley in Tennessee—and few government workers—just one girl in his office—and she was sicker and more frightened about a letter—and....
"Hey, wait!" Andy yelled.
Everyone in the room froze as Andy spun around, dashed to Bettijean's desk and yanked out the wide, top drawer. He pawed through it, straightened, then leaped across to the desk Janis had used. He snatched open drawer after drawer. In a bottom one he found her purse. Ripping it open, he dumped the contents on the desk and clawed through the pile until he found what he wanted. Handing it to the lab technician, he said, "Get me a report. Fast."
The technician darted out.
Andy wheeled to Bettijean. "Get the brass in here. And call the general first." To the doctor, he said, "Give that girl the best of everything."
Then he ducked back to his own office and to the pile of reports. He was still poring over them when the general arrived. Half a dozen other brass hats, none of whom had been to bed, were close behind. The lab technician arrived a minute later. He shook his head as he handed his hastily scribbled report to Andy.
It was Bettijean who squeezed into the office and broke the brittle silence. "Andy, for heaven's sake, what is it?" Then she moved around the desk to stand behind him as he faced the officers.
"Have you got something?" the brigadier asked. "Some girl outside was babbling about writers and doctors, and dentists and college students, and little secretaries and big secretaries. Have you established a trend?"
Andy glanced at the lab report and his smile was as relieved as it was weary. "Our problem," he said, "was in figuring out what a writer does that a doctor doesn't—why girls from small offices were sick—and why senators and postal workers weren't—why college students caught the bug and people in a Tennessee community didn't.
"The lab report isn't complete. They haven't had time to isolate the poison and prescribe medication. But"—he held up a four-cent stamp—"here's the villain, gentlemen."
The big brass stood stunned and shocked. Mouths flapped open and eyes bugged at Andy, at the stamp.
Bettijean said, "Sure. College kids and engaged girls and new parents and especially writers and artists and poets—they'd all lick lots of stamps. Professional men have secretaries. Big offices have postage-meter machines. And government offices have free franking. And"—she threw her arms around the sergeant's neck—"Andy, you're wonderful."
"The old American ingenuity," the colonel said, reaching for Andy's phone. "I knew we could lick it. Now all we have to do—"
"At ease, colonel," the brigadier said sharply. He waited until the colonel had retreated, then addressed Andy. "It's your show. What do you suggest?"
"Get somebody—maybe even the President—on all radio and TV networks. Explain frankly about the four-centers and warn against licking any stamps. Then—"
He broke off as his phone rang. Answering, he listened for a moment, then hung up and said, "But before the big announcement, get somebody checking on the security clearances at whatever plant it is where they print stamps. This's a big deal. Somebody may've been planted years ago for this operation. It shouldn't be too hard.
"But there's no evidence it was a plot yet. Could be pure accident—some chemical in the stickum spoiled. Do they keep the stickum in barrels? Find out who had access. And ... oh, the phone call. That was the lab. The antidote's simple and the cure should be quick. They can phone or broadcast the medical information to doctors. The man on the phone said they could start emptying hospitals in six hours. And maybe we should release some propaganda. "United States whips mystery virus," or something like that. And we could send the Kremlin a stamp collection and.... Aw, you take it, sir. I'm pooped."
The general wheeled to fire a salvo of commands. Officers poured into the corridor. Only the brigadier remained, a puzzled frown crinkling his granite brow.
"But you said that postal workers weren't getting sick."
Andy chucked. "That's right. Did you ever see a post office clerk lick a stamp? They always use a sponge."
The general looked to Bettijean, to Andy, to the stamp. He grinned and the grin became a rumbling laugh. "How would you two like a thirty-day furlough to rest up—or to get better acquainted?"
Bettijean squealed. Andy reached for her hand.
"And while you're gone," the general continued, "I'll see what strings I can pull. If I can't wangle you a couple of battlefield commissions, I'll zip you both through O.C.S. so fast you won't even have time to pin on the bars."
But neither Andy nor Bettijean had heard a word after the mention of furlough. Like a pair of puppy-lovers, they were sinking into the depths of each other's eyes.
And the general was still chuckling as he picked up the lone four-cent stamp in his left hand, made a gun of his right hand, and marched the stamp out of the office under guard.
THE END
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What is the plot of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Lorelei Death by Nelson S. Bond.
Relevant chunks:
THE LORELEI DEATH
by NELSON S. BOND
Far out in limitless Space she plied her deadly trade ... a Lorelei of the void, beckoning spacemen to death and destruction with her beautiful siren lure.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1941. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Chip Warren stood before an oblong of glass set into one wall of the spaceship Chickadee II , stared at what he saw reflected therefrom—and frowned. He didn't like it. Not a bit! It was too—too—
He turned away angrily, ripped the offending article from about his neck, and chose another necktie from the rack. This one was brighter, gaudier, much more in keeping with the gaiety of his mood. He emitted a grunt of satisfaction, spun from the mirror to face his two companions triumphantly.
"There! How do you like that ?"
Syd Palmer, short and chubby, tow-headed and liquid-blue of eye, always languid save when engaged in the solution of some engineering problem concerned with the space vessel he mothered like a brooding hen, moaned insultingly and forced a shudder.
"Sunspots! Novae! Flying comets! And he wears 'em around his neck!"
"You," Chip told him serenely, "have no appreciation of beauty. What do you think of it, Padre?"
"Salvation" Smith, a tall, gangling scarecrow garbed in rusty black, a lean-jawed, hawkeyed man with tumbled locks of silver framing his weathered cheeks like a halo, concealed his grin poorly. "Well, my boy," he admitted, "there is some Biblical precedent for your—ahem!—clamorous raiment. 'So Joseph made for himself a coat which was of many colors—'"
"Both of you," declared Chip, "give me a pain in the pants! Stick-in-the-muds! Here we are in port for the first time in months, cargo-bins loaded to the gunwales with enough ekalastron to make us rich for life—and you sit here like a pair of stuffed owls!
"Well, not me! I'm going to take a night off, throw myself a party the likes of which was never seen around these parts. Put a candle in the window, chilluns, 'cause li'l' Chip won't be home till the wee, sma' hours!"
Syd chuckled.
"O.Q., big shot. But don't get too cozy with any of those joy-joint entertainers. Remember what happened to poor old Dougal MacNeer!"
Salvation said soberly, "Syd's just fooling, my boy. But I would be careful if I were you. We're in the Belt, you know. The forces of law and order do not always govern these wild outposts of civilization as well as might be hoped. The planetoids are dens of iniquity, violent and unheeding the words of Him who rules all—"
The old man's lips etched a straight line, reminding Chip that Salvation Smith was not one of those milk-and-water missionaries who espoused the principle of "turning the other cheek" to evildoers. Salvation was not the ordained emissary of any church. A devoutly religious man with the heart of an adventurer, he had taken upon himself the mission of carrying to outland tribes the story of the God he worshipped.
That his God was the fierce Yahveh of the Old Testament, a God of anger and retribution, was made evident by the methods Salvation sometimes employed in winning his converts. For not only was Salvation acknowledged the most pious man in space; he was also conceded to be the best hand with a gun!
Now Chip gave quiet answer. "I know, Padre: I'll be careful. Well, Syd—sure you won't change your mind and come along?"
"No can do, chum. The spaceport repair crew's still smearing this jalopy with ek. Got to stay and watch 'em."
"O.Q. I'm off alone, then. See you later!"
And, whistling, Chip Warren stepped through the lock of the Chickadee onto the soil of the asteroid Danae.
Danae was, thought Chip as he strolled along briskly toward the town beyond the spaceport, a most presentable hunk of rock. Nice lucentite Dome ... good atmo ... a fine artificial grav system based on Terra normal. It seemed to be a popular little fueling-stop, too, for its cradle-bins were laden with vessels from every planet in the System, and as he gained the main drag he found himself rubbing shoulders with citizens of every known world. Lumbering, albino Venusians, petal-headed Martians, Jovian runts, greenies from far Uranus, Earthman—all were here.
Quite a likely place, he thought happily, to chuck a brawl. A brilliantly gleaming xenon sign before him welcomed visitors to:
XU'UL'S SOLAREST Barroom—Casino—Dancing 100—Lovely Hostesses—100
He entered, and was immediately deluged by a bevy of charm-gals vying for the privilege of: (1) helping him beat the roulette wheel; (2) helping him drink the house dry, and/or (3) separating him as swiftly as possible from the credits in his money belt.
Chip shook them off, gently but firmly. He wanted a good time, true; but he wanted it solo. The main cabaret was too crowded; he passed through it and another equally blatant room wherein twoscore Venusians were straining the structure with a native "sing-stomp," and ended up finally, with a sigh of relief, in a small, dimly-lighted private bar unfrequented by anyone save a bored and listless Martian bartender.
The chrysanthemum-pated son of the desertland roused himself as Chip entered, rustled his petals and piped a ready greeting.
"Welcoom, ssirr! Trrink, pleasse?"
This was more like it! Chip grinned.
"Scotch," he said. " Old Spaceman. And let's have a new bottle, Curly. None of that doctored swill."
"Of courrsse, ssirr!" piped the bar-keep aggrievedly. He pushed a bottle across the mahogany; Chip flipped a golden credit-token back at him.
"Tell me when I've guzzled this, and I'll start work on another." He took a deep, appreciative sniff. "And don't let any of those dizzy dolls in here," he ordered. "I've got a lot of back drinking to catch up on, and I don't want to be disturbed— Hey! "
In his alarm, he almost dropped the bottle. For the door suddenly burst open, and in its frame loomed a figure in Space Patrol blues. A finger pointed in Chip's direction and a bull-o'-Bashan voice roared:
" Stop! Bartender—grab that man! He's a desperate criminal, wanted on four planets for murder!"
Shock momentarily immobilized Chip. Not so the bartender. He was, it seemed, an ardent pacifist. With a bleat of panic fear he scampered from his post, his metallic stilts clattering off in the distance. Chip's accuser moved forward from the shadows; dim light illumined his features. And—
" Johnny! " Chip's voice lifted in a note of jubilant surprise.
"Johnny Haldane—you old scoundrel! Where in the void did you drop from?"
The S.S.P. man chuckled and returned Chip's greeting with a bone-grinding handclasp.
"I might ask the same of you, chum! Lord, it's been ages since we've crossed 'jectory! When I saw you meandering across the Casino, you could have knocked me down with a jetblast! What's new? Is old Syd still with you?"
"We're still shipmates. But he's back at the spaceport. The jerry-crew is plating our crate with ek, and—"
"Ek! Plating a private cruiser!" Haldane stared at him in astonishment, then whistled. "Sweet Sacred Stars, you must be filthy with credits to be able to coat an entire ship with ekalastron!"
"You," boasted Chip, "ain't heard nothing yet!" And he told him how they had discovered an entire mountain of the previous new element, No.
97 in the periodic table, on frigid Titania, satellite of far Uranus.
"It was touch-and-go for a while," he admitted, "whether we'd be the luckiest three guys in space—or the deadest! But we passed through the flaming caverns like old Shadrach in the Bible—remember?—and here we are!"
[1]
Haldane was exuberant. "A mountain of ekalastron!" he gloated.
"That's the greatest contribution to spaceflight since Biggs' velocity-intensifier!" It was no overstatement. "Element No. 97 was a metal so light that a man could carry in one hand enough to coat the entire hull of a battleship—yet so adamant that a gossamer film of it would deflect a meteor! A metal strong enough to crush diamonds to ash—but so resilient that, when properly treated, it would rebound like rubber! What are you going to do with it, Chip? Put it on the open market?"
Warren shook his head.
"Not exactly. We talked it over carefully—Syd and Salvation and I—and we decided there are some space-rats to whom it shouldn't be made available. Privateers and outlaws, you know. So we turned control of the mines over to the Space Patrol at Uranus, and visiphoned the Earth authorities we were bringing in one cargo—"
"Visiphoned!" interrupted Haldane sharply. "Did you say visiphoned?"
"Why—why, yes."
"From where?"
"Oh, just before we reached the Belt. We don't have a very strong transmitter, you know. Sa-a-ay, what's all the excitement, pal? Did we do something that was wrong?"
Haldane frowned worriedly. "I don't know, Chip. It wasn't anything wrong , but what you did was damned dangerous. For if your message was intercepted, you may have played into the very hands of—the Lorelei!"
Chip stared at his friend bewilderedly for a moment. Then he grinned.
"Hey—I must be getting slightly whacky in my old age. I stand here with an unopened bottle in my hands and hear things! For a minute I thought you said 'Lorelei.' The Lorelei, my space-cop friend, is a myth. An old Teutonic myth about a beautiful damsel who sits out in the middle of a sea on a treacherous rock, combing her golden locks, warbling and luring her fascinated admirers to destruction."
He grunted. "A dirty trick, if you ask me. Catch a snort of this alleged Scotch, pal, and I'll torture your eardrums with the whole, sad story." He started to sing. "' Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten —'"
The Patrolman laid a hand on his arm, silenced him.
"It's not funny, Chip. You've described the Lorelei exactly. That's how she got her name. An incredibly beautiful woman who wantonly lures space-mariners to their death.
"The only difference is that her 'rock' is an asteroid somewhere in the Belt—and she does not sing, she calls! She began exercising her vicious appeal about two months ago, Earth reckoning. Since then, no less than a dozen spacecraft—freighters, liners, even one Patrolship—have fallen prey to her wiles. Their crews have been brutally murdered, their cargos stolen."
"Wait a minute!" interrupted Chip shrewdly. "How do you know about her if the crews have been murdered?"
"She has a habit of locking the controls," explained Haldane, "and setting ravaged ships adrift. Apparently there is no room on her hideout—wherever it is—for empty hulks. One of these ships was salvaged by a courageous cabin-boy who hid from the Lorelei and her pirate band beneath a closetful of soiled linens in the laundry. He described her. His description goes perfectly with less accurate glimpses seen over the visiphones of several score spacecraft!"
Chip said soberly, "So it's no joke, eh, pal? Sorry I popped off. I thought you were pulling my leg. Where do I come into this mess, though?"
"Ekalastron!" grunted Johnny succinctly. "A jackpot prize for any corsair! And you advertised a cargo of it over the etherwaves! The Lorelei will be waiting for you with her tongue hanging out. The only thing for you to do, kid, is go back to Jupiter or Io as fast as you can get there. Make the Patrol give you a convoy—"
A sudden light danced in Chip Warren's eyes. It was a light Syd Palmer would have groaned to see—for it usually presaged trouble. It was a bright, hard, reckless light.
"Hold your jets, Johnny!" drawled Chip. "Aren't you forgetting one thing? In a couple more hours, I can face the Lorelei and her whole mob—and be damned to them! She can't touch the Chickadee , because it's being plated right now!"
Haldane snapped his fingers in quick remembrance.
"By thunder, you're right! Her shells will ricochet off the Chickadee's hull like hail off a tin roof. Chip, are you in any hurry to reach Earth? I thought not. What do you say we go after the Lorelei together ! I'll swear you in as a Deputy Patrolman; we'll take the Chickadee and—"
"It's a deal!" declared Chip promptly. "You got any idea where this Lorelei's hangout is?"
"That's why I'm here on Danae. I got a tip that one of the Lorelei's men put in here for supplies. I hoped maybe I could single him out somehow, follow him when he jetted for his base, and in that way— Chip! Look out! "
Haldane shouted and moved at the same time. His arm lashed out wildly, thrusting, smashing Chip to the floor in a sprawling heap. The as-yet unopened bottle was now violently opened; it splintered into a thousand shards against a wall.
Bruised and shaken, Chip lifted his head to see what had caused Johnny's alarm. Even as he did so, the dull gloom of the bar was blazoned with searing effulgence. A lancet of flame leaped from the dark, rearward doorway, burst in Johnny Haldane's face!
The Patrolman cried once, a choking cry that died in a mewling whimper. His unused pistol slipped from slackening fingers, and he sagged to the floor. Again crimson lightning laced the shadows; Haldane's body jerked, and the air was raw with the hot, sickening stench of charred flesh.
With an instinct born of bitter years, Chip had come to his knees behind the shelter of the mahogany bar. But now his own flame-pistol was in his hand, and a dreadful rage was mingled with the agony in his heart. Reckless of results, he sprang to his feet, gun spewing livid death into the shadows.
His blast found a mark. For an instant flame haloed a human face drawn in inhuman pain. A heavy, sultry, bestial face, already puckered with one long, ugly scar that ran from right temple to jawbone, now newly scarred with the red brand of Chip's marksmanship.
Then, before Chip could fire again, came the rasp of pounding footsteps. The man turned and fled. Chip bent over his fallen friend, seeking, with hands that did not even feel the heat, fluttering life beneath still smoldering cloth.
He felt—nothing. Johnny was dead.
A snarl of sheer animal rage burst from Chip's lips. Someone would pay for this; pay dearly! Help was coming now. He himself would lead the hue-and-cry that would track a foul murderer to his lair. He spun as the footsteps drew nearer.
"Hurry!" he cried. "This way! Follow me—"
In a bound, he hurdled the bar, lingered at the door only long enough to let the others mark his course. For they had burst into the room, now, a full score of them. Excited, hard-bitten dogs of space, quick-triggered and willing. Once more he cried for help.
"After him! Come on! He—"
And then—disaster struck! For a reedy voice broke from the van of the mob. The voice of the Martian bartender.
"That's him!" he piped sibilantly. "That's the man! He's a desperate criminal, wanted on four planets for murder! The Patrolman came to arrest him— and now he's murdered the Spacie !"
II
The stunning injustice of that accusation came close to costing Chip Warren his life. For a split second he stood motionless in the doorway, gaping lips forming denial. Words which were never to be uttered, for suddenly a raw-boned miner wrenched a Moeller from its holster, leveled and fired.
The hot tongue of death licked hungrily at the young spaceman's cheek, scorched air crackled in his eardrums. Now was no time to squander in vain argument. Chip ducked, spun, and hurled himself through the doorway. There still remained one hope. That he might catch the real murderer, and in that way clear himself....
But the door led to a small, deserted vestibule, and it to an alleyway behind Xu'ul's Solarest. Viewing that maze of byways and passages, Chip knew his hope was futile. There remained but one thing to do. Get out of here. But quick!
It was no hard task. The labyrinth swallowed him as it had engulfed the scarred killer; in a few minutes even the footsteps of his pursuers could no longer be heard. And Chip worked his cautious way back to the spaceport, and to the bin wherein was cradled the Chickadee .
Syd Palmer looked up in surprise as Chip let himself in the electro-lock. The chubby engineer gasped, "Salvation, look what the cat drug in! His high-flying Nibs! What's the matter, Chip? Night-life too much for you?"
"Never mind that now!" panted Chip. "Is this tin can ready to roll? Warm the hypos. We're lifting gravs—"
Palmer said anxiously, "Now, wait a minute! The men haven't quite finished plating the hull, Chip!"
"Can't help that! We've got important business. In a very few minutes— Ahh! There he goes now!" Chip had gone to the perilens the moment he entered the ship; now he saw in its reflector that which he had expected. The gushing orange spume of a spaceship roaring from its cradle. "Hurry, Syd!"
There were a lot of things Syd Palmer wanted to ask. He wanted to know who went where ; he was bursting with curiosity about the "important business" which had brought his pal back from town in such a rush; his keen eye also had detected a needle-gun burn on Chip's coat-sleeve. But he was too good a companion to waste time now on such trivia.
"O.Q.," he snapped. "It's your pigeon!"
And he disappeared. They heard his voice calling to the workmen, the scuff of equipment being disengaged from the Chickadee's hull, the thin, high whine of warming hypatomics. Salvation looked at Warren quizzically.
"It smells," he ventured gently, "like trouble."
"It is trouble," Chip told him. "Plenty trouble!"
"In that case—" said the old man mildly—"I guess I'd better get the rotor stripped for action." He stepped to the gunnery turret, dropped the fore-irons and stripped their weapon for action. "'Be ye men of peace,'" he intoned, "'but gird firmly thy loins for righteous battle!' Thus saith the Lord God which is Jehovah. Selah!"
Then came Syd's cry from the depths of the hyporoom.
"All set, Chip! Lift gravs!"
Warren's finger found a stud. And with a gusty roar the Chickadee rocketed into space on a pillar of flame.
Two hours later, Chip was still following the bright pinpoint of scarlet which marked the course of his quarry.
In the time that had elapsed since their take-off, he had told his friends the whole story. When he told about the Lorelei, Salvation Smith's seamy old features screwed up in a perplexed grimace. "A woman pirate in the Belt, son? I find it hard to believe. Yet—" And when he described the death of Johnny Haldane, anger smoldered in the missionary's eyes, and Syd Palmer's hands knotted into tight, white fists. Said Syd, "A man with a scar, eh? Well, we'll catch him sooner or later. And when we do—" His tone boded no good to the man who had slain an old and loved friend.
"As a matter of fact," offered Salvation, "we've got him now. Any time you say the word, Chip. We're faster than he is. We can close in on him in five minutes."
"I know," nodded Warren grimly. "But we won't do it—yet. I'm borrowing a bit of Johnny's strategy. I've been plotting his course. As soon as I'm sure of his destination, we'll take care of him . But our first and most vital problem is to locate the Lorelei's hideaway."
Syd said, "That's all right with me, chum. I like a good scrap as much as the next guy. Better, maybe. But this isn't our concern, strictly speaking. What we ought to do is report this matter to the Space Patrol, let them take care of it."
Salvation shook his head.
"That's where you're mistaken, Sydney. This is very much our concern. So much so, in fact, that we dare not make port again until it's cleared up. I think you have forgotten that it is not the scar-faced man who is wanted for the killing of Haldane—but Chip!"
"B-but—" gasped Palmer—"b-but that's ridiculous! Chip and Johnny were old buddies. Lifelong friends!"
"Nevertheless, the circumstantial evidence indicates Chip's guilt. Twenty men saw him standing over Johnny's dead body, with a flame-pistol in his hand. And the barkeep heard Johnny 'arrest' Chip and accuse him of murder!"
Chip said ruefully, "That's right, Syd. It was only a joke, but it backfired. The bartender thought Johnny meant it. He scooted out of there like a bat out of Hades. I'm in it up to my neck unless we can bring back evidence that Scarface actually did the killing. And that may not be so easy."
He stirred restlessly. "But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now our job is to keep this rat in sight. We've gone farther already than I expected we would." He turned to the old preacher.
"Where do you think we're going, Padre? Out of the Belt entirely?"
"I've been wondering that myself, son. I don't know for sure, of course, but it looks to me as if we're going for the Bog. If so, you'd better keep a weather-eye peeled."
"The Bog!" Chip had never penetrated the planetoids so deeply before, but he knew of the Bog by hearsay. All men did. A treacherous region of tightly packed asteroids, a mad and whirling scramble of the gigantic rocks which, aeons ago, had been a planet. Few spacemen dared penetrate the Bog. Of those who did dare, few returned to tell the tale. "The Bog! Say! I'd better keep a sharp lookout!"
He turned to the perilens once more, fastened an eye to its lens. And then—
"Syd!" he cried. "Salvation! Look! She—she—!"
He pressed the plunger that transferred the perilens image to the central viewscreen. And as he did so, a phantom filled the area which should have revealed yawning space, gay with the spangles of a myriad glowing orbs. The vision of an unbelievably beautiful girl, the golden-crowned embodiment of a man's fondest dreaming, eyes wide with an indistinguishable emotion, arms stretched wide in mute appeal.
And from the throats of all came simultaneous recognition.
" The Lorelei! "
At the same moment came a plea from the enchantress of space through a second medium. For no reason anyone could explain, the ship's telaudio wakened to life; over it came to their ears the actual words of the girl:
" Help! Oh, help! Can anyone hear me? Help —"
Even though he knew this to be only a ruse, a deliberate, dastardly trap set for the unwary, Chip Warren's pulse leaped in hot response to that desperate plea. Even with the warning of Johnny Haldane fresh in his memory, some gallantry deep within him spurred him to the aid of this lovely vision. Here was a woman a man could live for, fight for, die for! A woman like no other in the universe.
Then common sense came to his rescue. He wrenched his gaze from the tempting shadow, cried: "Kill that wavelength! Tune the lens on another beam, Syd!"
Palmer, bedazzled but obedient, spun the dial of the perilens . Despite his vastly improved science Man had never yet succeeded in devising a transparent medium through which to view the void wherein he soared; the perilens was a device which translated impinging light-waves into a picture of that which lay outside the ship's hull. When or where electrical disturbances existed in space, its frequency could be changed for greater clarity. This was what Syd now attempted.
But to no avail! For it mattered not which cycle he tuned to—the image persisted. Still on the viewscreen that pleading figure beckoned piteously. And still the cabin rang to the prayers of that heart-tugging voice:
" Help! Oh, help! Can anyone hear me? Help —"
Gone, now, was any fascination that thrilling vision might previously have held for Chip Warren. Understanding of their plight dawned coldly upon him, and his brow became dark with anger.
" We're blanketed! Flying blind! Salvation, radio a general alarm! Syd, jazz the hypos to max. Shift trajectory to fourteen-oh-three North and loft ... fire No. 3 jet...."
He had hurled himself into the bucket-shaped pilot's seat; now his fingers played the controls like those of a mad organist. The Chickadee groaned from prow to stern, trembled like a tortured thing as he thrust it into a rising spiral.
It was a desperate chance he was taking. Increasing his speed thus, it was certain he would be spotted by the man he had been following; the flaming jets of the Chickadee must form a crimson arch against black space visible for hundreds—thousands!—of miles. Nor was there any way of knowing what lay in the path Chip thus blindly chose. Titanic death might loom on every side. But they had to fight clear of this spot of blindness, clear their instruments....
And then it came! A jarring concussion that smashed against the prow of the Chickadee like a battering ram. Chip flew headlong out of his bucket to spreadeagle on the heaving iron floor. He heard, above the grinding plaint of shattered steel the bellowing prayer of Salvation Smith:
"We've crashed! 'Into Thy hands, O Lord of old—'"
Then Syd's angry cry, "Crashed, hell! He's smashed us with a tractor-blast!"
Chip stared at his companion numbly.
"But—but that's impossible! We're plated with ek! A tractor-cannon couldn't hurt us—"
" Half-plated! " howled Syd savagely. "And those damn fools started working from the stern of the Chickadee ! We're vulnerable up front, and that's where he got us! In a minute this can will be leaking like a sieve. I'll get out bulgers. Hold 'er to her course, Chip!"
He dove for the lockers wherein were hung the space-suits, tore them hastily from their hangers. Chip again spun the perilens vernier. No good! No space ... no stars ... just a beautiful phantom crying them to certain doom. By now he was aware that from a dozen sprung plates air was seeping, but he fought down despair. While there remained hope, a man had to keep on fighting.
He scrambled back into the bucket-seat, experimented with controls that answered sluggishly. Salvation had sprung to the rotor-gun, was now angrily jerking its lanyard, lacing the void with death-dealing bursts that had no mark. The old man's eyes were brands of fire, his white hair clung wetly to his forehead. His rage was terrible to behold.
"'Yes, truly shall I destroy them!'" he cried, "'who loose their stealth upon me like a thief from the night—'"
Then suddenly there came a second and more frightful blow. The straining Chickadee stopped as though pole-axed by a gigantic fist. Stopped and shuddered and screamed in metal agony. This time inertia flung Chip headlong, helpless, into the control racks. Brazen studs took the impact of his body; crushing pain banded about his temples, and a red wetness ran into his eyes, blurring and blinding him, burning.
For an instant there flamed before him a universe of incandescent stars, weaving, shimmering, merging. The vision of a woman whose hair was a golden glory....
After that—nothing!
III
From a billion miles away, from a bourne unguessable thousands of light-years distant, came the faint, far whisper of a voice. Nearer and nearer it came, and ever faster, till it throbbed upon Chip's eardrums with booming savagery.
"—coming to, now. Good! We'll soon find out—"
Chip opened his eyes, too dazed, at first, to understand the situation in which he found himself. Gone was the familiar control-turret of the Chickadee , gone the bulger into which he had so hastily clambered. He lay on the parched, rocky soil of a—a something. A planetoid, perhaps. And he was surrounded by a motley crew of strangers: scum of all the planets that circle the Sun....
Then recollection flooded back upon him, sudden and complete. The chase ... the call of the fateful Lorelei ... the crash! New strength, born of anger, surged through him. He lifted his head.
"My—my companions?" he demanded weakly.
The leader of those who encircled him, a mighty hulk of a man, massive of shoulder and thigh, black-haired, with an unshaven blue jaw, raven-bright eyes and a jutting, aquiline nose like the beak of a hawk, loosed a satisfied grunt.
"Ah! Back to normal, eh, sailor? Damn near time!"
Climbing to his feet sent a swift wave of giddiness through Chip—but he managed it. He fought down the vertigo which threatened to overwhelm him, and confronted the big man boldly.
"What," he stormed, "is the meaning of this?"
The giant stared at him for a moment, his jaw slack. Then his raven-bright eyes glittered; he slapped a trunklike thigh and guffawed in boisterous mirth.
"Hear that?" he roared to his companions. "Quite a guy, ain't he?
'What's the meanin' o' this?' he asks! Game little fightin' cock, hey?" Then he sobered abruptly, and a grim light replaced the amusement in his eyes. Here was not a man to be trifled with, Chip realized. His tone assumed a biting edge. "The meanin' is, my bucko," he answered mirthlessly, "that you've run afoul o' your last reef. Unless you have a sane head on your shoulders, and you're willing to talk fast and straight!"
"Talk?"
"Don't stall. We've already unloaded your bins. We found it. And a nice haul, too. Thanks for lettin' us know it was on the way." The burly one chuckled coarsely. "We'd have took it, anyway, but you helped matters out by comin' to us."
Johnny Haldane had been right, then. Chip remembered his friend's ominous warning. "—if your message was intercepted, you may have played into the hands of—" He said slowly, "Then you are the Lorelei's men?"
"The who? Never mind that, bucko, just talk. That ekalastron—where did it come from?"
And it occurred to Warren suddenly that although the big man did hold the whip hand, he was still not in possession of the most important secret of all! While the location of the ekalastron mine remained a secret, a deadlock existed.
"And if I won't tell—?" he countered shrewdly.
"Why, then, sailor—" The pirate leader's hamlike fists tightened, and a cold light glinted in his eyes—"why, then I guess maybe I'll have to beat it out o' you!"
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
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"Chip Warren and his crew of Salvation Smith, a righteous missionary, and Syd Palmer, mechanic, have landed in the Belt on their spaceship Chickadee II after discovering a mountain of ekalastron, a highly sought-after material. Their new fortune is cause for celebration, so Chip picks out a flashy tie, which Syd and Salvation both make fun of him for, and sets off to get a drink. Syd and Salvation do not join him, as the repairmen were still encasing their ship with ekalastron. \nThe asteroid Danae has a gravity that’s modeled after Earth, a good atmosphere, and features a wide variety of interplanetary species. Chip walks into Xu’ul’s Solarest and strolls past all the charm-gals, busy cabarets, and the native sing-stomp, before arriving in an empty, private bar. The Martian bartender serves him a new bottle of Scotch but is quickly frightened when a member of the Space Patrol steps in and accuses Chip of murder. The Martian runs off before the cop reveals himself to be Johnny Haldane, Chip’s old friend. After catching up briefly, Chip tells Johnny about their find on Titania and explains that they turned it all over to the Space Patrol, before visiphoning Earth. At this, Johnny becomes upset and explains that their message could have been intercepted by the mythic Lorelei. Chip laughs him off, but Johnny explains that for the past two months a beautiful blonde woman has been luring spacemen to their doom and stealing all their cargo. They decide to take on the Lorelei together, especially now that the Chickadee will be plated with ekalastron, an impenetrable material. Johnny claims he knows one of Lorelei’s men is on Danae right now getting more supplies, so they could follow him back to their base. As he says that, Johnny saves Chip by throwing him to the floor and sacrificing himself. He is killed by an assailant with a scar on his face. Chip tries to save his friend, but the bartender rushes back in with a horde of people, claiming Chip is the murder. Chip runs away, chasing after the true killer, but loses him. He runs back to the Chickadee, and they quickly take off, even though the plating was only halfway finished. Syd and Salvation question him, and he explains the situation, as they follow the scarred man to the Bog, an extremely dangerous asteroid-ridden area. As Chip attempts to look through the perilens, a beautiful woman pops up, crying for help: the Lorelei. Chaos ensues, and they try to get her off their transmission, while a blast rocks the hull. The Chickadee crashed, and Chip wakes up to see a large man standing above him. He and his men question Chip about the ekalastron, but Chip won’t reveal its location. The story ends with the pirate threatening to torture Chip. \n",
"Chip Warren, of the spaceship Chickadee II, is preparing for a solo night out on the asteroid Danae. Syd Palmer is a friend of his, and Salvation Smith is a missionary who handles a gun famously well: they warn Chip to be careful of the dangers of the Belt on his night out. Chip heads to the casino on the surface of the asteroid, passing members of many races as he heads to the small private bar in the back of the casino, empty except for a Martian bartender. As soon as he gets his scotch, someone bursts in yelling for Chip's arrest. After the bartender runs away, Chip recognizes Johnny Haldane, an old friend. They talk about Chip's recent discovery of an entire mountain's worth of No. 97, or ekalastron, a light and strong metal worth a lot of money. Instead of selling to anyone, Chip, Syd, and Salvation had sent a message to Earth about the cargo, and would handle the details later. Johnny is immediately concerned that \"the Lorelai\" may have intercepted this message--a pirate group much like the sirens who distract ships in the ocean, but in space. As Chip laughs at the idea of a mythical creature being involved, Johnny stops him to explain all of the related destruction that's happened in the past two months--only one person had escaped alive. Johnny explains that the ekalastron would be quite the prize for the Lorelai, and Chip needed to find protection. Chip reminds Johnny that his ship was being plated and could be indestructable, so they decide to go after the Lorelei together. Just then, there is an attack: Johnny is hit in the face with flame while pushing Chip out of the way. Johnny dies and the attacker flees when he hears footsteps, leaving Chip calling for help. Unfortunately, the Martian bartender thought Johnny's murder accusation had been serious, had gone to get help, and now assumes Chip is responsible for Johnny's death. A miner shoots at Chip, who runs to catch the real murderer to save himself. When he gets back to the Chickadee, he yells at Syd to get the ship moving, and spots the ship the murderer is leaving on. They move the ship as quickly as they can, and Chip catches his friends up as they fly towards the Bog, a region densely packed with asteroids. As they approach, they spot a phantom that is undeniably the Lorelei, calling for help. They try to modify their viewing equipment to get rid of the image, but she stays and keeps calling, and the ship was hit in the part that hadn't yet been plated. They are hit again and the men eventually pass out. As Chip comes to, he finds himself on the surface of a planet surrounded by pirates who laugh at him and explain that they want his ekalastron--they had intercepted Chip's message to Earth, but they still want to know where he got it. ",
"Chip Warren is going to celebrate discovering a mountain of ekalastron by drinking scotch while the other crewmen, Syd Palmer and Salvation Smith, stay with the ship. Chip enters a bar where he orders his scotch when the door bursts open and a voice yells for the bartender to grab Chip, stating he is wanted for murder on four planets. Terrified, the bartender flees the bar, and Chip faces his accuser, who is actually his old friend Johnny Haldane, a Space Patrol officer playing a joke on him. They talk, and Chip explains he is plating his ship with the ek they found. When Chip says they visiphoned Earth authorities they were bringing in a cargo of ek, Haldane stops him and explains how dangerous that is, warning he might have set himself up to be a victim of the Lorelei.\n Chip believes the Lorelei is a myth, but Haldane tells him it is real. In the last two months, a dozen spacecraft have been taken, their crews murdered, and the cargo stolen. Haldane urges Chip to go back to Jupiter or Io with a Space Patrol escort, but Chip reminds him that his ship will be invincible. Haldane then encourages Chip to join him in Chip’s spacecraft to take down the Lorelei together. Haldane is looking for one of the Lorelei’s men who is on the asteroid for supplies and will follow the man to the Lorelei base.\n Suddenly, Haldane throws Chip aside as a flame shot hits the scotch. The gun fires again, burning Haldane’s face and killing him. Chip fires off a shot at the assailant, making him flee, and checks on Haldane, but the man is already dead. Then the bartender bursts into the bar with a mob behind him, pointing out Chip as the murderer wanted on four planets. He accuses Chip of killing Haldane since he is standing over the man’s body with his flame gun.\n Chip runs from the bar back to his ship and tells the men to take off right away. They haven’t finished plating the ship with ek, but Chip needs to catch the assailant to prove his innocence. As they travel, Chip looks through the perilens and sees a beautiful blonde woman who motions for them to come to her. Her voice comes through the ship’s audio, and she implores the men to help her. No matter what frequency he uses with his perilens, all he can see is her image. They are hit with a tractor-blast. Chip is stunned his ship is damaged, but Syd reminds him they hadn’t finished applying the ek. When the ship is hit again, Chip slams into the instrument panel and loses consciousness.\n Regaining consciousness, Chip is lying on the ground, surrounded by several men. The leader tells him they have unloaded his cargo and demands that Chip tell them where they found the ek, threatening to beat the information out of him if Chip refuses.\n",
"Chip Warren and his shipmates Syd Palmer and \"Salvation\" Smith dock at the Donae asteroid spaceport to refuel and allow their jerry-crew to plate the ship, the Chickadee II, with a protective layer of ekalastron--a powerfully strong, resilient metal of which the team had recently discovered a massive store which they planned to turn over to Space Patrol. As the crew work to cover the ship with the thin metal, Chip goes into the nearby town to celebrate his discovery. He finds Xu'ul's Solarest, a place where citizens from every planet in the Solar System could drink, gamble, and dance together; Chip, however, wants to be alone so he finds a quiet bar manned by a Martian bartender who gives him a bottle of Scotch. Soon, Chip's reverie is disturbed by a loud man accusing him of being a wanted murderer, which frightens the bartender into fleeing the room. Chip's accuser turns out to be his old friend Johnny Haldane, and they laugh and drink together as they catch up. Chip tells Johnny about his ekalastron discovery and about his intentions to deliver his cargo to authorities on Earth. As a Space Patrol officer himself, Johnny warns Chip that his communications with Earth may have been intercepted by the space siren Lorelei and her crew of pirates. At first, Chip shrugs off this suggestion, as he considers Lorelei to be only a myth, but Johnny reveals he is actually on Donae tracking one of her men. Remembering the protective qualities of the ekalastron coating his ship, Chip invites Johnny to join him on the Chickadee II, and they will hunt Lorelei and her crew together. After making this agreement, the two men are suddenly attacked, presumably by the man Johnny is pursuing, and he shoots and kills Johnny. Enraged, Chip flees the bar in pursuit of Johnny's killer with a horde of men tailing him, since the bartender believed Chip was the actual murderer thanks to Johnny's earlier joke. Chip runs back to the ship, and they begin their pursuit of Lorelei's man, despite the ekalastron coating being incomplete. Chip and his team realize they must catch the man in order to find evidence proving Chip's innocence in Johnny's murder. Along the way, they enter The Bog, a region of tightly packed asteroids, where Chip spots Lorelei through the ship's perilens. In an attempt to escape her broadcast, Chip exposes the Chickadee's location to the enemy ship, which quickly takes down the Chickadee II with a couple of crushing blasts. After Chip wakes up, he discovers he has been captured by Lorelei's people, who press him for information as to the whereabouts of the rest of the ekalastron. There is no sign of his shipmates."
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62039
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THE LORELEI DEATH
by NELSON S. BOND
Far out in limitless Space she plied her deadly trade ... a Lorelei of the void, beckoning spacemen to death and destruction with her beautiful siren lure.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1941. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Chip Warren stood before an oblong of glass set into one wall of the spaceship Chickadee II , stared at what he saw reflected therefrom—and frowned. He didn't like it. Not a bit! It was too—too—
He turned away angrily, ripped the offending article from about his neck, and chose another necktie from the rack. This one was brighter, gaudier, much more in keeping with the gaiety of his mood. He emitted a grunt of satisfaction, spun from the mirror to face his two companions triumphantly.
"There! How do you like that ?"
Syd Palmer, short and chubby, tow-headed and liquid-blue of eye, always languid save when engaged in the solution of some engineering problem concerned with the space vessel he mothered like a brooding hen, moaned insultingly and forced a shudder.
"Sunspots! Novae! Flying comets! And he wears 'em around his neck!"
"You," Chip told him serenely, "have no appreciation of beauty. What do you think of it, Padre?"
"Salvation" Smith, a tall, gangling scarecrow garbed in rusty black, a lean-jawed, hawkeyed man with tumbled locks of silver framing his weathered cheeks like a halo, concealed his grin poorly. "Well, my boy," he admitted, "there is some Biblical precedent for your—ahem!—clamorous raiment. 'So Joseph made for himself a coat which was of many colors—'"
"Both of you," declared Chip, "give me a pain in the pants! Stick-in-the-muds! Here we are in port for the first time in months, cargo-bins loaded to the gunwales with enough ekalastron to make us rich for life—and you sit here like a pair of stuffed owls!
"Well, not me! I'm going to take a night off, throw myself a party the likes of which was never seen around these parts. Put a candle in the window, chilluns, 'cause li'l' Chip won't be home till the wee, sma' hours!"
Syd chuckled.
"O.Q., big shot. But don't get too cozy with any of those joy-joint entertainers. Remember what happened to poor old Dougal MacNeer!"
Salvation said soberly, "Syd's just fooling, my boy. But I would be careful if I were you. We're in the Belt, you know. The forces of law and order do not always govern these wild outposts of civilization as well as might be hoped. The planetoids are dens of iniquity, violent and unheeding the words of Him who rules all—"
The old man's lips etched a straight line, reminding Chip that Salvation Smith was not one of those milk-and-water missionaries who espoused the principle of "turning the other cheek" to evildoers. Salvation was not the ordained emissary of any church. A devoutly religious man with the heart of an adventurer, he had taken upon himself the mission of carrying to outland tribes the story of the God he worshipped.
That his God was the fierce Yahveh of the Old Testament, a God of anger and retribution, was made evident by the methods Salvation sometimes employed in winning his converts. For not only was Salvation acknowledged the most pious man in space; he was also conceded to be the best hand with a gun!
Now Chip gave quiet answer. "I know, Padre: I'll be careful. Well, Syd—sure you won't change your mind and come along?"
"No can do, chum. The spaceport repair crew's still smearing this jalopy with ek. Got to stay and watch 'em."
"O.Q. I'm off alone, then. See you later!"
And, whistling, Chip Warren stepped through the lock of the Chickadee onto the soil of the asteroid Danae.
Danae was, thought Chip as he strolled along briskly toward the town beyond the spaceport, a most presentable hunk of rock. Nice lucentite Dome ... good atmo ... a fine artificial grav system based on Terra normal. It seemed to be a popular little fueling-stop, too, for its cradle-bins were laden with vessels from every planet in the System, and as he gained the main drag he found himself rubbing shoulders with citizens of every known world. Lumbering, albino Venusians, petal-headed Martians, Jovian runts, greenies from far Uranus, Earthman—all were here.
Quite a likely place, he thought happily, to chuck a brawl. A brilliantly gleaming xenon sign before him welcomed visitors to:
XU'UL'S SOLAREST Barroom—Casino—Dancing 100—Lovely Hostesses—100
He entered, and was immediately deluged by a bevy of charm-gals vying for the privilege of: (1) helping him beat the roulette wheel; (2) helping him drink the house dry, and/or (3) separating him as swiftly as possible from the credits in his money belt.
Chip shook them off, gently but firmly. He wanted a good time, true; but he wanted it solo. The main cabaret was too crowded; he passed through it and another equally blatant room wherein twoscore Venusians were straining the structure with a native "sing-stomp," and ended up finally, with a sigh of relief, in a small, dimly-lighted private bar unfrequented by anyone save a bored and listless Martian bartender.
The chrysanthemum-pated son of the desertland roused himself as Chip entered, rustled his petals and piped a ready greeting.
"Welcoom, ssirr! Trrink, pleasse?"
This was more like it! Chip grinned.
"Scotch," he said. " Old Spaceman. And let's have a new bottle, Curly. None of that doctored swill."
"Of courrsse, ssirr!" piped the bar-keep aggrievedly. He pushed a bottle across the mahogany; Chip flipped a golden credit-token back at him.
"Tell me when I've guzzled this, and I'll start work on another." He took a deep, appreciative sniff. "And don't let any of those dizzy dolls in here," he ordered. "I've got a lot of back drinking to catch up on, and I don't want to be disturbed— Hey! "
In his alarm, he almost dropped the bottle. For the door suddenly burst open, and in its frame loomed a figure in Space Patrol blues. A finger pointed in Chip's direction and a bull-o'-Bashan voice roared:
" Stop! Bartender—grab that man! He's a desperate criminal, wanted on four planets for murder!"
Shock momentarily immobilized Chip. Not so the bartender. He was, it seemed, an ardent pacifist. With a bleat of panic fear he scampered from his post, his metallic stilts clattering off in the distance. Chip's accuser moved forward from the shadows; dim light illumined his features. And—
" Johnny! " Chip's voice lifted in a note of jubilant surprise.
"Johnny Haldane—you old scoundrel! Where in the void did you drop from?"
The S.S.P. man chuckled and returned Chip's greeting with a bone-grinding handclasp.
"I might ask the same of you, chum! Lord, it's been ages since we've crossed 'jectory! When I saw you meandering across the Casino, you could have knocked me down with a jetblast! What's new? Is old Syd still with you?"
"We're still shipmates. But he's back at the spaceport. The jerry-crew is plating our crate with ek, and—"
"Ek! Plating a private cruiser!" Haldane stared at him in astonishment, then whistled. "Sweet Sacred Stars, you must be filthy with credits to be able to coat an entire ship with ekalastron!"
"You," boasted Chip, "ain't heard nothing yet!" And he told him how they had discovered an entire mountain of the previous new element, No.
97 in the periodic table, on frigid Titania, satellite of far Uranus.
"It was touch-and-go for a while," he admitted, "whether we'd be the luckiest three guys in space—or the deadest! But we passed through the flaming caverns like old Shadrach in the Bible—remember?—and here we are!"
[1]
Haldane was exuberant. "A mountain of ekalastron!" he gloated.
"That's the greatest contribution to spaceflight since Biggs' velocity-intensifier!" It was no overstatement. "Element No. 97 was a metal so light that a man could carry in one hand enough to coat the entire hull of a battleship—yet so adamant that a gossamer film of it would deflect a meteor! A metal strong enough to crush diamonds to ash—but so resilient that, when properly treated, it would rebound like rubber! What are you going to do with it, Chip? Put it on the open market?"
Warren shook his head.
"Not exactly. We talked it over carefully—Syd and Salvation and I—and we decided there are some space-rats to whom it shouldn't be made available. Privateers and outlaws, you know. So we turned control of the mines over to the Space Patrol at Uranus, and visiphoned the Earth authorities we were bringing in one cargo—"
"Visiphoned!" interrupted Haldane sharply. "Did you say visiphoned?"
"Why—why, yes."
"From where?"
"Oh, just before we reached the Belt. We don't have a very strong transmitter, you know. Sa-a-ay, what's all the excitement, pal? Did we do something that was wrong?"
Haldane frowned worriedly. "I don't know, Chip. It wasn't anything wrong , but what you did was damned dangerous. For if your message was intercepted, you may have played into the very hands of—the Lorelei!"
Chip stared at his friend bewilderedly for a moment. Then he grinned.
"Hey—I must be getting slightly whacky in my old age. I stand here with an unopened bottle in my hands and hear things! For a minute I thought you said 'Lorelei.' The Lorelei, my space-cop friend, is a myth. An old Teutonic myth about a beautiful damsel who sits out in the middle of a sea on a treacherous rock, combing her golden locks, warbling and luring her fascinated admirers to destruction."
He grunted. "A dirty trick, if you ask me. Catch a snort of this alleged Scotch, pal, and I'll torture your eardrums with the whole, sad story." He started to sing. "' Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten —'"
The Patrolman laid a hand on his arm, silenced him.
"It's not funny, Chip. You've described the Lorelei exactly. That's how she got her name. An incredibly beautiful woman who wantonly lures space-mariners to their death.
"The only difference is that her 'rock' is an asteroid somewhere in the Belt—and she does not sing, she calls! She began exercising her vicious appeal about two months ago, Earth reckoning. Since then, no less than a dozen spacecraft—freighters, liners, even one Patrolship—have fallen prey to her wiles. Their crews have been brutally murdered, their cargos stolen."
"Wait a minute!" interrupted Chip shrewdly. "How do you know about her if the crews have been murdered?"
"She has a habit of locking the controls," explained Haldane, "and setting ravaged ships adrift. Apparently there is no room on her hideout—wherever it is—for empty hulks. One of these ships was salvaged by a courageous cabin-boy who hid from the Lorelei and her pirate band beneath a closetful of soiled linens in the laundry. He described her. His description goes perfectly with less accurate glimpses seen over the visiphones of several score spacecraft!"
Chip said soberly, "So it's no joke, eh, pal? Sorry I popped off. I thought you were pulling my leg. Where do I come into this mess, though?"
"Ekalastron!" grunted Johnny succinctly. "A jackpot prize for any corsair! And you advertised a cargo of it over the etherwaves! The Lorelei will be waiting for you with her tongue hanging out. The only thing for you to do, kid, is go back to Jupiter or Io as fast as you can get there. Make the Patrol give you a convoy—"
A sudden light danced in Chip Warren's eyes. It was a light Syd Palmer would have groaned to see—for it usually presaged trouble. It was a bright, hard, reckless light.
"Hold your jets, Johnny!" drawled Chip. "Aren't you forgetting one thing? In a couple more hours, I can face the Lorelei and her whole mob—and be damned to them! She can't touch the Chickadee , because it's being plated right now!"
Haldane snapped his fingers in quick remembrance.
"By thunder, you're right! Her shells will ricochet off the Chickadee's hull like hail off a tin roof. Chip, are you in any hurry to reach Earth? I thought not. What do you say we go after the Lorelei together ! I'll swear you in as a Deputy Patrolman; we'll take the Chickadee and—"
"It's a deal!" declared Chip promptly. "You got any idea where this Lorelei's hangout is?"
"That's why I'm here on Danae. I got a tip that one of the Lorelei's men put in here for supplies. I hoped maybe I could single him out somehow, follow him when he jetted for his base, and in that way— Chip! Look out! "
Haldane shouted and moved at the same time. His arm lashed out wildly, thrusting, smashing Chip to the floor in a sprawling heap. The as-yet unopened bottle was now violently opened; it splintered into a thousand shards against a wall.
Bruised and shaken, Chip lifted his head to see what had caused Johnny's alarm. Even as he did so, the dull gloom of the bar was blazoned with searing effulgence. A lancet of flame leaped from the dark, rearward doorway, burst in Johnny Haldane's face!
The Patrolman cried once, a choking cry that died in a mewling whimper. His unused pistol slipped from slackening fingers, and he sagged to the floor. Again crimson lightning laced the shadows; Haldane's body jerked, and the air was raw with the hot, sickening stench of charred flesh.
With an instinct born of bitter years, Chip had come to his knees behind the shelter of the mahogany bar. But now his own flame-pistol was in his hand, and a dreadful rage was mingled with the agony in his heart. Reckless of results, he sprang to his feet, gun spewing livid death into the shadows.
His blast found a mark. For an instant flame haloed a human face drawn in inhuman pain. A heavy, sultry, bestial face, already puckered with one long, ugly scar that ran from right temple to jawbone, now newly scarred with the red brand of Chip's marksmanship.
Then, before Chip could fire again, came the rasp of pounding footsteps. The man turned and fled. Chip bent over his fallen friend, seeking, with hands that did not even feel the heat, fluttering life beneath still smoldering cloth.
He felt—nothing. Johnny was dead.
A snarl of sheer animal rage burst from Chip's lips. Someone would pay for this; pay dearly! Help was coming now. He himself would lead the hue-and-cry that would track a foul murderer to his lair. He spun as the footsteps drew nearer.
"Hurry!" he cried. "This way! Follow me—"
In a bound, he hurdled the bar, lingered at the door only long enough to let the others mark his course. For they had burst into the room, now, a full score of them. Excited, hard-bitten dogs of space, quick-triggered and willing. Once more he cried for help.
"After him! Come on! He—"
And then—disaster struck! For a reedy voice broke from the van of the mob. The voice of the Martian bartender.
"That's him!" he piped sibilantly. "That's the man! He's a desperate criminal, wanted on four planets for murder! The Patrolman came to arrest him— and now he's murdered the Spacie !"
II
The stunning injustice of that accusation came close to costing Chip Warren his life. For a split second he stood motionless in the doorway, gaping lips forming denial. Words which were never to be uttered, for suddenly a raw-boned miner wrenched a Moeller from its holster, leveled and fired.
The hot tongue of death licked hungrily at the young spaceman's cheek, scorched air crackled in his eardrums. Now was no time to squander in vain argument. Chip ducked, spun, and hurled himself through the doorway. There still remained one hope. That he might catch the real murderer, and in that way clear himself....
But the door led to a small, deserted vestibule, and it to an alleyway behind Xu'ul's Solarest. Viewing that maze of byways and passages, Chip knew his hope was futile. There remained but one thing to do. Get out of here. But quick!
It was no hard task. The labyrinth swallowed him as it had engulfed the scarred killer; in a few minutes even the footsteps of his pursuers could no longer be heard. And Chip worked his cautious way back to the spaceport, and to the bin wherein was cradled the Chickadee .
Syd Palmer looked up in surprise as Chip let himself in the electro-lock. The chubby engineer gasped, "Salvation, look what the cat drug in! His high-flying Nibs! What's the matter, Chip? Night-life too much for you?"
"Never mind that now!" panted Chip. "Is this tin can ready to roll? Warm the hypos. We're lifting gravs—"
Palmer said anxiously, "Now, wait a minute! The men haven't quite finished plating the hull, Chip!"
"Can't help that! We've got important business. In a very few minutes— Ahh! There he goes now!" Chip had gone to the perilens the moment he entered the ship; now he saw in its reflector that which he had expected. The gushing orange spume of a spaceship roaring from its cradle. "Hurry, Syd!"
There were a lot of things Syd Palmer wanted to ask. He wanted to know who went where ; he was bursting with curiosity about the "important business" which had brought his pal back from town in such a rush; his keen eye also had detected a needle-gun burn on Chip's coat-sleeve. But he was too good a companion to waste time now on such trivia.
"O.Q.," he snapped. "It's your pigeon!"
And he disappeared. They heard his voice calling to the workmen, the scuff of equipment being disengaged from the Chickadee's hull, the thin, high whine of warming hypatomics. Salvation looked at Warren quizzically.
"It smells," he ventured gently, "like trouble."
"It is trouble," Chip told him. "Plenty trouble!"
"In that case—" said the old man mildly—"I guess I'd better get the rotor stripped for action." He stepped to the gunnery turret, dropped the fore-irons and stripped their weapon for action. "'Be ye men of peace,'" he intoned, "'but gird firmly thy loins for righteous battle!' Thus saith the Lord God which is Jehovah. Selah!"
Then came Syd's cry from the depths of the hyporoom.
"All set, Chip! Lift gravs!"
Warren's finger found a stud. And with a gusty roar the Chickadee rocketed into space on a pillar of flame.
Two hours later, Chip was still following the bright pinpoint of scarlet which marked the course of his quarry.
In the time that had elapsed since their take-off, he had told his friends the whole story. When he told about the Lorelei, Salvation Smith's seamy old features screwed up in a perplexed grimace. "A woman pirate in the Belt, son? I find it hard to believe. Yet—" And when he described the death of Johnny Haldane, anger smoldered in the missionary's eyes, and Syd Palmer's hands knotted into tight, white fists. Said Syd, "A man with a scar, eh? Well, we'll catch him sooner or later. And when we do—" His tone boded no good to the man who had slain an old and loved friend.
"As a matter of fact," offered Salvation, "we've got him now. Any time you say the word, Chip. We're faster than he is. We can close in on him in five minutes."
"I know," nodded Warren grimly. "But we won't do it—yet. I'm borrowing a bit of Johnny's strategy. I've been plotting his course. As soon as I'm sure of his destination, we'll take care of him . But our first and most vital problem is to locate the Lorelei's hideaway."
Syd said, "That's all right with me, chum. I like a good scrap as much as the next guy. Better, maybe. But this isn't our concern, strictly speaking. What we ought to do is report this matter to the Space Patrol, let them take care of it."
Salvation shook his head.
"That's where you're mistaken, Sydney. This is very much our concern. So much so, in fact, that we dare not make port again until it's cleared up. I think you have forgotten that it is not the scar-faced man who is wanted for the killing of Haldane—but Chip!"
"B-but—" gasped Palmer—"b-but that's ridiculous! Chip and Johnny were old buddies. Lifelong friends!"
"Nevertheless, the circumstantial evidence indicates Chip's guilt. Twenty men saw him standing over Johnny's dead body, with a flame-pistol in his hand. And the barkeep heard Johnny 'arrest' Chip and accuse him of murder!"
Chip said ruefully, "That's right, Syd. It was only a joke, but it backfired. The bartender thought Johnny meant it. He scooted out of there like a bat out of Hades. I'm in it up to my neck unless we can bring back evidence that Scarface actually did the killing. And that may not be so easy."
He stirred restlessly. "But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now our job is to keep this rat in sight. We've gone farther already than I expected we would." He turned to the old preacher.
"Where do you think we're going, Padre? Out of the Belt entirely?"
"I've been wondering that myself, son. I don't know for sure, of course, but it looks to me as if we're going for the Bog. If so, you'd better keep a weather-eye peeled."
"The Bog!" Chip had never penetrated the planetoids so deeply before, but he knew of the Bog by hearsay. All men did. A treacherous region of tightly packed asteroids, a mad and whirling scramble of the gigantic rocks which, aeons ago, had been a planet. Few spacemen dared penetrate the Bog. Of those who did dare, few returned to tell the tale. "The Bog! Say! I'd better keep a sharp lookout!"
He turned to the perilens once more, fastened an eye to its lens. And then—
"Syd!" he cried. "Salvation! Look! She—she—!"
He pressed the plunger that transferred the perilens image to the central viewscreen. And as he did so, a phantom filled the area which should have revealed yawning space, gay with the spangles of a myriad glowing orbs. The vision of an unbelievably beautiful girl, the golden-crowned embodiment of a man's fondest dreaming, eyes wide with an indistinguishable emotion, arms stretched wide in mute appeal.
And from the throats of all came simultaneous recognition.
" The Lorelei! "
At the same moment came a plea from the enchantress of space through a second medium. For no reason anyone could explain, the ship's telaudio wakened to life; over it came to their ears the actual words of the girl:
" Help! Oh, help! Can anyone hear me? Help —"
Even though he knew this to be only a ruse, a deliberate, dastardly trap set for the unwary, Chip Warren's pulse leaped in hot response to that desperate plea. Even with the warning of Johnny Haldane fresh in his memory, some gallantry deep within him spurred him to the aid of this lovely vision. Here was a woman a man could live for, fight for, die for! A woman like no other in the universe.
Then common sense came to his rescue. He wrenched his gaze from the tempting shadow, cried: "Kill that wavelength! Tune the lens on another beam, Syd!"
Palmer, bedazzled but obedient, spun the dial of the perilens . Despite his vastly improved science Man had never yet succeeded in devising a transparent medium through which to view the void wherein he soared; the perilens was a device which translated impinging light-waves into a picture of that which lay outside the ship's hull. When or where electrical disturbances existed in space, its frequency could be changed for greater clarity. This was what Syd now attempted.
But to no avail! For it mattered not which cycle he tuned to—the image persisted. Still on the viewscreen that pleading figure beckoned piteously. And still the cabin rang to the prayers of that heart-tugging voice:
" Help! Oh, help! Can anyone hear me? Help —"
Gone, now, was any fascination that thrilling vision might previously have held for Chip Warren. Understanding of their plight dawned coldly upon him, and his brow became dark with anger.
" We're blanketed! Flying blind! Salvation, radio a general alarm! Syd, jazz the hypos to max. Shift trajectory to fourteen-oh-three North and loft ... fire No. 3 jet...."
He had hurled himself into the bucket-shaped pilot's seat; now his fingers played the controls like those of a mad organist. The Chickadee groaned from prow to stern, trembled like a tortured thing as he thrust it into a rising spiral.
It was a desperate chance he was taking. Increasing his speed thus, it was certain he would be spotted by the man he had been following; the flaming jets of the Chickadee must form a crimson arch against black space visible for hundreds—thousands!—of miles. Nor was there any way of knowing what lay in the path Chip thus blindly chose. Titanic death might loom on every side. But they had to fight clear of this spot of blindness, clear their instruments....
And then it came! A jarring concussion that smashed against the prow of the Chickadee like a battering ram. Chip flew headlong out of his bucket to spreadeagle on the heaving iron floor. He heard, above the grinding plaint of shattered steel the bellowing prayer of Salvation Smith:
"We've crashed! 'Into Thy hands, O Lord of old—'"
Then Syd's angry cry, "Crashed, hell! He's smashed us with a tractor-blast!"
Chip stared at his companion numbly.
"But—but that's impossible! We're plated with ek! A tractor-cannon couldn't hurt us—"
" Half-plated! " howled Syd savagely. "And those damn fools started working from the stern of the Chickadee ! We're vulnerable up front, and that's where he got us! In a minute this can will be leaking like a sieve. I'll get out bulgers. Hold 'er to her course, Chip!"
He dove for the lockers wherein were hung the space-suits, tore them hastily from their hangers. Chip again spun the perilens vernier. No good! No space ... no stars ... just a beautiful phantom crying them to certain doom. By now he was aware that from a dozen sprung plates air was seeping, but he fought down despair. While there remained hope, a man had to keep on fighting.
He scrambled back into the bucket-seat, experimented with controls that answered sluggishly. Salvation had sprung to the rotor-gun, was now angrily jerking its lanyard, lacing the void with death-dealing bursts that had no mark. The old man's eyes were brands of fire, his white hair clung wetly to his forehead. His rage was terrible to behold.
"'Yes, truly shall I destroy them!'" he cried, "'who loose their stealth upon me like a thief from the night—'"
Then suddenly there came a second and more frightful blow. The straining Chickadee stopped as though pole-axed by a gigantic fist. Stopped and shuddered and screamed in metal agony. This time inertia flung Chip headlong, helpless, into the control racks. Brazen studs took the impact of his body; crushing pain banded about his temples, and a red wetness ran into his eyes, blurring and blinding him, burning.
For an instant there flamed before him a universe of incandescent stars, weaving, shimmering, merging. The vision of a woman whose hair was a golden glory....
After that—nothing!
III
From a billion miles away, from a bourne unguessable thousands of light-years distant, came the faint, far whisper of a voice. Nearer and nearer it came, and ever faster, till it throbbed upon Chip's eardrums with booming savagery.
"—coming to, now. Good! We'll soon find out—"
Chip opened his eyes, too dazed, at first, to understand the situation in which he found himself. Gone was the familiar control-turret of the Chickadee , gone the bulger into which he had so hastily clambered. He lay on the parched, rocky soil of a—a something. A planetoid, perhaps. And he was surrounded by a motley crew of strangers: scum of all the planets that circle the Sun....
Then recollection flooded back upon him, sudden and complete. The chase ... the call of the fateful Lorelei ... the crash! New strength, born of anger, surged through him. He lifted his head.
"My—my companions?" he demanded weakly.
The leader of those who encircled him, a mighty hulk of a man, massive of shoulder and thigh, black-haired, with an unshaven blue jaw, raven-bright eyes and a jutting, aquiline nose like the beak of a hawk, loosed a satisfied grunt.
"Ah! Back to normal, eh, sailor? Damn near time!"
Climbing to his feet sent a swift wave of giddiness through Chip—but he managed it. He fought down the vertigo which threatened to overwhelm him, and confronted the big man boldly.
"What," he stormed, "is the meaning of this?"
The giant stared at him for a moment, his jaw slack. Then his raven-bright eyes glittered; he slapped a trunklike thigh and guffawed in boisterous mirth.
"Hear that?" he roared to his companions. "Quite a guy, ain't he?
'What's the meanin' o' this?' he asks! Game little fightin' cock, hey?" Then he sobered abruptly, and a grim light replaced the amusement in his eyes. Here was not a man to be trifled with, Chip realized. His tone assumed a biting edge. "The meanin' is, my bucko," he answered mirthlessly, "that you've run afoul o' your last reef. Unless you have a sane head on your shoulders, and you're willing to talk fast and straight!"
"Talk?"
"Don't stall. We've already unloaded your bins. We found it. And a nice haul, too. Thanks for lettin' us know it was on the way." The burly one chuckled coarsely. "We'd have took it, anyway, but you helped matters out by comin' to us."
Johnny Haldane had been right, then. Chip remembered his friend's ominous warning. "—if your message was intercepted, you may have played into the hands of—" He said slowly, "Then you are the Lorelei's men?"
"The who? Never mind that, bucko, just talk. That ekalastron—where did it come from?"
And it occurred to Warren suddenly that although the big man did hold the whip hand, he was still not in possession of the most important secret of all! While the location of the ekalastron mine remained a secret, a deadlock existed.
"And if I won't tell—?" he countered shrewdly.
"Why, then, sailor—" The pirate leader's hamlike fists tightened, and a cold light glinted in his eyes—"why, then I guess maybe I'll have to beat it out o' you!"
|
Describe a flitterboat and when it is used.
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about His Master's Voice by Randall Garrett.
Relevant chunks:
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Analog March 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
ILLUSTRATED BY KRENKEL
HIS MASTER'S VOICE ANALOG SCIENCE FACT · SCIENCE FICTION
Spaceship McGuire had lots of knowledge—but no wisdom. He was smart—but incredibly foolish. And, as a natural consequence, tended to ask questions too profound for any philosopher—questions like "Who are you?"
By RANDALL GARRETT
I'd been in Ravenhurst's office on the mountain-sized planetoid called Raven's Rest only twice before. The third time was no better; Shalimar Ravenhurst was one of the smartest operators in the Belt, but when it came to personal relationships, he was utterly incompetent. He could make anyone dislike him without trying.
When I entered the office, he was
[3]
sitting behind his mahogany desk, his eyes focused on the operation he was going through with a wineglass and a decanter. He didn't look up at me as he said:
"Sit down, Mr. Oak. Will you have some Madeira?"
I decided I might as well observe the pleasantries. There was no point in my getting nasty until he did. "Thank you, Mr. Ravenhurst, I will."
He kept his eyes focused on his work: It isn't easy to pour wine on a planetoid where the gee-pull is measured in fractions of a centimeter per second squared. It moves slowly, like ropy molasses, but you have to be careful not to be fooled by that. The viscosity is just as low as ever, and if you pour it from any great height, it will go scooting right out of the glass
[4]
again. The momentum it builds up is enough to make it splash right out again in a slow-motion gush which gets it all over the place.
Besides which, even if it didn't splash, it would take it so long to fall a few inches that you'd die of thirst waiting for it.
Ravenhurst had evolved a technique from long years of practice. He tilted the glass and the bottle toward each other, their edges touching, like you do when you're trying to pour beer without putting a head on it. As soon as the wine wet the glass, the adhesive forces at work would pull more wine into the wine glass. To get capillary action on a low-gee asteroid, you don't need a capillary, by any means. The negative meniscus on the wine was something to see; the first time you see it, you get the eerie feeling that the glass is spinning and throwing the wine up against the walls by centrifugal force.
I took the glass he offered me (Careful! Don't slosh!) and sipped at it. Using squirt tubes would have been a hell of a lot easier and neater, but Ravenhurst liked to do things his way.
He put the stopper back in the decanter, picked up his own glass and sipped appreciatively. Not until he put it back down on the desk again did he raise his eyes and look at me for the first time since I'd come in.
"Mr. Oak, you have caused me considerable trouble."
"I thought we'd hashed all that out, Mr. Ravenhurst," I said, keeping my voice level.
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"So had I. But it appears that there were more ramifications to your action than we had at first supposed." His voice had the texture of heavy linseed oil.
He waited, as if he expected me to make some reply to that. When I didn't, he sighed slightly and went on. "I fear that you have inadvertently sabotaged McGuire. You were commissioned to prevent sabotage, Mr. Oak, and I'm afraid that you abrogated your contract."
I just continued to keep my voice calm. "If you are trying to get back the fee you gave me, we can always take it to court. I don't think you'd win."
"Mr. Oak," he said heavily, "I am not a fool, regardless of what your own impression may be. If I were trying to get back that fee, I would hardly offer to pay you another one."
I didn't think he was a fool. You don't get into the managerial business and climb to the top and stay there unless you have brains. Ravenhurst was smart, all right; it was just that, when it came to personal relationships, he wasn't very wise.
"Then stop all this yak about an abrogated contract and get to the point," I told him.
"I shall. I was merely trying to point out to you that it is through your own actions that I find myself in a very trying position, and that your sense of honor and ethics should induce you to rectify the damage."
"My honor and ethics are in fine shape," I said, "but my interpretation of the concepts might not be quite
[6]
the same as yours. Get to the point."
He took another sip of Madeira. "The robotocists at Viking tell me that, in order to prevent any further ... ah ... sabotage by unauthorized persons, the MGYR-7 was constructed so that, after activation, the first man who addressed orders to it would thenceforth be considered its ... ah ... master.
"As I understand it, the problem of defining the term 'human being' unambiguously to a robot is still unsolved. The robotocists felt that it would be much easier to define a single individual. That would prevent the issuing of conflicting orders to a robot, provided the single individual were careful in giving orders himself.
"Now, it appears that you , Mr. Oak, were the first man to speak to McGuire after he had been activated. Is that correct?"
"Is that question purely rhetorical," I asked him, putting on my best expression of innocent interest. "Or are you losing your memory?" I had explained all that to him two weeks before, when I'd brought McGuire and the girl here, so that Ravenhurst would have a chance to cover up what had really happened.
My sarcasm didn't faze him in the least. "Rhetorical. It follows that you are the only man whose orders McGuire will obey."
"Your robotocists can change that," I said. This time, I was giving him my version of "genuine" innocence.
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A man has to be a good actor to be a competent double agent, and I didn't want Ravenhurst to know that I knew a great deal more about the problem than he did.
He shook his head, making his jowls wobble. "No, they cannot. They realize now that there should be some way of making that change, but they failed to see that it would be necessary. Only by completely draining McGuire's memory banks and refilling them with new data can this bias be eliminated."
"Then why don't they do that?"
"There are two very good reasons," he said. And there was a shade of anger in his tone. "In the first place, that sort of operation takes time, and it costs money. If we do that, we might as well go ahead and make the slight changes in structure necessary to incorporate some of the improvements that the robotocists now feel are necessary. In other words, they might as well go ahead and build the MGYR-8, which is precisely the thing I hired you to prevent."
"It seems you have a point there, Mr. Ravenhurst." He'd hired me because things were shaky at Viking. If he lost too much more money on the McGuire experiment, he stood a good chance of losing his position as manager. If that happened some of his other managerial contracts might be canceled, too. Things like that can begin to snowball, and Ravenhurst might find himself out of the managerial business entirely.
"But," I went on, "hasn't the additional wasted time already cost you
[8]
money?"
"It has. I was reluctant to call you in again—understandably enough, I think."
"Perfectly. It's mutual."
He ignored me. "I even considered going through with the rebuilding work, now that we have traced down the source of failure of the first six models. Unfortunately, that isn't feasible, either." He scowled at me.
"It seems," he went on, "that McGuire refuses to allow his brain to be tampered with. The self-preservation 'instinct' has come to the fore. He has refused to let the technicians and robotocists enter his hull, and he has threatened to take off and leave Ceres if any further attempts are made to ... ah ... disrupt his thinking processes."
"I can't say that I blame him," I said. "What do you want me to do? Go to Ceres and tell him to submit like a good boy?"
"It is too late for that, Mr. Oak. Viking cannot stand any more of that kind of drain on its financial resources. I have been banking on the McGuire-type ships to put Viking Spacecraft ahead of every other spacecraft company in the System." He looked suddenly very grim and very determined. "Mr. Oak, I am certain that the robot ship is the answer to the transportation problems in the Solar System. For the sake of every human being in the Solar System, we must get the bugs out of McGuire!"
What's good for General Bull-moose is good for everybody , I quoted to myself. I'd have said it out loud,
[9]
but I was fairly certain that Shalimar Ravenhurst was not a student of the classics.
"Mr. Oak, I would like you to go to Ceres and co-operate with the robotocists at Viking. When the MGYR-8 is finally built, I want it to be the prototype for a fast, safe, functional robot spaceship that can be turned out commercially. You can be of great service, Mr. Oak."
"In other words, I've got you over a barrel."
"I don't deny it."
"You know what my fees are, Mr. Ravenhurst. That's what you'll be charged. I'll expect to be paid weekly; if Viking goes broke, I don't want to lose more than a week's pay. On the other hand, if the MGYR-8 is successful, I will expect a substantial bonus."
"How much?"
"Exactly half of the cost of rebuilding. Half what it would take to build a Model 8 right now, and taking a chance on there being no bugs in it."
He considered that, looking grimmer than ever. Then he said: "I will do it on the condition that the bonus be paid off in installments, one each six months for three years after the first successful commercial ship is built by Viking."
"My lawyer will nail you down on that wording," I said, "but it's a deal. Is there anything else?"
"No."
"Then I think I'll leave for Ceres before you break a blood vessel."
"You continue to amaze me, Mr. Oak," he said. And the soft oiliness
[10]
of his voice was the oil of vitriol. "Your compassion for your fellowman is a facet of your personality that I had not seen before. I shall welcome the opportunity to relax and allow my blood pressure to subside."
I could almost see Shalimar Ravenhurst suddenly exploding and adding his own touch of color to the room.
And, on that gladsome thought, I left. I let him have his small verbal triumph; if he'd known that I'd have taken on the job for almost nothing, he'd really have blown up.
Ten minutes later, I was in my vacuum suit, walking across the glaring, rough-polished rectangle of metal that was the landing field of Raven's Rest. The sun was near the zenith in the black, diamond-dusted sky, and the shadow of my flitterboat stood out like an inkblot on a bridal gown. I climbed in, started the engine, and released the magnetic anchor that held the little boat to the surface of the nickel-iron planetoid. I lifted her gently, worked her around until I was stationary in relation to the spinning planetoid, oriented myself against the stellar background, and headed toward the first blinker beacon on my way to Ceres.
For obvious economical reasons, it it impracticable to use full-sized spaceships in the Belt. A flitterboat, with a single gravitoinertial engine and the few necessities of life—air, some water, and a very little food—still costs more than a Rolls-Royce
[11]
automobile does on Earth, but there has to be some sort of individual transportation in the Belt.
They can't be used for any great distances because a man can't stay in a vac suit very long without getting uncomfortable. You have to hop from beacon to beacon, which means that your average velocity doesn't amount to much, since you spend too much time accelerating and decelerating. But a flitterboat is enough to get around the neighborhood in, and that's all that's needed.
I got the GM-187 blinker in my sights, eased the acceleration up to one gee, relaxed to watch the radar screen while I thought over my coming ordeal with McGuire.
Testing spaceships, robotic or any other kind, is strictly not my business. The sign on the door of my office in New York says: DANIEL OAK, Confidential Expediter ; I'm hired to help other people Get Things Done. Usually, if someone came to me with the problem of getting a spaceship test-piloted, I'd simply dig up the best test pilot in the business, hire him for my client, and forget about everything but collecting my fee. But I couldn't have refused this case if I'd wanted to. I'd already been assigned to it by someone a lot more important than Shalimar Ravenhurst.
Every schoolchild who has taken a course in Government Organization and Function can tell you that the Political Survey Division is a branch of the System Census Bureau of the UN Government, and that its job is to evaluate the political activities of
[12]
various sub-governments all over the System.
And every one of those poor tykes would be dead wrong.
The Political Survey Division does evaluate political activity, all right, but it is the Secret Service of the UN Government. The vast majority of
[13]
the System's citizens don't even know the Government has a Secret Service. I happen to know only because I'm an agent of the Political Survey Division.
The PSD was vitally interested in the whole McGuire project. Robots of McGuire's complexity had been built before; the robot that runs the traffic patterns of the American Eastern Seaboard is just as capable as McGuire when it comes to handling a tremendous number of variables and making decisions on them. But that robot didn't have to be given orders except in extreme emergencies. Keeping a few million cars moving and safe at the same time is actually pretty routine stuff for a robot. And a traffic robot isn't given orders verbally; it is given any orders that may be necessary via teletype by a trained programming technician. Those orders are usually in reference to a change of routing due to repair work on the highways or the like. The robot itself can take care of such emergencies as bad weather or even an accident caused by the malfunctioning of an individual automobile.
McGuire was different. In the first place, he was mobile. He was in command of a spacecraft. In a sense, he was the spacecraft, since it served him in a way that was analogous to the way a human body serves the human mind. And he wasn't in charge of millions of objects with a top velocity of a hundred and fifty miles an hour; he was in charge of a single object that moved at velocities of thousands of miles per second. Nor
[14]
did he have a set, unmoving highway as his path; his paths were variable and led through the emptiness of space.
Unforeseen emergencies can happen at any time in space, most of them having to do with the lives of passengers. A cargo ship would be somewhat less susceptible to such emergencies if there were no humans aboard; it doesn't matter much to a robot if he has no air in his hull.
But with passengers aboard, there may be times when it would be necessary to give orders— fast ! And that means verbal orders, orders that can be given anywhere in the ship and relayed immediately by microphone to the robot's brain. A man doesn't have time to run to a teletyper and type out orders when there's an emergency in space.
That meant that McGuire had to understand English, and, since there has to be feedback in communication, he had to be able to speak it as well.
And that made McGuire more than somewhat difficult to deal with.
For more than a century, robotocists have been trying to build Asimov's famous Three Laws of Robotics into a robot brain.
First Law: A robot shall not, either through action or inaction, allow harm to come to a human being.
Second Law: A robot shall obey the orders of a human being, except when such orders conflict with the First Law .
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Third Law: A robot shall strive to protect its own existence, except when this conflicts with the First or Second Law.
Nobody has succeeded yet, because nobody has yet succeeded in defining the term "human being" in such a way that the logical mind of a robot can encompass the concept.
A traffic robot is useful only because the definition has been rigidly narrowed down. As far as a traffic robot is concerned, "human beings" are the automobiles on its highways. Woe betide any poor sap who tries, illegally, to cross a robot-controlled highway on foot. The robot's only concern would be with the safety of the automobiles, and if the only way to avoid destruction of an automobile were to be by nudging the pedestrian aside with a fender, that's what would happen.
And, since its orders only come from one place, I suppose that a traffic robot thinks that the guy who uses that typer is an automobile.
With the first six models of the McGuire ships, the robotocists attempted to build in the Three Laws exactly as stated. And the first six went insane.
If one human being says "jump left," and another says "jump right," the robot is unable to evaluate which human being has given the more valid order. Feed enough confusing and conflicting data into a robot brain, and it can begin behaving in ways that, in a human being, would be called paranoia or schizophrenia or catatonia or what-have-you, depending
[16]
on the symptoms. And an insane robot is fully as dangerous as an insane human being controlling the same mechanical equipment, if not more so.
So the seventh model had been modified. The present McGuire's brain was impressed with slight modifications of the First and Second Laws.
If it is difficult to define a human being, it is much more difficult to define a responsible human being. One, in other words, who can be relied upon to give wise and proper orders to a robot, who can be relied upon not to drive the robot insane.
The robotocists at Viking Spacecraft had decided to take another tack. "Very well," they'd said, "if we can't define all the members of a group, we can certainly define an individual. We'll pick one responsible person and build McGuire so that he will take orders only from that person."
As it turned out, I was that person. Just substitute "Daniel Oak" for "human being" in the First and Second Laws, and you'll see how important I was to a certain spaceship named McGuire.
When I finally caught the beam from Ceres and set my flitterboat down on the huge landing field that had been carved from the nickel-iron of the asteroid with a focused sun beam, I was itchy with my own perspiration and groggy tired. I don't like riding in flitterboats, sitting on a
[17]
bucket seat, astride the drive tube, like a witch on a broomstick, with nothing but a near-invisible transite hull between me and the stars, all cooped up in a vac suit. Unlike driving a car, you can't pull a flitterboat over and take a nap; you have to wait until you hit the next beacon station.
Ceres, the biggest rock in the Belt, is a lot more than just a beacon station. Like Eros and a few others, it's a city in its own right. And except for the Government Reservation, Viking Spacecraft owned Ceres, lock, stock, and mining rights.
Part of the reason for Viking's troubles was envy of that ownership. There were other companies in the Belt that would like to get their hands on that plum, and there were those who were doing everything short of cutting throats to get it. The PSD was afraid it might come to that, too, before very long.
Ceres is fifty-eight million cubic miles of nickel-iron, but nobody would cut her up for that. Nickel-iron is almost exactly as cheap as dirt on Earth, and, considering shipping costs, Earth soil costs a great deal more than nickel-iron in the Belt.
But, as an operations base, Ceres is second to none. Its surface gravity averages .0294 Standard Gee, as compared with Earth's .981, and that's enough to give a slight feeling of weight without unduly hampering the body with too much load. I weigh just under six pounds on Ceres, and after I've been there a while, going back to Earth is a strain that takes a
[18]
week to get used to. Kids that are brought up in the Belt are forced to exercise in a room with a one-gee spin on it at least an hour a day. They don't like it at first, but it keeps them from growing up with the strength of mice. And an adult with any sense takes a spin now and then, too. Traveling in a flitterboat will give you a one-gee pull, all right, but you don't get much exercise.
I parked my flitterboat in the space that had been assigned to me by Landing Control, and went over to the nearest air-lock dome.
After I'd cycled through and had shucked my vac suit, I went into the inner room to find Colonel Brock waiting for me.
"Have a good trip, Oak?" he asked, trying to put a smile on his scarred, battered face.
"I got here alive, if that makes it a good flitterboat trip," I said, shaking his extended hand.
"That's the definition of a good trip," he told me.
"Then the question was superfluous. Seriously, what I need is a bath and some sleep."
"You'll get that, but first let's go somewhere where we can talk. Want a drink?"
"I could use one, I guess. Your treat?"
"My treat," he said. "Come on."
I followed him out and down a ladder to a corridor that led north. By definition, any asteroid spins toward the east, and all directions follow from that, regardless of which way the axis may point.
[19]
Colonel Harrington Brock was dressed in the black-and-gold "union suit" that was the uniform of Ravenhurst's Security Guard. My own was a tasteful green, but some of the other people in the public corridor seemed to go for more flashiness; besides silver and gold, there were shocking pinks and violent mauves, with stripes and blazes of other colors.
A crowd wearing skin-tight cover-alls might shock the gentle people of Midwich-on-the-Moor, England, but they are normal dress in the Belt. You can't climb into a vac suit with bulky clothing on, and, if you did, you'd hate yourself within an hour, with a curse for every wrinkle that chafed your skin. And, in the Belt, you never know when you might have to get into a vac suit fast. In a "safe" area like the tunnels inside Ceres, there isn't much chance of losing air, but there are places where no one but a fool would ever be more than ten seconds away from his vac suit.
I read an article by a psychologist a few months back, in which he claimed that the taste for loud colors in union suits was actually due to modesty. He claimed that the bright patterns drew attention to the colors themselves, and away from the base the colors were laid over. The observer, he said, tends to see the color and pattern of the suit, rather than the body it clings to so closely. Maybe he's right; I wouldn't know, not being a psychologist. I have spent summers in nudist resorts, though, and I never noticed anyone painting themselves with lavender
[20]
and chartreuse checks. On the other hand, the people who go to nudist resorts are a self-screened group. So are the people who go to the Belt, for that matter, but the type of screening is different.
I'll just leave that problem in the hands of the psychologists, and go on wearing my immodestly quiet solid-color union suits.
Brock pushed open the inch-thick metal door beneath a sign that said
"O'Banion's Bar," and I followed him in. We sat down at a table and ordered drinks when the waiter bustled over. A cop in uniform isn't supposed to drink, but Brock figures that the head of the Security Guard ought to be able to get away with a breach of his own rules.
We had our drinks in front of us and our cigarettes lit before Brock opened up with his troubles.
"Oak," he said, "I wanted to intercept you before you went to the plant because I want you to know that there may be trouble."
"Yeah? What kind?" Sometimes it's a pain to play ignorant.
"Thurston's outfit is trying to oust Ravenhurst from the managership of Viking and take over the job. Baedecker Metals & Mining Corporation, which is managed by Baedecker himself, wants to force Viking out of business so that BM&M can take over Ceres for large-scale processing of precious metals.
"Between the two of 'em, they're raising all sorts of minor hell around
[21]
here, and it's liable to become major hell at any time. And we can't stand any hell—or sabotage—around this planetoid just now!"
"Now wait a minute," I said, still playing ignorant, "I thought we'd pretty well established that the 'sabotage' of the McGuire series was Jack Ravenhurst's fault. She was the one who was driving them nuts, not Thurston's agents."
"Perfectly true," he said agreeably. "We managed to block any attempts of sabotage by other company agents, even though it looked as though we hadn't for a while." He chuckled wryly. "We went all out to keep the McGuires safe, and all the time the boss' daughter was giving them the works." Then he looked sharply at me. "I covered that, of course. No one in the Security Guard but me knows that Jack was responsible."
"Good. But what about the Thurston and Baedecker agents, then?"
He took a hefty slug of his drink. "They're around, all right. We have our eyes on the ones we know, but those outfits are as sharp as we are, and they may have a few agents here on Ceres that we know nothing about."
"So? What does this have to do with me?"
He put his drink on the table. "Oak, I want you to help me." His onyx-brown eyes, only a shade darker than his skin, looked directly into my own. "I know it isn't part of your assignment, and you know I can't afford to pay you anything near what you're worth. It will have to come out of my
[22]
pocket because I couldn't possibly justify it from operating funds. Ravenhurst specifically told me that he doesn't want you messing around with the espionage and sabotage problem because he doesn't like your methods of operation."
"And you're going to go against his orders?"
"I am. Ravenhurst is sore at you personally because you showed him that Jack was responsible for the McGuire sabotage. It's an irrational dislike, and I am not going to let it interfere with my job. I'm going to protect Ravenhurst's interests to the best of my ability, and that means that I'll use the best of other people's abilities if I can."
I grinned at him. "The last I heard, you were sore at me for blatting it all over Ceres that Jaqueline Ravenhurst was missing, when she sneaked aboard McGuire."
He nodded perfunctorily. "I was. I still think you should have told me what you were up to. But you did it, and you got results that I'd been unable to get. I'm not going to let a momentary pique hang on as an irrational dislike. I like to think I have more sense than that."
"Thanks." There wasn't much else I could say.
"Now, I've got a little dough put away; it's not much, but I could offer you—"
I shook my head, cutting him off. "Nope. Sorry, Brock. For two reasons. In the first place, there would be a conflict of interest. I'm working for Ravenhurst, and if he doesn't want
[23]
me to work for you, then it would be unethical for me to take the job.
"In the second place, my fees are standardized. Oh, I can allow a certain amount of fluctuation, but I'm not a physician or a lawyer; my services are
[24]
not necessary to the survival of the individual, except in very rare cases, and those cases are generally arranged through a lawyer when it's a charity case.
"No, colonel, I'm afraid I couldn't
[25]
possibly work for you."
He thought that over for a long time. Finally, he nodded his head very slowly. "I see. Yeah, I get your point." He scowled down at his drink.
" But ," I said, "it would be a pleasure
[26]
to work with you."
He looked up quickly. "How's that?"
"Well, let's look at it this way: You can't hire me because I'm already working for Ravenhurst; I can't hire
[27]
you because you're working for Ravenhurst. But since we may need each other, and since we're both working for Ravenhurst, there would be no conflict of interest if we co-operate.
"Or, to put it another way, I can't take money for any service I may render you, but you can pay off in services. Am I coming through?"
His broad smile made the scars on his face fold in and deepen. "Loud and clear. It's a deal."
I held up a hand, palm toward him. "Ah, ah, ah! There's no 'deal' involved. We're just old buddies helping each other. This is for friendship, not business. I scratch your back; you scratch mine. Fair?"
"Fair. Come on down to my office; I want to give you a headful of facts and figures."
"Will do. Let me finish my guzzle."
Question:
Describe a flitterboat and when it is used.
Answer:
|
[
"A flitterboat is a more economical option than a full spaceship. It is described as having a single gravitoinertial engine. It is meant to have the most basic necessities that are needed for a person to survive their journey, which includes oxygen, water, and the requirement of food necessary. The flitterboat is not necessarily more affordable, but it does provide the purpose of transporting from one Belt to another Belt. Daniel Oak details how a vacuum suit is needed to be worn in a flitterboat. Daniel describes the flitterboat as a tool that does its job, but is not comfortable. ",
"A flitterboat is a small, single-person space vehicle capable of navigating from beacon to beacon in the Belt, an area of space in which it is impractical to use full-sized spaceships. It is propelled by a single engine, and contains only a few things necessary for life - water, air, and small amounts of food. \n\tIn order to ride in a flitterboat, the passenger must wear an uncomfortable vac suit and sit straddling a drive tube. The main body of the vessel is composed of a material called transite, which is nearly transparent. The gravitational force inside a flitterboat is one gee. \n",
"A flitterboat is a smaller spaceship used for individual transportation on the Belt; to use a full sized spaceship would be inconvenient and impractical, so the flitterboat is used for local travel for one. It has a singular engine and can carry air, and a bit of food and water. It contains an anchor that holds the boat to the ground. Because it is only meant for short travels, one can only last a short amount of time in one, so flitterboats are used to get to and from different beacon points in the neighborhood.",
"The flitterboat has a single gravitoinertial engine and it contains a few necessities of life, air, water and little food. But this flitterboat still costs quite a lot. The flitterboat is used for short distance travelling since it is very hard to stay in a vacuum suit for too long. Thus it is common to hop from beacon to beacon, and this decreases the average speed since most of the time one would spend accelerating and decelerating. The flitterboat has a bucket seat for the driver and it produces a one-gee pull. It sits on the drive tube in a way similar to a witch on a broomstick. Importantly, a flitterboat cannot be stopped whenever it wants to, instead it has to get to a beacon station. Oak uses it when he was told by Raverhurst to travel to Ceres, he wears a vacuum suit when he was going to ride it. First he allowed the boat to get to the top of the planetoid by releasing the magnetic anchor and once the station is reached, the flitterboat has to be parked at the specific space assigned by the Landing Control."
] |
48513
|
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Analog March 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
ILLUSTRATED BY KRENKEL
HIS MASTER'S VOICE ANALOG SCIENCE FACT · SCIENCE FICTION
Spaceship McGuire had lots of knowledge—but no wisdom. He was smart—but incredibly foolish. And, as a natural consequence, tended to ask questions too profound for any philosopher—questions like "Who are you?"
By RANDALL GARRETT
I'd been in Ravenhurst's office on the mountain-sized planetoid called Raven's Rest only twice before. The third time was no better; Shalimar Ravenhurst was one of the smartest operators in the Belt, but when it came to personal relationships, he was utterly incompetent. He could make anyone dislike him without trying.
When I entered the office, he was
[3]
sitting behind his mahogany desk, his eyes focused on the operation he was going through with a wineglass and a decanter. He didn't look up at me as he said:
"Sit down, Mr. Oak. Will you have some Madeira?"
I decided I might as well observe the pleasantries. There was no point in my getting nasty until he did. "Thank you, Mr. Ravenhurst, I will."
He kept his eyes focused on his work: It isn't easy to pour wine on a planetoid where the gee-pull is measured in fractions of a centimeter per second squared. It moves slowly, like ropy molasses, but you have to be careful not to be fooled by that. The viscosity is just as low as ever, and if you pour it from any great height, it will go scooting right out of the glass
[4]
again. The momentum it builds up is enough to make it splash right out again in a slow-motion gush which gets it all over the place.
Besides which, even if it didn't splash, it would take it so long to fall a few inches that you'd die of thirst waiting for it.
Ravenhurst had evolved a technique from long years of practice. He tilted the glass and the bottle toward each other, their edges touching, like you do when you're trying to pour beer without putting a head on it. As soon as the wine wet the glass, the adhesive forces at work would pull more wine into the wine glass. To get capillary action on a low-gee asteroid, you don't need a capillary, by any means. The negative meniscus on the wine was something to see; the first time you see it, you get the eerie feeling that the glass is spinning and throwing the wine up against the walls by centrifugal force.
I took the glass he offered me (Careful! Don't slosh!) and sipped at it. Using squirt tubes would have been a hell of a lot easier and neater, but Ravenhurst liked to do things his way.
He put the stopper back in the decanter, picked up his own glass and sipped appreciatively. Not until he put it back down on the desk again did he raise his eyes and look at me for the first time since I'd come in.
"Mr. Oak, you have caused me considerable trouble."
"I thought we'd hashed all that out, Mr. Ravenhurst," I said, keeping my voice level.
[5]
"So had I. But it appears that there were more ramifications to your action than we had at first supposed." His voice had the texture of heavy linseed oil.
He waited, as if he expected me to make some reply to that. When I didn't, he sighed slightly and went on. "I fear that you have inadvertently sabotaged McGuire. You were commissioned to prevent sabotage, Mr. Oak, and I'm afraid that you abrogated your contract."
I just continued to keep my voice calm. "If you are trying to get back the fee you gave me, we can always take it to court. I don't think you'd win."
"Mr. Oak," he said heavily, "I am not a fool, regardless of what your own impression may be. If I were trying to get back that fee, I would hardly offer to pay you another one."
I didn't think he was a fool. You don't get into the managerial business and climb to the top and stay there unless you have brains. Ravenhurst was smart, all right; it was just that, when it came to personal relationships, he wasn't very wise.
"Then stop all this yak about an abrogated contract and get to the point," I told him.
"I shall. I was merely trying to point out to you that it is through your own actions that I find myself in a very trying position, and that your sense of honor and ethics should induce you to rectify the damage."
"My honor and ethics are in fine shape," I said, "but my interpretation of the concepts might not be quite
[6]
the same as yours. Get to the point."
He took another sip of Madeira. "The robotocists at Viking tell me that, in order to prevent any further ... ah ... sabotage by unauthorized persons, the MGYR-7 was constructed so that, after activation, the first man who addressed orders to it would thenceforth be considered its ... ah ... master.
"As I understand it, the problem of defining the term 'human being' unambiguously to a robot is still unsolved. The robotocists felt that it would be much easier to define a single individual. That would prevent the issuing of conflicting orders to a robot, provided the single individual were careful in giving orders himself.
"Now, it appears that you , Mr. Oak, were the first man to speak to McGuire after he had been activated. Is that correct?"
"Is that question purely rhetorical," I asked him, putting on my best expression of innocent interest. "Or are you losing your memory?" I had explained all that to him two weeks before, when I'd brought McGuire and the girl here, so that Ravenhurst would have a chance to cover up what had really happened.
My sarcasm didn't faze him in the least. "Rhetorical. It follows that you are the only man whose orders McGuire will obey."
"Your robotocists can change that," I said. This time, I was giving him my version of "genuine" innocence.
[7]
A man has to be a good actor to be a competent double agent, and I didn't want Ravenhurst to know that I knew a great deal more about the problem than he did.
He shook his head, making his jowls wobble. "No, they cannot. They realize now that there should be some way of making that change, but they failed to see that it would be necessary. Only by completely draining McGuire's memory banks and refilling them with new data can this bias be eliminated."
"Then why don't they do that?"
"There are two very good reasons," he said. And there was a shade of anger in his tone. "In the first place, that sort of operation takes time, and it costs money. If we do that, we might as well go ahead and make the slight changes in structure necessary to incorporate some of the improvements that the robotocists now feel are necessary. In other words, they might as well go ahead and build the MGYR-8, which is precisely the thing I hired you to prevent."
"It seems you have a point there, Mr. Ravenhurst." He'd hired me because things were shaky at Viking. If he lost too much more money on the McGuire experiment, he stood a good chance of losing his position as manager. If that happened some of his other managerial contracts might be canceled, too. Things like that can begin to snowball, and Ravenhurst might find himself out of the managerial business entirely.
"But," I went on, "hasn't the additional wasted time already cost you
[8]
money?"
"It has. I was reluctant to call you in again—understandably enough, I think."
"Perfectly. It's mutual."
He ignored me. "I even considered going through with the rebuilding work, now that we have traced down the source of failure of the first six models. Unfortunately, that isn't feasible, either." He scowled at me.
"It seems," he went on, "that McGuire refuses to allow his brain to be tampered with. The self-preservation 'instinct' has come to the fore. He has refused to let the technicians and robotocists enter his hull, and he has threatened to take off and leave Ceres if any further attempts are made to ... ah ... disrupt his thinking processes."
"I can't say that I blame him," I said. "What do you want me to do? Go to Ceres and tell him to submit like a good boy?"
"It is too late for that, Mr. Oak. Viking cannot stand any more of that kind of drain on its financial resources. I have been banking on the McGuire-type ships to put Viking Spacecraft ahead of every other spacecraft company in the System." He looked suddenly very grim and very determined. "Mr. Oak, I am certain that the robot ship is the answer to the transportation problems in the Solar System. For the sake of every human being in the Solar System, we must get the bugs out of McGuire!"
What's good for General Bull-moose is good for everybody , I quoted to myself. I'd have said it out loud,
[9]
but I was fairly certain that Shalimar Ravenhurst was not a student of the classics.
"Mr. Oak, I would like you to go to Ceres and co-operate with the robotocists at Viking. When the MGYR-8 is finally built, I want it to be the prototype for a fast, safe, functional robot spaceship that can be turned out commercially. You can be of great service, Mr. Oak."
"In other words, I've got you over a barrel."
"I don't deny it."
"You know what my fees are, Mr. Ravenhurst. That's what you'll be charged. I'll expect to be paid weekly; if Viking goes broke, I don't want to lose more than a week's pay. On the other hand, if the MGYR-8 is successful, I will expect a substantial bonus."
"How much?"
"Exactly half of the cost of rebuilding. Half what it would take to build a Model 8 right now, and taking a chance on there being no bugs in it."
He considered that, looking grimmer than ever. Then he said: "I will do it on the condition that the bonus be paid off in installments, one each six months for three years after the first successful commercial ship is built by Viking."
"My lawyer will nail you down on that wording," I said, "but it's a deal. Is there anything else?"
"No."
"Then I think I'll leave for Ceres before you break a blood vessel."
"You continue to amaze me, Mr. Oak," he said. And the soft oiliness
[10]
of his voice was the oil of vitriol. "Your compassion for your fellowman is a facet of your personality that I had not seen before. I shall welcome the opportunity to relax and allow my blood pressure to subside."
I could almost see Shalimar Ravenhurst suddenly exploding and adding his own touch of color to the room.
And, on that gladsome thought, I left. I let him have his small verbal triumph; if he'd known that I'd have taken on the job for almost nothing, he'd really have blown up.
Ten minutes later, I was in my vacuum suit, walking across the glaring, rough-polished rectangle of metal that was the landing field of Raven's Rest. The sun was near the zenith in the black, diamond-dusted sky, and the shadow of my flitterboat stood out like an inkblot on a bridal gown. I climbed in, started the engine, and released the magnetic anchor that held the little boat to the surface of the nickel-iron planetoid. I lifted her gently, worked her around until I was stationary in relation to the spinning planetoid, oriented myself against the stellar background, and headed toward the first blinker beacon on my way to Ceres.
For obvious economical reasons, it it impracticable to use full-sized spaceships in the Belt. A flitterboat, with a single gravitoinertial engine and the few necessities of life—air, some water, and a very little food—still costs more than a Rolls-Royce
[11]
automobile does on Earth, but there has to be some sort of individual transportation in the Belt.
They can't be used for any great distances because a man can't stay in a vac suit very long without getting uncomfortable. You have to hop from beacon to beacon, which means that your average velocity doesn't amount to much, since you spend too much time accelerating and decelerating. But a flitterboat is enough to get around the neighborhood in, and that's all that's needed.
I got the GM-187 blinker in my sights, eased the acceleration up to one gee, relaxed to watch the radar screen while I thought over my coming ordeal with McGuire.
Testing spaceships, robotic or any other kind, is strictly not my business. The sign on the door of my office in New York says: DANIEL OAK, Confidential Expediter ; I'm hired to help other people Get Things Done. Usually, if someone came to me with the problem of getting a spaceship test-piloted, I'd simply dig up the best test pilot in the business, hire him for my client, and forget about everything but collecting my fee. But I couldn't have refused this case if I'd wanted to. I'd already been assigned to it by someone a lot more important than Shalimar Ravenhurst.
Every schoolchild who has taken a course in Government Organization and Function can tell you that the Political Survey Division is a branch of the System Census Bureau of the UN Government, and that its job is to evaluate the political activities of
[12]
various sub-governments all over the System.
And every one of those poor tykes would be dead wrong.
The Political Survey Division does evaluate political activity, all right, but it is the Secret Service of the UN Government. The vast majority of
[13]
the System's citizens don't even know the Government has a Secret Service. I happen to know only because I'm an agent of the Political Survey Division.
The PSD was vitally interested in the whole McGuire project. Robots of McGuire's complexity had been built before; the robot that runs the traffic patterns of the American Eastern Seaboard is just as capable as McGuire when it comes to handling a tremendous number of variables and making decisions on them. But that robot didn't have to be given orders except in extreme emergencies. Keeping a few million cars moving and safe at the same time is actually pretty routine stuff for a robot. And a traffic robot isn't given orders verbally; it is given any orders that may be necessary via teletype by a trained programming technician. Those orders are usually in reference to a change of routing due to repair work on the highways or the like. The robot itself can take care of such emergencies as bad weather or even an accident caused by the malfunctioning of an individual automobile.
McGuire was different. In the first place, he was mobile. He was in command of a spacecraft. In a sense, he was the spacecraft, since it served him in a way that was analogous to the way a human body serves the human mind. And he wasn't in charge of millions of objects with a top velocity of a hundred and fifty miles an hour; he was in charge of a single object that moved at velocities of thousands of miles per second. Nor
[14]
did he have a set, unmoving highway as his path; his paths were variable and led through the emptiness of space.
Unforeseen emergencies can happen at any time in space, most of them having to do with the lives of passengers. A cargo ship would be somewhat less susceptible to such emergencies if there were no humans aboard; it doesn't matter much to a robot if he has no air in his hull.
But with passengers aboard, there may be times when it would be necessary to give orders— fast ! And that means verbal orders, orders that can be given anywhere in the ship and relayed immediately by microphone to the robot's brain. A man doesn't have time to run to a teletyper and type out orders when there's an emergency in space.
That meant that McGuire had to understand English, and, since there has to be feedback in communication, he had to be able to speak it as well.
And that made McGuire more than somewhat difficult to deal with.
For more than a century, robotocists have been trying to build Asimov's famous Three Laws of Robotics into a robot brain.
First Law: A robot shall not, either through action or inaction, allow harm to come to a human being.
Second Law: A robot shall obey the orders of a human being, except when such orders conflict with the First Law .
[15]
Third Law: A robot shall strive to protect its own existence, except when this conflicts with the First or Second Law.
Nobody has succeeded yet, because nobody has yet succeeded in defining the term "human being" in such a way that the logical mind of a robot can encompass the concept.
A traffic robot is useful only because the definition has been rigidly narrowed down. As far as a traffic robot is concerned, "human beings" are the automobiles on its highways. Woe betide any poor sap who tries, illegally, to cross a robot-controlled highway on foot. The robot's only concern would be with the safety of the automobiles, and if the only way to avoid destruction of an automobile were to be by nudging the pedestrian aside with a fender, that's what would happen.
And, since its orders only come from one place, I suppose that a traffic robot thinks that the guy who uses that typer is an automobile.
With the first six models of the McGuire ships, the robotocists attempted to build in the Three Laws exactly as stated. And the first six went insane.
If one human being says "jump left," and another says "jump right," the robot is unable to evaluate which human being has given the more valid order. Feed enough confusing and conflicting data into a robot brain, and it can begin behaving in ways that, in a human being, would be called paranoia or schizophrenia or catatonia or what-have-you, depending
[16]
on the symptoms. And an insane robot is fully as dangerous as an insane human being controlling the same mechanical equipment, if not more so.
So the seventh model had been modified. The present McGuire's brain was impressed with slight modifications of the First and Second Laws.
If it is difficult to define a human being, it is much more difficult to define a responsible human being. One, in other words, who can be relied upon to give wise and proper orders to a robot, who can be relied upon not to drive the robot insane.
The robotocists at Viking Spacecraft had decided to take another tack. "Very well," they'd said, "if we can't define all the members of a group, we can certainly define an individual. We'll pick one responsible person and build McGuire so that he will take orders only from that person."
As it turned out, I was that person. Just substitute "Daniel Oak" for "human being" in the First and Second Laws, and you'll see how important I was to a certain spaceship named McGuire.
When I finally caught the beam from Ceres and set my flitterboat down on the huge landing field that had been carved from the nickel-iron of the asteroid with a focused sun beam, I was itchy with my own perspiration and groggy tired. I don't like riding in flitterboats, sitting on a
[17]
bucket seat, astride the drive tube, like a witch on a broomstick, with nothing but a near-invisible transite hull between me and the stars, all cooped up in a vac suit. Unlike driving a car, you can't pull a flitterboat over and take a nap; you have to wait until you hit the next beacon station.
Ceres, the biggest rock in the Belt, is a lot more than just a beacon station. Like Eros and a few others, it's a city in its own right. And except for the Government Reservation, Viking Spacecraft owned Ceres, lock, stock, and mining rights.
Part of the reason for Viking's troubles was envy of that ownership. There were other companies in the Belt that would like to get their hands on that plum, and there were those who were doing everything short of cutting throats to get it. The PSD was afraid it might come to that, too, before very long.
Ceres is fifty-eight million cubic miles of nickel-iron, but nobody would cut her up for that. Nickel-iron is almost exactly as cheap as dirt on Earth, and, considering shipping costs, Earth soil costs a great deal more than nickel-iron in the Belt.
But, as an operations base, Ceres is second to none. Its surface gravity averages .0294 Standard Gee, as compared with Earth's .981, and that's enough to give a slight feeling of weight without unduly hampering the body with too much load. I weigh just under six pounds on Ceres, and after I've been there a while, going back to Earth is a strain that takes a
[18]
week to get used to. Kids that are brought up in the Belt are forced to exercise in a room with a one-gee spin on it at least an hour a day. They don't like it at first, but it keeps them from growing up with the strength of mice. And an adult with any sense takes a spin now and then, too. Traveling in a flitterboat will give you a one-gee pull, all right, but you don't get much exercise.
I parked my flitterboat in the space that had been assigned to me by Landing Control, and went over to the nearest air-lock dome.
After I'd cycled through and had shucked my vac suit, I went into the inner room to find Colonel Brock waiting for me.
"Have a good trip, Oak?" he asked, trying to put a smile on his scarred, battered face.
"I got here alive, if that makes it a good flitterboat trip," I said, shaking his extended hand.
"That's the definition of a good trip," he told me.
"Then the question was superfluous. Seriously, what I need is a bath and some sleep."
"You'll get that, but first let's go somewhere where we can talk. Want a drink?"
"I could use one, I guess. Your treat?"
"My treat," he said. "Come on."
I followed him out and down a ladder to a corridor that led north. By definition, any asteroid spins toward the east, and all directions follow from that, regardless of which way the axis may point.
[19]
Colonel Harrington Brock was dressed in the black-and-gold "union suit" that was the uniform of Ravenhurst's Security Guard. My own was a tasteful green, but some of the other people in the public corridor seemed to go for more flashiness; besides silver and gold, there were shocking pinks and violent mauves, with stripes and blazes of other colors.
A crowd wearing skin-tight cover-alls might shock the gentle people of Midwich-on-the-Moor, England, but they are normal dress in the Belt. You can't climb into a vac suit with bulky clothing on, and, if you did, you'd hate yourself within an hour, with a curse for every wrinkle that chafed your skin. And, in the Belt, you never know when you might have to get into a vac suit fast. In a "safe" area like the tunnels inside Ceres, there isn't much chance of losing air, but there are places where no one but a fool would ever be more than ten seconds away from his vac suit.
I read an article by a psychologist a few months back, in which he claimed that the taste for loud colors in union suits was actually due to modesty. He claimed that the bright patterns drew attention to the colors themselves, and away from the base the colors were laid over. The observer, he said, tends to see the color and pattern of the suit, rather than the body it clings to so closely. Maybe he's right; I wouldn't know, not being a psychologist. I have spent summers in nudist resorts, though, and I never noticed anyone painting themselves with lavender
[20]
and chartreuse checks. On the other hand, the people who go to nudist resorts are a self-screened group. So are the people who go to the Belt, for that matter, but the type of screening is different.
I'll just leave that problem in the hands of the psychologists, and go on wearing my immodestly quiet solid-color union suits.
Brock pushed open the inch-thick metal door beneath a sign that said
"O'Banion's Bar," and I followed him in. We sat down at a table and ordered drinks when the waiter bustled over. A cop in uniform isn't supposed to drink, but Brock figures that the head of the Security Guard ought to be able to get away with a breach of his own rules.
We had our drinks in front of us and our cigarettes lit before Brock opened up with his troubles.
"Oak," he said, "I wanted to intercept you before you went to the plant because I want you to know that there may be trouble."
"Yeah? What kind?" Sometimes it's a pain to play ignorant.
"Thurston's outfit is trying to oust Ravenhurst from the managership of Viking and take over the job. Baedecker Metals & Mining Corporation, which is managed by Baedecker himself, wants to force Viking out of business so that BM&M can take over Ceres for large-scale processing of precious metals.
"Between the two of 'em, they're raising all sorts of minor hell around
[21]
here, and it's liable to become major hell at any time. And we can't stand any hell—or sabotage—around this planetoid just now!"
"Now wait a minute," I said, still playing ignorant, "I thought we'd pretty well established that the 'sabotage' of the McGuire series was Jack Ravenhurst's fault. She was the one who was driving them nuts, not Thurston's agents."
"Perfectly true," he said agreeably. "We managed to block any attempts of sabotage by other company agents, even though it looked as though we hadn't for a while." He chuckled wryly. "We went all out to keep the McGuires safe, and all the time the boss' daughter was giving them the works." Then he looked sharply at me. "I covered that, of course. No one in the Security Guard but me knows that Jack was responsible."
"Good. But what about the Thurston and Baedecker agents, then?"
He took a hefty slug of his drink. "They're around, all right. We have our eyes on the ones we know, but those outfits are as sharp as we are, and they may have a few agents here on Ceres that we know nothing about."
"So? What does this have to do with me?"
He put his drink on the table. "Oak, I want you to help me." His onyx-brown eyes, only a shade darker than his skin, looked directly into my own. "I know it isn't part of your assignment, and you know I can't afford to pay you anything near what you're worth. It will have to come out of my
[22]
pocket because I couldn't possibly justify it from operating funds. Ravenhurst specifically told me that he doesn't want you messing around with the espionage and sabotage problem because he doesn't like your methods of operation."
"And you're going to go against his orders?"
"I am. Ravenhurst is sore at you personally because you showed him that Jack was responsible for the McGuire sabotage. It's an irrational dislike, and I am not going to let it interfere with my job. I'm going to protect Ravenhurst's interests to the best of my ability, and that means that I'll use the best of other people's abilities if I can."
I grinned at him. "The last I heard, you were sore at me for blatting it all over Ceres that Jaqueline Ravenhurst was missing, when she sneaked aboard McGuire."
He nodded perfunctorily. "I was. I still think you should have told me what you were up to. But you did it, and you got results that I'd been unable to get. I'm not going to let a momentary pique hang on as an irrational dislike. I like to think I have more sense than that."
"Thanks." There wasn't much else I could say.
"Now, I've got a little dough put away; it's not much, but I could offer you—"
I shook my head, cutting him off. "Nope. Sorry, Brock. For two reasons. In the first place, there would be a conflict of interest. I'm working for Ravenhurst, and if he doesn't want
[23]
me to work for you, then it would be unethical for me to take the job.
"In the second place, my fees are standardized. Oh, I can allow a certain amount of fluctuation, but I'm not a physician or a lawyer; my services are
[24]
not necessary to the survival of the individual, except in very rare cases, and those cases are generally arranged through a lawyer when it's a charity case.
"No, colonel, I'm afraid I couldn't
[25]
possibly work for you."
He thought that over for a long time. Finally, he nodded his head very slowly. "I see. Yeah, I get your point." He scowled down at his drink.
" But ," I said, "it would be a pleasure
[26]
to work with you."
He looked up quickly. "How's that?"
"Well, let's look at it this way: You can't hire me because I'm already working for Ravenhurst; I can't hire
[27]
you because you're working for Ravenhurst. But since we may need each other, and since we're both working for Ravenhurst, there would be no conflict of interest if we co-operate.
"Or, to put it another way, I can't take money for any service I may render you, but you can pay off in services. Am I coming through?"
His broad smile made the scars on his face fold in and deepen. "Loud and clear. It's a deal."
I held up a hand, palm toward him. "Ah, ah, ah! There's no 'deal' involved. We're just old buddies helping each other. This is for friendship, not business. I scratch your back; you scratch mine. Fair?"
"Fair. Come on down to my office; I want to give you a headful of facts and figures."
"Will do. Let me finish my guzzle."
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How does June feel and interact with Patrick Mead?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Contagion by Katherine MacLean.
Relevant chunks:
CONTAGION
By KATHERINE MacLEAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction October 1950. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Minos was such a lovely planet. Not a thing seemed wrong with it. Excepting the food, perhaps. And a disease that wasn't really.
It was like an Earth forest in the fall, but it was not fall. The forest leaves were green and copper and purple and fiery red, and a wind sent patches of bright greenish sunlight dancing among the leaf shadows.
The hunt party of the Explorer filed along the narrow trail, guns ready, walking carefully, listening to the distant, half familiar cries of strange birds.
A faint crackle of static in their earphones indicated that a gun had been fired.
"Got anything?" asked June Walton. The helmet intercom carried her voice to the ears of the others without breaking the stillness of the forest.
"Took a shot at something," explained George Barton's cheerful voice in her earphones. She rounded a bend of the trail and came upon Barton standing peering up into the trees, his gun still raised. "It looked like a duck."
"This isn't Central Park," said Hal Barton, his brother, coming into sight. His green spacesuit struck an incongruous note against the bronze and red forest. "They won't all look like ducks," he said soberly.
"Maybe some will look like dragons. Don't get eaten by a dragon, June," came Max's voice quietly into her earphones. "Not while I still love you." He came out of the trees carrying the blood sample kit, and touched her glove with his, the grin on his ugly beloved face barely visible in the mingled light and shade. A patch of sunlight struck a greenish glint from his fishbowl helmet.
They walked on. A quarter of a mile back, the space ship Explorer towered over the forest like a tapering skyscraper, and the people of the ship looked out of the viewplates at fresh winds and sunlight and clouds, and they longed to be outside.
But the likeness to Earth was danger, and the cool wind might be death, for if the animals were like Earth animals, their diseases might be like Earth diseases, alike enough to be contagious, different enough to be impossible to treat. There was warning enough in the past. Colonies had vanished, and traveled spaceways drifted with the corpses of ships which had touched on some plague planet.
The people of the ship waited while their doctors, in airtight spacesuits, hunted animals to test them for contagion.
The four medicos, for June Walton was also a doctor, filed through the alien homelike forest, walking softly, watching for motion among the copper and purple shadows.
They saw it suddenly, a lighter moving copper patch among the darker browns. Reflex action swung June's gun into line, and behind her someone's gun went off with a faint crackle of static, and made a hole in the leaves beside the specimen. Then for a while no one moved.
This one looked like a man, a magnificently muscled, leanly graceful, humanlike animal. Even in its callused bare feet, it was a head taller than any of them. Red-haired, hawk-faced and darkly tanned, it stood breathing heavily, looking at them without expression. At its side hung a sheath knife, and a crossbow was slung across one wide shoulder.
They lowered their guns.
"It needs a shave," Max said reasonably in their earphones, and he reached up to his helmet and flipped the switch that let his voice be heard. "Something we could do for you, Mac?"
The friendly drawl was the first voice that had broken the forest sounds. June smiled suddenly. He was right. The strict logic of evolution did not demand beards; therefore a non-human would not be wearing a three day growth of red stubble.
Still panting, the tall figure licked dry lips and spoke. "Welcome to Minos. The Mayor sends greetings from Alexandria."
"English?" gasped June.
"We were afraid you would take off again before I could bring word to you.... It's three hundred miles.... We saw your scout plane pass twice, but we couldn't attract its attention."
June looked in stunned silence at the stranger leaning against the tree. Thirty-six light years—thirty-six times six trillion miles of monotonous space travel—to be told that the planet was already settled! "We didn't know there was a colony here," she said. "It is not on the map."
"We were afraid of that," the tall bronze man answered soberly. "We have been here three generations and yet no traders have come."
Max shifted the kit strap on his shoulder and offered a hand. "My name is Max Stark, M.D. This is June Walton, M.D., Hal Barton, M.D., and George Barton, Hal's brother, also M.D."
"Patrick Mead is the name," smiled the man, shaking hands casually.
"Just a hunter and bridge carpenter myself. Never met any medicos before."
The grip was effortless but even through her airproofed glove June could feel that the fingers that touched hers were as hard as padded steel.
"What—what is the population of Minos?" she asked.
He looked down at her curiously for a moment before answering. "Only one hundred and fifty." He smiled. "Don't worry, this isn't a city planet yet. There's room for a few more people." He shook hands with the Bartons quickly. "That is—you are people, aren't you?" he asked startlingly.
"Why not?" said Max with a poise that June admired.
"Well, you are all so—so—" Patrick Mead's eyes roamed across the faces of the group. "So varied."
They could find no meaning in that, and stood puzzled.
"I mean," Patrick Mead said into the silence, "all these—interesting different hair colors and face shapes and so forth—" He made a vague wave with one hand as if he had run out of words or was anxious not to insult them.
"Joke?" Max asked, bewildered.
June laid a hand on his arm. "No harm meant," she said to him over the intercom. "We're just as much of a shock to him as he is to us."
She addressed a question to the tall colonist on outside sound. "What should a person look like, Mr. Mead?"
He indicated her with a smile. "Like you."
June stepped closer and stood looking up at him, considering her own description. She was tall and tanned, like him; had a few freckles, like him; and wavy red hair, like his. She ignored the brightly humorous blue eyes.
"In other words," she said, "everyone on the planet looks like you and me?"
Patrick Mead took another look at their four faces and began to grin.
"Like me, I guess. But I hadn't thought of it before. I did not think that people could have different colored hair or that noses could fit so many ways onto faces. I was judging by my own appearance, but I suppose any fool can walk on his hands and say the world is upside down!" He laughed and sobered. "But then why wear spacesuits? The air is breathable."
"For safety," June told him. "We can't take any chances on plague."
Pat Mead was wearing nothing but a loin cloth and his weapons, and the wind ruffled his hair. He looked comfortable, and they longed to take off the stuffy spacesuits and feel the wind against their own skins. Minos was like home, like Earth.... But they were strangers.
"Plague," Pat Mead said thoughtfully. "We had one here. It came two years after the colony arrived and killed everyone except the Mead families. They were immune. I guess we look alike because we're all related, and that's why I grew up thinking that it is the only way people can look."
Plague. "What was the disease?" Hal Barton asked.
"Pretty gruesome, according to my father. They called it the melting sickness. The doctors died too soon to find out what it was or what to do about it."
"You should have trained for more doctors, or sent to civilization for some." A trace of impatience was in George Barton's voice.
Pat Mead explained patiently, "Our ship, with the power plant and all the books we needed, went off into the sky to avoid the contagion, and never came back. The crew must have died." Long years of hardship were indicated by that statement, a colony with electric power gone and machinery stilled, with key technicians dead and no way to replace them. June realized then the full meaning of the primitive sheath knife and bow.
"Any recurrence of melting sickness?" asked Hal Barton.
"No."
"Any other diseases?"
"Not a one."
Max was eyeing the bronze red-headed figure with something approaching awe. "Do you think all the Meads look like that?" he said to June on the intercom. "I wouldn't mind being a Mead myself!"
Their job had been made easy by the coming of Pat. They went back to the ship laughing, exchanging anecdotes with him. There was nothing now to keep Minos from being the home they wanted, except the melting sickness, and, forewarned against it, they could take precautions.
The polished silver and black column of the Explorer seemed to rise higher and higher over the trees as they neared it. Then its symmetry blurred all sense of specific size as they stepped out from among the trees and stood on the edge of the meadow, looking up.
"Nice!" said Pat. "Beautiful!" The admiration in his voice was warming.
"It was a yacht," Max said, still looking up, "second hand, an old-time beauty without a sign of wear. Synthetic diamond-studded control board and murals on the walls. It doesn't have the new speed drives, but it brought us thirty-six light years in one and a half subjective years. Plenty good enough."
The tall tanned man looked faintly wistful, and June realized that he had never had access to a full library, never seen a movie, never experienced luxury. He had been born and raised on Minos.
"May I go aboard?" Pat asked hopefully.
Max unslung the specimen kit from his shoulder, laid it on the carpet of plants that covered the ground and began to open it.
"Tests first," Hal Barton said. "We have to find out if you people still carry this so-called melting sickness. We'll have to de-microbe you and take specimens before we let you on board. Once on, you'll be no good as a check for what the other Meads might have."
Max was taking out a rack and a stand of preservative bottles and hypodermics.
"Are you going to jab me with those?" Pat asked with interest.
"You're just a specimen animal to me, bud!" Max grinned at Pat Mead, and Pat grinned back. June saw that they were friends already, the tall pantherish colonist, and the wry, black-haired doctor. She felt a stab of guilt because she loved Max and yet could pity him for being smaller and frailer than Pat Mead.
"Lie down," Max told him, "and hold still. We need two spinal fluid samples from the back, a body cavity one in front, and another from the arm."
Pat lay down obediently. Max knelt, and, as he spoke, expertly swabbed and inserted needles with the smooth speed that had made him a fine nerve surgeon on Earth.
High above them the scout helioplane came out of an opening in the ship and angled off toward the west, its buzz diminishing. Then, suddenly, it veered and headed back, and Reno Unrich's voice came tinnily from their earphones:
"What's that you've got? Hey, what are you docs doing down there?" He banked again and came to a stop, hovering fifty feet away. June could see his startled face looking through the glass at Pat.
Hal Barton switched to a narrow radio beam, explained rapidly and pointed in the direction of Alexandria. Reno's plane lifted and flew away over the odd-colored forest.
"The plane will drop a note on your town, telling them you got through to us," Hal Barton told Pat, who was sitting up watching Max dexterously put the blood and spinal fluids into the right bottles without exposing them to air.
"We won't be free to contact your people until we know if they still carry melting sickness," Max added. "You might be immune so it doesn't show on you, but still carry enough germs—if that's what caused it—to wipe out a planet."
"If you do carry melting sickness," said Hal Barton, "we won't be able to mingle with your people until we've cleared them of the disease."
"Starting with me?" Pat asked.
"Starting with you," Max told him ruefully, "as soon as you step on board."
"More needles?"
"Yes, and a few little extras thrown in."
"Rough?"
"It isn't easy."
A few minutes later, standing in the stalls for spacesuit decontamination, being buffeted by jets of hot disinfectant, bathed in glares of sterilizing ultraviolet radiation, June remembered that and compared Pat Mead's treatment to theirs.
In the Explorer , stored carefully in sealed tanks and containers, was the ultimate, multi-purpose cureall. It was a solution of enzymes so like the key catalysts of the human cell nucleus that it caused chemical derangement and disintegration in any non-human cell. Nothing could live in contact with it but human cells; any alien intruder to the body would die. Nucleocat Cureall was its trade name.
But the cureall alone was not enough for complete safety. Plagues had been known to slay too rapidly and universally to be checked by human treatment. Doctors are not reliable; they die. Therefore spaceways and interplanetary health law demanded that ship equipment for guarding against disease be totally mechanical in operation, rapid and efficient.
Somewhere near them, in a series of stalls which led around and around like a rabbit maze, Pat was being herded from stall to stall by peremptory mechanical voices, directed to soap and shower, ordered to insert his arm into a slot which took a sample of his blood, given solutions to drink, bathed in germicidal ultraviolet, shaken by sonic blasts, breathing air thick with sprays of germicidal mists, being directed to put his arms into other slots where they were anesthesized and injected with various immunizing solutions.
Finally, he would be put in a room of high temperature and extreme dryness, and instructed to sit for half an hour while more fluids were dripped into his veins through long thin tubes.
All legal spaceships were built for safety. No chance was taken of allowing a suspected carrier to bring an infection on board with him.
June stepped from the last shower stall into the locker room, zipped off her spacesuit with a sigh of relief, and contemplated herself in a wall mirror. Red hair, dark blue eyes, tall....
"I've got a good figure," she said thoughtfully.
Max turned at the door. "Why this sudden interest in your looks?" he asked suspiciously. "Do we stand here and admire you, or do we finally get something to eat?"
"Wait a minute." She went to a wall phone and dialed it carefully, using a combination from the ship's directory. "How're you doing, Pat?"
The phone picked up a hissing of water or spray. There was a startled chuckle. "Voices, too! Hello, June. How do you tell a machine to go jump in the lake?"
"Are you hungry?"
"No food since yesterday."
"We'll have a banquet ready for you when you get out," she told Pat and hung up, smiling. Pat Mead's voice had a vitality and enjoyment which made shipboard talk sound like sad artificial gaiety in contrast.
They looked into the nearby small laboratory where twelve squealing hamsters were protestingly submitting to a small injection each of Pat's blood. In most of them the injection was followed by one of antihistaminics and adaptives. Otherwise the hamster defense system would treat all non-hamster cells as enemies, even the harmless human blood cells, and fight back against them violently.
One hamster, the twelfth, was given an extra large dose of adaptive, so that if there were a disease, he would not fight it or the human cells, and thus succumb more rapidly.
"How ya doing, George?" Max asked.
"Routine," George Barton grunted absently.
On the way up the long spiral ramps to the dining hall, they passed a viewplate. It showed a long scene of mountains in the distance on the horizon, and between them, rising step by step as they grew farther away, the low rolling hills, bronze and red with patches of clear green where there were fields.
Someone was looking out, standing very still, as if she had been there a long time—Bess St. Clair, a Canadian woman. "It looks like Winnipeg," she told them as they paused. "When are you doctors going to let us out of this blithering barberpole? Look," she pointed. "See that patch of field on the south hillside, with the brook winding through it? I've staked that hillside for our house. When do we get out?"
Reno Ulrich's tiny scout plane buzzed slowly in from the distance and began circling lazily.
"Sooner than you think," Max told her. "We've discovered a castaway colony on the planet. They've done our tests for us by just living here. If there's anything here to catch, they've caught it."
"People on Minos?" Bess's handsome ruddy face grew alive with excitement.
"One of them is down in the medical department," June said. "He'll be out in twenty minutes."
"May I go see him?"
"Sure," said Max. "Show him the way to the dining hall when he gets out. Tell him we sent you."
"Right!" She turned and ran down the ramp like a small girl going to a fire. Max grinned at June and she grinned back. After a year and a half of isolation in space, everyone was hungry for the sight of new faces, the sound of unfamiliar voices.
They climbed the last two turns to the cafeteria, and entered to a rich subdued blend of soft music and quiet conversations. The cafeteria was a section of the old dining room, left when the rest of the ship had been converted to living and working quarters, and it still had the original finely grained wood of the ceiling and walls, the sound absorbency, the soft music spools and the intimate small light at each table where people leisurely ate and talked.
They stood in line at the hot foods counter, and behind her June could hear a girl's voice talking excitedly through the murmur of conversation.
"—new man, honest! I saw him through the viewplate when they came in. He's down in the medical department. A real frontiersman."
The line drew abreast of the counters, and she and Max chose three heaping trays, starting with hydroponic mushroom steak, raised in the growing trays of water and chemicals; sharp salad bowl with rose tomatoes and aromatic peppers; tank-grown fish with special sauce; four different desserts, and assorted beverages.
Presently they had three tottering trays successfully maneuvered to a table. Brant St. Clair came over. "I beg your pardon, Max, but they are saying something about Reno carrying messages to a colony of savages, for the medical department. Will he be back soon, do you know?"
Max smiled up at him, his square face affectionate. Everyone liked the shy Canadian. "He's back already. We just saw him come in."
"Oh, fine." St. Clair beamed. "I had an appointment with him to go out and confirm what looks like a nice vein of iron to the northeast. Have you seen Bess? Oh—there she is." He turned swiftly and hurried away.
A very tall man with fiery red hair came in surrounded by an eagerly talking crowd of ship people. It was Pat Mead. He stood in the doorway, alertly scanning the dining room. Sheer vitality made him seem even larger than he was. Sighting June, he smiled and began to thread toward their table.
"Look!" said someone. "There's the colonist!" Shelia, a pretty, jeweled woman, followed and caught his arm. "Did you really swim across a river to come here?"
Overflowing with good-will and curiosity, people approached from all directions. "Did you actually walk three hundred miles? Come, eat with us. Let me help choose your tray."
Everyone wanted him to eat at their table, everyone was a specialist and wanted data about Minos. They all wanted anecdotes about hunting wild animals with a bow and arrow.
"He needs to be rescued," Max said. "He won't have a chance to eat."
June and Max got up firmly, edged through the crowd, captured Pat and escorted him back to their table. June found herself pleased to be claiming the hero of the hour.
Pat sat in the simple, subtly designed chair and leaned back almost voluptuously, testing the way it gave and fitted itself to him. He ran his eyes over the bright tableware and heaped plates. He looked around at the rich grained walls and soft lights at each table. He said nothing, just looking and feeling and experiencing.
"When we build our town and leave the ship," June explained, "we will turn all the staterooms back into the lounges and ballrooms and cocktail bars that used to be inside."
"Oh, I'm not complaining," Pat said negligently. He cocked his head to the music, and tried to locate its source.
"That's big of you," said Max with gentle irony.
They fell to, Pat beginning the first meal he had had in more than a day.
Most of the other diners finished when they were halfway through, and began walking over, diffidently at first, then in another wave of smiling faces, handshakes, and introductions. Pat was asked about crops, about farming methods, about rainfall and floods, about farm animals and plant breeding, about the compatibility of imported Earth seeds with local ground, about mines and strata.
There was no need to protect him. He leaned back in his chair and drawled answers with the lazy ease of a panther; where he could think of no statistic, he would fill the gap with an anecdote. It developed that he enjoyed spinning campfire yarns and especially being the center of interest.
Between bouts of questions, he ate with undiminished and glowing relish.
June noticed that the female specialists were prolonging the questions more than they needed, clustering around the table laughing at his jokes, until presently Pat was almost surrounded by pretty faces, eager questions, and chiming laughs. Shelia the beautiful laughed most chimingly of all.
June nudged Max, and Max shrugged indifferently. It wasn't anything a man would pay attention to, perhaps. But June watched Pat for a moment more, then glanced uneasily back to Max. He was eating and listening to Pat's answers and did not feel her gaze. For some reason Max looked almost shrunken to her. He was shorter than she had realized; she had forgotten that he was only the same height as herself. She was dimly aware of the clear lilting chatter of female voices increasing at Pat's end of the table.
"That guy's a menace," Max said, and laughed to himself, cutting another slice of hydroponic mushroom steak. "What's eating you?" he added, glancing aside at her when he noticed her sudden stillness.
"Nothing," she said hastily, but she did not turn back to watching Pat Mead. She felt disloyal. Pat was only a superb animal. Max was the man she loved. Or—was he? Of course he was, she told herself angrily. They had gone colonizing together because they wanted to spend their lives together; she had never thought of marrying any other man. Yet the sense of dissatisfaction persisted, and along with it a feeling of guilt.
Len Marlow, the protein tank-culture technician responsible for the mushroom steaks, had wormed his way into the group and asked Pat a question. Now he was saying, "I don't dig you, Pat. It sounds like you're putting the people into the tanks instead of the vegetables!" He glanced at them, looking puzzled. "See if you two can make anything of this. It sounds medical to me."
Pat leaned back and smiled, sipping a glass of hydroponic burgundy.
"Wonderful stuff. You'll have to show us how to make it."
Len turned back to him. "You people live off the country, right? You hunt and bring in steaks and eat them, right? Well, say I have one of those steaks right here and I want to eat it, what happens?"
"Go ahead and eat it. It just wouldn't digest. You'd stay hungry."
"Why?" Len was aggrieved.
"Chemical differences in the basic protoplasm of Minos. Different amino linkages, left-handed instead of right-handed molecules in the carbohydrates, things like that. Nothing will be digestible here until you are adapted chemically by a little test-tube evolution. Till then you'd starve to death on a full stomach."
Pat's side of the table had been loaded with the dishes from two trays, but it was almost clear now and the dishes were stacked neatly to one side. He started on three desserts, thoughtfully tasting each in turn.
"Test-tube evolution?" Max repeated. "What's that? I thought you people had no doctors."
"It's a story." Pat leaned back again. "Alexander P. Mead, the head of the Mead clan, was a plant geneticist, a very determined personality and no man to argue with. He didn't want us to go through the struggle of killing off all Minos plants and putting in our own, spoiling the face of the planet and upsetting the balance of its ecology. He decided that he would adapt our genes to this planet or kill us trying. He did it all right.'"
"Did which?" asked June, suddenly feeling a sourceless prickle of fear.
"Adapted us to Minos. He took human cells—"
She listened intently, trying to find a reason for fear in the explanation. It would have taken many human generations to adapt to Minos by ordinary evolution, and that only at a heavy toll of death and hunger which evolution exacts. There was a shorter way: Human cells have the ability to return to their primeval condition of independence, hunting, eating and reproducing alone.
Alexander P. Mead took human cells and made them into phagocytes. He put them through the hard savage school of evolution—a thousand generations of multiplication, hardship and hunger, with the alien indigestible food always present, offering its reward of plenty to the cell that reluctantly learned to absorb it.
"Leucocytes can run through several thousand generations of evolution in six months," Pat Mead finished. "When they reached to a point where they would absorb Minos food, he planted them back in the people he had taken them from."
"What was supposed to happen then?" Max asked, leaning forward.
"I don't know exactly how it worked. He never told anybody much about it, and when I was a little boy he had gone loco and was wandering ha-ha-ing around waving a test tube. Fell down a ravine and broke his neck at the age of eighty."
"A character," Max said.
Why was she afraid? "It worked then?"
"Yes. He tried it on all the Meads the first year. The other settlers didn't want to be experimented on until they saw how it worked out. It worked. The Meads could hunt, and plant while the other settlers were still eating out of hydroponics tanks."
"It worked," said Max to Len. "You're a plant geneticist and a tank culture expert. There's a job for you."
"Uh- uh !" Len backed away. "It sounds like a medical problem to me. Human cell control—right up your alley."
"It is a one-way street," Pat warned. "Once it is done, you won't be able to digest ship food. I'll get no good from this protein. I ate it just for the taste."
Hal Barton appeared quietly beside the table. "Three of the twelve test hamsters have died," he reported, and turned to Pat. "Your people carry the germs of melting sickness, as you call it. The dead hamsters were injected with blood taken from you before you were de-infected. We can't settle here unless we de-infect everybody on Minos. Would they object?"
"We wouldn't want to give you folks germs," Pat smiled. "Anything for safety. But there'll have to be a vote on it first."
The doctors went to Reno Ulrich's table and walked with him to the hangar, explaining. He was to carry the proposal to Alexandria, mingle with the people, be persuasive and wait for them to vote before returning. He was to give himself shots of cureall every two hours on the hour or run the risk of disease.
Reno was pleased. He had dabbled in sociology before retraining as a mechanic for the expedition. "This gives me a chance to study their mores." He winked wickedly. "I may not be back for several nights." They watched through the viewplate as he took off, and then went over to the laboratory for a look at the hamsters.
Three were alive and healthy, munching lettuce. One was the control; the other two had been given shots of Pat's blood from before he entered the ship, but with no additional treatment. Apparently a hamster could fight off melting sickness easily if left alone. Three were still feverish and ruffled, with a low red blood count, but recovering. The three dead ones had been given strong shots of adaptive and counter histamine, so their bodies had not fought back against the attack.
June glanced at the dead animals hastily and looked away again. They lay twisted with a strange semi-fluid limpness, as if ready to dissolve. The last hamster, which had been given the heaviest dose of adaptive, had apparently lost all its hair before death. It was hairless and pink, like a still-born baby.
"We can find no micro-organisms," George Barton said. "None at all. Nothing in the body that should not be there. Leucosis and anemia. Fever only for the ones that fought it off." He handed Max some temperature charts and graphs of blood counts.
June wandered out into the hall. Pediatrics and obstetrics were her field; she left the cellular research to Max, and just helped him with laboratory routine. The strange mood followed her out into the hall, then abruptly lightened.
Coming toward her, busily telling a tale of adventure to the gorgeous Shelia Davenport, was a tall, red-headed, magnificently handsome man. It was his handsomeness which made Pat such a pleasure to look upon and talk with, she guiltily told herself, and it was his tremendous vitality.... It was like meeting a movie hero in the flesh, or a hero out of the pages of a book—Deer-slayer, John Clayton, Lord Greystoke.
She waited in the doorway to the laboratory and made no move to join them, merely acknowledged the two with a nod and a smile and a casual lift of the hand. They nodded and smiled back.
"Hello, June," said Pat and continued telling his tale, but as they passed he lightly touched her arm.
"Oh, pioneer!" she said mockingly and softly to his passing profile, and knew that he had heard.
Question:
How does June feel and interact with Patrick Mead?
Answer:
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"Upon meeting Patrick, June makes note of his tall frame and how his appearance resembles her own. She seems to admire his looks. She in turn feels guilty as Max, her partner, seems to not compare well to Patrick in her own eyes. She also notes that Max is frailer than Pat. Back on the ship, June admires herself during the spacesuit decontamination process. Evident from Max’s reaction, it is unusual for her to do so in such a manner. It is hinted that Pat’s appearance prompted her examination. \n\nFurther, into the story, June begins to express more uneasiness with Max’s figure. She also does not appear to like that so many women are giving Pat a lot of attention. She continues to feel guilty as she sees her feelings toward Pat as being disloyal to Max, who she thinks she loves. \n\nShe again shows her jealously when Pat is seen walking down a hallway with Shelia Davenport, who June herself describes as gorgeous. \n",
"June has been isolated with the passengers of the ship for one year and a half, and Pat is the first new man she meets. He is tall and handsome, especially on the contrast with her boyfriend Max, who is of the same height as she is and not handsome. She didn't care about Max's appearance before as she loves him, but presence of Max evokes some feeling of admiration in her. She is disappointed in how Max looks on the contrast. Pat also possesses a cheerful and gay attitude, especially on the contrast with the crew, which is tired of constant searching. Pat seems an attractive movie character for June and she tries to stay afar as she feels guilty before Max. She is also jealous of all the women approaching Pat. In the end the two even flirt slightly. ",
"June is in a romantic relationship with Max. However, throughout the story, she finds herself drawn to Pat and cannot seem to explain why. Upon meeting Pat, June is stunned by his appearance, and immediately becomes aware of her looks and behavior, smiling around him. When Pat meets the rest of the people aboard The Explorer, he gains a lot of attention from the women on the ship, who are evidently flirting with him. June feels herself becoming jealous, but tries to deny her emotions and reassures herself of her love for Max. However, she still finds herself wanting to be near Pat. ",
"When June first meets Patrick Mead, she is instantly friendly towards him. He smiles at June and says that many people in the colony look like them because of their similar features. Pat is very handsome, and June even feels guilty for pitying Max because he is smaller and frailer in comparison. When she goes to the shower stall later, she even remarks how she has a good figure. When Max asks if they are going to eat, she chooses to dial Pat first instead. June realizes that Pat’s voice is full of vitality and enjoyment. After Pat is swarmed in the dining hall, June is very happy to have been the one who rescues him. She gets jealous when the other female specialists swarm the man. Even when she looks at Max again, he feels shrunken and shorter than before. She is angry at herself and feels guilty for doubting the love that she shares with Max, despite being immensely attracted to Pat. During her encounter with Pat in the hallway later, he touches her arm lightly, and she says, “Oh, pioneer!” to his passing profile. "
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50774
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CONTAGION
By KATHERINE MacLEAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction October 1950. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Minos was such a lovely planet. Not a thing seemed wrong with it. Excepting the food, perhaps. And a disease that wasn't really.
It was like an Earth forest in the fall, but it was not fall. The forest leaves were green and copper and purple and fiery red, and a wind sent patches of bright greenish sunlight dancing among the leaf shadows.
The hunt party of the Explorer filed along the narrow trail, guns ready, walking carefully, listening to the distant, half familiar cries of strange birds.
A faint crackle of static in their earphones indicated that a gun had been fired.
"Got anything?" asked June Walton. The helmet intercom carried her voice to the ears of the others without breaking the stillness of the forest.
"Took a shot at something," explained George Barton's cheerful voice in her earphones. She rounded a bend of the trail and came upon Barton standing peering up into the trees, his gun still raised. "It looked like a duck."
"This isn't Central Park," said Hal Barton, his brother, coming into sight. His green spacesuit struck an incongruous note against the bronze and red forest. "They won't all look like ducks," he said soberly.
"Maybe some will look like dragons. Don't get eaten by a dragon, June," came Max's voice quietly into her earphones. "Not while I still love you." He came out of the trees carrying the blood sample kit, and touched her glove with his, the grin on his ugly beloved face barely visible in the mingled light and shade. A patch of sunlight struck a greenish glint from his fishbowl helmet.
They walked on. A quarter of a mile back, the space ship Explorer towered over the forest like a tapering skyscraper, and the people of the ship looked out of the viewplates at fresh winds and sunlight and clouds, and they longed to be outside.
But the likeness to Earth was danger, and the cool wind might be death, for if the animals were like Earth animals, their diseases might be like Earth diseases, alike enough to be contagious, different enough to be impossible to treat. There was warning enough in the past. Colonies had vanished, and traveled spaceways drifted with the corpses of ships which had touched on some plague planet.
The people of the ship waited while their doctors, in airtight spacesuits, hunted animals to test them for contagion.
The four medicos, for June Walton was also a doctor, filed through the alien homelike forest, walking softly, watching for motion among the copper and purple shadows.
They saw it suddenly, a lighter moving copper patch among the darker browns. Reflex action swung June's gun into line, and behind her someone's gun went off with a faint crackle of static, and made a hole in the leaves beside the specimen. Then for a while no one moved.
This one looked like a man, a magnificently muscled, leanly graceful, humanlike animal. Even in its callused bare feet, it was a head taller than any of them. Red-haired, hawk-faced and darkly tanned, it stood breathing heavily, looking at them without expression. At its side hung a sheath knife, and a crossbow was slung across one wide shoulder.
They lowered their guns.
"It needs a shave," Max said reasonably in their earphones, and he reached up to his helmet and flipped the switch that let his voice be heard. "Something we could do for you, Mac?"
The friendly drawl was the first voice that had broken the forest sounds. June smiled suddenly. He was right. The strict logic of evolution did not demand beards; therefore a non-human would not be wearing a three day growth of red stubble.
Still panting, the tall figure licked dry lips and spoke. "Welcome to Minos. The Mayor sends greetings from Alexandria."
"English?" gasped June.
"We were afraid you would take off again before I could bring word to you.... It's three hundred miles.... We saw your scout plane pass twice, but we couldn't attract its attention."
June looked in stunned silence at the stranger leaning against the tree. Thirty-six light years—thirty-six times six trillion miles of monotonous space travel—to be told that the planet was already settled! "We didn't know there was a colony here," she said. "It is not on the map."
"We were afraid of that," the tall bronze man answered soberly. "We have been here three generations and yet no traders have come."
Max shifted the kit strap on his shoulder and offered a hand. "My name is Max Stark, M.D. This is June Walton, M.D., Hal Barton, M.D., and George Barton, Hal's brother, also M.D."
"Patrick Mead is the name," smiled the man, shaking hands casually.
"Just a hunter and bridge carpenter myself. Never met any medicos before."
The grip was effortless but even through her airproofed glove June could feel that the fingers that touched hers were as hard as padded steel.
"What—what is the population of Minos?" she asked.
He looked down at her curiously for a moment before answering. "Only one hundred and fifty." He smiled. "Don't worry, this isn't a city planet yet. There's room for a few more people." He shook hands with the Bartons quickly. "That is—you are people, aren't you?" he asked startlingly.
"Why not?" said Max with a poise that June admired.
"Well, you are all so—so—" Patrick Mead's eyes roamed across the faces of the group. "So varied."
They could find no meaning in that, and stood puzzled.
"I mean," Patrick Mead said into the silence, "all these—interesting different hair colors and face shapes and so forth—" He made a vague wave with one hand as if he had run out of words or was anxious not to insult them.
"Joke?" Max asked, bewildered.
June laid a hand on his arm. "No harm meant," she said to him over the intercom. "We're just as much of a shock to him as he is to us."
She addressed a question to the tall colonist on outside sound. "What should a person look like, Mr. Mead?"
He indicated her with a smile. "Like you."
June stepped closer and stood looking up at him, considering her own description. She was tall and tanned, like him; had a few freckles, like him; and wavy red hair, like his. She ignored the brightly humorous blue eyes.
"In other words," she said, "everyone on the planet looks like you and me?"
Patrick Mead took another look at their four faces and began to grin.
"Like me, I guess. But I hadn't thought of it before. I did not think that people could have different colored hair or that noses could fit so many ways onto faces. I was judging by my own appearance, but I suppose any fool can walk on his hands and say the world is upside down!" He laughed and sobered. "But then why wear spacesuits? The air is breathable."
"For safety," June told him. "We can't take any chances on plague."
Pat Mead was wearing nothing but a loin cloth and his weapons, and the wind ruffled his hair. He looked comfortable, and they longed to take off the stuffy spacesuits and feel the wind against their own skins. Minos was like home, like Earth.... But they were strangers.
"Plague," Pat Mead said thoughtfully. "We had one here. It came two years after the colony arrived and killed everyone except the Mead families. They were immune. I guess we look alike because we're all related, and that's why I grew up thinking that it is the only way people can look."
Plague. "What was the disease?" Hal Barton asked.
"Pretty gruesome, according to my father. They called it the melting sickness. The doctors died too soon to find out what it was or what to do about it."
"You should have trained for more doctors, or sent to civilization for some." A trace of impatience was in George Barton's voice.
Pat Mead explained patiently, "Our ship, with the power plant and all the books we needed, went off into the sky to avoid the contagion, and never came back. The crew must have died." Long years of hardship were indicated by that statement, a colony with electric power gone and machinery stilled, with key technicians dead and no way to replace them. June realized then the full meaning of the primitive sheath knife and bow.
"Any recurrence of melting sickness?" asked Hal Barton.
"No."
"Any other diseases?"
"Not a one."
Max was eyeing the bronze red-headed figure with something approaching awe. "Do you think all the Meads look like that?" he said to June on the intercom. "I wouldn't mind being a Mead myself!"
Their job had been made easy by the coming of Pat. They went back to the ship laughing, exchanging anecdotes with him. There was nothing now to keep Minos from being the home they wanted, except the melting sickness, and, forewarned against it, they could take precautions.
The polished silver and black column of the Explorer seemed to rise higher and higher over the trees as they neared it. Then its symmetry blurred all sense of specific size as they stepped out from among the trees and stood on the edge of the meadow, looking up.
"Nice!" said Pat. "Beautiful!" The admiration in his voice was warming.
"It was a yacht," Max said, still looking up, "second hand, an old-time beauty without a sign of wear. Synthetic diamond-studded control board and murals on the walls. It doesn't have the new speed drives, but it brought us thirty-six light years in one and a half subjective years. Plenty good enough."
The tall tanned man looked faintly wistful, and June realized that he had never had access to a full library, never seen a movie, never experienced luxury. He had been born and raised on Minos.
"May I go aboard?" Pat asked hopefully.
Max unslung the specimen kit from his shoulder, laid it on the carpet of plants that covered the ground and began to open it.
"Tests first," Hal Barton said. "We have to find out if you people still carry this so-called melting sickness. We'll have to de-microbe you and take specimens before we let you on board. Once on, you'll be no good as a check for what the other Meads might have."
Max was taking out a rack and a stand of preservative bottles and hypodermics.
"Are you going to jab me with those?" Pat asked with interest.
"You're just a specimen animal to me, bud!" Max grinned at Pat Mead, and Pat grinned back. June saw that they were friends already, the tall pantherish colonist, and the wry, black-haired doctor. She felt a stab of guilt because she loved Max and yet could pity him for being smaller and frailer than Pat Mead.
"Lie down," Max told him, "and hold still. We need two spinal fluid samples from the back, a body cavity one in front, and another from the arm."
Pat lay down obediently. Max knelt, and, as he spoke, expertly swabbed and inserted needles with the smooth speed that had made him a fine nerve surgeon on Earth.
High above them the scout helioplane came out of an opening in the ship and angled off toward the west, its buzz diminishing. Then, suddenly, it veered and headed back, and Reno Unrich's voice came tinnily from their earphones:
"What's that you've got? Hey, what are you docs doing down there?" He banked again and came to a stop, hovering fifty feet away. June could see his startled face looking through the glass at Pat.
Hal Barton switched to a narrow radio beam, explained rapidly and pointed in the direction of Alexandria. Reno's plane lifted and flew away over the odd-colored forest.
"The plane will drop a note on your town, telling them you got through to us," Hal Barton told Pat, who was sitting up watching Max dexterously put the blood and spinal fluids into the right bottles without exposing them to air.
"We won't be free to contact your people until we know if they still carry melting sickness," Max added. "You might be immune so it doesn't show on you, but still carry enough germs—if that's what caused it—to wipe out a planet."
"If you do carry melting sickness," said Hal Barton, "we won't be able to mingle with your people until we've cleared them of the disease."
"Starting with me?" Pat asked.
"Starting with you," Max told him ruefully, "as soon as you step on board."
"More needles?"
"Yes, and a few little extras thrown in."
"Rough?"
"It isn't easy."
A few minutes later, standing in the stalls for spacesuit decontamination, being buffeted by jets of hot disinfectant, bathed in glares of sterilizing ultraviolet radiation, June remembered that and compared Pat Mead's treatment to theirs.
In the Explorer , stored carefully in sealed tanks and containers, was the ultimate, multi-purpose cureall. It was a solution of enzymes so like the key catalysts of the human cell nucleus that it caused chemical derangement and disintegration in any non-human cell. Nothing could live in contact with it but human cells; any alien intruder to the body would die. Nucleocat Cureall was its trade name.
But the cureall alone was not enough for complete safety. Plagues had been known to slay too rapidly and universally to be checked by human treatment. Doctors are not reliable; they die. Therefore spaceways and interplanetary health law demanded that ship equipment for guarding against disease be totally mechanical in operation, rapid and efficient.
Somewhere near them, in a series of stalls which led around and around like a rabbit maze, Pat was being herded from stall to stall by peremptory mechanical voices, directed to soap and shower, ordered to insert his arm into a slot which took a sample of his blood, given solutions to drink, bathed in germicidal ultraviolet, shaken by sonic blasts, breathing air thick with sprays of germicidal mists, being directed to put his arms into other slots where they were anesthesized and injected with various immunizing solutions.
Finally, he would be put in a room of high temperature and extreme dryness, and instructed to sit for half an hour while more fluids were dripped into his veins through long thin tubes.
All legal spaceships were built for safety. No chance was taken of allowing a suspected carrier to bring an infection on board with him.
June stepped from the last shower stall into the locker room, zipped off her spacesuit with a sigh of relief, and contemplated herself in a wall mirror. Red hair, dark blue eyes, tall....
"I've got a good figure," she said thoughtfully.
Max turned at the door. "Why this sudden interest in your looks?" he asked suspiciously. "Do we stand here and admire you, or do we finally get something to eat?"
"Wait a minute." She went to a wall phone and dialed it carefully, using a combination from the ship's directory. "How're you doing, Pat?"
The phone picked up a hissing of water or spray. There was a startled chuckle. "Voices, too! Hello, June. How do you tell a machine to go jump in the lake?"
"Are you hungry?"
"No food since yesterday."
"We'll have a banquet ready for you when you get out," she told Pat and hung up, smiling. Pat Mead's voice had a vitality and enjoyment which made shipboard talk sound like sad artificial gaiety in contrast.
They looked into the nearby small laboratory where twelve squealing hamsters were protestingly submitting to a small injection each of Pat's blood. In most of them the injection was followed by one of antihistaminics and adaptives. Otherwise the hamster defense system would treat all non-hamster cells as enemies, even the harmless human blood cells, and fight back against them violently.
One hamster, the twelfth, was given an extra large dose of adaptive, so that if there were a disease, he would not fight it or the human cells, and thus succumb more rapidly.
"How ya doing, George?" Max asked.
"Routine," George Barton grunted absently.
On the way up the long spiral ramps to the dining hall, they passed a viewplate. It showed a long scene of mountains in the distance on the horizon, and between them, rising step by step as they grew farther away, the low rolling hills, bronze and red with patches of clear green where there were fields.
Someone was looking out, standing very still, as if she had been there a long time—Bess St. Clair, a Canadian woman. "It looks like Winnipeg," she told them as they paused. "When are you doctors going to let us out of this blithering barberpole? Look," she pointed. "See that patch of field on the south hillside, with the brook winding through it? I've staked that hillside for our house. When do we get out?"
Reno Ulrich's tiny scout plane buzzed slowly in from the distance and began circling lazily.
"Sooner than you think," Max told her. "We've discovered a castaway colony on the planet. They've done our tests for us by just living here. If there's anything here to catch, they've caught it."
"People on Minos?" Bess's handsome ruddy face grew alive with excitement.
"One of them is down in the medical department," June said. "He'll be out in twenty minutes."
"May I go see him?"
"Sure," said Max. "Show him the way to the dining hall when he gets out. Tell him we sent you."
"Right!" She turned and ran down the ramp like a small girl going to a fire. Max grinned at June and she grinned back. After a year and a half of isolation in space, everyone was hungry for the sight of new faces, the sound of unfamiliar voices.
They climbed the last two turns to the cafeteria, and entered to a rich subdued blend of soft music and quiet conversations. The cafeteria was a section of the old dining room, left when the rest of the ship had been converted to living and working quarters, and it still had the original finely grained wood of the ceiling and walls, the sound absorbency, the soft music spools and the intimate small light at each table where people leisurely ate and talked.
They stood in line at the hot foods counter, and behind her June could hear a girl's voice talking excitedly through the murmur of conversation.
"—new man, honest! I saw him through the viewplate when they came in. He's down in the medical department. A real frontiersman."
The line drew abreast of the counters, and she and Max chose three heaping trays, starting with hydroponic mushroom steak, raised in the growing trays of water and chemicals; sharp salad bowl with rose tomatoes and aromatic peppers; tank-grown fish with special sauce; four different desserts, and assorted beverages.
Presently they had three tottering trays successfully maneuvered to a table. Brant St. Clair came over. "I beg your pardon, Max, but they are saying something about Reno carrying messages to a colony of savages, for the medical department. Will he be back soon, do you know?"
Max smiled up at him, his square face affectionate. Everyone liked the shy Canadian. "He's back already. We just saw him come in."
"Oh, fine." St. Clair beamed. "I had an appointment with him to go out and confirm what looks like a nice vein of iron to the northeast. Have you seen Bess? Oh—there she is." He turned swiftly and hurried away.
A very tall man with fiery red hair came in surrounded by an eagerly talking crowd of ship people. It was Pat Mead. He stood in the doorway, alertly scanning the dining room. Sheer vitality made him seem even larger than he was. Sighting June, he smiled and began to thread toward their table.
"Look!" said someone. "There's the colonist!" Shelia, a pretty, jeweled woman, followed and caught his arm. "Did you really swim across a river to come here?"
Overflowing with good-will and curiosity, people approached from all directions. "Did you actually walk three hundred miles? Come, eat with us. Let me help choose your tray."
Everyone wanted him to eat at their table, everyone was a specialist and wanted data about Minos. They all wanted anecdotes about hunting wild animals with a bow and arrow.
"He needs to be rescued," Max said. "He won't have a chance to eat."
June and Max got up firmly, edged through the crowd, captured Pat and escorted him back to their table. June found herself pleased to be claiming the hero of the hour.
Pat sat in the simple, subtly designed chair and leaned back almost voluptuously, testing the way it gave and fitted itself to him. He ran his eyes over the bright tableware and heaped plates. He looked around at the rich grained walls and soft lights at each table. He said nothing, just looking and feeling and experiencing.
"When we build our town and leave the ship," June explained, "we will turn all the staterooms back into the lounges and ballrooms and cocktail bars that used to be inside."
"Oh, I'm not complaining," Pat said negligently. He cocked his head to the music, and tried to locate its source.
"That's big of you," said Max with gentle irony.
They fell to, Pat beginning the first meal he had had in more than a day.
Most of the other diners finished when they were halfway through, and began walking over, diffidently at first, then in another wave of smiling faces, handshakes, and introductions. Pat was asked about crops, about farming methods, about rainfall and floods, about farm animals and plant breeding, about the compatibility of imported Earth seeds with local ground, about mines and strata.
There was no need to protect him. He leaned back in his chair and drawled answers with the lazy ease of a panther; where he could think of no statistic, he would fill the gap with an anecdote. It developed that he enjoyed spinning campfire yarns and especially being the center of interest.
Between bouts of questions, he ate with undiminished and glowing relish.
June noticed that the female specialists were prolonging the questions more than they needed, clustering around the table laughing at his jokes, until presently Pat was almost surrounded by pretty faces, eager questions, and chiming laughs. Shelia the beautiful laughed most chimingly of all.
June nudged Max, and Max shrugged indifferently. It wasn't anything a man would pay attention to, perhaps. But June watched Pat for a moment more, then glanced uneasily back to Max. He was eating and listening to Pat's answers and did not feel her gaze. For some reason Max looked almost shrunken to her. He was shorter than she had realized; she had forgotten that he was only the same height as herself. She was dimly aware of the clear lilting chatter of female voices increasing at Pat's end of the table.
"That guy's a menace," Max said, and laughed to himself, cutting another slice of hydroponic mushroom steak. "What's eating you?" he added, glancing aside at her when he noticed her sudden stillness.
"Nothing," she said hastily, but she did not turn back to watching Pat Mead. She felt disloyal. Pat was only a superb animal. Max was the man she loved. Or—was he? Of course he was, she told herself angrily. They had gone colonizing together because they wanted to spend their lives together; she had never thought of marrying any other man. Yet the sense of dissatisfaction persisted, and along with it a feeling of guilt.
Len Marlow, the protein tank-culture technician responsible for the mushroom steaks, had wormed his way into the group and asked Pat a question. Now he was saying, "I don't dig you, Pat. It sounds like you're putting the people into the tanks instead of the vegetables!" He glanced at them, looking puzzled. "See if you two can make anything of this. It sounds medical to me."
Pat leaned back and smiled, sipping a glass of hydroponic burgundy.
"Wonderful stuff. You'll have to show us how to make it."
Len turned back to him. "You people live off the country, right? You hunt and bring in steaks and eat them, right? Well, say I have one of those steaks right here and I want to eat it, what happens?"
"Go ahead and eat it. It just wouldn't digest. You'd stay hungry."
"Why?" Len was aggrieved.
"Chemical differences in the basic protoplasm of Minos. Different amino linkages, left-handed instead of right-handed molecules in the carbohydrates, things like that. Nothing will be digestible here until you are adapted chemically by a little test-tube evolution. Till then you'd starve to death on a full stomach."
Pat's side of the table had been loaded with the dishes from two trays, but it was almost clear now and the dishes were stacked neatly to one side. He started on three desserts, thoughtfully tasting each in turn.
"Test-tube evolution?" Max repeated. "What's that? I thought you people had no doctors."
"It's a story." Pat leaned back again. "Alexander P. Mead, the head of the Mead clan, was a plant geneticist, a very determined personality and no man to argue with. He didn't want us to go through the struggle of killing off all Minos plants and putting in our own, spoiling the face of the planet and upsetting the balance of its ecology. He decided that he would adapt our genes to this planet or kill us trying. He did it all right.'"
"Did which?" asked June, suddenly feeling a sourceless prickle of fear.
"Adapted us to Minos. He took human cells—"
She listened intently, trying to find a reason for fear in the explanation. It would have taken many human generations to adapt to Minos by ordinary evolution, and that only at a heavy toll of death and hunger which evolution exacts. There was a shorter way: Human cells have the ability to return to their primeval condition of independence, hunting, eating and reproducing alone.
Alexander P. Mead took human cells and made them into phagocytes. He put them through the hard savage school of evolution—a thousand generations of multiplication, hardship and hunger, with the alien indigestible food always present, offering its reward of plenty to the cell that reluctantly learned to absorb it.
"Leucocytes can run through several thousand generations of evolution in six months," Pat Mead finished. "When they reached to a point where they would absorb Minos food, he planted them back in the people he had taken them from."
"What was supposed to happen then?" Max asked, leaning forward.
"I don't know exactly how it worked. He never told anybody much about it, and when I was a little boy he had gone loco and was wandering ha-ha-ing around waving a test tube. Fell down a ravine and broke his neck at the age of eighty."
"A character," Max said.
Why was she afraid? "It worked then?"
"Yes. He tried it on all the Meads the first year. The other settlers didn't want to be experimented on until they saw how it worked out. It worked. The Meads could hunt, and plant while the other settlers were still eating out of hydroponics tanks."
"It worked," said Max to Len. "You're a plant geneticist and a tank culture expert. There's a job for you."
"Uh- uh !" Len backed away. "It sounds like a medical problem to me. Human cell control—right up your alley."
"It is a one-way street," Pat warned. "Once it is done, you won't be able to digest ship food. I'll get no good from this protein. I ate it just for the taste."
Hal Barton appeared quietly beside the table. "Three of the twelve test hamsters have died," he reported, and turned to Pat. "Your people carry the germs of melting sickness, as you call it. The dead hamsters were injected with blood taken from you before you were de-infected. We can't settle here unless we de-infect everybody on Minos. Would they object?"
"We wouldn't want to give you folks germs," Pat smiled. "Anything for safety. But there'll have to be a vote on it first."
The doctors went to Reno Ulrich's table and walked with him to the hangar, explaining. He was to carry the proposal to Alexandria, mingle with the people, be persuasive and wait for them to vote before returning. He was to give himself shots of cureall every two hours on the hour or run the risk of disease.
Reno was pleased. He had dabbled in sociology before retraining as a mechanic for the expedition. "This gives me a chance to study their mores." He winked wickedly. "I may not be back for several nights." They watched through the viewplate as he took off, and then went over to the laboratory for a look at the hamsters.
Three were alive and healthy, munching lettuce. One was the control; the other two had been given shots of Pat's blood from before he entered the ship, but with no additional treatment. Apparently a hamster could fight off melting sickness easily if left alone. Three were still feverish and ruffled, with a low red blood count, but recovering. The three dead ones had been given strong shots of adaptive and counter histamine, so their bodies had not fought back against the attack.
June glanced at the dead animals hastily and looked away again. They lay twisted with a strange semi-fluid limpness, as if ready to dissolve. The last hamster, which had been given the heaviest dose of adaptive, had apparently lost all its hair before death. It was hairless and pink, like a still-born baby.
"We can find no micro-organisms," George Barton said. "None at all. Nothing in the body that should not be there. Leucosis and anemia. Fever only for the ones that fought it off." He handed Max some temperature charts and graphs of blood counts.
June wandered out into the hall. Pediatrics and obstetrics were her field; she left the cellular research to Max, and just helped him with laboratory routine. The strange mood followed her out into the hall, then abruptly lightened.
Coming toward her, busily telling a tale of adventure to the gorgeous Shelia Davenport, was a tall, red-headed, magnificently handsome man. It was his handsomeness which made Pat such a pleasure to look upon and talk with, she guiltily told herself, and it was his tremendous vitality.... It was like meeting a movie hero in the flesh, or a hero out of the pages of a book—Deer-slayer, John Clayton, Lord Greystoke.
She waited in the doorway to the laboratory and made no move to join them, merely acknowledged the two with a nod and a smile and a casual lift of the hand. They nodded and smiled back.
"Hello, June," said Pat and continued telling his tale, but as they passed he lightly touched her arm.
"Oh, pioneer!" she said mockingly and softly to his passing profile, and knew that he had heard.
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What is the relationship between the Andrews family and those in their employ?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Wanderers of the Wolf Moon by NELSON S. BOND.
Relevant chunks:
Wanderers of the Wolf Moon
By NELSON S. BOND
They were marooned on Titan, their ship wrecked, the radio smashed. Yet they had to exist, had to build a new life on a hostile world. And the man who assumed command was Gregory Malcolm, the bespectacled secretary—whose only adventures had come through the pages of a book.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Sparks snapped off the switches and followed him to the door of the radio turret. Sparks was a stunted, usually-grinning, little redhead named Hannigan. But he wasn't grinning now. He laid an anxious hand on Greg's arm. "If I was you," he said, "if I was you, Malcolm, I don't think I'd say nothing to the boss about this. Not just yet, anyhow."
Greg said, "Why not?"
Sparks spluttered and fussed and made heavy weather of answering.
"Well, for one thing, it ain't important. It would only worry him. And then there's the womenfolks, they scare easy. Which of course they ain't no cause to. Atmospherics don't mean nothing. I've rode out worse storms than this—plenty of times. And in worse crates than the Carefree ."
Greg studied him carefully from behind trim plasta-rimmed spectacles. He drew a deep breath. He said levelly, "So it's that bad, eh, Sparks?"
"What bad? I just told you—"
"I know. Sparks, I'm not a professional spaceman. But I've studied astrogation as few Earthlubbers have. It's been my hobby for years. And I think I know what we're up against.
"We hit a warp-eddy last night. We've been trapped in a vortex for more than eight hours. Lord only knows how many hundreds of thousands of miles we've been borne off our course. And now we've blasted into a super-ionized belt of atmospherics. Your radio signals are blanketed. You can't get signals in or out. We're a deaf-mute speck of metal being whirled headlong through space. Isn't that it?"
"I don't know what—" began Sparks hotly. Then he stopped, studied his companion thoughtfully, nodded. "O.Q.," he confessed, "that's it. But we ain't licked yet. We got three good men on the bridge. Townsend ... Graves ... Langhorn. They'll pull out of this if anybody can. And they ain't no sense in scaring the Old Man and his family."
"I won't tell them," said Greg. "I won't tell them unless I have to. But between you and me, what are the odds against us, Sparks?"
The radioman shrugged.
"Who knows? Vortices are unpredictable. Maybe the damn thing will toss us out on the very spot it picked us up. Maybe it will give us the old chuckeroo a million miles the other side of Pluto. Maybe it will crack us up on an asteroid or satellite. No way of telling till it happens."
"And the controls?"
"As useless," said Sparks, "as a cow in a cyclone."
"So?"
"We sit tight," said Sparks succinctly, "and hope."
Malcolm nodded quietly. He took off his spectacles, breathed on them, wiped them, replaced them. He was tall and fair; in his neat, crisply pressed business suit he appeared even slimmer than he was. But there was no nervousness in his movements. He moved measuredly. "Well," he said, "that appears to be that. I'm going up to the dining dome."
Sparks stared at him querulously.
"You're a queer duck, Malcolm. I don't think you've got a nerve in your body."
"Nerves are a luxury I can't afford," replied Greg. "If anything happens—and if there's time to do so—let me know." He paused at the door. "Good luck," he said.
"Clear ether!" said Sparks mechanically. He stared after the other man wonderingly for a long moment, then went back to his control banks, shaking his head and muttering.
Gregory Malcolm climbed down the Jacob's-ladder and strode briskly through the labyrinthine corridors that were the entrails of the space yacht Carefree . He paused once to peer through a perilens set into the ship's port plates. It was a weird sight that met his gaze. Not space, ebony-black and bejewelled with a myriad flaming splotches of color; not the old, familiar constellations treading their ever-lasting, inexorable paths about the perimeter of Sol's tiny universe, but a shimmering webwork of light, so tortured-violet that the eyes ached to look upon it. This was the mad typhoon of space-atmospherics through which the Carefree was now being twisted, topsy-turvy, toward a nameless goal.
He moved on, approaching at last the quartzite-paned observation rotunda which was the dining dome of the ship.
His footsteps slowed as he composed himself to face those within. As he hesitated in the dimly-lighted passage, a trick of lights on glass mirrored to him the room beyond. He could see the others while they were as yet unaware of his presence. Their voices reached him clearly.
J. Foster Andrews, his employer and the employer of the ten thousand or more men and women who worked for Galactic Metals Corporation, dominated the head of the table. He was a plump, impatient little Napoleon. Opposite him, calm, graceful, serene, tastefully garbed and elaborately coiffured even here in deep space, three weeks from the nearest beauty shop, sat his wife, Enid.
On Andrews' right sat his sister, Maud. Not young, features plain as a mud fence, but charming despite her age and homeliness simply because of her eyes; puckish, shrewdly intelligent eyes, constantly aglint with suppressed humor at—guessed Greg—the amusing foibles and frailties of those about her.
She gave her breakfast the enthusiastic attention of one too old and shapeless to be concerned with such folderol as calories and dietetics, pausing only from time to time to share smidgeons of food with a watery-eyed scrap of white, curly fluff beside her chair. Her pet poodle, whom she called by the opprobrious title of "Cuddles."
On J. Foster's left sat his daughter, Crystal. She it was who caused Gregory Malcolm's staid, respectable heart to give a little lurch as he glimpsed her reflected vision—all gold and crimson and cream—in the glistening walls. If Crystal was her name, so, too, was crystal her loveliness.
But—Greg shook his head—but she was not for him. She was already pledged to the young man seated beside her. Ralph Breadon. He turned to murmur something to her as Greg watched; Greg saw and admired and disliked his rangy height, his sturdy, well-knit strength, the rich brownness of his skin, his hair, his eyes.
The sound of his own name startled Greg.
"Malcolm!" called the man at the head of the table. "Malcolm! Now where in blazes is he, anyhow?" he demanded of no one in particular, everyone in general. He spooned a dab of liquid gold from a Limoges preserve jar, tongued it suspiciously, frowned. "Bitter!" he complained.
"It's the very best Martian honey," said his wife.
"Drylands clover," added Crystal.
"It's still bitter," said J. Foster petulantly.
His sister sniffed. "Nonsense! It's delightful."
"I say it's bitter," repeated Andrews sulkily. And lifted his voice again. " Malcolm! Where are you?"
"You called me, sir?" said Malcolm, moving into the room. He nodded politely to the others. "Good morning, Mrs. Andrews ... Miss Andrews ... Mr. Breadon...."
"Oh, sit down!" snapped J. Foster. "Sit down here and stop bobbing your head like a teetotum! Had your breakfast? The honey's no good; it's bitter." He glared at his sister challengingly. "Where have you been, anyway? What kind of secretary are you? Have you been up to the radio turret? How's the market today? Is Galactic up or down?"
Malcolm said, "I don't know, sir."
"Fine! Fine!" Andrews rattled on automatically before the words registered. Then he started, his face turning red. "Eh? What's that? Don't know! What do you mean, you don't know? I pay you to—"
"There's no transmission, sir," said Greg quietly.
"No trans—nonsense! Of course there's transmission! I put a million credits into this ship. Finest space-yacht ever built. Latest equipment throughout. Sparks is drunk, that's what you mean! Well, you hop right up there and—"
Maud Andrews put down her fork with a clatter. "Oh, for goodness sakes, Jonathan, shut up and give the boy time to explain! He's standing there with his mouth gaping like a rain-spout, trying to get a word in edgewise! What's the trouble, Gregory?" She turned to Greg, as Jonathan Foster Andrews wheezed into startled silence. " That? "
She glanced at the quartzite dome, beyond which the veil of iridescence wove and cross-wove and shimmered like a pallid aurora.
Greg nodded. "Yes, Miss Andrews."
Enid Andrews spoke languidly from the other end of the table.
"But what is it, Gregory? A local phenomenon?"
"You might call it that," said Greg, selecting his words cautiously.
"It's an ionized field into which we've blasted. It—it—shouldn't stay with us long. But while it persists, our radio will be blanketed out."
Breadon's chestnut head came up suddenly, sharply.
"Ionization! That means atmosphere!"
Greg said, "Yes."
"And an atmosphere means a body in space somewhere near—" Breadon stopped, bit his lip before the appeal in Malcolm's eyes, tried to pass it off easily. "Oh, well—a change of scenery, what?"
But the moment of alarm in his voice had not passed unnoticed. Crystal Andrews spoke for all of them, her voice preternaturally quiet.
"You're hiding something, Malcolm. What is it? Is there—danger?"
But Greg didn't have to answer that question. From the doorway a harsh, defiantly strident voice answered for him. The voice of Bert Andrews, Crystal's older brother.
"Danger? You're damn right there's danger! What's the matter with you folks—are you all deaf, dumb and blind? We've been caught in a space-vortex for hours. Now we're in the H-layer of a planet we can't even see—and in fifteen minutes or fifteen seconds we may all be smashed as flat as pancakes!"
The proclamation brought them out of their chairs. Greg's heart sank; his vain plea, "Mr. Andrews—" was lost in the medley of Crystal's sudden gasp, Enid Andrews' short, choking scream, J. Foster's bellowing roar at his only son.
"Bert—you're drunk!"
Bert weaved precariously from the doorway, laughed in his father's face.
"Sure I'm drunk! Why not? If you're smart you'll get drunk, too. The whole damn lot of you!" He flicked a derisive hand toward Greg. "You too, Boy Scout! What were you trying to do—hide the bad news from them? Well, it's no use. Everybody might as well know the worst. We're gone gooses ... geeses ... aw, what the hell! Dead ducks!" He fell into a chair, sprawled there laughing mirthlessly with fear riding the too-high notes of his laughter.
J. Foster turned to his secretary slowly. His ire had faded; there was only deep concern in his voice.
"Is he telling the truth, Malcolm?"
Greg said soberly, "Partly, sir. He's overstating the danger—but there is danger. We are caught in a space-vortex, and as Mr. Breadon realized, the presence of these ionics means we're in the Heaviside-layer of some heavenly body. But we may not crack up."
Maud Andrews glanced at him shrewdly.
"Is there anything we can do?"
"Not a thing. The officers on the bridge are doing everything possible."
"In that case," said the older woman, "we might as well finish our breakfast. Here, Cuddles! Come to momsy!" She sat down again. Greg looked at her admiringly. Ralph Breadon stroked his brown jaw. He said,
"The life-skiffs?"
"A last resort," said Greg. "Sparks promised he'd let me know if it were necessary. We'll hope it's not—"
But it was a vain hope, vainly spoken in the last, vain moment. For even as he phrased the hopeful words, came the sound of swift, racing footsteps up the corridor. Into the dining dome burst Hannigan, eyes hot with excitement. And his cry dispelled Greg's final hopes for safety.
"Everybody—the Number Four life-skiff— quick ! We've been caught in a grav-drag and we're going to crash!"
II
Those next hectic moments were never afterward very clear in Greg Malcolm's memory. He had a confused recollection of hearing Sparks' warning punctuated by a loud, shrill scream which he vaguely identified as emanating from Mrs. Andrews' throat ... he was conscious of feeling, suddenly, beneath his feet the sickening, quickening lurch of a ship out of control, gripped by gravitational forces beyond its power to allay ... he recalled his own voice dinning in his ears as, incredibly, with Sparks, he took command of the hasty flight from the dining dome down the corridor to the aft ramp, up the ramp, across girdered beams in the super-structure to the small, independently motored rocket-skiff cradled there.
He was aware, too, of strangely disconnected incidents happening around him, he being a part of them but seeming to be only a disinterested spectator to their strangeness. Of his forcing Maud Andrews toward the door of the dome ... of her pushing back against him with all the weight of her body ... of her irate voice, "Cuddles! I forgot him!" Then the shrill excited yapping of the poodle cradled against her as they charged on down the corridor.
J. Foster waddling beside him, tugging at his arm, panting, "The officers?" and his own unfelt assurance. "They can take care of themselves. It's a general 'bandon ship." Enid Andrews stumbling over the hem of a filmy peignoir ... himself bending to lift her boldly and bodily, sweating palms feeling the warm animal heat of her excited body hot beneath them ... Crystal Andrews stopping suddenly, crying,
"'Tina!" ... and Hannigan's reply, "Your maid? I woke her. She's in the life-skiff." Bert Andrews stopping suddenly, being sick in the middle of the corridor, his drunkenness losing itself in the thick, sure nausea of the ever-increasing unsteadiness beneath their feet.
Then the life-skiff, the clang of metal as Hannigan slammed the port behind the last of them, the fumbling for a lock-stud, the quick, grateful pant of the miniature hypos, and a weird feeling of weightlessness, rushingness, hurtlingness as his eardrums throbbed and his mouth tasted brassy and bloody with the fierce velocity of their escape.
Sense and meaning returned only when all this ended. As one waking from a nightmare dream, Greg Malcolm returned to a world he could recognize. A tiny world, encased within the walls of a forty-foot life-skiff. A world peopled too scantily. Andrews, his wife and sister, his son and daughter; 'Tina Laney, the maid; Breadon, Hannigan, young Tommy O'Doul, the cabin-boy (though where he had come from, or when, Greg did not know). And himself. In a life-skiff. In space.
Somewhere in space. He looked through the perilens . What he saw then he might better never have seen. For that shimmering pink-ochre veil had wisped away, now, and in the clean, cold, bitter-clear light of a distant sun he watched the death-dive of the yacht Carefree .
Like a vast silver top, spinning heedlessly, wildly, it streaked toward a mottled gray and green, brown and dun, hard and crushing-brutal terrain below. Still at its helm stood someone, for even in that last dreadful moment burst from its nose-jets a ruddy mushroom of flame that tried to, but could not, brake the dizzy fall.
For an instant Greg's eyes, stingingly blinded and wet, thought they glimpsed a wee black mote dancing from the bowels of the Carefree ; a mote that might be another skiff like their own. But he could not be sure, and then the Carefree was accelerating with such violence and speed that the eye could see it only as a flaming silver lance against the ugly earth-carcase beneath, and then it struck and a carmine bud of flame burst and flowered for an instant, and that was all....
And Greg Malcolm turned from the perilens , shaken.
Hannigan said, "It's over?" and Greg nodded.
Hannigan said, "The other skiffs? Did they break free, or were they caught?"
"I don't know. I couldn't see for sure."
"You must have seen. Are we the only ones?"
"I couldn't see for sure. Maybe. Maybe not."
Then a body scrambled forward, pressing through the tightness of other huddled bodies, and there was a hand upon his elbow. "I'll take over now, Malcolm."
It was Ralph Breadon. Gregory looked at him slowly, uncomprehendingly at first. His hand was reluctant to leave the guiding-gear of the small ship which was, now, all that remained to them of civilization and civilization's wondrous accomplishments. He had not realized until this moment that for a while ... for a short, eager, pulse-quickening while ... on his alertness, in his hands, had depended the destinies of ten men and women. But he knew, suddenly and completely, that it was for this single moment his whole lifetime had waited. It was for this brief moment of command that some intuition, some instinct greater than knowledge, had prepared him. This was why he, an Earthlubber, had studied astrogation, made a hobby of the empire of the stars. That he might be fitted to command when all others failed. And now—
And now the moment was past, and he was once again Gregory Malcolm, mild, lean, pale, bespectacled secretary to J. Foster Andrews. And the man at his side was Ralph Breadon, socialite and gentleman sportsman, trained pilot. And in Malcolm the habit of obedience was strong....
"Very well, sir," he said. And he turned over the controls.
What happened then was unfortunate. It might just as well have happened to Malcolm, though afterward no one could ever say with certainty. However that was, either by carelessness or malfortune or inefficiency, once-thwarted disaster struck again at the little party on the life-skiff. At the instant Breadon's hand seized the controls the skiff jerked suddenly as though struck with a ponderous fist, its throbbing motors choked and snarled in a high, rising crescendo of torment that lost itself in supersonic heights, and the ship that had been drifting easily and under control to the planet beneath now dipped viciously.
The misfortune was that too many huddled in the tiny space understood the operation of the life-skiff, and what must be done instantly. And that neither pilot was as yet in control of the ship. Breadon's hand leaped for the Dixie rod, so, too, did Malcolm's—and across both their bodies came the arm of Sparks Hannigan, searching the controls.
In the scramble someone's sleeve brushed the banks of control-keys. The motors, killed, soughed into silence. The ship rocked into a spin. Greg cried out, his voice a strange harshness in his ears; Breadon cursed; one of the women bleated fearfully.
Then Breadon, still cursing, fought all hands from the controls but his own. And the man was not without courage. For all could see plainly, in the illumined perilens , how near to swift death that moment of uncertainty had led them. The skiff, which an instant before had been high in the stratosphere of this unknown planet ... or satellite or whatever it might be ... was now flashing toward hard ground at lightning speed.
Only a miracle, Greg knew, could save them now. An impulse spun his head, he looked at Crystal Andrews. There was no fear in her eyes. Just a hotness and an inexplicable anger. Beside her was the other girl, the maid, 'Tina; she was frankly afraid. Her teeth were clenched in her nether lip, and her eyes were wide and anxious, but she did not cry out.
Only a miracle could save them now. But Breadon's hands performed that miracle; his quick, nerveless, trained hands. A stud here ... a lever there ... a swift wrenching toss of the shoulders. His face twisted back over his shoulder, and his straining lips pulled taut and bloodless away from his teeth. "Hold tight, folks! We're going to bounce—"
Then they struck!
But they struck glancingly, as Breadon had hoped, and planned for, and gambled on. They struck and bounced. The frail craft shivered and groaned in metal agony, jarred across harsh soil, bounced again, settled, nosed over and rocked to a standstill. Somewhere forward something snapped with a shrill, high ping! of stress; somewhere aft was the metallic flap-clanging of broken gear trailing behind them. But they were safe.
Breath, held so long that he could not remember its inhalation, escaped Greg's lungs in a long sigh. "Nice work, Mr. Breadon!" he cried. "Oh, nice work!"
But surprisingly, savagely, Breadon turned on him.
"It would have been better work, Malcolm, if you'd kept your damned hands off the controls! Now see what you've done? Smashed up our skiff! Our only—"
"He didn't do it!" piped the shrill voice of Tommy O'Doul. "You done it yourself, Mr. Breadon. Your sleeve. It caught the switch."
"Quiet!" Breadon, cheeks flushed, reached out smartly, stilled the youngster's defense with a swift, ungentle slap. "And you, Malcolm—after this, do as you're told, and don't try to assume responsibilities too great for you. All right, everybody. Let's get out and see how bad the damage is."
Instinctively Greg had surged a half step forward as Breadon silenced the cabin boy. Now old habit and common-sense halted him. He's overwrought, he reasoned. We're all excited and on edge. We've been to Bedlam. Our nerves are shot. In a little while we'll all be back to normal.
He said quietly, "Very well, Mr. Breadon." And he climbed from the broken skiff.
Hannigan said, "Looks bad, don't it?"
"Very," said Malcolm. He fingered a shard of loose metal flapping like a fin from the stern of the skiff. "Not hopeless, though. There should be an acetylene torch in the tool locker. With that—"
"You ought to of poked him," said Hannigan.
"What? Oh, you mean—?"
"Yeah. The kid was right, you know. He done it."
"His sleeve, you mean. Well, it was an accident," said Greg. "It could have happened to anyone. And he made a good landing. Considering everything. Anyhow—" Again he was Gregory Malcolm, serious-faced, efficient secretary. "Anyhow, we have been thrust into an extremely precarious circumstance. It would be silly to take umbrage at a man's nervous anger. We must have no quarreling, no bickering—"
"Umbrage!" snorted Sparks. "Bickering! They're big words. I ain't sure I know what they mean. I ain't exactly sure they mean anything ." He glanced at Greg oddly. "You're a queer jasper, Malcolm. Back there on the ship, I figured you for a sort of a stuffed-shirt. Yes-man to the boss. And then in the show-down, you come through like a movie hero—for a little while. Then you let that Breadon guy give you the spur without a squawk—"
Malcolm adjusted his plasta-rimmed spectacles. He said, almost stubbornly, "Our situation is grave. There must be no bickering."
"Bickering your Aunt Jenny! What do you call that?"
Sparks jerked a contemptuous thumb toward the group from which they were separated. Upon disembarking, only Greg and Sparks had moved to make a careful examination of their damaged craft. The others, more or less under the direction of Breadon, were making gestures toward removing certain necessaries from the skiff. Their efforts, slight and uncertain as they were, had already embroiled them in argument.
The gist of their argument, so far as Greg Malcolm could determine, was that everyone wanted "something" to be done, but no two could agree as to just what that something was, and no one seemed to have any bursting desire to participate in actual physical labor.
J. Foster Andrews, all traces of his former panic and confusion fled, was planted firmly, Napoleonically, some few yards from the open port of the life-skiff, barking impatient orders at little Tommy O'Doul who—as Greg watched—stumbled from the port bearing a huge armload of edibles.
'Tina, the maid, was in a frenzy of motion, trying to administer to the complaints and demands of Mrs. Andrews (whose immaculate hair-do had suffered in the frenetic minutes of their flight) and Crystal Andrews
(who knew perfectly well there were sweaters in the life-skiff) and Miss Maud (who wanted a can of prepared dog-food and a can-opener immediately, and look at poor Cuddles, momsy's 'ittle pet was so hungry)!
Bert Andrews was sulkily insisting that it was nonsense to leave the warmth and security of the skiff anyway, and he wished he had a drink, while the harassed, self-appointed commander of the refugee corps was shouting at whomever happened, at any given moment, to capture his divided and completely frantic attention. His orders were masterpieces of confusion, developing around one premise that the castaway crew should immediately set up a camp. Where, how, or with what nonexistent equipment, Breadon did not venture to say.
"You see what I mean?" demanded Sparks disgustedly.
Greg Malcolm saw. He also saw other things. That their landing-spot, while excellent for its purpose, was not by any manner of means an ideal campsite. It was a small, flat basin of sandy soil, rimmed by shallow mountains. His gaze sought these hills, looked approvingly on their greenness, upon the multitude of dark pock-marks dotting them. These caves, were they not the habitations of potential enemies, might well become the sanctuaries of spacewrecked men.
He saw, also, a thin ribbon of silver sheering the face of the northern hills. His gaze, rising still skyward, saw other things—
He nodded. He knew, now, where they were. Or approximately. There was but one planet in the solar system which boasted such a phenomenon. The apparent distance of the Sun, judged by its diminished disc, argued his judgment to be correct. The fact that they had surged through an atmospheric belt for some length of time before finally meeting with disaster.
"Titan," he said. "Hyperion possibly. But probably Titan."
Sparks' gaze, following Greg's upward, contracted in an expression of dismay.
"Dirty cow! You mean that's where we are?"
"I believe so. There's Saturn, our mother planet, looming above us as large as a dinner plate. And the grav-drag here is almost Earth norm. Titan has a 3,000 mile diameter. That, combined with the Saturnian tractile constant, would give us a strong pull."
Sparks wailed, "But Titan! Great morning, Malcolm, nobody ever comes to Titan! There ain't no mines here, no colonies, no—" He stopped suddenly, his eyes widening yet farther. "And, hey—this place is dangerous ! There are—"
"I know it," said Greg swiftly, quietly. "Shut up, Sparks. No use telling the others. If they don't guess it themselves, what they don't know won't alarm them. We've got to do something, though. Get ourselves organized into a defensive community. That's the only way—"
Ralph Breadon's sharp, dictatorial voice interrupted him. "Well, Malcolm, stop soldiering and make yourself useful!"
And J. Foster, not to have his authority usurped, supplemented the order. "Yes, Malcolm, let's get going! No time for day-dreaming, my man. We want action!"
Sparks said, "Maybe you'll get it now, fatty!" under his breath, and looked at Malcolm hopefully. But his companion merely nodded, moved forward toward the others, quietly obedient to the command.
"Yes, sir," he said.
Hannigan groaned and followed him.
III
Breadon said, "All right, Tommy, dump them here. I have a few words to say." He glanced about him pompously. "Now, folks, naturally we want to get away from here as soon as possible. Therefore I delegate you, Sparks, to immediately get a message off. An SOS to the nearest space cruiser."
Hannigan grinned. It was not a pleasant grin. He took his time answering. He spat thoughtfully on the ground before him, lifted his head. He said, "A message, huh?"
"That's what I said."
"And what'll I send it with?" drawled Sparks. "Tom-toms?"
Breadon flushed darkly.
"I believe the life-skiff was equipped with a radio? And theoretically you are a radio operator?"
"Finest radio money can buy!" interpolated J. Foster Andrews proudly.
"Put a million credits into the Carefree . Best equipment throughout."
Sparks looked from one to another of them, grinned insolently. "You're both right. I am a radio operator, and there was a radio. But we crashed, remember? On account of some dope's sleeve got caught in the master switch—"
"That will do!" snapped Breadon angrily. He stared at the bandy-legged little redhead. "You mean the radio was broken?"
"It wasn't helped none. The tubes was made out of glass, and glass don't bounce so good."
Greg Malcolm said thoughtfully, "Sparks, can't you fix it?"
"Well, mebbe. But not in five minutes. Maybe not in five years. I won't know till I get going on it."
Breadon frowned.
"I'll handle this, Malcolm," he crisped. Again to the radioman, "Well, you get to work on it immediately. And as soon as you get it fixed, send out an SOS advising the patrol where we are—"
"Speaking of which," insinuated Sparks, "where are we?"
Breadon glared at him wrathfully.
"Why—why on one of the satellites of Saturn, of course. Any fool can see that!"
"O.Q. But does any fool know which one? Or shall I tell you it's Titan? And when you know that, then what? Titan wasn't named that on account of it was a pimple. It's a big place. What'll I tell the Patrol? SOS. Stranded in the middle of we-don't-know-where, somewhere on Titan, maybe. They'll be hunting for us till we've got whiskers down to our knees."
Breadon's irate look vanished. He looked stricken. He said, "I—I don't know. We have a compass—"
Once again it was Gregory Malcolm who entered into the conversation. He had been toying, almost absentmindedly, with a funnel taken from the skiff's stores. Into this he had poured a small portion of water; his right forefinger was pressed to the bottom of the tube, closing it. He said, "I can answer part of that question now. Enough to cut the search in half, anyway. We're in the northern hemisphere of the satellite."
Maud Andrews looked at him sharply as if noticing him for the first time in her life.
"How," she asked, "did you know that, Malcolm?"
Question:
What is the relationship between the Andrews family and those in their employ?
Answer:
|
[
"Generally, the Andrews family is dismissive of their household staff, which include Gregory Malcolm, ‘Tina Laney, Sparks, and a cabin-boy. J. Foster Andrews, the head of the family, impatiently calls for his secretary, Gregory Malcolm, to complain about the quality of their morning honey. J. Foster learns that Malcolm doesn’t know that state of the Galactic market, but dismisses the reason that Malcolm provides, instead concluding that the radio technician Sparks is drunk. \n\tDuring the evacuation to the life skiff, Crystal Andrews, J. Foster’s daughter, remembers her maid ‘Tina Laney and asks where she is, apparently paying mind to her safety. In contrast, her fiancé Ralph Breadon is dismissive of Malcolm, and later blames him for the life skiff’s crashing into Titan. Upon the cabin-boy’s revelation that it was, in fact, Breadon who inadvertently caused the skiff’s malfunction, Breadon strikes the cabin-boy. \n\tOn Titan, ‘Tina is instructed to remove things from the skiff by the women of the Andrews family, who do not help, and Sparks and Malcolm are harshly instructed to make themselves useful. ",
"The Andrews family resembles a royal one; they are wealthy and own the monopoly of Galactic Metals Corporation, with over ten thousand employees. The Andrews family is aware of their wealth and power, and treat their employees as significantly inferior to them. They also believe that any problems that arise are due to their employers, and insist that their products are perfect enough to not be subject to any problems. This is shown in the story when Malcolm first sees the Andrews family to update them on the situation at hand, and J. Foster Andrews expects his workers to be able to resolve the issue themselves. ",
"The Andrews family seem to have different attitudes towards their employees. Through the first part of the story, we see that at first J. Foster Andrews is not paying much attention to Greg, who is his employee, even when speaking with him. J. Foster Andrews simply replies “fine” to Greg’s answer of no transmission. Then he realizes what Greg is actually saying and then without allowing Greg to explain what he means by no transmission and how it has happened, he continues to scold them and order Greg to do things. Maud Andres tells him to stop and lets Greg explain himself. Greg on the other hand is very polite. He greets the Andrews family when entering the dining room, and thanks Miss Andrews for letting him to explain himself. On the contrary, later in the story, Breadon does not thank Greg even when he complements Breadon, instead, Breadon just accuses him for the crash just because he touched the control. But still, Greg is being very polite and calm, and it is in strong contrast to Breadon’s anger and rudeness. Lastly, in the end, the readers see that Maud Andrews, the sister of J. Foster Andrews, is very surprised when she hears that Greg knows where they are. ",
"J. Foster Andrews employs around ten thousand people for his Galactic Metals Corporation. He is described as Napoleonic, especially when talking towards his employees. He is loud and demanding towards Malcolm and interrupts him many times when he speaks. His sister Maud even remarks that he has to give Malcolm a chance to respond. Maud inquisitively judges Malcolm and the other employees. When the ship is about to crash and everybody is rushing towards the life skiff, the Andrews family has more regard for their pets or fights than for saving others on the ship. \n\nAndrew continuously commands orders from his employees and has no patience for anything but extreme obedience from them. The rest of the family continues to demand the employees take after them once they leave the ship after their crash landing. They are more concerned about their own comfort than the well-being of the employees. Both Ralph and J. Foster take action trying to one-up one another in an attempt to show their power over their employees. Neither wants to be a fool. At the end of the story when Malcolm is able to approximate their location, Maud, a member of the Andrews family, is taken aback by Malcolm's discovery. She reacts as if she is surprised an employee could be smart.\n"
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63048
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Wanderers of the Wolf Moon
By NELSON S. BOND
They were marooned on Titan, their ship wrecked, the radio smashed. Yet they had to exist, had to build a new life on a hostile world. And the man who assumed command was Gregory Malcolm, the bespectacled secretary—whose only adventures had come through the pages of a book.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Sparks snapped off the switches and followed him to the door of the radio turret. Sparks was a stunted, usually-grinning, little redhead named Hannigan. But he wasn't grinning now. He laid an anxious hand on Greg's arm. "If I was you," he said, "if I was you, Malcolm, I don't think I'd say nothing to the boss about this. Not just yet, anyhow."
Greg said, "Why not?"
Sparks spluttered and fussed and made heavy weather of answering.
"Well, for one thing, it ain't important. It would only worry him. And then there's the womenfolks, they scare easy. Which of course they ain't no cause to. Atmospherics don't mean nothing. I've rode out worse storms than this—plenty of times. And in worse crates than the Carefree ."
Greg studied him carefully from behind trim plasta-rimmed spectacles. He drew a deep breath. He said levelly, "So it's that bad, eh, Sparks?"
"What bad? I just told you—"
"I know. Sparks, I'm not a professional spaceman. But I've studied astrogation as few Earthlubbers have. It's been my hobby for years. And I think I know what we're up against.
"We hit a warp-eddy last night. We've been trapped in a vortex for more than eight hours. Lord only knows how many hundreds of thousands of miles we've been borne off our course. And now we've blasted into a super-ionized belt of atmospherics. Your radio signals are blanketed. You can't get signals in or out. We're a deaf-mute speck of metal being whirled headlong through space. Isn't that it?"
"I don't know what—" began Sparks hotly. Then he stopped, studied his companion thoughtfully, nodded. "O.Q.," he confessed, "that's it. But we ain't licked yet. We got three good men on the bridge. Townsend ... Graves ... Langhorn. They'll pull out of this if anybody can. And they ain't no sense in scaring the Old Man and his family."
"I won't tell them," said Greg. "I won't tell them unless I have to. But between you and me, what are the odds against us, Sparks?"
The radioman shrugged.
"Who knows? Vortices are unpredictable. Maybe the damn thing will toss us out on the very spot it picked us up. Maybe it will give us the old chuckeroo a million miles the other side of Pluto. Maybe it will crack us up on an asteroid or satellite. No way of telling till it happens."
"And the controls?"
"As useless," said Sparks, "as a cow in a cyclone."
"So?"
"We sit tight," said Sparks succinctly, "and hope."
Malcolm nodded quietly. He took off his spectacles, breathed on them, wiped them, replaced them. He was tall and fair; in his neat, crisply pressed business suit he appeared even slimmer than he was. But there was no nervousness in his movements. He moved measuredly. "Well," he said, "that appears to be that. I'm going up to the dining dome."
Sparks stared at him querulously.
"You're a queer duck, Malcolm. I don't think you've got a nerve in your body."
"Nerves are a luxury I can't afford," replied Greg. "If anything happens—and if there's time to do so—let me know." He paused at the door. "Good luck," he said.
"Clear ether!" said Sparks mechanically. He stared after the other man wonderingly for a long moment, then went back to his control banks, shaking his head and muttering.
Gregory Malcolm climbed down the Jacob's-ladder and strode briskly through the labyrinthine corridors that were the entrails of the space yacht Carefree . He paused once to peer through a perilens set into the ship's port plates. It was a weird sight that met his gaze. Not space, ebony-black and bejewelled with a myriad flaming splotches of color; not the old, familiar constellations treading their ever-lasting, inexorable paths about the perimeter of Sol's tiny universe, but a shimmering webwork of light, so tortured-violet that the eyes ached to look upon it. This was the mad typhoon of space-atmospherics through which the Carefree was now being twisted, topsy-turvy, toward a nameless goal.
He moved on, approaching at last the quartzite-paned observation rotunda which was the dining dome of the ship.
His footsteps slowed as he composed himself to face those within. As he hesitated in the dimly-lighted passage, a trick of lights on glass mirrored to him the room beyond. He could see the others while they were as yet unaware of his presence. Their voices reached him clearly.
J. Foster Andrews, his employer and the employer of the ten thousand or more men and women who worked for Galactic Metals Corporation, dominated the head of the table. He was a plump, impatient little Napoleon. Opposite him, calm, graceful, serene, tastefully garbed and elaborately coiffured even here in deep space, three weeks from the nearest beauty shop, sat his wife, Enid.
On Andrews' right sat his sister, Maud. Not young, features plain as a mud fence, but charming despite her age and homeliness simply because of her eyes; puckish, shrewdly intelligent eyes, constantly aglint with suppressed humor at—guessed Greg—the amusing foibles and frailties of those about her.
She gave her breakfast the enthusiastic attention of one too old and shapeless to be concerned with such folderol as calories and dietetics, pausing only from time to time to share smidgeons of food with a watery-eyed scrap of white, curly fluff beside her chair. Her pet poodle, whom she called by the opprobrious title of "Cuddles."
On J. Foster's left sat his daughter, Crystal. She it was who caused Gregory Malcolm's staid, respectable heart to give a little lurch as he glimpsed her reflected vision—all gold and crimson and cream—in the glistening walls. If Crystal was her name, so, too, was crystal her loveliness.
But—Greg shook his head—but she was not for him. She was already pledged to the young man seated beside her. Ralph Breadon. He turned to murmur something to her as Greg watched; Greg saw and admired and disliked his rangy height, his sturdy, well-knit strength, the rich brownness of his skin, his hair, his eyes.
The sound of his own name startled Greg.
"Malcolm!" called the man at the head of the table. "Malcolm! Now where in blazes is he, anyhow?" he demanded of no one in particular, everyone in general. He spooned a dab of liquid gold from a Limoges preserve jar, tongued it suspiciously, frowned. "Bitter!" he complained.
"It's the very best Martian honey," said his wife.
"Drylands clover," added Crystal.
"It's still bitter," said J. Foster petulantly.
His sister sniffed. "Nonsense! It's delightful."
"I say it's bitter," repeated Andrews sulkily. And lifted his voice again. " Malcolm! Where are you?"
"You called me, sir?" said Malcolm, moving into the room. He nodded politely to the others. "Good morning, Mrs. Andrews ... Miss Andrews ... Mr. Breadon...."
"Oh, sit down!" snapped J. Foster. "Sit down here and stop bobbing your head like a teetotum! Had your breakfast? The honey's no good; it's bitter." He glared at his sister challengingly. "Where have you been, anyway? What kind of secretary are you? Have you been up to the radio turret? How's the market today? Is Galactic up or down?"
Malcolm said, "I don't know, sir."
"Fine! Fine!" Andrews rattled on automatically before the words registered. Then he started, his face turning red. "Eh? What's that? Don't know! What do you mean, you don't know? I pay you to—"
"There's no transmission, sir," said Greg quietly.
"No trans—nonsense! Of course there's transmission! I put a million credits into this ship. Finest space-yacht ever built. Latest equipment throughout. Sparks is drunk, that's what you mean! Well, you hop right up there and—"
Maud Andrews put down her fork with a clatter. "Oh, for goodness sakes, Jonathan, shut up and give the boy time to explain! He's standing there with his mouth gaping like a rain-spout, trying to get a word in edgewise! What's the trouble, Gregory?" She turned to Greg, as Jonathan Foster Andrews wheezed into startled silence. " That? "
She glanced at the quartzite dome, beyond which the veil of iridescence wove and cross-wove and shimmered like a pallid aurora.
Greg nodded. "Yes, Miss Andrews."
Enid Andrews spoke languidly from the other end of the table.
"But what is it, Gregory? A local phenomenon?"
"You might call it that," said Greg, selecting his words cautiously.
"It's an ionized field into which we've blasted. It—it—shouldn't stay with us long. But while it persists, our radio will be blanketed out."
Breadon's chestnut head came up suddenly, sharply.
"Ionization! That means atmosphere!"
Greg said, "Yes."
"And an atmosphere means a body in space somewhere near—" Breadon stopped, bit his lip before the appeal in Malcolm's eyes, tried to pass it off easily. "Oh, well—a change of scenery, what?"
But the moment of alarm in his voice had not passed unnoticed. Crystal Andrews spoke for all of them, her voice preternaturally quiet.
"You're hiding something, Malcolm. What is it? Is there—danger?"
But Greg didn't have to answer that question. From the doorway a harsh, defiantly strident voice answered for him. The voice of Bert Andrews, Crystal's older brother.
"Danger? You're damn right there's danger! What's the matter with you folks—are you all deaf, dumb and blind? We've been caught in a space-vortex for hours. Now we're in the H-layer of a planet we can't even see—and in fifteen minutes or fifteen seconds we may all be smashed as flat as pancakes!"
The proclamation brought them out of their chairs. Greg's heart sank; his vain plea, "Mr. Andrews—" was lost in the medley of Crystal's sudden gasp, Enid Andrews' short, choking scream, J. Foster's bellowing roar at his only son.
"Bert—you're drunk!"
Bert weaved precariously from the doorway, laughed in his father's face.
"Sure I'm drunk! Why not? If you're smart you'll get drunk, too. The whole damn lot of you!" He flicked a derisive hand toward Greg. "You too, Boy Scout! What were you trying to do—hide the bad news from them? Well, it's no use. Everybody might as well know the worst. We're gone gooses ... geeses ... aw, what the hell! Dead ducks!" He fell into a chair, sprawled there laughing mirthlessly with fear riding the too-high notes of his laughter.
J. Foster turned to his secretary slowly. His ire had faded; there was only deep concern in his voice.
"Is he telling the truth, Malcolm?"
Greg said soberly, "Partly, sir. He's overstating the danger—but there is danger. We are caught in a space-vortex, and as Mr. Breadon realized, the presence of these ionics means we're in the Heaviside-layer of some heavenly body. But we may not crack up."
Maud Andrews glanced at him shrewdly.
"Is there anything we can do?"
"Not a thing. The officers on the bridge are doing everything possible."
"In that case," said the older woman, "we might as well finish our breakfast. Here, Cuddles! Come to momsy!" She sat down again. Greg looked at her admiringly. Ralph Breadon stroked his brown jaw. He said,
"The life-skiffs?"
"A last resort," said Greg. "Sparks promised he'd let me know if it were necessary. We'll hope it's not—"
But it was a vain hope, vainly spoken in the last, vain moment. For even as he phrased the hopeful words, came the sound of swift, racing footsteps up the corridor. Into the dining dome burst Hannigan, eyes hot with excitement. And his cry dispelled Greg's final hopes for safety.
"Everybody—the Number Four life-skiff— quick ! We've been caught in a grav-drag and we're going to crash!"
II
Those next hectic moments were never afterward very clear in Greg Malcolm's memory. He had a confused recollection of hearing Sparks' warning punctuated by a loud, shrill scream which he vaguely identified as emanating from Mrs. Andrews' throat ... he was conscious of feeling, suddenly, beneath his feet the sickening, quickening lurch of a ship out of control, gripped by gravitational forces beyond its power to allay ... he recalled his own voice dinning in his ears as, incredibly, with Sparks, he took command of the hasty flight from the dining dome down the corridor to the aft ramp, up the ramp, across girdered beams in the super-structure to the small, independently motored rocket-skiff cradled there.
He was aware, too, of strangely disconnected incidents happening around him, he being a part of them but seeming to be only a disinterested spectator to their strangeness. Of his forcing Maud Andrews toward the door of the dome ... of her pushing back against him with all the weight of her body ... of her irate voice, "Cuddles! I forgot him!" Then the shrill excited yapping of the poodle cradled against her as they charged on down the corridor.
J. Foster waddling beside him, tugging at his arm, panting, "The officers?" and his own unfelt assurance. "They can take care of themselves. It's a general 'bandon ship." Enid Andrews stumbling over the hem of a filmy peignoir ... himself bending to lift her boldly and bodily, sweating palms feeling the warm animal heat of her excited body hot beneath them ... Crystal Andrews stopping suddenly, crying,
"'Tina!" ... and Hannigan's reply, "Your maid? I woke her. She's in the life-skiff." Bert Andrews stopping suddenly, being sick in the middle of the corridor, his drunkenness losing itself in the thick, sure nausea of the ever-increasing unsteadiness beneath their feet.
Then the life-skiff, the clang of metal as Hannigan slammed the port behind the last of them, the fumbling for a lock-stud, the quick, grateful pant of the miniature hypos, and a weird feeling of weightlessness, rushingness, hurtlingness as his eardrums throbbed and his mouth tasted brassy and bloody with the fierce velocity of their escape.
Sense and meaning returned only when all this ended. As one waking from a nightmare dream, Greg Malcolm returned to a world he could recognize. A tiny world, encased within the walls of a forty-foot life-skiff. A world peopled too scantily. Andrews, his wife and sister, his son and daughter; 'Tina Laney, the maid; Breadon, Hannigan, young Tommy O'Doul, the cabin-boy (though where he had come from, or when, Greg did not know). And himself. In a life-skiff. In space.
Somewhere in space. He looked through the perilens . What he saw then he might better never have seen. For that shimmering pink-ochre veil had wisped away, now, and in the clean, cold, bitter-clear light of a distant sun he watched the death-dive of the yacht Carefree .
Like a vast silver top, spinning heedlessly, wildly, it streaked toward a mottled gray and green, brown and dun, hard and crushing-brutal terrain below. Still at its helm stood someone, for even in that last dreadful moment burst from its nose-jets a ruddy mushroom of flame that tried to, but could not, brake the dizzy fall.
For an instant Greg's eyes, stingingly blinded and wet, thought they glimpsed a wee black mote dancing from the bowels of the Carefree ; a mote that might be another skiff like their own. But he could not be sure, and then the Carefree was accelerating with such violence and speed that the eye could see it only as a flaming silver lance against the ugly earth-carcase beneath, and then it struck and a carmine bud of flame burst and flowered for an instant, and that was all....
And Greg Malcolm turned from the perilens , shaken.
Hannigan said, "It's over?" and Greg nodded.
Hannigan said, "The other skiffs? Did they break free, or were they caught?"
"I don't know. I couldn't see for sure."
"You must have seen. Are we the only ones?"
"I couldn't see for sure. Maybe. Maybe not."
Then a body scrambled forward, pressing through the tightness of other huddled bodies, and there was a hand upon his elbow. "I'll take over now, Malcolm."
It was Ralph Breadon. Gregory looked at him slowly, uncomprehendingly at first. His hand was reluctant to leave the guiding-gear of the small ship which was, now, all that remained to them of civilization and civilization's wondrous accomplishments. He had not realized until this moment that for a while ... for a short, eager, pulse-quickening while ... on his alertness, in his hands, had depended the destinies of ten men and women. But he knew, suddenly and completely, that it was for this single moment his whole lifetime had waited. It was for this brief moment of command that some intuition, some instinct greater than knowledge, had prepared him. This was why he, an Earthlubber, had studied astrogation, made a hobby of the empire of the stars. That he might be fitted to command when all others failed. And now—
And now the moment was past, and he was once again Gregory Malcolm, mild, lean, pale, bespectacled secretary to J. Foster Andrews. And the man at his side was Ralph Breadon, socialite and gentleman sportsman, trained pilot. And in Malcolm the habit of obedience was strong....
"Very well, sir," he said. And he turned over the controls.
What happened then was unfortunate. It might just as well have happened to Malcolm, though afterward no one could ever say with certainty. However that was, either by carelessness or malfortune or inefficiency, once-thwarted disaster struck again at the little party on the life-skiff. At the instant Breadon's hand seized the controls the skiff jerked suddenly as though struck with a ponderous fist, its throbbing motors choked and snarled in a high, rising crescendo of torment that lost itself in supersonic heights, and the ship that had been drifting easily and under control to the planet beneath now dipped viciously.
The misfortune was that too many huddled in the tiny space understood the operation of the life-skiff, and what must be done instantly. And that neither pilot was as yet in control of the ship. Breadon's hand leaped for the Dixie rod, so, too, did Malcolm's—and across both their bodies came the arm of Sparks Hannigan, searching the controls.
In the scramble someone's sleeve brushed the banks of control-keys. The motors, killed, soughed into silence. The ship rocked into a spin. Greg cried out, his voice a strange harshness in his ears; Breadon cursed; one of the women bleated fearfully.
Then Breadon, still cursing, fought all hands from the controls but his own. And the man was not without courage. For all could see plainly, in the illumined perilens , how near to swift death that moment of uncertainty had led them. The skiff, which an instant before had been high in the stratosphere of this unknown planet ... or satellite or whatever it might be ... was now flashing toward hard ground at lightning speed.
Only a miracle, Greg knew, could save them now. An impulse spun his head, he looked at Crystal Andrews. There was no fear in her eyes. Just a hotness and an inexplicable anger. Beside her was the other girl, the maid, 'Tina; she was frankly afraid. Her teeth were clenched in her nether lip, and her eyes were wide and anxious, but she did not cry out.
Only a miracle could save them now. But Breadon's hands performed that miracle; his quick, nerveless, trained hands. A stud here ... a lever there ... a swift wrenching toss of the shoulders. His face twisted back over his shoulder, and his straining lips pulled taut and bloodless away from his teeth. "Hold tight, folks! We're going to bounce—"
Then they struck!
But they struck glancingly, as Breadon had hoped, and planned for, and gambled on. They struck and bounced. The frail craft shivered and groaned in metal agony, jarred across harsh soil, bounced again, settled, nosed over and rocked to a standstill. Somewhere forward something snapped with a shrill, high ping! of stress; somewhere aft was the metallic flap-clanging of broken gear trailing behind them. But they were safe.
Breath, held so long that he could not remember its inhalation, escaped Greg's lungs in a long sigh. "Nice work, Mr. Breadon!" he cried. "Oh, nice work!"
But surprisingly, savagely, Breadon turned on him.
"It would have been better work, Malcolm, if you'd kept your damned hands off the controls! Now see what you've done? Smashed up our skiff! Our only—"
"He didn't do it!" piped the shrill voice of Tommy O'Doul. "You done it yourself, Mr. Breadon. Your sleeve. It caught the switch."
"Quiet!" Breadon, cheeks flushed, reached out smartly, stilled the youngster's defense with a swift, ungentle slap. "And you, Malcolm—after this, do as you're told, and don't try to assume responsibilities too great for you. All right, everybody. Let's get out and see how bad the damage is."
Instinctively Greg had surged a half step forward as Breadon silenced the cabin boy. Now old habit and common-sense halted him. He's overwrought, he reasoned. We're all excited and on edge. We've been to Bedlam. Our nerves are shot. In a little while we'll all be back to normal.
He said quietly, "Very well, Mr. Breadon." And he climbed from the broken skiff.
Hannigan said, "Looks bad, don't it?"
"Very," said Malcolm. He fingered a shard of loose metal flapping like a fin from the stern of the skiff. "Not hopeless, though. There should be an acetylene torch in the tool locker. With that—"
"You ought to of poked him," said Hannigan.
"What? Oh, you mean—?"
"Yeah. The kid was right, you know. He done it."
"His sleeve, you mean. Well, it was an accident," said Greg. "It could have happened to anyone. And he made a good landing. Considering everything. Anyhow—" Again he was Gregory Malcolm, serious-faced, efficient secretary. "Anyhow, we have been thrust into an extremely precarious circumstance. It would be silly to take umbrage at a man's nervous anger. We must have no quarreling, no bickering—"
"Umbrage!" snorted Sparks. "Bickering! They're big words. I ain't sure I know what they mean. I ain't exactly sure they mean anything ." He glanced at Greg oddly. "You're a queer jasper, Malcolm. Back there on the ship, I figured you for a sort of a stuffed-shirt. Yes-man to the boss. And then in the show-down, you come through like a movie hero—for a little while. Then you let that Breadon guy give you the spur without a squawk—"
Malcolm adjusted his plasta-rimmed spectacles. He said, almost stubbornly, "Our situation is grave. There must be no bickering."
"Bickering your Aunt Jenny! What do you call that?"
Sparks jerked a contemptuous thumb toward the group from which they were separated. Upon disembarking, only Greg and Sparks had moved to make a careful examination of their damaged craft. The others, more or less under the direction of Breadon, were making gestures toward removing certain necessaries from the skiff. Their efforts, slight and uncertain as they were, had already embroiled them in argument.
The gist of their argument, so far as Greg Malcolm could determine, was that everyone wanted "something" to be done, but no two could agree as to just what that something was, and no one seemed to have any bursting desire to participate in actual physical labor.
J. Foster Andrews, all traces of his former panic and confusion fled, was planted firmly, Napoleonically, some few yards from the open port of the life-skiff, barking impatient orders at little Tommy O'Doul who—as Greg watched—stumbled from the port bearing a huge armload of edibles.
'Tina, the maid, was in a frenzy of motion, trying to administer to the complaints and demands of Mrs. Andrews (whose immaculate hair-do had suffered in the frenetic minutes of their flight) and Crystal Andrews
(who knew perfectly well there were sweaters in the life-skiff) and Miss Maud (who wanted a can of prepared dog-food and a can-opener immediately, and look at poor Cuddles, momsy's 'ittle pet was so hungry)!
Bert Andrews was sulkily insisting that it was nonsense to leave the warmth and security of the skiff anyway, and he wished he had a drink, while the harassed, self-appointed commander of the refugee corps was shouting at whomever happened, at any given moment, to capture his divided and completely frantic attention. His orders were masterpieces of confusion, developing around one premise that the castaway crew should immediately set up a camp. Where, how, or with what nonexistent equipment, Breadon did not venture to say.
"You see what I mean?" demanded Sparks disgustedly.
Greg Malcolm saw. He also saw other things. That their landing-spot, while excellent for its purpose, was not by any manner of means an ideal campsite. It was a small, flat basin of sandy soil, rimmed by shallow mountains. His gaze sought these hills, looked approvingly on their greenness, upon the multitude of dark pock-marks dotting them. These caves, were they not the habitations of potential enemies, might well become the sanctuaries of spacewrecked men.
He saw, also, a thin ribbon of silver sheering the face of the northern hills. His gaze, rising still skyward, saw other things—
He nodded. He knew, now, where they were. Or approximately. There was but one planet in the solar system which boasted such a phenomenon. The apparent distance of the Sun, judged by its diminished disc, argued his judgment to be correct. The fact that they had surged through an atmospheric belt for some length of time before finally meeting with disaster.
"Titan," he said. "Hyperion possibly. But probably Titan."
Sparks' gaze, following Greg's upward, contracted in an expression of dismay.
"Dirty cow! You mean that's where we are?"
"I believe so. There's Saturn, our mother planet, looming above us as large as a dinner plate. And the grav-drag here is almost Earth norm. Titan has a 3,000 mile diameter. That, combined with the Saturnian tractile constant, would give us a strong pull."
Sparks wailed, "But Titan! Great morning, Malcolm, nobody ever comes to Titan! There ain't no mines here, no colonies, no—" He stopped suddenly, his eyes widening yet farther. "And, hey—this place is dangerous ! There are—"
"I know it," said Greg swiftly, quietly. "Shut up, Sparks. No use telling the others. If they don't guess it themselves, what they don't know won't alarm them. We've got to do something, though. Get ourselves organized into a defensive community. That's the only way—"
Ralph Breadon's sharp, dictatorial voice interrupted him. "Well, Malcolm, stop soldiering and make yourself useful!"
And J. Foster, not to have his authority usurped, supplemented the order. "Yes, Malcolm, let's get going! No time for day-dreaming, my man. We want action!"
Sparks said, "Maybe you'll get it now, fatty!" under his breath, and looked at Malcolm hopefully. But his companion merely nodded, moved forward toward the others, quietly obedient to the command.
"Yes, sir," he said.
Hannigan groaned and followed him.
III
Breadon said, "All right, Tommy, dump them here. I have a few words to say." He glanced about him pompously. "Now, folks, naturally we want to get away from here as soon as possible. Therefore I delegate you, Sparks, to immediately get a message off. An SOS to the nearest space cruiser."
Hannigan grinned. It was not a pleasant grin. He took his time answering. He spat thoughtfully on the ground before him, lifted his head. He said, "A message, huh?"
"That's what I said."
"And what'll I send it with?" drawled Sparks. "Tom-toms?"
Breadon flushed darkly.
"I believe the life-skiff was equipped with a radio? And theoretically you are a radio operator?"
"Finest radio money can buy!" interpolated J. Foster Andrews proudly.
"Put a million credits into the Carefree . Best equipment throughout."
Sparks looked from one to another of them, grinned insolently. "You're both right. I am a radio operator, and there was a radio. But we crashed, remember? On account of some dope's sleeve got caught in the master switch—"
"That will do!" snapped Breadon angrily. He stared at the bandy-legged little redhead. "You mean the radio was broken?"
"It wasn't helped none. The tubes was made out of glass, and glass don't bounce so good."
Greg Malcolm said thoughtfully, "Sparks, can't you fix it?"
"Well, mebbe. But not in five minutes. Maybe not in five years. I won't know till I get going on it."
Breadon frowned.
"I'll handle this, Malcolm," he crisped. Again to the radioman, "Well, you get to work on it immediately. And as soon as you get it fixed, send out an SOS advising the patrol where we are—"
"Speaking of which," insinuated Sparks, "where are we?"
Breadon glared at him wrathfully.
"Why—why on one of the satellites of Saturn, of course. Any fool can see that!"
"O.Q. But does any fool know which one? Or shall I tell you it's Titan? And when you know that, then what? Titan wasn't named that on account of it was a pimple. It's a big place. What'll I tell the Patrol? SOS. Stranded in the middle of we-don't-know-where, somewhere on Titan, maybe. They'll be hunting for us till we've got whiskers down to our knees."
Breadon's irate look vanished. He looked stricken. He said, "I—I don't know. We have a compass—"
Once again it was Gregory Malcolm who entered into the conversation. He had been toying, almost absentmindedly, with a funnel taken from the skiff's stores. Into this he had poured a small portion of water; his right forefinger was pressed to the bottom of the tube, closing it. He said, "I can answer part of that question now. Enough to cut the search in half, anyway. We're in the northern hemisphere of the satellite."
Maud Andrews looked at him sharply as if noticing him for the first time in her life.
"How," she asked, "did you know that, Malcolm?"
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What is the plot of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Yesterday House by Fritz Leiber.
Relevant chunks:
Yesterday House
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by ASHMAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Meeting someone who's been dead for twenty years is shocking enough for anyone with a belief in ghosts—worse for one with none!
I
The narrow cove was quiet as the face of an expectant child, yet so near the ruffled Atlantic that the last push of wind carried the Annie O. its full length. The man in gray flannels and sweatshirt let the sail come crumpling down and hurried past its white folds at a gait made comically awkward by his cramped muscles. Slowly the rocky ledge came nearer. Slowly the blue V inscribed on the cove's surface by the sloop's prow died. Sloop and ledge kissed so gently that he hardly had to reach out his hand.
He scrambled ashore, dipping a sneaker in the icy water, and threw the line around a boulder. Unkinking himself, he looked back through the cove's high and rocky mouth at the gray-green scattering of islands and the faint dark line that was the coast of Maine. He almost laughed in satisfaction at having disregarded vague warnings and done the thing every man yearns to do once in his lifetime—gone to the farthest island out.
He must have looked longer than he realized, because by the time he dropped his gaze the cove was again as glassy as if the Annie O. had always been there. And the splotches made by his sneaker on the rock had faded in the hot sun. There was something very unusual about the quietness of this place. As if time, elsewhere hurrying frantically, paused here to rest. As if all changes were erased on this one bit of Earth.
The man's lean, melancholy face crinkled into a grin at the banal fancy. He turned his back on his new friend, the little green sloop, without one thought for his nets and specimen bottles, and set out to explore. The ground rose steeply at first and the oaks were close, but after a little way things went downhill and the leaves thinned and he came out on more rocks—and realized that he hadn't quite gone to the farthest one out.
Joined to this island by a rocky spine, which at the present low tide would have been dry but for the spray, was another green, high island that the first had masked from him all the while he had been sailing. He felt a thrill of discovery, just as he'd wondered back in the woods whether his might not be the first human feet to kick through the underbrush. After all, there were thousands of these islands.
Then he was dropping down the rocks, his lanky limbs now moving smoothly enough.
To the landward side of the spine, the water was fairly still. It even began with another deep cove, in which he glimpsed the spiny spheres of sea urchins. But from seaward the waves chopped in, sprinkling his trousers to the knees and making him wince pleasurably at the thought of what vast wings of spray and towers of solid water must crash up from here in a storm.
He crossed the rocks at a trot, ran up a short grassy slope, raced through a fringe of trees—and came straight up against an eight-foot fence of heavy mesh topped with barbed wire and backed at a short distance with high, heavy shrubbery.
Without pausing for surprise—in fact, in his holiday mood, using surprise as a goad—he jumped for the branch of an oak whose trunk touched the fence, scorning the easier lower branch on the other side of the tree. Then he drew himself up, worked his way to some higher branches that crossed the fence, and dropped down inside.
Suddenly cautious, he gently parted the shrubbery and, before the first surprise could really sink in, had another.
A closely mown lawn dotted with more shrubbery ran up to a snug white Cape Cod cottage. The single strand of a radio aerial stretched the length of the roof. Parked on a neat gravel driveway that crossed just in front of the cottage was a short, square-lined touring car that he recognized from remembered pictures as an ancient Essex. The whole scene had about it the same odd quietness as the cove.
Then, with the air of a clock-work toy coming to life, the white door opened and an elderly woman came out, dressed in a long, lace-edged dress and wide, lacy hat. She climbed into the driver's seat of the Essex, sitting there very stiff and tall. The motor began to chug bravely, gravel skittered, and the car rolled off between the trees.
The door of the house opened again and a slim girl emerged. She wore a white silk dress that fell straight from square neck-line to hip-height waistline, making the skirt seem very short. Her dark hair was bound with a white bandeau so that it curved close to her cheeks. A dark necklace dangled against the white of the dress. A newspaper was tucked under her arm.
She crossed the driveway and tossed the paper down on a rattan table between three rattan chairs and stood watching a squirrel zigzag across the lawn.
The man stepped through the wall of shrubbery, called, "hello!" and walked toward her.
She whirled around and stared at him as still as if her heart had stopped beating. Then she darted behind the table and waited for him there. Granting the surprise of his appearance, her alarm seemed not so much excessive as eerie. As if, the man thought, he were not an ordinary stranger, but a visitor from another planet.
Approaching closer, he saw that she was trembling and that her breath was coming in rapid, irregular gasps. Yet the slim, sweet, patrician face that stared into his had an underlying expression of expectancy that reminded him of the cove. She couldn't have been more than eighteen.
He stopped short of the table. Before he could speak, she stammered out, "Are you he?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, smiling puzzledly.
"The one who sends me the little boxes."
"I was out sailing and I happened to land in the far cove. I didn't dream that anyone lived on this island, or even came here."
"No one ever does come here," she replied. Her manner had changed, becoming at once more wary and less agitated, though still eerily curious.
"It startled me tremendously to find this place," he blundered on.
"Especially the road and the car. Why, this island can't be more than a quarter of a mile wide."
"The road goes down to the wharf," she explained, "and up to the top of the island, where my aunts have a tree-house."
He tore his mind away from the picture of a woman dressed like Queen Mary clambering up a tree. "Was that your aunt I saw driving off?"
"One of them. The other's taken the motorboat in for supplies." She looked at him doubtfully. "I'm not sure they'll like it if they find someone here."
"There are just the three of you?" he cut in quickly, looking down the empty road that vanished among the oaks.
She nodded.
"I suppose you go in to the mainland with your aunts quite often?"
She shook her head.
"It must get pretty dull for you."
"Not very," she said, smiling. "My aunts bring me the papers and other things. Even movies. We've got a projector. My favorite stars are Antonio Morino and Alice Terry. I like her better even than Clara Bow."
He looked at her hard for a moment. "I suppose you read a lot?"
She nodded. "Fitzgerald's my favorite author." She started around the table, hesitated, suddenly grew shy. "Would you like some lemonade?"
He'd noticed the dewed silver pitcher, but only now realized his thirst. Yet when she handed him a glass, he held it untasted and said awkwardly, "I haven't introduced myself. I'm Jack Barry."
She stared at his outstretched right hand, slowly extended her own toward it, shook it up and down exactly once, then quickly dropped it.
He chuckled and gulped some lemonade. "I'm a biology student. Been working at Wood's Hole the first part of the summer. But now I'm here to do research in marine ecology—that's sort of sea-life patterns—of the in-shore islands. Under the direction of Professor Kesserich. You know about him, of course?"
She shook her head.
"Probably the greatest living biologist," he was proud to inform her. "Human physiology as well. Tremendous geneticist. In a class with Carlson and Jacques Loeb. Martin Kesserich—he lives over there at town. I'm staying with him. You ought to have heard of him." He grinned. "Matter of fact, I'd never have met you if it hadn't been for Mrs. Kesserich."
The girl looked puzzled.
Jack explained, "The old boy's been off to Europe on some conferences, won't be back for a couple days more. But I was to get started anyhow. When I went out this morning Mrs. Kesserich—she's a drab sort of person—said to me, 'Don't try to sail to the farther islands.' So, of course, I had to. By the way, you still haven't told me your name."
"Mary Alice Pope," she said, speaking slowly and with an odd wonder, as if she were saying it for the first time.
"You're pretty shy, aren't you?"
"How would I know?"
The question stopped Jack. He couldn't think of anything to say to this strangely attractive girl dressed almost like a "flapper."
"Will you sit down?" she asked him gravely.
The rattan chair sighed under his weight. He made another effort to talk. "I'll bet you'll be glad when summer's over."
"Why?"
"So you'll be able to go back to the mainland."
"But I never go to the mainland."
"You mean you stay out here all winter?" he asked incredulously, his mind filled with a vision of snow and frozen spray and great gray waves.
"Oh, yes. We get all our supplies on hand before winter. My aunts are very capable. They don't always wear long lace dresses. And now I help them."
"But that's impossible!" he said with sudden sympathetic anger. "You can't be shut off this way from people your own age!"
"You're the first one I ever met." She hesitated. "I never saw a boy or a man before, except in movies."
"You're joking!"
"No, it's true."
"But why are they doing it to you?" he demanded, leaning forward. "Why are they inflicting this loneliness on you, Mary?"
She seemed to have gained poise from his loss of it. "I don't know why. I'm to find out soon. But actually I'm not lonely. May I tell you a secret?" She touched his hand, this time with only the faintest trembling. "Every night the loneliness gathers in around me—you're right about that. But then every morning new life comes to me in a little box."
"What's that?" he said sharply.
"Sometimes there's a poem in the box, sometimes a book, or pictures, or flowers, or a ring, but always a note. Next to the notes I like the poems best. My favorite is the one by Matthew Arnold that ends,
'Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude—'"
"Wait a minute," he interrupted. "Who sends you these boxes?"
"I don't know."
"But how are the notes signed?"
"They're wonderful notes," she said. "So wise, so gay, so tender, you'd imagine them being written by John Barrymore or Lindbergh."
"Yes, but how are they signed?"
She hesitated. "Never anything but 'Your Lover.'"
"And so when you first saw me, you thought—" He began, then stopped because she was blushing.
"How long have you been getting them?"
"Ever since I can remember. I have two closets of the boxes. The new ones are either by my bed when I wake or at my place at breakfast."
"But how does this—person get these boxes to you out here? Does he give them to your aunts and do they put them there?"
"I'm not sure."
"But how can they get them in winter?"
"I don't know."
"Look here," he said, pouring himself more lemonade, "how long is it since you've been to the mainland?"
"Almost eighteen years. My aunts tell me I was born there in the middle of the war."
"What war?" he asked startledly, spilling some lemonade.
"The World War, of course. What's the matter?"
Jack Barr was staring down at the spilled lemonade and feeling a kind of terror he'd never experienced in his waking life. Nothing around him had changed. He could still feel the same hot sun on his shoulders, the same icy glass in his hand, scent the same lemon-acid odor in his nostrils. He could still hear the faint chop-chop of the waves.
And yet everything had changed, gone dark and dizzy as a landscape glimpsed just before a faint. All the little false notes had come to a sudden focus. For the lemonade had spilled on the headline of the newspaper the girl had tossed down, and the headline read:
HITLER IN NEW DEFIANCE
Under the big black banner of that head swam smaller ones:
Foes of Machado Riot in Havana
Big NRA Parade Planned
Balbo Speaks in New York
Suddenly he felt a surge of relief. He had noticed that the paper was yellow and brittle-edged.
"Why are you so interested in old newspapers?" he asked.
"I wouldn't call day-before-yesterday's paper old," the girl objected, pointing at the dateline: July 20, 1933.
"You're trying to joke," Jack told her.
"No, I'm not."
"But it's 1953."
"Now it's you who are joking."
"But the paper's yellow."
"The paper's always yellow."
He laughed uneasily. "Well, if you actually think it's 1933, perhaps you're to be envied," he said, with a sardonic humor he didn't quite feel. "Then you can't know anything about the Second World War, or television, or the V-2s, or Bikini bathing suits, or the atomic bomb, or—"
"Stop!" She had sprung up and retreated around her chair, white-faced.
"I don't like what you're saying."
"But—"
"No, please! Jokes that may be quite harmless on the mainland sound different here."
"I'm really not joking," he said after a moment.
She grew quite frantic at that. "I can show you all last week's papers! I can show you magazines and other things. I can prove it!"
She started toward the house. He followed. He felt his heart begin to pound.
At the white door she paused, looking worriedly down the road. Jack thought he could hear the faint chug of a motorboat. She pushed open the door and he followed her inside. The small-windowed room was dark after the sunlight. Jack got an impression of solid old furniture, a fireplace with brass andirons.
"Flash!" croaked a gritty voice. "After their disastrous break day before yesterday, stocks are recovering. Leading issues...."
Jack realized that he had started and had involuntarily put his arm around the girl's shoulders. At the same time he noticed that the voice was coming from the curved brown trumpet of an old-fashioned radio loudspeaker.
The girl didn't pull away from him. He turned toward her. Although her gray eyes were on him, her attention had gone elsewhere.
"I can hear the car. They're coming back. They won't like it that you're here."
"All right they won't like it."
Her agitation grew. "No, you must go."
"I'll come back tomorrow," he heard himself saying.
"Flash! It looks as if the World Economic Conference may soon adjourn, mouthing jeers at old Uncle Sam who is generally referred to as Uncle Shylock."
Jack felt a numbness on his neck. The room seemed to be darkening, the girl growing stranger still.
"You must go before they see you."
"Flash! Wiley Post has just completed his solo circuit of the Globe, after a record-breaking flight of 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes. Asked how he felt after the energy-draining feat, Post quipped...."
He was halfway across the lawn before he realized the terror into which the grating radio voice had thrown him.
He leaped for the branch over-hanging the fence, vaulted up with the risky help of a foot on the barbed top. A surprised squirrel, lacking time to make its escape up the trunk, sprang to the ground ahead of him. With terrible suddenness, two steel-jawed semicircles clanked together just over the squirrel's head. Jack landed with one foot to either side of the sprung trap, while the squirrel darted off with a squeak.
Jack plunged down the slope to the rocky spine and ran across it, spray from the rising waves spattering him to the waist. Panting now, he stumbled up into the oaks and undergrowth of the first island, fought his way through it, finally reached the silent cove. He loosed the line of the Annie O. , dragged it as near to the cove's mouth as he could, plunged knee-deep in freezing water to give it a final shove, scrambled aboard, snatched up the boathook and punched at the rocks.
As soon as the Annie O. was nosing out of the cove into the cross waves, he yanked up the sail. The freshening wind filled it and sent the sloop heeling over, with inches of white water over the lee rail, and plunging ahead.
For a long while, Jack was satisfied to think of nothing but the wind and the waves and the sail and speed and danger, to have all his attention taken up balancing one against the other, so that he wouldn't have to ask himself what year it was and whether time was an illusion, and wonder about flappers and hidden traps.
When he finally looked back at the island, he was amazed to see how tiny it had grown, as distant as the mainland.
Then he saw a gray motorboat astern. He watched it as it slowly overtook him. It was built like a lifeboat, with a sturdy low cabin in the bow and wheel amidship. Whoever was at the wheel had long gray hair that whipped in the wind. The longer he looked, the surer he was that it was a woman wearing a lace dress. Something that stuck up inches over the cabin flashed darkly beside her. Only when she lifted it to the roof of the cabin did it occur to him that it might be a rifle.
But just then the motorboat swung around in a turn that sent waves drenching over it, and headed back toward the island. He watched it for a minute in wonder, then his attention was jolted by an angry hail.
Three fishing smacks, also headed toward town, were about to cross his bow. He came around into the wind and waited with shaking sail, watching a man in a lumpy sweater shake a fist at him. Then he turned and gratefully followed the dark, wide, fanlike sterns and age-yellowed sails.
II
The exterior of Martin Kesserich's home—a weathered white cube with narrow, sharp-paned windows, topped by a cupola—was nothing like its lavish interior.
In much the same way, Mrs. Kesserich clashed with the darkly gleaming furniture, persian rugs and bronze vases around her. Her shapeless black form, poised awkwardly on the edge of a huge sofa, made Jack think of a cow that had strayed into the drawing room. He wondered again how a man like Kesserich had come to marry such a creature.
Yet when she lifted up her little eyes from the shadows, he had the uneasy feeling that she knew a great deal about him. The eyes were still those of a domestic animal, but of a wise one that has been watching the house a long, long while from the barnyard.
He asked abruptly, "Do you know anything of a girl around here named Mary Alice Pope?"
The silence lasted so long that he began to think she'd gone into some bovine trance. Then, without a word, she got up and went over to a tall cabinet. Feeling on a ledge behind it for a key, she opened a panel, opened a cardboard box inside it, took something from the box and handed him a photograph. He held it up to the failing light and sucked in his breath with surprise.
It was a picture of the girl he'd met that afternoon. Same flat-bosomed dress—flowered rather than white—no bandeau, same beads. Same proud, demure expression, perhaps a bit happier.
"That is Mary Alice Pope," Mrs. Kesserich said in a strangely flat voice. "She was Martin's fiancee. She was killed in a railway accident in 1933."
The small sound of the cabinet door closing brought Jack back to reality. He realized that he no longer had the photograph. Against the gloom by the cabinet, Mrs. Kesserich's white face looked at him with what seemed a malicious eagerness.
"Sit down," she said, "and I'll tell you about it."
Without a thought as to why she hadn't asked him a single question—he was much too dazed for that—he obeyed. Mrs. Kesserich resumed her position on the edge of the sofa.
"You must understand, Mr. Barr, that Mary Alice Pope was the one love of Martin's life. He is a man of very deep and strong feelings, yet as you probably know, anything but kindly or demonstrative. Even when he first came here from Hungary with his older sisters Hani and Hilda, there was a cloak of loneliness about him—or rather about the three of them.
"Hani and Hilda were athletic outdoor women, yet fiercely proud—I don't imagine they ever spoke to anyone in America except as to a servant—and with a seething distaste for all men except Martin. They showered all their devotion on him. So of course, though Martin didn't realize it, they were consumed with jealousy when he fell in love with Mary Alice Pope. They'd thought that since he'd reached forty without marrying, he was safe.
"Mary Alice came from a pure-bred, or as a biologist would say, inbred British stock. She was very young, but very sweet, and up to a point very wise. She sensed Hani and Hilda's feelings right away and did everything she could to win them over. For instance, though she was afraid of horses, she took up horseback riding, because that was Hani and Hilda's favorite pastime. Naturally, Martin knew nothing of her fear, and naturally his sisters knew about it from the first. But—and here is where Mary's wisdom fell short—her brave gesture did not pacify them: it only increased their hatred.
"Except for his research, Martin was blind to everything but his love. It was a beautiful and yet frightening passion, an insane cherishing as narrow and intense as his sisters hatred."
With a start, Jack remembered that it was Mrs. Kesserich telling him all this.
She went on, "Martin's love directed his every move. He was building a home for himself and Mary, and in his mind he was building a wonderful future for them as well—not vaguely, if you know Martin, but year by year, month by month. This winter, he'd plan, they would visit Buenos Aires, next summer they would sail down the inland passage and he would teach Mary Hungarian for their trip to Buda-Pesth the year after, where he would occupy a chair at the university for a few months ... and so on. Finally the time for their marriage drew near. Martin had been away. His research was keeping him very busy—"
Jack broke in with, "Wasn't that about the time he did his definitive work on growth and fertilization?"
Mrs. Kesserich nodded with solemn appreciation in the gathering darkness. "But now he was coming home, his work done. It was early evening, very chilly, but Hani and Hilda felt they had to ride down to the station to meet their brother. And although she dreaded it, Mary rode with them, for she knew how delighted he would be at her cantering to the puffing train and his running up to lift her down from the saddle to welcome him home.
"Of course there was Martin's luggage to be considered, so the station wagon had to be sent down for that." She looked defiantly at Jack. "I drove the station wagon. I was Martin's laboratory assistant."
She paused. "It was almost dark, but there was still a white cold line of sky to the west. Hani and Hilda, with Mary between them, were waiting on their horses at the top of the hill that led down to the station. The train had whistled and its headlight was graying the gravel of the crossing.
"Suddenly Mary's horse squealed and plunged down the hill. Hani and Hilda followed—to try to catch her, they said, but they didn't manage that, only kept her horse from veering off. Mary never screamed, but as her horse reared on the tracks, I saw her face in the headlight's glare.
"Martin must have guessed, or at least feared what had happened, for he was out of the train and running along the track before it stopped. In fact, he was the first to kneel down beside Mary—I mean, what had been Mary—and was holding her all bloody and shattered in his arms."
A door slammed. There were steps in the hall. Mrs. Kesserich stiffened and was silent. Jack turned.
The blur of a face hung in the doorway to the hall—a seemingly young, sensitive, suavely handsome face with aristocratic jaw. Then there was a click and the lights flared up and Jack saw the close-cropped gray hair and the lines around the eyes and nostrils, while the sensitive mouth grew sardonic. Yet the handsomeness stayed, and somehow the youth, too, or at least a tremendous inner vibrancy.
"Hello, Barr," Martin Kesserich said, ignoring his wife.
The great biologist had come home.
III
"Oh, yes, and Jamieson had a feeble paper on what he called individualization in marine worms. Barr, have you ever thought much about the larger aspects of the problem of individuality?"
Jack jumped slightly. He had let his thoughts wander very far.
"Not especially, sir," he mumbled.
The house was still. A few minutes after the professor's arrival, Mrs. Kesserich had gone off with an anxious glance at Jack. He knew why and wished he could reassure her that he would not mention their conversation to the professor.
Kesserich had spent perhaps a half hour briefing him on the more important papers delivered at the conferences. Then, almost as if it were a teacher's trick to show up a pupil's inattention, he had suddenly posed this question about individuality.
"You know what I mean, of course," Kesserich pressed. "The factors that make you you, and me me."
"Heredity and environment," Jack parroted like a freshman.
Kesserich nodded. "Suppose—this is just speculation—that we could control heredity and environment. Then we could re-create the same individual at will."
Jack felt a shiver go through him. "To get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits. That'd be far beyond us."
"What about identical twins?" Kesserich pointed out. "And then there's parthenogenesis to be considered. One might produce a duplicate of the mother without the intervention of the male." Although his voice had grown more idly speculative, Kesserich seemed to Jack to be smiling secretly. "There are many examples in the lower animal forms, to say nothing of the technique by which Loeb caused a sea urchin to reproduce with no more stimulus than a salt solution."
Jack felt the hair rising on his neck. "Even then you wouldn't get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits."
"Not if the parent were of very pure stock? Not if there were some special technique for selecting ova that would reproduce all the mother's traits?"
"But environment would change things," Jack objected. "The duplicate would be bound to develop differently."
"Is environment so important? Newman tells about a pair of identical twins separated from birth, unaware of each other's existence. They met by accident when they were twenty-one. Each was a telephone repairman. Each had a wife the same age. Each had a baby son. And each had a fox terrier called 'Trixie.' That's without trying to make environments similar. But suppose you did try. Suppose you saw to it that each of them had exactly the same experiences at the same times...."
For a moment it seemed to Jack that the room was dimming and wavering, becoming a dark pool in which the only motionless thing was Kesserich's sphinx-like face.
"Well, we've escaped quite far enough from Jamieson's marine worms," the biologist said, all brisk again. He said it as if Jack were the one who had led the conversation down wild and unprofitable channels.
"Let's get on to your project. I want to talk it over now, because I won't have any time for it tomorrow."
Jack looked at him blankly.
"Tomorrow I must attend to a very important matter," the biologist explained.
IV
Morning sunlight brightened the colors of the wax flowers under glass on the high bureau that always seemed to emit the faint odor of old hair combings. Jack pulled back the diamond-patterned quilt and blinked the sleep from his eyes. He expected his mind to be busy wondering about Kesserich and his wife—things said and half said last night—but found instead that his thoughts swung instantly to Mary Alice Pope, as if to a farthest island in a world of people.
Downstairs, the house was empty. After a long look at the cabinet—he felt behind it, but the key was gone—he hurried down to the waterfront. He stopped only for a bowl of chowder and, as an afterthought, to buy half a dozen newspapers.
The sea was bright, the brisk wind just right for the Annie O. There was eagerness in the way it smacked the sail and in the creak of the mast. And when he reached the cove, it was no longer still, but nervous with faint ripples, as if time had finally begun to stir.
After the same struggle with the underbrush, he came out on the rocky spine and passed the cove of the sea urchins. The spiny creatures struck an uncomfortable chord in his memory.
This time he climbed the second island cautiously, scraping the innocent-seeming ground ahead of him intently with a boathook he'd brought along for the purpose. He was only a few yards from the fence when he saw Mary Alice Pope standing behind it.
He hadn't realized that his heart would begin to pound or that, at the same time, a shiver of almost supernatural dread would go through him.
The girl eyed him with an uneasy hostility and immediately began to speak in a hushed, hurried voice. "You must go away at once and never come back. You're a wicked man, but I don't want you to be hurt. I've been watching for you all morning."
He tossed the newspapers over the fence. "You don't have to read them now," he told her. "Just look at the datelines and a few of the headlines."
When she finally lifted her eyes to his again, she was trembling. She tried unsuccessfully to speak.
"Listen to me," he said. "You've been the victim of a scheme to make you believe you were born around 1916 instead of 1933, and that it's
1933 now instead of 1951. I'm not sure why it's been done, though I think I know who you really are."
"But," the girl faltered, "my aunts tell me it's 1933."
"They would."
"And there are the papers ... the magazines ... the radio."
"The papers are old ones. The radio's faked—some sort of recording. I could show you if I could get at it."
" These papers might be faked," she said, pointing to where she'd let them drop on the ground.
"They're new," he said. "Only old papers get yellow."
"But why would they do it to me? Why? "
"Come with me to the mainland, Mary. That'll set you straight quicker than anything."
"I couldn't," she said, drawing back. "He's coming tonight."
"He?"
"The man who sends me the boxes ... and my life."
Jack shivered. When he spoke, his voice was rough and quick. "A life that's completely a lie, that's cut you off from the world. Come with me, Mary."
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
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"Jack Barry is a biology student, who sets sail on his boat \"Annie O\". He has sailed out to the furthest island off the coast of Maine. He gets to the shore and docks his boat. He sets out to explore the island. Once he reaches the summit, he finds that there is another island, connected by a thin line of rocks to the one he is on. He climbs down the slope, onto the rocks and crosses to the other side. He arrives at a gate, which he manages to overcome. Beyond the fence is a cottage, with a lawn. The whole scene is old fashioned and slightly eerie. An elderly woman comes out of the house, gets in an old car and drives away. A pretty girl, dressed like a flapper comes out. Jack walks over to her. She asks if he is the man who sends her little boxes. She tells him she lives here with her aunts. They talk for a while, Jack telling her about his professor \" Martin Kesserich\", whom he's staying with. The girl tells Jack her name is Mary Alice Pope. She says she's never been to the mainland, and that she's never met anyone her own age, let alone a man. She explains to him that every morning she receives a little box with a gift inside, and a note, signed by \"Your Lover\". She tells him she was born in the middle of the first world war, and that the year is 1933. Jack tries to convince her that it is in fact 1951. She doesn't believe him. They hear her aunt's car returning, so Jack leaves, telling her he'll be back tomorrow. He makes his way back to the Annie O. Once at sea, he sees the chug boat of one of Mary Alice's aunts, who points what looks like a rifle at him, before turning away to go back to the island. When Jack returns to his professor's home, he asks Mrs Kesserich about Mary Alice. She informs Jack that Mary Alice was the love of her husband's life, who died in 1933. Martin arrives home, and begins a hypothetical discussion with Jack about the possibility of recreating a human being. If you could take the same DNA as the original, and put the copy in the same circumstances as the one before, they would be the same. He tells Jack that he won't be here the following day. Jack wakes up the next morning and sets off for the little island. He brings with him newspapers from the present day to try and convince Mary Alice the truth, that it is in fact 1951, and not 1933. He tells her that she has been a victim of a conspiracy to make her believe it is a different year. He asks her to come back to the mainland with her. She then tells him that she can't, as the man who sends her the boxes is coming tonight. ",
"Jack Barry is a biology student under Professor Martin Kesserich, spending the summer studying marine biology. Though he is advised not to sail to the farther islands, one day he decides to anyway, taking his sailboat to a quiet cove. As he sets foot on the island and begins to explore, he realizes that there is another island hidden behind it. Awestruck, Jack heads towards the island and comes across a barbed fence, and beyond it, a cottage. He watches as a woman dressed in a long lace dress enters a car in the driveway and drives off. He then sees a girl in a white dress come out of the cottage, holding a newspaper. Jack approaches the girl, startling her, and she asks him whether he is the man who has been sending her boxes. Jack asks the girl questions, revealing that the woman from earlier is the girl's aunt, who brings her newspapers and other things from the mainland while she remains on the island. The girl offers Jack some lemonade, and he introduces himself, and in return the girl gives her name: Mary Alice Pope. Mary reveals that Jack is the first man she has met in real life, and that though she feels loneliness, she is greeted each morning with a small box containing a gift, all addressed from her \"lover\". Upon asking when the last time Mary visited the mainland was, she says that she was born eighteen years ago, in the middle of the World War. Perplexed, Jack notices that the newspaper Mary is holding is dated 1933. He asks her about the old newspaper, but Mary believes the newspaper is recent, that the current date is 1933 and not 1953, the actual date. Inside the cottage, Jack notices an old recording playing. In a terrified panic, Jack hurries back to his ship as Mary's aunt returns, promising to be back soon. As Jack scrambles to his boat and heads back home, he notices another boat overtake him, steered by a woman resembling those back on the island, but the boat turns back around. Back at the Kesserich's place, Jack asks Mrs. Kesserich if she knows of Mary Alice Pope. Mrs. Kesserich explains that Mary Alice Pope was Martin's fiancee, who died in an accident in 1933; Martin was intensely in love with her, but his sisters disliked her, and one night while waiting for Martin to arrive by train, she fell into the tracks and was killed. Suddenly, Martin enters, eager to tell Jack about his new discoveries about recreating individuals; specifically, about how it could be achieved if you replicated environments for both individuals. Jack comes to a realization, and the next morning he hurries over to the island. He brings recent newspapers for Mary, explaining that she is being manipulated to believe that it is 1933 on purpose. Mary is reluctant and frightened, and Jack tells Mary to follow him.",
"Jack Barry sails his boat called the Annie O into a cove. Once he is close enough to the ledge, he scrambles onshore and throws a line around a boulder. He has sailed to the farthest island out from the coast of Maine and decides to look around some more. He enjoys exploring but is surprised to see signs of human life on the island. He sees an older woman come out to drive an ancient Essex. Soon after, a younger girl in a white silk dress emerges too. Jack takes this opportunity to speak to her, and she asks if he is the one sending little boxes. When he says no and explains his reason for being on the island, she says that she and her three aunts live in the area. He tells her that he is a Biology student studying marine ecology under Professor Kesserich, the greatest living biologist. The girl introduces herself as Mary Alice Pope, and they have a conversation about why Mary must be alone all the time. She tells him that she receives boxes from and letters somebody signed ‘Your Lover’ for as long as she can remember. Jack notices that she has a paper from 1933, and she tries to convince him that it is from the day before yesterday. Mary brings him into the house to show him more proof, and he finds it extremely odd. He then leaves the island on his boat once they hear her aunts coming back. Jack then visits Mrs. Kesserich, who informs him that the original Mary Alice Pope was Martin Kesserich’s fiancee and died in an accident in 1933. She explains how his sisters, Hilda and Hani, hated her for stealing Martin away. However, when the three of them went to visit him during his research on growth and fertilization, they could not prevent Mary Alice’s death. Suddenly, Martin Kesserich comes home. Martin and Jack then have a conversation about individuality, to which the professor reveals the possibility of controlling heredity by will. Jack begins to grow concerned, but Kesserich dismisses his thoughts and changes the topic. The next day, Jack buys half a dozen newspapers when he has his clam chowder and goes back to the island to find Mary Alice. She tells him to go away quickly because he is a wicked man, but he shows her the newspapers. Although Mary Alice tries to reason, he tells her to come with him to prove that she is being made to live a lie that has cut her off from the world.\n",
"A man observes a quiet cove and a boat for a while, then he moves into the island he has disembarked on, climbs a fence and finds himself inside a huge cottage garden. He sees a woman driving away in an ancient car and then a girl with a newspaper. The stranger greets her and she is terrified as she has never seen a man or anyone except her aunts before. She takes him for someone who has been sending her boxes with some presents accompanied by a note from 'your lover'. Turns out, the girl lives with two aunts who bring her newspapers, books and movies, while she stays home and never goes to the mainland. The man introduces himself as Jack Barry and tells about his marine ecology research for a great biologist Professor Kesserich. Jack lives with the professor and his wife, who told him not to go to these islands and thus stimulated his curiosity. Mary, the girl, tells about being born eighteen years ago in the middle of World War I and startled when Jack sees a headline about Hitler in her newspaper. The girl claims this newspaper dated the year 1933 is two days old while the man knows it is the year 1953. Jack follows her into the house and hears old news on the radio and an approaching car, Mary asks him to leave. He runs towards his boat and sets sail, far away he sees a motorboat and a woman with a rifle. Back home Mrs. Kesserich tells him Mary Alice Pope was Martin Kesserich's fiance and died in a railway accident in 1933. She also shows a photo of the girl Jack met earlier that day. Martin was deeply in love with Mary and his sisters hated her for that. One day all three of them were waiting for Martin's train on their horses and Mary's rushed before the train. Suddenly, the professor returns home and his wife's story ends. The two men talk about biology and the professor brings up the topic of recreating the same individuals. Next day Jack buys modern newspapers and visits Mary. Jack proves to her that the year is 1953 and begs to come with him to the mainland. The girl insists that she has to wait for the man sending her boxes who is coming that night. Jack realizes with terror the man is the professor. \n"
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50905
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Yesterday House
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by ASHMAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Meeting someone who's been dead for twenty years is shocking enough for anyone with a belief in ghosts—worse for one with none!
I
The narrow cove was quiet as the face of an expectant child, yet so near the ruffled Atlantic that the last push of wind carried the Annie O. its full length. The man in gray flannels and sweatshirt let the sail come crumpling down and hurried past its white folds at a gait made comically awkward by his cramped muscles. Slowly the rocky ledge came nearer. Slowly the blue V inscribed on the cove's surface by the sloop's prow died. Sloop and ledge kissed so gently that he hardly had to reach out his hand.
He scrambled ashore, dipping a sneaker in the icy water, and threw the line around a boulder. Unkinking himself, he looked back through the cove's high and rocky mouth at the gray-green scattering of islands and the faint dark line that was the coast of Maine. He almost laughed in satisfaction at having disregarded vague warnings and done the thing every man yearns to do once in his lifetime—gone to the farthest island out.
He must have looked longer than he realized, because by the time he dropped his gaze the cove was again as glassy as if the Annie O. had always been there. And the splotches made by his sneaker on the rock had faded in the hot sun. There was something very unusual about the quietness of this place. As if time, elsewhere hurrying frantically, paused here to rest. As if all changes were erased on this one bit of Earth.
The man's lean, melancholy face crinkled into a grin at the banal fancy. He turned his back on his new friend, the little green sloop, without one thought for his nets and specimen bottles, and set out to explore. The ground rose steeply at first and the oaks were close, but after a little way things went downhill and the leaves thinned and he came out on more rocks—and realized that he hadn't quite gone to the farthest one out.
Joined to this island by a rocky spine, which at the present low tide would have been dry but for the spray, was another green, high island that the first had masked from him all the while he had been sailing. He felt a thrill of discovery, just as he'd wondered back in the woods whether his might not be the first human feet to kick through the underbrush. After all, there were thousands of these islands.
Then he was dropping down the rocks, his lanky limbs now moving smoothly enough.
To the landward side of the spine, the water was fairly still. It even began with another deep cove, in which he glimpsed the spiny spheres of sea urchins. But from seaward the waves chopped in, sprinkling his trousers to the knees and making him wince pleasurably at the thought of what vast wings of spray and towers of solid water must crash up from here in a storm.
He crossed the rocks at a trot, ran up a short grassy slope, raced through a fringe of trees—and came straight up against an eight-foot fence of heavy mesh topped with barbed wire and backed at a short distance with high, heavy shrubbery.
Without pausing for surprise—in fact, in his holiday mood, using surprise as a goad—he jumped for the branch of an oak whose trunk touched the fence, scorning the easier lower branch on the other side of the tree. Then he drew himself up, worked his way to some higher branches that crossed the fence, and dropped down inside.
Suddenly cautious, he gently parted the shrubbery and, before the first surprise could really sink in, had another.
A closely mown lawn dotted with more shrubbery ran up to a snug white Cape Cod cottage. The single strand of a radio aerial stretched the length of the roof. Parked on a neat gravel driveway that crossed just in front of the cottage was a short, square-lined touring car that he recognized from remembered pictures as an ancient Essex. The whole scene had about it the same odd quietness as the cove.
Then, with the air of a clock-work toy coming to life, the white door opened and an elderly woman came out, dressed in a long, lace-edged dress and wide, lacy hat. She climbed into the driver's seat of the Essex, sitting there very stiff and tall. The motor began to chug bravely, gravel skittered, and the car rolled off between the trees.
The door of the house opened again and a slim girl emerged. She wore a white silk dress that fell straight from square neck-line to hip-height waistline, making the skirt seem very short. Her dark hair was bound with a white bandeau so that it curved close to her cheeks. A dark necklace dangled against the white of the dress. A newspaper was tucked under her arm.
She crossed the driveway and tossed the paper down on a rattan table between three rattan chairs and stood watching a squirrel zigzag across the lawn.
The man stepped through the wall of shrubbery, called, "hello!" and walked toward her.
She whirled around and stared at him as still as if her heart had stopped beating. Then she darted behind the table and waited for him there. Granting the surprise of his appearance, her alarm seemed not so much excessive as eerie. As if, the man thought, he were not an ordinary stranger, but a visitor from another planet.
Approaching closer, he saw that she was trembling and that her breath was coming in rapid, irregular gasps. Yet the slim, sweet, patrician face that stared into his had an underlying expression of expectancy that reminded him of the cove. She couldn't have been more than eighteen.
He stopped short of the table. Before he could speak, she stammered out, "Are you he?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, smiling puzzledly.
"The one who sends me the little boxes."
"I was out sailing and I happened to land in the far cove. I didn't dream that anyone lived on this island, or even came here."
"No one ever does come here," she replied. Her manner had changed, becoming at once more wary and less agitated, though still eerily curious.
"It startled me tremendously to find this place," he blundered on.
"Especially the road and the car. Why, this island can't be more than a quarter of a mile wide."
"The road goes down to the wharf," she explained, "and up to the top of the island, where my aunts have a tree-house."
He tore his mind away from the picture of a woman dressed like Queen Mary clambering up a tree. "Was that your aunt I saw driving off?"
"One of them. The other's taken the motorboat in for supplies." She looked at him doubtfully. "I'm not sure they'll like it if they find someone here."
"There are just the three of you?" he cut in quickly, looking down the empty road that vanished among the oaks.
She nodded.
"I suppose you go in to the mainland with your aunts quite often?"
She shook her head.
"It must get pretty dull for you."
"Not very," she said, smiling. "My aunts bring me the papers and other things. Even movies. We've got a projector. My favorite stars are Antonio Morino and Alice Terry. I like her better even than Clara Bow."
He looked at her hard for a moment. "I suppose you read a lot?"
She nodded. "Fitzgerald's my favorite author." She started around the table, hesitated, suddenly grew shy. "Would you like some lemonade?"
He'd noticed the dewed silver pitcher, but only now realized his thirst. Yet when she handed him a glass, he held it untasted and said awkwardly, "I haven't introduced myself. I'm Jack Barry."
She stared at his outstretched right hand, slowly extended her own toward it, shook it up and down exactly once, then quickly dropped it.
He chuckled and gulped some lemonade. "I'm a biology student. Been working at Wood's Hole the first part of the summer. But now I'm here to do research in marine ecology—that's sort of sea-life patterns—of the in-shore islands. Under the direction of Professor Kesserich. You know about him, of course?"
She shook her head.
"Probably the greatest living biologist," he was proud to inform her. "Human physiology as well. Tremendous geneticist. In a class with Carlson and Jacques Loeb. Martin Kesserich—he lives over there at town. I'm staying with him. You ought to have heard of him." He grinned. "Matter of fact, I'd never have met you if it hadn't been for Mrs. Kesserich."
The girl looked puzzled.
Jack explained, "The old boy's been off to Europe on some conferences, won't be back for a couple days more. But I was to get started anyhow. When I went out this morning Mrs. Kesserich—she's a drab sort of person—said to me, 'Don't try to sail to the farther islands.' So, of course, I had to. By the way, you still haven't told me your name."
"Mary Alice Pope," she said, speaking slowly and with an odd wonder, as if she were saying it for the first time.
"You're pretty shy, aren't you?"
"How would I know?"
The question stopped Jack. He couldn't think of anything to say to this strangely attractive girl dressed almost like a "flapper."
"Will you sit down?" she asked him gravely.
The rattan chair sighed under his weight. He made another effort to talk. "I'll bet you'll be glad when summer's over."
"Why?"
"So you'll be able to go back to the mainland."
"But I never go to the mainland."
"You mean you stay out here all winter?" he asked incredulously, his mind filled with a vision of snow and frozen spray and great gray waves.
"Oh, yes. We get all our supplies on hand before winter. My aunts are very capable. They don't always wear long lace dresses. And now I help them."
"But that's impossible!" he said with sudden sympathetic anger. "You can't be shut off this way from people your own age!"
"You're the first one I ever met." She hesitated. "I never saw a boy or a man before, except in movies."
"You're joking!"
"No, it's true."
"But why are they doing it to you?" he demanded, leaning forward. "Why are they inflicting this loneliness on you, Mary?"
She seemed to have gained poise from his loss of it. "I don't know why. I'm to find out soon. But actually I'm not lonely. May I tell you a secret?" She touched his hand, this time with only the faintest trembling. "Every night the loneliness gathers in around me—you're right about that. But then every morning new life comes to me in a little box."
"What's that?" he said sharply.
"Sometimes there's a poem in the box, sometimes a book, or pictures, or flowers, or a ring, but always a note. Next to the notes I like the poems best. My favorite is the one by Matthew Arnold that ends,
'Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude—'"
"Wait a minute," he interrupted. "Who sends you these boxes?"
"I don't know."
"But how are the notes signed?"
"They're wonderful notes," she said. "So wise, so gay, so tender, you'd imagine them being written by John Barrymore or Lindbergh."
"Yes, but how are they signed?"
She hesitated. "Never anything but 'Your Lover.'"
"And so when you first saw me, you thought—" He began, then stopped because she was blushing.
"How long have you been getting them?"
"Ever since I can remember. I have two closets of the boxes. The new ones are either by my bed when I wake or at my place at breakfast."
"But how does this—person get these boxes to you out here? Does he give them to your aunts and do they put them there?"
"I'm not sure."
"But how can they get them in winter?"
"I don't know."
"Look here," he said, pouring himself more lemonade, "how long is it since you've been to the mainland?"
"Almost eighteen years. My aunts tell me I was born there in the middle of the war."
"What war?" he asked startledly, spilling some lemonade.
"The World War, of course. What's the matter?"
Jack Barr was staring down at the spilled lemonade and feeling a kind of terror he'd never experienced in his waking life. Nothing around him had changed. He could still feel the same hot sun on his shoulders, the same icy glass in his hand, scent the same lemon-acid odor in his nostrils. He could still hear the faint chop-chop of the waves.
And yet everything had changed, gone dark and dizzy as a landscape glimpsed just before a faint. All the little false notes had come to a sudden focus. For the lemonade had spilled on the headline of the newspaper the girl had tossed down, and the headline read:
HITLER IN NEW DEFIANCE
Under the big black banner of that head swam smaller ones:
Foes of Machado Riot in Havana
Big NRA Parade Planned
Balbo Speaks in New York
Suddenly he felt a surge of relief. He had noticed that the paper was yellow and brittle-edged.
"Why are you so interested in old newspapers?" he asked.
"I wouldn't call day-before-yesterday's paper old," the girl objected, pointing at the dateline: July 20, 1933.
"You're trying to joke," Jack told her.
"No, I'm not."
"But it's 1953."
"Now it's you who are joking."
"But the paper's yellow."
"The paper's always yellow."
He laughed uneasily. "Well, if you actually think it's 1933, perhaps you're to be envied," he said, with a sardonic humor he didn't quite feel. "Then you can't know anything about the Second World War, or television, or the V-2s, or Bikini bathing suits, or the atomic bomb, or—"
"Stop!" She had sprung up and retreated around her chair, white-faced.
"I don't like what you're saying."
"But—"
"No, please! Jokes that may be quite harmless on the mainland sound different here."
"I'm really not joking," he said after a moment.
She grew quite frantic at that. "I can show you all last week's papers! I can show you magazines and other things. I can prove it!"
She started toward the house. He followed. He felt his heart begin to pound.
At the white door she paused, looking worriedly down the road. Jack thought he could hear the faint chug of a motorboat. She pushed open the door and he followed her inside. The small-windowed room was dark after the sunlight. Jack got an impression of solid old furniture, a fireplace with brass andirons.
"Flash!" croaked a gritty voice. "After their disastrous break day before yesterday, stocks are recovering. Leading issues...."
Jack realized that he had started and had involuntarily put his arm around the girl's shoulders. At the same time he noticed that the voice was coming from the curved brown trumpet of an old-fashioned radio loudspeaker.
The girl didn't pull away from him. He turned toward her. Although her gray eyes were on him, her attention had gone elsewhere.
"I can hear the car. They're coming back. They won't like it that you're here."
"All right they won't like it."
Her agitation grew. "No, you must go."
"I'll come back tomorrow," he heard himself saying.
"Flash! It looks as if the World Economic Conference may soon adjourn, mouthing jeers at old Uncle Sam who is generally referred to as Uncle Shylock."
Jack felt a numbness on his neck. The room seemed to be darkening, the girl growing stranger still.
"You must go before they see you."
"Flash! Wiley Post has just completed his solo circuit of the Globe, after a record-breaking flight of 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes. Asked how he felt after the energy-draining feat, Post quipped...."
He was halfway across the lawn before he realized the terror into which the grating radio voice had thrown him.
He leaped for the branch over-hanging the fence, vaulted up with the risky help of a foot on the barbed top. A surprised squirrel, lacking time to make its escape up the trunk, sprang to the ground ahead of him. With terrible suddenness, two steel-jawed semicircles clanked together just over the squirrel's head. Jack landed with one foot to either side of the sprung trap, while the squirrel darted off with a squeak.
Jack plunged down the slope to the rocky spine and ran across it, spray from the rising waves spattering him to the waist. Panting now, he stumbled up into the oaks and undergrowth of the first island, fought his way through it, finally reached the silent cove. He loosed the line of the Annie O. , dragged it as near to the cove's mouth as he could, plunged knee-deep in freezing water to give it a final shove, scrambled aboard, snatched up the boathook and punched at the rocks.
As soon as the Annie O. was nosing out of the cove into the cross waves, he yanked up the sail. The freshening wind filled it and sent the sloop heeling over, with inches of white water over the lee rail, and plunging ahead.
For a long while, Jack was satisfied to think of nothing but the wind and the waves and the sail and speed and danger, to have all his attention taken up balancing one against the other, so that he wouldn't have to ask himself what year it was and whether time was an illusion, and wonder about flappers and hidden traps.
When he finally looked back at the island, he was amazed to see how tiny it had grown, as distant as the mainland.
Then he saw a gray motorboat astern. He watched it as it slowly overtook him. It was built like a lifeboat, with a sturdy low cabin in the bow and wheel amidship. Whoever was at the wheel had long gray hair that whipped in the wind. The longer he looked, the surer he was that it was a woman wearing a lace dress. Something that stuck up inches over the cabin flashed darkly beside her. Only when she lifted it to the roof of the cabin did it occur to him that it might be a rifle.
But just then the motorboat swung around in a turn that sent waves drenching over it, and headed back toward the island. He watched it for a minute in wonder, then his attention was jolted by an angry hail.
Three fishing smacks, also headed toward town, were about to cross his bow. He came around into the wind and waited with shaking sail, watching a man in a lumpy sweater shake a fist at him. Then he turned and gratefully followed the dark, wide, fanlike sterns and age-yellowed sails.
II
The exterior of Martin Kesserich's home—a weathered white cube with narrow, sharp-paned windows, topped by a cupola—was nothing like its lavish interior.
In much the same way, Mrs. Kesserich clashed with the darkly gleaming furniture, persian rugs and bronze vases around her. Her shapeless black form, poised awkwardly on the edge of a huge sofa, made Jack think of a cow that had strayed into the drawing room. He wondered again how a man like Kesserich had come to marry such a creature.
Yet when she lifted up her little eyes from the shadows, he had the uneasy feeling that she knew a great deal about him. The eyes were still those of a domestic animal, but of a wise one that has been watching the house a long, long while from the barnyard.
He asked abruptly, "Do you know anything of a girl around here named Mary Alice Pope?"
The silence lasted so long that he began to think she'd gone into some bovine trance. Then, without a word, she got up and went over to a tall cabinet. Feeling on a ledge behind it for a key, she opened a panel, opened a cardboard box inside it, took something from the box and handed him a photograph. He held it up to the failing light and sucked in his breath with surprise.
It was a picture of the girl he'd met that afternoon. Same flat-bosomed dress—flowered rather than white—no bandeau, same beads. Same proud, demure expression, perhaps a bit happier.
"That is Mary Alice Pope," Mrs. Kesserich said in a strangely flat voice. "She was Martin's fiancee. She was killed in a railway accident in 1933."
The small sound of the cabinet door closing brought Jack back to reality. He realized that he no longer had the photograph. Against the gloom by the cabinet, Mrs. Kesserich's white face looked at him with what seemed a malicious eagerness.
"Sit down," she said, "and I'll tell you about it."
Without a thought as to why she hadn't asked him a single question—he was much too dazed for that—he obeyed. Mrs. Kesserich resumed her position on the edge of the sofa.
"You must understand, Mr. Barr, that Mary Alice Pope was the one love of Martin's life. He is a man of very deep and strong feelings, yet as you probably know, anything but kindly or demonstrative. Even when he first came here from Hungary with his older sisters Hani and Hilda, there was a cloak of loneliness about him—or rather about the three of them.
"Hani and Hilda were athletic outdoor women, yet fiercely proud—I don't imagine they ever spoke to anyone in America except as to a servant—and with a seething distaste for all men except Martin. They showered all their devotion on him. So of course, though Martin didn't realize it, they were consumed with jealousy when he fell in love with Mary Alice Pope. They'd thought that since he'd reached forty without marrying, he was safe.
"Mary Alice came from a pure-bred, or as a biologist would say, inbred British stock. She was very young, but very sweet, and up to a point very wise. She sensed Hani and Hilda's feelings right away and did everything she could to win them over. For instance, though she was afraid of horses, she took up horseback riding, because that was Hani and Hilda's favorite pastime. Naturally, Martin knew nothing of her fear, and naturally his sisters knew about it from the first. But—and here is where Mary's wisdom fell short—her brave gesture did not pacify them: it only increased their hatred.
"Except for his research, Martin was blind to everything but his love. It was a beautiful and yet frightening passion, an insane cherishing as narrow and intense as his sisters hatred."
With a start, Jack remembered that it was Mrs. Kesserich telling him all this.
She went on, "Martin's love directed his every move. He was building a home for himself and Mary, and in his mind he was building a wonderful future for them as well—not vaguely, if you know Martin, but year by year, month by month. This winter, he'd plan, they would visit Buenos Aires, next summer they would sail down the inland passage and he would teach Mary Hungarian for their trip to Buda-Pesth the year after, where he would occupy a chair at the university for a few months ... and so on. Finally the time for their marriage drew near. Martin had been away. His research was keeping him very busy—"
Jack broke in with, "Wasn't that about the time he did his definitive work on growth and fertilization?"
Mrs. Kesserich nodded with solemn appreciation in the gathering darkness. "But now he was coming home, his work done. It was early evening, very chilly, but Hani and Hilda felt they had to ride down to the station to meet their brother. And although she dreaded it, Mary rode with them, for she knew how delighted he would be at her cantering to the puffing train and his running up to lift her down from the saddle to welcome him home.
"Of course there was Martin's luggage to be considered, so the station wagon had to be sent down for that." She looked defiantly at Jack. "I drove the station wagon. I was Martin's laboratory assistant."
She paused. "It was almost dark, but there was still a white cold line of sky to the west. Hani and Hilda, with Mary between them, were waiting on their horses at the top of the hill that led down to the station. The train had whistled and its headlight was graying the gravel of the crossing.
"Suddenly Mary's horse squealed and plunged down the hill. Hani and Hilda followed—to try to catch her, they said, but they didn't manage that, only kept her horse from veering off. Mary never screamed, but as her horse reared on the tracks, I saw her face in the headlight's glare.
"Martin must have guessed, or at least feared what had happened, for he was out of the train and running along the track before it stopped. In fact, he was the first to kneel down beside Mary—I mean, what had been Mary—and was holding her all bloody and shattered in his arms."
A door slammed. There were steps in the hall. Mrs. Kesserich stiffened and was silent. Jack turned.
The blur of a face hung in the doorway to the hall—a seemingly young, sensitive, suavely handsome face with aristocratic jaw. Then there was a click and the lights flared up and Jack saw the close-cropped gray hair and the lines around the eyes and nostrils, while the sensitive mouth grew sardonic. Yet the handsomeness stayed, and somehow the youth, too, or at least a tremendous inner vibrancy.
"Hello, Barr," Martin Kesserich said, ignoring his wife.
The great biologist had come home.
III
"Oh, yes, and Jamieson had a feeble paper on what he called individualization in marine worms. Barr, have you ever thought much about the larger aspects of the problem of individuality?"
Jack jumped slightly. He had let his thoughts wander very far.
"Not especially, sir," he mumbled.
The house was still. A few minutes after the professor's arrival, Mrs. Kesserich had gone off with an anxious glance at Jack. He knew why and wished he could reassure her that he would not mention their conversation to the professor.
Kesserich had spent perhaps a half hour briefing him on the more important papers delivered at the conferences. Then, almost as if it were a teacher's trick to show up a pupil's inattention, he had suddenly posed this question about individuality.
"You know what I mean, of course," Kesserich pressed. "The factors that make you you, and me me."
"Heredity and environment," Jack parroted like a freshman.
Kesserich nodded. "Suppose—this is just speculation—that we could control heredity and environment. Then we could re-create the same individual at will."
Jack felt a shiver go through him. "To get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits. That'd be far beyond us."
"What about identical twins?" Kesserich pointed out. "And then there's parthenogenesis to be considered. One might produce a duplicate of the mother without the intervention of the male." Although his voice had grown more idly speculative, Kesserich seemed to Jack to be smiling secretly. "There are many examples in the lower animal forms, to say nothing of the technique by which Loeb caused a sea urchin to reproduce with no more stimulus than a salt solution."
Jack felt the hair rising on his neck. "Even then you wouldn't get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits."
"Not if the parent were of very pure stock? Not if there were some special technique for selecting ova that would reproduce all the mother's traits?"
"But environment would change things," Jack objected. "The duplicate would be bound to develop differently."
"Is environment so important? Newman tells about a pair of identical twins separated from birth, unaware of each other's existence. They met by accident when they were twenty-one. Each was a telephone repairman. Each had a wife the same age. Each had a baby son. And each had a fox terrier called 'Trixie.' That's without trying to make environments similar. But suppose you did try. Suppose you saw to it that each of them had exactly the same experiences at the same times...."
For a moment it seemed to Jack that the room was dimming and wavering, becoming a dark pool in which the only motionless thing was Kesserich's sphinx-like face.
"Well, we've escaped quite far enough from Jamieson's marine worms," the biologist said, all brisk again. He said it as if Jack were the one who had led the conversation down wild and unprofitable channels.
"Let's get on to your project. I want to talk it over now, because I won't have any time for it tomorrow."
Jack looked at him blankly.
"Tomorrow I must attend to a very important matter," the biologist explained.
IV
Morning sunlight brightened the colors of the wax flowers under glass on the high bureau that always seemed to emit the faint odor of old hair combings. Jack pulled back the diamond-patterned quilt and blinked the sleep from his eyes. He expected his mind to be busy wondering about Kesserich and his wife—things said and half said last night—but found instead that his thoughts swung instantly to Mary Alice Pope, as if to a farthest island in a world of people.
Downstairs, the house was empty. After a long look at the cabinet—he felt behind it, but the key was gone—he hurried down to the waterfront. He stopped only for a bowl of chowder and, as an afterthought, to buy half a dozen newspapers.
The sea was bright, the brisk wind just right for the Annie O. There was eagerness in the way it smacked the sail and in the creak of the mast. And when he reached the cove, it was no longer still, but nervous with faint ripples, as if time had finally begun to stir.
After the same struggle with the underbrush, he came out on the rocky spine and passed the cove of the sea urchins. The spiny creatures struck an uncomfortable chord in his memory.
This time he climbed the second island cautiously, scraping the innocent-seeming ground ahead of him intently with a boathook he'd brought along for the purpose. He was only a few yards from the fence when he saw Mary Alice Pope standing behind it.
He hadn't realized that his heart would begin to pound or that, at the same time, a shiver of almost supernatural dread would go through him.
The girl eyed him with an uneasy hostility and immediately began to speak in a hushed, hurried voice. "You must go away at once and never come back. You're a wicked man, but I don't want you to be hurt. I've been watching for you all morning."
He tossed the newspapers over the fence. "You don't have to read them now," he told her. "Just look at the datelines and a few of the headlines."
When she finally lifted her eyes to his again, she was trembling. She tried unsuccessfully to speak.
"Listen to me," he said. "You've been the victim of a scheme to make you believe you were born around 1916 instead of 1933, and that it's
1933 now instead of 1951. I'm not sure why it's been done, though I think I know who you really are."
"But," the girl faltered, "my aunts tell me it's 1933."
"They would."
"And there are the papers ... the magazines ... the radio."
"The papers are old ones. The radio's faked—some sort of recording. I could show you if I could get at it."
" These papers might be faked," she said, pointing to where she'd let them drop on the ground.
"They're new," he said. "Only old papers get yellow."
"But why would they do it to me? Why? "
"Come with me to the mainland, Mary. That'll set you straight quicker than anything."
"I couldn't," she said, drawing back. "He's coming tonight."
"He?"
"The man who sends me the boxes ... and my life."
Jack shivered. When he spoke, his voice was rough and quick. "A life that's completely a lie, that's cut you off from the world. Come with me, Mary."
|
Why are the newspapers such an important part of the story?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Yesterday House by Fritz Leiber.
Relevant chunks:
Yesterday House
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by ASHMAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Meeting someone who's been dead for twenty years is shocking enough for anyone with a belief in ghosts—worse for one with none!
I
The narrow cove was quiet as the face of an expectant child, yet so near the ruffled Atlantic that the last push of wind carried the Annie O. its full length. The man in gray flannels and sweatshirt let the sail come crumpling down and hurried past its white folds at a gait made comically awkward by his cramped muscles. Slowly the rocky ledge came nearer. Slowly the blue V inscribed on the cove's surface by the sloop's prow died. Sloop and ledge kissed so gently that he hardly had to reach out his hand.
He scrambled ashore, dipping a sneaker in the icy water, and threw the line around a boulder. Unkinking himself, he looked back through the cove's high and rocky mouth at the gray-green scattering of islands and the faint dark line that was the coast of Maine. He almost laughed in satisfaction at having disregarded vague warnings and done the thing every man yearns to do once in his lifetime—gone to the farthest island out.
He must have looked longer than he realized, because by the time he dropped his gaze the cove was again as glassy as if the Annie O. had always been there. And the splotches made by his sneaker on the rock had faded in the hot sun. There was something very unusual about the quietness of this place. As if time, elsewhere hurrying frantically, paused here to rest. As if all changes were erased on this one bit of Earth.
The man's lean, melancholy face crinkled into a grin at the banal fancy. He turned his back on his new friend, the little green sloop, without one thought for his nets and specimen bottles, and set out to explore. The ground rose steeply at first and the oaks were close, but after a little way things went downhill and the leaves thinned and he came out on more rocks—and realized that he hadn't quite gone to the farthest one out.
Joined to this island by a rocky spine, which at the present low tide would have been dry but for the spray, was another green, high island that the first had masked from him all the while he had been sailing. He felt a thrill of discovery, just as he'd wondered back in the woods whether his might not be the first human feet to kick through the underbrush. After all, there were thousands of these islands.
Then he was dropping down the rocks, his lanky limbs now moving smoothly enough.
To the landward side of the spine, the water was fairly still. It even began with another deep cove, in which he glimpsed the spiny spheres of sea urchins. But from seaward the waves chopped in, sprinkling his trousers to the knees and making him wince pleasurably at the thought of what vast wings of spray and towers of solid water must crash up from here in a storm.
He crossed the rocks at a trot, ran up a short grassy slope, raced through a fringe of trees—and came straight up against an eight-foot fence of heavy mesh topped with barbed wire and backed at a short distance with high, heavy shrubbery.
Without pausing for surprise—in fact, in his holiday mood, using surprise as a goad—he jumped for the branch of an oak whose trunk touched the fence, scorning the easier lower branch on the other side of the tree. Then he drew himself up, worked his way to some higher branches that crossed the fence, and dropped down inside.
Suddenly cautious, he gently parted the shrubbery and, before the first surprise could really sink in, had another.
A closely mown lawn dotted with more shrubbery ran up to a snug white Cape Cod cottage. The single strand of a radio aerial stretched the length of the roof. Parked on a neat gravel driveway that crossed just in front of the cottage was a short, square-lined touring car that he recognized from remembered pictures as an ancient Essex. The whole scene had about it the same odd quietness as the cove.
Then, with the air of a clock-work toy coming to life, the white door opened and an elderly woman came out, dressed in a long, lace-edged dress and wide, lacy hat. She climbed into the driver's seat of the Essex, sitting there very stiff and tall. The motor began to chug bravely, gravel skittered, and the car rolled off between the trees.
The door of the house opened again and a slim girl emerged. She wore a white silk dress that fell straight from square neck-line to hip-height waistline, making the skirt seem very short. Her dark hair was bound with a white bandeau so that it curved close to her cheeks. A dark necklace dangled against the white of the dress. A newspaper was tucked under her arm.
She crossed the driveway and tossed the paper down on a rattan table between three rattan chairs and stood watching a squirrel zigzag across the lawn.
The man stepped through the wall of shrubbery, called, "hello!" and walked toward her.
She whirled around and stared at him as still as if her heart had stopped beating. Then she darted behind the table and waited for him there. Granting the surprise of his appearance, her alarm seemed not so much excessive as eerie. As if, the man thought, he were not an ordinary stranger, but a visitor from another planet.
Approaching closer, he saw that she was trembling and that her breath was coming in rapid, irregular gasps. Yet the slim, sweet, patrician face that stared into his had an underlying expression of expectancy that reminded him of the cove. She couldn't have been more than eighteen.
He stopped short of the table. Before he could speak, she stammered out, "Are you he?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, smiling puzzledly.
"The one who sends me the little boxes."
"I was out sailing and I happened to land in the far cove. I didn't dream that anyone lived on this island, or even came here."
"No one ever does come here," she replied. Her manner had changed, becoming at once more wary and less agitated, though still eerily curious.
"It startled me tremendously to find this place," he blundered on.
"Especially the road and the car. Why, this island can't be more than a quarter of a mile wide."
"The road goes down to the wharf," she explained, "and up to the top of the island, where my aunts have a tree-house."
He tore his mind away from the picture of a woman dressed like Queen Mary clambering up a tree. "Was that your aunt I saw driving off?"
"One of them. The other's taken the motorboat in for supplies." She looked at him doubtfully. "I'm not sure they'll like it if they find someone here."
"There are just the three of you?" he cut in quickly, looking down the empty road that vanished among the oaks.
She nodded.
"I suppose you go in to the mainland with your aunts quite often?"
She shook her head.
"It must get pretty dull for you."
"Not very," she said, smiling. "My aunts bring me the papers and other things. Even movies. We've got a projector. My favorite stars are Antonio Morino and Alice Terry. I like her better even than Clara Bow."
He looked at her hard for a moment. "I suppose you read a lot?"
She nodded. "Fitzgerald's my favorite author." She started around the table, hesitated, suddenly grew shy. "Would you like some lemonade?"
He'd noticed the dewed silver pitcher, but only now realized his thirst. Yet when she handed him a glass, he held it untasted and said awkwardly, "I haven't introduced myself. I'm Jack Barry."
She stared at his outstretched right hand, slowly extended her own toward it, shook it up and down exactly once, then quickly dropped it.
He chuckled and gulped some lemonade. "I'm a biology student. Been working at Wood's Hole the first part of the summer. But now I'm here to do research in marine ecology—that's sort of sea-life patterns—of the in-shore islands. Under the direction of Professor Kesserich. You know about him, of course?"
She shook her head.
"Probably the greatest living biologist," he was proud to inform her. "Human physiology as well. Tremendous geneticist. In a class with Carlson and Jacques Loeb. Martin Kesserich—he lives over there at town. I'm staying with him. You ought to have heard of him." He grinned. "Matter of fact, I'd never have met you if it hadn't been for Mrs. Kesserich."
The girl looked puzzled.
Jack explained, "The old boy's been off to Europe on some conferences, won't be back for a couple days more. But I was to get started anyhow. When I went out this morning Mrs. Kesserich—she's a drab sort of person—said to me, 'Don't try to sail to the farther islands.' So, of course, I had to. By the way, you still haven't told me your name."
"Mary Alice Pope," she said, speaking slowly and with an odd wonder, as if she were saying it for the first time.
"You're pretty shy, aren't you?"
"How would I know?"
The question stopped Jack. He couldn't think of anything to say to this strangely attractive girl dressed almost like a "flapper."
"Will you sit down?" she asked him gravely.
The rattan chair sighed under his weight. He made another effort to talk. "I'll bet you'll be glad when summer's over."
"Why?"
"So you'll be able to go back to the mainland."
"But I never go to the mainland."
"You mean you stay out here all winter?" he asked incredulously, his mind filled with a vision of snow and frozen spray and great gray waves.
"Oh, yes. We get all our supplies on hand before winter. My aunts are very capable. They don't always wear long lace dresses. And now I help them."
"But that's impossible!" he said with sudden sympathetic anger. "You can't be shut off this way from people your own age!"
"You're the first one I ever met." She hesitated. "I never saw a boy or a man before, except in movies."
"You're joking!"
"No, it's true."
"But why are they doing it to you?" he demanded, leaning forward. "Why are they inflicting this loneliness on you, Mary?"
She seemed to have gained poise from his loss of it. "I don't know why. I'm to find out soon. But actually I'm not lonely. May I tell you a secret?" She touched his hand, this time with only the faintest trembling. "Every night the loneliness gathers in around me—you're right about that. But then every morning new life comes to me in a little box."
"What's that?" he said sharply.
"Sometimes there's a poem in the box, sometimes a book, or pictures, or flowers, or a ring, but always a note. Next to the notes I like the poems best. My favorite is the one by Matthew Arnold that ends,
'Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude—'"
"Wait a minute," he interrupted. "Who sends you these boxes?"
"I don't know."
"But how are the notes signed?"
"They're wonderful notes," she said. "So wise, so gay, so tender, you'd imagine them being written by John Barrymore or Lindbergh."
"Yes, but how are they signed?"
She hesitated. "Never anything but 'Your Lover.'"
"And so when you first saw me, you thought—" He began, then stopped because she was blushing.
"How long have you been getting them?"
"Ever since I can remember. I have two closets of the boxes. The new ones are either by my bed when I wake or at my place at breakfast."
"But how does this—person get these boxes to you out here? Does he give them to your aunts and do they put them there?"
"I'm not sure."
"But how can they get them in winter?"
"I don't know."
"Look here," he said, pouring himself more lemonade, "how long is it since you've been to the mainland?"
"Almost eighteen years. My aunts tell me I was born there in the middle of the war."
"What war?" he asked startledly, spilling some lemonade.
"The World War, of course. What's the matter?"
Jack Barr was staring down at the spilled lemonade and feeling a kind of terror he'd never experienced in his waking life. Nothing around him had changed. He could still feel the same hot sun on his shoulders, the same icy glass in his hand, scent the same lemon-acid odor in his nostrils. He could still hear the faint chop-chop of the waves.
And yet everything had changed, gone dark and dizzy as a landscape glimpsed just before a faint. All the little false notes had come to a sudden focus. For the lemonade had spilled on the headline of the newspaper the girl had tossed down, and the headline read:
HITLER IN NEW DEFIANCE
Under the big black banner of that head swam smaller ones:
Foes of Machado Riot in Havana
Big NRA Parade Planned
Balbo Speaks in New York
Suddenly he felt a surge of relief. He had noticed that the paper was yellow and brittle-edged.
"Why are you so interested in old newspapers?" he asked.
"I wouldn't call day-before-yesterday's paper old," the girl objected, pointing at the dateline: July 20, 1933.
"You're trying to joke," Jack told her.
"No, I'm not."
"But it's 1953."
"Now it's you who are joking."
"But the paper's yellow."
"The paper's always yellow."
He laughed uneasily. "Well, if you actually think it's 1933, perhaps you're to be envied," he said, with a sardonic humor he didn't quite feel. "Then you can't know anything about the Second World War, or television, or the V-2s, or Bikini bathing suits, or the atomic bomb, or—"
"Stop!" She had sprung up and retreated around her chair, white-faced.
"I don't like what you're saying."
"But—"
"No, please! Jokes that may be quite harmless on the mainland sound different here."
"I'm really not joking," he said after a moment.
She grew quite frantic at that. "I can show you all last week's papers! I can show you magazines and other things. I can prove it!"
She started toward the house. He followed. He felt his heart begin to pound.
At the white door she paused, looking worriedly down the road. Jack thought he could hear the faint chug of a motorboat. She pushed open the door and he followed her inside. The small-windowed room was dark after the sunlight. Jack got an impression of solid old furniture, a fireplace with brass andirons.
"Flash!" croaked a gritty voice. "After their disastrous break day before yesterday, stocks are recovering. Leading issues...."
Jack realized that he had started and had involuntarily put his arm around the girl's shoulders. At the same time he noticed that the voice was coming from the curved brown trumpet of an old-fashioned radio loudspeaker.
The girl didn't pull away from him. He turned toward her. Although her gray eyes were on him, her attention had gone elsewhere.
"I can hear the car. They're coming back. They won't like it that you're here."
"All right they won't like it."
Her agitation grew. "No, you must go."
"I'll come back tomorrow," he heard himself saying.
"Flash! It looks as if the World Economic Conference may soon adjourn, mouthing jeers at old Uncle Sam who is generally referred to as Uncle Shylock."
Jack felt a numbness on his neck. The room seemed to be darkening, the girl growing stranger still.
"You must go before they see you."
"Flash! Wiley Post has just completed his solo circuit of the Globe, after a record-breaking flight of 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes. Asked how he felt after the energy-draining feat, Post quipped...."
He was halfway across the lawn before he realized the terror into which the grating radio voice had thrown him.
He leaped for the branch over-hanging the fence, vaulted up with the risky help of a foot on the barbed top. A surprised squirrel, lacking time to make its escape up the trunk, sprang to the ground ahead of him. With terrible suddenness, two steel-jawed semicircles clanked together just over the squirrel's head. Jack landed with one foot to either side of the sprung trap, while the squirrel darted off with a squeak.
Jack plunged down the slope to the rocky spine and ran across it, spray from the rising waves spattering him to the waist. Panting now, he stumbled up into the oaks and undergrowth of the first island, fought his way through it, finally reached the silent cove. He loosed the line of the Annie O. , dragged it as near to the cove's mouth as he could, plunged knee-deep in freezing water to give it a final shove, scrambled aboard, snatched up the boathook and punched at the rocks.
As soon as the Annie O. was nosing out of the cove into the cross waves, he yanked up the sail. The freshening wind filled it and sent the sloop heeling over, with inches of white water over the lee rail, and plunging ahead.
For a long while, Jack was satisfied to think of nothing but the wind and the waves and the sail and speed and danger, to have all his attention taken up balancing one against the other, so that he wouldn't have to ask himself what year it was and whether time was an illusion, and wonder about flappers and hidden traps.
When he finally looked back at the island, he was amazed to see how tiny it had grown, as distant as the mainland.
Then he saw a gray motorboat astern. He watched it as it slowly overtook him. It was built like a lifeboat, with a sturdy low cabin in the bow and wheel amidship. Whoever was at the wheel had long gray hair that whipped in the wind. The longer he looked, the surer he was that it was a woman wearing a lace dress. Something that stuck up inches over the cabin flashed darkly beside her. Only when she lifted it to the roof of the cabin did it occur to him that it might be a rifle.
But just then the motorboat swung around in a turn that sent waves drenching over it, and headed back toward the island. He watched it for a minute in wonder, then his attention was jolted by an angry hail.
Three fishing smacks, also headed toward town, were about to cross his bow. He came around into the wind and waited with shaking sail, watching a man in a lumpy sweater shake a fist at him. Then he turned and gratefully followed the dark, wide, fanlike sterns and age-yellowed sails.
II
The exterior of Martin Kesserich's home—a weathered white cube with narrow, sharp-paned windows, topped by a cupola—was nothing like its lavish interior.
In much the same way, Mrs. Kesserich clashed with the darkly gleaming furniture, persian rugs and bronze vases around her. Her shapeless black form, poised awkwardly on the edge of a huge sofa, made Jack think of a cow that had strayed into the drawing room. He wondered again how a man like Kesserich had come to marry such a creature.
Yet when she lifted up her little eyes from the shadows, he had the uneasy feeling that she knew a great deal about him. The eyes were still those of a domestic animal, but of a wise one that has been watching the house a long, long while from the barnyard.
He asked abruptly, "Do you know anything of a girl around here named Mary Alice Pope?"
The silence lasted so long that he began to think she'd gone into some bovine trance. Then, without a word, she got up and went over to a tall cabinet. Feeling on a ledge behind it for a key, she opened a panel, opened a cardboard box inside it, took something from the box and handed him a photograph. He held it up to the failing light and sucked in his breath with surprise.
It was a picture of the girl he'd met that afternoon. Same flat-bosomed dress—flowered rather than white—no bandeau, same beads. Same proud, demure expression, perhaps a bit happier.
"That is Mary Alice Pope," Mrs. Kesserich said in a strangely flat voice. "She was Martin's fiancee. She was killed in a railway accident in 1933."
The small sound of the cabinet door closing brought Jack back to reality. He realized that he no longer had the photograph. Against the gloom by the cabinet, Mrs. Kesserich's white face looked at him with what seemed a malicious eagerness.
"Sit down," she said, "and I'll tell you about it."
Without a thought as to why she hadn't asked him a single question—he was much too dazed for that—he obeyed. Mrs. Kesserich resumed her position on the edge of the sofa.
"You must understand, Mr. Barr, that Mary Alice Pope was the one love of Martin's life. He is a man of very deep and strong feelings, yet as you probably know, anything but kindly or demonstrative. Even when he first came here from Hungary with his older sisters Hani and Hilda, there was a cloak of loneliness about him—or rather about the three of them.
"Hani and Hilda were athletic outdoor women, yet fiercely proud—I don't imagine they ever spoke to anyone in America except as to a servant—and with a seething distaste for all men except Martin. They showered all their devotion on him. So of course, though Martin didn't realize it, they were consumed with jealousy when he fell in love with Mary Alice Pope. They'd thought that since he'd reached forty without marrying, he was safe.
"Mary Alice came from a pure-bred, or as a biologist would say, inbred British stock. She was very young, but very sweet, and up to a point very wise. She sensed Hani and Hilda's feelings right away and did everything she could to win them over. For instance, though she was afraid of horses, she took up horseback riding, because that was Hani and Hilda's favorite pastime. Naturally, Martin knew nothing of her fear, and naturally his sisters knew about it from the first. But—and here is where Mary's wisdom fell short—her brave gesture did not pacify them: it only increased their hatred.
"Except for his research, Martin was blind to everything but his love. It was a beautiful and yet frightening passion, an insane cherishing as narrow and intense as his sisters hatred."
With a start, Jack remembered that it was Mrs. Kesserich telling him all this.
She went on, "Martin's love directed his every move. He was building a home for himself and Mary, and in his mind he was building a wonderful future for them as well—not vaguely, if you know Martin, but year by year, month by month. This winter, he'd plan, they would visit Buenos Aires, next summer they would sail down the inland passage and he would teach Mary Hungarian for their trip to Buda-Pesth the year after, where he would occupy a chair at the university for a few months ... and so on. Finally the time for their marriage drew near. Martin had been away. His research was keeping him very busy—"
Jack broke in with, "Wasn't that about the time he did his definitive work on growth and fertilization?"
Mrs. Kesserich nodded with solemn appreciation in the gathering darkness. "But now he was coming home, his work done. It was early evening, very chilly, but Hani and Hilda felt they had to ride down to the station to meet their brother. And although she dreaded it, Mary rode with them, for she knew how delighted he would be at her cantering to the puffing train and his running up to lift her down from the saddle to welcome him home.
"Of course there was Martin's luggage to be considered, so the station wagon had to be sent down for that." She looked defiantly at Jack. "I drove the station wagon. I was Martin's laboratory assistant."
She paused. "It was almost dark, but there was still a white cold line of sky to the west. Hani and Hilda, with Mary between them, were waiting on their horses at the top of the hill that led down to the station. The train had whistled and its headlight was graying the gravel of the crossing.
"Suddenly Mary's horse squealed and plunged down the hill. Hani and Hilda followed—to try to catch her, they said, but they didn't manage that, only kept her horse from veering off. Mary never screamed, but as her horse reared on the tracks, I saw her face in the headlight's glare.
"Martin must have guessed, or at least feared what had happened, for he was out of the train and running along the track before it stopped. In fact, he was the first to kneel down beside Mary—I mean, what had been Mary—and was holding her all bloody and shattered in his arms."
A door slammed. There were steps in the hall. Mrs. Kesserich stiffened and was silent. Jack turned.
The blur of a face hung in the doorway to the hall—a seemingly young, sensitive, suavely handsome face with aristocratic jaw. Then there was a click and the lights flared up and Jack saw the close-cropped gray hair and the lines around the eyes and nostrils, while the sensitive mouth grew sardonic. Yet the handsomeness stayed, and somehow the youth, too, or at least a tremendous inner vibrancy.
"Hello, Barr," Martin Kesserich said, ignoring his wife.
The great biologist had come home.
III
"Oh, yes, and Jamieson had a feeble paper on what he called individualization in marine worms. Barr, have you ever thought much about the larger aspects of the problem of individuality?"
Jack jumped slightly. He had let his thoughts wander very far.
"Not especially, sir," he mumbled.
The house was still. A few minutes after the professor's arrival, Mrs. Kesserich had gone off with an anxious glance at Jack. He knew why and wished he could reassure her that he would not mention their conversation to the professor.
Kesserich had spent perhaps a half hour briefing him on the more important papers delivered at the conferences. Then, almost as if it were a teacher's trick to show up a pupil's inattention, he had suddenly posed this question about individuality.
"You know what I mean, of course," Kesserich pressed. "The factors that make you you, and me me."
"Heredity and environment," Jack parroted like a freshman.
Kesserich nodded. "Suppose—this is just speculation—that we could control heredity and environment. Then we could re-create the same individual at will."
Jack felt a shiver go through him. "To get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits. That'd be far beyond us."
"What about identical twins?" Kesserich pointed out. "And then there's parthenogenesis to be considered. One might produce a duplicate of the mother without the intervention of the male." Although his voice had grown more idly speculative, Kesserich seemed to Jack to be smiling secretly. "There are many examples in the lower animal forms, to say nothing of the technique by which Loeb caused a sea urchin to reproduce with no more stimulus than a salt solution."
Jack felt the hair rising on his neck. "Even then you wouldn't get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits."
"Not if the parent were of very pure stock? Not if there were some special technique for selecting ova that would reproduce all the mother's traits?"
"But environment would change things," Jack objected. "The duplicate would be bound to develop differently."
"Is environment so important? Newman tells about a pair of identical twins separated from birth, unaware of each other's existence. They met by accident when they were twenty-one. Each was a telephone repairman. Each had a wife the same age. Each had a baby son. And each had a fox terrier called 'Trixie.' That's without trying to make environments similar. But suppose you did try. Suppose you saw to it that each of them had exactly the same experiences at the same times...."
For a moment it seemed to Jack that the room was dimming and wavering, becoming a dark pool in which the only motionless thing was Kesserich's sphinx-like face.
"Well, we've escaped quite far enough from Jamieson's marine worms," the biologist said, all brisk again. He said it as if Jack were the one who had led the conversation down wild and unprofitable channels.
"Let's get on to your project. I want to talk it over now, because I won't have any time for it tomorrow."
Jack looked at him blankly.
"Tomorrow I must attend to a very important matter," the biologist explained.
IV
Morning sunlight brightened the colors of the wax flowers under glass on the high bureau that always seemed to emit the faint odor of old hair combings. Jack pulled back the diamond-patterned quilt and blinked the sleep from his eyes. He expected his mind to be busy wondering about Kesserich and his wife—things said and half said last night—but found instead that his thoughts swung instantly to Mary Alice Pope, as if to a farthest island in a world of people.
Downstairs, the house was empty. After a long look at the cabinet—he felt behind it, but the key was gone—he hurried down to the waterfront. He stopped only for a bowl of chowder and, as an afterthought, to buy half a dozen newspapers.
The sea was bright, the brisk wind just right for the Annie O. There was eagerness in the way it smacked the sail and in the creak of the mast. And when he reached the cove, it was no longer still, but nervous with faint ripples, as if time had finally begun to stir.
After the same struggle with the underbrush, he came out on the rocky spine and passed the cove of the sea urchins. The spiny creatures struck an uncomfortable chord in his memory.
This time he climbed the second island cautiously, scraping the innocent-seeming ground ahead of him intently with a boathook he'd brought along for the purpose. He was only a few yards from the fence when he saw Mary Alice Pope standing behind it.
He hadn't realized that his heart would begin to pound or that, at the same time, a shiver of almost supernatural dread would go through him.
The girl eyed him with an uneasy hostility and immediately began to speak in a hushed, hurried voice. "You must go away at once and never come back. You're a wicked man, but I don't want you to be hurt. I've been watching for you all morning."
He tossed the newspapers over the fence. "You don't have to read them now," he told her. "Just look at the datelines and a few of the headlines."
When she finally lifted her eyes to his again, she was trembling. She tried unsuccessfully to speak.
"Listen to me," he said. "You've been the victim of a scheme to make you believe you were born around 1916 instead of 1933, and that it's
1933 now instead of 1951. I'm not sure why it's been done, though I think I know who you really are."
"But," the girl faltered, "my aunts tell me it's 1933."
"They would."
"And there are the papers ... the magazines ... the radio."
"The papers are old ones. The radio's faked—some sort of recording. I could show you if I could get at it."
" These papers might be faked," she said, pointing to where she'd let them drop on the ground.
"They're new," he said. "Only old papers get yellow."
"But why would they do it to me? Why? "
"Come with me to the mainland, Mary. That'll set you straight quicker than anything."
"I couldn't," she said, drawing back. "He's coming tonight."
"He?"
"The man who sends me the boxes ... and my life."
Jack shivered. When he spoke, his voice was rough and quick. "A life that's completely a lie, that's cut you off from the world. Come with me, Mary."
Question:
Why are the newspapers such an important part of the story?
Answer:
|
[
"The newspapers are such an important part of the story because they are an indicator as to the different characters' understanding of the time period. On the island, Mary Alice is surrounded by many items and artefacts to gaslight her into thinking that the year is 1933. These include the old fashioned car and radio, which plays news from the past. The one main item used to convince her are the newspapers. Hani and Hilda, who refer to themselves as her \"aunts\", give her a new newspaper every day with the date on it. It is a way for her to keep track of the passing time, albeit incorrect. When Jack Barry sees these newspapers and exclaims that they are wrong, Mary Alice is understandably shocked, and doesn't believe him. She doesn't know that newspapers aren't supposed to be yellow, because to her, newspapers have always been yellow. They are also very important to her because even though they are false, they are her only connection to what the outside world is like, apart from the radio, film and books. They are the real time news of what is happening in the world. At the end of the story, Jack Barry takes some current newspapers, in the hopes that he can convince her that the ones she possesses are decades old, and that she is, in fact, living in 1951. She doesn't believe him at first, pointing out that the papers he has could be fake, but when he states that only old papers are yellow, it seems that she begins to believe him. ",
"The newspaper that Mary is holding when Jack first meets her is visibly old and yellowed, and dated from 1933. This newspaper is what initially makes Jack realize that something is off about Mary and the island. The newspapers are a critical part of Martin's plan in recreating his fiancee in a new individual. He delivers the old newspapers to make Mary Alice believe that the events are happening in real time. In fact, when Jack tries to explain to Mary Alice that she is being manipulated, she uses the old newspapers as her own proof that she is truly in 1933.",
"Newspapers are an important part of the story because they reveal the lies told to Mary Alice. When she first meets Jack, she shows him the yellowed newspaper and says that it is the morning news from the day before yesterday. When Jack points out that the paper is from many years ago, she refuses to believe him and even implies that he is lying to her. The newspapers also help lead Jack to ask Mrs. Kesserich about Mary Alice Pope and why she believes she is living in 1933. Later, the newspaper from present-day that Jack buys finally convinces Mary Alice that she is living in a simulated lie. Although she is initially suspicious, he does manage to make her see the truth and question why the people around her would lie to her. ",
"For the girl the newspapers are almost the only way to learn something about the world and to divert herself as she is never brought to the mainland. They are also the way Jack learns about her being tricked. He proves his point of it being the year 1953 also by bringing newspapers. Mary's newspapers are yellow which proves their age. The tool for creating the lie and the tool for destroying it is the same in the story. With the help of contemporary newspapers, Jack is able to convince the girl to believe him and to save her from deception. The whole plan of the professor is ruined mainly because of the newspapers. "
] |
50905
|
Yesterday House
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by ASHMAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Meeting someone who's been dead for twenty years is shocking enough for anyone with a belief in ghosts—worse for one with none!
I
The narrow cove was quiet as the face of an expectant child, yet so near the ruffled Atlantic that the last push of wind carried the Annie O. its full length. The man in gray flannels and sweatshirt let the sail come crumpling down and hurried past its white folds at a gait made comically awkward by his cramped muscles. Slowly the rocky ledge came nearer. Slowly the blue V inscribed on the cove's surface by the sloop's prow died. Sloop and ledge kissed so gently that he hardly had to reach out his hand.
He scrambled ashore, dipping a sneaker in the icy water, and threw the line around a boulder. Unkinking himself, he looked back through the cove's high and rocky mouth at the gray-green scattering of islands and the faint dark line that was the coast of Maine. He almost laughed in satisfaction at having disregarded vague warnings and done the thing every man yearns to do once in his lifetime—gone to the farthest island out.
He must have looked longer than he realized, because by the time he dropped his gaze the cove was again as glassy as if the Annie O. had always been there. And the splotches made by his sneaker on the rock had faded in the hot sun. There was something very unusual about the quietness of this place. As if time, elsewhere hurrying frantically, paused here to rest. As if all changes were erased on this one bit of Earth.
The man's lean, melancholy face crinkled into a grin at the banal fancy. He turned his back on his new friend, the little green sloop, without one thought for his nets and specimen bottles, and set out to explore. The ground rose steeply at first and the oaks were close, but after a little way things went downhill and the leaves thinned and he came out on more rocks—and realized that he hadn't quite gone to the farthest one out.
Joined to this island by a rocky spine, which at the present low tide would have been dry but for the spray, was another green, high island that the first had masked from him all the while he had been sailing. He felt a thrill of discovery, just as he'd wondered back in the woods whether his might not be the first human feet to kick through the underbrush. After all, there were thousands of these islands.
Then he was dropping down the rocks, his lanky limbs now moving smoothly enough.
To the landward side of the spine, the water was fairly still. It even began with another deep cove, in which he glimpsed the spiny spheres of sea urchins. But from seaward the waves chopped in, sprinkling his trousers to the knees and making him wince pleasurably at the thought of what vast wings of spray and towers of solid water must crash up from here in a storm.
He crossed the rocks at a trot, ran up a short grassy slope, raced through a fringe of trees—and came straight up against an eight-foot fence of heavy mesh topped with barbed wire and backed at a short distance with high, heavy shrubbery.
Without pausing for surprise—in fact, in his holiday mood, using surprise as a goad—he jumped for the branch of an oak whose trunk touched the fence, scorning the easier lower branch on the other side of the tree. Then he drew himself up, worked his way to some higher branches that crossed the fence, and dropped down inside.
Suddenly cautious, he gently parted the shrubbery and, before the first surprise could really sink in, had another.
A closely mown lawn dotted with more shrubbery ran up to a snug white Cape Cod cottage. The single strand of a radio aerial stretched the length of the roof. Parked on a neat gravel driveway that crossed just in front of the cottage was a short, square-lined touring car that he recognized from remembered pictures as an ancient Essex. The whole scene had about it the same odd quietness as the cove.
Then, with the air of a clock-work toy coming to life, the white door opened and an elderly woman came out, dressed in a long, lace-edged dress and wide, lacy hat. She climbed into the driver's seat of the Essex, sitting there very stiff and tall. The motor began to chug bravely, gravel skittered, and the car rolled off between the trees.
The door of the house opened again and a slim girl emerged. She wore a white silk dress that fell straight from square neck-line to hip-height waistline, making the skirt seem very short. Her dark hair was bound with a white bandeau so that it curved close to her cheeks. A dark necklace dangled against the white of the dress. A newspaper was tucked under her arm.
She crossed the driveway and tossed the paper down on a rattan table between three rattan chairs and stood watching a squirrel zigzag across the lawn.
The man stepped through the wall of shrubbery, called, "hello!" and walked toward her.
She whirled around and stared at him as still as if her heart had stopped beating. Then she darted behind the table and waited for him there. Granting the surprise of his appearance, her alarm seemed not so much excessive as eerie. As if, the man thought, he were not an ordinary stranger, but a visitor from another planet.
Approaching closer, he saw that she was trembling and that her breath was coming in rapid, irregular gasps. Yet the slim, sweet, patrician face that stared into his had an underlying expression of expectancy that reminded him of the cove. She couldn't have been more than eighteen.
He stopped short of the table. Before he could speak, she stammered out, "Are you he?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, smiling puzzledly.
"The one who sends me the little boxes."
"I was out sailing and I happened to land in the far cove. I didn't dream that anyone lived on this island, or even came here."
"No one ever does come here," she replied. Her manner had changed, becoming at once more wary and less agitated, though still eerily curious.
"It startled me tremendously to find this place," he blundered on.
"Especially the road and the car. Why, this island can't be more than a quarter of a mile wide."
"The road goes down to the wharf," she explained, "and up to the top of the island, where my aunts have a tree-house."
He tore his mind away from the picture of a woman dressed like Queen Mary clambering up a tree. "Was that your aunt I saw driving off?"
"One of them. The other's taken the motorboat in for supplies." She looked at him doubtfully. "I'm not sure they'll like it if they find someone here."
"There are just the three of you?" he cut in quickly, looking down the empty road that vanished among the oaks.
She nodded.
"I suppose you go in to the mainland with your aunts quite often?"
She shook her head.
"It must get pretty dull for you."
"Not very," she said, smiling. "My aunts bring me the papers and other things. Even movies. We've got a projector. My favorite stars are Antonio Morino and Alice Terry. I like her better even than Clara Bow."
He looked at her hard for a moment. "I suppose you read a lot?"
She nodded. "Fitzgerald's my favorite author." She started around the table, hesitated, suddenly grew shy. "Would you like some lemonade?"
He'd noticed the dewed silver pitcher, but only now realized his thirst. Yet when she handed him a glass, he held it untasted and said awkwardly, "I haven't introduced myself. I'm Jack Barry."
She stared at his outstretched right hand, slowly extended her own toward it, shook it up and down exactly once, then quickly dropped it.
He chuckled and gulped some lemonade. "I'm a biology student. Been working at Wood's Hole the first part of the summer. But now I'm here to do research in marine ecology—that's sort of sea-life patterns—of the in-shore islands. Under the direction of Professor Kesserich. You know about him, of course?"
She shook her head.
"Probably the greatest living biologist," he was proud to inform her. "Human physiology as well. Tremendous geneticist. In a class with Carlson and Jacques Loeb. Martin Kesserich—he lives over there at town. I'm staying with him. You ought to have heard of him." He grinned. "Matter of fact, I'd never have met you if it hadn't been for Mrs. Kesserich."
The girl looked puzzled.
Jack explained, "The old boy's been off to Europe on some conferences, won't be back for a couple days more. But I was to get started anyhow. When I went out this morning Mrs. Kesserich—she's a drab sort of person—said to me, 'Don't try to sail to the farther islands.' So, of course, I had to. By the way, you still haven't told me your name."
"Mary Alice Pope," she said, speaking slowly and with an odd wonder, as if she were saying it for the first time.
"You're pretty shy, aren't you?"
"How would I know?"
The question stopped Jack. He couldn't think of anything to say to this strangely attractive girl dressed almost like a "flapper."
"Will you sit down?" she asked him gravely.
The rattan chair sighed under his weight. He made another effort to talk. "I'll bet you'll be glad when summer's over."
"Why?"
"So you'll be able to go back to the mainland."
"But I never go to the mainland."
"You mean you stay out here all winter?" he asked incredulously, his mind filled with a vision of snow and frozen spray and great gray waves.
"Oh, yes. We get all our supplies on hand before winter. My aunts are very capable. They don't always wear long lace dresses. And now I help them."
"But that's impossible!" he said with sudden sympathetic anger. "You can't be shut off this way from people your own age!"
"You're the first one I ever met." She hesitated. "I never saw a boy or a man before, except in movies."
"You're joking!"
"No, it's true."
"But why are they doing it to you?" he demanded, leaning forward. "Why are they inflicting this loneliness on you, Mary?"
She seemed to have gained poise from his loss of it. "I don't know why. I'm to find out soon. But actually I'm not lonely. May I tell you a secret?" She touched his hand, this time with only the faintest trembling. "Every night the loneliness gathers in around me—you're right about that. But then every morning new life comes to me in a little box."
"What's that?" he said sharply.
"Sometimes there's a poem in the box, sometimes a book, or pictures, or flowers, or a ring, but always a note. Next to the notes I like the poems best. My favorite is the one by Matthew Arnold that ends,
'Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude—'"
"Wait a minute," he interrupted. "Who sends you these boxes?"
"I don't know."
"But how are the notes signed?"
"They're wonderful notes," she said. "So wise, so gay, so tender, you'd imagine them being written by John Barrymore or Lindbergh."
"Yes, but how are they signed?"
She hesitated. "Never anything but 'Your Lover.'"
"And so when you first saw me, you thought—" He began, then stopped because she was blushing.
"How long have you been getting them?"
"Ever since I can remember. I have two closets of the boxes. The new ones are either by my bed when I wake or at my place at breakfast."
"But how does this—person get these boxes to you out here? Does he give them to your aunts and do they put them there?"
"I'm not sure."
"But how can they get them in winter?"
"I don't know."
"Look here," he said, pouring himself more lemonade, "how long is it since you've been to the mainland?"
"Almost eighteen years. My aunts tell me I was born there in the middle of the war."
"What war?" he asked startledly, spilling some lemonade.
"The World War, of course. What's the matter?"
Jack Barr was staring down at the spilled lemonade and feeling a kind of terror he'd never experienced in his waking life. Nothing around him had changed. He could still feel the same hot sun on his shoulders, the same icy glass in his hand, scent the same lemon-acid odor in his nostrils. He could still hear the faint chop-chop of the waves.
And yet everything had changed, gone dark and dizzy as a landscape glimpsed just before a faint. All the little false notes had come to a sudden focus. For the lemonade had spilled on the headline of the newspaper the girl had tossed down, and the headline read:
HITLER IN NEW DEFIANCE
Under the big black banner of that head swam smaller ones:
Foes of Machado Riot in Havana
Big NRA Parade Planned
Balbo Speaks in New York
Suddenly he felt a surge of relief. He had noticed that the paper was yellow and brittle-edged.
"Why are you so interested in old newspapers?" he asked.
"I wouldn't call day-before-yesterday's paper old," the girl objected, pointing at the dateline: July 20, 1933.
"You're trying to joke," Jack told her.
"No, I'm not."
"But it's 1953."
"Now it's you who are joking."
"But the paper's yellow."
"The paper's always yellow."
He laughed uneasily. "Well, if you actually think it's 1933, perhaps you're to be envied," he said, with a sardonic humor he didn't quite feel. "Then you can't know anything about the Second World War, or television, or the V-2s, or Bikini bathing suits, or the atomic bomb, or—"
"Stop!" She had sprung up and retreated around her chair, white-faced.
"I don't like what you're saying."
"But—"
"No, please! Jokes that may be quite harmless on the mainland sound different here."
"I'm really not joking," he said after a moment.
She grew quite frantic at that. "I can show you all last week's papers! I can show you magazines and other things. I can prove it!"
She started toward the house. He followed. He felt his heart begin to pound.
At the white door she paused, looking worriedly down the road. Jack thought he could hear the faint chug of a motorboat. She pushed open the door and he followed her inside. The small-windowed room was dark after the sunlight. Jack got an impression of solid old furniture, a fireplace with brass andirons.
"Flash!" croaked a gritty voice. "After their disastrous break day before yesterday, stocks are recovering. Leading issues...."
Jack realized that he had started and had involuntarily put his arm around the girl's shoulders. At the same time he noticed that the voice was coming from the curved brown trumpet of an old-fashioned radio loudspeaker.
The girl didn't pull away from him. He turned toward her. Although her gray eyes were on him, her attention had gone elsewhere.
"I can hear the car. They're coming back. They won't like it that you're here."
"All right they won't like it."
Her agitation grew. "No, you must go."
"I'll come back tomorrow," he heard himself saying.
"Flash! It looks as if the World Economic Conference may soon adjourn, mouthing jeers at old Uncle Sam who is generally referred to as Uncle Shylock."
Jack felt a numbness on his neck. The room seemed to be darkening, the girl growing stranger still.
"You must go before they see you."
"Flash! Wiley Post has just completed his solo circuit of the Globe, after a record-breaking flight of 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes. Asked how he felt after the energy-draining feat, Post quipped...."
He was halfway across the lawn before he realized the terror into which the grating radio voice had thrown him.
He leaped for the branch over-hanging the fence, vaulted up with the risky help of a foot on the barbed top. A surprised squirrel, lacking time to make its escape up the trunk, sprang to the ground ahead of him. With terrible suddenness, two steel-jawed semicircles clanked together just over the squirrel's head. Jack landed with one foot to either side of the sprung trap, while the squirrel darted off with a squeak.
Jack plunged down the slope to the rocky spine and ran across it, spray from the rising waves spattering him to the waist. Panting now, he stumbled up into the oaks and undergrowth of the first island, fought his way through it, finally reached the silent cove. He loosed the line of the Annie O. , dragged it as near to the cove's mouth as he could, plunged knee-deep in freezing water to give it a final shove, scrambled aboard, snatched up the boathook and punched at the rocks.
As soon as the Annie O. was nosing out of the cove into the cross waves, he yanked up the sail. The freshening wind filled it and sent the sloop heeling over, with inches of white water over the lee rail, and plunging ahead.
For a long while, Jack was satisfied to think of nothing but the wind and the waves and the sail and speed and danger, to have all his attention taken up balancing one against the other, so that he wouldn't have to ask himself what year it was and whether time was an illusion, and wonder about flappers and hidden traps.
When he finally looked back at the island, he was amazed to see how tiny it had grown, as distant as the mainland.
Then he saw a gray motorboat astern. He watched it as it slowly overtook him. It was built like a lifeboat, with a sturdy low cabin in the bow and wheel amidship. Whoever was at the wheel had long gray hair that whipped in the wind. The longer he looked, the surer he was that it was a woman wearing a lace dress. Something that stuck up inches over the cabin flashed darkly beside her. Only when she lifted it to the roof of the cabin did it occur to him that it might be a rifle.
But just then the motorboat swung around in a turn that sent waves drenching over it, and headed back toward the island. He watched it for a minute in wonder, then his attention was jolted by an angry hail.
Three fishing smacks, also headed toward town, were about to cross his bow. He came around into the wind and waited with shaking sail, watching a man in a lumpy sweater shake a fist at him. Then he turned and gratefully followed the dark, wide, fanlike sterns and age-yellowed sails.
II
The exterior of Martin Kesserich's home—a weathered white cube with narrow, sharp-paned windows, topped by a cupola—was nothing like its lavish interior.
In much the same way, Mrs. Kesserich clashed with the darkly gleaming furniture, persian rugs and bronze vases around her. Her shapeless black form, poised awkwardly on the edge of a huge sofa, made Jack think of a cow that had strayed into the drawing room. He wondered again how a man like Kesserich had come to marry such a creature.
Yet when she lifted up her little eyes from the shadows, he had the uneasy feeling that she knew a great deal about him. The eyes were still those of a domestic animal, but of a wise one that has been watching the house a long, long while from the barnyard.
He asked abruptly, "Do you know anything of a girl around here named Mary Alice Pope?"
The silence lasted so long that he began to think she'd gone into some bovine trance. Then, without a word, she got up and went over to a tall cabinet. Feeling on a ledge behind it for a key, she opened a panel, opened a cardboard box inside it, took something from the box and handed him a photograph. He held it up to the failing light and sucked in his breath with surprise.
It was a picture of the girl he'd met that afternoon. Same flat-bosomed dress—flowered rather than white—no bandeau, same beads. Same proud, demure expression, perhaps a bit happier.
"That is Mary Alice Pope," Mrs. Kesserich said in a strangely flat voice. "She was Martin's fiancee. She was killed in a railway accident in 1933."
The small sound of the cabinet door closing brought Jack back to reality. He realized that he no longer had the photograph. Against the gloom by the cabinet, Mrs. Kesserich's white face looked at him with what seemed a malicious eagerness.
"Sit down," she said, "and I'll tell you about it."
Without a thought as to why she hadn't asked him a single question—he was much too dazed for that—he obeyed. Mrs. Kesserich resumed her position on the edge of the sofa.
"You must understand, Mr. Barr, that Mary Alice Pope was the one love of Martin's life. He is a man of very deep and strong feelings, yet as you probably know, anything but kindly or demonstrative. Even when he first came here from Hungary with his older sisters Hani and Hilda, there was a cloak of loneliness about him—or rather about the three of them.
"Hani and Hilda were athletic outdoor women, yet fiercely proud—I don't imagine they ever spoke to anyone in America except as to a servant—and with a seething distaste for all men except Martin. They showered all their devotion on him. So of course, though Martin didn't realize it, they were consumed with jealousy when he fell in love with Mary Alice Pope. They'd thought that since he'd reached forty without marrying, he was safe.
"Mary Alice came from a pure-bred, or as a biologist would say, inbred British stock. She was very young, but very sweet, and up to a point very wise. She sensed Hani and Hilda's feelings right away and did everything she could to win them over. For instance, though she was afraid of horses, she took up horseback riding, because that was Hani and Hilda's favorite pastime. Naturally, Martin knew nothing of her fear, and naturally his sisters knew about it from the first. But—and here is where Mary's wisdom fell short—her brave gesture did not pacify them: it only increased their hatred.
"Except for his research, Martin was blind to everything but his love. It was a beautiful and yet frightening passion, an insane cherishing as narrow and intense as his sisters hatred."
With a start, Jack remembered that it was Mrs. Kesserich telling him all this.
She went on, "Martin's love directed his every move. He was building a home for himself and Mary, and in his mind he was building a wonderful future for them as well—not vaguely, if you know Martin, but year by year, month by month. This winter, he'd plan, they would visit Buenos Aires, next summer they would sail down the inland passage and he would teach Mary Hungarian for their trip to Buda-Pesth the year after, where he would occupy a chair at the university for a few months ... and so on. Finally the time for their marriage drew near. Martin had been away. His research was keeping him very busy—"
Jack broke in with, "Wasn't that about the time he did his definitive work on growth and fertilization?"
Mrs. Kesserich nodded with solemn appreciation in the gathering darkness. "But now he was coming home, his work done. It was early evening, very chilly, but Hani and Hilda felt they had to ride down to the station to meet their brother. And although she dreaded it, Mary rode with them, for she knew how delighted he would be at her cantering to the puffing train and his running up to lift her down from the saddle to welcome him home.
"Of course there was Martin's luggage to be considered, so the station wagon had to be sent down for that." She looked defiantly at Jack. "I drove the station wagon. I was Martin's laboratory assistant."
She paused. "It was almost dark, but there was still a white cold line of sky to the west. Hani and Hilda, with Mary between them, were waiting on their horses at the top of the hill that led down to the station. The train had whistled and its headlight was graying the gravel of the crossing.
"Suddenly Mary's horse squealed and plunged down the hill. Hani and Hilda followed—to try to catch her, they said, but they didn't manage that, only kept her horse from veering off. Mary never screamed, but as her horse reared on the tracks, I saw her face in the headlight's glare.
"Martin must have guessed, or at least feared what had happened, for he was out of the train and running along the track before it stopped. In fact, he was the first to kneel down beside Mary—I mean, what had been Mary—and was holding her all bloody and shattered in his arms."
A door slammed. There were steps in the hall. Mrs. Kesserich stiffened and was silent. Jack turned.
The blur of a face hung in the doorway to the hall—a seemingly young, sensitive, suavely handsome face with aristocratic jaw. Then there was a click and the lights flared up and Jack saw the close-cropped gray hair and the lines around the eyes and nostrils, while the sensitive mouth grew sardonic. Yet the handsomeness stayed, and somehow the youth, too, or at least a tremendous inner vibrancy.
"Hello, Barr," Martin Kesserich said, ignoring his wife.
The great biologist had come home.
III
"Oh, yes, and Jamieson had a feeble paper on what he called individualization in marine worms. Barr, have you ever thought much about the larger aspects of the problem of individuality?"
Jack jumped slightly. He had let his thoughts wander very far.
"Not especially, sir," he mumbled.
The house was still. A few minutes after the professor's arrival, Mrs. Kesserich had gone off with an anxious glance at Jack. He knew why and wished he could reassure her that he would not mention their conversation to the professor.
Kesserich had spent perhaps a half hour briefing him on the more important papers delivered at the conferences. Then, almost as if it were a teacher's trick to show up a pupil's inattention, he had suddenly posed this question about individuality.
"You know what I mean, of course," Kesserich pressed. "The factors that make you you, and me me."
"Heredity and environment," Jack parroted like a freshman.
Kesserich nodded. "Suppose—this is just speculation—that we could control heredity and environment. Then we could re-create the same individual at will."
Jack felt a shiver go through him. "To get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits. That'd be far beyond us."
"What about identical twins?" Kesserich pointed out. "And then there's parthenogenesis to be considered. One might produce a duplicate of the mother without the intervention of the male." Although his voice had grown more idly speculative, Kesserich seemed to Jack to be smiling secretly. "There are many examples in the lower animal forms, to say nothing of the technique by which Loeb caused a sea urchin to reproduce with no more stimulus than a salt solution."
Jack felt the hair rising on his neck. "Even then you wouldn't get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits."
"Not if the parent were of very pure stock? Not if there were some special technique for selecting ova that would reproduce all the mother's traits?"
"But environment would change things," Jack objected. "The duplicate would be bound to develop differently."
"Is environment so important? Newman tells about a pair of identical twins separated from birth, unaware of each other's existence. They met by accident when they were twenty-one. Each was a telephone repairman. Each had a wife the same age. Each had a baby son. And each had a fox terrier called 'Trixie.' That's without trying to make environments similar. But suppose you did try. Suppose you saw to it that each of them had exactly the same experiences at the same times...."
For a moment it seemed to Jack that the room was dimming and wavering, becoming a dark pool in which the only motionless thing was Kesserich's sphinx-like face.
"Well, we've escaped quite far enough from Jamieson's marine worms," the biologist said, all brisk again. He said it as if Jack were the one who had led the conversation down wild and unprofitable channels.
"Let's get on to your project. I want to talk it over now, because I won't have any time for it tomorrow."
Jack looked at him blankly.
"Tomorrow I must attend to a very important matter," the biologist explained.
IV
Morning sunlight brightened the colors of the wax flowers under glass on the high bureau that always seemed to emit the faint odor of old hair combings. Jack pulled back the diamond-patterned quilt and blinked the sleep from his eyes. He expected his mind to be busy wondering about Kesserich and his wife—things said and half said last night—but found instead that his thoughts swung instantly to Mary Alice Pope, as if to a farthest island in a world of people.
Downstairs, the house was empty. After a long look at the cabinet—he felt behind it, but the key was gone—he hurried down to the waterfront. He stopped only for a bowl of chowder and, as an afterthought, to buy half a dozen newspapers.
The sea was bright, the brisk wind just right for the Annie O. There was eagerness in the way it smacked the sail and in the creak of the mast. And when he reached the cove, it was no longer still, but nervous with faint ripples, as if time had finally begun to stir.
After the same struggle with the underbrush, he came out on the rocky spine and passed the cove of the sea urchins. The spiny creatures struck an uncomfortable chord in his memory.
This time he climbed the second island cautiously, scraping the innocent-seeming ground ahead of him intently with a boathook he'd brought along for the purpose. He was only a few yards from the fence when he saw Mary Alice Pope standing behind it.
He hadn't realized that his heart would begin to pound or that, at the same time, a shiver of almost supernatural dread would go through him.
The girl eyed him with an uneasy hostility and immediately began to speak in a hushed, hurried voice. "You must go away at once and never come back. You're a wicked man, but I don't want you to be hurt. I've been watching for you all morning."
He tossed the newspapers over the fence. "You don't have to read them now," he told her. "Just look at the datelines and a few of the headlines."
When she finally lifted her eyes to his again, she was trembling. She tried unsuccessfully to speak.
"Listen to me," he said. "You've been the victim of a scheme to make you believe you were born around 1916 instead of 1933, and that it's
1933 now instead of 1951. I'm not sure why it's been done, though I think I know who you really are."
"But," the girl faltered, "my aunts tell me it's 1933."
"They would."
"And there are the papers ... the magazines ... the radio."
"The papers are old ones. The radio's faked—some sort of recording. I could show you if I could get at it."
" These papers might be faked," she said, pointing to where she'd let them drop on the ground.
"They're new," he said. "Only old papers get yellow."
"But why would they do it to me? Why? "
"Come with me to the mainland, Mary. That'll set you straight quicker than anything."
"I couldn't," she said, drawing back. "He's coming tonight."
"He?"
"The man who sends me the boxes ... and my life."
Jack shivered. When he spoke, his voice was rough and quick. "A life that's completely a lie, that's cut you off from the world. Come with me, Mary."
|
Describe the setting of the story.
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about What is POSAT? by Phyllis Sterling Smith.
Relevant chunks:
What is POSAT?
By PHYLLIS STERLING SMITH
Illustrated by ED ALEXANDER
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Of course coming events cast their shadows before, but this shadow was 400 years long!
The following advertisement appeared in the July 1953 issue of several magazines:
MASTERY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE CAN BE YOURS!
What is the secret source of those profound principles that can solve the problems of life? Send for our FREE booklet of explanation.
Do not be a leaf in the wind! YOU can alter the course of your life!
Tap the treasury of Wisdom through the ages!
The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth
POSAT
an ancient secret society
Most readers passed it by with scarcely a glance. It was, after all, similar to the many that had appeared through the years under the name of that same society. Other readers, as their eyes slid over the familiar format of the ad, speculated idly about the persistent and mildly mysterious organization behind it. A few even resolved to clip the attached coupon and send for the booklet—sometime—when a pen or pencil was nearer at hand.
Bill Evans, an unemployed pharmacist, saw the ad in a copy of Your Life and Psychology that had been abandoned on his seat in the bus. He filled out the blanks on the coupon with a scrap of stubby pencil.
"You can alter the course of your life!" he read again. He particularly liked that thought, even though he had long since ceased to believe it. He actually took the trouble to mail the coupon. After all, he had, literally, nothing to lose, and nothing else to occupy his time.
Miss Elizabeth Arnable was one of the few to whom the advertisement was unfamiliar. As a matter of fact, she very seldom read a magazine. The radio in her room took the place of reading matter, and she always liked to think that it amused her cats as well as herself. Reading would be so selfish under the circumstances, wouldn't it? Not but what the cats weren't almost smart enough to read, she always said.
It just so happened, however, that she had bought a copy of the Antivivisectionist Gazette the day before. She pounced upon the POSAT ad as a trout might snap at a particularly attractive fly. Having filled out the coupon with violet ink, she invented an errand that would take her past the neighborhood post office so that she could post it as soon as possible.
Donald Alford, research physicist, came across the POSAT ad tucked at the bottom of a column in The Bulletin of Physical Research . He was engrossed in the latest paper by Dr. Crandon, a man whom he admired from the point of view of both a former student and a fellow research worker. Consequently, he was one of the many who passed over the POSAT ad with the disregard accorded to any common object.
He read with interest to the end of the article before he realized that some component of the advertisement had been noted by a region of his brain just beyond consciousness. It teased at him like a tickle that couldn't be scratched until he turned back to the page.
It was the symbol or emblem of POSAT, he realized, that had caught his attention. The perpendicularly crossed ellipses centered with a small black circle might almost be a conventionalized version of the Bohr atom of helium. He smiled with mild skepticism as he read through the printed matter that accompanied it.
"I wonder what their racket is," he mused. Then, because his typewriter was conveniently at hand, he carefully tore out the coupon and inserted it in the machine. The spacing of the typewriter didn't fit the dotted lines on the coupon, of course, but he didn't bother to correct it. He addressed an envelope, laid it with other mail to be posted, and promptly forgot all about it. Since he was a methodical man, it was entrusted to the U.S. mail early the next morning, together with his other letters.
Three identical forms accompanied the booklet which POSAT sent in response to the three inquiries. The booklet gave no more information than had the original advertisement, but with considerable more volubility. It promised the recipient the secrets of the Cosmos and the key that would unlock the hidden knowledge within himself—if he would merely fill out the enclosed form.
Bill Evans, the unemployed pharmacist, let the paper lie unanswered for several days. To be quite honest, he was disappointed. Although he had mentally disclaimed all belief in anything that POSAT might offer, he had watched the return mails with anticipation. His own resources were almost at an end, and he had reached the point where intervention by something supernatural, or at least superhuman, seemed the only hope.
He had hoped, unreasonably, that POSAT had an answer. But time lay heavily upon him, and he used it one evening to write the requested information—about his employment (ha!), his religious beliefs, his reason for inquiring about POSAT, his financial situation. Without quite knowing that he did so, he communicated in his terse answers some of his desperation and sense of futility.
Miss Arnable was delighted with the opportunity for autobiographical composition. It required five extra sheets of paper to convey all the information that she wished to give—all about her poor, dear father who had been a missionary to China, and the kinship that she felt toward the mystic cults of the East, her belief that her cats were reincarnations of her loved ones (which, she stated, derived from a religion of the Persians; or was it the Egyptians?) and in her complete and absolute acceptance of everything that POSAT had stated in their booklet. And what would the dues be? She wished to join immediately. Fortunately, dear father had left her in a comfortable financial situation.
To Donald Alford, the booklet seemed to confirm his suspicion that POSAT was a racket of some sort. Why else would they be interested in his employment or financial position? It also served to increase his curiosity.
"What do you suppose they're driving at?" he asked his wife Betty, handing her the booklet and questionnaire.
"I don't really know what to say," she answered, squinting a little as she usually did when puzzled. "I know one thing, though, and that's that you won't stop until you find out!"
"The scientific attitude," he acknowledged with a grin.
"Why don't you fill out this questionnaire incognito, though?" she suggested. "Pretend that we're wealthy and see if they try to get our money. Do they have anything yet except your name and address?"
Don was shocked. "If I send this back to them, it will have to be with correct answers!"
"The scientific attitude again," Betty sighed. "Don't you ever let your imagination run away with the facts a bit? What are you going to give for your reasons for asking about POSAT?"
"Curiosity," he replied, and, pulling his fountain pen from his vest pocket, he wrote exactly that, in small, neat script.
It was unfortunate for his curiosity that Don could not see the contents of the three envelopes that were mailed from the offices of POSAT the following week. For this time they differed.
Bill Evans was once again disappointed. The pamphlet that was enclosed gave what apparently meant to be final answers to life's problems. They were couched in vaguely metaphysical terms and offered absolutely no help to him.
His disappointment was tempered, however, by the knowledge that he had unexpectedly found a job. Or, rather, it had fallen into his lap. When he had thought that every avenue of employment had been tried, a position had been offered him in a wholesale pharmacy in the older industrial part of the city. It was not a particularly attractive place to work, located as it was next to a large warehouse, but to him it was hope for the future.
It amused him to discover that the offices of POSAT were located on the other side of the same warehouse, at the end of a blind alley. Blind alley indeed! He felt vaguely ashamed for having placed any confidence in them.
Miss Arnable was thrilled to discover that her envelope contained not only several pamphlets, (she scanned the titles rapidly and found that one of them concerned the sacred cats of ancient Egypt), but that it contained also a small pin with the symbol of POSAT wrought in gold and black enamel. The covering letter said that she had been accepted as an active member of POSAT and that the dues were five dollars per month; please remit by return mail. She wrote a check immediately, and settled contentedly into a chair to peruse the article on sacred cats.
After a while she began to read aloud so that her own cats could enjoy it, too.
Don Alford would not have been surprised if his envelope had shown contents similar to the ones that the others received. The folded sheets of paper that he pulled forth, however, made him stiffen with sharp surprise.
"Come here a minute, Betty," he called, spreading them out carefully on the dining room table. "What do you make of these?"
She came, dish cloth in hand, and thoughtfully examined them, one by one. "Multiple choice questions! It looks like a psychological test of some sort."
"This isn't the kind of thing I expected them to send me," worried Don. "Look at the type of thing they ask. 'If you had discovered a new and virulent poison that could be compounded from common household ingredients, would you (1) publish the information in a daily newspaper, (2) manufacture it secretly and sell it as rodent exterminator, (3) give the information to the armed forces for use as a secret weapon, or (4) withhold the information entirely as too dangerous to be passed on?'"
"Could they be a spy ring?" asked Betty. "Subversive agents? Anxious to find out your scientific secrets like that classified stuff that you're so careful of when you bring it home from the lab?"
Don scanned the papers quickly. "There's nothing here that looks like an attempt to get information. Besides, I've told them nothing about my work except that I do research in physics. They don't even know what company I work for. If this is a psychological test, it measures attitudes, nothing else. Why should they want to know my attitudes?"
"Do you suppose that POSAT is really what it claims to be—a secret society—and that they actually screen their applicants?"
He smiled wryly. "Wouldn't it be interesting if I didn't make the grade after starting out to expose their racket?"
He pulled out his pen and sat down to the task of resolving the dilemmas before him.
His next communication from POSAT came to his business address and, paradoxically, was more personal than its forerunners.
Dear Doctor Alford:
We have examined with interest the information that you have sent to us. We are happy to inform you that, thus far, you have satisfied the requirements for membership in the Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth. Before accepting new members into this ancient and honorable secret society, we find it desirable that they have a personal interview with the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
Accordingly, you are cordially invited to an audience with our Grand Chairman on Tuesday, July 10, at 2:30 P.M. Please let us know if this arrangement is acceptable to you. If not, we will attempt to make another appointment for you.
The time specified for the appointment was hardly a convenient one for Don. At 2:30 P.M. on most Tuesdays, he would be at work in the laboratory. And while his employers made no complaint if he took his research problems home with him and worried over them half the night, they were not equally enthusiastic when he used working hours for pursuing unrelated interests. Moreover, the headquarters of POSAT was in a town almost a hundred miles distant. Could he afford to take a whole day off for chasing will-o-wisps?
It hardly seemed worth the trouble. He wondered if Betty would be disappointed if he dropped the whole matter. Since the letter had been sent to the laboratory instead of his home, he couldn't consult her about it without telephoning.
Since the letter had been sent to the laboratory instead of his home! But it was impossible!
He searched feverishly through his pile of daily mail for the envelope in which the letter had come. The address stared up at him, unmistakably and fearfully legible. The name of his company. The number of the room he worked in. In short, the address that he had never given them!
"Get hold of yourself," he commanded his frightened mind. "There's some perfectly logical, easy explanation for this. They looked it up in the directory of the Institute of Physics. Or in the alumni directory of the university. Or—or—"
But the more he thought about it, the more sinister it seemed. His laboratory address was available, but why should POSAT take the trouble of looking it up? Some prudent impulse had led him to withhold that particular bit of information, yet now, for some reason of their own, POSAT had unearthed the information.
His wife's words echoed in his mind, "Could they be a spy ring? Subversive agents?"
Don shook his head as though to clear away the confusion. His conservative habit of thought made him reject that explanation as too melodramatic.
At least one decision was easier to reach because of his doubts. Now he knew he had to keep his appointment with the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
He scribbled a memo to the department office stating that he would not be at work on Tuesday.
At first Don Alford had some trouble locating the POSAT headquarters. It seemed to him that the block in which the street number would fall was occupied entirely by a huge sprawling warehouse, of concrete construction, and almost entirely windowless. It was recessed from the street in several places to make room for the small, shabby buildings of a wholesale pharmacy, a printer's plant, an upholstering shop, and was also indented by alleys lined with loading platforms.
It was at the back of one of the alleys that he finally found a door marked with the now familiar emblem of POSAT.
He opened the frosted glass door with a feeling of misgiving, and faced a dark flight of stairs leading to the upper floor. Somewhere above him a buzzer sounded, evidently indicating his arrival. He picked his way up through the murky stairwell.
The reception room was hardly a cheerful place, with its battered desk facing the view of the empty alley, and a film of dust obscuring the pattern of the gray-looking wallpaper and worn rug. But the light of the summer afternoon filtering through the window scattered the gloom somewhat, enough to help Don doubt that he would find the menace here that he had come to expect.
The girl addressing envelopes at the desk looked very ordinary. Not the Mata-Hari type , thought Don, with an inward chuckle at his own suspicions. He handed her the letter.
She smiled. "We've been expecting you, Dr. Alford. If you'll just step into the next room—"
She opened a door opposite the stairwell, and Don stepped through it.
The sight of the luxurious room before him struck his eyes with the shock of a dentist's drill, so great was the contrast between it and the shabby reception room. For a moment Don had difficulty breathing. The rug—Don had seen one like it before, but it had been in a museum. The paintings on the walls, ornately framed in gilt carving, were surely old masters—of the Renaissance period, he guessed. Although he recognized none of the pictures, he felt that he could almost name the artists. That glowing one near the corner would probably be a Titian. Or was it Tintorretto? He regretted for a moment the lost opportunities of his college days, when he had passed up Art History in favor of Operational Circuit Analysis.
The girl opened a filing cabinet, the front of which was set flush with the wall, and, selecting a folder from it, disappeared through another door.
Don sprang to examine the picture near the corner. It was hung at eye level—that is, at the eye level of the average person. Don had to bend over a bit to see it properly. He searched for a signature. Apparently there was none. But did artists sign their pictures back in those days? He wished he knew more about such things.
Each of the paintings was individually lighted by a fluorescent tube held on brackets directly above it. As Don straightened up from his scrutiny of the picture, he inadvertently hit his head against the light. The tube, dislodged from its brackets, fell to the rug with a muffled thud.
Now I've done it! thought Don with dismay. But at least the tube hadn't shattered.
In fact—it was still glowing brightly! His eyes registered the fact, even while his mind refused to believe it. He raised his eyes to the brackets. They were simple pieces of solid hardware designed to support the tube.
There were no wires!
Don picked up the slender, glowing cylinder and held it between trembling fingers. Although it was delivering as much light as a two or three hundred watt bulb, it was cool to the touch. He examined it minutely. There was no possibility of concealed batteries.
The thumping of his heart was caused not by the fact that he had never seen a similar tube before, but because he had. He had never held one in his hands, though. The ones which his company had produced as experimental models had been unsuccessful at converting all of the radioactivity into light, and had, of necessity, been heavily shielded.
Right now, two of his colleagues back in the laboratory would still be searching for the right combination of fluorescent material and radioactive salts with which to make the simple, efficient, self-contained lighting unit that he was holding in his hand at this moment!
But this is impossible! he thought. We're the only company that's working on this, and it's secret. There can't be any in actual production!
And even if one had actually been successfully produced, how would it have fallen into the possession of POSAT, an Ancient Secret Society, The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth?
The conviction grew in Don's mind that here was something much deeper and more sinister than he would be able to cope with. He should have asked for help, should have stated his suspicions to the police or the F.B.I. Even now—
With sudden decision, he thrust the lighting tube into his pocket and stepped swiftly to the outer door. He grasped the knob and shook it impatiently when it stuck and refused to turn. He yanked at it. His impatience changed to panic. It was locked!
A soft sound behind him made him whirl about. The secretary had entered again through the inner door. She glanced at the vacant light bracket, then significantly at his bulging pocket. Her gaze was still as bland and innocent as when he had entered, but to Don she no longer seemed ordinary. Her very calmness in the face of his odd actions was distressingly ominous.
"Our Grand Chairman will see you now," she said in a quiet voice.
Don realized that he was half crouched in the position of an animal expecting attack. He straightened up with what dignity he could manage to find.
She opened the inner door again and Don followed her into what he supposed to be the office of the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
Instead he found himself on a balcony along the side of a vast room, which must have been the interior of the warehouse that he had noted outside. The girl motioned him toward the far end of the balcony, where a frosted glass door marked the office of the Grand Chairman.
But Don could not will his legs to move. His heart beat at the sight of the room below him. It was a laboratory, but a laboratory the like of which he had never seen before. Most of the equipment was unfamiliar to him. Whatever he did recognize was of a different design than he had ever used, and there was something about it that convinced him that this was more advanced. The men who bent busily over their instruments did not raise their eyes to the figures on the balcony.
"Good Lord!" Don gasped. "That's an atomic reactor down there!" There could be no doubt about it, even though he could see it only obscurely through the bluish-green plastic shielding it.
His thoughts were so clamorous that he hardly realized that he had spoken aloud, or that the door at the end of the balcony had opened.
He was only dimly aware of the approaching footsteps as he speculated wildly on the nature of the shielding material. What could be so dense that only an inch would provide adequate shielding and yet remain semitransparent?
His scientist's mind applauded the genius who had developed it, even as the alarming conviction grew that he wouldn't—couldn't—be allowed to leave here any more. Surely no man would be allowed to leave this place alive to tell the fantastic story to the world!
"Hello, Don," said a quiet voice beside him. "It's good to see you again."
"Dr. Crandon!" he heard his own voice reply. " You're the Grand Chairman of POSAT?"
He felt betrayed and sick at heart. The very voice with which Crandon had spoken conjured up visions of quiet lecture halls and his own youthful excitement at the masterful and orderly disclosure of scientific facts. To find him here in this mad and treacherous place—didn't anything make sense any longer?
"I think we have rather abused you, Don," Dr. Crandon continued. His voice sounded so gentle that Don found it hard to think there was any evil in it. "I can see that you are suspicious of us, and—yes—afraid."
Don stared at the scene below him. After his initial glance to confirm his identification of Crandon, Don could not bear to look at him.
Crandon's voice suddenly hardened, became abrupt. "You're partly right about us, of course. I hate to think how many laws this organization has broken. Don't condemn us yet, though. You'll be a member yourself before the day is over."
Don was shocked by such confidence in his corruptibility.
"What do you use?" he asked bitterly. "Drugs? Hypnosis?"
Crandon sighed. "I forgot how little you know, Don. I have a long story to tell you. You'll find it hard to believe at first. But try to trust me. Try to believe me, as you once did. When I say that much of what POSAT does is illegal, I do not mean immoral. We're probably the most moral organization in the world. Get over the idea that you have stumbled into a den of thieves."
Crandon paused as though searching for words with which to continue.
"Did you notice the paintings in the waiting room as you entered?"
Don nodded, too bewildered to speak.
"They were donated by the founder of our Organization. They were part of his personal collection—which, incidentally, he bought from the artists themselves. He also designed the atomic reactor we use for power here in the laboratory."
"Then the pictures are modern," said Don, aware that his mouth was hanging open foolishly. "I thought one was a Titian—"
"It is," said Crandon. "We have several original Titians, although I really don't know too much about them."
"But how could a man alive today buy paintings from an artist of the Renaissance?"
"He is not alive today. POSAT is actually what our advertisements claim—an ancient secret society. Our founder has been dead for over four centuries."
"But you said that he designed your atomic reactor."
"Yes. This particular one has been in use for only twenty years, however."
Don's confusion was complete. Crandon looked at him kindly. "Let's start at the beginning," he said, and Don was back again in the classroom with the deep voice of Professor Crandon unfolding the pages of knowledge in clear and logical manner. "Four hundred years ago, in the time of the Italian Renaissance, a man lived who was a super-genius. His was the kind of incredible mentality that appears not in every generation, or even every century, but once in thousands of years.
"Probably the man who invented what we call the phonetic alphabet was one like him. That man lived seven thousand years ago in Mesopotamia, and his discovery was so original, so far from the natural course of man's thinking, that not once in the intervening seven thousand years has that device been rediscovered. It still exists only in the civilizations to which it has been passed on directly.
"The super-genius who was our founder was not a semanticist. He was a physical scientist and mathematician. Starting with the meager heritage that existed in these fields in his time, he began tackling physical puzzles one by one. Sitting in his study, using as his principal tool his own great mind, he invented calculus, developed the quantum theory of light, moved on to electromagnetic radiation and what we call Maxwell's equations—although, of course, he antedated Maxwell by centuries—developed the special and general theories of relativity, the tool of wave mechanics, and finally, toward the end of his life, he mathematically derived the packing fraction that describes the binding energy of nuclei—"
"But it can't be done," Don objected. "It's an observed phenomenon. It hasn't been derived." Every conservative instinct that he possessed cried out against this impossible fantasy. And yet—there sat the reactor, sheathed in its strange shield. Crandon watched the direction of Don's glance.
"Yes, the reactor," said Crandon. "He built one like it. It confirmed his theories. His calculations showed him something else too. He saw the destructive potentialities of an atomic explosion. He himself could not have built an atomic bomb; he didn't have the facilities. But his knowledge would have enabled other men to do so. He looked about him. He saw a political setup of warring principalities, rival states, intrigue, and squabbles over political power. Giving the men of his time atomic energy would have been like handing a baby a firecracker with a lighted fuse.
"What should he have done? Let his secrets die with him? He didn't think so. No one else in his age could have derived the knowledge that he did. But it was an age of brilliant men. Leonardo. Michelangelo. There were men capable of learning his science, even as men can learn it today. He gathered some of them together and founded this society. It served two purposes. It perpetuated his discoveries and at the same time it maintained the greatest secrecy about them. He urged that the secrets be kept until the time when men could use them safely. The other purpose was to make that time come about as soon as possible."
Crandon looked at Don's unbelieving face. "How can I make you see that it is the truth? Think of the eons that man or manlike creatures have walked the Earth. Think what a small fraction of that time is four hundred years. Is it so strange that atomic energy was discovered a little early, by this displacement in time that is so tiny after all?"
"But by one man," Don argued.
Crandon shrugged. "Compared with him, Don, you and I are stupid men. So are the scientists who slowly plodded down the same road he had come, stumbling first on one truth and then the succeeding one. We know that inventions and discoveries do not occur at random. Each is based on the one that preceded it. We are all aware of the phenomenon of simultaneous invention. The path to truth is a straight one. It is only our own stupidity that makes it seem slow and tortuous.
"He merely followed the straight path," Crandon finished simply.
Don's incredulity thawed a little. It was not entirely beyond the realm of possibility.
But if it were true! A vast panorama of possible achievements spread before him.
"Four hundred years!" he murmured with awe. "You've had four hundred years head-start on the rest of the world! What wonders you must have uncovered in that time!"
"Our technical achievements may disappoint you," warned Crandon.
"Oh, they're way beyond anything that you are familiar with. You've undoubtedly noticed the shielding material on the reactor. That's a fairly recent development of our metallurgical department. There are other things in the laboratory that I can't even explain to you until you have caught up on the technical basis for understanding them.
"Our emphasis has not been on physical sciences, however, except as they contribute to our central project. We want to change civilization so that it can use physical science without disaster."
For a moment Don had been fired with enthusiasm. But at these words his heart sank.
"Then you've failed," he said bitterly. "In spite of centuries of advance warning, you've failed to change the rest of us enough to prevent us from trying to blow ourselves off the Earth. Here we are, still snarling and snapping at our neighbors' throats—and we've caught up with you. We have the atomic bomb. What's POSAT been doing all that time? Or have you found that human nature really can't be changed?"
"Come with me," said Crandon.
He led the way along the narrow balcony to another door, then down a steep flight of stairs. He opened a door at the bottom, and Don saw what must have been the world's largest computing machine.
"This is our answer," said Crandon. "Oh, rather, it's the tool by which we find our answer. For two centuries we have been working on the newest of the sciences—that of human motivation. Soon we will be ready to put some of our new knowledge to work. But you are right in one respect, we are working now against time. We must hurry if we are to save our civilization. That's why you are here. We have work for you to do. Will you join us, Don?"
"But why the hocus-pocus?" asked Don. "Why do you hide behind such a weird front as POSAT? Why do you advertise in magazines and invite just anyone to join? Why didn't you approach me directly, if you have work for me to do? And if you really have the answers to our problems, why haven't you gathered together all the scientists in the world to work on this project—before it's too late?"
Crandon took a sighing breath. "How I wish that we could do just that! But you forget that one of the prime purposes of our organization is to maintain the secrecy of our discoveries until they can be safely disclosed. We must be absolutely certain that anyone who enters this building will have joined POSAT before he leaves. What if we approached the wrong scientist? Centuries of accomplishment might be wasted if they attempted either to reveal it or to exploit it!
"Do you recall the questionnaires that you answered before you were invited here? We fed the answers to this machine and, as a result, we know more about how you will react in any given situation than you do yourself. Even if you should fail to join us, our secrets would be safe with you. Of course, we miss a few of the scientists who might be perfect material for our organization. You'd be surprised, though, at how clever our advertisements are at attracting exactly the men we want. With the help of our new science, we have baited our ads well, and we know how to maintain interest. Curiosity is, to the men we want, a powerful motivator."
"But what about the others?" asked Don. "There must be hundreds of applicants who would be of no use to you at all."
"Oh, yes," replied Crandon. "There are the mild religious fanatics. We enroll them as members and keep them interested by sending pamphlets in line with their interests. We even let them contribute to our upkeep, if they seem to want to. They never get beyond the reception room if they come to call on us. But they are additional people through whom we can act when the time finally comes.
"There are also the desperate people who try POSAT as a last resort—lost ones who can't find their direction in life. For them we put into practice some of our newly won knowledge. We rehabilitate them—anonymously, of course. Even find jobs or patch up homes. It's good practice for us.
"I think I've answered most of your questions, Don. But you haven't answered mine. Will you join us?"
Don looked solemnly at the orderly array of the computer before him. He had one more question.
"Will it really work? Can it actually tell you how to motivate the stubborn, quarrelsome, opinionated people one finds on this Earth?"
Crandon smiled. "You're here, aren't you?"
Don nodded, his tense features relaxing.
"Enroll me as a member," he said.
Question:
Describe the setting of the story.
Answer:
|
[
"“What is POSAT?” takes place in an unspecified city. Three of the characters, Bill, Elizabeth, and Don, lead ordinary lives and hold typical jobs. Don is a physicist, and the laboratory he works at is located about 100 miles away from the POSAT headquarters. \n\nThe POSAT headquarters is the main setting described in the story. It is located at the end of an alley in an unassuming warehouse, next to a wholesale pharmacy, an upholstery shop, and a printer’s plant. The building is almost entirely windowless, and the only sign that the secret society is housed there is the organization’s emblem on its door. \n\nVisitors enter a dark room with a staircase. A buzzer goes off to let the employees of POSAT know that someone has arrived. The reception room is dusty and highly unimpressive. The wallpaper and rugs are worn out and gray, and the woman who works at the beat-up reception desk is average looking. \n\nThe next room that some visitors are allowed access to is entirely different from the first. There are gorgeous Renaissance paintings on the walls, framed with ornate gold decoration and lit up with individual lights. The rug is lush, and the room is impeccably clean. \n\nFinally, when visitors are invited to meet with the Grand Chairman, they must enter a balcony area located in the interior of the warehouse. There is a frosted glass door with the Grand Chairman’s name on it. On the lower floor, there is a laboratory that is visible from the balcony. The lab contains advanced equipment that is not available anywhere else in the world. It also houses an atomic reactor that is shielded by a bluish-green invention that is about an inch thick The shield is semi-transparent but also incredibly strong. Beneath the balcony, down a steep flight of stairs, there is a gigantic computing machine. Everything that goes on in the POSAT building must remain confidential, and very few individuals are told the secrets of the ancient society. \n",
"The primary setting in this story is that of the POSAT headquarters. Hidden in a back alley in a warehouse district, it proved hard to find for Donald when he was invited for an interview. In this same warehouse are a number of businesses, including a pharmacy where POSAT places Bill with a job. The first room in the POSAT headquarters is a dingy waiting room, which acts as a facade or screening room of sorts so that they do not show their hand to people they are not sure will want to enter the organization. The real waiting room is a gorgeous, ornate room with Renaissance paintings on the walls, part of the personal collection of POSAT's founder. There was a beautiful rug on the floor, some filing cabinets, and some curious fluorescent lights that seemed more advanced that Donald figured possible. Past this room, the Grand Chairman has an office that is also ornate, with a frosted glass door, but between this office and the waiting room there is a balcony. This balcony acts like a bridge between the two rooms over a laboratory. This laboratory is visible from this walkway and is full of extremely advanced technology that Donald is not able to identify by sight, as it is beyond its time. Even the glass-like substance acting as a shielding window between him and the laboratory is too thin to be a substance known by his contemporaries. ",
"The story centers on three main characters who separately discover the advertisements of the POSAT in different locations. Bill Evans discovers it while reading through a magazine left on a bus seat. Elizabeth Arnable finds the advertisement in the Antivivisectionist Gazette, which she reads in a room with her many cats and a radio. Don Alford receives his invitation to meet with the Grand Chairman of POSAT, which is located nearly one hundred miles away from his home. The POSAT headquarters calls a giant, sprawling warehouse home. The concrete, windowless warehouse covers an entire city block and also houses a printer's plant, upholstering shop, and a pharmacy where Bill Evans finds new employment. Several alleys make way for loading platforms at various locations around the warehouse as well. Don Alford finds the entrance to POSAT at the back of an alley, and he enters through a frosted glass door and walks up a dark, murky stairwell to a dingy reception room. The room Don enters beyond the reception area, however, is ornately decorated with rugs and paintings from the Renaissance periods. Bright tubes light the paintings from above, which astonishes Don because they are neither battery-powered nor wired to anything. His meeting with the Grand Chairman of POSAT takes place outside the room with the paintings on a balcony overlooking the vast warehouse interior. Looking out upon the warehouse floor, Don observes several men appearing to conduct experiments in some kind of laboratory populated with scientific instruments he has never before seen (except for an atomic reactor obscured by a bluish-green plastic). At the bottom of another flight of stairs, Dr. Crandon shows Don the world's largest computer, which was used to analyze his questionnaire results and may be used to predict and motivate human behavior.",
"What is POSAT? by Phyllis Sterling Smith takes place in several different settings. However, much of it takes place in the POSAT headquarters itself. A long dark stairway leads to the receptionist’s room. It’s dusty and a little unattractive, but the window that lets in sunlight helps hide that fact. The waiting room is grand and luxurious, filled with ancient, Renaissance paintings and ornate gilding. The paintings were lit up from the bottom by contained radioactive lights. The headquarters has a laboratory in it as well, filled with previously uninvented equipment, such as an atomic reactor. Scientists and worker bees are hard at work, studiously bent over their equipment. In the basement rests a supercomputer equipped with the ability to understand humans based on their answers to multiple-choice questions or the papers they write. "
] |
51336
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What is POSAT?
By PHYLLIS STERLING SMITH
Illustrated by ED ALEXANDER
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Of course coming events cast their shadows before, but this shadow was 400 years long!
The following advertisement appeared in the July 1953 issue of several magazines:
MASTERY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE CAN BE YOURS!
What is the secret source of those profound principles that can solve the problems of life? Send for our FREE booklet of explanation.
Do not be a leaf in the wind! YOU can alter the course of your life!
Tap the treasury of Wisdom through the ages!
The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth
POSAT
an ancient secret society
Most readers passed it by with scarcely a glance. It was, after all, similar to the many that had appeared through the years under the name of that same society. Other readers, as their eyes slid over the familiar format of the ad, speculated idly about the persistent and mildly mysterious organization behind it. A few even resolved to clip the attached coupon and send for the booklet—sometime—when a pen or pencil was nearer at hand.
Bill Evans, an unemployed pharmacist, saw the ad in a copy of Your Life and Psychology that had been abandoned on his seat in the bus. He filled out the blanks on the coupon with a scrap of stubby pencil.
"You can alter the course of your life!" he read again. He particularly liked that thought, even though he had long since ceased to believe it. He actually took the trouble to mail the coupon. After all, he had, literally, nothing to lose, and nothing else to occupy his time.
Miss Elizabeth Arnable was one of the few to whom the advertisement was unfamiliar. As a matter of fact, she very seldom read a magazine. The radio in her room took the place of reading matter, and she always liked to think that it amused her cats as well as herself. Reading would be so selfish under the circumstances, wouldn't it? Not but what the cats weren't almost smart enough to read, she always said.
It just so happened, however, that she had bought a copy of the Antivivisectionist Gazette the day before. She pounced upon the POSAT ad as a trout might snap at a particularly attractive fly. Having filled out the coupon with violet ink, she invented an errand that would take her past the neighborhood post office so that she could post it as soon as possible.
Donald Alford, research physicist, came across the POSAT ad tucked at the bottom of a column in The Bulletin of Physical Research . He was engrossed in the latest paper by Dr. Crandon, a man whom he admired from the point of view of both a former student and a fellow research worker. Consequently, he was one of the many who passed over the POSAT ad with the disregard accorded to any common object.
He read with interest to the end of the article before he realized that some component of the advertisement had been noted by a region of his brain just beyond consciousness. It teased at him like a tickle that couldn't be scratched until he turned back to the page.
It was the symbol or emblem of POSAT, he realized, that had caught his attention. The perpendicularly crossed ellipses centered with a small black circle might almost be a conventionalized version of the Bohr atom of helium. He smiled with mild skepticism as he read through the printed matter that accompanied it.
"I wonder what their racket is," he mused. Then, because his typewriter was conveniently at hand, he carefully tore out the coupon and inserted it in the machine. The spacing of the typewriter didn't fit the dotted lines on the coupon, of course, but he didn't bother to correct it. He addressed an envelope, laid it with other mail to be posted, and promptly forgot all about it. Since he was a methodical man, it was entrusted to the U.S. mail early the next morning, together with his other letters.
Three identical forms accompanied the booklet which POSAT sent in response to the three inquiries. The booklet gave no more information than had the original advertisement, but with considerable more volubility. It promised the recipient the secrets of the Cosmos and the key that would unlock the hidden knowledge within himself—if he would merely fill out the enclosed form.
Bill Evans, the unemployed pharmacist, let the paper lie unanswered for several days. To be quite honest, he was disappointed. Although he had mentally disclaimed all belief in anything that POSAT might offer, he had watched the return mails with anticipation. His own resources were almost at an end, and he had reached the point where intervention by something supernatural, or at least superhuman, seemed the only hope.
He had hoped, unreasonably, that POSAT had an answer. But time lay heavily upon him, and he used it one evening to write the requested information—about his employment (ha!), his religious beliefs, his reason for inquiring about POSAT, his financial situation. Without quite knowing that he did so, he communicated in his terse answers some of his desperation and sense of futility.
Miss Arnable was delighted with the opportunity for autobiographical composition. It required five extra sheets of paper to convey all the information that she wished to give—all about her poor, dear father who had been a missionary to China, and the kinship that she felt toward the mystic cults of the East, her belief that her cats were reincarnations of her loved ones (which, she stated, derived from a religion of the Persians; or was it the Egyptians?) and in her complete and absolute acceptance of everything that POSAT had stated in their booklet. And what would the dues be? She wished to join immediately. Fortunately, dear father had left her in a comfortable financial situation.
To Donald Alford, the booklet seemed to confirm his suspicion that POSAT was a racket of some sort. Why else would they be interested in his employment or financial position? It also served to increase his curiosity.
"What do you suppose they're driving at?" he asked his wife Betty, handing her the booklet and questionnaire.
"I don't really know what to say," she answered, squinting a little as she usually did when puzzled. "I know one thing, though, and that's that you won't stop until you find out!"
"The scientific attitude," he acknowledged with a grin.
"Why don't you fill out this questionnaire incognito, though?" she suggested. "Pretend that we're wealthy and see if they try to get our money. Do they have anything yet except your name and address?"
Don was shocked. "If I send this back to them, it will have to be with correct answers!"
"The scientific attitude again," Betty sighed. "Don't you ever let your imagination run away with the facts a bit? What are you going to give for your reasons for asking about POSAT?"
"Curiosity," he replied, and, pulling his fountain pen from his vest pocket, he wrote exactly that, in small, neat script.
It was unfortunate for his curiosity that Don could not see the contents of the three envelopes that were mailed from the offices of POSAT the following week. For this time they differed.
Bill Evans was once again disappointed. The pamphlet that was enclosed gave what apparently meant to be final answers to life's problems. They were couched in vaguely metaphysical terms and offered absolutely no help to him.
His disappointment was tempered, however, by the knowledge that he had unexpectedly found a job. Or, rather, it had fallen into his lap. When he had thought that every avenue of employment had been tried, a position had been offered him in a wholesale pharmacy in the older industrial part of the city. It was not a particularly attractive place to work, located as it was next to a large warehouse, but to him it was hope for the future.
It amused him to discover that the offices of POSAT were located on the other side of the same warehouse, at the end of a blind alley. Blind alley indeed! He felt vaguely ashamed for having placed any confidence in them.
Miss Arnable was thrilled to discover that her envelope contained not only several pamphlets, (she scanned the titles rapidly and found that one of them concerned the sacred cats of ancient Egypt), but that it contained also a small pin with the symbol of POSAT wrought in gold and black enamel. The covering letter said that she had been accepted as an active member of POSAT and that the dues were five dollars per month; please remit by return mail. She wrote a check immediately, and settled contentedly into a chair to peruse the article on sacred cats.
After a while she began to read aloud so that her own cats could enjoy it, too.
Don Alford would not have been surprised if his envelope had shown contents similar to the ones that the others received. The folded sheets of paper that he pulled forth, however, made him stiffen with sharp surprise.
"Come here a minute, Betty," he called, spreading them out carefully on the dining room table. "What do you make of these?"
She came, dish cloth in hand, and thoughtfully examined them, one by one. "Multiple choice questions! It looks like a psychological test of some sort."
"This isn't the kind of thing I expected them to send me," worried Don. "Look at the type of thing they ask. 'If you had discovered a new and virulent poison that could be compounded from common household ingredients, would you (1) publish the information in a daily newspaper, (2) manufacture it secretly and sell it as rodent exterminator, (3) give the information to the armed forces for use as a secret weapon, or (4) withhold the information entirely as too dangerous to be passed on?'"
"Could they be a spy ring?" asked Betty. "Subversive agents? Anxious to find out your scientific secrets like that classified stuff that you're so careful of when you bring it home from the lab?"
Don scanned the papers quickly. "There's nothing here that looks like an attempt to get information. Besides, I've told them nothing about my work except that I do research in physics. They don't even know what company I work for. If this is a psychological test, it measures attitudes, nothing else. Why should they want to know my attitudes?"
"Do you suppose that POSAT is really what it claims to be—a secret society—and that they actually screen their applicants?"
He smiled wryly. "Wouldn't it be interesting if I didn't make the grade after starting out to expose their racket?"
He pulled out his pen and sat down to the task of resolving the dilemmas before him.
His next communication from POSAT came to his business address and, paradoxically, was more personal than its forerunners.
Dear Doctor Alford:
We have examined with interest the information that you have sent to us. We are happy to inform you that, thus far, you have satisfied the requirements for membership in the Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth. Before accepting new members into this ancient and honorable secret society, we find it desirable that they have a personal interview with the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
Accordingly, you are cordially invited to an audience with our Grand Chairman on Tuesday, July 10, at 2:30 P.M. Please let us know if this arrangement is acceptable to you. If not, we will attempt to make another appointment for you.
The time specified for the appointment was hardly a convenient one for Don. At 2:30 P.M. on most Tuesdays, he would be at work in the laboratory. And while his employers made no complaint if he took his research problems home with him and worried over them half the night, they were not equally enthusiastic when he used working hours for pursuing unrelated interests. Moreover, the headquarters of POSAT was in a town almost a hundred miles distant. Could he afford to take a whole day off for chasing will-o-wisps?
It hardly seemed worth the trouble. He wondered if Betty would be disappointed if he dropped the whole matter. Since the letter had been sent to the laboratory instead of his home, he couldn't consult her about it without telephoning.
Since the letter had been sent to the laboratory instead of his home! But it was impossible!
He searched feverishly through his pile of daily mail for the envelope in which the letter had come. The address stared up at him, unmistakably and fearfully legible. The name of his company. The number of the room he worked in. In short, the address that he had never given them!
"Get hold of yourself," he commanded his frightened mind. "There's some perfectly logical, easy explanation for this. They looked it up in the directory of the Institute of Physics. Or in the alumni directory of the university. Or—or—"
But the more he thought about it, the more sinister it seemed. His laboratory address was available, but why should POSAT take the trouble of looking it up? Some prudent impulse had led him to withhold that particular bit of information, yet now, for some reason of their own, POSAT had unearthed the information.
His wife's words echoed in his mind, "Could they be a spy ring? Subversive agents?"
Don shook his head as though to clear away the confusion. His conservative habit of thought made him reject that explanation as too melodramatic.
At least one decision was easier to reach because of his doubts. Now he knew he had to keep his appointment with the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
He scribbled a memo to the department office stating that he would not be at work on Tuesday.
At first Don Alford had some trouble locating the POSAT headquarters. It seemed to him that the block in which the street number would fall was occupied entirely by a huge sprawling warehouse, of concrete construction, and almost entirely windowless. It was recessed from the street in several places to make room for the small, shabby buildings of a wholesale pharmacy, a printer's plant, an upholstering shop, and was also indented by alleys lined with loading platforms.
It was at the back of one of the alleys that he finally found a door marked with the now familiar emblem of POSAT.
He opened the frosted glass door with a feeling of misgiving, and faced a dark flight of stairs leading to the upper floor. Somewhere above him a buzzer sounded, evidently indicating his arrival. He picked his way up through the murky stairwell.
The reception room was hardly a cheerful place, with its battered desk facing the view of the empty alley, and a film of dust obscuring the pattern of the gray-looking wallpaper and worn rug. But the light of the summer afternoon filtering through the window scattered the gloom somewhat, enough to help Don doubt that he would find the menace here that he had come to expect.
The girl addressing envelopes at the desk looked very ordinary. Not the Mata-Hari type , thought Don, with an inward chuckle at his own suspicions. He handed her the letter.
She smiled. "We've been expecting you, Dr. Alford. If you'll just step into the next room—"
She opened a door opposite the stairwell, and Don stepped through it.
The sight of the luxurious room before him struck his eyes with the shock of a dentist's drill, so great was the contrast between it and the shabby reception room. For a moment Don had difficulty breathing. The rug—Don had seen one like it before, but it had been in a museum. The paintings on the walls, ornately framed in gilt carving, were surely old masters—of the Renaissance period, he guessed. Although he recognized none of the pictures, he felt that he could almost name the artists. That glowing one near the corner would probably be a Titian. Or was it Tintorretto? He regretted for a moment the lost opportunities of his college days, when he had passed up Art History in favor of Operational Circuit Analysis.
The girl opened a filing cabinet, the front of which was set flush with the wall, and, selecting a folder from it, disappeared through another door.
Don sprang to examine the picture near the corner. It was hung at eye level—that is, at the eye level of the average person. Don had to bend over a bit to see it properly. He searched for a signature. Apparently there was none. But did artists sign their pictures back in those days? He wished he knew more about such things.
Each of the paintings was individually lighted by a fluorescent tube held on brackets directly above it. As Don straightened up from his scrutiny of the picture, he inadvertently hit his head against the light. The tube, dislodged from its brackets, fell to the rug with a muffled thud.
Now I've done it! thought Don with dismay. But at least the tube hadn't shattered.
In fact—it was still glowing brightly! His eyes registered the fact, even while his mind refused to believe it. He raised his eyes to the brackets. They were simple pieces of solid hardware designed to support the tube.
There were no wires!
Don picked up the slender, glowing cylinder and held it between trembling fingers. Although it was delivering as much light as a two or three hundred watt bulb, it was cool to the touch. He examined it minutely. There was no possibility of concealed batteries.
The thumping of his heart was caused not by the fact that he had never seen a similar tube before, but because he had. He had never held one in his hands, though. The ones which his company had produced as experimental models had been unsuccessful at converting all of the radioactivity into light, and had, of necessity, been heavily shielded.
Right now, two of his colleagues back in the laboratory would still be searching for the right combination of fluorescent material and radioactive salts with which to make the simple, efficient, self-contained lighting unit that he was holding in his hand at this moment!
But this is impossible! he thought. We're the only company that's working on this, and it's secret. There can't be any in actual production!
And even if one had actually been successfully produced, how would it have fallen into the possession of POSAT, an Ancient Secret Society, The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth?
The conviction grew in Don's mind that here was something much deeper and more sinister than he would be able to cope with. He should have asked for help, should have stated his suspicions to the police or the F.B.I. Even now—
With sudden decision, he thrust the lighting tube into his pocket and stepped swiftly to the outer door. He grasped the knob and shook it impatiently when it stuck and refused to turn. He yanked at it. His impatience changed to panic. It was locked!
A soft sound behind him made him whirl about. The secretary had entered again through the inner door. She glanced at the vacant light bracket, then significantly at his bulging pocket. Her gaze was still as bland and innocent as when he had entered, but to Don she no longer seemed ordinary. Her very calmness in the face of his odd actions was distressingly ominous.
"Our Grand Chairman will see you now," she said in a quiet voice.
Don realized that he was half crouched in the position of an animal expecting attack. He straightened up with what dignity he could manage to find.
She opened the inner door again and Don followed her into what he supposed to be the office of the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
Instead he found himself on a balcony along the side of a vast room, which must have been the interior of the warehouse that he had noted outside. The girl motioned him toward the far end of the balcony, where a frosted glass door marked the office of the Grand Chairman.
But Don could not will his legs to move. His heart beat at the sight of the room below him. It was a laboratory, but a laboratory the like of which he had never seen before. Most of the equipment was unfamiliar to him. Whatever he did recognize was of a different design than he had ever used, and there was something about it that convinced him that this was more advanced. The men who bent busily over their instruments did not raise their eyes to the figures on the balcony.
"Good Lord!" Don gasped. "That's an atomic reactor down there!" There could be no doubt about it, even though he could see it only obscurely through the bluish-green plastic shielding it.
His thoughts were so clamorous that he hardly realized that he had spoken aloud, or that the door at the end of the balcony had opened.
He was only dimly aware of the approaching footsteps as he speculated wildly on the nature of the shielding material. What could be so dense that only an inch would provide adequate shielding and yet remain semitransparent?
His scientist's mind applauded the genius who had developed it, even as the alarming conviction grew that he wouldn't—couldn't—be allowed to leave here any more. Surely no man would be allowed to leave this place alive to tell the fantastic story to the world!
"Hello, Don," said a quiet voice beside him. "It's good to see you again."
"Dr. Crandon!" he heard his own voice reply. " You're the Grand Chairman of POSAT?"
He felt betrayed and sick at heart. The very voice with which Crandon had spoken conjured up visions of quiet lecture halls and his own youthful excitement at the masterful and orderly disclosure of scientific facts. To find him here in this mad and treacherous place—didn't anything make sense any longer?
"I think we have rather abused you, Don," Dr. Crandon continued. His voice sounded so gentle that Don found it hard to think there was any evil in it. "I can see that you are suspicious of us, and—yes—afraid."
Don stared at the scene below him. After his initial glance to confirm his identification of Crandon, Don could not bear to look at him.
Crandon's voice suddenly hardened, became abrupt. "You're partly right about us, of course. I hate to think how many laws this organization has broken. Don't condemn us yet, though. You'll be a member yourself before the day is over."
Don was shocked by such confidence in his corruptibility.
"What do you use?" he asked bitterly. "Drugs? Hypnosis?"
Crandon sighed. "I forgot how little you know, Don. I have a long story to tell you. You'll find it hard to believe at first. But try to trust me. Try to believe me, as you once did. When I say that much of what POSAT does is illegal, I do not mean immoral. We're probably the most moral organization in the world. Get over the idea that you have stumbled into a den of thieves."
Crandon paused as though searching for words with which to continue.
"Did you notice the paintings in the waiting room as you entered?"
Don nodded, too bewildered to speak.
"They were donated by the founder of our Organization. They were part of his personal collection—which, incidentally, he bought from the artists themselves. He also designed the atomic reactor we use for power here in the laboratory."
"Then the pictures are modern," said Don, aware that his mouth was hanging open foolishly. "I thought one was a Titian—"
"It is," said Crandon. "We have several original Titians, although I really don't know too much about them."
"But how could a man alive today buy paintings from an artist of the Renaissance?"
"He is not alive today. POSAT is actually what our advertisements claim—an ancient secret society. Our founder has been dead for over four centuries."
"But you said that he designed your atomic reactor."
"Yes. This particular one has been in use for only twenty years, however."
Don's confusion was complete. Crandon looked at him kindly. "Let's start at the beginning," he said, and Don was back again in the classroom with the deep voice of Professor Crandon unfolding the pages of knowledge in clear and logical manner. "Four hundred years ago, in the time of the Italian Renaissance, a man lived who was a super-genius. His was the kind of incredible mentality that appears not in every generation, or even every century, but once in thousands of years.
"Probably the man who invented what we call the phonetic alphabet was one like him. That man lived seven thousand years ago in Mesopotamia, and his discovery was so original, so far from the natural course of man's thinking, that not once in the intervening seven thousand years has that device been rediscovered. It still exists only in the civilizations to which it has been passed on directly.
"The super-genius who was our founder was not a semanticist. He was a physical scientist and mathematician. Starting with the meager heritage that existed in these fields in his time, he began tackling physical puzzles one by one. Sitting in his study, using as his principal tool his own great mind, he invented calculus, developed the quantum theory of light, moved on to electromagnetic radiation and what we call Maxwell's equations—although, of course, he antedated Maxwell by centuries—developed the special and general theories of relativity, the tool of wave mechanics, and finally, toward the end of his life, he mathematically derived the packing fraction that describes the binding energy of nuclei—"
"But it can't be done," Don objected. "It's an observed phenomenon. It hasn't been derived." Every conservative instinct that he possessed cried out against this impossible fantasy. And yet—there sat the reactor, sheathed in its strange shield. Crandon watched the direction of Don's glance.
"Yes, the reactor," said Crandon. "He built one like it. It confirmed his theories. His calculations showed him something else too. He saw the destructive potentialities of an atomic explosion. He himself could not have built an atomic bomb; he didn't have the facilities. But his knowledge would have enabled other men to do so. He looked about him. He saw a political setup of warring principalities, rival states, intrigue, and squabbles over political power. Giving the men of his time atomic energy would have been like handing a baby a firecracker with a lighted fuse.
"What should he have done? Let his secrets die with him? He didn't think so. No one else in his age could have derived the knowledge that he did. But it was an age of brilliant men. Leonardo. Michelangelo. There were men capable of learning his science, even as men can learn it today. He gathered some of them together and founded this society. It served two purposes. It perpetuated his discoveries and at the same time it maintained the greatest secrecy about them. He urged that the secrets be kept until the time when men could use them safely. The other purpose was to make that time come about as soon as possible."
Crandon looked at Don's unbelieving face. "How can I make you see that it is the truth? Think of the eons that man or manlike creatures have walked the Earth. Think what a small fraction of that time is four hundred years. Is it so strange that atomic energy was discovered a little early, by this displacement in time that is so tiny after all?"
"But by one man," Don argued.
Crandon shrugged. "Compared with him, Don, you and I are stupid men. So are the scientists who slowly plodded down the same road he had come, stumbling first on one truth and then the succeeding one. We know that inventions and discoveries do not occur at random. Each is based on the one that preceded it. We are all aware of the phenomenon of simultaneous invention. The path to truth is a straight one. It is only our own stupidity that makes it seem slow and tortuous.
"He merely followed the straight path," Crandon finished simply.
Don's incredulity thawed a little. It was not entirely beyond the realm of possibility.
But if it were true! A vast panorama of possible achievements spread before him.
"Four hundred years!" he murmured with awe. "You've had four hundred years head-start on the rest of the world! What wonders you must have uncovered in that time!"
"Our technical achievements may disappoint you," warned Crandon.
"Oh, they're way beyond anything that you are familiar with. You've undoubtedly noticed the shielding material on the reactor. That's a fairly recent development of our metallurgical department. There are other things in the laboratory that I can't even explain to you until you have caught up on the technical basis for understanding them.
"Our emphasis has not been on physical sciences, however, except as they contribute to our central project. We want to change civilization so that it can use physical science without disaster."
For a moment Don had been fired with enthusiasm. But at these words his heart sank.
"Then you've failed," he said bitterly. "In spite of centuries of advance warning, you've failed to change the rest of us enough to prevent us from trying to blow ourselves off the Earth. Here we are, still snarling and snapping at our neighbors' throats—and we've caught up with you. We have the atomic bomb. What's POSAT been doing all that time? Or have you found that human nature really can't be changed?"
"Come with me," said Crandon.
He led the way along the narrow balcony to another door, then down a steep flight of stairs. He opened a door at the bottom, and Don saw what must have been the world's largest computing machine.
"This is our answer," said Crandon. "Oh, rather, it's the tool by which we find our answer. For two centuries we have been working on the newest of the sciences—that of human motivation. Soon we will be ready to put some of our new knowledge to work. But you are right in one respect, we are working now against time. We must hurry if we are to save our civilization. That's why you are here. We have work for you to do. Will you join us, Don?"
"But why the hocus-pocus?" asked Don. "Why do you hide behind such a weird front as POSAT? Why do you advertise in magazines and invite just anyone to join? Why didn't you approach me directly, if you have work for me to do? And if you really have the answers to our problems, why haven't you gathered together all the scientists in the world to work on this project—before it's too late?"
Crandon took a sighing breath. "How I wish that we could do just that! But you forget that one of the prime purposes of our organization is to maintain the secrecy of our discoveries until they can be safely disclosed. We must be absolutely certain that anyone who enters this building will have joined POSAT before he leaves. What if we approached the wrong scientist? Centuries of accomplishment might be wasted if they attempted either to reveal it or to exploit it!
"Do you recall the questionnaires that you answered before you were invited here? We fed the answers to this machine and, as a result, we know more about how you will react in any given situation than you do yourself. Even if you should fail to join us, our secrets would be safe with you. Of course, we miss a few of the scientists who might be perfect material for our organization. You'd be surprised, though, at how clever our advertisements are at attracting exactly the men we want. With the help of our new science, we have baited our ads well, and we know how to maintain interest. Curiosity is, to the men we want, a powerful motivator."
"But what about the others?" asked Don. "There must be hundreds of applicants who would be of no use to you at all."
"Oh, yes," replied Crandon. "There are the mild religious fanatics. We enroll them as members and keep them interested by sending pamphlets in line with their interests. We even let them contribute to our upkeep, if they seem to want to. They never get beyond the reception room if they come to call on us. But they are additional people through whom we can act when the time finally comes.
"There are also the desperate people who try POSAT as a last resort—lost ones who can't find their direction in life. For them we put into practice some of our newly won knowledge. We rehabilitate them—anonymously, of course. Even find jobs or patch up homes. It's good practice for us.
"I think I've answered most of your questions, Don. But you haven't answered mine. Will you join us?"
Don looked solemnly at the orderly array of the computer before him. He had one more question.
"Will it really work? Can it actually tell you how to motivate the stubborn, quarrelsome, opinionated people one finds on this Earth?"
Crandon smiled. "You're here, aren't you?"
Don nodded, his tense features relaxing.
"Enroll me as a member," he said.
|
What has Martin Kesserich done to cope with the loss of Mary Alice?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Yesterday House by Fritz Leiber.
Relevant chunks:
Yesterday House
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by ASHMAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Meeting someone who's been dead for twenty years is shocking enough for anyone with a belief in ghosts—worse for one with none!
I
The narrow cove was quiet as the face of an expectant child, yet so near the ruffled Atlantic that the last push of wind carried the Annie O. its full length. The man in gray flannels and sweatshirt let the sail come crumpling down and hurried past its white folds at a gait made comically awkward by his cramped muscles. Slowly the rocky ledge came nearer. Slowly the blue V inscribed on the cove's surface by the sloop's prow died. Sloop and ledge kissed so gently that he hardly had to reach out his hand.
He scrambled ashore, dipping a sneaker in the icy water, and threw the line around a boulder. Unkinking himself, he looked back through the cove's high and rocky mouth at the gray-green scattering of islands and the faint dark line that was the coast of Maine. He almost laughed in satisfaction at having disregarded vague warnings and done the thing every man yearns to do once in his lifetime—gone to the farthest island out.
He must have looked longer than he realized, because by the time he dropped his gaze the cove was again as glassy as if the Annie O. had always been there. And the splotches made by his sneaker on the rock had faded in the hot sun. There was something very unusual about the quietness of this place. As if time, elsewhere hurrying frantically, paused here to rest. As if all changes were erased on this one bit of Earth.
The man's lean, melancholy face crinkled into a grin at the banal fancy. He turned his back on his new friend, the little green sloop, without one thought for his nets and specimen bottles, and set out to explore. The ground rose steeply at first and the oaks were close, but after a little way things went downhill and the leaves thinned and he came out on more rocks—and realized that he hadn't quite gone to the farthest one out.
Joined to this island by a rocky spine, which at the present low tide would have been dry but for the spray, was another green, high island that the first had masked from him all the while he had been sailing. He felt a thrill of discovery, just as he'd wondered back in the woods whether his might not be the first human feet to kick through the underbrush. After all, there were thousands of these islands.
Then he was dropping down the rocks, his lanky limbs now moving smoothly enough.
To the landward side of the spine, the water was fairly still. It even began with another deep cove, in which he glimpsed the spiny spheres of sea urchins. But from seaward the waves chopped in, sprinkling his trousers to the knees and making him wince pleasurably at the thought of what vast wings of spray and towers of solid water must crash up from here in a storm.
He crossed the rocks at a trot, ran up a short grassy slope, raced through a fringe of trees—and came straight up against an eight-foot fence of heavy mesh topped with barbed wire and backed at a short distance with high, heavy shrubbery.
Without pausing for surprise—in fact, in his holiday mood, using surprise as a goad—he jumped for the branch of an oak whose trunk touched the fence, scorning the easier lower branch on the other side of the tree. Then he drew himself up, worked his way to some higher branches that crossed the fence, and dropped down inside.
Suddenly cautious, he gently parted the shrubbery and, before the first surprise could really sink in, had another.
A closely mown lawn dotted with more shrubbery ran up to a snug white Cape Cod cottage. The single strand of a radio aerial stretched the length of the roof. Parked on a neat gravel driveway that crossed just in front of the cottage was a short, square-lined touring car that he recognized from remembered pictures as an ancient Essex. The whole scene had about it the same odd quietness as the cove.
Then, with the air of a clock-work toy coming to life, the white door opened and an elderly woman came out, dressed in a long, lace-edged dress and wide, lacy hat. She climbed into the driver's seat of the Essex, sitting there very stiff and tall. The motor began to chug bravely, gravel skittered, and the car rolled off between the trees.
The door of the house opened again and a slim girl emerged. She wore a white silk dress that fell straight from square neck-line to hip-height waistline, making the skirt seem very short. Her dark hair was bound with a white bandeau so that it curved close to her cheeks. A dark necklace dangled against the white of the dress. A newspaper was tucked under her arm.
She crossed the driveway and tossed the paper down on a rattan table between three rattan chairs and stood watching a squirrel zigzag across the lawn.
The man stepped through the wall of shrubbery, called, "hello!" and walked toward her.
She whirled around and stared at him as still as if her heart had stopped beating. Then she darted behind the table and waited for him there. Granting the surprise of his appearance, her alarm seemed not so much excessive as eerie. As if, the man thought, he were not an ordinary stranger, but a visitor from another planet.
Approaching closer, he saw that she was trembling and that her breath was coming in rapid, irregular gasps. Yet the slim, sweet, patrician face that stared into his had an underlying expression of expectancy that reminded him of the cove. She couldn't have been more than eighteen.
He stopped short of the table. Before he could speak, she stammered out, "Are you he?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, smiling puzzledly.
"The one who sends me the little boxes."
"I was out sailing and I happened to land in the far cove. I didn't dream that anyone lived on this island, or even came here."
"No one ever does come here," she replied. Her manner had changed, becoming at once more wary and less agitated, though still eerily curious.
"It startled me tremendously to find this place," he blundered on.
"Especially the road and the car. Why, this island can't be more than a quarter of a mile wide."
"The road goes down to the wharf," she explained, "and up to the top of the island, where my aunts have a tree-house."
He tore his mind away from the picture of a woman dressed like Queen Mary clambering up a tree. "Was that your aunt I saw driving off?"
"One of them. The other's taken the motorboat in for supplies." She looked at him doubtfully. "I'm not sure they'll like it if they find someone here."
"There are just the three of you?" he cut in quickly, looking down the empty road that vanished among the oaks.
She nodded.
"I suppose you go in to the mainland with your aunts quite often?"
She shook her head.
"It must get pretty dull for you."
"Not very," she said, smiling. "My aunts bring me the papers and other things. Even movies. We've got a projector. My favorite stars are Antonio Morino and Alice Terry. I like her better even than Clara Bow."
He looked at her hard for a moment. "I suppose you read a lot?"
She nodded. "Fitzgerald's my favorite author." She started around the table, hesitated, suddenly grew shy. "Would you like some lemonade?"
He'd noticed the dewed silver pitcher, but only now realized his thirst. Yet when she handed him a glass, he held it untasted and said awkwardly, "I haven't introduced myself. I'm Jack Barry."
She stared at his outstretched right hand, slowly extended her own toward it, shook it up and down exactly once, then quickly dropped it.
He chuckled and gulped some lemonade. "I'm a biology student. Been working at Wood's Hole the first part of the summer. But now I'm here to do research in marine ecology—that's sort of sea-life patterns—of the in-shore islands. Under the direction of Professor Kesserich. You know about him, of course?"
She shook her head.
"Probably the greatest living biologist," he was proud to inform her. "Human physiology as well. Tremendous geneticist. In a class with Carlson and Jacques Loeb. Martin Kesserich—he lives over there at town. I'm staying with him. You ought to have heard of him." He grinned. "Matter of fact, I'd never have met you if it hadn't been for Mrs. Kesserich."
The girl looked puzzled.
Jack explained, "The old boy's been off to Europe on some conferences, won't be back for a couple days more. But I was to get started anyhow. When I went out this morning Mrs. Kesserich—she's a drab sort of person—said to me, 'Don't try to sail to the farther islands.' So, of course, I had to. By the way, you still haven't told me your name."
"Mary Alice Pope," she said, speaking slowly and with an odd wonder, as if she were saying it for the first time.
"You're pretty shy, aren't you?"
"How would I know?"
The question stopped Jack. He couldn't think of anything to say to this strangely attractive girl dressed almost like a "flapper."
"Will you sit down?" she asked him gravely.
The rattan chair sighed under his weight. He made another effort to talk. "I'll bet you'll be glad when summer's over."
"Why?"
"So you'll be able to go back to the mainland."
"But I never go to the mainland."
"You mean you stay out here all winter?" he asked incredulously, his mind filled with a vision of snow and frozen spray and great gray waves.
"Oh, yes. We get all our supplies on hand before winter. My aunts are very capable. They don't always wear long lace dresses. And now I help them."
"But that's impossible!" he said with sudden sympathetic anger. "You can't be shut off this way from people your own age!"
"You're the first one I ever met." She hesitated. "I never saw a boy or a man before, except in movies."
"You're joking!"
"No, it's true."
"But why are they doing it to you?" he demanded, leaning forward. "Why are they inflicting this loneliness on you, Mary?"
She seemed to have gained poise from his loss of it. "I don't know why. I'm to find out soon. But actually I'm not lonely. May I tell you a secret?" She touched his hand, this time with only the faintest trembling. "Every night the loneliness gathers in around me—you're right about that. But then every morning new life comes to me in a little box."
"What's that?" he said sharply.
"Sometimes there's a poem in the box, sometimes a book, or pictures, or flowers, or a ring, but always a note. Next to the notes I like the poems best. My favorite is the one by Matthew Arnold that ends,
'Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude—'"
"Wait a minute," he interrupted. "Who sends you these boxes?"
"I don't know."
"But how are the notes signed?"
"They're wonderful notes," she said. "So wise, so gay, so tender, you'd imagine them being written by John Barrymore or Lindbergh."
"Yes, but how are they signed?"
She hesitated. "Never anything but 'Your Lover.'"
"And so when you first saw me, you thought—" He began, then stopped because she was blushing.
"How long have you been getting them?"
"Ever since I can remember. I have two closets of the boxes. The new ones are either by my bed when I wake or at my place at breakfast."
"But how does this—person get these boxes to you out here? Does he give them to your aunts and do they put them there?"
"I'm not sure."
"But how can they get them in winter?"
"I don't know."
"Look here," he said, pouring himself more lemonade, "how long is it since you've been to the mainland?"
"Almost eighteen years. My aunts tell me I was born there in the middle of the war."
"What war?" he asked startledly, spilling some lemonade.
"The World War, of course. What's the matter?"
Jack Barr was staring down at the spilled lemonade and feeling a kind of terror he'd never experienced in his waking life. Nothing around him had changed. He could still feel the same hot sun on his shoulders, the same icy glass in his hand, scent the same lemon-acid odor in his nostrils. He could still hear the faint chop-chop of the waves.
And yet everything had changed, gone dark and dizzy as a landscape glimpsed just before a faint. All the little false notes had come to a sudden focus. For the lemonade had spilled on the headline of the newspaper the girl had tossed down, and the headline read:
HITLER IN NEW DEFIANCE
Under the big black banner of that head swam smaller ones:
Foes of Machado Riot in Havana
Big NRA Parade Planned
Balbo Speaks in New York
Suddenly he felt a surge of relief. He had noticed that the paper was yellow and brittle-edged.
"Why are you so interested in old newspapers?" he asked.
"I wouldn't call day-before-yesterday's paper old," the girl objected, pointing at the dateline: July 20, 1933.
"You're trying to joke," Jack told her.
"No, I'm not."
"But it's 1953."
"Now it's you who are joking."
"But the paper's yellow."
"The paper's always yellow."
He laughed uneasily. "Well, if you actually think it's 1933, perhaps you're to be envied," he said, with a sardonic humor he didn't quite feel. "Then you can't know anything about the Second World War, or television, or the V-2s, or Bikini bathing suits, or the atomic bomb, or—"
"Stop!" She had sprung up and retreated around her chair, white-faced.
"I don't like what you're saying."
"But—"
"No, please! Jokes that may be quite harmless on the mainland sound different here."
"I'm really not joking," he said after a moment.
She grew quite frantic at that. "I can show you all last week's papers! I can show you magazines and other things. I can prove it!"
She started toward the house. He followed. He felt his heart begin to pound.
At the white door she paused, looking worriedly down the road. Jack thought he could hear the faint chug of a motorboat. She pushed open the door and he followed her inside. The small-windowed room was dark after the sunlight. Jack got an impression of solid old furniture, a fireplace with brass andirons.
"Flash!" croaked a gritty voice. "After their disastrous break day before yesterday, stocks are recovering. Leading issues...."
Jack realized that he had started and had involuntarily put his arm around the girl's shoulders. At the same time he noticed that the voice was coming from the curved brown trumpet of an old-fashioned radio loudspeaker.
The girl didn't pull away from him. He turned toward her. Although her gray eyes were on him, her attention had gone elsewhere.
"I can hear the car. They're coming back. They won't like it that you're here."
"All right they won't like it."
Her agitation grew. "No, you must go."
"I'll come back tomorrow," he heard himself saying.
"Flash! It looks as if the World Economic Conference may soon adjourn, mouthing jeers at old Uncle Sam who is generally referred to as Uncle Shylock."
Jack felt a numbness on his neck. The room seemed to be darkening, the girl growing stranger still.
"You must go before they see you."
"Flash! Wiley Post has just completed his solo circuit of the Globe, after a record-breaking flight of 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes. Asked how he felt after the energy-draining feat, Post quipped...."
He was halfway across the lawn before he realized the terror into which the grating radio voice had thrown him.
He leaped for the branch over-hanging the fence, vaulted up with the risky help of a foot on the barbed top. A surprised squirrel, lacking time to make its escape up the trunk, sprang to the ground ahead of him. With terrible suddenness, two steel-jawed semicircles clanked together just over the squirrel's head. Jack landed with one foot to either side of the sprung trap, while the squirrel darted off with a squeak.
Jack plunged down the slope to the rocky spine and ran across it, spray from the rising waves spattering him to the waist. Panting now, he stumbled up into the oaks and undergrowth of the first island, fought his way through it, finally reached the silent cove. He loosed the line of the Annie O. , dragged it as near to the cove's mouth as he could, plunged knee-deep in freezing water to give it a final shove, scrambled aboard, snatched up the boathook and punched at the rocks.
As soon as the Annie O. was nosing out of the cove into the cross waves, he yanked up the sail. The freshening wind filled it and sent the sloop heeling over, with inches of white water over the lee rail, and plunging ahead.
For a long while, Jack was satisfied to think of nothing but the wind and the waves and the sail and speed and danger, to have all his attention taken up balancing one against the other, so that he wouldn't have to ask himself what year it was and whether time was an illusion, and wonder about flappers and hidden traps.
When he finally looked back at the island, he was amazed to see how tiny it had grown, as distant as the mainland.
Then he saw a gray motorboat astern. He watched it as it slowly overtook him. It was built like a lifeboat, with a sturdy low cabin in the bow and wheel amidship. Whoever was at the wheel had long gray hair that whipped in the wind. The longer he looked, the surer he was that it was a woman wearing a lace dress. Something that stuck up inches over the cabin flashed darkly beside her. Only when she lifted it to the roof of the cabin did it occur to him that it might be a rifle.
But just then the motorboat swung around in a turn that sent waves drenching over it, and headed back toward the island. He watched it for a minute in wonder, then his attention was jolted by an angry hail.
Three fishing smacks, also headed toward town, were about to cross his bow. He came around into the wind and waited with shaking sail, watching a man in a lumpy sweater shake a fist at him. Then he turned and gratefully followed the dark, wide, fanlike sterns and age-yellowed sails.
II
The exterior of Martin Kesserich's home—a weathered white cube with narrow, sharp-paned windows, topped by a cupola—was nothing like its lavish interior.
In much the same way, Mrs. Kesserich clashed with the darkly gleaming furniture, persian rugs and bronze vases around her. Her shapeless black form, poised awkwardly on the edge of a huge sofa, made Jack think of a cow that had strayed into the drawing room. He wondered again how a man like Kesserich had come to marry such a creature.
Yet when she lifted up her little eyes from the shadows, he had the uneasy feeling that she knew a great deal about him. The eyes were still those of a domestic animal, but of a wise one that has been watching the house a long, long while from the barnyard.
He asked abruptly, "Do you know anything of a girl around here named Mary Alice Pope?"
The silence lasted so long that he began to think she'd gone into some bovine trance. Then, without a word, she got up and went over to a tall cabinet. Feeling on a ledge behind it for a key, she opened a panel, opened a cardboard box inside it, took something from the box and handed him a photograph. He held it up to the failing light and sucked in his breath with surprise.
It was a picture of the girl he'd met that afternoon. Same flat-bosomed dress—flowered rather than white—no bandeau, same beads. Same proud, demure expression, perhaps a bit happier.
"That is Mary Alice Pope," Mrs. Kesserich said in a strangely flat voice. "She was Martin's fiancee. She was killed in a railway accident in 1933."
The small sound of the cabinet door closing brought Jack back to reality. He realized that he no longer had the photograph. Against the gloom by the cabinet, Mrs. Kesserich's white face looked at him with what seemed a malicious eagerness.
"Sit down," she said, "and I'll tell you about it."
Without a thought as to why she hadn't asked him a single question—he was much too dazed for that—he obeyed. Mrs. Kesserich resumed her position on the edge of the sofa.
"You must understand, Mr. Barr, that Mary Alice Pope was the one love of Martin's life. He is a man of very deep and strong feelings, yet as you probably know, anything but kindly or demonstrative. Even when he first came here from Hungary with his older sisters Hani and Hilda, there was a cloak of loneliness about him—or rather about the three of them.
"Hani and Hilda were athletic outdoor women, yet fiercely proud—I don't imagine they ever spoke to anyone in America except as to a servant—and with a seething distaste for all men except Martin. They showered all their devotion on him. So of course, though Martin didn't realize it, they were consumed with jealousy when he fell in love with Mary Alice Pope. They'd thought that since he'd reached forty without marrying, he was safe.
"Mary Alice came from a pure-bred, or as a biologist would say, inbred British stock. She was very young, but very sweet, and up to a point very wise. She sensed Hani and Hilda's feelings right away and did everything she could to win them over. For instance, though she was afraid of horses, she took up horseback riding, because that was Hani and Hilda's favorite pastime. Naturally, Martin knew nothing of her fear, and naturally his sisters knew about it from the first. But—and here is where Mary's wisdom fell short—her brave gesture did not pacify them: it only increased their hatred.
"Except for his research, Martin was blind to everything but his love. It was a beautiful and yet frightening passion, an insane cherishing as narrow and intense as his sisters hatred."
With a start, Jack remembered that it was Mrs. Kesserich telling him all this.
She went on, "Martin's love directed his every move. He was building a home for himself and Mary, and in his mind he was building a wonderful future for them as well—not vaguely, if you know Martin, but year by year, month by month. This winter, he'd plan, they would visit Buenos Aires, next summer they would sail down the inland passage and he would teach Mary Hungarian for their trip to Buda-Pesth the year after, where he would occupy a chair at the university for a few months ... and so on. Finally the time for their marriage drew near. Martin had been away. His research was keeping him very busy—"
Jack broke in with, "Wasn't that about the time he did his definitive work on growth and fertilization?"
Mrs. Kesserich nodded with solemn appreciation in the gathering darkness. "But now he was coming home, his work done. It was early evening, very chilly, but Hani and Hilda felt they had to ride down to the station to meet their brother. And although she dreaded it, Mary rode with them, for she knew how delighted he would be at her cantering to the puffing train and his running up to lift her down from the saddle to welcome him home.
"Of course there was Martin's luggage to be considered, so the station wagon had to be sent down for that." She looked defiantly at Jack. "I drove the station wagon. I was Martin's laboratory assistant."
She paused. "It was almost dark, but there was still a white cold line of sky to the west. Hani and Hilda, with Mary between them, were waiting on their horses at the top of the hill that led down to the station. The train had whistled and its headlight was graying the gravel of the crossing.
"Suddenly Mary's horse squealed and plunged down the hill. Hani and Hilda followed—to try to catch her, they said, but they didn't manage that, only kept her horse from veering off. Mary never screamed, but as her horse reared on the tracks, I saw her face in the headlight's glare.
"Martin must have guessed, or at least feared what had happened, for he was out of the train and running along the track before it stopped. In fact, he was the first to kneel down beside Mary—I mean, what had been Mary—and was holding her all bloody and shattered in his arms."
A door slammed. There were steps in the hall. Mrs. Kesserich stiffened and was silent. Jack turned.
The blur of a face hung in the doorway to the hall—a seemingly young, sensitive, suavely handsome face with aristocratic jaw. Then there was a click and the lights flared up and Jack saw the close-cropped gray hair and the lines around the eyes and nostrils, while the sensitive mouth grew sardonic. Yet the handsomeness stayed, and somehow the youth, too, or at least a tremendous inner vibrancy.
"Hello, Barr," Martin Kesserich said, ignoring his wife.
The great biologist had come home.
III
"Oh, yes, and Jamieson had a feeble paper on what he called individualization in marine worms. Barr, have you ever thought much about the larger aspects of the problem of individuality?"
Jack jumped slightly. He had let his thoughts wander very far.
"Not especially, sir," he mumbled.
The house was still. A few minutes after the professor's arrival, Mrs. Kesserich had gone off with an anxious glance at Jack. He knew why and wished he could reassure her that he would not mention their conversation to the professor.
Kesserich had spent perhaps a half hour briefing him on the more important papers delivered at the conferences. Then, almost as if it were a teacher's trick to show up a pupil's inattention, he had suddenly posed this question about individuality.
"You know what I mean, of course," Kesserich pressed. "The factors that make you you, and me me."
"Heredity and environment," Jack parroted like a freshman.
Kesserich nodded. "Suppose—this is just speculation—that we could control heredity and environment. Then we could re-create the same individual at will."
Jack felt a shiver go through him. "To get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits. That'd be far beyond us."
"What about identical twins?" Kesserich pointed out. "And then there's parthenogenesis to be considered. One might produce a duplicate of the mother without the intervention of the male." Although his voice had grown more idly speculative, Kesserich seemed to Jack to be smiling secretly. "There are many examples in the lower animal forms, to say nothing of the technique by which Loeb caused a sea urchin to reproduce with no more stimulus than a salt solution."
Jack felt the hair rising on his neck. "Even then you wouldn't get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits."
"Not if the parent were of very pure stock? Not if there were some special technique for selecting ova that would reproduce all the mother's traits?"
"But environment would change things," Jack objected. "The duplicate would be bound to develop differently."
"Is environment so important? Newman tells about a pair of identical twins separated from birth, unaware of each other's existence. They met by accident when they were twenty-one. Each was a telephone repairman. Each had a wife the same age. Each had a baby son. And each had a fox terrier called 'Trixie.' That's without trying to make environments similar. But suppose you did try. Suppose you saw to it that each of them had exactly the same experiences at the same times...."
For a moment it seemed to Jack that the room was dimming and wavering, becoming a dark pool in which the only motionless thing was Kesserich's sphinx-like face.
"Well, we've escaped quite far enough from Jamieson's marine worms," the biologist said, all brisk again. He said it as if Jack were the one who had led the conversation down wild and unprofitable channels.
"Let's get on to your project. I want to talk it over now, because I won't have any time for it tomorrow."
Jack looked at him blankly.
"Tomorrow I must attend to a very important matter," the biologist explained.
IV
Morning sunlight brightened the colors of the wax flowers under glass on the high bureau that always seemed to emit the faint odor of old hair combings. Jack pulled back the diamond-patterned quilt and blinked the sleep from his eyes. He expected his mind to be busy wondering about Kesserich and his wife—things said and half said last night—but found instead that his thoughts swung instantly to Mary Alice Pope, as if to a farthest island in a world of people.
Downstairs, the house was empty. After a long look at the cabinet—he felt behind it, but the key was gone—he hurried down to the waterfront. He stopped only for a bowl of chowder and, as an afterthought, to buy half a dozen newspapers.
The sea was bright, the brisk wind just right for the Annie O. There was eagerness in the way it smacked the sail and in the creak of the mast. And when he reached the cove, it was no longer still, but nervous with faint ripples, as if time had finally begun to stir.
After the same struggle with the underbrush, he came out on the rocky spine and passed the cove of the sea urchins. The spiny creatures struck an uncomfortable chord in his memory.
This time he climbed the second island cautiously, scraping the innocent-seeming ground ahead of him intently with a boathook he'd brought along for the purpose. He was only a few yards from the fence when he saw Mary Alice Pope standing behind it.
He hadn't realized that his heart would begin to pound or that, at the same time, a shiver of almost supernatural dread would go through him.
The girl eyed him with an uneasy hostility and immediately began to speak in a hushed, hurried voice. "You must go away at once and never come back. You're a wicked man, but I don't want you to be hurt. I've been watching for you all morning."
He tossed the newspapers over the fence. "You don't have to read them now," he told her. "Just look at the datelines and a few of the headlines."
When she finally lifted her eyes to his again, she was trembling. She tried unsuccessfully to speak.
"Listen to me," he said. "You've been the victim of a scheme to make you believe you were born around 1916 instead of 1933, and that it's
1933 now instead of 1951. I'm not sure why it's been done, though I think I know who you really are."
"But," the girl faltered, "my aunts tell me it's 1933."
"They would."
"And there are the papers ... the magazines ... the radio."
"The papers are old ones. The radio's faked—some sort of recording. I could show you if I could get at it."
" These papers might be faked," she said, pointing to where she'd let them drop on the ground.
"They're new," he said. "Only old papers get yellow."
"But why would they do it to me? Why? "
"Come with me to the mainland, Mary. That'll set you straight quicker than anything."
"I couldn't," she said, drawing back. "He's coming tonight."
"He?"
"The man who sends me the boxes ... and my life."
Jack shivered. When he spoke, his voice was rough and quick. "A life that's completely a lie, that's cut you off from the world. Come with me, Mary."
Question:
What has Martin Kesserich done to cope with the loss of Mary Alice?
Answer:
|
[
"Kesserich devises an elaborate, maniacal scheme to cope with the loss of his beloved fiance Mary Alice Pope. He takes his dead loves ova, and through some kind of unknown science, creates a clone of Mary Alice. He brings the baby to a hidden island, in a cove with high rock walls to keep any intruders out. He creates a setting on the island to seem as if it is 1916. He builds an english cottage with a neat lawn and a eight foot high fence surrounding it to keep unwanted visitors out, and his fiancee's copy in. He employs his two sisters, who are forever devoted to him to raise the child, as if it were this time period which he has fabricated. He sends the girl notes every day, since she was first born, along with gifts like flowers. The notes are always signed with \"Your Lover\". This is all in an attempt to create an exact replica of Mary Alice, in mind, body, and spirit at the very moment he lost her. He has put her in a place made to mimic england, which she grew up in, and the time period as well. By the end of the story, the new Mary Alice is the exact age when the original died. It is Kesserich's plan to finally meet this girl, who has been closed off completely from the outside world.",
"To cope with the loss of Mary Alice, Martin Kesserich uses his scientific ability. He has been working on potentially being able to recreate another individual at will, to make an exact copy of someone else. Kesserich believes that this can be achieved through biological manipulation as well as mirroring the environment that the individual had experienced. Martin is doing this exact practice on the far out island, where the Mary Alice that Jack encountered is being made to believe that it is 1933, and that she is experiencing past events in real time. Martin is also sending Mary gifts each morning, calling him her lover, in order to manipulate Mary's life into being as close to his late fiancee as possible; Martin believes he can bring Mary Alice back to life, in a way, by recreating her.",
"To cope with the loss of Mary Alice, Martin Kesserich is trying to create an exact duplicate of her. He indirectly reveals this in his conversation with Jack. He discusses that controlling heredity and environment can essentially allow somebody to create a duplicate individual whenever they want. This revelation means that the Mary Alice Pope, who Jack meets on the island, is the exact duplicate that Martin Kesserich tries to create by making her physically the same and controlling every aspect of her living environment. She is kept away from the mainland so that no external influences can change her from the original Mary Alice. ",
"Martin Kesserich delved into the research regarding the control of heredity and environment in order to recreate an individual. He considered environment to be not as important as heredity and he recreated the hereditary traits of Mary Alice. He placed this recreation on an isolated island nearby with two women looking over her while she grew up. He married his assistant without any warm feelings and has been living with her awaiting for the new Mary Alice to come of age. He has been sending her boxes with incredible gifts and signing 'your lover'. He made her believe she was born around 1916 and the year 1953 to be 1933 in order to recreate the environment. He even kept supplying her with the old newspapers. He wanted to meet her at the same age as the initial Mary Alice was. He never coped with the loss and put his effort and study into this recreation. \n"
] |
50905
|
Yesterday House
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by ASHMAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Meeting someone who's been dead for twenty years is shocking enough for anyone with a belief in ghosts—worse for one with none!
I
The narrow cove was quiet as the face of an expectant child, yet so near the ruffled Atlantic that the last push of wind carried the Annie O. its full length. The man in gray flannels and sweatshirt let the sail come crumpling down and hurried past its white folds at a gait made comically awkward by his cramped muscles. Slowly the rocky ledge came nearer. Slowly the blue V inscribed on the cove's surface by the sloop's prow died. Sloop and ledge kissed so gently that he hardly had to reach out his hand.
He scrambled ashore, dipping a sneaker in the icy water, and threw the line around a boulder. Unkinking himself, he looked back through the cove's high and rocky mouth at the gray-green scattering of islands and the faint dark line that was the coast of Maine. He almost laughed in satisfaction at having disregarded vague warnings and done the thing every man yearns to do once in his lifetime—gone to the farthest island out.
He must have looked longer than he realized, because by the time he dropped his gaze the cove was again as glassy as if the Annie O. had always been there. And the splotches made by his sneaker on the rock had faded in the hot sun. There was something very unusual about the quietness of this place. As if time, elsewhere hurrying frantically, paused here to rest. As if all changes were erased on this one bit of Earth.
The man's lean, melancholy face crinkled into a grin at the banal fancy. He turned his back on his new friend, the little green sloop, without one thought for his nets and specimen bottles, and set out to explore. The ground rose steeply at first and the oaks were close, but after a little way things went downhill and the leaves thinned and he came out on more rocks—and realized that he hadn't quite gone to the farthest one out.
Joined to this island by a rocky spine, which at the present low tide would have been dry but for the spray, was another green, high island that the first had masked from him all the while he had been sailing. He felt a thrill of discovery, just as he'd wondered back in the woods whether his might not be the first human feet to kick through the underbrush. After all, there were thousands of these islands.
Then he was dropping down the rocks, his lanky limbs now moving smoothly enough.
To the landward side of the spine, the water was fairly still. It even began with another deep cove, in which he glimpsed the spiny spheres of sea urchins. But from seaward the waves chopped in, sprinkling his trousers to the knees and making him wince pleasurably at the thought of what vast wings of spray and towers of solid water must crash up from here in a storm.
He crossed the rocks at a trot, ran up a short grassy slope, raced through a fringe of trees—and came straight up against an eight-foot fence of heavy mesh topped with barbed wire and backed at a short distance with high, heavy shrubbery.
Without pausing for surprise—in fact, in his holiday mood, using surprise as a goad—he jumped for the branch of an oak whose trunk touched the fence, scorning the easier lower branch on the other side of the tree. Then he drew himself up, worked his way to some higher branches that crossed the fence, and dropped down inside.
Suddenly cautious, he gently parted the shrubbery and, before the first surprise could really sink in, had another.
A closely mown lawn dotted with more shrubbery ran up to a snug white Cape Cod cottage. The single strand of a radio aerial stretched the length of the roof. Parked on a neat gravel driveway that crossed just in front of the cottage was a short, square-lined touring car that he recognized from remembered pictures as an ancient Essex. The whole scene had about it the same odd quietness as the cove.
Then, with the air of a clock-work toy coming to life, the white door opened and an elderly woman came out, dressed in a long, lace-edged dress and wide, lacy hat. She climbed into the driver's seat of the Essex, sitting there very stiff and tall. The motor began to chug bravely, gravel skittered, and the car rolled off between the trees.
The door of the house opened again and a slim girl emerged. She wore a white silk dress that fell straight from square neck-line to hip-height waistline, making the skirt seem very short. Her dark hair was bound with a white bandeau so that it curved close to her cheeks. A dark necklace dangled against the white of the dress. A newspaper was tucked under her arm.
She crossed the driveway and tossed the paper down on a rattan table between three rattan chairs and stood watching a squirrel zigzag across the lawn.
The man stepped through the wall of shrubbery, called, "hello!" and walked toward her.
She whirled around and stared at him as still as if her heart had stopped beating. Then she darted behind the table and waited for him there. Granting the surprise of his appearance, her alarm seemed not so much excessive as eerie. As if, the man thought, he were not an ordinary stranger, but a visitor from another planet.
Approaching closer, he saw that she was trembling and that her breath was coming in rapid, irregular gasps. Yet the slim, sweet, patrician face that stared into his had an underlying expression of expectancy that reminded him of the cove. She couldn't have been more than eighteen.
He stopped short of the table. Before he could speak, she stammered out, "Are you he?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, smiling puzzledly.
"The one who sends me the little boxes."
"I was out sailing and I happened to land in the far cove. I didn't dream that anyone lived on this island, or even came here."
"No one ever does come here," she replied. Her manner had changed, becoming at once more wary and less agitated, though still eerily curious.
"It startled me tremendously to find this place," he blundered on.
"Especially the road and the car. Why, this island can't be more than a quarter of a mile wide."
"The road goes down to the wharf," she explained, "and up to the top of the island, where my aunts have a tree-house."
He tore his mind away from the picture of a woman dressed like Queen Mary clambering up a tree. "Was that your aunt I saw driving off?"
"One of them. The other's taken the motorboat in for supplies." She looked at him doubtfully. "I'm not sure they'll like it if they find someone here."
"There are just the three of you?" he cut in quickly, looking down the empty road that vanished among the oaks.
She nodded.
"I suppose you go in to the mainland with your aunts quite often?"
She shook her head.
"It must get pretty dull for you."
"Not very," she said, smiling. "My aunts bring me the papers and other things. Even movies. We've got a projector. My favorite stars are Antonio Morino and Alice Terry. I like her better even than Clara Bow."
He looked at her hard for a moment. "I suppose you read a lot?"
She nodded. "Fitzgerald's my favorite author." She started around the table, hesitated, suddenly grew shy. "Would you like some lemonade?"
He'd noticed the dewed silver pitcher, but only now realized his thirst. Yet when she handed him a glass, he held it untasted and said awkwardly, "I haven't introduced myself. I'm Jack Barry."
She stared at his outstretched right hand, slowly extended her own toward it, shook it up and down exactly once, then quickly dropped it.
He chuckled and gulped some lemonade. "I'm a biology student. Been working at Wood's Hole the first part of the summer. But now I'm here to do research in marine ecology—that's sort of sea-life patterns—of the in-shore islands. Under the direction of Professor Kesserich. You know about him, of course?"
She shook her head.
"Probably the greatest living biologist," he was proud to inform her. "Human physiology as well. Tremendous geneticist. In a class with Carlson and Jacques Loeb. Martin Kesserich—he lives over there at town. I'm staying with him. You ought to have heard of him." He grinned. "Matter of fact, I'd never have met you if it hadn't been for Mrs. Kesserich."
The girl looked puzzled.
Jack explained, "The old boy's been off to Europe on some conferences, won't be back for a couple days more. But I was to get started anyhow. When I went out this morning Mrs. Kesserich—she's a drab sort of person—said to me, 'Don't try to sail to the farther islands.' So, of course, I had to. By the way, you still haven't told me your name."
"Mary Alice Pope," she said, speaking slowly and with an odd wonder, as if she were saying it for the first time.
"You're pretty shy, aren't you?"
"How would I know?"
The question stopped Jack. He couldn't think of anything to say to this strangely attractive girl dressed almost like a "flapper."
"Will you sit down?" she asked him gravely.
The rattan chair sighed under his weight. He made another effort to talk. "I'll bet you'll be glad when summer's over."
"Why?"
"So you'll be able to go back to the mainland."
"But I never go to the mainland."
"You mean you stay out here all winter?" he asked incredulously, his mind filled with a vision of snow and frozen spray and great gray waves.
"Oh, yes. We get all our supplies on hand before winter. My aunts are very capable. They don't always wear long lace dresses. And now I help them."
"But that's impossible!" he said with sudden sympathetic anger. "You can't be shut off this way from people your own age!"
"You're the first one I ever met." She hesitated. "I never saw a boy or a man before, except in movies."
"You're joking!"
"No, it's true."
"But why are they doing it to you?" he demanded, leaning forward. "Why are they inflicting this loneliness on you, Mary?"
She seemed to have gained poise from his loss of it. "I don't know why. I'm to find out soon. But actually I'm not lonely. May I tell you a secret?" She touched his hand, this time with only the faintest trembling. "Every night the loneliness gathers in around me—you're right about that. But then every morning new life comes to me in a little box."
"What's that?" he said sharply.
"Sometimes there's a poem in the box, sometimes a book, or pictures, or flowers, or a ring, but always a note. Next to the notes I like the poems best. My favorite is the one by Matthew Arnold that ends,
'Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude—'"
"Wait a minute," he interrupted. "Who sends you these boxes?"
"I don't know."
"But how are the notes signed?"
"They're wonderful notes," she said. "So wise, so gay, so tender, you'd imagine them being written by John Barrymore or Lindbergh."
"Yes, but how are they signed?"
She hesitated. "Never anything but 'Your Lover.'"
"And so when you first saw me, you thought—" He began, then stopped because she was blushing.
"How long have you been getting them?"
"Ever since I can remember. I have two closets of the boxes. The new ones are either by my bed when I wake or at my place at breakfast."
"But how does this—person get these boxes to you out here? Does he give them to your aunts and do they put them there?"
"I'm not sure."
"But how can they get them in winter?"
"I don't know."
"Look here," he said, pouring himself more lemonade, "how long is it since you've been to the mainland?"
"Almost eighteen years. My aunts tell me I was born there in the middle of the war."
"What war?" he asked startledly, spilling some lemonade.
"The World War, of course. What's the matter?"
Jack Barr was staring down at the spilled lemonade and feeling a kind of terror he'd never experienced in his waking life. Nothing around him had changed. He could still feel the same hot sun on his shoulders, the same icy glass in his hand, scent the same lemon-acid odor in his nostrils. He could still hear the faint chop-chop of the waves.
And yet everything had changed, gone dark and dizzy as a landscape glimpsed just before a faint. All the little false notes had come to a sudden focus. For the lemonade had spilled on the headline of the newspaper the girl had tossed down, and the headline read:
HITLER IN NEW DEFIANCE
Under the big black banner of that head swam smaller ones:
Foes of Machado Riot in Havana
Big NRA Parade Planned
Balbo Speaks in New York
Suddenly he felt a surge of relief. He had noticed that the paper was yellow and brittle-edged.
"Why are you so interested in old newspapers?" he asked.
"I wouldn't call day-before-yesterday's paper old," the girl objected, pointing at the dateline: July 20, 1933.
"You're trying to joke," Jack told her.
"No, I'm not."
"But it's 1953."
"Now it's you who are joking."
"But the paper's yellow."
"The paper's always yellow."
He laughed uneasily. "Well, if you actually think it's 1933, perhaps you're to be envied," he said, with a sardonic humor he didn't quite feel. "Then you can't know anything about the Second World War, or television, or the V-2s, or Bikini bathing suits, or the atomic bomb, or—"
"Stop!" She had sprung up and retreated around her chair, white-faced.
"I don't like what you're saying."
"But—"
"No, please! Jokes that may be quite harmless on the mainland sound different here."
"I'm really not joking," he said after a moment.
She grew quite frantic at that. "I can show you all last week's papers! I can show you magazines and other things. I can prove it!"
She started toward the house. He followed. He felt his heart begin to pound.
At the white door she paused, looking worriedly down the road. Jack thought he could hear the faint chug of a motorboat. She pushed open the door and he followed her inside. The small-windowed room was dark after the sunlight. Jack got an impression of solid old furniture, a fireplace with brass andirons.
"Flash!" croaked a gritty voice. "After their disastrous break day before yesterday, stocks are recovering. Leading issues...."
Jack realized that he had started and had involuntarily put his arm around the girl's shoulders. At the same time he noticed that the voice was coming from the curved brown trumpet of an old-fashioned radio loudspeaker.
The girl didn't pull away from him. He turned toward her. Although her gray eyes were on him, her attention had gone elsewhere.
"I can hear the car. They're coming back. They won't like it that you're here."
"All right they won't like it."
Her agitation grew. "No, you must go."
"I'll come back tomorrow," he heard himself saying.
"Flash! It looks as if the World Economic Conference may soon adjourn, mouthing jeers at old Uncle Sam who is generally referred to as Uncle Shylock."
Jack felt a numbness on his neck. The room seemed to be darkening, the girl growing stranger still.
"You must go before they see you."
"Flash! Wiley Post has just completed his solo circuit of the Globe, after a record-breaking flight of 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes. Asked how he felt after the energy-draining feat, Post quipped...."
He was halfway across the lawn before he realized the terror into which the grating radio voice had thrown him.
He leaped for the branch over-hanging the fence, vaulted up with the risky help of a foot on the barbed top. A surprised squirrel, lacking time to make its escape up the trunk, sprang to the ground ahead of him. With terrible suddenness, two steel-jawed semicircles clanked together just over the squirrel's head. Jack landed with one foot to either side of the sprung trap, while the squirrel darted off with a squeak.
Jack plunged down the slope to the rocky spine and ran across it, spray from the rising waves spattering him to the waist. Panting now, he stumbled up into the oaks and undergrowth of the first island, fought his way through it, finally reached the silent cove. He loosed the line of the Annie O. , dragged it as near to the cove's mouth as he could, plunged knee-deep in freezing water to give it a final shove, scrambled aboard, snatched up the boathook and punched at the rocks.
As soon as the Annie O. was nosing out of the cove into the cross waves, he yanked up the sail. The freshening wind filled it and sent the sloop heeling over, with inches of white water over the lee rail, and plunging ahead.
For a long while, Jack was satisfied to think of nothing but the wind and the waves and the sail and speed and danger, to have all his attention taken up balancing one against the other, so that he wouldn't have to ask himself what year it was and whether time was an illusion, and wonder about flappers and hidden traps.
When he finally looked back at the island, he was amazed to see how tiny it had grown, as distant as the mainland.
Then he saw a gray motorboat astern. He watched it as it slowly overtook him. It was built like a lifeboat, with a sturdy low cabin in the bow and wheel amidship. Whoever was at the wheel had long gray hair that whipped in the wind. The longer he looked, the surer he was that it was a woman wearing a lace dress. Something that stuck up inches over the cabin flashed darkly beside her. Only when she lifted it to the roof of the cabin did it occur to him that it might be a rifle.
But just then the motorboat swung around in a turn that sent waves drenching over it, and headed back toward the island. He watched it for a minute in wonder, then his attention was jolted by an angry hail.
Three fishing smacks, also headed toward town, were about to cross his bow. He came around into the wind and waited with shaking sail, watching a man in a lumpy sweater shake a fist at him. Then he turned and gratefully followed the dark, wide, fanlike sterns and age-yellowed sails.
II
The exterior of Martin Kesserich's home—a weathered white cube with narrow, sharp-paned windows, topped by a cupola—was nothing like its lavish interior.
In much the same way, Mrs. Kesserich clashed with the darkly gleaming furniture, persian rugs and bronze vases around her. Her shapeless black form, poised awkwardly on the edge of a huge sofa, made Jack think of a cow that had strayed into the drawing room. He wondered again how a man like Kesserich had come to marry such a creature.
Yet when she lifted up her little eyes from the shadows, he had the uneasy feeling that she knew a great deal about him. The eyes were still those of a domestic animal, but of a wise one that has been watching the house a long, long while from the barnyard.
He asked abruptly, "Do you know anything of a girl around here named Mary Alice Pope?"
The silence lasted so long that he began to think she'd gone into some bovine trance. Then, without a word, she got up and went over to a tall cabinet. Feeling on a ledge behind it for a key, she opened a panel, opened a cardboard box inside it, took something from the box and handed him a photograph. He held it up to the failing light and sucked in his breath with surprise.
It was a picture of the girl he'd met that afternoon. Same flat-bosomed dress—flowered rather than white—no bandeau, same beads. Same proud, demure expression, perhaps a bit happier.
"That is Mary Alice Pope," Mrs. Kesserich said in a strangely flat voice. "She was Martin's fiancee. She was killed in a railway accident in 1933."
The small sound of the cabinet door closing brought Jack back to reality. He realized that he no longer had the photograph. Against the gloom by the cabinet, Mrs. Kesserich's white face looked at him with what seemed a malicious eagerness.
"Sit down," she said, "and I'll tell you about it."
Without a thought as to why she hadn't asked him a single question—he was much too dazed for that—he obeyed. Mrs. Kesserich resumed her position on the edge of the sofa.
"You must understand, Mr. Barr, that Mary Alice Pope was the one love of Martin's life. He is a man of very deep and strong feelings, yet as you probably know, anything but kindly or demonstrative. Even when he first came here from Hungary with his older sisters Hani and Hilda, there was a cloak of loneliness about him—or rather about the three of them.
"Hani and Hilda were athletic outdoor women, yet fiercely proud—I don't imagine they ever spoke to anyone in America except as to a servant—and with a seething distaste for all men except Martin. They showered all their devotion on him. So of course, though Martin didn't realize it, they were consumed with jealousy when he fell in love with Mary Alice Pope. They'd thought that since he'd reached forty without marrying, he was safe.
"Mary Alice came from a pure-bred, or as a biologist would say, inbred British stock. She was very young, but very sweet, and up to a point very wise. She sensed Hani and Hilda's feelings right away and did everything she could to win them over. For instance, though she was afraid of horses, she took up horseback riding, because that was Hani and Hilda's favorite pastime. Naturally, Martin knew nothing of her fear, and naturally his sisters knew about it from the first. But—and here is where Mary's wisdom fell short—her brave gesture did not pacify them: it only increased their hatred.
"Except for his research, Martin was blind to everything but his love. It was a beautiful and yet frightening passion, an insane cherishing as narrow and intense as his sisters hatred."
With a start, Jack remembered that it was Mrs. Kesserich telling him all this.
She went on, "Martin's love directed his every move. He was building a home for himself and Mary, and in his mind he was building a wonderful future for them as well—not vaguely, if you know Martin, but year by year, month by month. This winter, he'd plan, they would visit Buenos Aires, next summer they would sail down the inland passage and he would teach Mary Hungarian for their trip to Buda-Pesth the year after, where he would occupy a chair at the university for a few months ... and so on. Finally the time for their marriage drew near. Martin had been away. His research was keeping him very busy—"
Jack broke in with, "Wasn't that about the time he did his definitive work on growth and fertilization?"
Mrs. Kesserich nodded with solemn appreciation in the gathering darkness. "But now he was coming home, his work done. It was early evening, very chilly, but Hani and Hilda felt they had to ride down to the station to meet their brother. And although she dreaded it, Mary rode with them, for she knew how delighted he would be at her cantering to the puffing train and his running up to lift her down from the saddle to welcome him home.
"Of course there was Martin's luggage to be considered, so the station wagon had to be sent down for that." She looked defiantly at Jack. "I drove the station wagon. I was Martin's laboratory assistant."
She paused. "It was almost dark, but there was still a white cold line of sky to the west. Hani and Hilda, with Mary between them, were waiting on their horses at the top of the hill that led down to the station. The train had whistled and its headlight was graying the gravel of the crossing.
"Suddenly Mary's horse squealed and plunged down the hill. Hani and Hilda followed—to try to catch her, they said, but they didn't manage that, only kept her horse from veering off. Mary never screamed, but as her horse reared on the tracks, I saw her face in the headlight's glare.
"Martin must have guessed, or at least feared what had happened, for he was out of the train and running along the track before it stopped. In fact, he was the first to kneel down beside Mary—I mean, what had been Mary—and was holding her all bloody and shattered in his arms."
A door slammed. There were steps in the hall. Mrs. Kesserich stiffened and was silent. Jack turned.
The blur of a face hung in the doorway to the hall—a seemingly young, sensitive, suavely handsome face with aristocratic jaw. Then there was a click and the lights flared up and Jack saw the close-cropped gray hair and the lines around the eyes and nostrils, while the sensitive mouth grew sardonic. Yet the handsomeness stayed, and somehow the youth, too, or at least a tremendous inner vibrancy.
"Hello, Barr," Martin Kesserich said, ignoring his wife.
The great biologist had come home.
III
"Oh, yes, and Jamieson had a feeble paper on what he called individualization in marine worms. Barr, have you ever thought much about the larger aspects of the problem of individuality?"
Jack jumped slightly. He had let his thoughts wander very far.
"Not especially, sir," he mumbled.
The house was still. A few minutes after the professor's arrival, Mrs. Kesserich had gone off with an anxious glance at Jack. He knew why and wished he could reassure her that he would not mention their conversation to the professor.
Kesserich had spent perhaps a half hour briefing him on the more important papers delivered at the conferences. Then, almost as if it were a teacher's trick to show up a pupil's inattention, he had suddenly posed this question about individuality.
"You know what I mean, of course," Kesserich pressed. "The factors that make you you, and me me."
"Heredity and environment," Jack parroted like a freshman.
Kesserich nodded. "Suppose—this is just speculation—that we could control heredity and environment. Then we could re-create the same individual at will."
Jack felt a shiver go through him. "To get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits. That'd be far beyond us."
"What about identical twins?" Kesserich pointed out. "And then there's parthenogenesis to be considered. One might produce a duplicate of the mother without the intervention of the male." Although his voice had grown more idly speculative, Kesserich seemed to Jack to be smiling secretly. "There are many examples in the lower animal forms, to say nothing of the technique by which Loeb caused a sea urchin to reproduce with no more stimulus than a salt solution."
Jack felt the hair rising on his neck. "Even then you wouldn't get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits."
"Not if the parent were of very pure stock? Not if there were some special technique for selecting ova that would reproduce all the mother's traits?"
"But environment would change things," Jack objected. "The duplicate would be bound to develop differently."
"Is environment so important? Newman tells about a pair of identical twins separated from birth, unaware of each other's existence. They met by accident when they were twenty-one. Each was a telephone repairman. Each had a wife the same age. Each had a baby son. And each had a fox terrier called 'Trixie.' That's without trying to make environments similar. But suppose you did try. Suppose you saw to it that each of them had exactly the same experiences at the same times...."
For a moment it seemed to Jack that the room was dimming and wavering, becoming a dark pool in which the only motionless thing was Kesserich's sphinx-like face.
"Well, we've escaped quite far enough from Jamieson's marine worms," the biologist said, all brisk again. He said it as if Jack were the one who had led the conversation down wild and unprofitable channels.
"Let's get on to your project. I want to talk it over now, because I won't have any time for it tomorrow."
Jack looked at him blankly.
"Tomorrow I must attend to a very important matter," the biologist explained.
IV
Morning sunlight brightened the colors of the wax flowers under glass on the high bureau that always seemed to emit the faint odor of old hair combings. Jack pulled back the diamond-patterned quilt and blinked the sleep from his eyes. He expected his mind to be busy wondering about Kesserich and his wife—things said and half said last night—but found instead that his thoughts swung instantly to Mary Alice Pope, as if to a farthest island in a world of people.
Downstairs, the house was empty. After a long look at the cabinet—he felt behind it, but the key was gone—he hurried down to the waterfront. He stopped only for a bowl of chowder and, as an afterthought, to buy half a dozen newspapers.
The sea was bright, the brisk wind just right for the Annie O. There was eagerness in the way it smacked the sail and in the creak of the mast. And when he reached the cove, it was no longer still, but nervous with faint ripples, as if time had finally begun to stir.
After the same struggle with the underbrush, he came out on the rocky spine and passed the cove of the sea urchins. The spiny creatures struck an uncomfortable chord in his memory.
This time he climbed the second island cautiously, scraping the innocent-seeming ground ahead of him intently with a boathook he'd brought along for the purpose. He was only a few yards from the fence when he saw Mary Alice Pope standing behind it.
He hadn't realized that his heart would begin to pound or that, at the same time, a shiver of almost supernatural dread would go through him.
The girl eyed him with an uneasy hostility and immediately began to speak in a hushed, hurried voice. "You must go away at once and never come back. You're a wicked man, but I don't want you to be hurt. I've been watching for you all morning."
He tossed the newspapers over the fence. "You don't have to read them now," he told her. "Just look at the datelines and a few of the headlines."
When she finally lifted her eyes to his again, she was trembling. She tried unsuccessfully to speak.
"Listen to me," he said. "You've been the victim of a scheme to make you believe you were born around 1916 instead of 1933, and that it's
1933 now instead of 1951. I'm not sure why it's been done, though I think I know who you really are."
"But," the girl faltered, "my aunts tell me it's 1933."
"They would."
"And there are the papers ... the magazines ... the radio."
"The papers are old ones. The radio's faked—some sort of recording. I could show you if I could get at it."
" These papers might be faked," she said, pointing to where she'd let them drop on the ground.
"They're new," he said. "Only old papers get yellow."
"But why would they do it to me? Why? "
"Come with me to the mainland, Mary. That'll set you straight quicker than anything."
"I couldn't," she said, drawing back. "He's coming tonight."
"He?"
"The man who sends me the boxes ... and my life."
Jack shivered. When he spoke, his voice was rough and quick. "A life that's completely a lie, that's cut you off from the world. Come with me, Mary."
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Describe the setting of the story.
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Master of Life and Death by Robert Silverberg.
Relevant chunks:
MASTER of Life and Death
by ROBERT SILVERBERG
ACE BOOKS A Division of A. A. Wyn, Inc. 23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y.
MASTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
Copyright 1957, by A. A. Wyn, Inc. All Rights Reserved
For Antigone— Who Thinks We're Property
Printed in U.S.A.
[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
THE MAN WHO RATIONED BABIES
By the 23rd century Earth's population had reached seven billion. Mankind was in danger of perishing for lack of elbow room—unless prompt measures were taken. Roy Walton had the power to enforce those measures. But though his job was in the service of humanity, he soon found himself the most hated man in the world.
For it was his job to tell parents their children were unfit to live; he had to uproot people from their homes and send them to remote areas of the world. Now, threatened by mobs of outraged citizens, denounced and blackened by the press, Roy Walton had to make a decision: resign his post, or use his power to destroy his enemies, become a dictator in the hopes of saving humanity from its own folly. In other words, should he become the MASTER OF LIFE AND DEATH?
CAST OF CHARACTERS
ROY WALTON
He had to adopt the motto— the ends justify the means .
FITZMAUGHAM
His reward for devoted service was—an assassin's bullet.
FRED WALTON
His ambition was to fill his brother's shoes—but he underestimated their size.
LEE PERCY
His specialty was sugarcoating bitter pills.
PRIOR
With the pen as his only weapon, could he save his son?
DR. LAMARRE
He died for discovering the secret of immortality.
Contents
I
The offices of the Bureau of Population Equalization, vulgarly known as Popeek, were located on the twentieth through twenty-ninth floors of the Cullen Building, a hundred-story monstrosity typical of twenty-second-century neo-Victorian at its overdecorated worst. Roy Walton, Popeek's assistant administrator, had to apologize to himself each morning as he entered the hideous place.
Since taking the job, he had managed to redecorate his own office—on the twenty-eighth floor, immediately below Director FitzMaugham's—but that had created only one minor oasis in the esthetically repugnant building. It couldn't be helped, though; Popeek was unpopular, though necessary; and, like the public hangman of some centuries earlier, the Bureau did not rate attractive quarters.
So Walton had removed some of the iridescent chrome scalloping that trimmed the walls, replaced the sash windows with opaquers, and changed the massive ceiling fixture to more subtle electroluminescents. But the mark of the last century was stamped irrevocably on both building and office.
Which was as it should be, Walton had finally realized. It was the last century's foolishness that had made Popeek necessary, after all.
His desk was piled high with reports, and more kept arriving via pneumochute every minute. The job of assistant administrator was a thankless one, he thought; as much responsibility as Director FitzMaugham, and half the pay.
He lifted a report from one eyebrow-high stack, smoothed the crinkly paper carefully, and read it.
It was a despatch from Horrocks, the Popeek agent currently on duty in Patagonia. It was dated 4 June 2232 , six days before, and after a long and rambling prologue in the usual Horrocks manner it went on to say, Population density remains low here: 17.3 per square mile, far below optimum. Looks like a prime candidate for equalization.
Walton agreed. He reached for his voicewrite and said sharply, "Memo from Assistant Administrator Walton, re equalization of ..." He paused, picking a trouble-spot at random, "... central Belgium. Will the section chief in charge of this area please consider the advisability of transferring population excess to fertile areas in Patagonia? Recommendation: establishment of industries in latter region, to ease transition."
He shut his eyes, dug his thumbs into them until bright flares of light shot across his eyeballs, and refused to let himself be bothered by the multiple problems involved in dumping several hundred thousand Belgians into Patagonia. He forced himself to cling to one of Director FitzMaugham's oft-repeated maxims, If you want to stay sane, think of these people as pawns in a chess game—not as human beings.
Walton sighed. This was the biggest chess problem in the history of humanity, and the way it looked now, all the solutions led to checkmate in a century or less. They could keep equalizing population only so long, shifting like loggers riding logs in a rushing river, before trouble came.
There was another matter to be attended to now. He picked up the voicewrite again. "Memo from the assistant administrator, re establishment of new policy on reports from local agents: hire a staff of three clever girls to make a précis of each report, eliminating irrelevant data."
It was a basic step, one that should have been taken long ago. Now, with three feet of reports stacked on his desk, it was mandatory. One of the troubles with Popeek was its newness; it had been established so suddenly that most of its procedures were still in the formative stage.
He took another report from the heap. This one was the data sheet of the Zurich Euthanasia Center, and he gave it a cursory scanning. During the past week, eleven substandard children and twenty-three substandard adults had been sent on to Happysleep.
That was the grimmest form of population equalization. Walton initialed the report, earmarked it for files, and dumped it in the pneumochute.
The annunciator chimed.
"I'm busy," Walton said immediately.
"There's a Mr. Prior to see you," the annunciator's calm voice said.
"He insists it's an emergency."
"Tell Mr. Prior I can't see anyone for at least three hours." Walton stared gloomily at the growing pile of paper on his desk. "Tell him he can have ten minutes with me at—oh, say, 1300."
Walton heard an angry male voice muttering something in the outer office, and then the annunciator said, "He insists he must see you immediately in reference to a Happysleep commitment."
"Commitments are irrevocable," Walton said heavily. The last thing in the world he wanted was to see a man whose child or parent had just been committed. "Tell Mr. Prior I can't see him at all."
Walton found his fingers trembling; he clamped them tight to the edge of his desk to steady himself. It was all right sitting up here in this ugly building and initialing commitment papers, but actually to see one of those people and try to convince him of the need—
The door burst open.
A tall, dark-haired man in an open jacket came rushing through and paused dramatically just over the threshold. Immediately behind him came three unsmiling men in the gray silk-sheen uniforms of security. They carried drawn needlers.
"Are you Administrator Walton?" the big man asked, in an astonishingly deep, rich voice. "I have to see you. I'm Lyle Prior."
The three security men caught up and swarmed all over Prior. One of them turned apologetically to Walton. "We're terribly sorry about this, sir. He just broke away and ran. We can't understand how he got in here, but he did."
"Ah—yes. So I noticed," Walton remarked drily. "See if he's planning to assassinate anybody, will you?"
"Administrator Walton!" Prior protested. "I'm a man of peace! How can you accuse me of—"
One of the security men hit him. Walton stiffened and resisted the urge to reprimand the man. He was only doing his job, after all.
"Search him," Walton said.
They gave Prior an efficient going-over. "He's clean, Mr. Walton. Should we take him to security, or downstairs to health?"
"Neither. Leave him here with me."
"Are you sure you—"
"Get out of here," Walton snapped. As the three security men slinked away, he added, "And figure out some more efficient system for protecting me. Some day an assassin is going to sneak through here and get me. Not that I give a damn about myself, you understand; it's simply that I'm indispensable. There isn't another lunatic in the world who'd take this job. Now get out !"
They wasted no time in leaving. Walton waited until the door closed and jammed down hard on the lockstud. His tirade, he knew, was wholly unjustified; if he had remembered to lock his door as regulations prescribed, Prior would never have broken in. But he couldn't admit that to the guards.
"Take a seat, Mr. Prior."
"I have to thank you for granting me this audience," Prior said, without a hint of sarcasm in his booming voice. "I realize you're a terribly busy man."
"I am." Another three inches of paper had deposited itself on Walton's desk since Prior had entered. "You're very lucky to have hit the psychological moment for your entrance. At any other time I'd have had you brigged for a month, but just now I'm in need of a little diversion. Besides, I very much admire your work, Mr. Prior."
"Thank you." Again that humility, startling in so big and commanding a man. "I hadn't expected to find—I mean that you—"
"That a bureaucrat should admire poetry? Is that what you're groping for?"
Prior reddened. "Yes," he admitted.
Grinning, Walton said, "I have to do something when I go home at night. I don't really read Popeek reports twenty-four hours a day. No more than twenty; that's my rule. I thought your last book was quite remarkable."
"The critics didn't," Prior said diffidently.
"Critics! What do they know?" Walton demanded. "They swing in cycles. Ten years ago it was form and technique, and you got the Melling Prize. Now it's message, political content that counts. That's not poetry, Mr. Prior—and there are still a few of us who recognize what poetry is. Take Yeats, for instance—"
Walton was ready to launch into a discussion of every poet from Prior back to Surrey and Wyatt; anything to keep from the job at hand, anything to keep his mind from Popeek. But Prior interrupted him.
"Mr. Walton...."
"Yes?"
"My son Philip ... he's two weeks old now...."
Walton understood. "No, Prior. Please don't ask." Walton's skin felt cold; his hands, tightly clenched, were clammy.
"He was committed to Happysleep this morning—potentially tubercular. The boy's perfectly sound, Mr. Walton. Couldn't you—"
Walton rose. " No ," he said, half-commanding, half-pleading. "Don't ask me to do it. I can't make any exceptions, not even for you. You're an intelligent man; you understand our program."
"I voted for Popeek. I know all about Weeding the Garden and the Euthanasia Plan. But I hadn't expected—"
"You thought euthanasia was a fine thing for other people. So did everyone else," Walton said. "That's how the act was passed." Tenderly he said, "I can't do it. I can't spare your son. Our doctors give a baby every chance to live."
" I was tubercular. They cured me. What if they had practiced euthanasia a generation ago? Where would my poems be now?"
It was an unanswerable question; Walton tried to ignore it.
"Tuberculosis is an extremely rare disease, Mr. Prior. We can wipe it out completely if we strike at those with TB-susceptible genetic traits."
"Meaning you'll kill any children I have?" Prior asked.
"Those who inherit your condition," Walton said gently. "Go home, Mr. Prior. Burn me in effigy. Write a poem about me. But don't ask me to do the impossible. I can't catch any falling stars for you."
Prior rose. He was immense, a hulking tragic figure staring broodingly at Walton. For the first time since the poet's abrupt entry, Walton feared violence. His fingers groped for the needle gun he kept in his upper left desk drawer.
But Prior had no violence in him. "I'll leave you," he said somberly.
"I'm sorry, sir. Deeply sorry. For both of us."
Walton pressed the doorlock to let him out, then locked it again and slipped heavily into his chair. Three more reports slid out of the chute and landed on his desk. He stared at them as if they were three basilisks.
In the six weeks of Popeek's existence, three thousand babies had been ticketed for Happysleep, and three thousand sets of degenerate genes had been wiped from the race. Ten thousand subnormal males had been sterilized. Eight thousand dying oldsters had reached their graves ahead of time.
It was a tough-minded program. But why transmit palsy to unborn generations? Why let an adult idiot litter the world with subnormal progeny? Why force a man hopelessly cancerous to linger on in pain, consuming precious food?
Unpleasant? Sure. But the world had voted for it. Until Lang and his team succeeded in terraforming Venus, or until the faster-than-light outfit opened the stars to mankind, something had to be done about Earth's overpopulation. There were seven billion now and the figure was still growing.
Prior's words haunted him. I was tubercular ... where would my poems be now?
The big humble man was one of the great poets. Keats had been tubercular too.
What good are poets? he asked himself savagely.
The reply came swiftly: What good is anything, then? Keats, Shakespeare, Eliot, Yeats, Donne, Pound, Matthews ... and Prior. How much duller life would be without them, Walton thought, picturing his bookshelf—his one bookshelf, in his crowded little cubicle of a one-room home.
Sweat poured down his back as he groped toward his decision.
The step he was considering would disqualify him from his job if he admitted it, though he wouldn't do that. Under the Equalization Law, it would be a criminal act.
But just one baby wouldn't matter. Just one.
Prior's baby.
With nervous fingers he switched on the annunciator and said, "If there are any calls for me, take the message. I'll be out of my office for the next half-hour."
II
He stepped out of the office, glancing around furtively. The outer office was busy: half a dozen girls were answering calls, opening letters, coordinating activities. Walton slipped quickly past them into the hallway.
There was a knot of fear in his stomach as he turned toward the lift tube. Six weeks of pressure, six weeks of tension since Popeek was organized and old man FitzMaugham had tapped him for the second-in-command post ... and now, a rebellion. The sparing of a single child was a small rebellion, true, but he knew he was striking as effectively at the base of Popeek this way as if he had brought about repeal of the entire Equalization Law.
Well, just one lapse, he promised himself. I'll spare Prior's child, and after that I'll keep within the law.
He jabbed the lift tube indicator and the tube rose in its shaft. The clinic was on the twentieth floor.
"Roy."
At the sound of the quiet voice behind him, Walton jumped in surprise. He steadied himself, forcing himself to turn slowly. The director stood there.
"Good morning, Mr. FitzMaugham."
The old man was smiling serenely, his unlined face warm and friendly, his mop of white hair bright and full. "You look preoccupied, boy. Something the matter?"
Walton shook his head quickly. "Just a little tired, sir. There's been a lot of work lately."
As he said it, he knew how foolish it sounded. If anyone in Popeek worked harder than he did, it was the elderly director. FitzMaugham had striven for equalization legislature for fifty years, and now, at the age of eighty, he put in a sixteen-hour day at the task of saving mankind from itself.
The director smiled. "You never did learn how to budget your strength, Roy. You'll be a worn-out wreck before you're half my age. I'm glad you're adopting my habit of taking a coffee break in the morning, though. Mind if I join you?"
"I'm—not taking a break, sir. I have some work to do downstairs."
"Oh? Can't you take care of it by phone?"
"No, Mr. FitzMaugham." Walton felt as though he'd already been tried, drawn, and quartered. "It requires personal attention."
"I see." The deep, warm eyes bored into his. "You ought to slow down a little, I think."
"Yes, sir. As soon as the work eases up a little."
FitzMaugham chuckled. "In another century or two, you mean. I'm afraid you'll never learn how to relax, my boy."
The lift tube arrived. Walton stepped to one side, allowed the Director to enter, and got in himself. FitzMaugham pushed Fourteen ; there was a coffee shop down there. Hesitantly, Walton pushed twenty , covering the panel with his arm so the old man would be unable to see his destination.
As the tube began to descend, FitzMaugham said, "Did Mr. Prior come to see you this morning?"
"Yes," Walton said.
"He's the poet, isn't he? The one you say is so good?"
"That's right, sir," Walton said tightly.
"He came to see me first, but I had him referred down to you. What was on his mind?"
Walton hesitated. "He—he wanted his son spared from Happysleep. Naturally, I had to turn him down."
"Naturally," FitzMaugham agreed solemnly. "Once we make even one exception, the whole framework crumbles."
"Of course, sir."
The lift tube halted and rocked on its suspension. The door slid back, revealing a neat, gleaming sign:
FLOOR 20 Euthanasia Clinic and Files
Walton had forgotten the accursed sign. He began to wish he had avoided traveling down with the director. He felt that his purpose must seem nakedly obvious now.
The old man's eyes were twinkling amusedly. "I guess you get off here," he said. "I hope you catch up with your work soon, Roy. You really should take some time off for relaxation each day."
"I'll try, sir."
Walton stepped out of the tube and returned FitzMaugham's smile as the door closed again. Bitter thoughts assailed him as soon as he was alone.
Some fine criminal you are. You've given the show away already! And damn that smooth paternal smile. FitzMaugham knows! He must know!
Walton wavered, then abruptly made his decision. He sucked in a deep breath and walked briskly toward the big room where the euthanasia files were kept.
The room was large, as rooms went nowadays—thirty by twenty, with deck upon deck of Donnerson micro-memory-tubes racked along one wall and a bank of microfilm records along the other. In six weeks of life Popeek had piled up an impressive collection of data.
While he stood there, the computer chattered, lights flashed. New facts poured into the memory banks. It probably went on day and night.
"Can I help—oh, it's you, Mr. Walton," a white-smocked technician said. Popeek employed a small army of technicians, each one faceless and without personality, but always ready to serve. "Is there anything I can do?"
"I'm simply running a routine checkup. Mind if I use the machine?"
"Not at all, sir. Go right ahead."
Walton grinned lightly and stepped forward. The technician practically backed out of his presence.
No doubt I must radiate charisma , he thought. Within the building he wore a sort of luminous halo, by virtue of being Director FitzMaugham's protégé and second-in-command. Outside, in the colder reality of the crowded metropolis, he kept his identity and Popeek rank quietly to himself.
Frowning, he tried to remember the Prior boy's name. Ah ... Philip, wasn't it? He punched out a request for the card on Philip Prior.
A moment's pause followed, while the millions of tiny cryotronic circuits raced with information pulses, searching the Donnerson tubes for Philip Prior's record. Then, a brief squeaking sound and a yellow-brown card dropped out of the slot:
3216847AB1
PRIOR, Philip Hugh. Born 31 May 2232, New York General Hospital, New York. First son of Prior, Lyle Martin and Prior, Ava Leonard. Wgt. at birth 5lb. 3oz.
An elaborate description of the boy in great detail followed, ending with blood type, agglutinating characteristic, and gene-pattern, codified. Walton skipped impatiently through that and came to the notification typed in curt, impersonal green capital letters at the bottom of the card:
EXAMINED AT N Y EUTH CLINIC 10 JUNE 2332 EUTHANASIA RECOMMENDED
He glanced at his watch: the time was 1026. The boy was probably still somewhere in the clinic lab, waiting for the figurative axe to descend.
Walton had set up the schedule himself: the gas chamber delivered Happysleep each day at 1100 and 1500. He had about half an hour to save Philip Prior.
He peered covertly over his shoulder; no one was in sight. He slipped the baby's card into his breast pocket.
That done, he typed out a requisition for explanation of the gene-sorting code the clinic used. Symbols began pouring forth, and Walton puzzledly correlated them with the line of gibberish on Phillip Prior's record card. Finally he found the one he wanted: 3f2, tubercular-prone .
He scrapped the guide sheet he had and typed out a message to the machine. Revision of card number 3216847AB1 follows. Please alter in all circuits.
He proceeded to retype the child's card, omitting both the fatal symbol 3f2 and the notation recommending euthanasia from the new version. The machine beeped an acknowledgement. Walton smiled. So far, so good.
Then, he requested the boy's file all over again. After the customary pause, a card numbered 3216847AB1 dropped out of the slot. He read it.
The deletions had been made. As far as the machine was concerned, Philip Prior was a normal, healthy baby.
He glanced at his watch. 1037. Still twenty-three minutes before this morning's haul of unfortunates was put away.
Now came the real test: could he pry the baby away from the doctors without attracting too much attention to himself in the process?
Five doctors were bustling back and forth as Walton entered the main section of the clinic. There must have been a hundred babies there, each in a little pen of its own, and the doctors were humming from one to the next, while anxious parents watched from screens above.
The Equalization Law provided that every child be presented at its local clinic within two weeks of birth, for an examination and a certificate. Perhaps one in ten thousand would be denied a certificate ... and life.
"Hello, Mr. Walton. What brings you down here?"
Walton smiled affably. "Just a routine investigation, Doctor. I try to keep in touch with every department we have, you know."
"Mr. FitzMaugham was down here to look around a little while ago. We're really getting a going-over today, Mr. Walton!"
"Umm. Yes." Walton didn't like that, but there was nothing he could do about it. He'd have to rely on the old man's abiding faith in his protégé to pull him out of any possible stickiness that arose.
"Seen my brother around?" he asked.
"Fred? He's working in room seven, running analyses. Want me to get him for you, Mr. Walton?"
"No—no, don't bother him, thanks. I'll find him later." Inwardly, Walton felt relieved. Fred Walton, his younger brother, was a doctor in the employ of Popeek. Little love was lost between the brothers, and Roy did not care to have Fred know he was down there.
Strolling casually through the clinic, he peered at a few plump, squalling babies, and said, "Find many sour ones today?"
"Seven so far. They're scheduled for the 1100 chamber. Three tuberc, two blind, one congenital syph."
"That only makes six," Walton said.
"Oh, and a spastic," the doctor said. "Biggest haul we've had yet. Seven in one morning."
"Have any trouble with the parents?"
"What do you think?" the doctor asked. "But some of them seemed to understand. One of the tuberculars nearly raised the roof, though."
Walton shuddered. "You remember his name?" he asked, with feigned calm.
Silence for a moment. "No. Darned if I can think of it. I can look it up for you if you like."
"Don't bother," Walton said hurriedly.
He moved on, down the winding corridor that led to the execution chamber. Falbrough, the executioner, was studying a list of names at his desk when Walton appeared.
Falbrough didn't look like the sort of man who would enjoy his work. He was short and plump, with a high-domed bald head and glittering contact lenses in his weak blue eyes. "Morning, Mr. Walton."
"Good morning, Doctor Falbrough. You'll be operating soon, won't you?"
"Eleven hundred, as usual."
"Good. There's a new regulation in effect from now on," Walton said.
"To keep public opinion on our side."
"Sir?"
"Henceforth, until further notice, you're to check each baby that comes to you against the main file, just to make sure there's been no mistake. Got that?"
" Mistake? But how—"
"Never mind that, Falbrough. There was quite a tragic slip-up at one of the European centers yesterday. We may all hang for it if news gets out." How glibly I reel this stuff off , Walton thought in amazement.
Falbrough looked grave. "I see, sir. Of course. We'll double-check everything from now on."
"Good. Begin with the 1100 batch."
Walton couldn't bear to remain down in the clinic any longer. He left via a side exit, and signaled for a lift tube.
Minutes later he was back in his office, behind the security of a towering stack of work. His pulse was racing; his throat was dry. He remembered what FitzMaugham had said: Once we make even one exception, the whole framework crumbles.
Well, the framework had begun crumbling, then. And there was little doubt in Walton's mind that FitzMaugham knew or would soon know what he had done. He would have to cover his traces, somehow.
The annunciator chimed and said, "Dr. Falbrough of Happysleep calling you, sir."
"Put him on."
The screen lit and Falbrough's face appeared; its normal blandness had given way to wild-eyed tenseness.
"What is it, Doctor?"
"It's a good thing you issued that order when you did, sir! You'll never guess what just happened—"
"No guessing games, Falbrough. Speak up."
"I—well, sir, I ran checks on the seven babies they sent me this morning. And guess—I mean—well, one of them shouldn't have been sent to me!"
"No!"
"It's the truth, sir. A cute little baby indeed. I've got his card right here. The boy's name is Philip Prior, and his gene-pattern is fine."
"Any recommendation for euthanasia on the card?" Walton asked.
"No, sir."
Walton chewed at a ragged cuticle for a moment, counterfeiting great anxiety. "Falbrough, we're going to have to keep this very quiet. Someone slipped up in the examining room, and if word gets out that there's been as much as one mistake, we'll have a mob swarming over us in half an hour."
"Yes, sir." Falbrough looked terribly grave. "What should I do, sir?"
"Don't say a word about this to anyone , not even the men in the examining room. Fill out a certificate for the boy, find his parents, apologize and return him to them. And make sure you keep checking for any future cases of this sort."
"Certainly, sir. Is that all?"
"It is," Walton said crisply, and broke the contact. He took a deep breath and stared bleakly at the far wall.
The Prior boy was safe. And in the eyes of the law—the Equalization Law—Roy Walton was now a criminal. He was every bit as much a criminal as the man who tried to hide his dying father from the investigators, or the anxious parents who attempted to bribe an examining doctor.
He felt curiously dirty. And, now that he had betrayed FitzMaugham and the Cause, now that it was done, he had little idea why he had done it, why he had jeopardized the Popeek program, his position—his life, even—for the sake of one potentially tubercular baby.
Well, the thing was done.
No. Not quite. Later, when things had quieted down, he would have to finish the job by transferring all the men in the clinic to distant places and by obliterating the computer's memories of this morning's activities.
The annunciator chimed again. "Your brother is on the wire, sir."
Walton trembled imperceptibly as he said, "Put him on." Somehow, Fred never called unless he could say or do something unpleasant. And Walton was very much afraid that his brother meant no good by this call. No good at all.
III
Roy Walton watched his brother's head and shoulders take form out of the swirl of colors on the screen. Fred Walton was more compact, built closer to the ground than his rangy brother; he was a squat five-seven, next to Roy's lean six-two. Fred had always threatened to "get even" with his older brother as soon as they were the same size, but to Fred's great dismay he had never managed to catch up with Roy in height.
Even on the screen, Fred's neck and shoulders gave an impression of tremendous solidity and force. Walton waited for his brother's image to take shape, and when the time lag was over he said, "Well, Fred? What goes?"
His brother's eyes flickered sleepily. "They tell me you were down here a little while ago, Roy. How come I didn't rate a visit?"
"I wasn't in your section. It was official business, anyway. I didn't have time."
Walton fixed his eyes sharply on the caduceus emblem gleaming on Fred's lapel, and refused to look anywhere else.
Fred said slowly, "You had time to tinker with our computer, though."
"Official business!"
"Really, Roy?" His brother's tone was venomous. "I happened to be using the computer shortly after you this morning. I was curious—unpardonably so, dear brother. I requested a transcript of your conversation with the machine."
Sparks seemed to flow from the screen. Walton sat back, feeling numb. He managed to pull his sagging mouth back into a stiff hard line and say, "That's a criminal offense, Fred. Any use I make of a Popeek computer outlet is confidential."
"Criminal offence? Maybe so ... but that makes two of us, then. Eh, Roy?"
"How much do you know?"
"You wouldn't want me to recite it over a public communications system, would you? Your friend FitzMaugham might be listening to every word of this, and I have too much fraternal feeling for that. Ole Doc Walton doesn't want to get his bigwig big brother in trouble—oh, no!"
"Thanks for small blessings," Roy said acidly.
"You got me this job. You can take it away. Let's call it even for now, shall we?"
"Anything you like," Walton said. He was drenched in sweat, though the ingenious executive filter in the sending apparatus of the screen cloaked that fact and presented him as neat and fresh. "I have some work to do now." His voice was barely audible.
"I won't keep you any longer, then," Fred said.
The screen went dead.
Walton killed the contact at his end, got up, walked to the window. He nudged the opaquer control and the frosty white haze over the glass cleared away, revealing the fantastic beehive of the city outside.
Idiot! he thought. Fool!
He had risked everything to save one baby, one child probably doomed to an early death anyway. And FitzMaugham knew—the old man could see through Walton with ease—and Fred knew, too. His brother, and his father-substitute.
FitzMaugham might well choose to conceal Roy's defection this time, but would surely place less trust in him in the future. And as for Fred....
There was no telling what Fred might do. They had never been particularly close as brothers; they had lived with their parents (now almost totally forgotten) until Roy was nine and Fred seven. Their parents had gone down off Maracaibo in a jet crash; Roy and Fred had been sent to the public crèche.
After that it had been separate paths for the brothers. For Roy, an education in the law, a short spell as Senator FitzMaugham's private secretary, followed last month by his sudden elevation to assistant administrator of the newly-created Popeek Bureau. For Fred, medicine, unsuccessful private practice, finally a job in the Happysleep section of Popeek, thanks to Roy.
Question:
Describe the setting of the story.
Answer:
|
[
"Master of Life and Death by Robert Silverberg takes place on Earth many years in the future, specifically June 10, 2232, or six weeks after the equalization laws were implemented. The story takes place within the confines of the Cullen building, specifically through the twentieth and twenty-ninth floors. It starts in Roy Walton’s office on the twenty-eighth floor, designed à la 22nd Century neo-Victorian style. Roy redesigned his office, changing the lights, windows, and removing the trim, but the room still felt ugly to him. His office has a desk with a firearm strapped to the bottom, and the door features a lock so as to prevent an assassination. He communicates with people through a holographic video call, and papers and assignments are sent to his desk immediately. Throughout the story, Roy travels down the elevator to the 20th floor, otherwise known as the Euthanization Clinic. There is a receptionist there as well as several computers. Different offices house different doctors, but he makes his to the center for babies where the executioner works. The rooms are very sterile and hospital-like. Each baby had its own pen, and several doctors examined them all while parents watched from screens. ",
"The story is set in the 23rd century when the Earth’s population has reached seven billion, and people live in extremely crowded conditions. All of the action in the story takes place in the hundred-story Cullen Building, where the Bureau of Population Equalization takes up the 20th through the 29th floors. The building was built in the 22nd century in a neo-Victorian style that is grossly overdecorated and outdated. The overdone nature of the building itself is symbolic of the foolish recklessness of the population of the last century, which led to massive global overpopulation. The structure and Bureau are outfitted with modern technology, including a pneumochute that rapidly delivers paperwork to its destination. Telephones are equipped with video capability so that callers can see each other as they talk, and a lift tube provides transport between floors. Records are stored in memory tubes, microfilm, and computers. Genetic testing is used to identify children with conditions that make them substandard and require their euthanasia. The Bureau has only been up and running for six weeks, but it has already accumulated an impressive quantity of records and data. Workers have become accustomed to their roles; one glibly reports they had identified seven children for Happysleep that morning, the “biggest haul we’ve had yet.”",
"The offices of the Bureau of Population Equalization are in a tall office building that is overdecorated and ugly with a lot of chrome and bright lights. Roy Walton had made some changes to his own office to make it more visually tolerable. Besides these offices, the other part of the story takes place in a records room and in the local clinic where Walton runs into a number of doctors and the executioner, Falbrough. In the clinic, there is an execution hall where the children are sent to be euthanized. Beyond just the physical aspects of the setting, this story takes place in June of the year 2232. At this time, Earth is extremely overpopulated, and the story's events take place around the policies that are being put into place in an attempt to control some of this overpopulation.",
"The story takes place on June 10, 2232 at the offices of the newly-established Bureau of Population Equalization, commonly known as Popeek, which is located on the 20th - 29th floors of the Cullen Building. The Cullen Building has one hundred stories and is crafted in the 22nd century neo-Victorian style. Roy Walton's office is on the 28th floor directly below Director FitzMaugham's, and he has redecorated it to fit his personal taste: He has replaced the sash windows with opaquers and added electroluminescents in place of the old ceiling fixture. Roy's desk is stacked with papers, which continuously arrive through pneumochutes, and he keeps a needler gun in his drawer for protection. An annunciator alerts Roy when he has visitors. Outside Roy's office is an outer office where six secretaries work. He takes an elevator down to the 20th floor where his brother works at the Euthanasia Clinic and Files. The euthanasia file room is thirty feet by twenty feet and filled with Donnerson micro-memory tubes and microfilm records. Popeek has various local offices and euthanasia centers around the world, where people considered substandard are sent on to \"Happysleep.\""
] |
50441
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MASTER of Life and Death
by ROBERT SILVERBERG
ACE BOOKS A Division of A. A. Wyn, Inc. 23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y.
MASTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
Copyright 1957, by A. A. Wyn, Inc. All Rights Reserved
For Antigone— Who Thinks We're Property
Printed in U.S.A.
[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
THE MAN WHO RATIONED BABIES
By the 23rd century Earth's population had reached seven billion. Mankind was in danger of perishing for lack of elbow room—unless prompt measures were taken. Roy Walton had the power to enforce those measures. But though his job was in the service of humanity, he soon found himself the most hated man in the world.
For it was his job to tell parents their children were unfit to live; he had to uproot people from their homes and send them to remote areas of the world. Now, threatened by mobs of outraged citizens, denounced and blackened by the press, Roy Walton had to make a decision: resign his post, or use his power to destroy his enemies, become a dictator in the hopes of saving humanity from its own folly. In other words, should he become the MASTER OF LIFE AND DEATH?
CAST OF CHARACTERS
ROY WALTON
He had to adopt the motto— the ends justify the means .
FITZMAUGHAM
His reward for devoted service was—an assassin's bullet.
FRED WALTON
His ambition was to fill his brother's shoes—but he underestimated their size.
LEE PERCY
His specialty was sugarcoating bitter pills.
PRIOR
With the pen as his only weapon, could he save his son?
DR. LAMARRE
He died for discovering the secret of immortality.
Contents
I
The offices of the Bureau of Population Equalization, vulgarly known as Popeek, were located on the twentieth through twenty-ninth floors of the Cullen Building, a hundred-story monstrosity typical of twenty-second-century neo-Victorian at its overdecorated worst. Roy Walton, Popeek's assistant administrator, had to apologize to himself each morning as he entered the hideous place.
Since taking the job, he had managed to redecorate his own office—on the twenty-eighth floor, immediately below Director FitzMaugham's—but that had created only one minor oasis in the esthetically repugnant building. It couldn't be helped, though; Popeek was unpopular, though necessary; and, like the public hangman of some centuries earlier, the Bureau did not rate attractive quarters.
So Walton had removed some of the iridescent chrome scalloping that trimmed the walls, replaced the sash windows with opaquers, and changed the massive ceiling fixture to more subtle electroluminescents. But the mark of the last century was stamped irrevocably on both building and office.
Which was as it should be, Walton had finally realized. It was the last century's foolishness that had made Popeek necessary, after all.
His desk was piled high with reports, and more kept arriving via pneumochute every minute. The job of assistant administrator was a thankless one, he thought; as much responsibility as Director FitzMaugham, and half the pay.
He lifted a report from one eyebrow-high stack, smoothed the crinkly paper carefully, and read it.
It was a despatch from Horrocks, the Popeek agent currently on duty in Patagonia. It was dated 4 June 2232 , six days before, and after a long and rambling prologue in the usual Horrocks manner it went on to say, Population density remains low here: 17.3 per square mile, far below optimum. Looks like a prime candidate for equalization.
Walton agreed. He reached for his voicewrite and said sharply, "Memo from Assistant Administrator Walton, re equalization of ..." He paused, picking a trouble-spot at random, "... central Belgium. Will the section chief in charge of this area please consider the advisability of transferring population excess to fertile areas in Patagonia? Recommendation: establishment of industries in latter region, to ease transition."
He shut his eyes, dug his thumbs into them until bright flares of light shot across his eyeballs, and refused to let himself be bothered by the multiple problems involved in dumping several hundred thousand Belgians into Patagonia. He forced himself to cling to one of Director FitzMaugham's oft-repeated maxims, If you want to stay sane, think of these people as pawns in a chess game—not as human beings.
Walton sighed. This was the biggest chess problem in the history of humanity, and the way it looked now, all the solutions led to checkmate in a century or less. They could keep equalizing population only so long, shifting like loggers riding logs in a rushing river, before trouble came.
There was another matter to be attended to now. He picked up the voicewrite again. "Memo from the assistant administrator, re establishment of new policy on reports from local agents: hire a staff of three clever girls to make a précis of each report, eliminating irrelevant data."
It was a basic step, one that should have been taken long ago. Now, with three feet of reports stacked on his desk, it was mandatory. One of the troubles with Popeek was its newness; it had been established so suddenly that most of its procedures were still in the formative stage.
He took another report from the heap. This one was the data sheet of the Zurich Euthanasia Center, and he gave it a cursory scanning. During the past week, eleven substandard children and twenty-three substandard adults had been sent on to Happysleep.
That was the grimmest form of population equalization. Walton initialed the report, earmarked it for files, and dumped it in the pneumochute.
The annunciator chimed.
"I'm busy," Walton said immediately.
"There's a Mr. Prior to see you," the annunciator's calm voice said.
"He insists it's an emergency."
"Tell Mr. Prior I can't see anyone for at least three hours." Walton stared gloomily at the growing pile of paper on his desk. "Tell him he can have ten minutes with me at—oh, say, 1300."
Walton heard an angry male voice muttering something in the outer office, and then the annunciator said, "He insists he must see you immediately in reference to a Happysleep commitment."
"Commitments are irrevocable," Walton said heavily. The last thing in the world he wanted was to see a man whose child or parent had just been committed. "Tell Mr. Prior I can't see him at all."
Walton found his fingers trembling; he clamped them tight to the edge of his desk to steady himself. It was all right sitting up here in this ugly building and initialing commitment papers, but actually to see one of those people and try to convince him of the need—
The door burst open.
A tall, dark-haired man in an open jacket came rushing through and paused dramatically just over the threshold. Immediately behind him came three unsmiling men in the gray silk-sheen uniforms of security. They carried drawn needlers.
"Are you Administrator Walton?" the big man asked, in an astonishingly deep, rich voice. "I have to see you. I'm Lyle Prior."
The three security men caught up and swarmed all over Prior. One of them turned apologetically to Walton. "We're terribly sorry about this, sir. He just broke away and ran. We can't understand how he got in here, but he did."
"Ah—yes. So I noticed," Walton remarked drily. "See if he's planning to assassinate anybody, will you?"
"Administrator Walton!" Prior protested. "I'm a man of peace! How can you accuse me of—"
One of the security men hit him. Walton stiffened and resisted the urge to reprimand the man. He was only doing his job, after all.
"Search him," Walton said.
They gave Prior an efficient going-over. "He's clean, Mr. Walton. Should we take him to security, or downstairs to health?"
"Neither. Leave him here with me."
"Are you sure you—"
"Get out of here," Walton snapped. As the three security men slinked away, he added, "And figure out some more efficient system for protecting me. Some day an assassin is going to sneak through here and get me. Not that I give a damn about myself, you understand; it's simply that I'm indispensable. There isn't another lunatic in the world who'd take this job. Now get out !"
They wasted no time in leaving. Walton waited until the door closed and jammed down hard on the lockstud. His tirade, he knew, was wholly unjustified; if he had remembered to lock his door as regulations prescribed, Prior would never have broken in. But he couldn't admit that to the guards.
"Take a seat, Mr. Prior."
"I have to thank you for granting me this audience," Prior said, without a hint of sarcasm in his booming voice. "I realize you're a terribly busy man."
"I am." Another three inches of paper had deposited itself on Walton's desk since Prior had entered. "You're very lucky to have hit the psychological moment for your entrance. At any other time I'd have had you brigged for a month, but just now I'm in need of a little diversion. Besides, I very much admire your work, Mr. Prior."
"Thank you." Again that humility, startling in so big and commanding a man. "I hadn't expected to find—I mean that you—"
"That a bureaucrat should admire poetry? Is that what you're groping for?"
Prior reddened. "Yes," he admitted.
Grinning, Walton said, "I have to do something when I go home at night. I don't really read Popeek reports twenty-four hours a day. No more than twenty; that's my rule. I thought your last book was quite remarkable."
"The critics didn't," Prior said diffidently.
"Critics! What do they know?" Walton demanded. "They swing in cycles. Ten years ago it was form and technique, and you got the Melling Prize. Now it's message, political content that counts. That's not poetry, Mr. Prior—and there are still a few of us who recognize what poetry is. Take Yeats, for instance—"
Walton was ready to launch into a discussion of every poet from Prior back to Surrey and Wyatt; anything to keep from the job at hand, anything to keep his mind from Popeek. But Prior interrupted him.
"Mr. Walton...."
"Yes?"
"My son Philip ... he's two weeks old now...."
Walton understood. "No, Prior. Please don't ask." Walton's skin felt cold; his hands, tightly clenched, were clammy.
"He was committed to Happysleep this morning—potentially tubercular. The boy's perfectly sound, Mr. Walton. Couldn't you—"
Walton rose. " No ," he said, half-commanding, half-pleading. "Don't ask me to do it. I can't make any exceptions, not even for you. You're an intelligent man; you understand our program."
"I voted for Popeek. I know all about Weeding the Garden and the Euthanasia Plan. But I hadn't expected—"
"You thought euthanasia was a fine thing for other people. So did everyone else," Walton said. "That's how the act was passed." Tenderly he said, "I can't do it. I can't spare your son. Our doctors give a baby every chance to live."
" I was tubercular. They cured me. What if they had practiced euthanasia a generation ago? Where would my poems be now?"
It was an unanswerable question; Walton tried to ignore it.
"Tuberculosis is an extremely rare disease, Mr. Prior. We can wipe it out completely if we strike at those with TB-susceptible genetic traits."
"Meaning you'll kill any children I have?" Prior asked.
"Those who inherit your condition," Walton said gently. "Go home, Mr. Prior. Burn me in effigy. Write a poem about me. But don't ask me to do the impossible. I can't catch any falling stars for you."
Prior rose. He was immense, a hulking tragic figure staring broodingly at Walton. For the first time since the poet's abrupt entry, Walton feared violence. His fingers groped for the needle gun he kept in his upper left desk drawer.
But Prior had no violence in him. "I'll leave you," he said somberly.
"I'm sorry, sir. Deeply sorry. For both of us."
Walton pressed the doorlock to let him out, then locked it again and slipped heavily into his chair. Three more reports slid out of the chute and landed on his desk. He stared at them as if they were three basilisks.
In the six weeks of Popeek's existence, three thousand babies had been ticketed for Happysleep, and three thousand sets of degenerate genes had been wiped from the race. Ten thousand subnormal males had been sterilized. Eight thousand dying oldsters had reached their graves ahead of time.
It was a tough-minded program. But why transmit palsy to unborn generations? Why let an adult idiot litter the world with subnormal progeny? Why force a man hopelessly cancerous to linger on in pain, consuming precious food?
Unpleasant? Sure. But the world had voted for it. Until Lang and his team succeeded in terraforming Venus, or until the faster-than-light outfit opened the stars to mankind, something had to be done about Earth's overpopulation. There were seven billion now and the figure was still growing.
Prior's words haunted him. I was tubercular ... where would my poems be now?
The big humble man was one of the great poets. Keats had been tubercular too.
What good are poets? he asked himself savagely.
The reply came swiftly: What good is anything, then? Keats, Shakespeare, Eliot, Yeats, Donne, Pound, Matthews ... and Prior. How much duller life would be without them, Walton thought, picturing his bookshelf—his one bookshelf, in his crowded little cubicle of a one-room home.
Sweat poured down his back as he groped toward his decision.
The step he was considering would disqualify him from his job if he admitted it, though he wouldn't do that. Under the Equalization Law, it would be a criminal act.
But just one baby wouldn't matter. Just one.
Prior's baby.
With nervous fingers he switched on the annunciator and said, "If there are any calls for me, take the message. I'll be out of my office for the next half-hour."
II
He stepped out of the office, glancing around furtively. The outer office was busy: half a dozen girls were answering calls, opening letters, coordinating activities. Walton slipped quickly past them into the hallway.
There was a knot of fear in his stomach as he turned toward the lift tube. Six weeks of pressure, six weeks of tension since Popeek was organized and old man FitzMaugham had tapped him for the second-in-command post ... and now, a rebellion. The sparing of a single child was a small rebellion, true, but he knew he was striking as effectively at the base of Popeek this way as if he had brought about repeal of the entire Equalization Law.
Well, just one lapse, he promised himself. I'll spare Prior's child, and after that I'll keep within the law.
He jabbed the lift tube indicator and the tube rose in its shaft. The clinic was on the twentieth floor.
"Roy."
At the sound of the quiet voice behind him, Walton jumped in surprise. He steadied himself, forcing himself to turn slowly. The director stood there.
"Good morning, Mr. FitzMaugham."
The old man was smiling serenely, his unlined face warm and friendly, his mop of white hair bright and full. "You look preoccupied, boy. Something the matter?"
Walton shook his head quickly. "Just a little tired, sir. There's been a lot of work lately."
As he said it, he knew how foolish it sounded. If anyone in Popeek worked harder than he did, it was the elderly director. FitzMaugham had striven for equalization legislature for fifty years, and now, at the age of eighty, he put in a sixteen-hour day at the task of saving mankind from itself.
The director smiled. "You never did learn how to budget your strength, Roy. You'll be a worn-out wreck before you're half my age. I'm glad you're adopting my habit of taking a coffee break in the morning, though. Mind if I join you?"
"I'm—not taking a break, sir. I have some work to do downstairs."
"Oh? Can't you take care of it by phone?"
"No, Mr. FitzMaugham." Walton felt as though he'd already been tried, drawn, and quartered. "It requires personal attention."
"I see." The deep, warm eyes bored into his. "You ought to slow down a little, I think."
"Yes, sir. As soon as the work eases up a little."
FitzMaugham chuckled. "In another century or two, you mean. I'm afraid you'll never learn how to relax, my boy."
The lift tube arrived. Walton stepped to one side, allowed the Director to enter, and got in himself. FitzMaugham pushed Fourteen ; there was a coffee shop down there. Hesitantly, Walton pushed twenty , covering the panel with his arm so the old man would be unable to see his destination.
As the tube began to descend, FitzMaugham said, "Did Mr. Prior come to see you this morning?"
"Yes," Walton said.
"He's the poet, isn't he? The one you say is so good?"
"That's right, sir," Walton said tightly.
"He came to see me first, but I had him referred down to you. What was on his mind?"
Walton hesitated. "He—he wanted his son spared from Happysleep. Naturally, I had to turn him down."
"Naturally," FitzMaugham agreed solemnly. "Once we make even one exception, the whole framework crumbles."
"Of course, sir."
The lift tube halted and rocked on its suspension. The door slid back, revealing a neat, gleaming sign:
FLOOR 20 Euthanasia Clinic and Files
Walton had forgotten the accursed sign. He began to wish he had avoided traveling down with the director. He felt that his purpose must seem nakedly obvious now.
The old man's eyes were twinkling amusedly. "I guess you get off here," he said. "I hope you catch up with your work soon, Roy. You really should take some time off for relaxation each day."
"I'll try, sir."
Walton stepped out of the tube and returned FitzMaugham's smile as the door closed again. Bitter thoughts assailed him as soon as he was alone.
Some fine criminal you are. You've given the show away already! And damn that smooth paternal smile. FitzMaugham knows! He must know!
Walton wavered, then abruptly made his decision. He sucked in a deep breath and walked briskly toward the big room where the euthanasia files were kept.
The room was large, as rooms went nowadays—thirty by twenty, with deck upon deck of Donnerson micro-memory-tubes racked along one wall and a bank of microfilm records along the other. In six weeks of life Popeek had piled up an impressive collection of data.
While he stood there, the computer chattered, lights flashed. New facts poured into the memory banks. It probably went on day and night.
"Can I help—oh, it's you, Mr. Walton," a white-smocked technician said. Popeek employed a small army of technicians, each one faceless and without personality, but always ready to serve. "Is there anything I can do?"
"I'm simply running a routine checkup. Mind if I use the machine?"
"Not at all, sir. Go right ahead."
Walton grinned lightly and stepped forward. The technician practically backed out of his presence.
No doubt I must radiate charisma , he thought. Within the building he wore a sort of luminous halo, by virtue of being Director FitzMaugham's protégé and second-in-command. Outside, in the colder reality of the crowded metropolis, he kept his identity and Popeek rank quietly to himself.
Frowning, he tried to remember the Prior boy's name. Ah ... Philip, wasn't it? He punched out a request for the card on Philip Prior.
A moment's pause followed, while the millions of tiny cryotronic circuits raced with information pulses, searching the Donnerson tubes for Philip Prior's record. Then, a brief squeaking sound and a yellow-brown card dropped out of the slot:
3216847AB1
PRIOR, Philip Hugh. Born 31 May 2232, New York General Hospital, New York. First son of Prior, Lyle Martin and Prior, Ava Leonard. Wgt. at birth 5lb. 3oz.
An elaborate description of the boy in great detail followed, ending with blood type, agglutinating characteristic, and gene-pattern, codified. Walton skipped impatiently through that and came to the notification typed in curt, impersonal green capital letters at the bottom of the card:
EXAMINED AT N Y EUTH CLINIC 10 JUNE 2332 EUTHANASIA RECOMMENDED
He glanced at his watch: the time was 1026. The boy was probably still somewhere in the clinic lab, waiting for the figurative axe to descend.
Walton had set up the schedule himself: the gas chamber delivered Happysleep each day at 1100 and 1500. He had about half an hour to save Philip Prior.
He peered covertly over his shoulder; no one was in sight. He slipped the baby's card into his breast pocket.
That done, he typed out a requisition for explanation of the gene-sorting code the clinic used. Symbols began pouring forth, and Walton puzzledly correlated them with the line of gibberish on Phillip Prior's record card. Finally he found the one he wanted: 3f2, tubercular-prone .
He scrapped the guide sheet he had and typed out a message to the machine. Revision of card number 3216847AB1 follows. Please alter in all circuits.
He proceeded to retype the child's card, omitting both the fatal symbol 3f2 and the notation recommending euthanasia from the new version. The machine beeped an acknowledgement. Walton smiled. So far, so good.
Then, he requested the boy's file all over again. After the customary pause, a card numbered 3216847AB1 dropped out of the slot. He read it.
The deletions had been made. As far as the machine was concerned, Philip Prior was a normal, healthy baby.
He glanced at his watch. 1037. Still twenty-three minutes before this morning's haul of unfortunates was put away.
Now came the real test: could he pry the baby away from the doctors without attracting too much attention to himself in the process?
Five doctors were bustling back and forth as Walton entered the main section of the clinic. There must have been a hundred babies there, each in a little pen of its own, and the doctors were humming from one to the next, while anxious parents watched from screens above.
The Equalization Law provided that every child be presented at its local clinic within two weeks of birth, for an examination and a certificate. Perhaps one in ten thousand would be denied a certificate ... and life.
"Hello, Mr. Walton. What brings you down here?"
Walton smiled affably. "Just a routine investigation, Doctor. I try to keep in touch with every department we have, you know."
"Mr. FitzMaugham was down here to look around a little while ago. We're really getting a going-over today, Mr. Walton!"
"Umm. Yes." Walton didn't like that, but there was nothing he could do about it. He'd have to rely on the old man's abiding faith in his protégé to pull him out of any possible stickiness that arose.
"Seen my brother around?" he asked.
"Fred? He's working in room seven, running analyses. Want me to get him for you, Mr. Walton?"
"No—no, don't bother him, thanks. I'll find him later." Inwardly, Walton felt relieved. Fred Walton, his younger brother, was a doctor in the employ of Popeek. Little love was lost between the brothers, and Roy did not care to have Fred know he was down there.
Strolling casually through the clinic, he peered at a few plump, squalling babies, and said, "Find many sour ones today?"
"Seven so far. They're scheduled for the 1100 chamber. Three tuberc, two blind, one congenital syph."
"That only makes six," Walton said.
"Oh, and a spastic," the doctor said. "Biggest haul we've had yet. Seven in one morning."
"Have any trouble with the parents?"
"What do you think?" the doctor asked. "But some of them seemed to understand. One of the tuberculars nearly raised the roof, though."
Walton shuddered. "You remember his name?" he asked, with feigned calm.
Silence for a moment. "No. Darned if I can think of it. I can look it up for you if you like."
"Don't bother," Walton said hurriedly.
He moved on, down the winding corridor that led to the execution chamber. Falbrough, the executioner, was studying a list of names at his desk when Walton appeared.
Falbrough didn't look like the sort of man who would enjoy his work. He was short and plump, with a high-domed bald head and glittering contact lenses in his weak blue eyes. "Morning, Mr. Walton."
"Good morning, Doctor Falbrough. You'll be operating soon, won't you?"
"Eleven hundred, as usual."
"Good. There's a new regulation in effect from now on," Walton said.
"To keep public opinion on our side."
"Sir?"
"Henceforth, until further notice, you're to check each baby that comes to you against the main file, just to make sure there's been no mistake. Got that?"
" Mistake? But how—"
"Never mind that, Falbrough. There was quite a tragic slip-up at one of the European centers yesterday. We may all hang for it if news gets out." How glibly I reel this stuff off , Walton thought in amazement.
Falbrough looked grave. "I see, sir. Of course. We'll double-check everything from now on."
"Good. Begin with the 1100 batch."
Walton couldn't bear to remain down in the clinic any longer. He left via a side exit, and signaled for a lift tube.
Minutes later he was back in his office, behind the security of a towering stack of work. His pulse was racing; his throat was dry. He remembered what FitzMaugham had said: Once we make even one exception, the whole framework crumbles.
Well, the framework had begun crumbling, then. And there was little doubt in Walton's mind that FitzMaugham knew or would soon know what he had done. He would have to cover his traces, somehow.
The annunciator chimed and said, "Dr. Falbrough of Happysleep calling you, sir."
"Put him on."
The screen lit and Falbrough's face appeared; its normal blandness had given way to wild-eyed tenseness.
"What is it, Doctor?"
"It's a good thing you issued that order when you did, sir! You'll never guess what just happened—"
"No guessing games, Falbrough. Speak up."
"I—well, sir, I ran checks on the seven babies they sent me this morning. And guess—I mean—well, one of them shouldn't have been sent to me!"
"No!"
"It's the truth, sir. A cute little baby indeed. I've got his card right here. The boy's name is Philip Prior, and his gene-pattern is fine."
"Any recommendation for euthanasia on the card?" Walton asked.
"No, sir."
Walton chewed at a ragged cuticle for a moment, counterfeiting great anxiety. "Falbrough, we're going to have to keep this very quiet. Someone slipped up in the examining room, and if word gets out that there's been as much as one mistake, we'll have a mob swarming over us in half an hour."
"Yes, sir." Falbrough looked terribly grave. "What should I do, sir?"
"Don't say a word about this to anyone , not even the men in the examining room. Fill out a certificate for the boy, find his parents, apologize and return him to them. And make sure you keep checking for any future cases of this sort."
"Certainly, sir. Is that all?"
"It is," Walton said crisply, and broke the contact. He took a deep breath and stared bleakly at the far wall.
The Prior boy was safe. And in the eyes of the law—the Equalization Law—Roy Walton was now a criminal. He was every bit as much a criminal as the man who tried to hide his dying father from the investigators, or the anxious parents who attempted to bribe an examining doctor.
He felt curiously dirty. And, now that he had betrayed FitzMaugham and the Cause, now that it was done, he had little idea why he had done it, why he had jeopardized the Popeek program, his position—his life, even—for the sake of one potentially tubercular baby.
Well, the thing was done.
No. Not quite. Later, when things had quieted down, he would have to finish the job by transferring all the men in the clinic to distant places and by obliterating the computer's memories of this morning's activities.
The annunciator chimed again. "Your brother is on the wire, sir."
Walton trembled imperceptibly as he said, "Put him on." Somehow, Fred never called unless he could say or do something unpleasant. And Walton was very much afraid that his brother meant no good by this call. No good at all.
III
Roy Walton watched his brother's head and shoulders take form out of the swirl of colors on the screen. Fred Walton was more compact, built closer to the ground than his rangy brother; he was a squat five-seven, next to Roy's lean six-two. Fred had always threatened to "get even" with his older brother as soon as they were the same size, but to Fred's great dismay he had never managed to catch up with Roy in height.
Even on the screen, Fred's neck and shoulders gave an impression of tremendous solidity and force. Walton waited for his brother's image to take shape, and when the time lag was over he said, "Well, Fred? What goes?"
His brother's eyes flickered sleepily. "They tell me you were down here a little while ago, Roy. How come I didn't rate a visit?"
"I wasn't in your section. It was official business, anyway. I didn't have time."
Walton fixed his eyes sharply on the caduceus emblem gleaming on Fred's lapel, and refused to look anywhere else.
Fred said slowly, "You had time to tinker with our computer, though."
"Official business!"
"Really, Roy?" His brother's tone was venomous. "I happened to be using the computer shortly after you this morning. I was curious—unpardonably so, dear brother. I requested a transcript of your conversation with the machine."
Sparks seemed to flow from the screen. Walton sat back, feeling numb. He managed to pull his sagging mouth back into a stiff hard line and say, "That's a criminal offense, Fred. Any use I make of a Popeek computer outlet is confidential."
"Criminal offence? Maybe so ... but that makes two of us, then. Eh, Roy?"
"How much do you know?"
"You wouldn't want me to recite it over a public communications system, would you? Your friend FitzMaugham might be listening to every word of this, and I have too much fraternal feeling for that. Ole Doc Walton doesn't want to get his bigwig big brother in trouble—oh, no!"
"Thanks for small blessings," Roy said acidly.
"You got me this job. You can take it away. Let's call it even for now, shall we?"
"Anything you like," Walton said. He was drenched in sweat, though the ingenious executive filter in the sending apparatus of the screen cloaked that fact and presented him as neat and fresh. "I have some work to do now." His voice was barely audible.
"I won't keep you any longer, then," Fred said.
The screen went dead.
Walton killed the contact at his end, got up, walked to the window. He nudged the opaquer control and the frosty white haze over the glass cleared away, revealing the fantastic beehive of the city outside.
Idiot! he thought. Fool!
He had risked everything to save one baby, one child probably doomed to an early death anyway. And FitzMaugham knew—the old man could see through Walton with ease—and Fred knew, too. His brother, and his father-substitute.
FitzMaugham might well choose to conceal Roy's defection this time, but would surely place less trust in him in the future. And as for Fred....
There was no telling what Fred might do. They had never been particularly close as brothers; they had lived with their parents (now almost totally forgotten) until Roy was nine and Fred seven. Their parents had gone down off Maracaibo in a jet crash; Roy and Fred had been sent to the public crèche.
After that it had been separate paths for the brothers. For Roy, an education in the law, a short spell as Senator FitzMaugham's private secretary, followed last month by his sudden elevation to assistant administrator of the newly-created Popeek Bureau. For Fred, medicine, unsuccessful private practice, finally a job in the Happysleep section of Popeek, thanks to Roy.
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Describe the setting of the story.
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Soldier Boy by Michael Shaara.
Relevant chunks:
SOLDIER BOY
By MICHAEL SHAARA
Illustrated by EMSH
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It's one thing to laugh at a man because his job is useless and outdated—another to depend on him when it suddenly isn't.
In the northland, deep, and in a great cave, by an everburning fire the Warrior sleeps. For this is the resting time, the time of peace, and so shall it be for a thousand years. And yet we shall summon him again, my children, when we are sore in need, and out of the north he will come, and again and again, each time we call, out of the dark and the cold, with the fire in his hands, he will come.
— Scandinavian legend
Throughout the night, thick clouds had been piling in the north; in the morning, it was misty and cold. By eight o'clock a wet, heavy, snow-smelling breeze had begun to set in, and because the crops were all down and the winter planting done, the colonists brewed hot coffee and remained inside. The wind blew steadily, icily from the north. It was well below freezing when, some time after nine, an army ship landed in a field near the settlement.
There was still time. There were some last brief moments in which the colonists could act and feel as they had always done. They therefore grumbled in annoyance. They wanted no soldiers here. The few who had convenient windows stared out with distaste and a mild curiosity, but no one went out to greet them.
After a while a rather tall, frail-looking man came out of the ship and stood upon the hard ground looking toward the village. He remained there, waiting stiffly, his face turned from the wind. It was a silly thing to do. He was obviously not coming in, either out of pride or just plain orneriness.
"Well, I never," a nice lady said.
"What's he just standing there for?" another lady said.
And all of them thought: well, God knows what's in the mind of a soldier, and right away many people concluded that he must be drunk. The seed of peace was deeply planted in these people, in the children and the women, very, very deep. And because they had been taught, oh so carefully, to hate war they had also been taught, quite incidentally, to despise soldiers.
The lone man kept standing in the freezing wind.
Eventually, because even a soldier can look small and cold and pathetic, Bob Rossel had to get up out of a nice, warm bed and go out in that miserable cold to meet him.
The soldier saluted. Like most soldiers, he was not too neat and not too clean and the salute was sloppy. Although he was bigger than Rossel he did not seem bigger. And, because of the cold, there were tears gathering in the ends of his eyes.
"Captain Dylan, sir." His voice was low and did not carry. "I have a message from Fleet Headquarters. Are you in charge here?"
Rossel, a small sober man, grunted. "Nobody's in charge here. If you want a spokesman I guess I'll do. What's up?"
The captain regarded him briefly out of pale blue, expressionless eyes. Then he pulled an envelope from an inside pocket, handed it to Rossel. It was a thick, official-looking thing and Rossel hefted it idly. He was about to ask again what was it all about when the airlock of the hovering ship swung open creakily. A beefy, black-haired young man appeared unsteadily in the doorway, called to Dylan.
"C'n I go now, Jim?"
Dylan turned and nodded.
"Be back for you tonight," the young man called, and then, grinning, he yelled "Catch" and tossed down a bottle. The captain caught it and put it unconcernedly into his pocket while Rossel stared in disgust. A moment later the airlock closed and the ship prepared to lift.
"Was he drunk ?" Rossel began angrily. "Was that a bottle of liquor ?"
The soldier was looking at him calmly, coldly. He indicated the envelope in Rossel's hand. "You'd better read that and get moving. We haven't much time."
He turned and walked toward the buildings and Rossel had to follow. As Rossel drew near the walls the watchers could see his lips moving but could not hear him. Just then the ship lifted and they turned to watch that, and followed it upward, red spark-tailed, into the gray spongy clouds and the cold.
After a while the ship went out of sight, and nobody ever saw it again.
The first contact Man had ever had with an intelligent alien race occurred out on the perimeter in a small quiet place a long way from home. Late in the year 2360—the exact date remains unknown—an alien force attacked and destroyed the colony at Lupus V. The wreckage and the dead were found by a mailship which flashed off screaming for the army.
When the army came it found this: Of the seventy registered colonists, thirty-one were dead. The rest, including some women and children, were missing. All technical equipment, all radios, guns, machines, even books, were also missing. The buildings had been burned, so were the bodies. Apparently the aliens had a heat ray. What else they had, nobody knew. After a few days of walking around in the ash, one soldier finally stumbled on something.
For security reasons, there was a detonator in one of the main buildings. In case of enemy attack, Security had provided a bomb to be buried in the center of each colony, because it was important to blow a whole village to hell and gone rather than let a hostile alien learn vital facts about human technology and body chemistry. There was a bomb at Lupus V too, and though it had been detonated it had not blown. The detonating wire had been cut.
In the heart of the camp, hidden from view under twelve inches of earth, the wire had been dug up and cut.
The army could not understand it and had no time to try. After five hundred years of peace and anti-war conditioning the army was small, weak and without respect. Therefore, the army did nothing but spread the news, and Man began to fall back.
In a thickening, hastening stream he came back from the hard-won stars, blowing up his homes behind him, stunned and cursing. Most of the colonists got out in time. A few, the farthest and loneliest, died in fire before the army ships could reach them. And the men in those ships, drinkers and gamblers and veterans of nothing, the dregs of a society which had grown beyond them, were for a long while the only defense Earth had.
This was the message Captain Dylan had brought, come out from Earth with a bottle on his hip.
An obscenely cheerful expression upon his gaunt, not too well shaven face, Captain Dylan perched himself upon the edge of a table and listened, one long booted leg swinging idly. One by one the colonists were beginning to understand. War is huge and comes with great suddenness and always without reason, and there is inevitably a wait, between acts, between the news and the motion, the fear and the rage.
Dylan waited. These people were taking it well, much better than those in the cities had taken it. But then, these were pioneers. Dylan grinned. Pioneers. Before you settle a planet you boil it and bake it and purge it of all possible disease. Then you step down gingerly and inflate your plastic houses, which harden and become warm and impregnable; and send your machines out to plant and harvest; and set up automatic factories to transmute dirt into coffee; and, without ever having lifted a finger, you have braved the wilderness, hewed a home out of the living rock and become a pioneer. Dylan grinned again. But at least this was better than the wailing of the cities.
This Dylan thought, although he was himself no fighter, no man at all by any standards. This he thought because he was a soldier and an outcast; to every drunken man the fall of the sober is a happy thing. He stirred restlessly.
By this time the colonists had begun to realize that there wasn't much to say, and a tall, handsome woman was murmuring distractedly: "Lupus, Lupus—doesn't that mean wolves or something?"
Dylan began to wish they would get moving, these pioneers. It was very possible that the aliens would be here soon, and there was no need for discussion. There was only one thing to do and that was to clear the hell out, quickly and without argument. They began to see it.
But, when the fear had died down, the resentment came. A number of women began to cluster around Dylan and complain, working up their anger. Dylan said nothing. Then the man Rossel pushed forward and confronted him, speaking with a vast annoyance.
"See here, soldier, this is our planet. I mean to say, this is our home . We demand some protection from the fleet. By God, we've been paying the freight for you boys all these years and it's high time you earned your keep. We demand...."
It went on and on while Dylan looked at the clock and waited. He hoped that he could end this quickly. A big gloomy man was in front of him now and giving him that name of ancient contempt, "soldier boy." The gloomy man wanted to know where the fleet was.
"There is no fleet. There are a few hundred half-shot old tubs that were obsolete before you were born. There are four or five new jobs for the brass and the government. That's all the fleet there is."
Dylan wanted to go on about that, to remind them that nobody had wanted the army, that the fleet had grown smaller and smaller ... but this was not the time. It was ten-thirty already and the damned aliens might be coming in right now for all he knew, and all they did was talk. He had realized a long time ago that no peace-loving nation in the history of Earth had ever kept itself strong, and although peace was a noble dream, it was ended now and it was time to move.
"We'd better get going," he finally said, and there was quiet.
"Lieutenant Bossio has gone on to your sister colony at Planet Three of this system. He'll return to pick me up by nightfall and I'm instructed to have you gone by then."
For a long moment they waited, and then one man abruptly walked off and the rest followed quickly; in a moment they were all gone. One or two stopped long enough to complain about the fleet, and the big gloomy man said he wanted guns, that's all, and there wouldn't nobody get him off his planet. When he left, Dylan breathed with relief and went out to check the bomb, grateful for the action.
Most of it had to be done in the open. He found a metal bar in the radio shack and began chopping at the frozen ground, following the wire. It was the first thing he had done with his hands in weeks, and it felt fine.
Dylan had been called up out of a bar—he and Bossio—and told what had happened, and in three weeks now they had cleared four colonies. This would be the last, and the tension here was beginning to get to him. After thirty years of hanging around and playing like the town drunk, a man could not be expected to rush out and plug the breach, just like that. It would take time.
He rested, sweating, took a pull from the bottle on his hip.
Before they sent him out on this trip they had made him a captain. Well, that was nice. After thirty years he was a captain. For thirty years he had bummed all over the west end of space, had scraped his way along the outer edges of Mankind, had waited and dozed and patrolled and got drunk, waiting always for something to happen. There were a lot of ways to pass the time while you waited for something to happen, and he had done them all.
Once he had even studied military tactics.
He could not help smiling at that, even now. Damn it, he'd been green. But he'd been only nineteen when his father died—of a hernia, of a crazy fool thing like a hernia that killed him just because he'd worked too long on a heavy planet—and in those days the anti-war conditioning out on the Rim was not very strong. They talked a lot about guardians of the frontier, and they got him and some other kids and a broken-down doctor. And ... now he was a captain.
He bent his back savagely, digging at the ground. You wait and you wait and the edge goes off. This thing he had waited for all those damn days was upon him now and there was nothing he could do but say the hell with it and go home. Somewhere along the line, in some dark corner of the bars or the jails, in one of the million soul-murdering insults which are reserved especially for peacetime soldiers, he had lost the core of himself, and it didn't particularly matter. That was the point: it made no particular difference if he never got it back. He owed nobody. He was tugging at the wire and trying to think of something pleasant from the old days, when the wire came loose in his hands.
Although he had been, in his cynical way, expecting it, for a moment it threw him and he just stared. The end was clean and bright. The wire had just been cut.
Dylan sat for a long while by the radio shack, holding the ends in his hands. He reached almost automatically for the bottle on his hip and then, for the first time he could remember, let it go. This was real, there was no time for that.
When Rossel came up, Dylan was still sitting. Rossel was so excited he did not notice the wire.
"Listen, soldier, how many people can your ship take?"
Dylan looked at him vaguely. "She sleeps two and won't take off with more'n ten. Why?"
His eyes bright and worried, Rossel leaned heavily against the shack.
"We're overloaded. There are sixty of us and our ship will only take forty. We came out in groups, we never thought...."
Dylan dropped his eyes, swearing silently. "You're sure? No baggage, no iron rations; you couldn't get ten more on?"
"Not a chance. She's only a little ship with one deck—she's all we could afford."
Dylan whistled. He had begun to feel light-headed. "It 'pears that somebody's gonna find out first hand what them aliens look like."
It was the wrong thing to say and he knew it. "All right," he said quickly, still staring at the clear-sliced wire, "we'll do what we can. Maybe the colony on Three has room. I'll call Bossio and ask."
The colonist had begun to look quite pitifully at the buildings around him and the scurrying people.
"Aren't there any fleet ships within radio distance?"
Dylan shook his head. "The fleet's spread out kind of thin nowadays." Because the other was leaning on him he felt a great irritation, but he said, as kindly as he could, "We'll get 'em all out. One way or another, we won't leave anybody."
It was then that Rossel saw the wire. Thickly, he asked what had happened.
Dylan showed him the two clean ends. "Somebody dug it up, cut it, then buried it again and packed it down real nice."
"The damn fool!" Rossel exploded.
"Who?"
"Why, one of ... of us, of course. I know nobody ever liked sitting on a live bomb like this, but I never...."
"You think one of your people did it?"
Rossel stared at him. "Isn't that obvious?"
"Why?"
"Well, they probably thought it was too dangerous, and silly too, like most government rules. Or maybe one of the kids...."
It was then that Dylan told him about the wire on Lupus V. Rossel was silent. Involuntarily, he glanced at the sky, then he said shakily,
"Maybe an animal?"
Dylan shook his head. "No animal did that. Wouldn't have buried it, or found it in the first place. Heck of a coincidence, don't you think? The wire at Lupus was cut just before an alien attack, and now this one is cut too—newly cut."
The colonist put one hand to his mouth, his eyes wide and white.
"So something," said Dylan, "knew enough about this camp to know that a bomb was buried here and also to know why it was here. And that something didn't want the camp destroyed and so came right into the center of the camp, traced the wire, dug it up and cut it. And then walked right out again."
"Listen," said Rossel, "I'd better go ask."
He started away but Dylan caught his arm.
"Tell them to arm," he said, "and try not to scare hell out of them. I'll be with you as soon as I've spliced this wire."
Rossel nodded and went off, running. Dylan knelt with the metal in his hands.
He began to feel that, by God, he was getting cold. He realized that he'd better go inside soon, but the wire had to be spliced. That was perhaps the most important thing he could do now, splice the wire.
All right, he asked himself for the thousandth time, who cut it? How? Telepathy? Could they somehow control one of us?
No. If they controlled one, then they could control all, and then there would be no need for an attack. But you don't know, you don't really know.
Were they small? Little animals?
Unlikely. Biology said that really intelligent life required a sizable brain and you would have to expect an alien to be at least as large as a dog. And every form of life on this planet had been screened long before a colony had been allowed in. If any new animals had suddenly shown up, Rossel would certainly know about it.
He would ask Rossel. He would damn sure have to ask Rossel.
He finished splicing the wire and tucked it into the ground. Then he straightened up and, before he went into the radio shack, he pulled out his pistol. He checked it, primed it, and tried to remember the last time he had fired it. He never had—he never had fired a gun.
The snow began falling near noon. There was nothing anybody could do but stand in the silence and watch it come down in a white rushing wall, and watch the trees and the hills drown in the whiteness, until there was nothing on the planet but the buildings and a few warm lights and the snow.
By one o'clock the visibility was down to zero and Dylan decided to try to contact Bossio again and tell him to hurry. But Bossio still didn't answer. Dylan stared long and thoughtfully out the window through the snow at the gray shrouded shapes of bushes and trees which were beginning to become horrifying. It must be that Bossio was still drunk—maybe sleeping it off before making planetfall on Three. Dylan held no grudge. Bossio was a kid and alone. It took a special kind of guts to take a ship out into space alone, when Things could be waiting....
A young girl, pink and lovely in a thick fur jacket, came into the shack and told him breathlessly that her father, Mr. Rush, would like to know if he wanted sentries posted. Dylan hadn't thought about it but he said yes right away, beginning to feel both pleased and irritated at the same time, because now they were coming to him.
He pushed out into the cold and went to find Rossel. With the snow it was bad enough, but if they were still here when the sun went down they wouldn't have a chance. Most of the men were out stripping down their ship and that would take a while. He wondered why Rossel hadn't yet put a call through to Three, asking about room on the ship there. The only answer he could find was that Rossel knew that there was no room, and he wanted to put off the answer as long as possible. And, in a way, you could not blame him.
Rossel was in his cabin with the big, gloomy man—who turned out to be Rush, the one who had asked about sentries. Rush was methodically cleaning an old hunting rifle. Rossel was surprisingly full of hope.
"Listen, there's a mail ship due in, been due since yesterday. We might get the rest of the folks out on that."
Dylan shrugged. "Don't count on it."
"But they have a contract!"
The soldier grinned.
The big man, Rush, was paying no attention. Quite suddenly he said:
"Who cut that wire, Cap?"
Dylan swung slowly to look at him. "As far as I can figure, an alien cut it."
Rush shook his head. "No. Ain't been no aliens near this camp, and no peculiar animals either. We got a planet-wide radar, and ain't no unidentified ships come near, not since we first landed more'n a year ago." He lifted the rifle and peered through the bore. "Uh-uh. One of us did it."
The man had been thinking. And he knew the planet.
"Telepathy?" asked Dylan.
"Might be."
"Can't see it. You people live too close, you'd notice right away if one of you wasn't ... himself. And, if they've got one, why not all?"
Rush calmly—at least outwardly calmly—lit his pipe. There was a strength in this man that Dylan had missed before.
"Don't know," he said gruffly. "But these are aliens, mister. And until I know different I'm keepin' an eye on my neighbor."
He gave Rossel a sour look and Rossel stared back, uncomprehending.
Then Rossel jumped. "My God!"
Dylan moved to quiet him. "Look, is there any animal at all that ever comes near here that's as large as a dog?"
After a pause, Rush answered. "Yep, there's one. The viggle. It's like a reg'lar monkey but with four legs. Biology cleared 'em before we landed. We shoot one now and then when they get pesky." He rose slowly, the rifle held under his arm. "I b'lieve we might just as well go post them sentries."
Dylan wanted to go on with this but there was nothing much else to say. Rossel went with them as far as the radio shack, with a strained expression on his face, to put through that call to Three.
When he was gone Rush asked Dylan, "Where you want them sentries? I got Walt Halloran and Web Eggers and six others lined up."
Dylan stopped and looked around grimly at the circling wall of snow.
"You know the site better than I do. Post 'em in a ring, on rises, within calling distance. Have 'em check with each other every five minutes. I'll go help your people at the ship."
The gloomy man nodded and fluffed up his collar. "Nice day for huntin'," he said, and then he was gone with the snow quickly covering his footprints.
The Alien lay wrapped in a thick electric cocoon, buried in a wide warm room beneath the base of a tree. The tree served him as antennae; curiously he gazed into a small view-screen and watched the humans come. He saw them fan out, eight of them, and sink down in the snow. He saw that they were armed.
He pulsed thoughtfully, extending a part of himself to absorb a spiced lizard. Since the morning, when the new ship had come, he had been watching steadily, and now it was apparent that the humans were aware of their danger. Undoubtedly they were preparing to leave.
That was unfortunate. The attack was not scheduled until late that night and he could not, of course, press the assault by day. But flexibility , he reminded himself sternly, is the first principle of absorption , and therefore he moved to alter his plans. A projection reached out to dial several knobs on a large box before him, and the hour of assault was moved forward to dusk. A glance at the chronometer told him that it was already well into the night on Planet Three, and that the attack there had probably begun.
The Alien felt the first tenuous pulsing of anticipation. He lay quietly, watching the small square lights of windows against the snow, thanking the Unexplainable that matters had been so devised that he would not have to venture out into that miserable cold.
Presently an alarming thought struck him. These humans moved with uncommon speed for intelligent creatures. Even without devices, it was distinctly possible that they could be gone before nightfall. He could take no chance, of course. He spun more dials and pressed a single button, and lay back again comfortably, warmly, to watch the disabling of the colonists' ship.
When Three did not answer, Rossel was nervously gazing at the snow, thinking of other things, and he called again. Several moments later the realization of what was happening struck him like a blow. Three had never once failed to answer. All they had to do when they heard the signal buzz was go into the radio shack and say hello. That was all they had to do. He called again and again, but nobody answered. There was no static and no interference and he didn't hear a thing. He checked frenziedly through his own apparatus and tried again, but the air was as dead as deep space. He raced out to tell Dylan.
Dylan accepted it. He had known none of the people on Three and what he felt now was a much greater urgency to be out of here. He said hopeful things to Rossel, and then went out to the ship and joined the men in lightening her. About the ship at least, he knew something and he was able to tell them what partitions and frames could go and what would have to stay or the ship would never get off the planet. But even stripped down, it couldn't take them all. When he knew that, he realized that he himself would have to stay here, for it was only then that he thought of Bossio.
Three was dead. Bossio had gone down there some time ago and, if Three was dead and Bossio had not called, then the fact was that Bossio was gone too. For a long, long moment Dylan stood rooted in the snow. More than the fact that he would have to stay here was the unspoken, unalterable, heart-numbing knowledge that Bossio was dead—the one thing that Dylan could not accept. Bossio was the only friend he had. In all this dog-eared, aimless, ape-run Universe Bossio was all his friendship and his trust.
He left the ship blindly and went back to the settlement. Now the people were quiet and really frightened, and some of the women were beginning to cry. He noticed now that they had begun to look at him with hope as he passed, and in his own grief, humanly, he swore.
Bossio—a big-grinning kid with no parents, no enemies, no grudges—Bossio was already dead because he had come out here and tried to help these people. People who had kicked or ignored him all the days of his life. And, in a short while, Dylan would also stay behind and die to save the life of somebody he never knew and who, twenty-four hours earlier, would have been ashamed to be found in his company. Now, when it was far, far too late, they were coming to the army for help.
But in the end, damn it, he could not hate these people. All they had ever wanted was peace, and even though they had never understood that the Universe is unknowable and that you must always have big shoulders, still they had always sought only for peace. If peace leads to no conflict at all and then decay, well, that was something that had to be learned. So he could not hate these people.
But he could not help them either. He turned from their eyes and went into the radio shack. It had begun to dawn on the women that they might be leaving without their husbands or sons, and he did not want to see the fierce struggle that he was sure would take place. He sat alone and tried, for the last time, to call Bossio.
After a while, an old woman found him and offered him coffee. It was a very decent thing to do, to think of him at a time like this, and he was so suddenly grateful he could only nod. The woman said that he must be cold in that thin army thing and that she had brought along a mackinaw for him. She poured the coffee and left him alone.
They were thinking of him now, he knew, because they were thinking of everyone who had to stay. Throw the dog a bone. Dammit, don't be like that, he told himself. He had not had anything to eat all day and the coffee was warm and strong. He decided he might be of some help at the ship.
It was stripped down now and they were loading. He was startled to see a great group of them standing in the snow, removing their clothes. Then he understood. The clothes of forty people would change the weight by enough to get a few more aboard. There was no fighting. Some of the women were almost hysterical and a few had refused to go and were still in their cabins, but the process was orderly. Children went automatically, as did the youngest husbands and all the women. The elders were shuffling around in the snow, waving their arms to keep themselves warm. Some of them were laughing to keep their spirits up.
In the end, the ship took forty-six people.
Rossel was one of the ones that would not be going. Dylan saw him standing by the airlock holding his wife in his arms, his face buried in her soft brown hair. A sense of great sympathy, totally unexpected, rose up in Dylan, and a little of the lostness of thirty years went slipping away. These were his people. It was a thing he had never understood before, because he had never once been among men in great trouble. He waited and watched, learning, trying to digest this while there was still time. Then the semi-naked colonists were inside and the airlock closed. But when the ship tried to lift, there was a sharp burning smell—she couldn't get off the ground.
Question:
Describe the setting of the story.
Answer:
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[
"The story takes place on an unnamed planet some time after an alien attack in the year 2360. Colonists settled the planet and have built a village consisting of several houses and a radio shack. Presumably, this is where the colonists contact other colonies. It is also where the detonator for the security bomb is located, with the wire buried under 12 inches of dirt. The atmosphere is Earth-like. There are thick clouds overnight, and the morning is misty and cold. The breeze carries the smell of snow, and later in the day, the snow arrives. The planet is suitable for agriculture because the colonists have already harvested their warmer weather crops and planted their winter crops. The colonists have advanced technology because they have machines that plant and harvest and automatically run their factories. The temperature is below freezing, so people are staying in their houses and drinking coffee. A sister planet colony on Planet Three is much like this colony. The two colonies maintain contact via radios, and mailships make regular runs between the settlements on the different planets. Every settlement is equipped with a security bomb to be detonated in the event of an alien attack. The purpose of discharging the bomb is to prevent hostile aliens from learning important information about humans, including their technology and body chemistry.\n\nAnother setting mentioned in the story is the Lupus V colony attacked by aliens late in the year 2360. Lupus V had 70 registered colonists, including men, women, and children. It also had technical equipment, radios, guns, machines, and books. When the army arrived after the alien attack, everything had been taken, along with 39 women and children; 31 people died in the attack or the subsequent fire that the aliens set with their heat ray. The security bomb had not been detonated because the wire to it had been cut, even though it was buried 12 inches under the soil.\n",
"Soldier Boy by Michael Straaha takes place on a very cold and icy planet. Captain Dylan waited in the cold for a long time before Rossel arrived, forcing tears to his eyes. The colonists of this planet are reluctant to leave their beds and have especially thick and warm clothing designed for the cold. The planet was colonized less than a century ago by these pioneers. This process involves setting up plastic houses, sending machines out to the fields to plant crops and fertilize the soil, and factories to transform dirt into coffee. \nAs far as we know, there is only one other alien on this planet: the viggle. This creature is fairly similar to an Earth monkey. With four legs and a slightly mischievous personality, they mostly stay out of the way of the colonists. There are also lizards and trees, showcased by the fact that the Alien is living in the hollow of one. \n",
"Late in the year 2360, humans have expanded from Earth to colonizing other planets. The colonists are considered pioneers that inflate plastic houses on arrival that harden up. Then they release machines to plant and harvest, and use technology to transmute dirt into coffee (coffee being an important motif in the story for the comfort of home). \nThe unnamed planet that Captain Dylan lands on is in wintertime, bitterly cold, with snow falling often in the story and piling up high enough to cover footprints. The colonists stay inside for the winter, and so his arrival is startling as he stands in a cold field. Captain Dylan is invited into the homes of the colonists as they prepare to evacuate and also digs near the central bomb in the colony to find the cut wire that disabled the security system that would obliterate the colony upon alien attack to preserve human secrets. There is a small ridge around the colony that sentinels can be posted on.\nThe colonists have a “seed of peace” deeply planted in them and have been taught to hate war and despise soldiers. Because of this, there is little support for the army and their numbers have dwindled to the point where they can’t fight off alien attacks. Ironically, the people in this colony are desperate for the Fleet to intervene to save them, but the Captain delivers the news that there is no Fleet to do so.\n",
"The story begins at the start of winter following the planting of the winter crops as an icy breeze blows in, smelling of snow. There is a village where the colonists live and a nearby field where the army ship lands. Bushes, trees, and hills can be seen through the snow. Thick clouds gather in the north at night, and in the morning, it is misty and cold. The colony is home to sixty colonists, and they have a sister colony called Planet Three. They have one ship with one deck that can fit forty people and a radio shack used to communicate with other colonies, specifically Planet Three. The colonists sometimes kill a local animal called a viggle for being pesky; a viggle looks like a monkey with four legs. Every colony has been equipped with a bomb buried at the city center that can be triggered by detonation device with a wire attached to it. The alien that has cut this wire makes its control center in a wide, warm room under the base of a tree, where he lies wrapped in a thick, electric cocoon. He has a large box with several knobs with which he controls the timing of the assault on the village and disables the colonists' ship. He also has a chronometer he uses to check the time."
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50848
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SOLDIER BOY
By MICHAEL SHAARA
Illustrated by EMSH
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It's one thing to laugh at a man because his job is useless and outdated—another to depend on him when it suddenly isn't.
In the northland, deep, and in a great cave, by an everburning fire the Warrior sleeps. For this is the resting time, the time of peace, and so shall it be for a thousand years. And yet we shall summon him again, my children, when we are sore in need, and out of the north he will come, and again and again, each time we call, out of the dark and the cold, with the fire in his hands, he will come.
— Scandinavian legend
Throughout the night, thick clouds had been piling in the north; in the morning, it was misty and cold. By eight o'clock a wet, heavy, snow-smelling breeze had begun to set in, and because the crops were all down and the winter planting done, the colonists brewed hot coffee and remained inside. The wind blew steadily, icily from the north. It was well below freezing when, some time after nine, an army ship landed in a field near the settlement.
There was still time. There were some last brief moments in which the colonists could act and feel as they had always done. They therefore grumbled in annoyance. They wanted no soldiers here. The few who had convenient windows stared out with distaste and a mild curiosity, but no one went out to greet them.
After a while a rather tall, frail-looking man came out of the ship and stood upon the hard ground looking toward the village. He remained there, waiting stiffly, his face turned from the wind. It was a silly thing to do. He was obviously not coming in, either out of pride or just plain orneriness.
"Well, I never," a nice lady said.
"What's he just standing there for?" another lady said.
And all of them thought: well, God knows what's in the mind of a soldier, and right away many people concluded that he must be drunk. The seed of peace was deeply planted in these people, in the children and the women, very, very deep. And because they had been taught, oh so carefully, to hate war they had also been taught, quite incidentally, to despise soldiers.
The lone man kept standing in the freezing wind.
Eventually, because even a soldier can look small and cold and pathetic, Bob Rossel had to get up out of a nice, warm bed and go out in that miserable cold to meet him.
The soldier saluted. Like most soldiers, he was not too neat and not too clean and the salute was sloppy. Although he was bigger than Rossel he did not seem bigger. And, because of the cold, there were tears gathering in the ends of his eyes.
"Captain Dylan, sir." His voice was low and did not carry. "I have a message from Fleet Headquarters. Are you in charge here?"
Rossel, a small sober man, grunted. "Nobody's in charge here. If you want a spokesman I guess I'll do. What's up?"
The captain regarded him briefly out of pale blue, expressionless eyes. Then he pulled an envelope from an inside pocket, handed it to Rossel. It was a thick, official-looking thing and Rossel hefted it idly. He was about to ask again what was it all about when the airlock of the hovering ship swung open creakily. A beefy, black-haired young man appeared unsteadily in the doorway, called to Dylan.
"C'n I go now, Jim?"
Dylan turned and nodded.
"Be back for you tonight," the young man called, and then, grinning, he yelled "Catch" and tossed down a bottle. The captain caught it and put it unconcernedly into his pocket while Rossel stared in disgust. A moment later the airlock closed and the ship prepared to lift.
"Was he drunk ?" Rossel began angrily. "Was that a bottle of liquor ?"
The soldier was looking at him calmly, coldly. He indicated the envelope in Rossel's hand. "You'd better read that and get moving. We haven't much time."
He turned and walked toward the buildings and Rossel had to follow. As Rossel drew near the walls the watchers could see his lips moving but could not hear him. Just then the ship lifted and they turned to watch that, and followed it upward, red spark-tailed, into the gray spongy clouds and the cold.
After a while the ship went out of sight, and nobody ever saw it again.
The first contact Man had ever had with an intelligent alien race occurred out on the perimeter in a small quiet place a long way from home. Late in the year 2360—the exact date remains unknown—an alien force attacked and destroyed the colony at Lupus V. The wreckage and the dead were found by a mailship which flashed off screaming for the army.
When the army came it found this: Of the seventy registered colonists, thirty-one were dead. The rest, including some women and children, were missing. All technical equipment, all radios, guns, machines, even books, were also missing. The buildings had been burned, so were the bodies. Apparently the aliens had a heat ray. What else they had, nobody knew. After a few days of walking around in the ash, one soldier finally stumbled on something.
For security reasons, there was a detonator in one of the main buildings. In case of enemy attack, Security had provided a bomb to be buried in the center of each colony, because it was important to blow a whole village to hell and gone rather than let a hostile alien learn vital facts about human technology and body chemistry. There was a bomb at Lupus V too, and though it had been detonated it had not blown. The detonating wire had been cut.
In the heart of the camp, hidden from view under twelve inches of earth, the wire had been dug up and cut.
The army could not understand it and had no time to try. After five hundred years of peace and anti-war conditioning the army was small, weak and without respect. Therefore, the army did nothing but spread the news, and Man began to fall back.
In a thickening, hastening stream he came back from the hard-won stars, blowing up his homes behind him, stunned and cursing. Most of the colonists got out in time. A few, the farthest and loneliest, died in fire before the army ships could reach them. And the men in those ships, drinkers and gamblers and veterans of nothing, the dregs of a society which had grown beyond them, were for a long while the only defense Earth had.
This was the message Captain Dylan had brought, come out from Earth with a bottle on his hip.
An obscenely cheerful expression upon his gaunt, not too well shaven face, Captain Dylan perched himself upon the edge of a table and listened, one long booted leg swinging idly. One by one the colonists were beginning to understand. War is huge and comes with great suddenness and always without reason, and there is inevitably a wait, between acts, between the news and the motion, the fear and the rage.
Dylan waited. These people were taking it well, much better than those in the cities had taken it. But then, these were pioneers. Dylan grinned. Pioneers. Before you settle a planet you boil it and bake it and purge it of all possible disease. Then you step down gingerly and inflate your plastic houses, which harden and become warm and impregnable; and send your machines out to plant and harvest; and set up automatic factories to transmute dirt into coffee; and, without ever having lifted a finger, you have braved the wilderness, hewed a home out of the living rock and become a pioneer. Dylan grinned again. But at least this was better than the wailing of the cities.
This Dylan thought, although he was himself no fighter, no man at all by any standards. This he thought because he was a soldier and an outcast; to every drunken man the fall of the sober is a happy thing. He stirred restlessly.
By this time the colonists had begun to realize that there wasn't much to say, and a tall, handsome woman was murmuring distractedly: "Lupus, Lupus—doesn't that mean wolves or something?"
Dylan began to wish they would get moving, these pioneers. It was very possible that the aliens would be here soon, and there was no need for discussion. There was only one thing to do and that was to clear the hell out, quickly and without argument. They began to see it.
But, when the fear had died down, the resentment came. A number of women began to cluster around Dylan and complain, working up their anger. Dylan said nothing. Then the man Rossel pushed forward and confronted him, speaking with a vast annoyance.
"See here, soldier, this is our planet. I mean to say, this is our home . We demand some protection from the fleet. By God, we've been paying the freight for you boys all these years and it's high time you earned your keep. We demand...."
It went on and on while Dylan looked at the clock and waited. He hoped that he could end this quickly. A big gloomy man was in front of him now and giving him that name of ancient contempt, "soldier boy." The gloomy man wanted to know where the fleet was.
"There is no fleet. There are a few hundred half-shot old tubs that were obsolete before you were born. There are four or five new jobs for the brass and the government. That's all the fleet there is."
Dylan wanted to go on about that, to remind them that nobody had wanted the army, that the fleet had grown smaller and smaller ... but this was not the time. It was ten-thirty already and the damned aliens might be coming in right now for all he knew, and all they did was talk. He had realized a long time ago that no peace-loving nation in the history of Earth had ever kept itself strong, and although peace was a noble dream, it was ended now and it was time to move.
"We'd better get going," he finally said, and there was quiet.
"Lieutenant Bossio has gone on to your sister colony at Planet Three of this system. He'll return to pick me up by nightfall and I'm instructed to have you gone by then."
For a long moment they waited, and then one man abruptly walked off and the rest followed quickly; in a moment they were all gone. One or two stopped long enough to complain about the fleet, and the big gloomy man said he wanted guns, that's all, and there wouldn't nobody get him off his planet. When he left, Dylan breathed with relief and went out to check the bomb, grateful for the action.
Most of it had to be done in the open. He found a metal bar in the radio shack and began chopping at the frozen ground, following the wire. It was the first thing he had done with his hands in weeks, and it felt fine.
Dylan had been called up out of a bar—he and Bossio—and told what had happened, and in three weeks now they had cleared four colonies. This would be the last, and the tension here was beginning to get to him. After thirty years of hanging around and playing like the town drunk, a man could not be expected to rush out and plug the breach, just like that. It would take time.
He rested, sweating, took a pull from the bottle on his hip.
Before they sent him out on this trip they had made him a captain. Well, that was nice. After thirty years he was a captain. For thirty years he had bummed all over the west end of space, had scraped his way along the outer edges of Mankind, had waited and dozed and patrolled and got drunk, waiting always for something to happen. There were a lot of ways to pass the time while you waited for something to happen, and he had done them all.
Once he had even studied military tactics.
He could not help smiling at that, even now. Damn it, he'd been green. But he'd been only nineteen when his father died—of a hernia, of a crazy fool thing like a hernia that killed him just because he'd worked too long on a heavy planet—and in those days the anti-war conditioning out on the Rim was not very strong. They talked a lot about guardians of the frontier, and they got him and some other kids and a broken-down doctor. And ... now he was a captain.
He bent his back savagely, digging at the ground. You wait and you wait and the edge goes off. This thing he had waited for all those damn days was upon him now and there was nothing he could do but say the hell with it and go home. Somewhere along the line, in some dark corner of the bars or the jails, in one of the million soul-murdering insults which are reserved especially for peacetime soldiers, he had lost the core of himself, and it didn't particularly matter. That was the point: it made no particular difference if he never got it back. He owed nobody. He was tugging at the wire and trying to think of something pleasant from the old days, when the wire came loose in his hands.
Although he had been, in his cynical way, expecting it, for a moment it threw him and he just stared. The end was clean and bright. The wire had just been cut.
Dylan sat for a long while by the radio shack, holding the ends in his hands. He reached almost automatically for the bottle on his hip and then, for the first time he could remember, let it go. This was real, there was no time for that.
When Rossel came up, Dylan was still sitting. Rossel was so excited he did not notice the wire.
"Listen, soldier, how many people can your ship take?"
Dylan looked at him vaguely. "She sleeps two and won't take off with more'n ten. Why?"
His eyes bright and worried, Rossel leaned heavily against the shack.
"We're overloaded. There are sixty of us and our ship will only take forty. We came out in groups, we never thought...."
Dylan dropped his eyes, swearing silently. "You're sure? No baggage, no iron rations; you couldn't get ten more on?"
"Not a chance. She's only a little ship with one deck—she's all we could afford."
Dylan whistled. He had begun to feel light-headed. "It 'pears that somebody's gonna find out first hand what them aliens look like."
It was the wrong thing to say and he knew it. "All right," he said quickly, still staring at the clear-sliced wire, "we'll do what we can. Maybe the colony on Three has room. I'll call Bossio and ask."
The colonist had begun to look quite pitifully at the buildings around him and the scurrying people.
"Aren't there any fleet ships within radio distance?"
Dylan shook his head. "The fleet's spread out kind of thin nowadays." Because the other was leaning on him he felt a great irritation, but he said, as kindly as he could, "We'll get 'em all out. One way or another, we won't leave anybody."
It was then that Rossel saw the wire. Thickly, he asked what had happened.
Dylan showed him the two clean ends. "Somebody dug it up, cut it, then buried it again and packed it down real nice."
"The damn fool!" Rossel exploded.
"Who?"
"Why, one of ... of us, of course. I know nobody ever liked sitting on a live bomb like this, but I never...."
"You think one of your people did it?"
Rossel stared at him. "Isn't that obvious?"
"Why?"
"Well, they probably thought it was too dangerous, and silly too, like most government rules. Or maybe one of the kids...."
It was then that Dylan told him about the wire on Lupus V. Rossel was silent. Involuntarily, he glanced at the sky, then he said shakily,
"Maybe an animal?"
Dylan shook his head. "No animal did that. Wouldn't have buried it, or found it in the first place. Heck of a coincidence, don't you think? The wire at Lupus was cut just before an alien attack, and now this one is cut too—newly cut."
The colonist put one hand to his mouth, his eyes wide and white.
"So something," said Dylan, "knew enough about this camp to know that a bomb was buried here and also to know why it was here. And that something didn't want the camp destroyed and so came right into the center of the camp, traced the wire, dug it up and cut it. And then walked right out again."
"Listen," said Rossel, "I'd better go ask."
He started away but Dylan caught his arm.
"Tell them to arm," he said, "and try not to scare hell out of them. I'll be with you as soon as I've spliced this wire."
Rossel nodded and went off, running. Dylan knelt with the metal in his hands.
He began to feel that, by God, he was getting cold. He realized that he'd better go inside soon, but the wire had to be spliced. That was perhaps the most important thing he could do now, splice the wire.
All right, he asked himself for the thousandth time, who cut it? How? Telepathy? Could they somehow control one of us?
No. If they controlled one, then they could control all, and then there would be no need for an attack. But you don't know, you don't really know.
Were they small? Little animals?
Unlikely. Biology said that really intelligent life required a sizable brain and you would have to expect an alien to be at least as large as a dog. And every form of life on this planet had been screened long before a colony had been allowed in. If any new animals had suddenly shown up, Rossel would certainly know about it.
He would ask Rossel. He would damn sure have to ask Rossel.
He finished splicing the wire and tucked it into the ground. Then he straightened up and, before he went into the radio shack, he pulled out his pistol. He checked it, primed it, and tried to remember the last time he had fired it. He never had—he never had fired a gun.
The snow began falling near noon. There was nothing anybody could do but stand in the silence and watch it come down in a white rushing wall, and watch the trees and the hills drown in the whiteness, until there was nothing on the planet but the buildings and a few warm lights and the snow.
By one o'clock the visibility was down to zero and Dylan decided to try to contact Bossio again and tell him to hurry. But Bossio still didn't answer. Dylan stared long and thoughtfully out the window through the snow at the gray shrouded shapes of bushes and trees which were beginning to become horrifying. It must be that Bossio was still drunk—maybe sleeping it off before making planetfall on Three. Dylan held no grudge. Bossio was a kid and alone. It took a special kind of guts to take a ship out into space alone, when Things could be waiting....
A young girl, pink and lovely in a thick fur jacket, came into the shack and told him breathlessly that her father, Mr. Rush, would like to know if he wanted sentries posted. Dylan hadn't thought about it but he said yes right away, beginning to feel both pleased and irritated at the same time, because now they were coming to him.
He pushed out into the cold and went to find Rossel. With the snow it was bad enough, but if they were still here when the sun went down they wouldn't have a chance. Most of the men were out stripping down their ship and that would take a while. He wondered why Rossel hadn't yet put a call through to Three, asking about room on the ship there. The only answer he could find was that Rossel knew that there was no room, and he wanted to put off the answer as long as possible. And, in a way, you could not blame him.
Rossel was in his cabin with the big, gloomy man—who turned out to be Rush, the one who had asked about sentries. Rush was methodically cleaning an old hunting rifle. Rossel was surprisingly full of hope.
"Listen, there's a mail ship due in, been due since yesterday. We might get the rest of the folks out on that."
Dylan shrugged. "Don't count on it."
"But they have a contract!"
The soldier grinned.
The big man, Rush, was paying no attention. Quite suddenly he said:
"Who cut that wire, Cap?"
Dylan swung slowly to look at him. "As far as I can figure, an alien cut it."
Rush shook his head. "No. Ain't been no aliens near this camp, and no peculiar animals either. We got a planet-wide radar, and ain't no unidentified ships come near, not since we first landed more'n a year ago." He lifted the rifle and peered through the bore. "Uh-uh. One of us did it."
The man had been thinking. And he knew the planet.
"Telepathy?" asked Dylan.
"Might be."
"Can't see it. You people live too close, you'd notice right away if one of you wasn't ... himself. And, if they've got one, why not all?"
Rush calmly—at least outwardly calmly—lit his pipe. There was a strength in this man that Dylan had missed before.
"Don't know," he said gruffly. "But these are aliens, mister. And until I know different I'm keepin' an eye on my neighbor."
He gave Rossel a sour look and Rossel stared back, uncomprehending.
Then Rossel jumped. "My God!"
Dylan moved to quiet him. "Look, is there any animal at all that ever comes near here that's as large as a dog?"
After a pause, Rush answered. "Yep, there's one. The viggle. It's like a reg'lar monkey but with four legs. Biology cleared 'em before we landed. We shoot one now and then when they get pesky." He rose slowly, the rifle held under his arm. "I b'lieve we might just as well go post them sentries."
Dylan wanted to go on with this but there was nothing much else to say. Rossel went with them as far as the radio shack, with a strained expression on his face, to put through that call to Three.
When he was gone Rush asked Dylan, "Where you want them sentries? I got Walt Halloran and Web Eggers and six others lined up."
Dylan stopped and looked around grimly at the circling wall of snow.
"You know the site better than I do. Post 'em in a ring, on rises, within calling distance. Have 'em check with each other every five minutes. I'll go help your people at the ship."
The gloomy man nodded and fluffed up his collar. "Nice day for huntin'," he said, and then he was gone with the snow quickly covering his footprints.
The Alien lay wrapped in a thick electric cocoon, buried in a wide warm room beneath the base of a tree. The tree served him as antennae; curiously he gazed into a small view-screen and watched the humans come. He saw them fan out, eight of them, and sink down in the snow. He saw that they were armed.
He pulsed thoughtfully, extending a part of himself to absorb a spiced lizard. Since the morning, when the new ship had come, he had been watching steadily, and now it was apparent that the humans were aware of their danger. Undoubtedly they were preparing to leave.
That was unfortunate. The attack was not scheduled until late that night and he could not, of course, press the assault by day. But flexibility , he reminded himself sternly, is the first principle of absorption , and therefore he moved to alter his plans. A projection reached out to dial several knobs on a large box before him, and the hour of assault was moved forward to dusk. A glance at the chronometer told him that it was already well into the night on Planet Three, and that the attack there had probably begun.
The Alien felt the first tenuous pulsing of anticipation. He lay quietly, watching the small square lights of windows against the snow, thanking the Unexplainable that matters had been so devised that he would not have to venture out into that miserable cold.
Presently an alarming thought struck him. These humans moved with uncommon speed for intelligent creatures. Even without devices, it was distinctly possible that they could be gone before nightfall. He could take no chance, of course. He spun more dials and pressed a single button, and lay back again comfortably, warmly, to watch the disabling of the colonists' ship.
When Three did not answer, Rossel was nervously gazing at the snow, thinking of other things, and he called again. Several moments later the realization of what was happening struck him like a blow. Three had never once failed to answer. All they had to do when they heard the signal buzz was go into the radio shack and say hello. That was all they had to do. He called again and again, but nobody answered. There was no static and no interference and he didn't hear a thing. He checked frenziedly through his own apparatus and tried again, but the air was as dead as deep space. He raced out to tell Dylan.
Dylan accepted it. He had known none of the people on Three and what he felt now was a much greater urgency to be out of here. He said hopeful things to Rossel, and then went out to the ship and joined the men in lightening her. About the ship at least, he knew something and he was able to tell them what partitions and frames could go and what would have to stay or the ship would never get off the planet. But even stripped down, it couldn't take them all. When he knew that, he realized that he himself would have to stay here, for it was only then that he thought of Bossio.
Three was dead. Bossio had gone down there some time ago and, if Three was dead and Bossio had not called, then the fact was that Bossio was gone too. For a long, long moment Dylan stood rooted in the snow. More than the fact that he would have to stay here was the unspoken, unalterable, heart-numbing knowledge that Bossio was dead—the one thing that Dylan could not accept. Bossio was the only friend he had. In all this dog-eared, aimless, ape-run Universe Bossio was all his friendship and his trust.
He left the ship blindly and went back to the settlement. Now the people were quiet and really frightened, and some of the women were beginning to cry. He noticed now that they had begun to look at him with hope as he passed, and in his own grief, humanly, he swore.
Bossio—a big-grinning kid with no parents, no enemies, no grudges—Bossio was already dead because he had come out here and tried to help these people. People who had kicked or ignored him all the days of his life. And, in a short while, Dylan would also stay behind and die to save the life of somebody he never knew and who, twenty-four hours earlier, would have been ashamed to be found in his company. Now, when it was far, far too late, they were coming to the army for help.
But in the end, damn it, he could not hate these people. All they had ever wanted was peace, and even though they had never understood that the Universe is unknowable and that you must always have big shoulders, still they had always sought only for peace. If peace leads to no conflict at all and then decay, well, that was something that had to be learned. So he could not hate these people.
But he could not help them either. He turned from their eyes and went into the radio shack. It had begun to dawn on the women that they might be leaving without their husbands or sons, and he did not want to see the fierce struggle that he was sure would take place. He sat alone and tried, for the last time, to call Bossio.
After a while, an old woman found him and offered him coffee. It was a very decent thing to do, to think of him at a time like this, and he was so suddenly grateful he could only nod. The woman said that he must be cold in that thin army thing and that she had brought along a mackinaw for him. She poured the coffee and left him alone.
They were thinking of him now, he knew, because they were thinking of everyone who had to stay. Throw the dog a bone. Dammit, don't be like that, he told himself. He had not had anything to eat all day and the coffee was warm and strong. He decided he might be of some help at the ship.
It was stripped down now and they were loading. He was startled to see a great group of them standing in the snow, removing their clothes. Then he understood. The clothes of forty people would change the weight by enough to get a few more aboard. There was no fighting. Some of the women were almost hysterical and a few had refused to go and were still in their cabins, but the process was orderly. Children went automatically, as did the youngest husbands and all the women. The elders were shuffling around in the snow, waving their arms to keep themselves warm. Some of them were laughing to keep their spirits up.
In the end, the ship took forty-six people.
Rossel was one of the ones that would not be going. Dylan saw him standing by the airlock holding his wife in his arms, his face buried in her soft brown hair. A sense of great sympathy, totally unexpected, rose up in Dylan, and a little of the lostness of thirty years went slipping away. These were his people. It was a thing he had never understood before, because he had never once been among men in great trouble. He waited and watched, learning, trying to digest this while there was still time. Then the semi-naked colonists were inside and the airlock closed. But when the ship tried to lift, there was a sharp burning smell—she couldn't get off the ground.
|
What are the physical features of the Steel-Blue creatures?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Acid Bath by Bill Garson.
Relevant chunks:
ACID BATH
By VASELEOS GARSON
The starways' Lone Watcher had expected some odd developments
in his singular, nerve-fraught job on the asteroid. But nothing like the
weird twenty-one-day liquid test devised by the invading Steel-Blues.
Jon Karyl
was bolting in a new baffle
plate on the stationary rocket engine.
It was a tedious job and took all his
concentration. So he wasn't paying too much
attention to what was going on in other
parts of the little asteroid.
He didn't see the peculiar blue space
ship, its rockets throttled down, as it drifted
to land only a few hundred yards away from
his plastic igloo.
Nor did he see the half-dozen steel-blue
creatures slide out of the peculiar vessel's
airlock.
It was only as he crawled out of the
depths of the rocket power plant that he
realized something was wrong.
By then it was almost too late. The six
blue figures were only fifty feet away, approaching
him at a lope.
Jon Karyl took one look and went bounding
over the asteroid's rocky slopes in fifty-foot
bounds.
When you're a Lone Watcher, and
strangers catch you unawares, you don't
stand still. You move fast. It's the Watcher's
first rule. Stay alive. An Earthship may depend
upon your life.
As he fled, Jon Karyl cursed softly under
his breath. The automatic alarm should have
shrilled out a warning.
Then he saved as much of his breath as
he could as some sort of power wave tore
up the rocky sward to his left. He twisted
and zig-zagged in his flight, trying to get
out of sight of the strangers.
Once hidden from their eyes, he could cut
back and head for the underground entrance
to the service station.
He glanced back finally.
Two of the steel-blue creatures were jack-rabbiting
after him, and rapidly closing the
distance.
Jon Karyl unsheathed the stubray pistol
at his side, turned the oxygen dial up for
greater exertion, increased the gravity pull
in his space-suit boots as he neared the
ravine he'd been racing for.
The oxygen was just taking hold when
he hit the lip of the ravine and began
sprinting through its man-high bush-strewn
course.
The power ray from behind ripped out
great gobs of the sheltering bushes. But
running naturally, bent close to the bottom
of the ravine, Jon Karyl dodged the bare
spots. The oxygen made the tremendous
exertion easy for his lungs as he sped down
the dim trail, hidden from the two steel-blue
stalkers.
He'd eluded them, temporarily at least,
Jon Karyl decided when he finally edged off
the dim trail and watched for movement
along the route behind him.
He stood up, finally, pushed aside the
leafy overhang of a bush and looked for
landmarks along the edge of the ravine.
He found one, a stubby bush, shaped like
a Maltese cross, clinging to the lip of the
ravine. The hidden entrance to the service
station wasn't far off.
His pistol held ready, he moved quietly
on down the ravine until the old water
course made an abrupt hairpin turn.
Instead of following around the sharp
bend, Jon Karyl moved straight ahead
through the overhanging bushes until he
came to a dense thicket. Dropping to his
hands and knees he worked his way under
the edge of the thicket into a hollowed-out
space in the center.
There
, just ahead of him, was the lock
leading into the service station. Slipping
a key out of a leg pouch on the space suit,
he jabbed it into the center of the lock,
opening the lever housing.
He pulled strongly on the lever. With a
hiss of escaping air, the lock swung open.
Jon Karyl darted inside, the door closing
softly behind.
At the end of the long tunnel he stepped
to the televisor which was fixed on the area
surrounding the station.
Jon Karyl saw none of the steel-blue creatures.
But he saw their ship. It squatted
like a smashed-down kid's top, its lock shut
tight.
He tuned the televisor to its widest range
and finally spotted one of the Steel-Blues.
He was looking into the stationary rocket
engine.
As Karyl watched, a second Steel-Blue
came crawling out of the ship.
The two Steel-Blues moved toward the
center of the televisor range. They're coming
toward the station, Karyl thought grimly.
Karyl examined the two creatures. They
were of the steel-blue color from the crown
of their egg-shaped heads to the tips of
their walking appendages.
They were about the height of Karyl—six
feet. But where he tapered from broad
shoulders to flat hips, they were straight up
and down. They had no legs, just appendages,
many-jointed that stretched and
shrank independent of the other, but keeping
the cylindrical body with its four pairs
of tentacles on a level balance.
Where their eyes would have been was
an elliptical-shaped lens, covering half the
egg-head, with its converging ends curving
around the sides of the head.
Robots! Jon gauged immediately. But
where were their masters?
The Steel-Blues moved out of the range
of the televisor. A minute later Jon heard
a pounding from the station upstairs.
He chuckled. They were like the wolf of
pre-atomic days who huffed and puffed to
blow the house down.
The outer shell of the station was formed
from stelrylite, the toughest metal in the
solar system. With the self-sealing lock of
the same resistant material, a mere pounding
was nothing.
Jon thought he'd have a look-see anyway.
He went up the steel ladder leading to the
station's power plant and the televisor that
could look into every room within the
station.
He heaved a slight sigh when he reached
the power room, for right at his hand were
weapons to blast the ship from the asteroid.
Jon adjusted one televisor to take in the
lock to the station. His teeth suddenly
clamped down on his lower lip.
Those Steel-Blues were pounding holes
into the stelrylite with round-headed metal
clubs. But it was impossible. Stelrylite didn't
break up that easily.
Jon leaped to a row of studs, lining up
the revolving turret which capped the station
so that its thin fin pointed at the
squat ship of the invaders.
Then he went to the atomic cannon's
firing buttons.
He pressed first the yellow, then the blue
button. Finally the red one.
The thin fin—the cannon's sight—split in
half as the turret opened and the coiled nose
of the cannon protruded. There was a
soundless flash. Then a sharp crack.
Jon was dumbfounded when he saw the
bolt ricochet off the ship. This was no ship
of the solar system. There was nothing that
could withstand even the slight jolt of power
given by the station cannon on any of the
Sun's worlds. But what was this? A piece of
the ship had changed. A bubble of metal,
like a huge drop of blue wax, dripped off
the vessel and struck the rocket of the
asteroid. It steamed and ran in rivulets.
He pressed the red button again.
Then abruptly he was on the floor of the
power room, his legs strangely cut out from
under him. He tried to move them. They lay
flaccid. His arms seemed all right and tried
to lever himself to an upright position.
Damn it, he seemed as if he were paralyzed
from the waist down. But it couldn't
happen that suddenly.
He turned his head.
A Steel-Blue stood facing him. A forked
tentacle held a square black box.
Jon could read nothing in that metallic
face. He said, voice muffled by the confines
of the plastic helmet, "Who are you?"
"I am"—there was a rising inflection in
the answer—"a Steel-Blue."
There were no lips on the Steel-Blue's
face to move. "That is what I have named
you," Jon Karyl said. "But what are you?"
"A robot," came the immediate answer.
Jon was quite sure then that the Steel-Blue
was telepathic. "Yes," the Steel-Blue answered.
"We talk in the language of the
mind. Come!" he said peremptorily, motioning
with the square black box.
The paralysis left Karyl's legs. He followed
the Steel-Blue, aware that the lens
he'd seen on the creature's face had a
counterpart on the back of the egg-head.
Eyes in the back of his head, Jon thought.
That's quite an innovation. "Thank you,"
Steel-Blue said.
There wasn't much fear in Jon Karyl's
mind. Psychiatrists had proved that when he
had applied for this high-paying but man-killing
job as a Lone Watcher on the Solar
System's starways.
He had little fear now, only curiosity.
These Steel-Blues didn't seem inimical.
They could have snuffed out my life very
simply. Perhaps they and Solarians can be
friends.
Steel-Blue chuckled.
Jon
followed him through the sundered
lock of the station. Karyl stopped for a
moment to examine the wreckage of the
lock. It had been punched full of holes as
if it had been some soft cheese instead of a
metal which Earthmen had spent nearly a
century perfecting.
"We appreciate your compliment," Steel-Blue
said. "But that metal also is found on
our world. It's probably the softest and most
malleable we have. We were surprised you—earthmen,
is it?—use it as protective
metal."
"Why are you in this system?" Jon asked,
hardly expecting an answer.
It came anyway. "For the same reason you
Earthmen are reaching out farther into your
system. We need living room. You have
strategically placed planets for our use. We
will use them."
Jon sighed. For 400 years scientists had
been preaching preparedness as Earth flung
her ships into the reaches of the solar system,
taking the first long step toward the
conquest of space.
There are other races somewhere, they
argued. As strong and smart as man, many
of them so transcending man in mental and
inventive power that we must be prepared to
strike the minute danger shows.
Now here was the answer to the scientists'
warning. Invasion by extra-terrestrials.
"What did you say?" asked Steel-Blue.
"I couldn't understand."
"Just thinking to myself," Jon answered.
It was a welcome surprise. Apparently his
thoughts had to be directed outward, rather
than inward, in order for the Steel-Blues to
read it.
He followed the Steel-Blue into the gaping
lock of the invaders' space ship wondering
how he could warn Earth. The Space
Patrol cruiser was due in for refueling at
his service station in 21 days. But by that
time he probably would be mouldering in
the rocky dust of the asteroid.
It was pitch dark within the ship but the
Steel-Blue seemed to have no trouble at all
maneuvering through the maze of corridors.
Jon followed him, attached to one tentacle.
Finally Jon and his guide entered a circular
room, bright with light streaming from
a glass-like, bulging skylight. They apparently
were near topside of the vessel.
A Steel-Blue, more massive than his
guide and with four more pair of tentacles,
including two short ones that grew from the
top of its head, spoke out.
"This is the violator?" Jon's Steel-Blue
nodded.
"You know the penalty? Carry it out."
"He also is an inhabitant of this system,"
Jon's guide added.
"Examine him first, then give him the
death."
Jon Karyl shrugged as he was led from
the lighted room through more corridors.
If it got too bad he still had the stubray
pistol.
Anyway, he was curious. He'd taken on
the lonely, nerve-wracking job of service
station attendant just to see what it offered.
Here was a part of it, and it was certainly
something new.
"This is the examination room," his
Steel-Blue said, almost contemptuously.
A green effulgence surrounded him.
There
was a hiss. Simultaneously, as the
tiny microphone on the outside of his
suit picked up the hiss, he felt a chill go
through his body. Then it seemed as if a
half dozen hands were inside him, examining
his internal organs. His stomach contracted.
He felt a squeeze on his heart. His
lungs tickled.
There were several more queer motions
inside his body.
Then another Steel-Blue voice said:
"He is a soft-metal creature, made up of
metals that melt at a very low temperature.
He also contains a liquid whose makeup I
cannot ascertain by ray-probe. Bring him
back when the torture is done."
Jon Karyl grinned a trifle wryly. What
kind of torture could this be?
Would it last 21 days? He glanced at the
chronometer on his wrist.
Jon's Steel-Blue led him out of the alien
ship and halted expectantly just outside the
ship's lock.
Jon Karyl waited, too. He thought of the
stubray pistol holstered at his hip. Shoot my
way out? It'd be fun while it lasted. But he
toted up the disadvantages.
He either would have to find a hiding
place on the asteroid, and if the Steel-Blues
wanted him bad enough they could tear the
whole place to pieces, or somehow get
aboard the little life ship hidden in the
service station.
In that he would be just a sitting duck.
He shrugged off the slight temptation to
use the pistol. He was still curious.
And he was interested in staying alive as
long as possible. There was a remote chance
he might warn the SP ship. Unconsciously,
he glanced toward his belt to see the little
power pack which, if under ideal conditions,
could finger out fifty thousand miles into
space.
If he could somehow stay alive the 21
days he might be able to warn the patrol.
He couldn't do it by attempting to flee, for
his life would be snuffed out immediately.
The Steel-Blue said quietly:
"It might be ironical to let you warn
that SP ship you keep thinking about. But
we know your weapon now. Already our
ship is equipped with a force field designed
especially to deflect your atomic guns."
Jon Karyl covered up his thoughts
quickly. They can delve deeper than the
surface of the mind. Or wasn't I keeping a
leash on my thoughts?
The Steel-Blue chuckled. "You get—absent-minded,
is it?—every once in a
while."
Just then four other Steel-Blues appeared
lugging great sheets of plastic and various
other equipment.
They dumped their loads and began unbundling
them.
Working swiftly, they built a plastic
igloo, smaller than the living room in the
larger service station igloo. They ranged instruments
inside—one of them Jon Karyl
recognized as an air pump from within the
station—and they laid out a pallet.
When they were done Jon saw a miniature
reproduction of the service station, lacking
only the cannon cap and fin, and with clear
plastic walls instead of the opaqueness of the
other.
His Steel-Blue said: "We have reproduced
the atmosphere of your station so that you
be watched while you undergo the torture
under the normal conditions of your life."
"What is this torture?" Jon Karyl asked.
The answer was almost caressing: "It is
a liquid we use to dissolve metals. It causes
joints to harden if even so much as a drop
remains on it long. It eats away the metal,
leaving a scaly residue which crumbles
eventually into dust.
"We will dilute it with a harmless liquid
for you since No. 1 does not wish you to die
instantly.
"Enter your"—the Steel-Blue hesitated—"mausoleum.
You die in your own atmosphere.
However, we took the liberty of purifying
it. There were dangerous elements in
it."
Jon walked into the little igloo. The
Steel-Blues sealed the lock, fingered dials
and switches on the outside. Jon's space suit
deflated. Pressure was building up in the
igloo.
He took a sample of the air, found that
it was good, although quite rich in oxygen
compared with what he'd been using in the
service station and in his suit.
With a sigh of relief he took off his helmet
and gulped huge draughts of the air.
He sat down on the pallet and waited
for the torture to begin.
The Steel Blues crowded about the igloo,
staring at him through elliptical eyes.
Apparently, they too, were waiting for the
torture to begin.
Jon thought the excess of oxygen was
making him light-headed.
He stared at a cylinder which was beginning
to sprout tentacles from the circle.
He rubbed his eyes and looked again. An
opening, like the adjustable eye-piece of a
spacescope, was appearing in the center of
the cylinder.
A square, glass-like tumbler sat in the
opening disclosed in the four-foot cylinder
that had sprouted tentacles. It contained a
yellowish liquid.
One of the tentacles reached into the
opening and clasped the glass. The opening
closed and the cylinder, propelled by locomotor
appendages, moved toward Jon.
He didn't like the looks of the liquid in
the tumbler. It looked like an acid of some
sort. He raised to his feet.
He unsheathed the stubray gun and prepared
to blast the cylinder.
The
cylinder moved so fast Jon felt his
eyes jump in his head. He brought the
stubray gun up—but he was helpless. The
pistol kept on going up. With a deft movement,
one of the tentacles had speared it
from his hand and was holding it out of
his reach.
Jon kicked at the glass in the cylinder's
hand. But he was too slow. Two tentacles
gripped the kicking leg. Another struck him
in the chest, knocking him to the pallet. The
same tentacle, assisted by a new one,
pinioned his shoulders.
Four tentacles held him supine. The cylinder
lifted a glass-like cap from the tumbler
of liquid.
Lying there helplessly, Jon was remembering
an old fairy tale he'd read as a kid.
Something about a fellow named Socrates
who was given a cup of hemlock to drink.
It was the finis for Socrates. But the old
hero had been nonchalant and calm about
the whole thing.
With a sigh, Jon Karyl, who was curious
unto death, relaxed and said, "All right,
bub, you don't have to force-feed me. I'll
take it like a man."
The cylinder apparently understood him,
for it handed him the tumbler. It even reholstered
his stubray pistol.
Jon brought the glass of liquid under his
nose. The fumes of the liquid were pungent.
It brought tears to his eyes.
He looked at the cylinder, then at the
Steel-Blues crowding around the plastic
igloo. He waved the glass at the audience.
"To Earth, ever triumphant," he toasted.
Then he drained the glass at a gulp.
Its taste was bitter, and he felt hot
prickles jab at his scalp. It was like eating
very hot peppers. His eyes filled with tears.
He coughed as the stuff went down.
But he was still alive, he thought in
amazement. He'd drunk the hemlock and
was still alive.
The reaction set in quickly. He hadn't
known until then how tense he'd been. Now
with the torture ordeal over, he relaxed. He
laid down on the pallet and went to sleep.
There was one lone Steel-Blue watching
him when he rubbed the sleep out of his
eyes and sat up.
He vanished almost instantly. He, or another
like him, returned immediately accompanied
by a half-dozen others, including
the multi-tentacled creature known as No. 1.
One said,
"You are alive." The thought registered
amazement. "When you lost consciousness,
we thought you had"—there was a hesitation—"as
you say, died."
"No," Jon Karyl said. "I didn't die. I
was just plain dead-beat so I went to sleep."
The Steel-Blues apparently didn't understand.
"Good it is that you live. The torture
will continue," spoke No. 1 before loping
away.
The cylinder business began again. This
time, Jon drank the bitter liquid slowly, trying
to figure out what it was. It had a
familiar, tantalizing taste but he couldn't
quite put a taste-finger on it.
His belly said he was hungry. He glanced
at his chronometer. Only 20 days left before
the SP ship arrived.
Would this torture—he chuckled—last
until then? But he was growing more and
more conscious that his belly was screaming
for hunger. The liquid had taken the edge
off his thirst.
It was on the fifth day of his torture that
Jon Karyl decided that he was going to get
something to eat or perish in the attempt.
The cylinder sat passively in its niche in
the circle. A dozen Steel-Blues were watching
as Jon put on his helmet and unsheathed
his stubray.
They merely watched as he pressed the
stubray's firing stud. Invisible rays licked
out of the bulbous muzzle of the pistol.
The plastic splintered.
Jon was out of his goldfish bowl and
striding toward his own igloo adjacent to
the service station when a Steel-Blue
accosted him.
"Out of my way," grunted Jon, waving
the stubray. "I'm hungry."
"I'm the first Steel-Blue you met," said
the creature who barred his way. "Go back
to your torture."
"But I'm so hungry I'll chew off one of
your tentacles and eat it without seasoning."
"Eat?" The Steel-Blue sounded puzzled.
"I want to refuel. I've got to have food
to keep my engine going."
Steel-Blue chuckled. "So the hemlock, as
you call it, is beginning to affect you at
last? Back to the torture room."
"Like R-dust," Jon growled. He pressed
the firing stud on the stubray gun. One of
Steel-Blue's tentacles broke off and fell to
the rocky sward.
Steel-Blue jerked out the box he'd used
once before. A tentacle danced over it.
Abruptly Jon found himself standing on
a pinnacle of rock. Steel-Blue had cut a
swath around him 15 feet deep and five feet
wide.
"Back to the room," Steel-Blue commanded.
Jon resheathed the stubray pistol,
shrugged non-committally and leaped the
trench. He walked slowly back and reentered
the torture chamber.
The Steel-Blues rapidly repaired the damage
he'd done.
As he watched them, Jon was still curious,
but he was getting mad underneath at
the cold egoism of the Steel-Blues.
By the shimmering clouds of Earth, by
her green fields, and dark forests, he'd
stay alive to warn the SP ship.
Yes, he'd stay alive till then. And send
the story of the Steel-Blues' corrosive acid
to it. Then hundreds of Earth's ships could
equip themselves with spray guns and squirt
citric acid and watch the Steel-Blues fade
away.
It sounded almost silly to Jon Karyl. The
fruit acid of Earth to repel these invaders—it
doesn't sound possible. That couldn't be
the answer.
Citric acid wasn't the answer, Jon Karyl
discovered a week later.
The Steel-Blue who had captured him in
the power room of the service station came
in to examine him.
"You're still holding out, I see," he observed
after poking Jon in every sensitive
part of his body.
"I'll suggest to No. 1 that we increase
the power of the—ah—hemlock. How do
you feel?"
Between the rich oxygen and the dizziness
of hunger, Jon was a bit delirious. But he
answered honestly enough: "My guts feel as
if they're chewing each other up. My bones
ache. My joints creak. I can't coordinate I'm
so hungry."
"That is the hemlock," Steel-Blue said.
It was when he quaffed the new and
stronger draught that Jon knew that his
hope that it was citric acid was squelched.
The acid taste was weaker which meant
that the citric acid was the diluting liquid.
It was the liquid he couldn't taste beneath
the tang of the citric acid that was the corrosive
acid.
On the fourteenth day, Jon was so weak
he didn't feel much like moving around. He
let the cylinder feed him the hemlock.
No. 1 came again to see him, and went
away chuckling, "Decrease the dilution.
This Earthman at last is beginning to
suffer."
Staying
alive had now become a fetish
with Jon.
On the sixteenth day, the Earthman realized
that the Steel-Blues also were waiting
for the SP ship.
The extra-terrestrials had repaired the
blue ship where the service station atomic
ray had struck. And they were doing a little
target practice with plastic bubbles only a
few miles above the asteroid.
When his chronometer clocked off the
beginning of the twenty-first day, Jon received
a tumbler of the hemlock from the
hands of No. 1 himself.
"It is the hemlock," he chuckled, "undiluted.
Drink it and your torture is over.
You will die before your SP ship is destroyed.
"We have played with you long enough.
Today we begin to toy with your SP ship.
Drink up, Earthman, drink to enslavement."
Weak though he was Jon lunged to his
feet, spilling the tumbler of liquid. It ran
cool along the plastic arm of his space suit.
He changed his mind about throwing the
contents on No. 1.
With a smile he set the glass at his lips
and drank. Then he laughed at No. 1.
"The SP ship will turn your ship into
jelly."
No. 1 swept out, chuckling. "Boast if you
will, Earthman, it's your last chance."
There was an exultation in Jon's heart
that deadened the hunger and washed away
the nausea.
At last he knew what the hemlock was.
He sat on the pallet adjusting the little
power-pack radio. The SP ship should now
be within range of the set. The space patrol
was notorious for its accuracy in keeping to
schedule. Seconds counted like years. They
had to be on the nose, or it meant disaster
or death.
He sent out the call letters.
"AX to SP-101 ... AX to SP-101 ... AX
to SP-101 ..."
Three times he sent the call, then began
sending his message, hoping that his signal
was reaching the ship. He couldn't know if
they answered. Though the power pack
could get out a message over a vast distance,
it could not pick up messages even
when backed by an SP ship's power unless
the ship was only a few hundred miles
away.
The power pack was strictly a distress
signal.
He didn't know how long he'd been
sending, nor how many times his weary
voice had repeated the short but desperate
message.
He kept watching the heavens and hoping.
Abruptly he knew the SP ship was coming,
for the blue ship of the Steel-Blues was
rising silently from the asteroid.
Up and up it rose, then flames flickered
in a circle about its curious shape. The ship
disappeared, suddenly accelerating.
Jon Karyl strained his eyes.
Finally he looked away from the heavens
to the two Steel-Blues who stood negligently
outside the goldfish bowl.
Once more, Jon used the stubray pistol.
He marched out of the plastic igloo and ran
toward the service station.
He didn't know how weak he was until
he stumbled and fell only a few feet from
his prison.
The Steel-Blues just watched him.
He crawled on, around the circular pit in
the sward of the asteroid where one Steel-Blue
had shown him the power of his
weapon.
He'd been crawling through a nightmare
for years when the quiet voice penetrated
his dulled mind.
"Take it easy, Karyl. You're among
friends."
He pried open his eyes with his will. He
saw the blue and gold of a space guard's
uniform. He sighed and drifted into unconsciousness.
He was
still weak days later when
Capt. Ron Small of SP-101 said,
"Yes, Karyl, it's ironical. They fed you
what they thought was sure death, and it's
the only thing that kept you going long
enough to warn us."
"I was dumb for a long time," Karyl said.
"I thought that it was the acid, almost to
the very last. But when I drank that last
glass, I knew they didn't have a chance.
"They were metal monsters. No wonder
they feared that liquid. It would rust their
joints, short their wiring, and kill them.
No wonder they stared when I kept alive
after drinking enough to completely annihilate
a half-dozen of them.
"But what happened when you met the
ship?"
The space captain grinned.
"Not much. Our crew was busy creating
a hollow shell filled with water to be shot
out of a rocket tube converted into a projectile
thrower.
"These Steel-Blues, as you call them, put
traction beams on us and started tugging us
toward the asteroid. We tried a couple of
atomic shots but when they just glanced off,
we gave up.
"They weren't expecting the shell of
water. When it hit that blue ship, you could
almost see it oxidize before your eyes.
"I guess they knew what was wrong right
away. They let go the traction beams and
tried to get away. They forgot about the
force field, so we just poured atomic fire
into the weakening ship. It just melted
away."
Jon Karyl got up from the divan where
he'd been lying. "They thought I was a
metal creature, too. But where do you suppose
they came from?"
The captain shrugged. "Who knows?"
Jon set two glasses on the table.
"Have a drink of the best damn water in
the solar system?" He asked Capt. Small.
"Don't mind if I do."
The water twinkled in the two glasses,
winking as if it knew just what it had
done.
Question:
What are the physical features of the Steel-Blue creatures?
Answer:
|
[
"The Steel-Blue creatures are described to be steel-blue in color. They have egg-shaped heads and walking appendages. The Steel-Blues are also around the height of Jon at six feet, and their appendages are many-jointed. These appendages also stretch and shrink independent of each other, but the cylindrical body and tentacles are kept on a level balance. Instead of eyes, the Steel-Blues have elliptical-shaped lenses that cover half of the head and converge around the sides of the head. Jon notes that they are robots without masters. When Jon follows the Steel-Blue later, he notes that it has a lens on the back of its head as well. The massive steel-blue creature that Jon meets has four more tentacles, including two short ones that grow out of its head. ",
"These creatures - robots - are steel-blue in nature with egg shaped heads. They stand at about six feet tall and have a rectangular-like stature with flexible appendages (able to move independently of each other), a cylindrical body, and ellipitcal-shaped lens for eyes that are present both on the front and back of their head. \n\nSome of the creatures, unlike Jon's Steel-Blue, also have more tentacles that also grew atop their heads. These tentacles were able to move like limbs, for example, it was able to grab the glass containing the yellowish liquid. ",
"Steel-Blue is around six feet high. Their head shape looks like an egg, colored Steel-Blue. Each has four pairs of independently jointed forked tentacles, stretching from their cylindrical body, which let them move. Their body shape is straight without the curve of the shoulder or hip. Elliptical-shaped lenses cover their heads for both the front and the back of their heads, whose ends wind around the side. They look like robots. They communicate with telepathy. The leader of the Steel-Blue, No. 1, is more massive than the normal ones and has four more pairs of tentacles, two of which are shorter and stretch out from its head.",
"The creatures are described as being of a steel-blue color. They are six feet tall, and they have egg shaped heads. They don’t have any legs or hands, instead they have appendages that allow them to move. They are cylindrical, and have 4 tentacles that allow them to fight and grab things. Instead of eyes they have elliptical shaped lenses that allow them to see, and they also have lenses on the back of their head, which allows them to see. They also communicate with Jon via telepathy, and they can read his mind. "
] |
29159
|
ACID BATH
By VASELEOS GARSON
The starways' Lone Watcher had expected some odd developments
in his singular, nerve-fraught job on the asteroid. But nothing like the
weird twenty-one-day liquid test devised by the invading Steel-Blues.
Jon Karyl
was bolting in a new baffle
plate on the stationary rocket engine.
It was a tedious job and took all his
concentration. So he wasn't paying too much
attention to what was going on in other
parts of the little asteroid.
He didn't see the peculiar blue space
ship, its rockets throttled down, as it drifted
to land only a few hundred yards away from
his plastic igloo.
Nor did he see the half-dozen steel-blue
creatures slide out of the peculiar vessel's
airlock.
It was only as he crawled out of the
depths of the rocket power plant that he
realized something was wrong.
By then it was almost too late. The six
blue figures were only fifty feet away, approaching
him at a lope.
Jon Karyl took one look and went bounding
over the asteroid's rocky slopes in fifty-foot
bounds.
When you're a Lone Watcher, and
strangers catch you unawares, you don't
stand still. You move fast. It's the Watcher's
first rule. Stay alive. An Earthship may depend
upon your life.
As he fled, Jon Karyl cursed softly under
his breath. The automatic alarm should have
shrilled out a warning.
Then he saved as much of his breath as
he could as some sort of power wave tore
up the rocky sward to his left. He twisted
and zig-zagged in his flight, trying to get
out of sight of the strangers.
Once hidden from their eyes, he could cut
back and head for the underground entrance
to the service station.
He glanced back finally.
Two of the steel-blue creatures were jack-rabbiting
after him, and rapidly closing the
distance.
Jon Karyl unsheathed the stubray pistol
at his side, turned the oxygen dial up for
greater exertion, increased the gravity pull
in his space-suit boots as he neared the
ravine he'd been racing for.
The oxygen was just taking hold when
he hit the lip of the ravine and began
sprinting through its man-high bush-strewn
course.
The power ray from behind ripped out
great gobs of the sheltering bushes. But
running naturally, bent close to the bottom
of the ravine, Jon Karyl dodged the bare
spots. The oxygen made the tremendous
exertion easy for his lungs as he sped down
the dim trail, hidden from the two steel-blue
stalkers.
He'd eluded them, temporarily at least,
Jon Karyl decided when he finally edged off
the dim trail and watched for movement
along the route behind him.
He stood up, finally, pushed aside the
leafy overhang of a bush and looked for
landmarks along the edge of the ravine.
He found one, a stubby bush, shaped like
a Maltese cross, clinging to the lip of the
ravine. The hidden entrance to the service
station wasn't far off.
His pistol held ready, he moved quietly
on down the ravine until the old water
course made an abrupt hairpin turn.
Instead of following around the sharp
bend, Jon Karyl moved straight ahead
through the overhanging bushes until he
came to a dense thicket. Dropping to his
hands and knees he worked his way under
the edge of the thicket into a hollowed-out
space in the center.
There
, just ahead of him, was the lock
leading into the service station. Slipping
a key out of a leg pouch on the space suit,
he jabbed it into the center of the lock,
opening the lever housing.
He pulled strongly on the lever. With a
hiss of escaping air, the lock swung open.
Jon Karyl darted inside, the door closing
softly behind.
At the end of the long tunnel he stepped
to the televisor which was fixed on the area
surrounding the station.
Jon Karyl saw none of the steel-blue creatures.
But he saw their ship. It squatted
like a smashed-down kid's top, its lock shut
tight.
He tuned the televisor to its widest range
and finally spotted one of the Steel-Blues.
He was looking into the stationary rocket
engine.
As Karyl watched, a second Steel-Blue
came crawling out of the ship.
The two Steel-Blues moved toward the
center of the televisor range. They're coming
toward the station, Karyl thought grimly.
Karyl examined the two creatures. They
were of the steel-blue color from the crown
of their egg-shaped heads to the tips of
their walking appendages.
They were about the height of Karyl—six
feet. But where he tapered from broad
shoulders to flat hips, they were straight up
and down. They had no legs, just appendages,
many-jointed that stretched and
shrank independent of the other, but keeping
the cylindrical body with its four pairs
of tentacles on a level balance.
Where their eyes would have been was
an elliptical-shaped lens, covering half the
egg-head, with its converging ends curving
around the sides of the head.
Robots! Jon gauged immediately. But
where were their masters?
The Steel-Blues moved out of the range
of the televisor. A minute later Jon heard
a pounding from the station upstairs.
He chuckled. They were like the wolf of
pre-atomic days who huffed and puffed to
blow the house down.
The outer shell of the station was formed
from stelrylite, the toughest metal in the
solar system. With the self-sealing lock of
the same resistant material, a mere pounding
was nothing.
Jon thought he'd have a look-see anyway.
He went up the steel ladder leading to the
station's power plant and the televisor that
could look into every room within the
station.
He heaved a slight sigh when he reached
the power room, for right at his hand were
weapons to blast the ship from the asteroid.
Jon adjusted one televisor to take in the
lock to the station. His teeth suddenly
clamped down on his lower lip.
Those Steel-Blues were pounding holes
into the stelrylite with round-headed metal
clubs. But it was impossible. Stelrylite didn't
break up that easily.
Jon leaped to a row of studs, lining up
the revolving turret which capped the station
so that its thin fin pointed at the
squat ship of the invaders.
Then he went to the atomic cannon's
firing buttons.
He pressed first the yellow, then the blue
button. Finally the red one.
The thin fin—the cannon's sight—split in
half as the turret opened and the coiled nose
of the cannon protruded. There was a
soundless flash. Then a sharp crack.
Jon was dumbfounded when he saw the
bolt ricochet off the ship. This was no ship
of the solar system. There was nothing that
could withstand even the slight jolt of power
given by the station cannon on any of the
Sun's worlds. But what was this? A piece of
the ship had changed. A bubble of metal,
like a huge drop of blue wax, dripped off
the vessel and struck the rocket of the
asteroid. It steamed and ran in rivulets.
He pressed the red button again.
Then abruptly he was on the floor of the
power room, his legs strangely cut out from
under him. He tried to move them. They lay
flaccid. His arms seemed all right and tried
to lever himself to an upright position.
Damn it, he seemed as if he were paralyzed
from the waist down. But it couldn't
happen that suddenly.
He turned his head.
A Steel-Blue stood facing him. A forked
tentacle held a square black box.
Jon could read nothing in that metallic
face. He said, voice muffled by the confines
of the plastic helmet, "Who are you?"
"I am"—there was a rising inflection in
the answer—"a Steel-Blue."
There were no lips on the Steel-Blue's
face to move. "That is what I have named
you," Jon Karyl said. "But what are you?"
"A robot," came the immediate answer.
Jon was quite sure then that the Steel-Blue
was telepathic. "Yes," the Steel-Blue answered.
"We talk in the language of the
mind. Come!" he said peremptorily, motioning
with the square black box.
The paralysis left Karyl's legs. He followed
the Steel-Blue, aware that the lens
he'd seen on the creature's face had a
counterpart on the back of the egg-head.
Eyes in the back of his head, Jon thought.
That's quite an innovation. "Thank you,"
Steel-Blue said.
There wasn't much fear in Jon Karyl's
mind. Psychiatrists had proved that when he
had applied for this high-paying but man-killing
job as a Lone Watcher on the Solar
System's starways.
He had little fear now, only curiosity.
These Steel-Blues didn't seem inimical.
They could have snuffed out my life very
simply. Perhaps they and Solarians can be
friends.
Steel-Blue chuckled.
Jon
followed him through the sundered
lock of the station. Karyl stopped for a
moment to examine the wreckage of the
lock. It had been punched full of holes as
if it had been some soft cheese instead of a
metal which Earthmen had spent nearly a
century perfecting.
"We appreciate your compliment," Steel-Blue
said. "But that metal also is found on
our world. It's probably the softest and most
malleable we have. We were surprised you—earthmen,
is it?—use it as protective
metal."
"Why are you in this system?" Jon asked,
hardly expecting an answer.
It came anyway. "For the same reason you
Earthmen are reaching out farther into your
system. We need living room. You have
strategically placed planets for our use. We
will use them."
Jon sighed. For 400 years scientists had
been preaching preparedness as Earth flung
her ships into the reaches of the solar system,
taking the first long step toward the
conquest of space.
There are other races somewhere, they
argued. As strong and smart as man, many
of them so transcending man in mental and
inventive power that we must be prepared to
strike the minute danger shows.
Now here was the answer to the scientists'
warning. Invasion by extra-terrestrials.
"What did you say?" asked Steel-Blue.
"I couldn't understand."
"Just thinking to myself," Jon answered.
It was a welcome surprise. Apparently his
thoughts had to be directed outward, rather
than inward, in order for the Steel-Blues to
read it.
He followed the Steel-Blue into the gaping
lock of the invaders' space ship wondering
how he could warn Earth. The Space
Patrol cruiser was due in for refueling at
his service station in 21 days. But by that
time he probably would be mouldering in
the rocky dust of the asteroid.
It was pitch dark within the ship but the
Steel-Blue seemed to have no trouble at all
maneuvering through the maze of corridors.
Jon followed him, attached to one tentacle.
Finally Jon and his guide entered a circular
room, bright with light streaming from
a glass-like, bulging skylight. They apparently
were near topside of the vessel.
A Steel-Blue, more massive than his
guide and with four more pair of tentacles,
including two short ones that grew from the
top of its head, spoke out.
"This is the violator?" Jon's Steel-Blue
nodded.
"You know the penalty? Carry it out."
"He also is an inhabitant of this system,"
Jon's guide added.
"Examine him first, then give him the
death."
Jon Karyl shrugged as he was led from
the lighted room through more corridors.
If it got too bad he still had the stubray
pistol.
Anyway, he was curious. He'd taken on
the lonely, nerve-wracking job of service
station attendant just to see what it offered.
Here was a part of it, and it was certainly
something new.
"This is the examination room," his
Steel-Blue said, almost contemptuously.
A green effulgence surrounded him.
There
was a hiss. Simultaneously, as the
tiny microphone on the outside of his
suit picked up the hiss, he felt a chill go
through his body. Then it seemed as if a
half dozen hands were inside him, examining
his internal organs. His stomach contracted.
He felt a squeeze on his heart. His
lungs tickled.
There were several more queer motions
inside his body.
Then another Steel-Blue voice said:
"He is a soft-metal creature, made up of
metals that melt at a very low temperature.
He also contains a liquid whose makeup I
cannot ascertain by ray-probe. Bring him
back when the torture is done."
Jon Karyl grinned a trifle wryly. What
kind of torture could this be?
Would it last 21 days? He glanced at the
chronometer on his wrist.
Jon's Steel-Blue led him out of the alien
ship and halted expectantly just outside the
ship's lock.
Jon Karyl waited, too. He thought of the
stubray pistol holstered at his hip. Shoot my
way out? It'd be fun while it lasted. But he
toted up the disadvantages.
He either would have to find a hiding
place on the asteroid, and if the Steel-Blues
wanted him bad enough they could tear the
whole place to pieces, or somehow get
aboard the little life ship hidden in the
service station.
In that he would be just a sitting duck.
He shrugged off the slight temptation to
use the pistol. He was still curious.
And he was interested in staying alive as
long as possible. There was a remote chance
he might warn the SP ship. Unconsciously,
he glanced toward his belt to see the little
power pack which, if under ideal conditions,
could finger out fifty thousand miles into
space.
If he could somehow stay alive the 21
days he might be able to warn the patrol.
He couldn't do it by attempting to flee, for
his life would be snuffed out immediately.
The Steel-Blue said quietly:
"It might be ironical to let you warn
that SP ship you keep thinking about. But
we know your weapon now. Already our
ship is equipped with a force field designed
especially to deflect your atomic guns."
Jon Karyl covered up his thoughts
quickly. They can delve deeper than the
surface of the mind. Or wasn't I keeping a
leash on my thoughts?
The Steel-Blue chuckled. "You get—absent-minded,
is it?—every once in a
while."
Just then four other Steel-Blues appeared
lugging great sheets of plastic and various
other equipment.
They dumped their loads and began unbundling
them.
Working swiftly, they built a plastic
igloo, smaller than the living room in the
larger service station igloo. They ranged instruments
inside—one of them Jon Karyl
recognized as an air pump from within the
station—and they laid out a pallet.
When they were done Jon saw a miniature
reproduction of the service station, lacking
only the cannon cap and fin, and with clear
plastic walls instead of the opaqueness of the
other.
His Steel-Blue said: "We have reproduced
the atmosphere of your station so that you
be watched while you undergo the torture
under the normal conditions of your life."
"What is this torture?" Jon Karyl asked.
The answer was almost caressing: "It is
a liquid we use to dissolve metals. It causes
joints to harden if even so much as a drop
remains on it long. It eats away the metal,
leaving a scaly residue which crumbles
eventually into dust.
"We will dilute it with a harmless liquid
for you since No. 1 does not wish you to die
instantly.
"Enter your"—the Steel-Blue hesitated—"mausoleum.
You die in your own atmosphere.
However, we took the liberty of purifying
it. There were dangerous elements in
it."
Jon walked into the little igloo. The
Steel-Blues sealed the lock, fingered dials
and switches on the outside. Jon's space suit
deflated. Pressure was building up in the
igloo.
He took a sample of the air, found that
it was good, although quite rich in oxygen
compared with what he'd been using in the
service station and in his suit.
With a sigh of relief he took off his helmet
and gulped huge draughts of the air.
He sat down on the pallet and waited
for the torture to begin.
The Steel Blues crowded about the igloo,
staring at him through elliptical eyes.
Apparently, they too, were waiting for the
torture to begin.
Jon thought the excess of oxygen was
making him light-headed.
He stared at a cylinder which was beginning
to sprout tentacles from the circle.
He rubbed his eyes and looked again. An
opening, like the adjustable eye-piece of a
spacescope, was appearing in the center of
the cylinder.
A square, glass-like tumbler sat in the
opening disclosed in the four-foot cylinder
that had sprouted tentacles. It contained a
yellowish liquid.
One of the tentacles reached into the
opening and clasped the glass. The opening
closed and the cylinder, propelled by locomotor
appendages, moved toward Jon.
He didn't like the looks of the liquid in
the tumbler. It looked like an acid of some
sort. He raised to his feet.
He unsheathed the stubray gun and prepared
to blast the cylinder.
The
cylinder moved so fast Jon felt his
eyes jump in his head. He brought the
stubray gun up—but he was helpless. The
pistol kept on going up. With a deft movement,
one of the tentacles had speared it
from his hand and was holding it out of
his reach.
Jon kicked at the glass in the cylinder's
hand. But he was too slow. Two tentacles
gripped the kicking leg. Another struck him
in the chest, knocking him to the pallet. The
same tentacle, assisted by a new one,
pinioned his shoulders.
Four tentacles held him supine. The cylinder
lifted a glass-like cap from the tumbler
of liquid.
Lying there helplessly, Jon was remembering
an old fairy tale he'd read as a kid.
Something about a fellow named Socrates
who was given a cup of hemlock to drink.
It was the finis for Socrates. But the old
hero had been nonchalant and calm about
the whole thing.
With a sigh, Jon Karyl, who was curious
unto death, relaxed and said, "All right,
bub, you don't have to force-feed me. I'll
take it like a man."
The cylinder apparently understood him,
for it handed him the tumbler. It even reholstered
his stubray pistol.
Jon brought the glass of liquid under his
nose. The fumes of the liquid were pungent.
It brought tears to his eyes.
He looked at the cylinder, then at the
Steel-Blues crowding around the plastic
igloo. He waved the glass at the audience.
"To Earth, ever triumphant," he toasted.
Then he drained the glass at a gulp.
Its taste was bitter, and he felt hot
prickles jab at his scalp. It was like eating
very hot peppers. His eyes filled with tears.
He coughed as the stuff went down.
But he was still alive, he thought in
amazement. He'd drunk the hemlock and
was still alive.
The reaction set in quickly. He hadn't
known until then how tense he'd been. Now
with the torture ordeal over, he relaxed. He
laid down on the pallet and went to sleep.
There was one lone Steel-Blue watching
him when he rubbed the sleep out of his
eyes and sat up.
He vanished almost instantly. He, or another
like him, returned immediately accompanied
by a half-dozen others, including
the multi-tentacled creature known as No. 1.
One said,
"You are alive." The thought registered
amazement. "When you lost consciousness,
we thought you had"—there was a hesitation—"as
you say, died."
"No," Jon Karyl said. "I didn't die. I
was just plain dead-beat so I went to sleep."
The Steel-Blues apparently didn't understand.
"Good it is that you live. The torture
will continue," spoke No. 1 before loping
away.
The cylinder business began again. This
time, Jon drank the bitter liquid slowly, trying
to figure out what it was. It had a
familiar, tantalizing taste but he couldn't
quite put a taste-finger on it.
His belly said he was hungry. He glanced
at his chronometer. Only 20 days left before
the SP ship arrived.
Would this torture—he chuckled—last
until then? But he was growing more and
more conscious that his belly was screaming
for hunger. The liquid had taken the edge
off his thirst.
It was on the fifth day of his torture that
Jon Karyl decided that he was going to get
something to eat or perish in the attempt.
The cylinder sat passively in its niche in
the circle. A dozen Steel-Blues were watching
as Jon put on his helmet and unsheathed
his stubray.
They merely watched as he pressed the
stubray's firing stud. Invisible rays licked
out of the bulbous muzzle of the pistol.
The plastic splintered.
Jon was out of his goldfish bowl and
striding toward his own igloo adjacent to
the service station when a Steel-Blue
accosted him.
"Out of my way," grunted Jon, waving
the stubray. "I'm hungry."
"I'm the first Steel-Blue you met," said
the creature who barred his way. "Go back
to your torture."
"But I'm so hungry I'll chew off one of
your tentacles and eat it without seasoning."
"Eat?" The Steel-Blue sounded puzzled.
"I want to refuel. I've got to have food
to keep my engine going."
Steel-Blue chuckled. "So the hemlock, as
you call it, is beginning to affect you at
last? Back to the torture room."
"Like R-dust," Jon growled. He pressed
the firing stud on the stubray gun. One of
Steel-Blue's tentacles broke off and fell to
the rocky sward.
Steel-Blue jerked out the box he'd used
once before. A tentacle danced over it.
Abruptly Jon found himself standing on
a pinnacle of rock. Steel-Blue had cut a
swath around him 15 feet deep and five feet
wide.
"Back to the room," Steel-Blue commanded.
Jon resheathed the stubray pistol,
shrugged non-committally and leaped the
trench. He walked slowly back and reentered
the torture chamber.
The Steel-Blues rapidly repaired the damage
he'd done.
As he watched them, Jon was still curious,
but he was getting mad underneath at
the cold egoism of the Steel-Blues.
By the shimmering clouds of Earth, by
her green fields, and dark forests, he'd
stay alive to warn the SP ship.
Yes, he'd stay alive till then. And send
the story of the Steel-Blues' corrosive acid
to it. Then hundreds of Earth's ships could
equip themselves with spray guns and squirt
citric acid and watch the Steel-Blues fade
away.
It sounded almost silly to Jon Karyl. The
fruit acid of Earth to repel these invaders—it
doesn't sound possible. That couldn't be
the answer.
Citric acid wasn't the answer, Jon Karyl
discovered a week later.
The Steel-Blue who had captured him in
the power room of the service station came
in to examine him.
"You're still holding out, I see," he observed
after poking Jon in every sensitive
part of his body.
"I'll suggest to No. 1 that we increase
the power of the—ah—hemlock. How do
you feel?"
Between the rich oxygen and the dizziness
of hunger, Jon was a bit delirious. But he
answered honestly enough: "My guts feel as
if they're chewing each other up. My bones
ache. My joints creak. I can't coordinate I'm
so hungry."
"That is the hemlock," Steel-Blue said.
It was when he quaffed the new and
stronger draught that Jon knew that his
hope that it was citric acid was squelched.
The acid taste was weaker which meant
that the citric acid was the diluting liquid.
It was the liquid he couldn't taste beneath
the tang of the citric acid that was the corrosive
acid.
On the fourteenth day, Jon was so weak
he didn't feel much like moving around. He
let the cylinder feed him the hemlock.
No. 1 came again to see him, and went
away chuckling, "Decrease the dilution.
This Earthman at last is beginning to
suffer."
Staying
alive had now become a fetish
with Jon.
On the sixteenth day, the Earthman realized
that the Steel-Blues also were waiting
for the SP ship.
The extra-terrestrials had repaired the
blue ship where the service station atomic
ray had struck. And they were doing a little
target practice with plastic bubbles only a
few miles above the asteroid.
When his chronometer clocked off the
beginning of the twenty-first day, Jon received
a tumbler of the hemlock from the
hands of No. 1 himself.
"It is the hemlock," he chuckled, "undiluted.
Drink it and your torture is over.
You will die before your SP ship is destroyed.
"We have played with you long enough.
Today we begin to toy with your SP ship.
Drink up, Earthman, drink to enslavement."
Weak though he was Jon lunged to his
feet, spilling the tumbler of liquid. It ran
cool along the plastic arm of his space suit.
He changed his mind about throwing the
contents on No. 1.
With a smile he set the glass at his lips
and drank. Then he laughed at No. 1.
"The SP ship will turn your ship into
jelly."
No. 1 swept out, chuckling. "Boast if you
will, Earthman, it's your last chance."
There was an exultation in Jon's heart
that deadened the hunger and washed away
the nausea.
At last he knew what the hemlock was.
He sat on the pallet adjusting the little
power-pack radio. The SP ship should now
be within range of the set. The space patrol
was notorious for its accuracy in keeping to
schedule. Seconds counted like years. They
had to be on the nose, or it meant disaster
or death.
He sent out the call letters.
"AX to SP-101 ... AX to SP-101 ... AX
to SP-101 ..."
Three times he sent the call, then began
sending his message, hoping that his signal
was reaching the ship. He couldn't know if
they answered. Though the power pack
could get out a message over a vast distance,
it could not pick up messages even
when backed by an SP ship's power unless
the ship was only a few hundred miles
away.
The power pack was strictly a distress
signal.
He didn't know how long he'd been
sending, nor how many times his weary
voice had repeated the short but desperate
message.
He kept watching the heavens and hoping.
Abruptly he knew the SP ship was coming,
for the blue ship of the Steel-Blues was
rising silently from the asteroid.
Up and up it rose, then flames flickered
in a circle about its curious shape. The ship
disappeared, suddenly accelerating.
Jon Karyl strained his eyes.
Finally he looked away from the heavens
to the two Steel-Blues who stood negligently
outside the goldfish bowl.
Once more, Jon used the stubray pistol.
He marched out of the plastic igloo and ran
toward the service station.
He didn't know how weak he was until
he stumbled and fell only a few feet from
his prison.
The Steel-Blues just watched him.
He crawled on, around the circular pit in
the sward of the asteroid where one Steel-Blue
had shown him the power of his
weapon.
He'd been crawling through a nightmare
for years when the quiet voice penetrated
his dulled mind.
"Take it easy, Karyl. You're among
friends."
He pried open his eyes with his will. He
saw the blue and gold of a space guard's
uniform. He sighed and drifted into unconsciousness.
He was
still weak days later when
Capt. Ron Small of SP-101 said,
"Yes, Karyl, it's ironical. They fed you
what they thought was sure death, and it's
the only thing that kept you going long
enough to warn us."
"I was dumb for a long time," Karyl said.
"I thought that it was the acid, almost to
the very last. But when I drank that last
glass, I knew they didn't have a chance.
"They were metal monsters. No wonder
they feared that liquid. It would rust their
joints, short their wiring, and kill them.
No wonder they stared when I kept alive
after drinking enough to completely annihilate
a half-dozen of them.
"But what happened when you met the
ship?"
The space captain grinned.
"Not much. Our crew was busy creating
a hollow shell filled with water to be shot
out of a rocket tube converted into a projectile
thrower.
"These Steel-Blues, as you call them, put
traction beams on us and started tugging us
toward the asteroid. We tried a couple of
atomic shots but when they just glanced off,
we gave up.
"They weren't expecting the shell of
water. When it hit that blue ship, you could
almost see it oxidize before your eyes.
"I guess they knew what was wrong right
away. They let go the traction beams and
tried to get away. They forgot about the
force field, so we just poured atomic fire
into the weakening ship. It just melted
away."
Jon Karyl got up from the divan where
he'd been lying. "They thought I was a
metal creature, too. But where do you suppose
they came from?"
The captain shrugged. "Who knows?"
Jon set two glasses on the table.
"Have a drink of the best damn water in
the solar system?" He asked Capt. Small.
"Don't mind if I do."
The water twinkled in the two glasses,
winking as if it knew just what it had
done.
|
What is the significance of other people's words about the rocket?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Desire No More by Algis Budrys.
Relevant chunks:
He had but one ambition, one desire: to pilot the first manned rocket to the moon. And he was prepared as no man had ever prepared himself before....
DESIRE NO MORE
by Algis Budrys
( illustrated by Milton Luros )
" Desire no more than to thy lot may fall.... "
—Chaucer
THE SMALL young man looked at his father, and shook his head.
"But you've got to learn a trade," his father said, exasperated. "I can't afford to send you to college; you know that."
"I've got a trade," he answered.
His father smiled thinly. "What?" he asked patronizingly.
"I'm a rocket pilot," the boy said, his thin jaw stretching the skin of his cheeks.
His father laughed in the way the boy had learned to anticipate and hate. "Yeah," he said. He leaned back in his chair and laughed so hard that the Sunday paper slipped off his wide lap and fell to the floor with an unnoticed stiff rustle.
"A rocket pilot!" His father's derision hooted through the quiet parlor. "A ro— oh, no! —a rocket pilot !"
The boy stared silently at the convulsed figure in the chair. His lips fell into a set white bar, and the corners of his jaws bulged with the tension in their muscles. Suddenly, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the parlor, through the hall, out the front door, to the porch. He stopped there, hesitating a little.
" Marty! " His father's shout followed him out of the parlor. It seemed to act like a hand between the shoulder-blades, because the boy almost ran as he got down the porch stairs.
"What is it, Howard?" Marty's mother asked in a worried voice as she came in from the kitchen, her damp hands rubbing themselves dry against the sides of her housedress.
"Crazy kid," Howard Isherwood muttered. He stared at the figure of his son as the boy reached the end of the walk and turned off into the street. " Come back here! " he shouted. "A rocket pilot," he cursed under his breath. "What's the kid been reading? Claiming he's a rocket pilot!"
Margaret Isherwood's brow furrowed into a faint, bewildered frown.
"But—isn't he a little young? I know they're teaching some very odd things in high schools these days, but it seems to me...."
"Oh, for Pete's sake, Marge, there aren't even any rockets yet! Come back here, you idiot! " Howard Isherwood was standing on his porch, his clenched fists trembling at the ends of his stiffly-held arms.
"Are you sure, Howard?" his wife asked faintly.
"Yes, I'm sure !"
"But, where's he going?"
" Stop that! Get off that bus! YOU hear me? Marty?"
" Howard! Stop acting like a child and talk to me! Where is that boy going?"
Howard Isherwood, stocky, red-faced, forty-seven, and defeated, turned away from the retreating bus and looked at his wife. "I don't know," he told her bitterly, between rushes of air into his jerkily heaving lungs.
"Maybe, the moon," he told her sarcastically.
Martin Isherwood, rocket pilot, weight 102, height 4', 11", had come of age at seventeen.
THE SMALL man looked at his faculty advisor. "No," he said. "I am not interested in working for a degree."
"But—" The faculty advisor unconsciously tapped the point of a yellow pencil against the fresh green of his desk blotter, leaving a rough arc of black flecks. "Look, Ish, you've got to either deliver or get off the basket. This program is just like the others you've followed for nine semesters; nothing but math and engineering. You've taken just about every undergrad course there is in those fields. How long are you going to keep this up?"
"I'm signed up for Astronomy 101," Isherwood pointed out.
The faculty advisor snorted. "A snap course. A breather, after you've studied the same stuff in Celestial Navigation. What's the matter, Ish? Scared of liberal arts?"
Isherwood shook his head. "Uh-unh. Not interested. No time. And that Astronomy course isn't a breather. Different slant from Cee Nav—they won't be talking about stars as check points, but as things in themselves." Something seemed to flicker across his face as he said it.
The advisor missed it; he was too engrossed in his argument. "Still a snap. What's the difference, how you look at a star?"
Isherwood almost winced. "Call it a hobby," he said. He looked down at his watch. "Come on, Dave. You're not going to convince me. You haven't convinced me any of the other times, either, so you might as well give up, don't you think? I've got a half hour before I go on the job. Let's go get some beer."
The advisor, not much older than Isherwood, shrugged, defeated. "Crazy," he muttered. But it was a hot day, and he was as thirsty as the next man.
The bar was air conditioned. The advisor shivered, half grinned, and softly quoted:
"Though I go bare, take ye no care, I am nothing a-cold; I stuff my skin so full within Of jolly good ale and old."
"Huh?" Ish was wearing the look with which he always reacted to the unfamiliar.
The advisor lifted two fingers to the bartender and shrugged. "It's a poem; about four hundred years old, as a matter of fact."
"Oh."
"Don't you give a damn?" the advisor asked, with some peevishness.
Ish laughed shortly, without embarrassment. "Sorry, Dave, but no. It's not my racket."
The advisor cramped his hand a little too tightly around his glass.
"Strictly a specialist, huh?"
Ish nodded. "Call it that."
"But what , for Pete's sake? What is this crazy specialty that blinds you to all the fine things that man has done?"
Ish took a swallow of his beer. "Well, now, if I was a poet, I'd say it was the finest thing that man has ever done."
The advisor's lips twisted in derision. "That's pretty fanatical, isn't it?"
"Uh-huh." Ish waved to the bartender for refills.
THE NAVION took a boiling thermal under its right wing and bucked upward suddenly, tilting at the same time, so that the pretty brunette girl in the other half of the side-by-side was thrown against him. Ish laughed, a sound that came out of his throat as turbulently as that sudden gust of heated air had shot up out of the Everglades, and corrected with a tilt of the wheel.
"Relax, Nan," he said, his words colored by the lingering laughter.
"It's only air; nasty old air."
The girl patted her short hair back into place. "I wish you wouldn't fly this low," she said, half-frightened.
" Low? Call this low?" Ish teased. "Here. Let's drop it a little, and you'll really get an idea of how fast we're going." He nudged the wheel forward, and the Navion dipped its nose in a shallow dive, flattening out thirty feet above the mangrove. The swamp howled with the chug of the dancing pistons and the claw of the propeller at the protesting air, and, from the cockpit, the Everglades resolved into a dirty-green blur that rocketed backward into the slipstream.
"Marty!"
Ish chuckled again. He couldn't have held the ship down much longer, anyway. He tugged back on the wheel suddenly, targeting a cumulous bank with his spinner. His lips peeled back from his teeth, and his jaw set. The Navion went up at the clouds, her engine turning over as fast as it could, her wings cushioned on the rising thrust of another thermal.
And, suddenly, it was as if there were no girl beside him, to be teased, and no air to rock the wings—there were no wings. His face lost all expression. Faint beads of sweat broke out above his eyes and under his nose. "Up," he grunted through his clenched teeth. His fists locked on the wheel. "Up!"
The Navion broke through the cloud, kept going. "Up." If he listened closely, in just the right way, he could almost hear ...
"Marty!"
... the rumble of a louder, prouder engine than the Earth had ever known. He sighed, the breath whispering through his parting teeth, and the aircraft leveled off as he pushed at the wheel with suddenly lax hands. Still half-lost, he turned and looked at the white-faced girl. "Scare you—?" he asked gently.
She nodded. Her fingertips were trembling on his forearm.
"Me too," he said. "Lost my head. Sorry."
"LOOK," HE told the girl, "You got any idea of what it costs to maintain a racing-plane? Everything I own is tied up in the Foo, my ground crew, my trailer, and that scrummy old Ryan that should have been salvaged ten years ago. I can't get married. Suppose I crack the Foo next week? You're dead broke, a widow, and with a funeral to pay for. The only smart thing to do is wait a while."
Nan's eyes clouded, and her lips trembled. "That's what I've been trying to say. Why do you have to win the Vandenberg Cup next week? Why can't you sell the Foo and go into some kind of business? You're a trained pilot."
He had been standing in front of her with his body unconsciously tense from the strain of trying to make her understand. Now he relaxed—more—he slumped—and something began to die in his face, and the first faint lines crept in to show that after it had died, it would not return to life, but would fossilize, leaving his features in the almost unreadable mask that the newspapers would come to know.
"I'm a good bit more than a trained pilot," he said quietly. "The Foo Is a means to an end. After I win the Vandenberg Cup, I can walk into any plant in the States—Douglas, North American, Boeing— any of them—and pick up the Chief Test Pilot's job for the asking. A few of them have as good as said so. After that—" His voice had regained some of its former animation from this new source. Now he broke off, and shrugged. "I've told you all this before."
The girl reached up, as if the physical touch could bring him back to her, and put her fingers around his wrist. "Darling!" she said. "If it's that rocket pilot business again...."
Somehow, his wrist was out of her encircling fingers. "It's always 'that rocket pilot business,'" he said, mimicking her voice. "Damn it, I'm the only trained rocket pilot in the world! I weigh a hundred and fifteen pounds, I'm five feet tall, and I know more navigation and math than anybody the Air Force or Navy have! I can use words like brennschluss and mass-ratio without running over to a copy of Colliers , and I—" He stopped himself, half-smiled, and shrugged again.
"I guess I was kidding myself. After the Cup, there'll be the test job, and after that, there'll be the rockets. You would have had to wait a long time."
All she could think of to say was, "But, Darling, there aren't any man-carrying rockets."
"That's not my fault," he said, and walked away from her.
A week later, he took his stripped-down F-110 across the last line with a scream like that of a hawk that brings its prey safely to its nest.
HE BROUGHT the Mark VII out of her orbit after two days of running rings around the spinning Earth, and the world loved him. He climbed out of the crackling, pinging ship, bearded and dirty, with oil on his face and in his hair, with food stains all over his whipcord, red-eyed, and huskily quiet as he said his few words into the network microphones. And he was not satisfied. There was no peace in his eyes, and his hands moved even more sharply in their expressive gestures as he gave an impromptu report to the technicians who were walking back to the personnel bunker with him.
Nan could see that. Four years ago, he had been different. Four years ago, if she had only known the right words, he wouldn't be so intent now on throwing himself away to the sky.
She was a woman scorned. She had to lie to herself. She broke out of the press section and ran over to him. "Marty!" She brushed past a technician.
He looked at her with faint surprise on his face. "Well, Nan!" he mumbled. But he did not put his hand over her own where it touched his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Marty," she said in a rush. "I didn't understand. I couldn't see how much it all meant." Her face was flushed, and she spoke as rapidly as she could, not noticing that Ish had already gestured away the guards she was afraid would interrupt her.
"But it's all right, now. You got your rockets. You've done it. You trained yourself for it, and now it's over. You've flown your rocket!"
He looked up at her face and shook his head in quiet pity. One of the shocked technicians was trying to pull her away, and Ish made no move to stop him.
Suddenly, he was tired, there was something in him that was trying to break out against his will, and his reaction was that of a child whose candy is being taken away from him after only one bite.
"Rocket!" he shouted into her terrified face. " Rocket! Call that pile of tin a rocket?" He pointed at the weary Mark VII with a trembling arm.
"Who cares about the bloody machines ! If I thought roller-skating would get me there, I would have gone to work in a rink when I was seventeen! It's getting there that counts! Who gives a good goddam how it's done, or what with!"
And he stood there, shaking like a leaf, outraged, while the guards came and got her.
"SIT DOWN, Ish," the Flight Surgeon said.
They always begin that way , Isherwood thought. The standard medical opening. Sit down. What for? Did somebody really believe that anything he might hear would make him faint? He smiled with as much expression as he ever did, and chose a comfortable chair, rolling the white cylinder of a cigarette between his fingers. He glanced at his watch. Fourteen hours, thirty-six minutes, and four days to go.
"How's it?" the FS asked.
Ish grinned and shrugged. "All right." But he didn't usually grin. The realization disquieted him a little.
"Think you'll make it?"
Deliberately, rather than automatically, he fell back into his usual response-pattern. "Don't know. That's what I'm being paid to find out."
"Uh- huh ." The FS tapped the eraser of his pencil against his teeth.
"Look—you want to talk to a man for a while?"
"What man?" It didn't really matter. He had a feeling that anything he said or did now would have a bearing, somehow, on the trip. If they wanted him to do something for them, he was bloody well going to do it.
"Fellow named MacKenzie. Big gun in the head-thumping racket." The Flight Surgeon was trying to be as casual as he could. "Air Force insisted on it, as a matter of fact," he said. "Can't really blame them. After all, it's their beast."
"Don't want any hole-heads denting it up on them, huh?" Ish lit the cigarette and flipped his lighter shut with a snap of the lid. "Sure. Bring him on."
The FS smiled. "Good. He's—uh—he's in the next room. Okay to ask him in right now?"
"Sure." Something flickered in Isherwood's eyes. Amusement at the Flight Surgeon's discomfort was part of it. Worry was some of the rest.
MacKENZIE didn't seem to be taking any notes, or paying any special attention to the answers Ish was giving to his casual questions. But the questions fell into a pattern that was far from casual, and Ish could see the small button-mike of a portable tape-recorder nestling under the man's lapel.
"Been working your own way for the last seventeen years, haven't you?" MacKenzie seemed to mumble in a perfectly clear voice.
Ish nodded.
"How's that?"
The corners of Isherwood's mouth twitched, and he said "Yes" for the recorder's benefit.
"Odd jobs, first of all?"
"Something like that. Anything I could get, the first few months. After I was halfway set up, I stuck to garages and repair shops."
"Out at the airports around Miami, mostly, wasn't it?"
"Ahuh."
"Took some of your pay in flying lessons."
"Right."
MacKenzie's face passed no judgements—he simply hunched in his chair, seemingly dwarfed by the shoulders of his perfectly tailored suit, his stubby fingers twiddling a Phi Beta Kappa key. He was a spare man—only a step or two away from emaciation. Occasionally, he pushed a tired strand of washed-out hair away from his forehead.
Ish answered him truthfully, without more than ordinary reservations. This was the man who could ground him He was dangerous—red-letter dangerous—because of it.
"No family."
Ish shrugged. "Not that I know of. Cut out at seventeen. My father was making good money. He had a pension plan, insurance policies. No need to worry about them."
Ish knew the normal reaction a statement like that should have brought. MacKenzie's face did not go into a blank of repression—but it still passed no judgements.
"How's things between you and the opposite sex?"
"About normal."
"No wife—no steady girl."
"Not a very good idea, in my racket."
MacKenzie grunted. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright in his chair, and swung toward Ish. His lean arm shot out, and his index finger was aimed between Isherwood's eyes. "You can't go!"
Ish was on his feet, his fists clenched, the blood throbbing in his temple veins. "What!" he roared.
MacKenzie seemed to collapse in his chair. The brief commanding burst was over, and his face was apologetic, "Sorry," he said. He seemed genuinely abashed. "Shotgun therapy. Works best, sometimes. You can go, all right; I just wanted to get a fast check on your reactions and drives."
Ish could feel the anger that still ran through him—anger, and more fear than he wanted to admit. "I'm due at a briefing," he said tautly.
"You through with me?"
MacKenzie nodded, still embarrassed. "Sorry."
Ish ignored the man's obvious feelings. He stopped at the door to send a parting stroke at the thing that had frightened him. "Big gun in the psychiatry racket, huh? Well, your professional lingo's slipping, Doc. They did put some learning in my head at college, you know. Therapy, hell! Testing maybe, but you sure didn't do anything to help me!"
"I don't know," MacKenzie said softly. "I wish I did."
Ish slammed the door behind him. He stood in the corridor, jamming a fresh cigarette in his mouth. He threw a glance at his watch. Twelve hours, twenty-two minutes, and four days to go.
Damn! He was late for the briefing. Odd—that fool psychiatrist hadn't seemed to take up that much of his time.
He shrugged. What difference did it make? As he strode down the hall, he lost his momentary puzzlement under the flood of realization that nothing could stop him now, that the last hurdle was beaten. He was going. He was going, and if there were faint echoes of "Marty!" ringing in the dark background of his mind, they only served to push him faster, as they always had. Nothing but death could stop him now.
ISH LOOKED up bitterly at the Receptionist. "No," he said.
"But everybody fills out an application," she protested.
"No. I've got a job," he said as he had been saying for the last half hour.
The Receptionist sighed. "If you'll only read the literature I've given you, you'll understand that all your previous commitments have been cancelled."
"Look, Honey, I've seen company poop sheets before. Now, let's cut this nonsense. I've got to get back."
"But nobody goes back."
"Goddam it, I don't know what kind of place this is, but—" He stopped at the Receptionist's wince, and looked around, his mouth open. The reception desk was solid enough. There were IN and OUT and HOLD baskets on the desk, and the Receptionist seemed to see nothing extraordinary about it. But the room—a big room, he realized—seemed to fade out at the edges, rather than stop at walls. The lighting, too....
"Let's see your back!" he rapped out, his voice high.
She sighed in exasperation. "If you'd read the literature ..." She swiveled her chair slowly.
"No wings," he said.
"Of course not!" she snapped. She brushed her hair away from her forehead without his telling her to. "No horns, either."
"Streamlined, huh?" he said bitterly.
"It's a little different for everybody," she said with unexpected gentleness. "It would have to be, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess so," he admitted slowly. Then he lost his momentary awe, and his posture grew tense again. He glanced down at his wrist. Six hours, forty-seven minutes, and no days to go.
"Who do I see?"
She stared at him, bewildered at the sudden change in his voice. "See?"
"About getting out of here! Come on, come on," he barked, snapping his fingers impatiently. "I haven't got much time."
She smiled sweetly. "Oh, but you do."
"Can it! Who's your Section boss? Get him down here. On the double. Come on!" His face was streaming with perspiration but his voice was firm with the purpose that drove him.
Her lips closed into an angry line, and she jabbed a finger at a desk button. "I'll call the Personnel Manager."
"Thanks," he said sarcastically, and waited impatiently. Odd, the way the Receptionist looked a little like Nan.
THE PERSONNEL Manager wore a perfectly-tailored suit. He strode across the lobby floor toward Ish, his hand outstretched.
"Martin Isherwood!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "I'm very glad to meet you!"
"I'll bet," Ish said dryly, giving the Personnel Manager's hand a short shake. "I've got other ideas. I want out."
"That's all he's been saying for the past forty-five minutes, Sir," the Receptionist said from behind her desk.
The Personnel Manager frowned. "Um. Yes. Well, that's not unprecedented."
"But hardly usual," he added.
Ish found himself liking the man. He had a job to do, and after the preliminary formality of the greeting had been passed, he was ready to buckle down to it. Oh, he—shucks?—the Receptionist wasn't such a bad girl, either. He smiled at her. "Sorry I lost my head," he said.
She smiled back. "It happens."
He took time to give her one more smile and a half-wink, and swung back to the Personnel Manager.
"Now. Let's get this thing straightened out. I've got—" He stopped to look at his watch. "Six hours and a few minutes. They're fueling the beast right now."
"Do you know how much red tape you'd have to cut?"
Ish shook his head. "I don't want to sound nasty, but that's your problem."
The Personnel Manager hesitated. "Look—you feel you've got a job unfinished. Or, anyway, that's the way you'd put it. But, let's face it—that's not really what's galling you. It's not really the job, is it? It's just that you think you've been cheated out of what you devoted your life to."
Ish could feel his jaw muscles bunching. "Don't put words in my mouth!" he snapped. "Just get me back, and we'll split hairs about it when I get around this way again." Suddenly, he found himself pleading. "All I need is a week," he said. "It'll be a rough week—no picnic, no pleasures of the flesh. No smoking, no liquor. I certainly won't be breaking any laws. One week. Get there, putter around for two days, and back again. Then, you can do anything you want to—as long as it doesn't look like the trip's responsible, of course."
The Personnel Manager hesitated. "Suppose—" he began, but Ish interrupted him.
"Look, they need it, down there. They've got to have a target, someplace to go. We're built for it. People have to have—but what am I telling you for. If you don't know, who does?"
The Personnel Manager smiled. "I was about to say something."
Ish stopped, abashed. "Sorry."
He waved the apology away with a short movement of his hand. "You've got to understand that what you've been saying isn't a valid claim. If it were, human history would be very different, wouldn't it?"
"Suppose I showed you something, first? Then, you could decide whether you want to stay, after all."
"How long's it going to take?" Ish flushed under the memory of having actually begged for something.
"Not long," the Personnel Manager said. He half-turned and pointed up at the Earth, hanging just beyond the wall of the crater in which they were suddenly standing.
"Earth," the Personnel Manager said.
Somehow, Ish was not astonished. He looked up at the Earth, touched by cloud and sunlight, marked with ocean and continent, crowned with ice. The unblinking stars filled the night.
He looked around him. The Moon was silent—quiet, patient, waiting. Somewhere, a metal glint against the planet above, if it were only large enough to be seen, was the Station, and the ship for which the Moon had waited.
Ish walked a short distance. He was leaving no tracks in the pumice the ages had sown. But it was the way he had thought of it, nevertheless. It was the way the image had slowly built up in his mind, through the years, through the training, through the work. It was what he had aimed the Navion at, that day over the Everglades.
"It's not the same," he said.
The Personnel Manager sighed.
"Don't you see," Ish said, "It can't be the same. I didn't push the beast up here. There wasn't any feel to it. There wasn't any sound of rockets."
The Personnel Manager sighed again. "There wouldn't be, you know. Taking off from the Station, landing here—vacuum."
Ish shook his head. "There'd still be a sound. Maybe not for anybody else to hear—and, maybe, maybe there would be. There'd be people, back on Earth, who'd hear it."
"All right," the Personnel Manager said. His face was grave, but his eyes were shining a little.
"ISH! HEY, Ish, wake up, will you!" There was a hand on his shoulder.
"Will you get a load of this guy!" the voice said to someone else. "An hour to go, and he's sleeping like the dead."
Ish willed his eyes to open. He felt his heart begin to move again, felt the blood sluggishly beginning to surge into his veins. His hands and feet were very cold.
"Come on, Ish," the Crew Chief said.
"All right," he mumbled. "Okay. I'm up." He sat on the edge of his bunk looking down at his hands. They were blue under the fingernails. He sighed, feeling the air moving down into his lungs.
Stiffly, he got to his feet and began to climb into his G suit.
The Moon opened its face to him. From where he lay, strapped into the control seat in the forward bubble, he looked at it emotionlessly, and began to brake for a landing.
He looked for footprints in the crater, though he knew he hadn't left any. Earth was a familiar sight over his right shoulder.
He brought the twin-bubble beast back to the station. They threw spotlights on it, for the TV pickups, and thrust microphones at him. He could see broad grins behind the faceplates of the suits the docking crew wore, and they were pounding his back. The interior of the Station was a babbling of voices, a tumult of congratulations. He looked at it all, dead-faced, his eyes empty.
"It was easy," he said over a world-wide network, and pushed the press representatives out of his way.
MacKENZIE was waiting for him in the crew section. Ish flicked his stolid eyes at him, shrugged, and stripped out of his clothes. He pulled a coverall out of a locker and climbed into it, then went over to his bunk and lay down on his side, facing the bulkhead.
"Ish."
It was MacKenzie, bending over him.
Ish grunted.
"It wasn't any good was it? You'd done it all before; you'd been there."
He was past emotions. "Yeah?"
"We couldn't take the chance." MacKenzie was trying desperately to explain. "You were the best there was—but you'd done something to yourself by becoming the best. You shut yourself off from your family. You had no close friends, no women. You had no other interests. You were a rocket pilot—nothing else. You've never read an adult book that wasn't a text; you've never listened to a symphony except by accident. You don't know Rembrandt from Norman Rockwell. Nothing. No ties, no props, nothing to sustain you if something went wrong. We couldn't take the chance, Ish! "
"So?"
"There was too much at stake. If we let you go, you might have forgotten to come back. You might have just kept going."
He remembered the time with the Navion , and nodded. "I might have."
"I hypnotized you," MacKenzie said. "You were never dead. I don't know what the details of your hallucination were, but the important part came through, all right. You thought you'd been to the Moon before. It took all the adventure out of the actual flight; it was just a workaday trip."
"I said it was easy," Ish said.
"There was no other way to do it! I had to cancel out the thrill that comes from challenging the unknown. You knew what death was like, and you knew what the Moon was like. Can you understand why I had to do it?"
"Yeah. Now get out before I kill you. "
He didn't live too long after that. He never entered a rocket again—he died on the Station, and was buried in space, while a grateful world mourned him. I wonder what it was like, in his mind, when he really died. But he spent the days he had, after the trip, just sitting at an observatory port, cursing the traitor stars with his dead and purposeless eyes.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected without note.
This etext was produced from Dynamic Science Fiction, January, 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
Question:
What is the significance of other people's words about the rocket?
Answer:
|
[
"One of the greatest challenges that Martin faces in his journey to become a rocket pilot is the negativity that comes from other people. Almost everyone that Martin meets advises him that he is wasting his life, and that he should focus on something more realistic that can allow him to have a family. His parents, his girlfriend, and Mackenzie all tell him that he should settle for a plane pilot or should focus his career on something else, something less risky. These words only help to make Martin more determined to become a pilot, because he wants to prove everyone wrong. ",
"Other people’s words about the rocket is significant because it reveals how far gone Ish already is in comparison to everyone else. When Nan mentions that he has already flown a rocket, Ish yells at her that it is not enough because it is not considered a true rocket. Even when the Flight Surgeon speaks to him, he is mostly impatient about the rocket. When MacKenzie brings up the rocket and his goal later, it shows the significance of what Ish has done to achieve his dream. He has no family, friends, or has formed any sort of meaningful relationship. In addition, he has also never touched another book or literature that was not related to space, math, or engineering. The other people’s words about the rocket only illustrate Ish’s own stunted development out of his obsession with becoming a pilot for it. ",
"People’s comments about a man-carrying rocket that didn’t exist when Martin was a young boy only encouraged him to work harder to achieve his dream. When his dad bursts out laughing at his words about becoming a rocket pilot, little Marty walks away while his parents are ordering him to come back. He remembers their screams when he realizes that he can go to space after the conversation with Mackenzie. When Nan tells him that there are no man-carrying rockets, he says that it’s not his problem, implying that they will be invented at some point and he will be the one who travels to the Moon on one of them. When several years later, she tells him happily that he’s flown his rocket - he becomes angry. Martin shows that he’s way more obsessed now and doesn’t really care about the means of transport that will take him to the Moon. What he cares about is the thrill of the unknown. ",
"Throughout the story, whenever Martin Isherwood, a trained pilot who has been dreaming of going to the moon, talks about his dream, people either do not believe in him or misunderstand him. When people try to convince Martin to pursue another career or face reality, they always say that there is no man-carrying rocket in the world, to which Martin always responds with an answer that it is not his problem. However, these words suggest that Martin's dream is unfulfillable initially, but he does not believe in it and keeps his pursuit until his death. These words about the nonexistence of the man-carrying rocket imply the consequence of the story that all of Martin's journey is imaginary and hallucinated. His dream ends up being a joke to himself."
] |
40968
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He had but one ambition, one desire: to pilot the first manned rocket to the moon. And he was prepared as no man had ever prepared himself before....
DESIRE NO MORE
by Algis Budrys
( illustrated by Milton Luros )
" Desire no more than to thy lot may fall.... "
—Chaucer
THE SMALL young man looked at his father, and shook his head.
"But you've got to learn a trade," his father said, exasperated. "I can't afford to send you to college; you know that."
"I've got a trade," he answered.
His father smiled thinly. "What?" he asked patronizingly.
"I'm a rocket pilot," the boy said, his thin jaw stretching the skin of his cheeks.
His father laughed in the way the boy had learned to anticipate and hate. "Yeah," he said. He leaned back in his chair and laughed so hard that the Sunday paper slipped off his wide lap and fell to the floor with an unnoticed stiff rustle.
"A rocket pilot!" His father's derision hooted through the quiet parlor. "A ro— oh, no! —a rocket pilot !"
The boy stared silently at the convulsed figure in the chair. His lips fell into a set white bar, and the corners of his jaws bulged with the tension in their muscles. Suddenly, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the parlor, through the hall, out the front door, to the porch. He stopped there, hesitating a little.
" Marty! " His father's shout followed him out of the parlor. It seemed to act like a hand between the shoulder-blades, because the boy almost ran as he got down the porch stairs.
"What is it, Howard?" Marty's mother asked in a worried voice as she came in from the kitchen, her damp hands rubbing themselves dry against the sides of her housedress.
"Crazy kid," Howard Isherwood muttered. He stared at the figure of his son as the boy reached the end of the walk and turned off into the street. " Come back here! " he shouted. "A rocket pilot," he cursed under his breath. "What's the kid been reading? Claiming he's a rocket pilot!"
Margaret Isherwood's brow furrowed into a faint, bewildered frown.
"But—isn't he a little young? I know they're teaching some very odd things in high schools these days, but it seems to me...."
"Oh, for Pete's sake, Marge, there aren't even any rockets yet! Come back here, you idiot! " Howard Isherwood was standing on his porch, his clenched fists trembling at the ends of his stiffly-held arms.
"Are you sure, Howard?" his wife asked faintly.
"Yes, I'm sure !"
"But, where's he going?"
" Stop that! Get off that bus! YOU hear me? Marty?"
" Howard! Stop acting like a child and talk to me! Where is that boy going?"
Howard Isherwood, stocky, red-faced, forty-seven, and defeated, turned away from the retreating bus and looked at his wife. "I don't know," he told her bitterly, between rushes of air into his jerkily heaving lungs.
"Maybe, the moon," he told her sarcastically.
Martin Isherwood, rocket pilot, weight 102, height 4', 11", had come of age at seventeen.
THE SMALL man looked at his faculty advisor. "No," he said. "I am not interested in working for a degree."
"But—" The faculty advisor unconsciously tapped the point of a yellow pencil against the fresh green of his desk blotter, leaving a rough arc of black flecks. "Look, Ish, you've got to either deliver or get off the basket. This program is just like the others you've followed for nine semesters; nothing but math and engineering. You've taken just about every undergrad course there is in those fields. How long are you going to keep this up?"
"I'm signed up for Astronomy 101," Isherwood pointed out.
The faculty advisor snorted. "A snap course. A breather, after you've studied the same stuff in Celestial Navigation. What's the matter, Ish? Scared of liberal arts?"
Isherwood shook his head. "Uh-unh. Not interested. No time. And that Astronomy course isn't a breather. Different slant from Cee Nav—they won't be talking about stars as check points, but as things in themselves." Something seemed to flicker across his face as he said it.
The advisor missed it; he was too engrossed in his argument. "Still a snap. What's the difference, how you look at a star?"
Isherwood almost winced. "Call it a hobby," he said. He looked down at his watch. "Come on, Dave. You're not going to convince me. You haven't convinced me any of the other times, either, so you might as well give up, don't you think? I've got a half hour before I go on the job. Let's go get some beer."
The advisor, not much older than Isherwood, shrugged, defeated. "Crazy," he muttered. But it was a hot day, and he was as thirsty as the next man.
The bar was air conditioned. The advisor shivered, half grinned, and softly quoted:
"Though I go bare, take ye no care, I am nothing a-cold; I stuff my skin so full within Of jolly good ale and old."
"Huh?" Ish was wearing the look with which he always reacted to the unfamiliar.
The advisor lifted two fingers to the bartender and shrugged. "It's a poem; about four hundred years old, as a matter of fact."
"Oh."
"Don't you give a damn?" the advisor asked, with some peevishness.
Ish laughed shortly, without embarrassment. "Sorry, Dave, but no. It's not my racket."
The advisor cramped his hand a little too tightly around his glass.
"Strictly a specialist, huh?"
Ish nodded. "Call it that."
"But what , for Pete's sake? What is this crazy specialty that blinds you to all the fine things that man has done?"
Ish took a swallow of his beer. "Well, now, if I was a poet, I'd say it was the finest thing that man has ever done."
The advisor's lips twisted in derision. "That's pretty fanatical, isn't it?"
"Uh-huh." Ish waved to the bartender for refills.
THE NAVION took a boiling thermal under its right wing and bucked upward suddenly, tilting at the same time, so that the pretty brunette girl in the other half of the side-by-side was thrown against him. Ish laughed, a sound that came out of his throat as turbulently as that sudden gust of heated air had shot up out of the Everglades, and corrected with a tilt of the wheel.
"Relax, Nan," he said, his words colored by the lingering laughter.
"It's only air; nasty old air."
The girl patted her short hair back into place. "I wish you wouldn't fly this low," she said, half-frightened.
" Low? Call this low?" Ish teased. "Here. Let's drop it a little, and you'll really get an idea of how fast we're going." He nudged the wheel forward, and the Navion dipped its nose in a shallow dive, flattening out thirty feet above the mangrove. The swamp howled with the chug of the dancing pistons and the claw of the propeller at the protesting air, and, from the cockpit, the Everglades resolved into a dirty-green blur that rocketed backward into the slipstream.
"Marty!"
Ish chuckled again. He couldn't have held the ship down much longer, anyway. He tugged back on the wheel suddenly, targeting a cumulous bank with his spinner. His lips peeled back from his teeth, and his jaw set. The Navion went up at the clouds, her engine turning over as fast as it could, her wings cushioned on the rising thrust of another thermal.
And, suddenly, it was as if there were no girl beside him, to be teased, and no air to rock the wings—there were no wings. His face lost all expression. Faint beads of sweat broke out above his eyes and under his nose. "Up," he grunted through his clenched teeth. His fists locked on the wheel. "Up!"
The Navion broke through the cloud, kept going. "Up." If he listened closely, in just the right way, he could almost hear ...
"Marty!"
... the rumble of a louder, prouder engine than the Earth had ever known. He sighed, the breath whispering through his parting teeth, and the aircraft leveled off as he pushed at the wheel with suddenly lax hands. Still half-lost, he turned and looked at the white-faced girl. "Scare you—?" he asked gently.
She nodded. Her fingertips were trembling on his forearm.
"Me too," he said. "Lost my head. Sorry."
"LOOK," HE told the girl, "You got any idea of what it costs to maintain a racing-plane? Everything I own is tied up in the Foo, my ground crew, my trailer, and that scrummy old Ryan that should have been salvaged ten years ago. I can't get married. Suppose I crack the Foo next week? You're dead broke, a widow, and with a funeral to pay for. The only smart thing to do is wait a while."
Nan's eyes clouded, and her lips trembled. "That's what I've been trying to say. Why do you have to win the Vandenberg Cup next week? Why can't you sell the Foo and go into some kind of business? You're a trained pilot."
He had been standing in front of her with his body unconsciously tense from the strain of trying to make her understand. Now he relaxed—more—he slumped—and something began to die in his face, and the first faint lines crept in to show that after it had died, it would not return to life, but would fossilize, leaving his features in the almost unreadable mask that the newspapers would come to know.
"I'm a good bit more than a trained pilot," he said quietly. "The Foo Is a means to an end. After I win the Vandenberg Cup, I can walk into any plant in the States—Douglas, North American, Boeing— any of them—and pick up the Chief Test Pilot's job for the asking. A few of them have as good as said so. After that—" His voice had regained some of its former animation from this new source. Now he broke off, and shrugged. "I've told you all this before."
The girl reached up, as if the physical touch could bring him back to her, and put her fingers around his wrist. "Darling!" she said. "If it's that rocket pilot business again...."
Somehow, his wrist was out of her encircling fingers. "It's always 'that rocket pilot business,'" he said, mimicking her voice. "Damn it, I'm the only trained rocket pilot in the world! I weigh a hundred and fifteen pounds, I'm five feet tall, and I know more navigation and math than anybody the Air Force or Navy have! I can use words like brennschluss and mass-ratio without running over to a copy of Colliers , and I—" He stopped himself, half-smiled, and shrugged again.
"I guess I was kidding myself. After the Cup, there'll be the test job, and after that, there'll be the rockets. You would have had to wait a long time."
All she could think of to say was, "But, Darling, there aren't any man-carrying rockets."
"That's not my fault," he said, and walked away from her.
A week later, he took his stripped-down F-110 across the last line with a scream like that of a hawk that brings its prey safely to its nest.
HE BROUGHT the Mark VII out of her orbit after two days of running rings around the spinning Earth, and the world loved him. He climbed out of the crackling, pinging ship, bearded and dirty, with oil on his face and in his hair, with food stains all over his whipcord, red-eyed, and huskily quiet as he said his few words into the network microphones. And he was not satisfied. There was no peace in his eyes, and his hands moved even more sharply in their expressive gestures as he gave an impromptu report to the technicians who were walking back to the personnel bunker with him.
Nan could see that. Four years ago, he had been different. Four years ago, if she had only known the right words, he wouldn't be so intent now on throwing himself away to the sky.
She was a woman scorned. She had to lie to herself. She broke out of the press section and ran over to him. "Marty!" She brushed past a technician.
He looked at her with faint surprise on his face. "Well, Nan!" he mumbled. But he did not put his hand over her own where it touched his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Marty," she said in a rush. "I didn't understand. I couldn't see how much it all meant." Her face was flushed, and she spoke as rapidly as she could, not noticing that Ish had already gestured away the guards she was afraid would interrupt her.
"But it's all right, now. You got your rockets. You've done it. You trained yourself for it, and now it's over. You've flown your rocket!"
He looked up at her face and shook his head in quiet pity. One of the shocked technicians was trying to pull her away, and Ish made no move to stop him.
Suddenly, he was tired, there was something in him that was trying to break out against his will, and his reaction was that of a child whose candy is being taken away from him after only one bite.
"Rocket!" he shouted into her terrified face. " Rocket! Call that pile of tin a rocket?" He pointed at the weary Mark VII with a trembling arm.
"Who cares about the bloody machines ! If I thought roller-skating would get me there, I would have gone to work in a rink when I was seventeen! It's getting there that counts! Who gives a good goddam how it's done, or what with!"
And he stood there, shaking like a leaf, outraged, while the guards came and got her.
"SIT DOWN, Ish," the Flight Surgeon said.
They always begin that way , Isherwood thought. The standard medical opening. Sit down. What for? Did somebody really believe that anything he might hear would make him faint? He smiled with as much expression as he ever did, and chose a comfortable chair, rolling the white cylinder of a cigarette between his fingers. He glanced at his watch. Fourteen hours, thirty-six minutes, and four days to go.
"How's it?" the FS asked.
Ish grinned and shrugged. "All right." But he didn't usually grin. The realization disquieted him a little.
"Think you'll make it?"
Deliberately, rather than automatically, he fell back into his usual response-pattern. "Don't know. That's what I'm being paid to find out."
"Uh- huh ." The FS tapped the eraser of his pencil against his teeth.
"Look—you want to talk to a man for a while?"
"What man?" It didn't really matter. He had a feeling that anything he said or did now would have a bearing, somehow, on the trip. If they wanted him to do something for them, he was bloody well going to do it.
"Fellow named MacKenzie. Big gun in the head-thumping racket." The Flight Surgeon was trying to be as casual as he could. "Air Force insisted on it, as a matter of fact," he said. "Can't really blame them. After all, it's their beast."
"Don't want any hole-heads denting it up on them, huh?" Ish lit the cigarette and flipped his lighter shut with a snap of the lid. "Sure. Bring him on."
The FS smiled. "Good. He's—uh—he's in the next room. Okay to ask him in right now?"
"Sure." Something flickered in Isherwood's eyes. Amusement at the Flight Surgeon's discomfort was part of it. Worry was some of the rest.
MacKENZIE didn't seem to be taking any notes, or paying any special attention to the answers Ish was giving to his casual questions. But the questions fell into a pattern that was far from casual, and Ish could see the small button-mike of a portable tape-recorder nestling under the man's lapel.
"Been working your own way for the last seventeen years, haven't you?" MacKenzie seemed to mumble in a perfectly clear voice.
Ish nodded.
"How's that?"
The corners of Isherwood's mouth twitched, and he said "Yes" for the recorder's benefit.
"Odd jobs, first of all?"
"Something like that. Anything I could get, the first few months. After I was halfway set up, I stuck to garages and repair shops."
"Out at the airports around Miami, mostly, wasn't it?"
"Ahuh."
"Took some of your pay in flying lessons."
"Right."
MacKenzie's face passed no judgements—he simply hunched in his chair, seemingly dwarfed by the shoulders of his perfectly tailored suit, his stubby fingers twiddling a Phi Beta Kappa key. He was a spare man—only a step or two away from emaciation. Occasionally, he pushed a tired strand of washed-out hair away from his forehead.
Ish answered him truthfully, without more than ordinary reservations. This was the man who could ground him He was dangerous—red-letter dangerous—because of it.
"No family."
Ish shrugged. "Not that I know of. Cut out at seventeen. My father was making good money. He had a pension plan, insurance policies. No need to worry about them."
Ish knew the normal reaction a statement like that should have brought. MacKenzie's face did not go into a blank of repression—but it still passed no judgements.
"How's things between you and the opposite sex?"
"About normal."
"No wife—no steady girl."
"Not a very good idea, in my racket."
MacKenzie grunted. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright in his chair, and swung toward Ish. His lean arm shot out, and his index finger was aimed between Isherwood's eyes. "You can't go!"
Ish was on his feet, his fists clenched, the blood throbbing in his temple veins. "What!" he roared.
MacKenzie seemed to collapse in his chair. The brief commanding burst was over, and his face was apologetic, "Sorry," he said. He seemed genuinely abashed. "Shotgun therapy. Works best, sometimes. You can go, all right; I just wanted to get a fast check on your reactions and drives."
Ish could feel the anger that still ran through him—anger, and more fear than he wanted to admit. "I'm due at a briefing," he said tautly.
"You through with me?"
MacKenzie nodded, still embarrassed. "Sorry."
Ish ignored the man's obvious feelings. He stopped at the door to send a parting stroke at the thing that had frightened him. "Big gun in the psychiatry racket, huh? Well, your professional lingo's slipping, Doc. They did put some learning in my head at college, you know. Therapy, hell! Testing maybe, but you sure didn't do anything to help me!"
"I don't know," MacKenzie said softly. "I wish I did."
Ish slammed the door behind him. He stood in the corridor, jamming a fresh cigarette in his mouth. He threw a glance at his watch. Twelve hours, twenty-two minutes, and four days to go.
Damn! He was late for the briefing. Odd—that fool psychiatrist hadn't seemed to take up that much of his time.
He shrugged. What difference did it make? As he strode down the hall, he lost his momentary puzzlement under the flood of realization that nothing could stop him now, that the last hurdle was beaten. He was going. He was going, and if there were faint echoes of "Marty!" ringing in the dark background of his mind, they only served to push him faster, as they always had. Nothing but death could stop him now.
ISH LOOKED up bitterly at the Receptionist. "No," he said.
"But everybody fills out an application," she protested.
"No. I've got a job," he said as he had been saying for the last half hour.
The Receptionist sighed. "If you'll only read the literature I've given you, you'll understand that all your previous commitments have been cancelled."
"Look, Honey, I've seen company poop sheets before. Now, let's cut this nonsense. I've got to get back."
"But nobody goes back."
"Goddam it, I don't know what kind of place this is, but—" He stopped at the Receptionist's wince, and looked around, his mouth open. The reception desk was solid enough. There were IN and OUT and HOLD baskets on the desk, and the Receptionist seemed to see nothing extraordinary about it. But the room—a big room, he realized—seemed to fade out at the edges, rather than stop at walls. The lighting, too....
"Let's see your back!" he rapped out, his voice high.
She sighed in exasperation. "If you'd read the literature ..." She swiveled her chair slowly.
"No wings," he said.
"Of course not!" she snapped. She brushed her hair away from her forehead without his telling her to. "No horns, either."
"Streamlined, huh?" he said bitterly.
"It's a little different for everybody," she said with unexpected gentleness. "It would have to be, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess so," he admitted slowly. Then he lost his momentary awe, and his posture grew tense again. He glanced down at his wrist. Six hours, forty-seven minutes, and no days to go.
"Who do I see?"
She stared at him, bewildered at the sudden change in his voice. "See?"
"About getting out of here! Come on, come on," he barked, snapping his fingers impatiently. "I haven't got much time."
She smiled sweetly. "Oh, but you do."
"Can it! Who's your Section boss? Get him down here. On the double. Come on!" His face was streaming with perspiration but his voice was firm with the purpose that drove him.
Her lips closed into an angry line, and she jabbed a finger at a desk button. "I'll call the Personnel Manager."
"Thanks," he said sarcastically, and waited impatiently. Odd, the way the Receptionist looked a little like Nan.
THE PERSONNEL Manager wore a perfectly-tailored suit. He strode across the lobby floor toward Ish, his hand outstretched.
"Martin Isherwood!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "I'm very glad to meet you!"
"I'll bet," Ish said dryly, giving the Personnel Manager's hand a short shake. "I've got other ideas. I want out."
"That's all he's been saying for the past forty-five minutes, Sir," the Receptionist said from behind her desk.
The Personnel Manager frowned. "Um. Yes. Well, that's not unprecedented."
"But hardly usual," he added.
Ish found himself liking the man. He had a job to do, and after the preliminary formality of the greeting had been passed, he was ready to buckle down to it. Oh, he—shucks?—the Receptionist wasn't such a bad girl, either. He smiled at her. "Sorry I lost my head," he said.
She smiled back. "It happens."
He took time to give her one more smile and a half-wink, and swung back to the Personnel Manager.
"Now. Let's get this thing straightened out. I've got—" He stopped to look at his watch. "Six hours and a few minutes. They're fueling the beast right now."
"Do you know how much red tape you'd have to cut?"
Ish shook his head. "I don't want to sound nasty, but that's your problem."
The Personnel Manager hesitated. "Look—you feel you've got a job unfinished. Or, anyway, that's the way you'd put it. But, let's face it—that's not really what's galling you. It's not really the job, is it? It's just that you think you've been cheated out of what you devoted your life to."
Ish could feel his jaw muscles bunching. "Don't put words in my mouth!" he snapped. "Just get me back, and we'll split hairs about it when I get around this way again." Suddenly, he found himself pleading. "All I need is a week," he said. "It'll be a rough week—no picnic, no pleasures of the flesh. No smoking, no liquor. I certainly won't be breaking any laws. One week. Get there, putter around for two days, and back again. Then, you can do anything you want to—as long as it doesn't look like the trip's responsible, of course."
The Personnel Manager hesitated. "Suppose—" he began, but Ish interrupted him.
"Look, they need it, down there. They've got to have a target, someplace to go. We're built for it. People have to have—but what am I telling you for. If you don't know, who does?"
The Personnel Manager smiled. "I was about to say something."
Ish stopped, abashed. "Sorry."
He waved the apology away with a short movement of his hand. "You've got to understand that what you've been saying isn't a valid claim. If it were, human history would be very different, wouldn't it?"
"Suppose I showed you something, first? Then, you could decide whether you want to stay, after all."
"How long's it going to take?" Ish flushed under the memory of having actually begged for something.
"Not long," the Personnel Manager said. He half-turned and pointed up at the Earth, hanging just beyond the wall of the crater in which they were suddenly standing.
"Earth," the Personnel Manager said.
Somehow, Ish was not astonished. He looked up at the Earth, touched by cloud and sunlight, marked with ocean and continent, crowned with ice. The unblinking stars filled the night.
He looked around him. The Moon was silent—quiet, patient, waiting. Somewhere, a metal glint against the planet above, if it were only large enough to be seen, was the Station, and the ship for which the Moon had waited.
Ish walked a short distance. He was leaving no tracks in the pumice the ages had sown. But it was the way he had thought of it, nevertheless. It was the way the image had slowly built up in his mind, through the years, through the training, through the work. It was what he had aimed the Navion at, that day over the Everglades.
"It's not the same," he said.
The Personnel Manager sighed.
"Don't you see," Ish said, "It can't be the same. I didn't push the beast up here. There wasn't any feel to it. There wasn't any sound of rockets."
The Personnel Manager sighed again. "There wouldn't be, you know. Taking off from the Station, landing here—vacuum."
Ish shook his head. "There'd still be a sound. Maybe not for anybody else to hear—and, maybe, maybe there would be. There'd be people, back on Earth, who'd hear it."
"All right," the Personnel Manager said. His face was grave, but his eyes were shining a little.
"ISH! HEY, Ish, wake up, will you!" There was a hand on his shoulder.
"Will you get a load of this guy!" the voice said to someone else. "An hour to go, and he's sleeping like the dead."
Ish willed his eyes to open. He felt his heart begin to move again, felt the blood sluggishly beginning to surge into his veins. His hands and feet were very cold.
"Come on, Ish," the Crew Chief said.
"All right," he mumbled. "Okay. I'm up." He sat on the edge of his bunk looking down at his hands. They were blue under the fingernails. He sighed, feeling the air moving down into his lungs.
Stiffly, he got to his feet and began to climb into his G suit.
The Moon opened its face to him. From where he lay, strapped into the control seat in the forward bubble, he looked at it emotionlessly, and began to brake for a landing.
He looked for footprints in the crater, though he knew he hadn't left any. Earth was a familiar sight over his right shoulder.
He brought the twin-bubble beast back to the station. They threw spotlights on it, for the TV pickups, and thrust microphones at him. He could see broad grins behind the faceplates of the suits the docking crew wore, and they were pounding his back. The interior of the Station was a babbling of voices, a tumult of congratulations. He looked at it all, dead-faced, his eyes empty.
"It was easy," he said over a world-wide network, and pushed the press representatives out of his way.
MacKENZIE was waiting for him in the crew section. Ish flicked his stolid eyes at him, shrugged, and stripped out of his clothes. He pulled a coverall out of a locker and climbed into it, then went over to his bunk and lay down on his side, facing the bulkhead.
"Ish."
It was MacKenzie, bending over him.
Ish grunted.
"It wasn't any good was it? You'd done it all before; you'd been there."
He was past emotions. "Yeah?"
"We couldn't take the chance." MacKenzie was trying desperately to explain. "You were the best there was—but you'd done something to yourself by becoming the best. You shut yourself off from your family. You had no close friends, no women. You had no other interests. You were a rocket pilot—nothing else. You've never read an adult book that wasn't a text; you've never listened to a symphony except by accident. You don't know Rembrandt from Norman Rockwell. Nothing. No ties, no props, nothing to sustain you if something went wrong. We couldn't take the chance, Ish! "
"So?"
"There was too much at stake. If we let you go, you might have forgotten to come back. You might have just kept going."
He remembered the time with the Navion , and nodded. "I might have."
"I hypnotized you," MacKenzie said. "You were never dead. I don't know what the details of your hallucination were, but the important part came through, all right. You thought you'd been to the Moon before. It took all the adventure out of the actual flight; it was just a workaday trip."
"I said it was easy," Ish said.
"There was no other way to do it! I had to cancel out the thrill that comes from challenging the unknown. You knew what death was like, and you knew what the Moon was like. Can you understand why I had to do it?"
"Yeah. Now get out before I kill you. "
He didn't live too long after that. He never entered a rocket again—he died on the Station, and was buried in space, while a grateful world mourned him. I wonder what it was like, in his mind, when he really died. But he spent the days he had, after the trip, just sitting at an observatory port, cursing the traitor stars with his dead and purposeless eyes.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected without note.
This etext was produced from Dynamic Science Fiction, January, 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
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What is the plot of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Time In the Round by Fritz Leiber.
Relevant chunks:
TIME IN THE ROUND
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by DILLON
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction May 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Poor Butcher suffered more than any dictator in history: everybody gave in to him because he was so puny and they were so impregnable!
From the other end of the Avenue of Wisdom that led across the Peace Park, a gray, hairless, heavily built dog was barking soundlessly at the towering crystal glory of the Time Theater. For a moment, the effect was almost frightening: a silent picture of the beginning of civilization challenging the end of it. Then a small boy caught up with the dog and it rolled over enthusiastically at his feet and the scene was normal again.
The small boy, however, seemed definitely pre-civilization. He studied the dog coldly and then inserted a thin metal tube under its eyelid and poked. The dog wagged its stumpy tail. The boy frowned, tightened his grip on the tube and jabbed hard. The dog's tail thumped the cushiony pavement and the four paws beat the air. The boy shortened his grip and suddenly jabbed the dog several times in the stomach. The stiff tube rebounded from the gray, hairless hide. The dog's face split in an upside-down grin, revealing formidable ivory fangs across which a long black tongue lolled.
The boy regarded the tongue speculatively and pocketed the metal tube with a grimace of utter disgust. He did not look up when someone called: "Hi, Butch! Sic 'em, Darter, sic 'em!"
A larger small boy and a somewhat older one were approaching across the luxurious, neatly cropped grass, preceded by a hurtling shape that, except for a black hide, was a replica of Butch's gray dog.
Butch shrugged his shoulders resignedly and said in a bored voice:
"Kill 'em, Brute."
The gray dog hurled itself on Darter. Jaws gaped to get a hold on necks so short and thick as to be mere courtesy terms. They whirled like a fanged merry-go-round. Three more dogs, one white, one slate blue and one pink, hurried up and tried to climb aboard.
Butch yawned.
"What's the matter?" inquired Darter's master. "I thought you liked dog fights, Butch."
"I do like dog fights," Butch said somberly, without looking around. "I don't like uninj fights. They're just a pretend, like everything else. Nobody gets hurt. And look here, Joggy—and you, too, Hal—when you talk to me, don't just say Butch. It's the Butcher, see?"
"That's not exactly a functional name," Hal observed with the judiciousness of budding maturity, while Joggy said agreeably: "All right, Butcher, I suppose you'd like to have lived way back when people were hurting each other all the time so the blood came out?"
"I certainly would," the Butcher replied. As Joggy and Hal turned back skeptically to watch the fight, he took out the metal tube, screwed up his face in a dreadful frown and jabbed himself in the hand. He squeaked with pain and whisked the tube out of sight.
"A kid can't do anything any more," he announced dramatically. "Can't break anything except the breakables they give him to break on purpose. Can't get dirty except in the dirt-pen—and they graduate him from that when he's two. Can't even be bitten by an uninj—it's contraprogrammed."
"Where'd you ever get so fixated on dirt?" Hal asked in a gentle voice acquired from a robot adolescer.
"I've been reading a book about a kid called Huckleberry Finn," the Butcher replied airily. "A swell book. That guy got dirtier than anything." His eyes became dreamy. "He even ate out of a garbage pail."
"What's a garbage pail?"
"I don't know, but it sounds great."
The battling uninjes careened into them. Brute had Darter by the ear and was whirling him around hilariously.
"Aw, quit it, Brute," the Butcher said in annoyance.
Brute obediently loosed his hold and returned to his master, paying no attention to his adversary's efforts to renew the fight.
The Butcher looked Brute squarely in the eyes. "You're making too much of a rumpus," he said. "I want to think."
He kicked Brute in the face. The dog squirmed joyously at his feet.
"Look," Joggy said, "you wouldn't hurt an uninj, for instance, would you?"
"How can you hurt something that's uninjurable?" the Butcher demanded scathingly. "An uninj isn't really a dog. It's just a lot of circuits and a micropack bedded in hyperplastic." He looked at Brute with guarded wistfulness.
"I don't know about that," Hal put in. "I've heard an uninj is programmed with so many genuine canine reactions that it practically has racial memory."
"I mean if you could hurt an uninj," Joggy amended.
"Well, maybe I wouldn't," the Butcher admitted grudgingly. "But shut up—I want to think."
"About what?" Hal asked with saintly reasonableness.
The Butcher achieved a fearful frown. "When I'm World Director," he said slowly, "I'm going to have warfare again."
"You think so now," Hal told him. "We all do at your age."
"We do not," the Butcher retorted. "I bet you didn't."
"Oh, yes, I was foolish, too," the older boy confessed readily. "All newborn organisms are self-centered and inconsiderate and ruthless. They have to be. That's why we have uninjes to work out on, and death games and fear houses, so that our emotions are cleared for adult conditioning. And it's just the same with newborn civilizations. Why, long after atom power and the space drive were discovered, people kept having wars and revolutions. It took ages to condition them differently. Of course, you can't appreciate it this year, but Man's greatest achievement was when he learned to automatically reject all violent solutions to problems. You'll realize that when you're older."
"I will not!" the Butcher countered hotly. "I'm not going to be a sissy." Hal and Joggy blinked at the unfamiliar word. "And what if we were attacked by bloodthirsty monsters from outside the Solar System?"
"The Space Fleet would take care of them," Hal replied calmly. "That's what it's for. Adults aren't conditioned to reject violent solutions to problems where non-human enemies are concerned. Look at what we did to viruses."
"But what if somebody got at us through the Time Bubble?"
"They can't. It's impossible."
"Yes, but suppose they did all the same."
"You've never been inside the Time Theater—you're not old enough yet—so you just can't know anything about it or about the reasons why it's impossible," Hal replied with friendly factuality. "The Time Bubble is just a viewer. You can only look through it, and just into the past, at that. But you can't travel through it because you can't change the past. Time traveling is a lot of kid stuff."
"I don't care," the Butcher asserted obstinately. "I'm still going to have warfare when I'm World Director."
"They'll condition you out of the idea," Hal assured him.
"They will not. I won't let 'em."
"It doesn't matter what you think now," Hal said with finality. "You'll have an altogether different opinion when you're six."
"Well, what if I will?" the Butcher snapped back. "You don't have to keep telling me about it, do you?"
The others were silent. Joggy began to bounce up and down abstractedly on the resilient pavement. Hal called in his three uninjes and said in soothing tones: "Joggy and I are going to swim over to the Time Theater. Want to walk us there, Butch?"
Butch scowled.
"How about it, Butch?"
Still Butch did not seem to hear.
The older boy shrugged and said: "Oh, well, how about it—Butcher?"
The Butcher swung around. "They won't let me in the Time Theater. You said so yourself."
"You could walk us over there."
"Well, maybe I will and maybe I won't."
"While you're deciding, we'll get swimming. Come along, Joggy."
Still scowling, the Butcher took a white soapy crayon from the bulging pocket in his silver shorts. Pressed into the pavement, it made a black mark. He scrawled pensively: KEEP ON THE GRASS.
He gazed at his handiwork. No, darn it, that was just what grownups wanted you to do. This grass couldn't be hurt. You couldn't pull it up or tear it off; it hurt your fingers to try. A rub with the side of the crayon removed the sign. He thought for a moment, then wrote: KEEP OFF THE GRASS.
With an untroubled countenance, he sprang up and hurried after the others.
Joggy and the older boy were swimming lazily through the air at shoulder height. In the pavement directly under each of them was a wide, saucer-shaped depression which swam along with them. The uninjes avoided the depressions. Darter was strutting on his hind legs, looking up inquiringly at his master.
"Gimme a ride, Hal, gimme a ride!" the Butcher called. The older boy ignored him. "Aw, gimme a ride, Joggy."
"Oh, all right." Joggy touched the small box attached to the front of his broad metal harness and dropped lightly to the ground. The Butcher climbed on his back. There was a moment of rocking and pitching, during which each boy accused the other of trying to upset them.
Then the Butcher got his balance and they began to swim along securely, though at a level several inches lower. Brute sprang up after his master and was invisibly rebuffed. He retired baffled, but a few minutes later, he was amusing himself by furious futile efforts to climb the hemispherical repulsor field.
Slowly the little cavalcade of boys and uninjes proceeded down the Avenue of Wisdom. Hal amused himself by stroking toward a tree. When he was about four feet from it, he was gently bounced away.
It was really a more tiring method of transportation than walking and quite useless against the wind. True, by rocking the repulsor hemisphere backward, you could get a brief forward push, but it would be nullified when you rocked forward. A slow swimming stroke was the simplest way to make progress.
The general sensation, however, was delightful and levitators were among the most prized of toys.
"There's the Theater," Joggy announced.
"I know ," the Butcher said irritably.
But even he sounded a little solemn and subdued. From the Great Ramp to the topmost airy finial, the Time Theater was the dream of a god realized in unearthly substance. It imparted the aura of demigods to the adults drifting up and down the ramp.
"My father remembers when there wasn't a Time Theater," Hal said softly as he scanned the facade's glowing charts and maps. "Say, they're viewing Earth, somewhere in Scandinavia around zero in the B.C.-A.D. time scale. It should be interesting."
"Will it be about Napoleon?" the Butcher asked eagerly. "Or Hitler?" A red-headed adult heard and smiled and paused to watch. A lock of hair had fallen down the middle of the Butcher's forehead, and as he sat Joggy like a charger, he did bear a faint resemblance to one of the grim little egomaniacs of the Dawn Era.
"Wrong millennium," Hal said.
"Tamerlane then?" the Butcher pressed. "He killed cities and piled the skulls. Blood-bath stuff. Oh, yes, and Tamerlane was a Scand of the Navies."
Hal looked puzzled and then quickly erased the expression. "Well, even if it is about Tamerlane, you can't see it. How about it, Joggy?"
"They won't let me in, either."
"Yes, they will. You're five years old now."
"But I don't feel any older," Joggy replied doubtfully.
"The feeling comes at six. Don't worry, the usher will notice the difference."
Hal and Joggy switched off their levitators and dropped to their feet. The Butcher came down rather hard, twisting an ankle. He opened his mouth to cry, then abruptly closed it hard, bearing his pain in tight-lipped silence like an ancient soldier—like Stalin, maybe, he thought. The red-headed adult's face twitched in half-humorous sympathy.
Hal and Joggy mounted the Ramp and entered a twilit corridor which drank their faint footsteps and returned pulses of light. The Butcher limped manfully after them, but when he got inside, he forgot his battle injury.
Hal looked back. "Honestly, the usher will stop you."
The Butcher shook his head. "I'm going to think my way in. I'm going to think old."
"You won't be able to fool the usher, Butcher. You under-fives simply aren't allowed in the Time Theater. There's a good reason for it—something dangerous might happen if an under-five got inside."
"Why?"
"I don't exactly know, but something."
"Hah! I bet they're scared we'd go traveling in the Time Bubble and have some excitement."
"They are not. I guess they just know you'd get bored and wander away from your seats and maybe disturb the adults or upset the electronics or something. But don't worry about it, Butcher. The usher will take care of you."
"Shut up—I'm thinking I'm World Director," the Butcher informed them, contorting his face diabolically.
Hal spoke to the uninjes, pointing to the side of the corridor. Obediently four of them lined up.
But Brute was peering down the corridor toward where it merged into a deeper darkness. His short legs stiffened, his neckless head seemed to retreat even further between his powerful shoulders, his lips writhed back to show his gleaming fangs, and a completely unfamiliar sound issued from his throat. A choked, grating sound. A growl. The other uninjes moved uneasily.
"Do you suppose something's the matter with his circuits?" Joggy whispered. "Maybe he's getting racial memories from the Scands."
"Of course not," Hal said irritably.
"Brute, get over there," the Butcher commanded. Unwillingly, eyes still fixed on the blackness ahead, Brute obeyed.
The three boys started on. Hal and Joggy experienced a vaguely electrical tingling that vanished almost immediately. They looked back. The Butcher had been stopped by an invisible wall.
"I told you you couldn't fool the usher," Hal said.
The Butcher hurled himself forward. The wall gave a little, then bounced him back with equal force.
"I bet it'll be a bum time view anyway," the Butcher said, not giving up, but not trying again. "And I still don't think the usher can tell how old you are. I bet there's an over-age teacher spying on you through a hole, and if he doesn't like your looks, he switches on the usher."
But the others had disappeared in the blackness. The Butcher waited and then sat down beside the uninjes. Brute laid his head on his knee and growled faintly down the corridor.
"Take it easy, Brute," the Butcher consoled him. "I don't think Tamerlane was really a Scand of the Navies anyhow."
Two chattering girls hardly bigger than himself stepped through the usher as if it weren't there.
The Butcher grimly slipped out the metal tube and put it to his lips. There were two closely spaced faint plops and a large green stain appeared on the bare back of one girl, while purple fluid dripped from the close-cropped hair of the other.
They glared at him and one of them said: "A cub!" But he had his arms folded and wasn't looking at them.
Meanwhile, subordinate ushers had guided Hal and Joggy away from the main entrance to the Time Theater. A sphincter dilated and they found themselves in a small transparent cubicle from which they could watch the show without disturbing the adult audience. They unstrapped their levitators, laid them on the floor and sat down.
The darkened auditorium was circular. Rising from a low central platform was a huge bubble of light, its lower surface somewhat flattened. The audience was seated in concentric rows around the bubble, their keen and compassionate faces dimly revealed by the pale central glow.
But it was the scene within the bubble that riveted the attention of the boys.
Great brooding trees, the trunks of the nearer ones sliced by the bubble's surface, formed the background. Through the dark, wet foliage appeared glimpses of a murky sky, while from the ceiling of the bubble, a ceaseless rain dripped mournfully. A hooded figure crouched beside a little fire partly shielded by a gnarled trunk. Squatting round about were wiry, blue-eyed men with shoulder-length blond hair and full blond beards. They were clothed in furs and metal-studded leather.
Here and there were scattered weapons and armor—long swords glistening with oil to guard them from rust, crudely painted circular shields, and helmets from which curved the horns of beasts. Back and forth, lean, wolflike dogs paced with restless monotony.
Sometimes the men seemed to speak together, or one would rise to peer down the misty forest vistas, but mostly they were motionless. Only the hooded figure, which they seemed to regard with a mingled wonder and fear, swayed incessantly to the rhythm of some unheard chant.
"The Time Bubble has been brought to rest in one of the barbaric cultures of the Dawn Era," a soft voice explained, so casually that Joggy looked around for the speaker, until Hal nudged him sharply, whispering with barely perceptible embarrassment: "Don't do that, Joggy. It's just the electronic interpreter. It senses our development and hears our questions and then it automats background and answers. But it's no more alive than an adolescer or a kinderobot. Got a billion microtapes, though."
The interpreter continued: "The skin-clad men we are viewing in Time in the Round seem to be a group of warriors of the sort who lived by pillage and rapine. The hooded figure is a most unusual find. We believe it to be that of a sorcerer who pretended to control the forces of nature and see into the future."
Joggy whispered: "How is it that we can't see the audience through the other side of the bubble? We can see through this side, all right."
"The bubble only shines light out," Hal told him hurriedly, to show he knew some things as well as the interpreter. "Nothing, not even light, can get into the bubble from outside. The audience on the other side of the bubble sees into it just as we do, only they're seeing the other way—for instance, they can't see the fire because the tree is in the way. And instead of seeing us beyond, they see more trees and sky."
Joggy nodded. "You mean that whatever way you look at the bubble, it's a kind of hole through time?"
"That's right." Hal cleared his throat and recited: "The bubble is the locus of an infinite number of one-way holes, all centering around two points in space-time, one now and one then. The bubble looks completely open, but if you tried to step inside, you'd be stopped—and so would an atom beam. It takes more energy than an atom beam just to maintain the bubble, let alone maneuver it."
"I see, I guess," Joggy whispered. "But if the hole works for light, why can't the people inside the bubble step out of it into our world?"
"Why—er—you see, Joggy—"
The interpreter took over. "The holes are one-way for light, but no-way for matter. If one of the individuals inside the bubble walked toward you, he would cross-section and disappear. But to the audience on the opposite side of the bubble, it would be obvious that he had walked away along the vista down which they are peering."
As if to provide an example, a figure suddenly materialized on their side of the bubble. The wolflike dogs bared their fangs. For an instant, there was only an eerie, distorted, rapidly growing silhouette, changing from blood-red to black as the boundary of the bubble cross-sectioned the intruding figure. Then they recognized the back of another long-haired warrior and realized that the audience on the other side of the bubble had probably seen him approaching for some time.
He bowed to the hooded figure and handed him a small bag.
"More atavistic cubs, big and little! Hold still, Cynthia," a new voice cut in.
Hal turned and saw that two cold-eyed girls had been ushered into the cubicle. One was wiping her close-cropped hair with one hand while mopping a green stain from her friend's back with the other.
Hal nudged Joggy and whispered: "Butch!"
But Joggy was still hypnotized by the Time Bubble.
"Then how is it, Hal," he asked, "that light comes out of the bubble, if the people don't? What I mean is, if one of the people walks toward us, he shrinks to a red blot and disappears. Why doesn't the light coming our way disappear, too?"
"Well—you see, Joggy, it isn't real light. It's—"
Once more the interpreter helped him out.
"The light that comes from the bubble is an isotope. Like atoms of one element, photons of a single frequency also have isotopes. It's more than a matter of polarization. One of these isotopes of light tends to leak futureward through holes in space-time. Most of the light goes down the vistas visible to the other side of the audience. But one isotope is diverted through the walls of the bubble into the Time Theater. Perhaps, because of the intense darkness of the theater, you haven't realized how dimly lit the scene is. That's because we're getting only a single isotope of the original light. Incidentally, no isotopes have been discovered that leak pastward, though attempts are being made to synthesize them."
"Oh, explanations!" murmured one of the newly arrived girls. "The cubs are always angling for them. Apple-polishers!"
" I like this show," a familiar voice announced serenely. "They cut anybody yet with those choppers?"
Hal looked down beside him. "Butch! How did you manage to get in?"
"I don't see any blood. Where's the bodies?"
"But how did you get in—Butcher?"
The Butcher replied airily: "A red-headed man talked to me and said it certainly was sad for a future dictator not to be able to enjoy scenes of carnage in his youth, so I told him I'd been inside the Time Theater and just come out to get a drink of water and go to the eliminator, but then my sprained ankle had got worse—I kind of tried to get up and fell down again—so he picked me up and carried me right through the usher."
"Butcher, that wasn't honest," Hal said a little worriedly. "You tricked him into thinking you were older and his brain waves blanketed yours, going through the usher. I really have heard it's dangerous for you under-fives to be in here."
"The way those cubs beg for babying and get it!" one of the girls commented. "Talk about sex favoritism!" She and her companion withdrew to the far end of the cubicle.
The Butcher grinned at them briefly and concentrated his attention on the scene in the Time Bubble.
"Those big dogs—" he began suddenly. "Brute must have smelled 'em."
"Don't be silly," Hal said. "Smells can't come out of the Time Bubble. Smells haven't any isotopes and—"
"I don't care," the Butcher asserted. "I bet somebody'll figure out someday how to use the bubble for time traveling."
"You can't travel in a point of view," Hal contradicted, "and that's all the bubble is. Besides, some scientists think the bubble isn't real at all, but a—uh—"
"I believe," the interpreter cut in smoothly, "that you're thinking of the theory that the Time Bubble operates by hypermemory. Some scientists would have us believe that all memory is time traveling and that the basic location of the bubble is not space-time at all, but ever-present eternity. Some of them go so far as to state that it is only a mental inability that prevents the Time Bubble from being used for time traveling—just as it may be a similar disability that keeps a robot with the same or even more scopeful memories from being a real man or animal.
"It is because of this minority theory that under-age individuals and other beings with impulsive mentalities are barred from the Time Theater. But do not be alarmed. Even if the minority theory should prove true—and no evidence for it has ever appeared—there are automatically operating safeguards to protect the audience from any harmful consequences of time traveling (almost certainly impossible, remember) in either direction."
"Sissies!" was the Butcher's comment.
"You're rather young to be here, aren't you?" the interpreter inquired.
The Butcher folded his arms and scowled.
The interpreter hesitated almost humanly, probably snatching through a quarter-million microtapes. "Well, you wouldn't have got in unless a qualified adult had certified you as plus-age. Enjoy yourself."
There was no need for the last injunction. The scene within the bubble had acquired a gripping interest. The shaggy warriors were taking up their swords, gathering about the hooded sorcerer. The hood fell back, revealing a face with hawklike, disturbing eyes that seemed to be looking straight out of the bubble at the future.
"This is getting good," the Butcher said, squirming toward the edge of his seat.
"Stop being an impulsive mentality," Hal warned him a little nervously.
"Hah!"
The sorcerer emptied the small bag on the fire and a thick cloud of smoke puffed toward the ceiling of the bubble. A clawlike hand waved wildly. The sorcerer appeared to be expostulating, commanding. The warriors stared uncomprehendingly, which seemed to exasperate the sorcerer.
"That's right," the Butcher approved loudly. "Sock it to 'em!"
"Butcher!" Hal admonished.
Suddenly the bubble grew very bright, as if the Sun had just shone forth in the ancient world, though the rain still dripped down.
"A viewing anomaly has occurred," the interpreter announced. "It may be necessary to collapse the Time Bubble for a short period."
In a frenzy, his ragged robes twisting like smoke, the sorcerer rushed at one of the warriors, pushing him backward so that in a moment he must cross-section.
"Attaboy!" the Butcher encouraged.
Then the warrior was standing outside the bubble, blinking toward the shadows, rain dripping from his beard and furs.
"Oh, boy !" the Butcher cheered in ecstasy.
"Butcher, you've done it!" Hal said, aghast.
"I sure did," the Butcher agreed blandly, "but that old guy in the bubble helped me. Must take two to work it."
"Keep your seats!" the interpreter said loudly. "We are energizing the safeguards!"
The warriors inside the bubble stared in stupid astonishment after the one who had disappeared from their view. The sorcerer leaped about, pushing them in his direction.
Abrupt light flooded the Time Theater. The warriors who had emerged from the bubble stiffened themselves, baring their teeth.
"The safeguards are now energized," the interpreter said.
A woman in a short golden tunic stood up uncertainly from the front row of the audience.
The first warrior looked her up and down, took one hesitant step forward, then another, then suddenly grabbed her and flung her over his left shoulder, looking around menacingly and swinging his sword in his right hand.
"I repeat, the safeguards have been fully energized! Keep your seats!" the interpreter enjoined.
In the cubicle, Hal and Joggy gasped, the two girls squeaked, but the Butcher yelled a "Hey!" of disapproval, snatched up something from the floor and darted out through the sphincter.
Here and there in the audience, other adults stood up. The emerged warriors formed a ring of swinging swords and questing eyes. Between their legs their wolfish dogs, emerged with them, crouched and snarled. Then the warriors began to fan out.
"There has been an unavoidable delay in energizing the safeguards," the interpreter said. "Please be patient."
At that moment, the Butcher entered the main auditorium, brandishing a levitator above his head and striding purposefully down the aisle. At his heels, five stocky forms trotted. In a definitely pre-civilization voice, or at least with pre-civilization volume, he bellowed: "Hey, you! You quit that!"
The first warrior looked toward him, gave his left shoulder a shake to quiet his wriggling captive, gave his right shoulder one to supple his sword arm, and waited until the dwarfish challenger came into range. Then his sword swished down in a flashing arc.
Next moment, the Butcher was on his knees and the warrior was staring at him open-mouthed. The sword had rebounded from something invisible an arm's length above the gnomelike creature's head. The warrior backed a step.
The Butcher stayed down, crouching half behind an aisle seat and digging for something in his pocket. But he didn't stay quiet. "Sic
'em, Brute!" he shrilled. "Sic 'em, Darter! Sic 'em, Pinkie and Whitie and Blue!" Then he stopped shouting and raised his hand to his mouth.
Growling quite unmechanically, the five uninjes hurled themselves forward and closed with the warrior's wolflike dogs. At the first encounter, Brute and Pinkie were grabbed by the throats, shaken, and tossed a dozen feet. The warriors snarled approval and advanced. But then Brute and Pinkie raced back eagerly to the fight—and suddenly the face of the leading warrior was drenched with scarlet. He blinked and touched his fingers to it, then looked at his hand in horror.
The Butcher spared a second to repeat his command to the uninjes. But already the battle was going against the larger dogs. The latter had the advantage of weight and could toss the smaller dogs like so many foxes. But their terrible fangs did no damage, and whenever an uninj clamped on a throat, that throat was torn out.
Meanwhile, great bloody stains had appeared on the bodies of all the warriors. They drew back in a knot, looking at each other fearfully. That was when the Butcher got to his feet and strode forward, hand clenching the levitator above his head.
"Get back where you belong, you big jerks! And drop that lady!"
The first warrior pointed toward him and hissed something. Immediately, a half dozen swords were smiting at the Butcher.
"We are working to energize the safeguards," the interpreter said in mechanical panic. "Remain patient and in your seats."
The uninjes leaped into the melee, at first tearing more fur than flesh. Swords caught them and sent them spinning through the air. They came yapping back for more. Brute fixed on the first warrior's ankle. He dropped the woman, stamped unavailingly on the uninj, and let out a screech.
Swords were still rebounding from the invisible shield under which the Butcher crouched, making terrible faces at his attackers. They drew back, looked again at their bloodstains, goggled at the demon dogs. At their leader's screech, they broke and plunged back into the Time Bubble, their leader stumbling limpingly after them. There they wasted no time on their own ragged sorcerer. Their swords rose and fell, and no repulsor field stayed them.
"Brute, come back!" the Butcher yelled.
The gray uninj let go his hold on the leader's ankle and scampered out of the Time Bubble, which swiftly dimmed to its original light intensity and then winked out.
For once in their very mature lives, all of the adults in the auditorium began to jabber at each other simultaneously.
"We are sorry, but the anomaly has made it necessary to collapse the Time Bubble," the interpreter said. "There will be no viewing until further announcement. Thank you for your patience."
Hal and Joggy caught up with the Butcher just as Brute jumped into his arms and the woman in gold picked him up and hugged him fiercely. The Butcher started to pull away, then grudgingly submitted.
"Cubs!" came a small cold voice from behind Hal and Joggy. "Always playing hero! Say, what's that awful smell, Cynthia? It must have come from those dirty past men."
Hal and Joggy were shouting at the Butcher, but he wasn't listening to them or to the older voices clamoring about "revised theories of reality" and other important things. He didn't even squirm as Brute licked his cheek and the woman in gold planted a big kiss practically on his mouth.
He smiled dreamily and stroked Brute's muzzle and murmured softly: "We came, we saw, we conquered, didn't we, Brute?"
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
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"The story starts in a park, where we meet a a young boy who goes by the Butcher (\"Butch\"), and his dog Brute. The boy is trying to do something to the dog with a small metal tube when Hal, another boy, shows up with his own dogs, and another boy named Joggy. It turns out these are not normal dogs, but are \"uninj\", machines created to be like dogs but not able to be hurt. Butch seems bored with these countermeasures against violence, and intent on putting violence back in the world. His interactions with Hal show us that they live in a civilization where the children are given opportunities to work out any violent and angry tendencies or impulses before they are conditioned as adults. They are only allowed to visit the Time Theater to see glimpses into other societies (and thus evidence of violence) after age five, and the change in mentality happens at age six. Butch wants to use Time Bubble to travel through time, but Hal insists that this is impossible. The boys head to this theater, an incredible crystal building with an important place in this society, choosing to fly there with their hover technology. Joggy is five, so he is allowed to enter with Hal, but Butch is blocked from entering by the ushers, which Hal says is for his own protection. Joggy and Hal take a seat in a children's viewing area to look into the glowing orb of light that sits in the middle of the round theater. The orb acts as a viewport into various times and places, and is currently showing a view of Earth, Scandanavia more specifically, around year zero according to Earth calendars. There are a number of warriors in the forest scene, along with some dogs and a sorcerer, and the boys watch in earnest. As the electronic interpreter for the viewing gives the boys more information about cultural context, Butch manages to sneak in to the theater by lying to the ushers. Shortly after Butch and two young girls join the viewing, something happened that no-one thought possible: the sorcerer pushed one of the warriors through the orb of the Time Bubble, throwing him into the theater. Panic falls on the audience, and warriors and dogs continue to enter the theater as Butch and the uninjes start to fight off the time-travelers with their design keeping them from being injured. Hal is convinced that this happened because an under-five (Butch specifically) was in the theater, but the rest of the public does not know he is young and they thank him for saving the day as he fights off the warriors and the Time Bubble collapses. This is the first piece of chaos the adults have experienced in their adult lives, and the Butcher is content with how it all played out, getting to play hero in a violent setting for a day with Brute.",
"Brute, a dog made of hyperplastic, barks without making a noise. He is an uninje. He is programmed to be very similar to a real dog, but he is incapable of being injured. His owner, a boy named Butch, tackles him and pokes him in the eye and hits him. Butch then orders all of the dogs to fight, but becomes bored moments later. He tells his friends, Joggy and Hal that he wishes he lived like Huckleberry Finn, with the ability to get dirty and inflict pain.\n\nButch says that one day he will be the World Director, and he will bring back war. Hal, who is older and more mature, explains that Butch’s desire for violence will be conditioned out of him once he turns six. He says that Butch will understand everything once he’s allowed in the Time Theater to see into the past. \n\nHal and Joggy decide to go to the Time Theater. Butch climbs on Joggy’s back, and they use Joggy’s harness and the repulsor hemisphere to propel them forward. When the boys arrive, they warn Butch that he will be stopped by the usher. Hal explains that something dangerous might happen if a young child is allowed in. The uninjes line up obediently next to Butch. \n\nButch tries to get past the invisible wall keeping him out of the theater, but he can’t. Meanwhile, Hal and Joggy enter a dilated sphincter and sit down in a transparent cubicle. They take their levitators off to enjoy the show in the dark auditorium. In the center of the room is the Time Bubble, which transmits images of the past. They watch Scandinavian warriors holding long swords, surrounded by dogs, listening to a hooded figure chant.\nJoggy has several questions about the show, and the interpreter in the room answers them. He wonders why light can’t escape from the Bubble and why the warriors in the picture can’t step through into the theater.\nButch appears beside his friends after he tricks his way into the theater. The Time Bubble becomes incredibly bright, and suddenly, the warrior appears outside of the Bubble. The interpreter warns the crowd that he’s activating the safeguards in response. Hal blames the anomaly on Butch. \nOne of the warriors grabs a woman in the front row and picks her up. Butch refuses to sit by idly and approaches the warrior with his levitator over his head. When the warrior tries to strike Butch with his sword, he finds that the boy is protected by an invisible shield. Butch commands the uninjes to attack the warriors and their dogs, and they do. The warriors are scared of the uninjes’ strength and their ability to withstand their swords. The warriors’ leader commands them to get back in the Time Bubble. The Interpreter explains that he must collapse the Bubble due to this crisis. The woman who was taken by the warrior hugs and kisses Butch for saving her life. He is very proud of himself. \n",
"Butch, Hal, and Joggy, are three kids of varying ages: Joggy is five, Butch is under five, and Hal is older. Butch exhibits a lot of frustration toward their non-violent and heavily age-regimented society. He says he’s going to be World Director, and seems to want to be a dictator like those from the time before humanity conditioned out violence. \n\nButch goes with the other boys to Time in the Round, a place where they can see events from the past and have them explained. Because it is carefully curated for specific ages, Hal tells Butch he won’t be able to enter. Butch tries anyway, but an invisible blockade they call an “usher” won’t let him through. \n\nThe other boys watch a sorcerer and some warriors inside the Time Bubble. Before too long, Butch appears, telling them he lied his way in with a sympathetic adult. Hal is upset that he did this, and also by Butch’s behavior once he’s in there. Though they have been told that it would be impossible for the Time Bubble to be used for time travel, Butch yells at the sorcerer to “sock it to ‘em” and he listens; somehow, between Butch and the sorcerer’s willpower, a few of the warriors end up outside the bubble and in the auditorium, along with their wolves. The interpreter and audience start to panic. \n\nButch takes control, order his and his friends’ uninjs to attack the wolves, who are larger but not invincible like the uninjs. He orders a warrior to put down a lady he has slung over his shoulder and his uninj, Brute, bites the warrior in the ankle, causing him to drop her. Butch tells them to go back where they came from and Brute chases them back into the bubble. Butch calls Brute, and as soon as he jumps back out the bubble dims and goes back to normal. \n\nEveryone is relieved, and the adults are more talkative and less “mature” than usual. People discuss “revised theories” and both the formerly captive woman and Brute embrace and kiss Butch, but he is too dazed and happy to notice. He pets Brute and says “we came, we saw, we conquered, didn’t we, Brute?” \n",
"A young boy named Butch plays with his pet--a dog-like, robotic \"uninj\" named Brute--along the Avenue of Wisdom in the Peace Park. Butch is rough with Brute, jabbing and poking him hard with a metal tube, but his friends Joggy and Hal come along and we learn uninjes cannot be harmed nor can they harm. They have been programmed against it. This is just one element in a post-violence world; adults have been systemically programmed against using violence to resolve conflicts between themselves, although they may use it to fight against alien enemies. Butch, however, insists his friends call him \"Butcher\" because he wants to become a dictator when he is older and bring back violence as a means of conflict resolution. His friend Hal assures him that when he is older, he will understand why removing violence from society was \"Man's greatest achievement.\" The boys make their way to the Time Theater at the end of the Avenue of Wisdom by utilizing levitators that help them swim through the air. The Time Theater is home to a large bubble that functions as a one-way viewer into pre-civilization eras. Only people over five years old are allowed into the Time Theater; the Butcher is stopped by an invisible \"usher\", leaving Hal and Joggy to enter the viewing cubicle alone. Once inside, the bubble interpreter and Hal explain to Joggy how the bubble functions. It is essentially a time-hole that allows observation because of light isotopes that leak through. But matter cannot pass through the bubble, which is why it cannot be used for time travel. However, some scientists theorize that people with impulsive minds, such as underage children, might activate a time-traveling capability. The Butcher tricks an adult into carrying him into the Time Theater, and he joins Joggy and Hal in their viewing of a group of barbaric Scandinavian men from the Dawn Era. They watch as a sorcerer conducts some kind of spell with the Butcher egging him on. The Butcher's impulsive behavior combined with the sorcerer's ability to see into the future unlocks the bubble, and the sorcerer pushes the Scandinavian men through into the Time Theater. There, they begin to attack the adults present and attempt to kidnap a woman in the audience. The Butcher commands the uninjes to attack the men, and he stuns them with his use of the levitator to protect his head from the blows of their swords. The uninjes push the men back through the bubble, where they kill the sorcerer and the interpreter closes the bubble. Its automatic safeguards have failed, and the Butcher has saved the day."
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51380
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TIME IN THE ROUND
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by DILLON
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction May 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Poor Butcher suffered more than any dictator in history: everybody gave in to him because he was so puny and they were so impregnable!
From the other end of the Avenue of Wisdom that led across the Peace Park, a gray, hairless, heavily built dog was barking soundlessly at the towering crystal glory of the Time Theater. For a moment, the effect was almost frightening: a silent picture of the beginning of civilization challenging the end of it. Then a small boy caught up with the dog and it rolled over enthusiastically at his feet and the scene was normal again.
The small boy, however, seemed definitely pre-civilization. He studied the dog coldly and then inserted a thin metal tube under its eyelid and poked. The dog wagged its stumpy tail. The boy frowned, tightened his grip on the tube and jabbed hard. The dog's tail thumped the cushiony pavement and the four paws beat the air. The boy shortened his grip and suddenly jabbed the dog several times in the stomach. The stiff tube rebounded from the gray, hairless hide. The dog's face split in an upside-down grin, revealing formidable ivory fangs across which a long black tongue lolled.
The boy regarded the tongue speculatively and pocketed the metal tube with a grimace of utter disgust. He did not look up when someone called: "Hi, Butch! Sic 'em, Darter, sic 'em!"
A larger small boy and a somewhat older one were approaching across the luxurious, neatly cropped grass, preceded by a hurtling shape that, except for a black hide, was a replica of Butch's gray dog.
Butch shrugged his shoulders resignedly and said in a bored voice:
"Kill 'em, Brute."
The gray dog hurled itself on Darter. Jaws gaped to get a hold on necks so short and thick as to be mere courtesy terms. They whirled like a fanged merry-go-round. Three more dogs, one white, one slate blue and one pink, hurried up and tried to climb aboard.
Butch yawned.
"What's the matter?" inquired Darter's master. "I thought you liked dog fights, Butch."
"I do like dog fights," Butch said somberly, without looking around. "I don't like uninj fights. They're just a pretend, like everything else. Nobody gets hurt. And look here, Joggy—and you, too, Hal—when you talk to me, don't just say Butch. It's the Butcher, see?"
"That's not exactly a functional name," Hal observed with the judiciousness of budding maturity, while Joggy said agreeably: "All right, Butcher, I suppose you'd like to have lived way back when people were hurting each other all the time so the blood came out?"
"I certainly would," the Butcher replied. As Joggy and Hal turned back skeptically to watch the fight, he took out the metal tube, screwed up his face in a dreadful frown and jabbed himself in the hand. He squeaked with pain and whisked the tube out of sight.
"A kid can't do anything any more," he announced dramatically. "Can't break anything except the breakables they give him to break on purpose. Can't get dirty except in the dirt-pen—and they graduate him from that when he's two. Can't even be bitten by an uninj—it's contraprogrammed."
"Where'd you ever get so fixated on dirt?" Hal asked in a gentle voice acquired from a robot adolescer.
"I've been reading a book about a kid called Huckleberry Finn," the Butcher replied airily. "A swell book. That guy got dirtier than anything." His eyes became dreamy. "He even ate out of a garbage pail."
"What's a garbage pail?"
"I don't know, but it sounds great."
The battling uninjes careened into them. Brute had Darter by the ear and was whirling him around hilariously.
"Aw, quit it, Brute," the Butcher said in annoyance.
Brute obediently loosed his hold and returned to his master, paying no attention to his adversary's efforts to renew the fight.
The Butcher looked Brute squarely in the eyes. "You're making too much of a rumpus," he said. "I want to think."
He kicked Brute in the face. The dog squirmed joyously at his feet.
"Look," Joggy said, "you wouldn't hurt an uninj, for instance, would you?"
"How can you hurt something that's uninjurable?" the Butcher demanded scathingly. "An uninj isn't really a dog. It's just a lot of circuits and a micropack bedded in hyperplastic." He looked at Brute with guarded wistfulness.
"I don't know about that," Hal put in. "I've heard an uninj is programmed with so many genuine canine reactions that it practically has racial memory."
"I mean if you could hurt an uninj," Joggy amended.
"Well, maybe I wouldn't," the Butcher admitted grudgingly. "But shut up—I want to think."
"About what?" Hal asked with saintly reasonableness.
The Butcher achieved a fearful frown. "When I'm World Director," he said slowly, "I'm going to have warfare again."
"You think so now," Hal told him. "We all do at your age."
"We do not," the Butcher retorted. "I bet you didn't."
"Oh, yes, I was foolish, too," the older boy confessed readily. "All newborn organisms are self-centered and inconsiderate and ruthless. They have to be. That's why we have uninjes to work out on, and death games and fear houses, so that our emotions are cleared for adult conditioning. And it's just the same with newborn civilizations. Why, long after atom power and the space drive were discovered, people kept having wars and revolutions. It took ages to condition them differently. Of course, you can't appreciate it this year, but Man's greatest achievement was when he learned to automatically reject all violent solutions to problems. You'll realize that when you're older."
"I will not!" the Butcher countered hotly. "I'm not going to be a sissy." Hal and Joggy blinked at the unfamiliar word. "And what if we were attacked by bloodthirsty monsters from outside the Solar System?"
"The Space Fleet would take care of them," Hal replied calmly. "That's what it's for. Adults aren't conditioned to reject violent solutions to problems where non-human enemies are concerned. Look at what we did to viruses."
"But what if somebody got at us through the Time Bubble?"
"They can't. It's impossible."
"Yes, but suppose they did all the same."
"You've never been inside the Time Theater—you're not old enough yet—so you just can't know anything about it or about the reasons why it's impossible," Hal replied with friendly factuality. "The Time Bubble is just a viewer. You can only look through it, and just into the past, at that. But you can't travel through it because you can't change the past. Time traveling is a lot of kid stuff."
"I don't care," the Butcher asserted obstinately. "I'm still going to have warfare when I'm World Director."
"They'll condition you out of the idea," Hal assured him.
"They will not. I won't let 'em."
"It doesn't matter what you think now," Hal said with finality. "You'll have an altogether different opinion when you're six."
"Well, what if I will?" the Butcher snapped back. "You don't have to keep telling me about it, do you?"
The others were silent. Joggy began to bounce up and down abstractedly on the resilient pavement. Hal called in his three uninjes and said in soothing tones: "Joggy and I are going to swim over to the Time Theater. Want to walk us there, Butch?"
Butch scowled.
"How about it, Butch?"
Still Butch did not seem to hear.
The older boy shrugged and said: "Oh, well, how about it—Butcher?"
The Butcher swung around. "They won't let me in the Time Theater. You said so yourself."
"You could walk us over there."
"Well, maybe I will and maybe I won't."
"While you're deciding, we'll get swimming. Come along, Joggy."
Still scowling, the Butcher took a white soapy crayon from the bulging pocket in his silver shorts. Pressed into the pavement, it made a black mark. He scrawled pensively: KEEP ON THE GRASS.
He gazed at his handiwork. No, darn it, that was just what grownups wanted you to do. This grass couldn't be hurt. You couldn't pull it up or tear it off; it hurt your fingers to try. A rub with the side of the crayon removed the sign. He thought for a moment, then wrote: KEEP OFF THE GRASS.
With an untroubled countenance, he sprang up and hurried after the others.
Joggy and the older boy were swimming lazily through the air at shoulder height. In the pavement directly under each of them was a wide, saucer-shaped depression which swam along with them. The uninjes avoided the depressions. Darter was strutting on his hind legs, looking up inquiringly at his master.
"Gimme a ride, Hal, gimme a ride!" the Butcher called. The older boy ignored him. "Aw, gimme a ride, Joggy."
"Oh, all right." Joggy touched the small box attached to the front of his broad metal harness and dropped lightly to the ground. The Butcher climbed on his back. There was a moment of rocking and pitching, during which each boy accused the other of trying to upset them.
Then the Butcher got his balance and they began to swim along securely, though at a level several inches lower. Brute sprang up after his master and was invisibly rebuffed. He retired baffled, but a few minutes later, he was amusing himself by furious futile efforts to climb the hemispherical repulsor field.
Slowly the little cavalcade of boys and uninjes proceeded down the Avenue of Wisdom. Hal amused himself by stroking toward a tree. When he was about four feet from it, he was gently bounced away.
It was really a more tiring method of transportation than walking and quite useless against the wind. True, by rocking the repulsor hemisphere backward, you could get a brief forward push, but it would be nullified when you rocked forward. A slow swimming stroke was the simplest way to make progress.
The general sensation, however, was delightful and levitators were among the most prized of toys.
"There's the Theater," Joggy announced.
"I know ," the Butcher said irritably.
But even he sounded a little solemn and subdued. From the Great Ramp to the topmost airy finial, the Time Theater was the dream of a god realized in unearthly substance. It imparted the aura of demigods to the adults drifting up and down the ramp.
"My father remembers when there wasn't a Time Theater," Hal said softly as he scanned the facade's glowing charts and maps. "Say, they're viewing Earth, somewhere in Scandinavia around zero in the B.C.-A.D. time scale. It should be interesting."
"Will it be about Napoleon?" the Butcher asked eagerly. "Or Hitler?" A red-headed adult heard and smiled and paused to watch. A lock of hair had fallen down the middle of the Butcher's forehead, and as he sat Joggy like a charger, he did bear a faint resemblance to one of the grim little egomaniacs of the Dawn Era.
"Wrong millennium," Hal said.
"Tamerlane then?" the Butcher pressed. "He killed cities and piled the skulls. Blood-bath stuff. Oh, yes, and Tamerlane was a Scand of the Navies."
Hal looked puzzled and then quickly erased the expression. "Well, even if it is about Tamerlane, you can't see it. How about it, Joggy?"
"They won't let me in, either."
"Yes, they will. You're five years old now."
"But I don't feel any older," Joggy replied doubtfully.
"The feeling comes at six. Don't worry, the usher will notice the difference."
Hal and Joggy switched off their levitators and dropped to their feet. The Butcher came down rather hard, twisting an ankle. He opened his mouth to cry, then abruptly closed it hard, bearing his pain in tight-lipped silence like an ancient soldier—like Stalin, maybe, he thought. The red-headed adult's face twitched in half-humorous sympathy.
Hal and Joggy mounted the Ramp and entered a twilit corridor which drank their faint footsteps and returned pulses of light. The Butcher limped manfully after them, but when he got inside, he forgot his battle injury.
Hal looked back. "Honestly, the usher will stop you."
The Butcher shook his head. "I'm going to think my way in. I'm going to think old."
"You won't be able to fool the usher, Butcher. You under-fives simply aren't allowed in the Time Theater. There's a good reason for it—something dangerous might happen if an under-five got inside."
"Why?"
"I don't exactly know, but something."
"Hah! I bet they're scared we'd go traveling in the Time Bubble and have some excitement."
"They are not. I guess they just know you'd get bored and wander away from your seats and maybe disturb the adults or upset the electronics or something. But don't worry about it, Butcher. The usher will take care of you."
"Shut up—I'm thinking I'm World Director," the Butcher informed them, contorting his face diabolically.
Hal spoke to the uninjes, pointing to the side of the corridor. Obediently four of them lined up.
But Brute was peering down the corridor toward where it merged into a deeper darkness. His short legs stiffened, his neckless head seemed to retreat even further between his powerful shoulders, his lips writhed back to show his gleaming fangs, and a completely unfamiliar sound issued from his throat. A choked, grating sound. A growl. The other uninjes moved uneasily.
"Do you suppose something's the matter with his circuits?" Joggy whispered. "Maybe he's getting racial memories from the Scands."
"Of course not," Hal said irritably.
"Brute, get over there," the Butcher commanded. Unwillingly, eyes still fixed on the blackness ahead, Brute obeyed.
The three boys started on. Hal and Joggy experienced a vaguely electrical tingling that vanished almost immediately. They looked back. The Butcher had been stopped by an invisible wall.
"I told you you couldn't fool the usher," Hal said.
The Butcher hurled himself forward. The wall gave a little, then bounced him back with equal force.
"I bet it'll be a bum time view anyway," the Butcher said, not giving up, but not trying again. "And I still don't think the usher can tell how old you are. I bet there's an over-age teacher spying on you through a hole, and if he doesn't like your looks, he switches on the usher."
But the others had disappeared in the blackness. The Butcher waited and then sat down beside the uninjes. Brute laid his head on his knee and growled faintly down the corridor.
"Take it easy, Brute," the Butcher consoled him. "I don't think Tamerlane was really a Scand of the Navies anyhow."
Two chattering girls hardly bigger than himself stepped through the usher as if it weren't there.
The Butcher grimly slipped out the metal tube and put it to his lips. There were two closely spaced faint plops and a large green stain appeared on the bare back of one girl, while purple fluid dripped from the close-cropped hair of the other.
They glared at him and one of them said: "A cub!" But he had his arms folded and wasn't looking at them.
Meanwhile, subordinate ushers had guided Hal and Joggy away from the main entrance to the Time Theater. A sphincter dilated and they found themselves in a small transparent cubicle from which they could watch the show without disturbing the adult audience. They unstrapped their levitators, laid them on the floor and sat down.
The darkened auditorium was circular. Rising from a low central platform was a huge bubble of light, its lower surface somewhat flattened. The audience was seated in concentric rows around the bubble, their keen and compassionate faces dimly revealed by the pale central glow.
But it was the scene within the bubble that riveted the attention of the boys.
Great brooding trees, the trunks of the nearer ones sliced by the bubble's surface, formed the background. Through the dark, wet foliage appeared glimpses of a murky sky, while from the ceiling of the bubble, a ceaseless rain dripped mournfully. A hooded figure crouched beside a little fire partly shielded by a gnarled trunk. Squatting round about were wiry, blue-eyed men with shoulder-length blond hair and full blond beards. They were clothed in furs and metal-studded leather.
Here and there were scattered weapons and armor—long swords glistening with oil to guard them from rust, crudely painted circular shields, and helmets from which curved the horns of beasts. Back and forth, lean, wolflike dogs paced with restless monotony.
Sometimes the men seemed to speak together, or one would rise to peer down the misty forest vistas, but mostly they were motionless. Only the hooded figure, which they seemed to regard with a mingled wonder and fear, swayed incessantly to the rhythm of some unheard chant.
"The Time Bubble has been brought to rest in one of the barbaric cultures of the Dawn Era," a soft voice explained, so casually that Joggy looked around for the speaker, until Hal nudged him sharply, whispering with barely perceptible embarrassment: "Don't do that, Joggy. It's just the electronic interpreter. It senses our development and hears our questions and then it automats background and answers. But it's no more alive than an adolescer or a kinderobot. Got a billion microtapes, though."
The interpreter continued: "The skin-clad men we are viewing in Time in the Round seem to be a group of warriors of the sort who lived by pillage and rapine. The hooded figure is a most unusual find. We believe it to be that of a sorcerer who pretended to control the forces of nature and see into the future."
Joggy whispered: "How is it that we can't see the audience through the other side of the bubble? We can see through this side, all right."
"The bubble only shines light out," Hal told him hurriedly, to show he knew some things as well as the interpreter. "Nothing, not even light, can get into the bubble from outside. The audience on the other side of the bubble sees into it just as we do, only they're seeing the other way—for instance, they can't see the fire because the tree is in the way. And instead of seeing us beyond, they see more trees and sky."
Joggy nodded. "You mean that whatever way you look at the bubble, it's a kind of hole through time?"
"That's right." Hal cleared his throat and recited: "The bubble is the locus of an infinite number of one-way holes, all centering around two points in space-time, one now and one then. The bubble looks completely open, but if you tried to step inside, you'd be stopped—and so would an atom beam. It takes more energy than an atom beam just to maintain the bubble, let alone maneuver it."
"I see, I guess," Joggy whispered. "But if the hole works for light, why can't the people inside the bubble step out of it into our world?"
"Why—er—you see, Joggy—"
The interpreter took over. "The holes are one-way for light, but no-way for matter. If one of the individuals inside the bubble walked toward you, he would cross-section and disappear. But to the audience on the opposite side of the bubble, it would be obvious that he had walked away along the vista down which they are peering."
As if to provide an example, a figure suddenly materialized on their side of the bubble. The wolflike dogs bared their fangs. For an instant, there was only an eerie, distorted, rapidly growing silhouette, changing from blood-red to black as the boundary of the bubble cross-sectioned the intruding figure. Then they recognized the back of another long-haired warrior and realized that the audience on the other side of the bubble had probably seen him approaching for some time.
He bowed to the hooded figure and handed him a small bag.
"More atavistic cubs, big and little! Hold still, Cynthia," a new voice cut in.
Hal turned and saw that two cold-eyed girls had been ushered into the cubicle. One was wiping her close-cropped hair with one hand while mopping a green stain from her friend's back with the other.
Hal nudged Joggy and whispered: "Butch!"
But Joggy was still hypnotized by the Time Bubble.
"Then how is it, Hal," he asked, "that light comes out of the bubble, if the people don't? What I mean is, if one of the people walks toward us, he shrinks to a red blot and disappears. Why doesn't the light coming our way disappear, too?"
"Well—you see, Joggy, it isn't real light. It's—"
Once more the interpreter helped him out.
"The light that comes from the bubble is an isotope. Like atoms of one element, photons of a single frequency also have isotopes. It's more than a matter of polarization. One of these isotopes of light tends to leak futureward through holes in space-time. Most of the light goes down the vistas visible to the other side of the audience. But one isotope is diverted through the walls of the bubble into the Time Theater. Perhaps, because of the intense darkness of the theater, you haven't realized how dimly lit the scene is. That's because we're getting only a single isotope of the original light. Incidentally, no isotopes have been discovered that leak pastward, though attempts are being made to synthesize them."
"Oh, explanations!" murmured one of the newly arrived girls. "The cubs are always angling for them. Apple-polishers!"
" I like this show," a familiar voice announced serenely. "They cut anybody yet with those choppers?"
Hal looked down beside him. "Butch! How did you manage to get in?"
"I don't see any blood. Where's the bodies?"
"But how did you get in—Butcher?"
The Butcher replied airily: "A red-headed man talked to me and said it certainly was sad for a future dictator not to be able to enjoy scenes of carnage in his youth, so I told him I'd been inside the Time Theater and just come out to get a drink of water and go to the eliminator, but then my sprained ankle had got worse—I kind of tried to get up and fell down again—so he picked me up and carried me right through the usher."
"Butcher, that wasn't honest," Hal said a little worriedly. "You tricked him into thinking you were older and his brain waves blanketed yours, going through the usher. I really have heard it's dangerous for you under-fives to be in here."
"The way those cubs beg for babying and get it!" one of the girls commented. "Talk about sex favoritism!" She and her companion withdrew to the far end of the cubicle.
The Butcher grinned at them briefly and concentrated his attention on the scene in the Time Bubble.
"Those big dogs—" he began suddenly. "Brute must have smelled 'em."
"Don't be silly," Hal said. "Smells can't come out of the Time Bubble. Smells haven't any isotopes and—"
"I don't care," the Butcher asserted. "I bet somebody'll figure out someday how to use the bubble for time traveling."
"You can't travel in a point of view," Hal contradicted, "and that's all the bubble is. Besides, some scientists think the bubble isn't real at all, but a—uh—"
"I believe," the interpreter cut in smoothly, "that you're thinking of the theory that the Time Bubble operates by hypermemory. Some scientists would have us believe that all memory is time traveling and that the basic location of the bubble is not space-time at all, but ever-present eternity. Some of them go so far as to state that it is only a mental inability that prevents the Time Bubble from being used for time traveling—just as it may be a similar disability that keeps a robot with the same or even more scopeful memories from being a real man or animal.
"It is because of this minority theory that under-age individuals and other beings with impulsive mentalities are barred from the Time Theater. But do not be alarmed. Even if the minority theory should prove true—and no evidence for it has ever appeared—there are automatically operating safeguards to protect the audience from any harmful consequences of time traveling (almost certainly impossible, remember) in either direction."
"Sissies!" was the Butcher's comment.
"You're rather young to be here, aren't you?" the interpreter inquired.
The Butcher folded his arms and scowled.
The interpreter hesitated almost humanly, probably snatching through a quarter-million microtapes. "Well, you wouldn't have got in unless a qualified adult had certified you as plus-age. Enjoy yourself."
There was no need for the last injunction. The scene within the bubble had acquired a gripping interest. The shaggy warriors were taking up their swords, gathering about the hooded sorcerer. The hood fell back, revealing a face with hawklike, disturbing eyes that seemed to be looking straight out of the bubble at the future.
"This is getting good," the Butcher said, squirming toward the edge of his seat.
"Stop being an impulsive mentality," Hal warned him a little nervously.
"Hah!"
The sorcerer emptied the small bag on the fire and a thick cloud of smoke puffed toward the ceiling of the bubble. A clawlike hand waved wildly. The sorcerer appeared to be expostulating, commanding. The warriors stared uncomprehendingly, which seemed to exasperate the sorcerer.
"That's right," the Butcher approved loudly. "Sock it to 'em!"
"Butcher!" Hal admonished.
Suddenly the bubble grew very bright, as if the Sun had just shone forth in the ancient world, though the rain still dripped down.
"A viewing anomaly has occurred," the interpreter announced. "It may be necessary to collapse the Time Bubble for a short period."
In a frenzy, his ragged robes twisting like smoke, the sorcerer rushed at one of the warriors, pushing him backward so that in a moment he must cross-section.
"Attaboy!" the Butcher encouraged.
Then the warrior was standing outside the bubble, blinking toward the shadows, rain dripping from his beard and furs.
"Oh, boy !" the Butcher cheered in ecstasy.
"Butcher, you've done it!" Hal said, aghast.
"I sure did," the Butcher agreed blandly, "but that old guy in the bubble helped me. Must take two to work it."
"Keep your seats!" the interpreter said loudly. "We are energizing the safeguards!"
The warriors inside the bubble stared in stupid astonishment after the one who had disappeared from their view. The sorcerer leaped about, pushing them in his direction.
Abrupt light flooded the Time Theater. The warriors who had emerged from the bubble stiffened themselves, baring their teeth.
"The safeguards are now energized," the interpreter said.
A woman in a short golden tunic stood up uncertainly from the front row of the audience.
The first warrior looked her up and down, took one hesitant step forward, then another, then suddenly grabbed her and flung her over his left shoulder, looking around menacingly and swinging his sword in his right hand.
"I repeat, the safeguards have been fully energized! Keep your seats!" the interpreter enjoined.
In the cubicle, Hal and Joggy gasped, the two girls squeaked, but the Butcher yelled a "Hey!" of disapproval, snatched up something from the floor and darted out through the sphincter.
Here and there in the audience, other adults stood up. The emerged warriors formed a ring of swinging swords and questing eyes. Between their legs their wolfish dogs, emerged with them, crouched and snarled. Then the warriors began to fan out.
"There has been an unavoidable delay in energizing the safeguards," the interpreter said. "Please be patient."
At that moment, the Butcher entered the main auditorium, brandishing a levitator above his head and striding purposefully down the aisle. At his heels, five stocky forms trotted. In a definitely pre-civilization voice, or at least with pre-civilization volume, he bellowed: "Hey, you! You quit that!"
The first warrior looked toward him, gave his left shoulder a shake to quiet his wriggling captive, gave his right shoulder one to supple his sword arm, and waited until the dwarfish challenger came into range. Then his sword swished down in a flashing arc.
Next moment, the Butcher was on his knees and the warrior was staring at him open-mouthed. The sword had rebounded from something invisible an arm's length above the gnomelike creature's head. The warrior backed a step.
The Butcher stayed down, crouching half behind an aisle seat and digging for something in his pocket. But he didn't stay quiet. "Sic
'em, Brute!" he shrilled. "Sic 'em, Darter! Sic 'em, Pinkie and Whitie and Blue!" Then he stopped shouting and raised his hand to his mouth.
Growling quite unmechanically, the five uninjes hurled themselves forward and closed with the warrior's wolflike dogs. At the first encounter, Brute and Pinkie were grabbed by the throats, shaken, and tossed a dozen feet. The warriors snarled approval and advanced. But then Brute and Pinkie raced back eagerly to the fight—and suddenly the face of the leading warrior was drenched with scarlet. He blinked and touched his fingers to it, then looked at his hand in horror.
The Butcher spared a second to repeat his command to the uninjes. But already the battle was going against the larger dogs. The latter had the advantage of weight and could toss the smaller dogs like so many foxes. But their terrible fangs did no damage, and whenever an uninj clamped on a throat, that throat was torn out.
Meanwhile, great bloody stains had appeared on the bodies of all the warriors. They drew back in a knot, looking at each other fearfully. That was when the Butcher got to his feet and strode forward, hand clenching the levitator above his head.
"Get back where you belong, you big jerks! And drop that lady!"
The first warrior pointed toward him and hissed something. Immediately, a half dozen swords were smiting at the Butcher.
"We are working to energize the safeguards," the interpreter said in mechanical panic. "Remain patient and in your seats."
The uninjes leaped into the melee, at first tearing more fur than flesh. Swords caught them and sent them spinning through the air. They came yapping back for more. Brute fixed on the first warrior's ankle. He dropped the woman, stamped unavailingly on the uninj, and let out a screech.
Swords were still rebounding from the invisible shield under which the Butcher crouched, making terrible faces at his attackers. They drew back, looked again at their bloodstains, goggled at the demon dogs. At their leader's screech, they broke and plunged back into the Time Bubble, their leader stumbling limpingly after them. There they wasted no time on their own ragged sorcerer. Their swords rose and fell, and no repulsor field stayed them.
"Brute, come back!" the Butcher yelled.
The gray uninj let go his hold on the leader's ankle and scampered out of the Time Bubble, which swiftly dimmed to its original light intensity and then winked out.
For once in their very mature lives, all of the adults in the auditorium began to jabber at each other simultaneously.
"We are sorry, but the anomaly has made it necessary to collapse the Time Bubble," the interpreter said. "There will be no viewing until further announcement. Thank you for your patience."
Hal and Joggy caught up with the Butcher just as Brute jumped into his arms and the woman in gold picked him up and hugged him fiercely. The Butcher started to pull away, then grudgingly submitted.
"Cubs!" came a small cold voice from behind Hal and Joggy. "Always playing hero! Say, what's that awful smell, Cynthia? It must have come from those dirty past men."
Hal and Joggy were shouting at the Butcher, but he wasn't listening to them or to the older voices clamoring about "revised theories of reality" and other important things. He didn't even squirm as Brute licked his cheek and the woman in gold planted a big kiss practically on his mouth.
He smiled dreamily and stroked Brute's muzzle and murmured softly: "We came, we saw, we conquered, didn't we, Brute?"
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What is the plot of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Dr. Kometevsky's Day by Fritz Leiber.
Relevant chunks:
DR. KOMETEVSKY'S DAY
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by DAVID STONE
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Before science, there was superstition. After science, there will be ... what? The biggest, most staggering , most final fact of them all!
"But it's all predicted here! It even names this century for the next reshuffling of the planets."
Celeste Wolver looked up unwillingly at the book her friend Madge Carnap held aloft like a torch. She made out the ill-stamped title, The Dance of the Planets . There was no mistaking the time of its origin; only paper from the Twentieth Century aged to that particularly nasty shade of brown. Indeed, the book seemed to Celeste a brown old witch resurrected from the Last Age of Madness to confound a world growing sane, and she couldn't help shrinking back a trifle toward her husband Theodor.
He tried to come to her rescue. "Only predicted in the vaguest way. As I understand it, Kometevsky claimed, on the basis of a lot of evidence drawn from folklore, that the planets and their moons trade positions every so often."
"As if they were playing Going to Jerusalem, or musical chairs," Celeste chimed in, but she couldn't make it sound funny.
"Jupiter was supposed to have started as the outermost planet, and is to end up in the orbit of Mercury," Theodor continued. "Well, nothing at all like that has happened."
"But it's begun," Madge said with conviction. "Phobos and Deimos have disappeared. You can't argue away that stubborn little fact."
That was the trouble; you couldn't. Mars' two tiny moons had simply vanished during a period when, as was generally the case, the eyes of astronomy weren't on them. Just some hundred-odd cubic miles of rock—the merest cosmic flyspecks—yet they had carried away with them the security of a whole world.
Looking at the lovely garden landscape around her, Celeste Wolver felt that in a moment the shrubby hills would begin to roll like waves, the charmingly aimless paths twist like snakes and sink in the green sea, the sparsely placed skyscrapers dissolve into the misty clouds they pierced.
People must have felt like this , she thought, when Aristarches first hinted and Copernicus told them that the solid Earth under their feet was falling dizzily through space. Only it's worse for us, because they couldn't see that anything had changed. We can.
"You need something to cling to," she heard Madge say. "Dr. Kometevsky was the only person who ever had an inkling that anything like this might happen. I was never a Kometevskyite before. Hadn't even heard of the man."
She said it almost apologetically. In fact, standing there so frank and anxious-eyed, Madge looked anything but a fanatic, which made it much worse.
"Of course, there are several more convincing alternate explanations...." Theodor began hesitantly, knowing very well that there weren't. If Phobos and Deimos had suddenly disintegrated, surely Mars Base would have noticed something. Of course there was the Disordered Space Hypothesis, even if it was little more than the chance phrase of a prominent physicist pounded upon by an eager journalist. And in any case, what sense of security were you left with if you admitted that moons and planets might explode, or drop through unseen holes in space? So he ended up by taking a different tack: "Besides, if Phobos and Deimos simply shot off somewhere, surely they'd have been picked up by now by 'scope or radar."
"Two balls of rock just a few miles in diameter?" Madge questioned.
"Aren't they smaller than many of the asteroids? I'm no astronomer, but I think' I'm right."
And of course she was.
She swung the book under her arm. "Whew, it's heavy," she observed, adding in slightly scandalized tones, "Never been microfilmed." She smiled nervously and looked them up and down. "Going to a party?" she asked.
Theodor's scarlet cloak and Celeste's green culottes and silver jacket justified the question, but they shook their heads.
"Just the normally flamboyant garb of the family," Celeste said, while Theodor explained, "As it happens, we're bound on business connected with the disappearance. We Wolvers practically constitute a sub-committee of the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes. And since a lot of varied material comes to our attention, we're going to see if any of it correlates with this bit of astronomical sleight-of-hand."
Madge nodded. "Give you something to do, at any rate. Well, I must be off. The Buddhist temple has lent us their place for a meeting." She gave them a woeful grin. "See you when the Earth jumps."
Theodor said to Celeste, "Come on, dear. We'll be late."
But Celeste didn't want to move too fast. "You know, Teddy," she said uncomfortably, "all this reminds me of those old myths where too much good fortune is a sure sign of coming disaster. It was just too much luck, our great-grandparents missing World III and getting the World Government started a thousand years ahead of schedule. Luck like that couldn't last, evidently. Maybe we've gone too fast with a lot of things, like space-flight and the Deep Shaft and—" she hesitated a bit—"complex marriages. I'm a woman. I want complete security. Where am I to find it?"
"In me," Theodor said promptly.
"In you?" Celeste questioned, walking slowly. "But you're just one-third of my husband. Perhaps I should look for it in Edmund or Ivan."
"You angry with me about something?"
"Of course not. But a woman wants her source of security whole. In a crisis like this, it's disturbing to have it divided."
"Well, we are a whole and, I believe, indivisible family," Theodor told her warmly. "You're not suggesting, are you, that we're going to be punished for our polygamous sins by a cosmic catastrophe? Fire from Heaven and all that?"
"Don't be silly. I just wanted to give you a picture of my feeling." Celeste smiled. "I guess none of us realized how much we've come to depend on the idea of unchanging scientific law. Knocks the props from under you."
Theodor nodded emphatically. "All the more reason to get a line on what's happening as quickly as possible. You know, it's fantastically far-fetched, but I think the experience of persons with Extra-Sensory Perception may give us a clue. During the past three or four days there's been a remarkable similarity in the dreams of ESPs all over the planet. I'm going to present the evidence at the meeting."
Celeste looked up at him. "So that's why Rosalind's bringing Frieda's daughter?"
"Dotty is your daughter, too, and Rosalind's," Theodor reminded her.
"No, just Frieda's," Celeste said bitterly. "Of course you may be the father. One-third of a chance."
Theodor looked at her sharply, but didn't comment. "Anyway, Dotty will be there," he said. "Probably asleep by now. All the ESPs have suddenly seemed to need more sleep."
As they talked, it had been growing darker, though the luminescence of the path kept it from being bothersome. And now the cloud rack parted to the east, showing a single red planet low on the horizon.
"Did you know," Theodor said suddenly, "that in Gulliver's Travels Dean Swift predicted that better telescopes would show Mars to have two moons? He got the sizes and distances and periods damned accurately, too. One of the few really startling coincidences of reality and literature."
"Stop being eerie," Celeste said sharply. But then she went on, "Those names Phobos and Deimos—they're Greek, aren't they? What do they mean?"
Theodor lost a step. "Fear and Terror," he said unwillingly. "Now don't go taking that for an omen. Most of the mythological names of major and minor ancient gods had been taken—the bodies in the Solar System are named that way, of course—and these were about all that were available."
It was true, but it didn't comfort him much.
I am a God , Dotty was dreaming, and I want to be by myself and think. I and my god-friends like to keep some of our thoughts secret, but the other gods have forbidden us to.
A little smile flickered across the lips of the sleeping girl, and the woman in gold tights and gold-spangled jacket leaned forward thoughtfully. In her dignity and simplicity and straight-spined grace, she was rather like a circus mother watching her sick child before she went out for the trapeze act.
I and my god-friends sail off in our great round silver boats , Dotty went on dreaming. The other gods are angry and scared. They are frightened of the thoughts we may think in secret. They follow us to hunt us down. There are many more of them than of us.
As Celeste and Theodor entered the committee room, Rosalind Wolver—a glitter of platinum against darkness—came in through the opposite door and softly shut it behind her. Frieda, a fair woman in blue robes, got up from the round table.
Celeste turned away with outward casualness as Theodor kissed his two other wives. She was pleased to note that Edmund seemed impatient too. A figure in close-fitting black, unrelieved except for two red arrows at the collar, he struck her as embodying very properly the serious, fateful temper of the moment.
He took two briefcases from his vest pocket and tossed them down on the table beside one of the microfilm projectors.
"I suggest we get started without waiting for Ivan," he said.
Frieda frowned anxiously. "It's ten minutes since he phoned from the Deep Space Bar to say he was starting right away. And that's hardly a two minutes walk."
Rosalind instantly started toward the outside door.
"I'll check," she explained. "Oh, Frieda, I've set the mike so you'll hear if Dotty calls."
Edmund threw up his hands. "Very well, then," he said and walked over, switched on the picture and stared out moodily.
Theodor and Frieda got out their briefcases, switched on projectors, and began silently checking through their material.
Celeste fiddled with the TV and got a newscast. But she found her eyes didn't want to absorb the blocks of print that rather swiftly succeeded each other, so, after a few moments, she shrugged impatiently and switched to audio.
At the noise, the others looked around at her with surprise and some irritation, but in a few moments they were also listening.
"The two rocket ships sent out from Mars Base to explore the orbital positions of Phobos and Deimos—that is, the volume of space they'd be occupying if their positions had remained normal—report finding masses of dust and larger debris. The two masses of fine debris are moving in the same orbits and at the same velocities as the two vanished moons, and occupy roughly the same volumes of space, though the mass of material is hardly a hundredth that of the moons. Physicists have ventured no statements as to whether this constitutes a confirmation of the Disintegration Hypothesis.
"However, we're mighty pleased at this news here. There's a marked lessening of tension. The finding of the debris—solid, tangible stuff—seems to lift the whole affair out of the supernatural miasma in which some of us have been tempted to plunge it. One-hundredth of the moons has been found.
"The rest will also be!"
Edmund had turned his back on the window. Frieda and Theodor had switched off their projectors.
"Meanwhile, Earthlings are going about their business with a minimum of commotion, meeting with considerable calm the strange threat to the fabric of their Solar System. Many, of course, are assembled in churches and humanist temples. Kometevskyites have staged helicopter processions at Washington, Peking, Pretoria, and Christiana, demanding that instant preparations be made for—and I quote—'Earth's coming leap through space.' They have also formally challenged all astronomers to produce an explanation other than the one contained in that strange book so recently conjured from oblivion, The Dance of the Planets .
"That about winds up the story for the present. There are no new reports from Interplanetary Radar, Astronomy, or the other rocket ships searching in the extended Mars volume. Nor have any statements been issued by the various groups working on the problem in Astrophysics, Cosmic Ecology, the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes, and so forth. Meanwhile, however, we can take courage from the words of a poem written even before Dr. Kometevsky's book:
"This Earth is not the steadfast place
We landsmen build upon;
From deep to deep she varies pace,
And while she comes is gone.
Beneath my feet I feel
Her smooth bulk heave and dip;
With velvet plunge and soft upreel
She swings and steadies to her keel
Like a gallant, gallant ship."
While the TV voice intoned the poem, growing richer as emotion caught it up, Celeste looked around her at the others. Frieda, with her touch of feminine helplessness showing more than ever through her business-like poise. Theodor leaning forward from his scarlet cloak thrown back, smiling the half-smile with which he seemed to face even the unknown. Black Edmund, masking a deep uncertainty with a strong show of decisiveness.
In short, her family. She knew their every quirk and foible. And yet now they seemed to her a million miles away, figures seen through the wrong end of a telescope.
Were they really a family? Strong sources of mutual strength and security to each other? Or had they merely been playing family, experimenting with their notions of complex marriage like a bunch of silly adolescents? Butterflies taking advantage of good weather to wing together in a glamorous, artificial dance—until outraged Nature decided to wipe them out?
As the poem was ending, Celeste saw the door open and Rosalind come slowly in. The Golden Woman's face was white as the paths she had been treading.
Just then the TV voice quickened with shock. "News! Lunar Observatory One reports that, although Jupiter is just about to pass behind the Sun, a good coronagraph of the planet has been obtained. Checked and rechecked, it admits of only one interpretation, which Lunar One feels duty-bound to release. Jupiter's fourteen moons are no longer visible! "
The chorus of remarks with which the Wolvers would otherwise have received this was checked by one thing: the fact that Rosalind seemed not to hear it. Whatever was on her mind prevented even that incredible statement from penetrating.
She walked shakily to the table and put down a briefcase, one end of which was smudged with dirt.
Without looking at them, she said, "Ivan left the Deep Space Bar twenty minutes ago, said he was coming straight here. On my way back I searched the path. Midway I found this half-buried in the dirt. I had to tug to get it out—almost as if it had been cemented into the ground. Do you feel how the dirt seems to be in the leather, as if it had lain for years in the grave?"
By now the others were fingering the small case of microfilms they had seen so many times in Ivan's competent hands. What Rosalind said was true. It had a gritty, unwholesome feel to it. Also, it felt strangely heavy.
"And see what's written on it," she added.
They turned it over. Scrawled with white pencil in big, hasty, frantic letters were two words:
"Going down!"
The other gods , Dotty dreamt, are combing the whole Universe for us. We have escaped them many times, but now our tricks are almost used up. There are no doors going out of the Universe and our boats are silver beacons to the hunters. So we decide to disguise them in the only way they can be disguised. It is our last chance.
Edmund rapped the table to gain the family's attention. "I'd say we've done everything we can for the moment to find Ivan. We've made a thorough local search. A wider one, which we can't conduct personally, is in progress. All helpful agencies have been alerted and descriptions are being broadcast. I suggest we get on with the business of the evening—which may very well be connected with Ivan's disappearance."
One by one the others nodded and took their places at the round table. Celeste made a great effort to throw off the feeling of unreality that had engulfed her and focus attention on her microfilms.
"I'll take over Ivan's notes," she heard Edmund say. "They're mainly about the Deep Shaft."
"How far have they got with that?" Frieda asked idly. "Twenty-five miles?"
"Nearer thirty, I believe," Edmund answered, "and still going down."
At those last two words they all looked up quickly. Then their eyes went toward Ivan's briefcase.
Our trick has succeeded , Dotty dreamt. The other gods have passed our hiding place a dozen times without noticing. They search the Universe for us many times in vain. They finally decide that we have found a door going out of the Universe. Yet they fear us all the more. They think of us as devils who will some day return through the door to destroy them. So they watch everywhere. We lie quietly smiling in our camouflaged boats, yet hardly daring to move or think, for fear that the faintest echoes of our doings will give them a clue. Hundreds of millions of years pass by. They seem to us no more than drugged hours in a prison.
Theodor rubbed his eyes and pushed his chair back from the table. "We need a break."
Frieda agreed wearily. "We've gone through everything."
"Good idea," Edmund said briskly. "I think we've hit on several crucial points along the way and half disentangled them from the great mass of inconsequential material. I'll finish up that part of the job right now and present my case when we're all a bit fresher. Say half an hour?"
Theodor nodded heavily, pushing up from his chair and hitching his cloak over a shoulder.
"I'm going out for a drink," he informed them.
After several hesitant seconds, Rosalind quietly followed him. Frieda stretched out on a couch and closed her eyes. Edmund scanned microfilms tirelessly, every now and then setting one aside.
Celeste watched him for a minute, then sprang up and started toward the room where Dotty was asleep. But midway she stopped.
Not my child , she thought bitterly. Frieda's her mother, Rosalind her nurse. I'm nothing at all. Just one of the husband's girl friends. A lady of uneasy virtue in a dissolving world.
But then she straightened her shoulders and went on.
Rosalind didn't catch up with Theodor. Her footsteps were silent and he never looked back along the path whose feeble white glow rose only knee-high, lighting a low strip of shrub and mossy tree trunk to either side, no more.
It was a little chilly. She drew on her gloves, but she didn't hurry. In fact, she fell farther and farther behind the dipping tail of his scarlet cloak and his plodding red shoes, which seemed to move disembodied, like those in the fairy tale.
When she reached the point where she had found Ivan's briefcase, she stopped altogether.
A breeze rustled the leaves, and, moistly brushing her cheek, brought forest scents of rot and mold. After a bit she began to hear the furtive scurryings and scuttlings of forest creatures.
She looked around her half-heartedly, suddenly realizing the futility of her quest. What clues could she hope to find in this knee-high twilight? And they'd thoroughly combed the place earlier in the night.
Without warning, an eerie tingling went through her and she was seized by a horror of the cold, grainy Earth underfoot—an ancestral terror from the days when men shivered at ghost stories about graves and tombs.
A tiny detail persisted in bulking larger and larger in her mind—the unnaturalness of the way the Earth had impregnated the corner of Ivan's briefcase, almost as if dirt and leather co-existed in the same space. She remembered the queer way the partly buried briefcase had resisted her first tug, like a rooted plant.
She felt cowed by the mysterious night about her, and literally dwarfed, as if she had grown several inches shorter. She roused herself and started forward.
Something held her feet.
They were ankle-deep in the path. While she looked in fright and horror, they began to sink still lower into the ground.
She plunged frantically, trying to jerk loose. She couldn't. She had the panicky feeling that the Earth had not only trapped but invaded her; that its molecules were creeping up between the molecules of her flesh; that the two were becoming one.
And she was sinking faster. Now knee-deep, thigh-deep, hip-deep, waist-deep. She beat at the powdery path with her hands and threw her body from side to side in agonized frenzy like some sinner frozen in the ice of the innermost circle of the ancients' hell. And always the sense of the dark, grainy tide rose inside as well as around her.
She thought, he'd just have had time to scribble that note on his briefcase and toss it away. She jerked off a glove, leaned out as far as she could, and made a frantic effort to drive its fingers into the powdery path. Then the Earth mounted to her chin, her nose, and covered her eyes.
She expected blackness, but it was as if the light of the path stayed with her, making a little glow all around. She saw roots, pebbles, black rot, worn tunnels, worms. Tier on tier of them, her vision penetrating the solid ground. And at the same time, the knowledge that these same sorts of things were coursing up through her.
And still she continued to sink at a speed that increased, as if the law of gravitation applied to her in a diminished way. She dropped from black soil through gray clay and into pale limestone.
Her tortured, rock-permeated lungs sucked at rock and drew in air. She wondered madly if a volume of air were falling with her through the stone.
A glitter of quartz. The momentary openness of a foot-high cavern with a trickle of water. And then she was sliding down a black basalt column, half inside it, half inside gold-flecked ore. Then just black basalt. And always faster.
It grew hot, then hotter, as if she were approaching the mythical eternal fires.
At first glance Theodor thought the Deep Space Bar was empty. Then he saw a figure hunched monkeylike on the last stool, almost lost in the blue shadows, while behind the bar, her crystal dress blending with the tiers of sparkling glasses, stood a grave-eyed young girl who could hardly have been fifteen.
The TV was saying, "... in addition, a number of mysterious disappearances of high-rating individuals have been reported. These are thought to be cases of misunderstanding, illusory apprehension, and impulse traveling—a result of the unusual stresses of the time. Finally, a few suggestible individuals in various parts of the globe, especially the Indian Peninsula, have declared themselves to be 'gods' and in some way responsible for current events.
"It is thought—"
The girl switched off the TV and took Theodor's order, explaining casually, "Joe wanted to go to a Kometevskyite meeting, so I took over for him." When she had prepared Theodor's highball, she announced,
"I'll have a drink with you gentlemen," and squeezed herself a glass of pomegranate juice.
The monkeylike figure muttered, "Scotch-and-soda," then turned toward Edmund and asked, "And what is your reaction to all this, sir?"
Theodor recognized the shrunken wrinkle-seamed face. It was Colonel Fortescue, a military antique long retired from the Peace Patrol and reputed to have seen actual fighting in the Last Age of Madness. Now, for some reason, the face sported a knowing smile.
Theodor shrugged. Just then the TV "big news" light blinked blue and the girl switched on audio. The Colonel winked at Theodor.
"... confirming the disappearance of Jupiter's moons. But two other utterly fantastic reports have just been received. First, Lunar Observatory One says that it is visually tracking fourteen small bodies which it believes may be the lost moons of Jupiter. They are moving outward from the Solar System at an incredible velocity and are already beyond the orbit of Saturn!"
The Colonel said, "Ah!"
"Second, Palomar reports a large number of dark bodies approaching the Solar System at an equally incredible velocity. They are at about twice the distance of Pluto, but closing in fast! We will be on the air with further details as soon as possible."
The Colonel said, "Ah-ha!"
Theodor stared at him. The old man's self-satisfied poise was almost amusing.
"Are you a Kometevskyite?" Theodor asked him.
The Colonel laughed. "Of course not, my boy. Those poor people are fumbling in the dark. Don't you see what's happened?"
"Frankly, no."
The Colonel leaned toward Theodor and whispered gruffly, "The Divine Plan. God is a military strategist, naturally."
Then he lifted the scotch-and-soda in his clawlike hand and took a satisfying swallow.
"I knew it all along, of course," he went on musingly, "but this last news makes it as plain as a rocket blast, at least to anyone who knows military strategy. Look here, my boy, suppose you were commanding a fleet and got wind of the enemy's approach—what would you do? Why, you'd send your scouts and destroyers fanning out toward them. Behind that screen you'd mass your heavy ships. Then—"
"You don't mean to imply—" Theodor interrupted.
The girl behind the bar looked at them both cryptically.
"Of course I do!" the Colonel cut in sharply. "It's a war between the forces of good and evil. The bright suns and planets are on one side, the dark on the other. The moons are the destroyers, Jupiter and Saturn are the big battleships, while we're on a heavy cruiser, I'm proud to say. We'll probably go into action soon. Be a corking fight, what? And all by divine strategy!"
He chuckled and took another big drink. Theodor looked at him sourly. The girl behind the bar polished a glass and said nothing.
Dotty suddenly began to turn and toss, and a look of terror came over her sleeping face. Celeste leaned forward apprehensively.
The child's lips worked and Celeste made out the sleepy-fuzzy words:
"They've found out where we're hiding. They're coming to get us. No! Please, no!"
Celeste's reactions were mixed. She felt worried about Dotty and at the same time almost in terror of her, as if the little girl were an agent of supernatural forces. She told herself that this fear was an expression of her own hostility, yet she didn't really believe it. She touched the child's hand.
Dotty's eyes opened without making Celeste feel she had quite come awake. After a bit she looked at Celeste and her little lips parted in a smile.
"Hello," she said sleepily. "I've been having such funny dreams." Then, after a pause, frowning, "I really am a god, you know. It feels very queer."
"Yes, dear?" Celeste prompted uneasily. "Shall I call Frieda?"
The smile left Dotty's lips. "Why do you act so nervous around me?" she asked. "Don't you love me, Mummy?"
Celeste started at the word. Her throat closed. Then, very slowly, her face broke into a radiant smile. "Of course I do, darling. I love you very much."
Dotty nodded happily, her eyes already closed again.
There was a sudden flurry of excited voices beyond the door. Celeste heard her name called. She stood up.
"I'm going to have to go out and talk with the others," she said. "If you want me, dear, just call."
"Yes, Mummy."
Edmund rapped for attention. Celeste, Frieda, and Theodor glanced around at him. He looked more frightfully strained, they realized, than even they felt. His expression was a study in suppressed excitement, but there were also signs of a knowledge that was almost too overpowering for a human being to bear.
His voice was clipped, rapid. "I think it's about time we stopped worrying about our own affairs and thought of those of the Solar System, partly because I think they have a direct bearing on the disappearances of Ivan end Rosalind. As I told you, I've been sorting out the crucial items from the material we've been presenting. There are roughly four of those items, as I see it. It's rather like a mystery story. I wonder if, hearing those four clues, you will come to the same conclusion I have."
The others nodded.
"First, there are the latest reports from Deep Shaft, which, as you know, has been sunk to investigate deep-Earth conditions. At approximately twenty-nine miles below the surface, the delvers have encountered a metallic obstruction which they have tentatively named the durasphere. It resists their hardest drills, their strongest corrosives. They have extended a side-tunnel at that level for a quarter of a mile. Delicate measurements, made possible by the mirror-smooth metal surface, show that the durasphere has a slight curvature that is almost exactly equal to the curvature of the Earth itself. The suggestion is that deep borings made anywhere in the world would encounter the durasphere at the same depth.
"Second, the movements of the moons of Mars and Jupiter, and particularly the debris left behind by the moons of Mars. Granting Phobos and Deimos had duraspheres proportional in size to that of Earth, then the debris would roughly equal in amount the material in those two duraspheres' rocky envelopes. The suggestion is that the two duraspheres suddenly burst from their envelopes with such titanic velocity as to leave those disrupted envelopes behind."
It was deadly quiet in the committee room.
"Thirdly, the disappearances of Ivan and Rosalind, and especially the baffling hint—from Ivan's message in one case and Rosalind's downward-pointing glove in the other—that they were both somehow drawn into the depths of the Earth.
"Finally, the dreams of the ESPs, which agree overwhelmingly in the following points: A group of beings separate themselves from a godlike and telepathic race because they insist on maintaining a degree of mental privacy. They flee in great boats or ships of some sort. They are pursued on such a scale that there is no hiding place for them anywhere in the universe. In some manner they successfully camouflage their ships. Eons pass and their still-fanatical pursuers do not penetrate their secret. Then, suddenly, they are detected."
Edmund waited. "Do you see what I'm driving at?" he asked hoarsely.
He could tell from their looks that the others did, but couldn't bring
themselves to put it into words.
"I suppose it's the time-scale and the value-scale that are so hard for
us to accept," he said softly. "Much more, even, than the size-scale.
The thought that there are creatures in the Universe to whom the whole
career of Man—in fact, the whole career of life—is no more than a few
thousand or hundred thousand years. And to whom Man is no more than a
minor stage property—a trifling part of a clever job of camouflage."
This time he went on, "Fantasy writers have at times hinted all sorts
of odd things about the Earth—that it might even be a kind of single
living creature, or honeycombed with inhabited caverns, and so on.
But I don't know that any of them have ever suggested that the Earth,
together with all the planets and moons of the Solar System, might
be...."
In a whisper, Frieda finished for him, "... a camouflaged fleet of
gigantic spherical spaceships."
" Your guess happens to be the precise truth. "
At that familiar, yet dreadly unfamiliar voice, all four of them swung
toward the inner door. Dotty was standing there, a sleep-stupefied
little girl with a blanket caught up around her and dragging behind.
Their own daughter. But in her eyes was a look from which they cringed.
She said, "I am a creature somewhat older than what your geologists
call the Archeozoic Era. I am speaking to you through a number of
telepathically sensitive individuals among your kind. In each case my
thoughts suit themselves to your level of comprehension. I inhabit the
disguised and jetless spaceship which is your Earth."
Celeste swayed a step forward. "Baby...." she implored.
Dotty went on, without giving her a glance, "It is true that we planted
the seeds of life on some of these planets simply as part of our
camouflage, just as we gave them a suitable environment for each. And
it is true that now we must let most of that life be destroyed. Our
hiding place has been discovered, our pursuers are upon us, and we must
make one last effort to escape or do battle, since we firmly believe
that the principle of mental privacy to which we have devoted our
existence is perhaps the greatest good in the whole Universe.
"But it is not true that we look with contempt upon you. Our whole race
is deeply devoted to life, wherever it may come into being, and it is
our rule never to interfere with its development. That was one of
the reasons we made life a part of our camouflage—it would make our
pursuers reluctant to examine these planets too closely.
"Yes, we have always cherished you and watched your evolution with
interest from our hidden lairs. We may even unconsciously have shaped
your development in certain ways, trying constantly to educate you away
from war and finally succeeding—which may have given the betraying
clue to our pursuers.
"Your planets must be burst asunder—this particular planet in the
area of the Pacific—so that we may have our last chance to escape.
Even if we did not move, our pursuers would destroy you with us. We
cannot invite you inside our ships—not for lack of space, but because
you could never survive the vast accelerations to which you would be
subjected. You would, you see, need very special accommodations, of
which we have enough only for a few.
"Those few we will take with us, as the seed from which a new human
race may—if we ourselves somehow survive—be born."
Rosalind and Ivan stared dumbly at each other across the egg-shaped
silver room, without apparent entrance or exit, in which they were
sprawled. But their thoughts were no longer of thirty-odd mile
journeys down through solid earth, or of how cool it was after the
heat of the passage, or of how grotesque it was to be trapped here,
the fragment of a marriage. They were both listening to the voice that
spoke inside their minds.
"In a few minutes your bodies will be separated into layers one atom
thick, capable of being shelved or stored in such a way as to endure
almost infinite accelerations. Single cells will cover acres of space.
But do not be alarmed. The process will be painless and each particle
will be catalogued for future assembly. Your consciousness will endure
throughout the process."
Rosalind looked at her gold-shod toes. She was wondering, will they go
first, or my head? Or will I be peeled like an apple?
She looked at Ivan and knew he was thinking the same thing.
Up in the committee room, the other Wolvers slumped around the table.
Only little Dotty sat straight and staring, speechless and unanswering,
quite beyond their reach, like a telephone off the hook and with the
connection open, but no voice from the other end.
They had just switched off the TV after listening to a confused
medley of denials, prayers, Kometevskyite chatterings, and a few
astonishingly realistic comments on the possibility of survival.
These last pointed out that, on the side of the Earth opposite the
Pacific, the convulsions would come slowly when the entombed spaceship
burst forth—provided, as seemed the case, that it moved without jets
or reaction.
It would be as if the Earth's vast core simply vanished. Gravity would
diminish abruptly to a fraction of its former value. The empty envelope
of rock and water and air would slowly fall together, though at the
same time the air would begin to escape from the debris because there
would no longer be the mass required to hold it.
However, there might be definite chances of temporary and even
prolonged survival for individuals in strong, hermetically sealed
structures, such as submarines and spaceships. The few spaceships on
Earth were reported to have blasted off, or be preparing to leave, with
as many passengers as could be carried.
But most persons, apparently, could not contemplate action of any sort.
They could only sit and think, like the Wolvers.
A faint smile relaxed Celeste's face. She was thinking, how beautiful!
It means the death of the Solar System, which is a horrifying
subjective concept. Objectively, though, it would be a more awesome
sight than any human being has ever seen or ever could see. It's an
absurd and even brutal thing to wish—but I wish I could see the whole
cataclysm from beginning to end. It would make death seem very small, a
tiny personal event.
Dotty's face was losing its blank expression, becoming intent and
alarmed.
"We are in contact with our pursuers," she said in the
familiar-unfamiliar voice. "Negotiations are now going on. There
seems to be—there is a change in them. Where they were harsh and
vindictive before, they now are gentle and conciliatory." She paused,
the alarm on her childish features pinching into anxious uncertainty.
"Our pursuers have always been shrewd. The change in them may be false,
intended merely to lull us into allowing them to come close enough to
destroy us. We must not fall into the trap by growing hopeful...."
They leaned forward, clutching hands, watching the little face as
though it were a television screen. Celeste had the wild feeling that
she was listening to a communique from a war so unthinkably vast and
violent, between opponents so astronomically huge and nearly immortal,
that she felt like no more than a reasoning ameba ... and then realized
with an explosive urge to laugh that that was exactly the situation.
"No!" said Dotty. Her eyes began to glow. "They have changed! During
the eons in which we lay sealed away and hidden from them, knowing
nothing of them, they have rebelled against the tyranny of a communal
mind to which no thoughts are private ... the tyranny that we ourselves
fled to escape. They come not to destroy us, but to welcome us back to
a society that we and they can make truly great!"
Frieda collapsed to a chair, trembling between laughter and hysterical
weeping. Theodor looked as blank as Dotty had while waiting for words
to speak. Edmund sprang to the picture window, Celeste toward the TV
set.
Climbing shakily out of the chair, Frieda stumbled to the picture
window and peered out beside Edmund. She saw lights bobbing along the
paths with a wild excitement.
On the TV screen, Celeste watched two brightly lit ships spinning in
the sky—whether human spaceships or Phobos and Deimos come to help
Earth rejoice, she couldn't tell.
Dotty spoke again, the joy in her strange voice forcing them to turn.
"And you, dear children, creatures of our camouflage, we welcome
you—whatever your future career on these planets or like ones—into
the society of enlightened worlds! You need not feel small and alone
and helpless ever again, for we shall always be with you!"
The outer door opened. Ivan and Rosalind reeled in, drunkenly smiling,
arm in arm.
"Like rockets," Rosalind blurted happily. "We came through the
durasphere and solid rock ... shot up right to the surface."
"They didn't have to take us along," Ivan added with a bleary grin.
"But you know that already, don't you? They're too good to let you live
in fear, so they must have told you by now."
"Yes, we know," said Theodor. "They must be almost godlike in their
goodness. I feel ... calm."
Edmund nodded soberly. "Calmer than I ever felt before. It's knowing, I
suppose, that—well, we're not alone."
Dotty blinked and looked around and smiled at them all with a wholly
little-girl smile.
"Oh, Mummy," she said, and it was impossible to tell whether she spoke
to Frieda or Rosalind or Celeste, "I've just had the funniest dream."
"No, darling," said Rosalind gently, "it's we who had the dream. We've
just awakened."
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
|
[
"The story is set in the future where Mars’ two moons Phobos and Deimos unexpectedly vanished, space travel exists, and monogamous marriages are lawful. Celeste Wolver talks to her friend Madge Carnap, who claims that the old book The Dance of The Planets predicted the moons’ disappearance. Wolver’s husband, one of the three ones she has, Theodor tries to explain that the book predicts only some events, but he and Celeste soon understand they don’t have strong arguments. Then Celeste and Theodor leave for a meeting regarding the recent events. While walking there, she shares her worries with him. Theodor says ESPs around the world have similar dreams. So, Rosalind, one of his wives, will bring their daughter Dotty to the meeting. Celeste, Rosalind, Frieda, Theodor, and Edmund were waiting only for the third husband, Ivan. Rosalind leaves to look for him, and the others start the meeting. They listen to recent news recordings: Mars’ moons disappeared; Kometevskyites - people that believe in the theory of The Dance of The Planets - demand some government's action. The news anchorman declares that Jupiter’s fourteen moons are not visible anymore. Rosalind comes back and says she only found Ivan’s briefcase covered in mud, with the phrase \"Going down” hastily written on it. They alert local agencies and talk about the project - Deep Shaft - Ivan was studying. The family splits up for a thirty-minute break, and Rosalind goes to where she found the briefcase. There the woman soon starts sinking into the ground. Rosalind realizes what happened to Ivan and leaves a glove pointing down as a sign; soon, her body is underground, and she keeps moving down mud and soil. Theodor, who went to the bar for the break, meets a colonel who tells him that there is a war between good and evil, and the planets are battleships controlled by divine power. The stories of these characters get interrupted by small extracts from Dotty’s dreams, where she calls herself a god, and says she and her friends have been found by their enemies and need to flee. Dotty wakes up and tells Celeste she is a god. Celeste goes back to everybody, and Edmund lists all the known facts. He says Deep Shaft found a metallic durasphere inside the Earth and proposes that other moons had it too. Ivan and Rosalind are drawn into the depth of the Earth, and in their dreams, all ESPs say they will leave in some great boats. Everybody understands that their planet is a camouflaged spaceship. Suddenly, Dotty says in an unfamiliar voice that their assumption is correct. The creature uses Dotty to tell them people were part of the camouflage they needed to hide from the enemies who don’t support mental privacy. Now they have to leave and can take only a few people. Suddenly, the creature says that their enemies changed, and now they don’t need to hide or destroy the planet. Rosalind and Ivan return.\n",
"The story follows a group of people that are engaged in a polyamorous marriage. They are 3 men and 3 women, who share a child. The story follows how they are reacting to astronomical phenomena. After Phobos and Demios, two of Mar's moons, disappear, Theodore and Celeste meet with another girl that says that everything that is happening was predicted by Dr. Kometevsky, and it was written in a book called “The Dance of the Planets”. When the six of them want to meet, they realize that one of them was missing, and the only thing that was left was his briefcase, with the message: Going Down. During this meeting, their little girl was having dreams in which she dreamed about a separate species. After one of them goes to a bar, the group learn that Earth was in fact created by a separate species that were being hunted, and that within Earth there is a spherical ship where the species reside. The species can communicate with humans that have Extra-Sensory Perception, and their child is one of them. Through their child, the group learn that the species’ hunters found them, and that they have to leave soon. The story ends with the group learning that the species wants to take the humans with them, and they accept that the species wants to help them. ",
"Madge Carnap shows a book, The Dance of the Planets, which looks old and terrifies Celeste Wolver. Celeste’s husband, Theodor, argues with Madge about the disappearance of Mars’ two moons, Phobos and Deimos. Madge believes the book author’s prediction, Dr. Kometevsky, that the Earth will take a leap in space, but Theodor and Celeste don’t believe her. They separate from each other, Madge goes to a meeting in a Buddist temple, and Theodor and Celeste go to a sub-committee of the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes to investigate the materials about the phenomenon. Theodor and Celeste talk about the possible omen and their family situation on their way. Theodor also mentions that many people with Extra-Sensory Perception have been dreaming similarly. \n\nWhen Celeste and Theodor go into the committee room, Edmund, one of the husbands, suggests the family to start examining the microfilms without waiting for Ivan, the third husband of the family. Rosalind goes out to check for Ivan. Other people take the projectors out of their suitcases and check the microfilms while Celeste turns on the TV. They start to focus on the audio, which talks about the discovery of the debris of the moons in their original positions and Dr. Kometevsky’s call. When Rosalind returns with Ivan’s suitcase, she doesn’t hear the news that Jupiter’s fourteen moons have become invisible on the TV. They examine the briefcase, finding it eerily muddy with two letters. When they take a break from the examination, Theodor and Rosalind go out to drink. Rosalind is dragged underground to the core of Earth while trying to catch up with Theodor. Meanwhile, Theodor meets Colonel Fortescue in the Deep Space Bar, who tells him that God is a military strategist and the whole phenomenon is the war between the forces of good and evil when listening to the news about the movements of Jupiter’s moons and the unknown bodies in the space. Celeste watches Dotty in sleep. Edmund gathers everyone and starts to explain his discovery from all materials, including the metallic durashpere found in the center of Earth underground, the relation between the moons’ debris and the durashpere of them, Ivan’s and Rosalind’s disappearances, and the godlike creatures in ESPs dreams. After his explanation, the godlike creature communicates with them through Dotty’s body, explaining that Earth is their battleship, and that humans are their camouflage to escape from the pursuers. The pursuers have detected them, so Earth must be destroyed to let them grab the chance to flee. Only a small portion of humans will be saved to serve as the seed of the human race, such as Ivan and Rosalind. While the Wolver family is shocked by the truth, the godlike creatures negotiate with their pursuers. After a while, the godlike creature tells them that they are safe and will be brought to their place as the pursuers have changed to be good. In the end, Rosalind and Ivan are sent to the house, and the family gathers together.\n",
"Celeste Wolver is listening to her friend Madge Carnap hold a book called The Dance of Planets from the Twentieth Century. Her husband Theordor tries to argue that Kometevsky predicted the reshuffling of planets in a vague way, but Maggie Madge that it is undeniable Phobos and Deimos have disappeared. The story cuts to Celeste staring at a landscape, as Madge comes up to talk to her more about Dr. Kometevsky. Theodor says that the Mars Base would have noticed something, but Madge says that they are smaller than asteroids. Once she leaves, Celeste talks about how this feels like a warning for disaster in terms of complete security. She does not feel at rest because she has three husbands, and Theodor says that they are still family. Theodor talks about presenting evidence of dreams in ESPs at the meeting. The scene cuts to Dotty dreaming about being a God with god-like friends, and there are other gods out to stop them. Celeste and Theodor enter the committee room. Edmund is impatient to start without Ivan, but Rosalind says that she will go check on him. Celeste gets a newscast going, and everyone listens to the news about finding remnants of the two missing moons. There is also news about Kometevskyites staging helicopter processions to prepare for Earth’s leap through space. Rosalind suddenly walks in and shows everybody the microfilms that Ivan has used to handle. Dotty dreams again that the other gods are combing the whole universe to find them. Edmund says that they have done everything they can with finding Ivan, and he offers to take over the notes about the Deep Shaft. Dotty once again dreams about the other gods fearing that the escaped ones have found a door going out of the Universe. As Rosalind and Theodor step out, Celeste goes to see Dotty. As Rosalind goes to investigate Ivan’s briefcase, she notices that something is holding her feet ankle-deep in the path. Rosalind disappears too, as the bartender at the Deep Space Bar makes drinks for Theodor and Edmund. Colonel Fortescue believes that this is a war between good and evil. The scene then cuts to Celeste observing Dotty, as she says she is a god. Dotty asks if Celeste loves her, and she says that she does. Edmund calls everyone back together, piecing together the four clues to come to the conclusion that planets are a camouflaged fleet of gigantic spaceships. Dotty then comes, speaking with the voice of the god as it says that they will be escaping from the pursuers and destroying the planets because they have been found. As everybody contemplates what to do, the voice from Dotty suddenly says that their enemies have changed. They are no longer seeking to destroy them and that the planets are free because there is no need for them to be destroyed. Everybody feels much calmer, and Dotty says that she just had the funniest dream. "
] |
51353
|
DR. KOMETEVSKY'S DAY
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by DAVID STONE
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Before science, there was superstition. After science, there will be ... what? The biggest, most staggering , most final fact of them all!
"But it's all predicted here! It even names this century for the next reshuffling of the planets."
Celeste Wolver looked up unwillingly at the book her friend Madge Carnap held aloft like a torch. She made out the ill-stamped title, The Dance of the Planets . There was no mistaking the time of its origin; only paper from the Twentieth Century aged to that particularly nasty shade of brown. Indeed, the book seemed to Celeste a brown old witch resurrected from the Last Age of Madness to confound a world growing sane, and she couldn't help shrinking back a trifle toward her husband Theodor.
He tried to come to her rescue. "Only predicted in the vaguest way. As I understand it, Kometevsky claimed, on the basis of a lot of evidence drawn from folklore, that the planets and their moons trade positions every so often."
"As if they were playing Going to Jerusalem, or musical chairs," Celeste chimed in, but she couldn't make it sound funny.
"Jupiter was supposed to have started as the outermost planet, and is to end up in the orbit of Mercury," Theodor continued. "Well, nothing at all like that has happened."
"But it's begun," Madge said with conviction. "Phobos and Deimos have disappeared. You can't argue away that stubborn little fact."
That was the trouble; you couldn't. Mars' two tiny moons had simply vanished during a period when, as was generally the case, the eyes of astronomy weren't on them. Just some hundred-odd cubic miles of rock—the merest cosmic flyspecks—yet they had carried away with them the security of a whole world.
Looking at the lovely garden landscape around her, Celeste Wolver felt that in a moment the shrubby hills would begin to roll like waves, the charmingly aimless paths twist like snakes and sink in the green sea, the sparsely placed skyscrapers dissolve into the misty clouds they pierced.
People must have felt like this , she thought, when Aristarches first hinted and Copernicus told them that the solid Earth under their feet was falling dizzily through space. Only it's worse for us, because they couldn't see that anything had changed. We can.
"You need something to cling to," she heard Madge say. "Dr. Kometevsky was the only person who ever had an inkling that anything like this might happen. I was never a Kometevskyite before. Hadn't even heard of the man."
She said it almost apologetically. In fact, standing there so frank and anxious-eyed, Madge looked anything but a fanatic, which made it much worse.
"Of course, there are several more convincing alternate explanations...." Theodor began hesitantly, knowing very well that there weren't. If Phobos and Deimos had suddenly disintegrated, surely Mars Base would have noticed something. Of course there was the Disordered Space Hypothesis, even if it was little more than the chance phrase of a prominent physicist pounded upon by an eager journalist. And in any case, what sense of security were you left with if you admitted that moons and planets might explode, or drop through unseen holes in space? So he ended up by taking a different tack: "Besides, if Phobos and Deimos simply shot off somewhere, surely they'd have been picked up by now by 'scope or radar."
"Two balls of rock just a few miles in diameter?" Madge questioned.
"Aren't they smaller than many of the asteroids? I'm no astronomer, but I think' I'm right."
And of course she was.
She swung the book under her arm. "Whew, it's heavy," she observed, adding in slightly scandalized tones, "Never been microfilmed." She smiled nervously and looked them up and down. "Going to a party?" she asked.
Theodor's scarlet cloak and Celeste's green culottes and silver jacket justified the question, but they shook their heads.
"Just the normally flamboyant garb of the family," Celeste said, while Theodor explained, "As it happens, we're bound on business connected with the disappearance. We Wolvers practically constitute a sub-committee of the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes. And since a lot of varied material comes to our attention, we're going to see if any of it correlates with this bit of astronomical sleight-of-hand."
Madge nodded. "Give you something to do, at any rate. Well, I must be off. The Buddhist temple has lent us their place for a meeting." She gave them a woeful grin. "See you when the Earth jumps."
Theodor said to Celeste, "Come on, dear. We'll be late."
But Celeste didn't want to move too fast. "You know, Teddy," she said uncomfortably, "all this reminds me of those old myths where too much good fortune is a sure sign of coming disaster. It was just too much luck, our great-grandparents missing World III and getting the World Government started a thousand years ahead of schedule. Luck like that couldn't last, evidently. Maybe we've gone too fast with a lot of things, like space-flight and the Deep Shaft and—" she hesitated a bit—"complex marriages. I'm a woman. I want complete security. Where am I to find it?"
"In me," Theodor said promptly.
"In you?" Celeste questioned, walking slowly. "But you're just one-third of my husband. Perhaps I should look for it in Edmund or Ivan."
"You angry with me about something?"
"Of course not. But a woman wants her source of security whole. In a crisis like this, it's disturbing to have it divided."
"Well, we are a whole and, I believe, indivisible family," Theodor told her warmly. "You're not suggesting, are you, that we're going to be punished for our polygamous sins by a cosmic catastrophe? Fire from Heaven and all that?"
"Don't be silly. I just wanted to give you a picture of my feeling." Celeste smiled. "I guess none of us realized how much we've come to depend on the idea of unchanging scientific law. Knocks the props from under you."
Theodor nodded emphatically. "All the more reason to get a line on what's happening as quickly as possible. You know, it's fantastically far-fetched, but I think the experience of persons with Extra-Sensory Perception may give us a clue. During the past three or four days there's been a remarkable similarity in the dreams of ESPs all over the planet. I'm going to present the evidence at the meeting."
Celeste looked up at him. "So that's why Rosalind's bringing Frieda's daughter?"
"Dotty is your daughter, too, and Rosalind's," Theodor reminded her.
"No, just Frieda's," Celeste said bitterly. "Of course you may be the father. One-third of a chance."
Theodor looked at her sharply, but didn't comment. "Anyway, Dotty will be there," he said. "Probably asleep by now. All the ESPs have suddenly seemed to need more sleep."
As they talked, it had been growing darker, though the luminescence of the path kept it from being bothersome. And now the cloud rack parted to the east, showing a single red planet low on the horizon.
"Did you know," Theodor said suddenly, "that in Gulliver's Travels Dean Swift predicted that better telescopes would show Mars to have two moons? He got the sizes and distances and periods damned accurately, too. One of the few really startling coincidences of reality and literature."
"Stop being eerie," Celeste said sharply. But then she went on, "Those names Phobos and Deimos—they're Greek, aren't they? What do they mean?"
Theodor lost a step. "Fear and Terror," he said unwillingly. "Now don't go taking that for an omen. Most of the mythological names of major and minor ancient gods had been taken—the bodies in the Solar System are named that way, of course—and these were about all that were available."
It was true, but it didn't comfort him much.
I am a God , Dotty was dreaming, and I want to be by myself and think. I and my god-friends like to keep some of our thoughts secret, but the other gods have forbidden us to.
A little smile flickered across the lips of the sleeping girl, and the woman in gold tights and gold-spangled jacket leaned forward thoughtfully. In her dignity and simplicity and straight-spined grace, she was rather like a circus mother watching her sick child before she went out for the trapeze act.
I and my god-friends sail off in our great round silver boats , Dotty went on dreaming. The other gods are angry and scared. They are frightened of the thoughts we may think in secret. They follow us to hunt us down. There are many more of them than of us.
As Celeste and Theodor entered the committee room, Rosalind Wolver—a glitter of platinum against darkness—came in through the opposite door and softly shut it behind her. Frieda, a fair woman in blue robes, got up from the round table.
Celeste turned away with outward casualness as Theodor kissed his two other wives. She was pleased to note that Edmund seemed impatient too. A figure in close-fitting black, unrelieved except for two red arrows at the collar, he struck her as embodying very properly the serious, fateful temper of the moment.
He took two briefcases from his vest pocket and tossed them down on the table beside one of the microfilm projectors.
"I suggest we get started without waiting for Ivan," he said.
Frieda frowned anxiously. "It's ten minutes since he phoned from the Deep Space Bar to say he was starting right away. And that's hardly a two minutes walk."
Rosalind instantly started toward the outside door.
"I'll check," she explained. "Oh, Frieda, I've set the mike so you'll hear if Dotty calls."
Edmund threw up his hands. "Very well, then," he said and walked over, switched on the picture and stared out moodily.
Theodor and Frieda got out their briefcases, switched on projectors, and began silently checking through their material.
Celeste fiddled with the TV and got a newscast. But she found her eyes didn't want to absorb the blocks of print that rather swiftly succeeded each other, so, after a few moments, she shrugged impatiently and switched to audio.
At the noise, the others looked around at her with surprise and some irritation, but in a few moments they were also listening.
"The two rocket ships sent out from Mars Base to explore the orbital positions of Phobos and Deimos—that is, the volume of space they'd be occupying if their positions had remained normal—report finding masses of dust and larger debris. The two masses of fine debris are moving in the same orbits and at the same velocities as the two vanished moons, and occupy roughly the same volumes of space, though the mass of material is hardly a hundredth that of the moons. Physicists have ventured no statements as to whether this constitutes a confirmation of the Disintegration Hypothesis.
"However, we're mighty pleased at this news here. There's a marked lessening of tension. The finding of the debris—solid, tangible stuff—seems to lift the whole affair out of the supernatural miasma in which some of us have been tempted to plunge it. One-hundredth of the moons has been found.
"The rest will also be!"
Edmund had turned his back on the window. Frieda and Theodor had switched off their projectors.
"Meanwhile, Earthlings are going about their business with a minimum of commotion, meeting with considerable calm the strange threat to the fabric of their Solar System. Many, of course, are assembled in churches and humanist temples. Kometevskyites have staged helicopter processions at Washington, Peking, Pretoria, and Christiana, demanding that instant preparations be made for—and I quote—'Earth's coming leap through space.' They have also formally challenged all astronomers to produce an explanation other than the one contained in that strange book so recently conjured from oblivion, The Dance of the Planets .
"That about winds up the story for the present. There are no new reports from Interplanetary Radar, Astronomy, or the other rocket ships searching in the extended Mars volume. Nor have any statements been issued by the various groups working on the problem in Astrophysics, Cosmic Ecology, the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes, and so forth. Meanwhile, however, we can take courage from the words of a poem written even before Dr. Kometevsky's book:
"This Earth is not the steadfast place
We landsmen build upon;
From deep to deep she varies pace,
And while she comes is gone.
Beneath my feet I feel
Her smooth bulk heave and dip;
With velvet plunge and soft upreel
She swings and steadies to her keel
Like a gallant, gallant ship."
While the TV voice intoned the poem, growing richer as emotion caught it up, Celeste looked around her at the others. Frieda, with her touch of feminine helplessness showing more than ever through her business-like poise. Theodor leaning forward from his scarlet cloak thrown back, smiling the half-smile with which he seemed to face even the unknown. Black Edmund, masking a deep uncertainty with a strong show of decisiveness.
In short, her family. She knew their every quirk and foible. And yet now they seemed to her a million miles away, figures seen through the wrong end of a telescope.
Were they really a family? Strong sources of mutual strength and security to each other? Or had they merely been playing family, experimenting with their notions of complex marriage like a bunch of silly adolescents? Butterflies taking advantage of good weather to wing together in a glamorous, artificial dance—until outraged Nature decided to wipe them out?
As the poem was ending, Celeste saw the door open and Rosalind come slowly in. The Golden Woman's face was white as the paths she had been treading.
Just then the TV voice quickened with shock. "News! Lunar Observatory One reports that, although Jupiter is just about to pass behind the Sun, a good coronagraph of the planet has been obtained. Checked and rechecked, it admits of only one interpretation, which Lunar One feels duty-bound to release. Jupiter's fourteen moons are no longer visible! "
The chorus of remarks with which the Wolvers would otherwise have received this was checked by one thing: the fact that Rosalind seemed not to hear it. Whatever was on her mind prevented even that incredible statement from penetrating.
She walked shakily to the table and put down a briefcase, one end of which was smudged with dirt.
Without looking at them, she said, "Ivan left the Deep Space Bar twenty minutes ago, said he was coming straight here. On my way back I searched the path. Midway I found this half-buried in the dirt. I had to tug to get it out—almost as if it had been cemented into the ground. Do you feel how the dirt seems to be in the leather, as if it had lain for years in the grave?"
By now the others were fingering the small case of microfilms they had seen so many times in Ivan's competent hands. What Rosalind said was true. It had a gritty, unwholesome feel to it. Also, it felt strangely heavy.
"And see what's written on it," she added.
They turned it over. Scrawled with white pencil in big, hasty, frantic letters were two words:
"Going down!"
The other gods , Dotty dreamt, are combing the whole Universe for us. We have escaped them many times, but now our tricks are almost used up. There are no doors going out of the Universe and our boats are silver beacons to the hunters. So we decide to disguise them in the only way they can be disguised. It is our last chance.
Edmund rapped the table to gain the family's attention. "I'd say we've done everything we can for the moment to find Ivan. We've made a thorough local search. A wider one, which we can't conduct personally, is in progress. All helpful agencies have been alerted and descriptions are being broadcast. I suggest we get on with the business of the evening—which may very well be connected with Ivan's disappearance."
One by one the others nodded and took their places at the round table. Celeste made a great effort to throw off the feeling of unreality that had engulfed her and focus attention on her microfilms.
"I'll take over Ivan's notes," she heard Edmund say. "They're mainly about the Deep Shaft."
"How far have they got with that?" Frieda asked idly. "Twenty-five miles?"
"Nearer thirty, I believe," Edmund answered, "and still going down."
At those last two words they all looked up quickly. Then their eyes went toward Ivan's briefcase.
Our trick has succeeded , Dotty dreamt. The other gods have passed our hiding place a dozen times without noticing. They search the Universe for us many times in vain. They finally decide that we have found a door going out of the Universe. Yet they fear us all the more. They think of us as devils who will some day return through the door to destroy them. So they watch everywhere. We lie quietly smiling in our camouflaged boats, yet hardly daring to move or think, for fear that the faintest echoes of our doings will give them a clue. Hundreds of millions of years pass by. They seem to us no more than drugged hours in a prison.
Theodor rubbed his eyes and pushed his chair back from the table. "We need a break."
Frieda agreed wearily. "We've gone through everything."
"Good idea," Edmund said briskly. "I think we've hit on several crucial points along the way and half disentangled them from the great mass of inconsequential material. I'll finish up that part of the job right now and present my case when we're all a bit fresher. Say half an hour?"
Theodor nodded heavily, pushing up from his chair and hitching his cloak over a shoulder.
"I'm going out for a drink," he informed them.
After several hesitant seconds, Rosalind quietly followed him. Frieda stretched out on a couch and closed her eyes. Edmund scanned microfilms tirelessly, every now and then setting one aside.
Celeste watched him for a minute, then sprang up and started toward the room where Dotty was asleep. But midway she stopped.
Not my child , she thought bitterly. Frieda's her mother, Rosalind her nurse. I'm nothing at all. Just one of the husband's girl friends. A lady of uneasy virtue in a dissolving world.
But then she straightened her shoulders and went on.
Rosalind didn't catch up with Theodor. Her footsteps were silent and he never looked back along the path whose feeble white glow rose only knee-high, lighting a low strip of shrub and mossy tree trunk to either side, no more.
It was a little chilly. She drew on her gloves, but she didn't hurry. In fact, she fell farther and farther behind the dipping tail of his scarlet cloak and his plodding red shoes, which seemed to move disembodied, like those in the fairy tale.
When she reached the point where she had found Ivan's briefcase, she stopped altogether.
A breeze rustled the leaves, and, moistly brushing her cheek, brought forest scents of rot and mold. After a bit she began to hear the furtive scurryings and scuttlings of forest creatures.
She looked around her half-heartedly, suddenly realizing the futility of her quest. What clues could she hope to find in this knee-high twilight? And they'd thoroughly combed the place earlier in the night.
Without warning, an eerie tingling went through her and she was seized by a horror of the cold, grainy Earth underfoot—an ancestral terror from the days when men shivered at ghost stories about graves and tombs.
A tiny detail persisted in bulking larger and larger in her mind—the unnaturalness of the way the Earth had impregnated the corner of Ivan's briefcase, almost as if dirt and leather co-existed in the same space. She remembered the queer way the partly buried briefcase had resisted her first tug, like a rooted plant.
She felt cowed by the mysterious night about her, and literally dwarfed, as if she had grown several inches shorter. She roused herself and started forward.
Something held her feet.
They were ankle-deep in the path. While she looked in fright and horror, they began to sink still lower into the ground.
She plunged frantically, trying to jerk loose. She couldn't. She had the panicky feeling that the Earth had not only trapped but invaded her; that its molecules were creeping up between the molecules of her flesh; that the two were becoming one.
And she was sinking faster. Now knee-deep, thigh-deep, hip-deep, waist-deep. She beat at the powdery path with her hands and threw her body from side to side in agonized frenzy like some sinner frozen in the ice of the innermost circle of the ancients' hell. And always the sense of the dark, grainy tide rose inside as well as around her.
She thought, he'd just have had time to scribble that note on his briefcase and toss it away. She jerked off a glove, leaned out as far as she could, and made a frantic effort to drive its fingers into the powdery path. Then the Earth mounted to her chin, her nose, and covered her eyes.
She expected blackness, but it was as if the light of the path stayed with her, making a little glow all around. She saw roots, pebbles, black rot, worn tunnels, worms. Tier on tier of them, her vision penetrating the solid ground. And at the same time, the knowledge that these same sorts of things were coursing up through her.
And still she continued to sink at a speed that increased, as if the law of gravitation applied to her in a diminished way. She dropped from black soil through gray clay and into pale limestone.
Her tortured, rock-permeated lungs sucked at rock and drew in air. She wondered madly if a volume of air were falling with her through the stone.
A glitter of quartz. The momentary openness of a foot-high cavern with a trickle of water. And then she was sliding down a black basalt column, half inside it, half inside gold-flecked ore. Then just black basalt. And always faster.
It grew hot, then hotter, as if she were approaching the mythical eternal fires.
At first glance Theodor thought the Deep Space Bar was empty. Then he saw a figure hunched monkeylike on the last stool, almost lost in the blue shadows, while behind the bar, her crystal dress blending with the tiers of sparkling glasses, stood a grave-eyed young girl who could hardly have been fifteen.
The TV was saying, "... in addition, a number of mysterious disappearances of high-rating individuals have been reported. These are thought to be cases of misunderstanding, illusory apprehension, and impulse traveling—a result of the unusual stresses of the time. Finally, a few suggestible individuals in various parts of the globe, especially the Indian Peninsula, have declared themselves to be 'gods' and in some way responsible for current events.
"It is thought—"
The girl switched off the TV and took Theodor's order, explaining casually, "Joe wanted to go to a Kometevskyite meeting, so I took over for him." When she had prepared Theodor's highball, she announced,
"I'll have a drink with you gentlemen," and squeezed herself a glass of pomegranate juice.
The monkeylike figure muttered, "Scotch-and-soda," then turned toward Edmund and asked, "And what is your reaction to all this, sir?"
Theodor recognized the shrunken wrinkle-seamed face. It was Colonel Fortescue, a military antique long retired from the Peace Patrol and reputed to have seen actual fighting in the Last Age of Madness. Now, for some reason, the face sported a knowing smile.
Theodor shrugged. Just then the TV "big news" light blinked blue and the girl switched on audio. The Colonel winked at Theodor.
"... confirming the disappearance of Jupiter's moons. But two other utterly fantastic reports have just been received. First, Lunar Observatory One says that it is visually tracking fourteen small bodies which it believes may be the lost moons of Jupiter. They are moving outward from the Solar System at an incredible velocity and are already beyond the orbit of Saturn!"
The Colonel said, "Ah!"
"Second, Palomar reports a large number of dark bodies approaching the Solar System at an equally incredible velocity. They are at about twice the distance of Pluto, but closing in fast! We will be on the air with further details as soon as possible."
The Colonel said, "Ah-ha!"
Theodor stared at him. The old man's self-satisfied poise was almost amusing.
"Are you a Kometevskyite?" Theodor asked him.
The Colonel laughed. "Of course not, my boy. Those poor people are fumbling in the dark. Don't you see what's happened?"
"Frankly, no."
The Colonel leaned toward Theodor and whispered gruffly, "The Divine Plan. God is a military strategist, naturally."
Then he lifted the scotch-and-soda in his clawlike hand and took a satisfying swallow.
"I knew it all along, of course," he went on musingly, "but this last news makes it as plain as a rocket blast, at least to anyone who knows military strategy. Look here, my boy, suppose you were commanding a fleet and got wind of the enemy's approach—what would you do? Why, you'd send your scouts and destroyers fanning out toward them. Behind that screen you'd mass your heavy ships. Then—"
"You don't mean to imply—" Theodor interrupted.
The girl behind the bar looked at them both cryptically.
"Of course I do!" the Colonel cut in sharply. "It's a war between the forces of good and evil. The bright suns and planets are on one side, the dark on the other. The moons are the destroyers, Jupiter and Saturn are the big battleships, while we're on a heavy cruiser, I'm proud to say. We'll probably go into action soon. Be a corking fight, what? And all by divine strategy!"
He chuckled and took another big drink. Theodor looked at him sourly. The girl behind the bar polished a glass and said nothing.
Dotty suddenly began to turn and toss, and a look of terror came over her sleeping face. Celeste leaned forward apprehensively.
The child's lips worked and Celeste made out the sleepy-fuzzy words:
"They've found out where we're hiding. They're coming to get us. No! Please, no!"
Celeste's reactions were mixed. She felt worried about Dotty and at the same time almost in terror of her, as if the little girl were an agent of supernatural forces. She told herself that this fear was an expression of her own hostility, yet she didn't really believe it. She touched the child's hand.
Dotty's eyes opened without making Celeste feel she had quite come awake. After a bit she looked at Celeste and her little lips parted in a smile.
"Hello," she said sleepily. "I've been having such funny dreams." Then, after a pause, frowning, "I really am a god, you know. It feels very queer."
"Yes, dear?" Celeste prompted uneasily. "Shall I call Frieda?"
The smile left Dotty's lips. "Why do you act so nervous around me?" she asked. "Don't you love me, Mummy?"
Celeste started at the word. Her throat closed. Then, very slowly, her face broke into a radiant smile. "Of course I do, darling. I love you very much."
Dotty nodded happily, her eyes already closed again.
There was a sudden flurry of excited voices beyond the door. Celeste heard her name called. She stood up.
"I'm going to have to go out and talk with the others," she said. "If you want me, dear, just call."
"Yes, Mummy."
Edmund rapped for attention. Celeste, Frieda, and Theodor glanced around at him. He looked more frightfully strained, they realized, than even they felt. His expression was a study in suppressed excitement, but there were also signs of a knowledge that was almost too overpowering for a human being to bear.
His voice was clipped, rapid. "I think it's about time we stopped worrying about our own affairs and thought of those of the Solar System, partly because I think they have a direct bearing on the disappearances of Ivan end Rosalind. As I told you, I've been sorting out the crucial items from the material we've been presenting. There are roughly four of those items, as I see it. It's rather like a mystery story. I wonder if, hearing those four clues, you will come to the same conclusion I have."
The others nodded.
"First, there are the latest reports from Deep Shaft, which, as you know, has been sunk to investigate deep-Earth conditions. At approximately twenty-nine miles below the surface, the delvers have encountered a metallic obstruction which they have tentatively named the durasphere. It resists their hardest drills, their strongest corrosives. They have extended a side-tunnel at that level for a quarter of a mile. Delicate measurements, made possible by the mirror-smooth metal surface, show that the durasphere has a slight curvature that is almost exactly equal to the curvature of the Earth itself. The suggestion is that deep borings made anywhere in the world would encounter the durasphere at the same depth.
"Second, the movements of the moons of Mars and Jupiter, and particularly the debris left behind by the moons of Mars. Granting Phobos and Deimos had duraspheres proportional in size to that of Earth, then the debris would roughly equal in amount the material in those two duraspheres' rocky envelopes. The suggestion is that the two duraspheres suddenly burst from their envelopes with such titanic velocity as to leave those disrupted envelopes behind."
It was deadly quiet in the committee room.
"Thirdly, the disappearances of Ivan and Rosalind, and especially the baffling hint—from Ivan's message in one case and Rosalind's downward-pointing glove in the other—that they were both somehow drawn into the depths of the Earth.
"Finally, the dreams of the ESPs, which agree overwhelmingly in the following points: A group of beings separate themselves from a godlike and telepathic race because they insist on maintaining a degree of mental privacy. They flee in great boats or ships of some sort. They are pursued on such a scale that there is no hiding place for them anywhere in the universe. In some manner they successfully camouflage their ships. Eons pass and their still-fanatical pursuers do not penetrate their secret. Then, suddenly, they are detected."
Edmund waited. "Do you see what I'm driving at?" he asked hoarsely.
He could tell from their looks that the others did, but couldn't bring
themselves to put it into words.
"I suppose it's the time-scale and the value-scale that are so hard for
us to accept," he said softly. "Much more, even, than the size-scale.
The thought that there are creatures in the Universe to whom the whole
career of Man—in fact, the whole career of life—is no more than a few
thousand or hundred thousand years. And to whom Man is no more than a
minor stage property—a trifling part of a clever job of camouflage."
This time he went on, "Fantasy writers have at times hinted all sorts
of odd things about the Earth—that it might even be a kind of single
living creature, or honeycombed with inhabited caverns, and so on.
But I don't know that any of them have ever suggested that the Earth,
together with all the planets and moons of the Solar System, might
be...."
In a whisper, Frieda finished for him, "... a camouflaged fleet of
gigantic spherical spaceships."
" Your guess happens to be the precise truth. "
At that familiar, yet dreadly unfamiliar voice, all four of them swung
toward the inner door. Dotty was standing there, a sleep-stupefied
little girl with a blanket caught up around her and dragging behind.
Their own daughter. But in her eyes was a look from which they cringed.
She said, "I am a creature somewhat older than what your geologists
call the Archeozoic Era. I am speaking to you through a number of
telepathically sensitive individuals among your kind. In each case my
thoughts suit themselves to your level of comprehension. I inhabit the
disguised and jetless spaceship which is your Earth."
Celeste swayed a step forward. "Baby...." she implored.
Dotty went on, without giving her a glance, "It is true that we planted
the seeds of life on some of these planets simply as part of our
camouflage, just as we gave them a suitable environment for each. And
it is true that now we must let most of that life be destroyed. Our
hiding place has been discovered, our pursuers are upon us, and we must
make one last effort to escape or do battle, since we firmly believe
that the principle of mental privacy to which we have devoted our
existence is perhaps the greatest good in the whole Universe.
"But it is not true that we look with contempt upon you. Our whole race
is deeply devoted to life, wherever it may come into being, and it is
our rule never to interfere with its development. That was one of
the reasons we made life a part of our camouflage—it would make our
pursuers reluctant to examine these planets too closely.
"Yes, we have always cherished you and watched your evolution with
interest from our hidden lairs. We may even unconsciously have shaped
your development in certain ways, trying constantly to educate you away
from war and finally succeeding—which may have given the betraying
clue to our pursuers.
"Your planets must be burst asunder—this particular planet in the
area of the Pacific—so that we may have our last chance to escape.
Even if we did not move, our pursuers would destroy you with us. We
cannot invite you inside our ships—not for lack of space, but because
you could never survive the vast accelerations to which you would be
subjected. You would, you see, need very special accommodations, of
which we have enough only for a few.
"Those few we will take with us, as the seed from which a new human
race may—if we ourselves somehow survive—be born."
Rosalind and Ivan stared dumbly at each other across the egg-shaped
silver room, without apparent entrance or exit, in which they were
sprawled. But their thoughts were no longer of thirty-odd mile
journeys down through solid earth, or of how cool it was after the
heat of the passage, or of how grotesque it was to be trapped here,
the fragment of a marriage. They were both listening to the voice that
spoke inside their minds.
"In a few minutes your bodies will be separated into layers one atom
thick, capable of being shelved or stored in such a way as to endure
almost infinite accelerations. Single cells will cover acres of space.
But do not be alarmed. The process will be painless and each particle
will be catalogued for future assembly. Your consciousness will endure
throughout the process."
Rosalind looked at her gold-shod toes. She was wondering, will they go
first, or my head? Or will I be peeled like an apple?
She looked at Ivan and knew he was thinking the same thing.
Up in the committee room, the other Wolvers slumped around the table.
Only little Dotty sat straight and staring, speechless and unanswering,
quite beyond their reach, like a telephone off the hook and with the
connection open, but no voice from the other end.
They had just switched off the TV after listening to a confused
medley of denials, prayers, Kometevskyite chatterings, and a few
astonishingly realistic comments on the possibility of survival.
These last pointed out that, on the side of the Earth opposite the
Pacific, the convulsions would come slowly when the entombed spaceship
burst forth—provided, as seemed the case, that it moved without jets
or reaction.
It would be as if the Earth's vast core simply vanished. Gravity would
diminish abruptly to a fraction of its former value. The empty envelope
of rock and water and air would slowly fall together, though at the
same time the air would begin to escape from the debris because there
would no longer be the mass required to hold it.
However, there might be definite chances of temporary and even
prolonged survival for individuals in strong, hermetically sealed
structures, such as submarines and spaceships. The few spaceships on
Earth were reported to have blasted off, or be preparing to leave, with
as many passengers as could be carried.
But most persons, apparently, could not contemplate action of any sort.
They could only sit and think, like the Wolvers.
A faint smile relaxed Celeste's face. She was thinking, how beautiful!
It means the death of the Solar System, which is a horrifying
subjective concept. Objectively, though, it would be a more awesome
sight than any human being has ever seen or ever could see. It's an
absurd and even brutal thing to wish—but I wish I could see the whole
cataclysm from beginning to end. It would make death seem very small, a
tiny personal event.
Dotty's face was losing its blank expression, becoming intent and
alarmed.
"We are in contact with our pursuers," she said in the
familiar-unfamiliar voice. "Negotiations are now going on. There
seems to be—there is a change in them. Where they were harsh and
vindictive before, they now are gentle and conciliatory." She paused,
the alarm on her childish features pinching into anxious uncertainty.
"Our pursuers have always been shrewd. The change in them may be false,
intended merely to lull us into allowing them to come close enough to
destroy us. We must not fall into the trap by growing hopeful...."
They leaned forward, clutching hands, watching the little face as
though it were a television screen. Celeste had the wild feeling that
she was listening to a communique from a war so unthinkably vast and
violent, between opponents so astronomically huge and nearly immortal,
that she felt like no more than a reasoning ameba ... and then realized
with an explosive urge to laugh that that was exactly the situation.
"No!" said Dotty. Her eyes began to glow. "They have changed! During
the eons in which we lay sealed away and hidden from them, knowing
nothing of them, they have rebelled against the tyranny of a communal
mind to which no thoughts are private ... the tyranny that we ourselves
fled to escape. They come not to destroy us, but to welcome us back to
a society that we and they can make truly great!"
Frieda collapsed to a chair, trembling between laughter and hysterical
weeping. Theodor looked as blank as Dotty had while waiting for words
to speak. Edmund sprang to the picture window, Celeste toward the TV
set.
Climbing shakily out of the chair, Frieda stumbled to the picture
window and peered out beside Edmund. She saw lights bobbing along the
paths with a wild excitement.
On the TV screen, Celeste watched two brightly lit ships spinning in
the sky—whether human spaceships or Phobos and Deimos come to help
Earth rejoice, she couldn't tell.
Dotty spoke again, the joy in her strange voice forcing them to turn.
"And you, dear children, creatures of our camouflage, we welcome
you—whatever your future career on these planets or like ones—into
the society of enlightened worlds! You need not feel small and alone
and helpless ever again, for we shall always be with you!"
The outer door opened. Ivan and Rosalind reeled in, drunkenly smiling,
arm in arm.
"Like rockets," Rosalind blurted happily. "We came through the
durasphere and solid rock ... shot up right to the surface."
"They didn't have to take us along," Ivan added with a bleary grin.
"But you know that already, don't you? They're too good to let you live
in fear, so they must have told you by now."
"Yes, we know," said Theodor. "They must be almost godlike in their
goodness. I feel ... calm."
Edmund nodded soberly. "Calmer than I ever felt before. It's knowing, I
suppose, that—well, we're not alone."
Dotty blinked and looked around and smiled at them all with a wholly
little-girl smile.
"Oh, Mummy," she said, and it was impossible to tell whether she spoke
to Frieda or Rosalind or Celeste, "I've just had the funniest dream."
"No, darling," said Rosalind gently, "it's we who had the dream. We've
just awakened."
|
What is the importance of the seal-people in the story?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Growing up on Big Muddy by Charles V. De Vet.
Relevant chunks:
Well, naturally Kaiser would transmit baby talk messages to his mother ship! He was—
GROWING UP ON BIG MUDDY
By CHARLES V. DE VET
Illustrated by TURPIN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction July 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Kaiser stared at the tape in his hand for a long uncomprehending minute. How long had the stuff been coming through in this inane baby talk? And why hadn't he noticed it before? Why had he had to read this last communication a third time before he recognized anything unusual about it?
He went over the words again, as though maybe this time they'd read as they should.
OO IS SICK, SMOKY. DO TO BEDDY-BY. KEEP UM WARM. WHEN UM FEELS BETTER, LET USNS KNOW.
SS II
Kaiser let himself ease back in the pilot chair and rolled the tape thoughtfully between his fingers. Overhead and to each side, large drops of rain thudded softly against the transparent walls of the scout ship and dripped wearily from the bottom ledge to the ground.
"Damn this climate!" Kaiser muttered irrelevantly. "Doesn't it ever do anything here except rain?"
His attention returned to the matter at hand. Why the baby talk? And why was his memory so hazy? How long had he been here? What had he been doing during that time?
Listlessly he reached for the towel at his elbow and wiped the moisture from his face and bare shoulders. The air conditioning had gone out when the scout ship cracked up. He'd have to repair the scout or he was stuck here for good. He remembered now that he had gone over the job very carefully and thoroughly, and had found it too big to handle alone—or without better equipment, at least. Yet there was little or no chance of his being able to find either here.
Calmly, deliberately, Kaiser collected his thoughts, his memories, and brought them out where he could look at them:
The mother ship, Soscites II , had been on the last leg of its planet-mapping tour. It had dropped Kaiser in the one remaining scout ship—the other seven had all been lost one way or another during the exploring of new worlds—and set itself into a giant orbit about this planet that Kaiser had named Big Muddy.
The Soscites II had to maintain its constant speed; it had no means of slowing, except to stop, and no way to start again once it did stop. Its limited range of maneuverability made it necessary to set up an orbit that would take it approximately one month, Earth time, to circle a pinpointed planet. And now its fuel was low.
Kaiser had that one month to repair his scout or be stranded here forever.
That was all he could remember. Nothing of what he had been doing recently.
A small shiver passed through his body as he glanced once again at the tape in his hand. Baby talk....
One thing he could find out: how long this had been going on. He turned to the communicator and unhooked the paper receptacle on its bottom. It held about a yard and a half of tape, probably his last several messages—both those sent and those received. He pulled it out impatiently and began reading.
The first was from himself:
YOUR SUGGESTIONS NO HELP. HOW AM I GOING TO REPAIR DAMAGE TO SCOUT WITHOUT PROPER EQUIPMENT? AND WHERE DO I GET IT? DO YOU THINK I FOUND A TOOL SHOP DOWN HERE? FOR GOD'S SAKE, COME UP WITH SOMETHING BETTER.
VISITED SEAL-PEOPLE AGAIN TODAY. STILL HAVE THEIR STINK IN MY NOSE. FOUND HUTS ALONG RIVER BANK, SO I GUESS THEY DON'T LIVE IN WATER. BUT THEY DO SPEND MOST OF THEIR TIME THERE. NO, I HAVE NO WAY OF ESTIMATING THEIR INTELLIGENCE. I WOULD JUDGE IT AVERAGES NO HIGHER THAN SEVEN-YEAR-OLD HUMAN. THEY DEFINITELY DO TALK TO ONE ANOTHER. WILL TRY TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THEM, BUT YOU GET TO WORK FAST ON HOW I REPAIR SCOUT.
SWELLING IN ARM WORSE AND AM DEVELOPING A FEVER. TEMPERATURE 102.7 AN HOUR AGO.
SMOKY
The ship must have answered immediately, for the return message time was six hours later than his own, the minimum interval necessary for two-way exchange.
DOING OUR BEST, SMOKY. YOUR IMMEDIATE PROBLEM, AS WE SEE IT, IS TO KEEP WELL. WE FED ALL THE INFORMATION YOU GAVE US INTO SAM, BUT YOU DIDN'T HAVE MUCH EXCEPT THE STING IN YOUR ARM. AS EXPECTED, ALL THAT CAME OUT WAS "DATA INSUFFICIENT." TRY TO GIVE US MORE. ALSO DETAIL ALL SYMPTOMS SINCE YOUR LAST REPORT. IN THE MEANTIME, WE'RE DOING EVERYTHING WE CAN AT THIS END. GOOD LUCK.
SS II
Sam, Kaiser knew, was the ship's mechanical diagnostician. His report followed:
ARM SWOLLEN. UNABLE TO KEEP DOWN FOOD LAST TWELVE HOURS. ABOUT TWO HOURS AGO, ENTIRE BODY TURNED LIVID RED. BRIEF PERIODS OF BLANKNESS. THINGS KEEP COMING AND GOING. SICK AS HELL. HURRY.
SMOKY
The ship's next message read:
INFECTION QUITE DEFINITE. BUT SOMETHING STRANGE THERE. GIVE US ANYTHING MORE YOU HAVE.
SS II
His own reply perplexed Kaiser:
LAST LETTER FUNNY. I NOT UNDERSTAND. WHY IS OO SENDING GARBLE TALK? DID USNS MAKE UP SECRET MESSAGES?
SMOKY
The expedition, apparently, was as puzzled as he:
WHAT'S THE MATTER, SMOKY? THAT LAST MESSAGE WAS IN PLAIN TERRAN. NO REASON WHY YOU COULDN'T READ IT. AND WHY THE BABY TALK? IF YOU'RE SPOOFING, STOP. GIVE US MORE SYMPTOMS. HOW ARE YOU FEELING NOW?
SS II
The baby talk was worse on Kaiser's next:
TWAZY. WHAT FOR OO TENDING TWAZY LETTERS? FINK UM CAN WEAD TWAZY LETTERS? SKIN ALL YELLOW NOW. COLD. COLD. CO
The ship's following communication was three hours late. It was the last on the tape—the one Kaiser had read earlier. Apparently they decided to humor him.
OO IS SICK, SMOKY. DO TO BEDDY-BY. KEEP UM WARM. WHEN UM FEELS BETTER, LET USNS KNOW.
SS II
That was not much help. All it told him was that he had been sick.
He felt better now, outside of a muscular weariness, as though convalescing from a long illness. He put the back of his hand to his forehead. Cool. No fever anyway.
He glanced at the clock-calendar on the instrument board and back at the date and time on the tape where he'd started his baby talk. Twenty hours. He hadn't been out of his head too long. He began punching the communicator keys while he nibbled at a biscuit.
SEEM TO BE FULLY RECOVERED. FEELING FINE. ANYTHING NEW FROM SAM? AND HOW ABOUT THE DAMAGE TO SCOUT? GIVE ME ANYTHING YOU HAVE ON EITHER OR BOTH.
SMOKY
Kaiser felt suddenly weary. He lay on the scout's bunk and tried to sleep. Soon he was in that phantasm land between sleep and wakefulness—he knew he was not sleeping, yet he did dream.
It was the same dream he had had many times before. In it, he was back home again, the home he had joined the space service to escape. He had realized soon after his marriage that his wife, Helene, did not love him. She had married him for the security his pay check provided. And though it soon became evident that she, too, regretted her bargain, she would not divorce him. Instead, she had her revenge on him by persistent nagging, by letting herself grow fat and querulous, and by caring for their house only in a slovenly way.
Her crippled brother had moved in with them the day they were married. His mind was as crippled as his body and he took an unhealthy delight in helping his sister torment Kaiser.
Kaiser came wide awake in a cold sweat. The clock showed that only an hour had passed since he had sent his last message to the ship. Still five more long hours to wait. He rose and wiped the sweat from his neck and shoulders and restlessly paced the small corridor of the scout.
After a few minutes, he stopped pacing and peered out into the gloom of Big Muddy. The rain seemed to have eased off some. Not much more than a heavy drizzle now.
Kaiser reached impulsively for the slicker he had thrown over a chest against one wall and put it on, then a pair of hip-high plastic boots and a plastic hat. He opened the door. The scout had come to rest with a slight tilt when it crashed, and Kaiser had to sit down and roll over onto his stomach to ease himself to the ground.
The weather outside was normal for Big Muddy: wet, humid, and warm.
Kaiser sank to his ankles in soft mud before his feet reached solid ground. He half walked and half slid to the rear of the scout. Beside the ship, the "octopus" was busily at work. Tentacles and antennae, extending from the yard-high box of its body, tested and recorded temperature, atmosphere, soil, and all other pertinent planetary conditions. The octopus was connected to the ship's communicator and all its findings were being transmitted to the mother ship for study.
Kaiser observed that it was working well and turned toward a wide, sluggish river, perhaps two hundred yards from the scout. Once there, he headed upstream. He could hear the pipings, and now and then a higher whistling, of the seal-people before he reached a bend and saw them. As usual, most were swimming in the river.
One old fellow, whose chocolate-brown fur showed a heavy intermixture of gray, was sitting on the bank of the river just at the bend. Perhaps a lookout. He pulled himself to his feet as he spied Kaiser and his toothless, hard-gummed mouth opened and emitted a long whistle that might have been a greeting—or a warning to the others that a stranger approached.
The native stood perhaps five feet tall, with the heavy, blubbery body of a seal, and short, thick arms. Membranes connected the arms to his body from shoulder-pits to mid-biceps. The arms ended in three-fingered, thumbless hands. His legs also were short and thick, with footpads that splayed out at forty-five-degree angles. They gave his legs the appearance of a split tail. About him hung a rank-fish smell that made Kaiser's stomach squirm.
The old fellow sounded a cheerful chirp as Kaiser came near. Feeling slightly ineffectual, Kaiser raised both hands and held them palm forward. The other chirped again and Kaiser went on toward the main group.
They had stopped their play and eating as Kaiser approached and now most of them swam in to shore and stood in the water, staring and piping. They varied in size from small seal-pups to full-grown adults. Some chewed on bunches of water weed, which they manipulated with their lips and drew into their mouths.
They had mammalian characteristics, Kaiser had noted before, so it was not difficult to distinguish the females from the males. The proportion was roughly fifty-fifty.
Several of the bolder males climbed up beside Kaiser and began pawing his plastic clothing. Kaiser stood still and tried to keep his breathing shallow, for their odor was almost more than he could bear. One native smeared Kaiser's face with an exploring paw and Kaiser gagged and pushed him roughly away. He was bound by regulations to display no hostility to newly discovered natives, but he couldn't take much more of this.
A young female splashed water on two young males who stood near and they turned with shrill pipings and chased her into the water. The entire group seemed to lose interest in Kaiser and joined in the chase, or went back to other diversions of their own. Kaiser's inspectors followed.
They were a mindless lot, Kaiser observed. The river supplied them with an easy existence, with food and living space, and apparently they had few natural enemies.
Kaiser walked away, following the long slow bend of the river, and came to a collection of perhaps two hundred dwellings built in three haphazard rows along the river bank. He took time to study their construction more closely this time.
They were all round domes, little more than the height of a man, built of blocks that appeared to be mud, packed with river weed and sand. How they were able to dry these to give them the necessary solidity, Kaiser did not know. He had found no signs that they knew how to use fire, and all apparent evidence was against their having it. They then had to have sunlight. Maybe it rained less during certain seasons.
The domes' construction was based on a series of four arches built in a circle. When the base covering the periphery had been laid, four others were built on and between them, and continued in successive tiers until the top was reached. Each tier thus furnished support for the next above. No other framework was needed. The final tier formed the roof. They made sound shelters, but Kaiser had peered into several and found them dark and dank—and as smelly as the natives themselves.
The few loungers in the village paid little attention to Kaiser and he wandered through the irregular streets until he became bored and returned to the scout.
The Soscites II sent little that helped during the next twelve hours and Kaiser occupied his time trying again to repair the damage to the scout.
The job appeared maddeningly simply. As the scout had glided in for a soft landing, its metal bottom had ridden a concealed rock and bent inward. The bent metal had carried up with it the tube supplying the fuel pump and flattened it against the motor casing.
Opening the tube again would not have been difficult, but first it had to be freed from under the ship. Kaiser had tried forcing the sheet metal back into place with a small crowbar—the best leverage he had on hand—but it resisted his best efforts. He still could think of no way to do the job, simple as it was, though he gave his concentration to it the rest of the day.
That evening, Kaiser received information from the Soscites II that was at least definite:
SET YOURSELF FOR A SHOCK, SMOKY. SAM FINALLY CAME THROUGH. YOU WON'T LIKE WHAT YOU HEAR. AT LEAST NOT AT FIRST. BUT IT COULD BE WORSE. YOU HAVE BEEN INVADED BY A SYMBIOTE—SIMILAR TO THE TYPE FOUND ON THE SAND WORLD, BARTEL-BLEETHERS. GIVE US A FEW MORE HOURS TO WORK WITH SAM AND WE'LL GET YOU ALL THE PARTICULARS HE CAN GIVE US. HANG ON NOW!
SOSCITES II
Kaiser's reply was short and succinct:
WHAT THE HELL?
SMOKY
Soscites II's next communication followed within twenty minutes and was signed by the ship's doctor:
JUST A FEW WORDS, SMOKY, IN CASE YOU'RE WORRIED. I THOUGHT I'D GET THIS OFF WHILE WE'RE WAITING FOR MORE INFORMATION FROM SAM. REMEMBER THAT A SYMBIOTE IS NOT A PARASITE. IT WILL NOT HARM YOU, EXCEPT INADVERTENTLY. YOUR WELFARE IS AS ESSENTIAL TO IT AS TO YOU. ALMOST CERTAINLY, IF YOU DIE, IT WILL DIE WITH YOU. ANY TROUBLE YOU'VE HAD SO FAR WAS PROBABLY CAUSED BY THE SYMBIOTE'S DIFFICULTY IN ADJUSTING ITSELF TO ITS NEW ENVIRONMENT. IN A WAY, I ENVY YOU. MORE LATER, WHEN WE FINISH WITH SAM.
J. G. ZARWELL
Kaiser did not answer. The news was so startling, so unforeseen, that his mind refused to accept the actuality. He lay on the scout's bunk and stared at the ceiling without conscious attention, and with very little clear thought, for several hours—until the next communication came in:
WELL, THIS IS WHAT SAM HAS TO SAY, SMOKY. SYMBIOTE AMICABLE AND APPARENTLY SWIFTLY ADAPTABLE. YOUR CHANGING COLOR, DIFFICULTY IN EATING AND EVEN BABY TALK WERE THE RESULT OF ITS EFFORTS TO GIVE YOU WHAT IT BELIEVED YOU NEEDED OR WANTED.
CHANGING COLOR: PROTECTIVE CAMOUFLAGE. TROUBLE KEEPING FOOD DOWN: IT KEPT YOUR STOMACH EMPTY BECAUSE IT SENSED YOU WERE IN TROUBLE AND MIGHT HAVE NEED FOR SHARP REFLEXES, WITH NO EXCESS WEIGHT TO CARRY. THE BABY TALK WE AREN'T TOO CERTAIN ABOUT, BUT OUR BEST CONCLUSION IS THAT WHEN YOU WERE A CHILD, YOU WERE MOST HAPPY. IT WAS TRYING TO GIVE YOU BACK THAT HAPPY STATE OF MIND. OBVIOUSLY IT QUICKLY RECOGNIZED THE MISTAKES IT MADE AND CORRECTED THEM.
SAM CAME UP WITH A FEW MORE IDEAS, BUT WE WANT TO WORK ON THEM A BIT BEFORE WE SEND THEM THROUGH. SLEEP ON THIS.
SS II
Kaiser could imagine that most of the crew were not too concerned about the trouble he was in. He was not the gregarious type and had no close friends on board. He had hoped to find the solitude he liked best in space, but he had been disappointed. True, there were fewer people here, but he was brought into such intimate contact with them that he would have been more contented living in a crowded city.
His naturally unsociable nature was more irksome to the crew because he was more intelligent and efficient than they were. He did his work well and painstakingly and was seldom in error. They would have liked him better had he been more prone to mistakes. He was certain that they respected him, but they did not like him. And he returned the dislike.
The suggestion that he get some sleep might not be a bad idea. He hadn't slept in over eighteen hours, Kaiser realized—and fell instantly asleep.
The communicator had a message waiting for him when he awoke:
SAM COULDN'T HELP US MUCH ON THIS PART, BUT AFTER RESEARCH AND MUCH DISCUSSION, WE ARRIVED AT THE FOLLOWING TWO CONCLUSIONS.
FIRST, PHYSICAL PROPERTY OF SYMBIOTE IS EITHER THAT OF A VERY THIN LIQUID OR, MORE PROBABLY, A VIRUS FORM WITH SWIFT PROPAGATION CHARACTERISTIC. IT UNDOUBTEDLY LIVES IN YOUR BLOOD STREAM AND PERMEATES YOUR SYSTEM.
SECOND, IT SEEMED TO US, AS IT MUST HAVE TO YOU, THAT THE SYMBIOTE COULD ONLY KNOW WHAT YOU WANTED BY READING YOUR MIND. HOWEVER, WE BELIEVE DIFFERENTLY NOW. WE THINK THAT IT HAS SUCH CLOSE CONTACT WITH YOUR GLANDS AND THEIR SECRETIONS, WHICH STIMULATE EMOTION, THAT IT CAN GAUGE YOUR FEELINGS EVEN MORE ACCURATELY THAN YOU YOURSELF CAN. THUS IT CAN JUDGE YOUR LIKES AND DISLIKES QUITE ACCURATELY.
WE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE YOU TEST OUR THEORY. THERE ARE DOZENS OF WAYS. IF YOU ARE STUMPED AND NEED SUGGESTIONS, JUST LET US KNOW. WE AWAIT WORD FROM YOU WITH GREAT INTEREST.
SS II
By now, Kaiser had accepted what had happened to him. His distress and anxiety were gone and he was impatient to do what he could to establish better contact with his uninvited tenant. With eager anticipation, he set to thinking how it could be done. After a few minutes, an idea occurred to him.
Taking a small scalpel from a medical kit, he made a shallow cut in his arm, just deep enough to bleed freely. He knew that the pain would supply the necessary glandular reaction. The cut bled a few slow drops—and as Kaiser watched, a shiny film formed and the bleeding stopped.
That checked pretty well with the ship's theory.
Perhaps the symbiote had made his senses more acute. He tried closing his eyes and fingering several objects in the room. It seemed to him that he could determine the texture of each better than before, but the test was inconclusive. Walking to the rear of the scout, he tried reading the printed words on the instrument panel. Each letter stood out sharp and clear!
Kaiser wondered if he might not make an immediate, practical use of the symbiote's apparent desire to help him. Concentrating on the discomfort of the high humidity and exaggerating his own displeasure with it, he waited. The result surprised and pleased him.
The temperature within the scout cabin seemed to lower, the moisture on his body vanished, and he was more comfortable than he had yet been here.
As a double check, he looked at the ship's thermometer. Temperature
102, humidity 113—just about the same as it had been on earlier readings.
During the next twenty-four hours, Kaiser and the mother ship exchanged messages at regular six-hour intervals. In between, he worked at repairing the damaged scout. He had no more success than before.
He tired easily and lay on the cot often to rest. Each time he seemed to drop off to sleep immediately—and awake at the exact times he had decided on beforehand. At first, despite the lack of success in straightening the bent metal of the scout bottom, there had been a subdued exhilaration in reporting each new discovery concerning the symbiote, but as time passed, his enthusiasm ebbed. His one really important problem was how to repair the scout and he was fast becoming discouraged.
At last Kaiser could bear the futility of his efforts no longer. He sent out a terse message to the Soscites II :
TAKING SHORT TRIP TO ANOTHER LOCATION ON RIVER. HOPE TO FIND MORE INTELLIGENT NATIVES. COULD BE THAT THE SETTLEMENT I FOUND HERE IS ANALOGOUS TO TRIBE OF MONKEYS ON EARTH. I KNOW THE CHANCE IS SMALL, BUT WHAT HAVE I TO LOSE? I CAN'T FIX SCOUT WITHOUT BETTER TOOLS, AND IF MY GUESS IS RIGHT, I MAY BE ABLE TO GET EQUIPMENT. EXPECT TO RETURN IN TEN OR TWELVE HOURS. PLEASE KEEP CONTACT WITH SCOUT.
SMOKY
Kaiser packed a mudsled with tent, portable generator and guard wires, a spare sidearm and ammunition, and food for two days. He had noticed that a range of high hills, which caused the bend in the river at the native settlement, seemed to continue its long curve, and he wondered if the hills might not turn the river in the shape of a giant horseshoe. He intended to find out.
Wrapping his equipment in a plastic tarp, Kaiser eased it out the doorway and tied it on the sled. He hooked a towline to a harness on his shoulders and began his journey—in the opposite direction from the first native settlement.
He walked for more than seven hours before he found that his surmise had been correct. And a second cluster of huts, and seal-people in the river, greeted his sight. He received a further pleasant surprise. This group was decidedly more advanced than the first!
They were little different in actual physical appearance; the change was mainly noticeable in their actions and demeanor. And their odor was more subdued, less repugnant.
By signs, Kaiser indicated that he came in peace, and they seemed to understand. A thick-bodied male went solemnly to the river bank and called to a second, who dived and brought up a mouthful of weed. The first male took the weed and brought it to Kaiser. This was obviously a gesture of friendship.
The weed had a white starchy core and looked edible. Kaiser cleaned part of it with his handkerchief, bit and chewed it.
The weed had a slight iron taste, but was not unpalatable. He swallowed the mouthful and tried another. He ate most of what had been given him and waited with some trepidation for a reaction.
As dusk fell, Kaiser set up his tent a few hundred yards back from the native settlement. All apprehension about how his stomach would react to the river weed had left him. Apparently it could be assimilated by his digestive system. Lying on his air mattress, he felt thoroughly at peace with this world.
Once, just before dropping off to sleep, he heard the snuffling noise of some large animal outside his tent and picked up a pistol, just in case. However, the first jolt of the guard-wire charge discouraged the beast and Kaiser heard it shuffle away, making puzzled mewing sounds as it went.
The next morning, Kaiser left off all his clothes except a pair of shorts and went swimming in the river. The seal-people were already in the water when he arrived and were very friendly.
That friendliness nearly resulted in disaster. The natives crowded around as he swam—they maneuvered with an otter-like proficiency—and often nudged him with their bodies when they came too close. He had difficulty keeping afloat and soon turned and started back. As he neared the river edge, a playful female grabbed him by the ankle and pulled him under.
Kaiser tried to break her hold, but she evidently thought he was clowning and wrapped her warm furred arms around him and held him helpless. They sank deeper.
When his breath threatened to burst from his lungs in a stream of bubbles, and he still could not free himself, Kaiser brought his knee up into her stomach and her grip loosened abruptly. He reached the surface, choking and coughing, and swam blindly toward shore until his feet hit the river bottom.
As he stood on the bank, getting his breath, the natives were quiet and seemed to be looking at him reproachfully. He stood for a time, trying to think of a way to explain the necessity of what he had done, but there was none. He shrugged helplessly.
There was no longer anything to be gained by staying here—if they had the tools he needed, he had no way of finding out or asking for them—and he packed and started back to the scout.
Kaiser's good spirits returned on his return journey. He had enjoyed the relief from the tedium of spending day after day in the scout, and now he enjoyed the exercise of pulling the mudsled. Above the waist, he wore only the harness and the large, soft drops of rain against his bare skin were pleasant to feel.
When he reached the scout, Kaiser began to unload the sled. The tarpaulin caught on the edge of a runner and he gave it a tug to free it. To his amazement, the heavy sled turned completely over, spilling the equipment to the ground.
Perplexed, Kaiser stooped and began replacing the spilled articles in the tarp. They felt exceptionally light. He paused again, and suddenly his eyes widened.
Moving quickly to the door of the scout, he shoved his equipment through and crawled in behind it. He did not consult the communicator, as he customarily did on entering, but went directly to the warped place on the floor and picked up the crowbar he had laid there.
Inserting the bar between the metal of the scout bottom and the engine casing, he lifted. Nothing happened. He rested a minute and tried again, this time concentrating on his desire to raise the bar. The metal beneath yielded slightly—but he felt the palms of his hands bruise against the lever.
Only after he dropped the bar did he realize the force he had exerted. His hands ached and tingled. His strength must have been increased tremendously. With his plastic coat wrapped around the lever, he tried again. The metal of the scout bottom gave slowly—until the fuel pump hung free!
Kaiser did not repair the tube immediately. He let the solution rest in his hands, like a package to be opened, the pleasure of its anticipation to be enjoyed as much as the final act.
He transmitted the news of what he had been able to do and sat down to read the two messages waiting for him.
The first was quite routine:
REPORTS FROM THE OCTOPUS INDICATE THAT BIG MUDDY UNDERGOES RADICAL WEATHER-CYCLE CHANGES DURING SPRING AND FALL SEASONS, FROM EXTREME MOISTURE TO EXTREME ARIDITY. AT HEIGHT OF DRY SEASON, PLANET MUST BE COMPLETELY DEVOID OF SURFACE LIQUID.
TO SURVIVE THESE UNUSUAL EXTREMES, SEAL-PEOPLE WOULD NEED EXTREME ADAPTABILITY. THIS VERIFIES OUR EARLIER GUESS THAT NATIVES HAVE SYMBIOSIS WITH THE SAME VIRUS FORM THAT INVADED YOU. WITH SYMBIOTES' AID, SUCH RADICAL PHYSICAL CHANGE COULD BE POSSIBLE. WILL KEEP YOU INFORMED.
GIVE US ANY NEW INFORMATION YOU MIGHT HAVE ON NATIVES.
SS II
The second report was not so routine. Kaiser thought he detected a note of uneasiness in it.
SUGGEST YOU DEVOTE ALL TIME AND EFFORT TO REPAIR OF SCOUT. INFORMATION ON SEAL-PEOPLE ADEQUATE FOR OUR PURPOSES.
SS II
Kaiser did not answer either communication. His earlier report had covered all that he had learned lately. He lay on his cot and went to sleep.
In the morning, another message was waiting:
VERY PLEASED TO HEAR OF PROGRESS ON REPAIR OF SCOUT. COMPLETE AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE AND RETURN HERE IMMEDIATELY.
SS II
Kaiser wondered about the abrupt recall. Could the Soscites II be experiencing some difficulty? He shrugged the thought aside. If they were, they would have told him. The last notes had had more than just a suggestion of urgency—there appeared to be a deliberate concealing of information.
Strangely, the messages indicated need for haste did not prod Kaiser. He knew now that the job could be done, perhaps in a few hours' time. And the Soscites II would not complete its orbit of the planet for two weeks yet.
Without putting on more than the shirt and trousers he had grown used to wearing, Kaiser went outside and wandered listlessly about the vicinity of the ship for several hours. When he became hungry, he went back inside.
Another message came in as he finished eating. This one was from the captain himself:
WHY HAVE WE RECEIVED NO VERIFICATION OF LAST INSTRUCTIONS? REPAIR SCOUT IMMEDIATELY AND RETURN WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY. THIS IS AN ORDER!
H. A. HESSE, CAPT.
Kaiser pushed the last of his meal—which he had been eating with his fingers—into his mouth, crumpled the tape, wiped the grease from his hands with it and dropped it to the floor.
He pondered mildly, as he packed his equipment, why he was disregarding the captain's message. For some reason, it seemed too trivial for serious consideration. He placated his slightly uneasy conscience only to the extent of packing the communicator in with his other equipment. It was a self-contained unit and he'd be able to receive messages from the ship on his trip.
The tracks of his earlier journey had been erased by the soft rain, and when Kaiser reached the river, he found that he had not returned to the village he had visited the day before. However, there were other seal-people here.
And they were almost human!
The resemblance was still not so much in their physical makeup—that was little changed from the first he had found—as in their obviously greater intelligence.
This was mainly noticeable in their facile expressions as they talked. Kaiser was even certain that he read smiles on their faces when he slipped on a particularly slick mud patch as he hurried toward them. Where the members of the first tribes had all looked almost exactly alike, these had very marked individual characteristics. Also, these had no odor—only a mild, rather pleasing scent. When they came to meet him, Kaiser could detect distinct syllabism in their pipings.
Most of the natives returned to the river after the first ten minutes of curious inspection, but two stayed behind as Kaiser set up his tent.
One was a female.
They made small noises while he went about his work. After a time, he understood that they were trying to give names to his paraphernalia. He tried saying "tent" and "wire" and "tarp" as he handled each object, but their piping voices could not repeat the words. Kaiser amused himself by trying to imitate their sounds for the articles. He was fairly successful. He was certain that he could soon learn enough to carry on a limited conversation.
The male became bored after a time and left, but the girl stayed until Kaiser finished. She motioned to him then to follow. When they reached the river bank, he saw that she wanted him to go into the water.
Before he had time to decide, Kaiser heard the small bell of the communicator from the tent behind him. He stood undecided for a moment, then returned and read the message on the tape:
STILL ANXIOUSLY AWAITING WORD FROM YOU.
IN MEANTIME, GIVE VERY CLOSE ATTENTION TO FOLLOWING.
WE KNOW THAT THE SYMBIOTES MUST BE ABLE TO MAKE RADICAL CHANGES IN THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE SEAL-PEOPLE. THERE IS EVERY PROBABILITY THAT YOURS WILL ATTEMPT TO DO THE SAME TO YOU—TO BETTER FIT YOUR BODY TO ITS PRESENT ENVIRONMENT.
THE DANGER, WHICH WE HESITATED TO MENTION UNTIL NOW—WHEN YOU HAVE FORCED US BY YOUR OBSTINATE SILENCE—IS THAT IT CAN ALTER YOUR MIND ALSO. YOUR REPORT ON SECOND TRIBE OF SEAL-PEOPLE STRONGLY INDICATES THAT THIS IS ALREADY HAPPENING. THEY WERE PROBABLY NOT MORE INTELLIGENT AND HUMANLIKE THAN THE OTHERS. ON THE CONTRARY, YOU ARE BECOMING MORE LIKE THEM.
DANGER ACUTE. RETURN IMMEDIATELY. REPEAT: IMMEDIATELY!
SS II
Kaiser picked up a large rock and slowly, methodically pounded the communicator into a flattened jumble of metal and loose parts.
When he finished, he returned to the waiting girl on the river bank. She pointed at his plastic trousers and made laughing sounds in her throat. Kaiser returned the laugh and stripped off the trousers. They ran, still laughing, into the water.
Already the long pink hair that had been growing on his body during the past week was beginning to turn brown at the roots.
Question:
What is the importance of the seal-people in the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Kaiser’s perception of the native groups of seal-people represents how his body is affected by the symbiote that has invaded his system. The first time the man sees them, he considers them mindless repulsive creatures with an unbearable odor and no proper communication system. The second meeting changes his opinion about them - now they seem more advanced in their demeanor and actions, friendlier, and their smell is less repugnant. This change in perception shows that Kaiser has already started changing, becoming more like them. The last meeting with the seal-people makes the man believe that they have more individualistic characteristics. They don’t have the bad odor anymore, just a pleasant scent. They use distinct syllabism, and, finally, living with them and swimming in the river seems more appealing to him than going back to the Soscites II. These seal-people have the same symbiote, which has altered their appearance and mind. At the end, Kaiser practically becomes one of them. ",
"The seal-people are the only other signs of life that Kaiser interacts with in the story. Although they are not very intelligent, they are friendly and somewhat harmless. Since Kaiser is trapped anyways, he usually finds time to go visit the seal-people and see any developments in the village. The seal-people are also important because they are infected with the symbiote that Kaiser becomes affected by, changing their appearances to better suit the climate changes that happen on the Big Muddy. As Kaiser spends more time with them, he realizes that they are not as bad as he thinks they are because they can change themselves. As Kaiser eventually chooses to abandon communication with the mother ship and join the seal-people, they have almost become his new family in a sense. ",
"The native seal-creatures in the story are important because their very existence unlocks a lot of answers that both Kaiser and those aboard the SS II seek. For one, Big Muddy is said to undergo extreme weather cycle changes between the spring and fall seasons, for which the natives are only able to survive through because of their adaptability. This adaptability is only possible due to the symbiotes that have invaded Kaiser, allowing them such physical change. \n\nThis alludes to what is happening to Kaiser. On his second and third explorations, he supposedly finds seal-people that have become more human-like and intelligence. As we now know by learning about the seal-people, it was less so about the seals being more intelligence but Kaiser becoming more seal-like through this symbiote enacting the physical change. \n",
"The seal-people are the native settlers of the planet in which Kaiser crashes. They are described to be half-seal and half-human. They have short hands with 3 fingers, and fin-like feet that allow them to walk on land. They are also very furry, with their color varying. At the beginning of the story, they are described as being unintelligent but friendly. After Kaiser visits a new village, they begin to be more intelligent and Kaiser can communicate with them better. At the end, Kaiser enjoys spending time with them and is showing signs of becoming one of them. \n"
] |
51398
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Well, naturally Kaiser would transmit baby talk messages to his mother ship! He was—
GROWING UP ON BIG MUDDY
By CHARLES V. DE VET
Illustrated by TURPIN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction July 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Kaiser stared at the tape in his hand for a long uncomprehending minute. How long had the stuff been coming through in this inane baby talk? And why hadn't he noticed it before? Why had he had to read this last communication a third time before he recognized anything unusual about it?
He went over the words again, as though maybe this time they'd read as they should.
OO IS SICK, SMOKY. DO TO BEDDY-BY. KEEP UM WARM. WHEN UM FEELS BETTER, LET USNS KNOW.
SS II
Kaiser let himself ease back in the pilot chair and rolled the tape thoughtfully between his fingers. Overhead and to each side, large drops of rain thudded softly against the transparent walls of the scout ship and dripped wearily from the bottom ledge to the ground.
"Damn this climate!" Kaiser muttered irrelevantly. "Doesn't it ever do anything here except rain?"
His attention returned to the matter at hand. Why the baby talk? And why was his memory so hazy? How long had he been here? What had he been doing during that time?
Listlessly he reached for the towel at his elbow and wiped the moisture from his face and bare shoulders. The air conditioning had gone out when the scout ship cracked up. He'd have to repair the scout or he was stuck here for good. He remembered now that he had gone over the job very carefully and thoroughly, and had found it too big to handle alone—or without better equipment, at least. Yet there was little or no chance of his being able to find either here.
Calmly, deliberately, Kaiser collected his thoughts, his memories, and brought them out where he could look at them:
The mother ship, Soscites II , had been on the last leg of its planet-mapping tour. It had dropped Kaiser in the one remaining scout ship—the other seven had all been lost one way or another during the exploring of new worlds—and set itself into a giant orbit about this planet that Kaiser had named Big Muddy.
The Soscites II had to maintain its constant speed; it had no means of slowing, except to stop, and no way to start again once it did stop. Its limited range of maneuverability made it necessary to set up an orbit that would take it approximately one month, Earth time, to circle a pinpointed planet. And now its fuel was low.
Kaiser had that one month to repair his scout or be stranded here forever.
That was all he could remember. Nothing of what he had been doing recently.
A small shiver passed through his body as he glanced once again at the tape in his hand. Baby talk....
One thing he could find out: how long this had been going on. He turned to the communicator and unhooked the paper receptacle on its bottom. It held about a yard and a half of tape, probably his last several messages—both those sent and those received. He pulled it out impatiently and began reading.
The first was from himself:
YOUR SUGGESTIONS NO HELP. HOW AM I GOING TO REPAIR DAMAGE TO SCOUT WITHOUT PROPER EQUIPMENT? AND WHERE DO I GET IT? DO YOU THINK I FOUND A TOOL SHOP DOWN HERE? FOR GOD'S SAKE, COME UP WITH SOMETHING BETTER.
VISITED SEAL-PEOPLE AGAIN TODAY. STILL HAVE THEIR STINK IN MY NOSE. FOUND HUTS ALONG RIVER BANK, SO I GUESS THEY DON'T LIVE IN WATER. BUT THEY DO SPEND MOST OF THEIR TIME THERE. NO, I HAVE NO WAY OF ESTIMATING THEIR INTELLIGENCE. I WOULD JUDGE IT AVERAGES NO HIGHER THAN SEVEN-YEAR-OLD HUMAN. THEY DEFINITELY DO TALK TO ONE ANOTHER. WILL TRY TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THEM, BUT YOU GET TO WORK FAST ON HOW I REPAIR SCOUT.
SWELLING IN ARM WORSE AND AM DEVELOPING A FEVER. TEMPERATURE 102.7 AN HOUR AGO.
SMOKY
The ship must have answered immediately, for the return message time was six hours later than his own, the minimum interval necessary for two-way exchange.
DOING OUR BEST, SMOKY. YOUR IMMEDIATE PROBLEM, AS WE SEE IT, IS TO KEEP WELL. WE FED ALL THE INFORMATION YOU GAVE US INTO SAM, BUT YOU DIDN'T HAVE MUCH EXCEPT THE STING IN YOUR ARM. AS EXPECTED, ALL THAT CAME OUT WAS "DATA INSUFFICIENT." TRY TO GIVE US MORE. ALSO DETAIL ALL SYMPTOMS SINCE YOUR LAST REPORT. IN THE MEANTIME, WE'RE DOING EVERYTHING WE CAN AT THIS END. GOOD LUCK.
SS II
Sam, Kaiser knew, was the ship's mechanical diagnostician. His report followed:
ARM SWOLLEN. UNABLE TO KEEP DOWN FOOD LAST TWELVE HOURS. ABOUT TWO HOURS AGO, ENTIRE BODY TURNED LIVID RED. BRIEF PERIODS OF BLANKNESS. THINGS KEEP COMING AND GOING. SICK AS HELL. HURRY.
SMOKY
The ship's next message read:
INFECTION QUITE DEFINITE. BUT SOMETHING STRANGE THERE. GIVE US ANYTHING MORE YOU HAVE.
SS II
His own reply perplexed Kaiser:
LAST LETTER FUNNY. I NOT UNDERSTAND. WHY IS OO SENDING GARBLE TALK? DID USNS MAKE UP SECRET MESSAGES?
SMOKY
The expedition, apparently, was as puzzled as he:
WHAT'S THE MATTER, SMOKY? THAT LAST MESSAGE WAS IN PLAIN TERRAN. NO REASON WHY YOU COULDN'T READ IT. AND WHY THE BABY TALK? IF YOU'RE SPOOFING, STOP. GIVE US MORE SYMPTOMS. HOW ARE YOU FEELING NOW?
SS II
The baby talk was worse on Kaiser's next:
TWAZY. WHAT FOR OO TENDING TWAZY LETTERS? FINK UM CAN WEAD TWAZY LETTERS? SKIN ALL YELLOW NOW. COLD. COLD. CO
The ship's following communication was three hours late. It was the last on the tape—the one Kaiser had read earlier. Apparently they decided to humor him.
OO IS SICK, SMOKY. DO TO BEDDY-BY. KEEP UM WARM. WHEN UM FEELS BETTER, LET USNS KNOW.
SS II
That was not much help. All it told him was that he had been sick.
He felt better now, outside of a muscular weariness, as though convalescing from a long illness. He put the back of his hand to his forehead. Cool. No fever anyway.
He glanced at the clock-calendar on the instrument board and back at the date and time on the tape where he'd started his baby talk. Twenty hours. He hadn't been out of his head too long. He began punching the communicator keys while he nibbled at a biscuit.
SEEM TO BE FULLY RECOVERED. FEELING FINE. ANYTHING NEW FROM SAM? AND HOW ABOUT THE DAMAGE TO SCOUT? GIVE ME ANYTHING YOU HAVE ON EITHER OR BOTH.
SMOKY
Kaiser felt suddenly weary. He lay on the scout's bunk and tried to sleep. Soon he was in that phantasm land between sleep and wakefulness—he knew he was not sleeping, yet he did dream.
It was the same dream he had had many times before. In it, he was back home again, the home he had joined the space service to escape. He had realized soon after his marriage that his wife, Helene, did not love him. She had married him for the security his pay check provided. And though it soon became evident that she, too, regretted her bargain, she would not divorce him. Instead, she had her revenge on him by persistent nagging, by letting herself grow fat and querulous, and by caring for their house only in a slovenly way.
Her crippled brother had moved in with them the day they were married. His mind was as crippled as his body and he took an unhealthy delight in helping his sister torment Kaiser.
Kaiser came wide awake in a cold sweat. The clock showed that only an hour had passed since he had sent his last message to the ship. Still five more long hours to wait. He rose and wiped the sweat from his neck and shoulders and restlessly paced the small corridor of the scout.
After a few minutes, he stopped pacing and peered out into the gloom of Big Muddy. The rain seemed to have eased off some. Not much more than a heavy drizzle now.
Kaiser reached impulsively for the slicker he had thrown over a chest against one wall and put it on, then a pair of hip-high plastic boots and a plastic hat. He opened the door. The scout had come to rest with a slight tilt when it crashed, and Kaiser had to sit down and roll over onto his stomach to ease himself to the ground.
The weather outside was normal for Big Muddy: wet, humid, and warm.
Kaiser sank to his ankles in soft mud before his feet reached solid ground. He half walked and half slid to the rear of the scout. Beside the ship, the "octopus" was busily at work. Tentacles and antennae, extending from the yard-high box of its body, tested and recorded temperature, atmosphere, soil, and all other pertinent planetary conditions. The octopus was connected to the ship's communicator and all its findings were being transmitted to the mother ship for study.
Kaiser observed that it was working well and turned toward a wide, sluggish river, perhaps two hundred yards from the scout. Once there, he headed upstream. He could hear the pipings, and now and then a higher whistling, of the seal-people before he reached a bend and saw them. As usual, most were swimming in the river.
One old fellow, whose chocolate-brown fur showed a heavy intermixture of gray, was sitting on the bank of the river just at the bend. Perhaps a lookout. He pulled himself to his feet as he spied Kaiser and his toothless, hard-gummed mouth opened and emitted a long whistle that might have been a greeting—or a warning to the others that a stranger approached.
The native stood perhaps five feet tall, with the heavy, blubbery body of a seal, and short, thick arms. Membranes connected the arms to his body from shoulder-pits to mid-biceps. The arms ended in three-fingered, thumbless hands. His legs also were short and thick, with footpads that splayed out at forty-five-degree angles. They gave his legs the appearance of a split tail. About him hung a rank-fish smell that made Kaiser's stomach squirm.
The old fellow sounded a cheerful chirp as Kaiser came near. Feeling slightly ineffectual, Kaiser raised both hands and held them palm forward. The other chirped again and Kaiser went on toward the main group.
They had stopped their play and eating as Kaiser approached and now most of them swam in to shore and stood in the water, staring and piping. They varied in size from small seal-pups to full-grown adults. Some chewed on bunches of water weed, which they manipulated with their lips and drew into their mouths.
They had mammalian characteristics, Kaiser had noted before, so it was not difficult to distinguish the females from the males. The proportion was roughly fifty-fifty.
Several of the bolder males climbed up beside Kaiser and began pawing his plastic clothing. Kaiser stood still and tried to keep his breathing shallow, for their odor was almost more than he could bear. One native smeared Kaiser's face with an exploring paw and Kaiser gagged and pushed him roughly away. He was bound by regulations to display no hostility to newly discovered natives, but he couldn't take much more of this.
A young female splashed water on two young males who stood near and they turned with shrill pipings and chased her into the water. The entire group seemed to lose interest in Kaiser and joined in the chase, or went back to other diversions of their own. Kaiser's inspectors followed.
They were a mindless lot, Kaiser observed. The river supplied them with an easy existence, with food and living space, and apparently they had few natural enemies.
Kaiser walked away, following the long slow bend of the river, and came to a collection of perhaps two hundred dwellings built in three haphazard rows along the river bank. He took time to study their construction more closely this time.
They were all round domes, little more than the height of a man, built of blocks that appeared to be mud, packed with river weed and sand. How they were able to dry these to give them the necessary solidity, Kaiser did not know. He had found no signs that they knew how to use fire, and all apparent evidence was against their having it. They then had to have sunlight. Maybe it rained less during certain seasons.
The domes' construction was based on a series of four arches built in a circle. When the base covering the periphery had been laid, four others were built on and between them, and continued in successive tiers until the top was reached. Each tier thus furnished support for the next above. No other framework was needed. The final tier formed the roof. They made sound shelters, but Kaiser had peered into several and found them dark and dank—and as smelly as the natives themselves.
The few loungers in the village paid little attention to Kaiser and he wandered through the irregular streets until he became bored and returned to the scout.
The Soscites II sent little that helped during the next twelve hours and Kaiser occupied his time trying again to repair the damage to the scout.
The job appeared maddeningly simply. As the scout had glided in for a soft landing, its metal bottom had ridden a concealed rock and bent inward. The bent metal had carried up with it the tube supplying the fuel pump and flattened it against the motor casing.
Opening the tube again would not have been difficult, but first it had to be freed from under the ship. Kaiser had tried forcing the sheet metal back into place with a small crowbar—the best leverage he had on hand—but it resisted his best efforts. He still could think of no way to do the job, simple as it was, though he gave his concentration to it the rest of the day.
That evening, Kaiser received information from the Soscites II that was at least definite:
SET YOURSELF FOR A SHOCK, SMOKY. SAM FINALLY CAME THROUGH. YOU WON'T LIKE WHAT YOU HEAR. AT LEAST NOT AT FIRST. BUT IT COULD BE WORSE. YOU HAVE BEEN INVADED BY A SYMBIOTE—SIMILAR TO THE TYPE FOUND ON THE SAND WORLD, BARTEL-BLEETHERS. GIVE US A FEW MORE HOURS TO WORK WITH SAM AND WE'LL GET YOU ALL THE PARTICULARS HE CAN GIVE US. HANG ON NOW!
SOSCITES II
Kaiser's reply was short and succinct:
WHAT THE HELL?
SMOKY
Soscites II's next communication followed within twenty minutes and was signed by the ship's doctor:
JUST A FEW WORDS, SMOKY, IN CASE YOU'RE WORRIED. I THOUGHT I'D GET THIS OFF WHILE WE'RE WAITING FOR MORE INFORMATION FROM SAM. REMEMBER THAT A SYMBIOTE IS NOT A PARASITE. IT WILL NOT HARM YOU, EXCEPT INADVERTENTLY. YOUR WELFARE IS AS ESSENTIAL TO IT AS TO YOU. ALMOST CERTAINLY, IF YOU DIE, IT WILL DIE WITH YOU. ANY TROUBLE YOU'VE HAD SO FAR WAS PROBABLY CAUSED BY THE SYMBIOTE'S DIFFICULTY IN ADJUSTING ITSELF TO ITS NEW ENVIRONMENT. IN A WAY, I ENVY YOU. MORE LATER, WHEN WE FINISH WITH SAM.
J. G. ZARWELL
Kaiser did not answer. The news was so startling, so unforeseen, that his mind refused to accept the actuality. He lay on the scout's bunk and stared at the ceiling without conscious attention, and with very little clear thought, for several hours—until the next communication came in:
WELL, THIS IS WHAT SAM HAS TO SAY, SMOKY. SYMBIOTE AMICABLE AND APPARENTLY SWIFTLY ADAPTABLE. YOUR CHANGING COLOR, DIFFICULTY IN EATING AND EVEN BABY TALK WERE THE RESULT OF ITS EFFORTS TO GIVE YOU WHAT IT BELIEVED YOU NEEDED OR WANTED.
CHANGING COLOR: PROTECTIVE CAMOUFLAGE. TROUBLE KEEPING FOOD DOWN: IT KEPT YOUR STOMACH EMPTY BECAUSE IT SENSED YOU WERE IN TROUBLE AND MIGHT HAVE NEED FOR SHARP REFLEXES, WITH NO EXCESS WEIGHT TO CARRY. THE BABY TALK WE AREN'T TOO CERTAIN ABOUT, BUT OUR BEST CONCLUSION IS THAT WHEN YOU WERE A CHILD, YOU WERE MOST HAPPY. IT WAS TRYING TO GIVE YOU BACK THAT HAPPY STATE OF MIND. OBVIOUSLY IT QUICKLY RECOGNIZED THE MISTAKES IT MADE AND CORRECTED THEM.
SAM CAME UP WITH A FEW MORE IDEAS, BUT WE WANT TO WORK ON THEM A BIT BEFORE WE SEND THEM THROUGH. SLEEP ON THIS.
SS II
Kaiser could imagine that most of the crew were not too concerned about the trouble he was in. He was not the gregarious type and had no close friends on board. He had hoped to find the solitude he liked best in space, but he had been disappointed. True, there were fewer people here, but he was brought into such intimate contact with them that he would have been more contented living in a crowded city.
His naturally unsociable nature was more irksome to the crew because he was more intelligent and efficient than they were. He did his work well and painstakingly and was seldom in error. They would have liked him better had he been more prone to mistakes. He was certain that they respected him, but they did not like him. And he returned the dislike.
The suggestion that he get some sleep might not be a bad idea. He hadn't slept in over eighteen hours, Kaiser realized—and fell instantly asleep.
The communicator had a message waiting for him when he awoke:
SAM COULDN'T HELP US MUCH ON THIS PART, BUT AFTER RESEARCH AND MUCH DISCUSSION, WE ARRIVED AT THE FOLLOWING TWO CONCLUSIONS.
FIRST, PHYSICAL PROPERTY OF SYMBIOTE IS EITHER THAT OF A VERY THIN LIQUID OR, MORE PROBABLY, A VIRUS FORM WITH SWIFT PROPAGATION CHARACTERISTIC. IT UNDOUBTEDLY LIVES IN YOUR BLOOD STREAM AND PERMEATES YOUR SYSTEM.
SECOND, IT SEEMED TO US, AS IT MUST HAVE TO YOU, THAT THE SYMBIOTE COULD ONLY KNOW WHAT YOU WANTED BY READING YOUR MIND. HOWEVER, WE BELIEVE DIFFERENTLY NOW. WE THINK THAT IT HAS SUCH CLOSE CONTACT WITH YOUR GLANDS AND THEIR SECRETIONS, WHICH STIMULATE EMOTION, THAT IT CAN GAUGE YOUR FEELINGS EVEN MORE ACCURATELY THAN YOU YOURSELF CAN. THUS IT CAN JUDGE YOUR LIKES AND DISLIKES QUITE ACCURATELY.
WE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE YOU TEST OUR THEORY. THERE ARE DOZENS OF WAYS. IF YOU ARE STUMPED AND NEED SUGGESTIONS, JUST LET US KNOW. WE AWAIT WORD FROM YOU WITH GREAT INTEREST.
SS II
By now, Kaiser had accepted what had happened to him. His distress and anxiety were gone and he was impatient to do what he could to establish better contact with his uninvited tenant. With eager anticipation, he set to thinking how it could be done. After a few minutes, an idea occurred to him.
Taking a small scalpel from a medical kit, he made a shallow cut in his arm, just deep enough to bleed freely. He knew that the pain would supply the necessary glandular reaction. The cut bled a few slow drops—and as Kaiser watched, a shiny film formed and the bleeding stopped.
That checked pretty well with the ship's theory.
Perhaps the symbiote had made his senses more acute. He tried closing his eyes and fingering several objects in the room. It seemed to him that he could determine the texture of each better than before, but the test was inconclusive. Walking to the rear of the scout, he tried reading the printed words on the instrument panel. Each letter stood out sharp and clear!
Kaiser wondered if he might not make an immediate, practical use of the symbiote's apparent desire to help him. Concentrating on the discomfort of the high humidity and exaggerating his own displeasure with it, he waited. The result surprised and pleased him.
The temperature within the scout cabin seemed to lower, the moisture on his body vanished, and he was more comfortable than he had yet been here.
As a double check, he looked at the ship's thermometer. Temperature
102, humidity 113—just about the same as it had been on earlier readings.
During the next twenty-four hours, Kaiser and the mother ship exchanged messages at regular six-hour intervals. In between, he worked at repairing the damaged scout. He had no more success than before.
He tired easily and lay on the cot often to rest. Each time he seemed to drop off to sleep immediately—and awake at the exact times he had decided on beforehand. At first, despite the lack of success in straightening the bent metal of the scout bottom, there had been a subdued exhilaration in reporting each new discovery concerning the symbiote, but as time passed, his enthusiasm ebbed. His one really important problem was how to repair the scout and he was fast becoming discouraged.
At last Kaiser could bear the futility of his efforts no longer. He sent out a terse message to the Soscites II :
TAKING SHORT TRIP TO ANOTHER LOCATION ON RIVER. HOPE TO FIND MORE INTELLIGENT NATIVES. COULD BE THAT THE SETTLEMENT I FOUND HERE IS ANALOGOUS TO TRIBE OF MONKEYS ON EARTH. I KNOW THE CHANCE IS SMALL, BUT WHAT HAVE I TO LOSE? I CAN'T FIX SCOUT WITHOUT BETTER TOOLS, AND IF MY GUESS IS RIGHT, I MAY BE ABLE TO GET EQUIPMENT. EXPECT TO RETURN IN TEN OR TWELVE HOURS. PLEASE KEEP CONTACT WITH SCOUT.
SMOKY
Kaiser packed a mudsled with tent, portable generator and guard wires, a spare sidearm and ammunition, and food for two days. He had noticed that a range of high hills, which caused the bend in the river at the native settlement, seemed to continue its long curve, and he wondered if the hills might not turn the river in the shape of a giant horseshoe. He intended to find out.
Wrapping his equipment in a plastic tarp, Kaiser eased it out the doorway and tied it on the sled. He hooked a towline to a harness on his shoulders and began his journey—in the opposite direction from the first native settlement.
He walked for more than seven hours before he found that his surmise had been correct. And a second cluster of huts, and seal-people in the river, greeted his sight. He received a further pleasant surprise. This group was decidedly more advanced than the first!
They were little different in actual physical appearance; the change was mainly noticeable in their actions and demeanor. And their odor was more subdued, less repugnant.
By signs, Kaiser indicated that he came in peace, and they seemed to understand. A thick-bodied male went solemnly to the river bank and called to a second, who dived and brought up a mouthful of weed. The first male took the weed and brought it to Kaiser. This was obviously a gesture of friendship.
The weed had a white starchy core and looked edible. Kaiser cleaned part of it with his handkerchief, bit and chewed it.
The weed had a slight iron taste, but was not unpalatable. He swallowed the mouthful and tried another. He ate most of what had been given him and waited with some trepidation for a reaction.
As dusk fell, Kaiser set up his tent a few hundred yards back from the native settlement. All apprehension about how his stomach would react to the river weed had left him. Apparently it could be assimilated by his digestive system. Lying on his air mattress, he felt thoroughly at peace with this world.
Once, just before dropping off to sleep, he heard the snuffling noise of some large animal outside his tent and picked up a pistol, just in case. However, the first jolt of the guard-wire charge discouraged the beast and Kaiser heard it shuffle away, making puzzled mewing sounds as it went.
The next morning, Kaiser left off all his clothes except a pair of shorts and went swimming in the river. The seal-people were already in the water when he arrived and were very friendly.
That friendliness nearly resulted in disaster. The natives crowded around as he swam—they maneuvered with an otter-like proficiency—and often nudged him with their bodies when they came too close. He had difficulty keeping afloat and soon turned and started back. As he neared the river edge, a playful female grabbed him by the ankle and pulled him under.
Kaiser tried to break her hold, but she evidently thought he was clowning and wrapped her warm furred arms around him and held him helpless. They sank deeper.
When his breath threatened to burst from his lungs in a stream of bubbles, and he still could not free himself, Kaiser brought his knee up into her stomach and her grip loosened abruptly. He reached the surface, choking and coughing, and swam blindly toward shore until his feet hit the river bottom.
As he stood on the bank, getting his breath, the natives were quiet and seemed to be looking at him reproachfully. He stood for a time, trying to think of a way to explain the necessity of what he had done, but there was none. He shrugged helplessly.
There was no longer anything to be gained by staying here—if they had the tools he needed, he had no way of finding out or asking for them—and he packed and started back to the scout.
Kaiser's good spirits returned on his return journey. He had enjoyed the relief from the tedium of spending day after day in the scout, and now he enjoyed the exercise of pulling the mudsled. Above the waist, he wore only the harness and the large, soft drops of rain against his bare skin were pleasant to feel.
When he reached the scout, Kaiser began to unload the sled. The tarpaulin caught on the edge of a runner and he gave it a tug to free it. To his amazement, the heavy sled turned completely over, spilling the equipment to the ground.
Perplexed, Kaiser stooped and began replacing the spilled articles in the tarp. They felt exceptionally light. He paused again, and suddenly his eyes widened.
Moving quickly to the door of the scout, he shoved his equipment through and crawled in behind it. He did not consult the communicator, as he customarily did on entering, but went directly to the warped place on the floor and picked up the crowbar he had laid there.
Inserting the bar between the metal of the scout bottom and the engine casing, he lifted. Nothing happened. He rested a minute and tried again, this time concentrating on his desire to raise the bar. The metal beneath yielded slightly—but he felt the palms of his hands bruise against the lever.
Only after he dropped the bar did he realize the force he had exerted. His hands ached and tingled. His strength must have been increased tremendously. With his plastic coat wrapped around the lever, he tried again. The metal of the scout bottom gave slowly—until the fuel pump hung free!
Kaiser did not repair the tube immediately. He let the solution rest in his hands, like a package to be opened, the pleasure of its anticipation to be enjoyed as much as the final act.
He transmitted the news of what he had been able to do and sat down to read the two messages waiting for him.
The first was quite routine:
REPORTS FROM THE OCTOPUS INDICATE THAT BIG MUDDY UNDERGOES RADICAL WEATHER-CYCLE CHANGES DURING SPRING AND FALL SEASONS, FROM EXTREME MOISTURE TO EXTREME ARIDITY. AT HEIGHT OF DRY SEASON, PLANET MUST BE COMPLETELY DEVOID OF SURFACE LIQUID.
TO SURVIVE THESE UNUSUAL EXTREMES, SEAL-PEOPLE WOULD NEED EXTREME ADAPTABILITY. THIS VERIFIES OUR EARLIER GUESS THAT NATIVES HAVE SYMBIOSIS WITH THE SAME VIRUS FORM THAT INVADED YOU. WITH SYMBIOTES' AID, SUCH RADICAL PHYSICAL CHANGE COULD BE POSSIBLE. WILL KEEP YOU INFORMED.
GIVE US ANY NEW INFORMATION YOU MIGHT HAVE ON NATIVES.
SS II
The second report was not so routine. Kaiser thought he detected a note of uneasiness in it.
SUGGEST YOU DEVOTE ALL TIME AND EFFORT TO REPAIR OF SCOUT. INFORMATION ON SEAL-PEOPLE ADEQUATE FOR OUR PURPOSES.
SS II
Kaiser did not answer either communication. His earlier report had covered all that he had learned lately. He lay on his cot and went to sleep.
In the morning, another message was waiting:
VERY PLEASED TO HEAR OF PROGRESS ON REPAIR OF SCOUT. COMPLETE AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE AND RETURN HERE IMMEDIATELY.
SS II
Kaiser wondered about the abrupt recall. Could the Soscites II be experiencing some difficulty? He shrugged the thought aside. If they were, they would have told him. The last notes had had more than just a suggestion of urgency—there appeared to be a deliberate concealing of information.
Strangely, the messages indicated need for haste did not prod Kaiser. He knew now that the job could be done, perhaps in a few hours' time. And the Soscites II would not complete its orbit of the planet for two weeks yet.
Without putting on more than the shirt and trousers he had grown used to wearing, Kaiser went outside and wandered listlessly about the vicinity of the ship for several hours. When he became hungry, he went back inside.
Another message came in as he finished eating. This one was from the captain himself:
WHY HAVE WE RECEIVED NO VERIFICATION OF LAST INSTRUCTIONS? REPAIR SCOUT IMMEDIATELY AND RETURN WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY. THIS IS AN ORDER!
H. A. HESSE, CAPT.
Kaiser pushed the last of his meal—which he had been eating with his fingers—into his mouth, crumpled the tape, wiped the grease from his hands with it and dropped it to the floor.
He pondered mildly, as he packed his equipment, why he was disregarding the captain's message. For some reason, it seemed too trivial for serious consideration. He placated his slightly uneasy conscience only to the extent of packing the communicator in with his other equipment. It was a self-contained unit and he'd be able to receive messages from the ship on his trip.
The tracks of his earlier journey had been erased by the soft rain, and when Kaiser reached the river, he found that he had not returned to the village he had visited the day before. However, there were other seal-people here.
And they were almost human!
The resemblance was still not so much in their physical makeup—that was little changed from the first he had found—as in their obviously greater intelligence.
This was mainly noticeable in their facile expressions as they talked. Kaiser was even certain that he read smiles on their faces when he slipped on a particularly slick mud patch as he hurried toward them. Where the members of the first tribes had all looked almost exactly alike, these had very marked individual characteristics. Also, these had no odor—only a mild, rather pleasing scent. When they came to meet him, Kaiser could detect distinct syllabism in their pipings.
Most of the natives returned to the river after the first ten minutes of curious inspection, but two stayed behind as Kaiser set up his tent.
One was a female.
They made small noises while he went about his work. After a time, he understood that they were trying to give names to his paraphernalia. He tried saying "tent" and "wire" and "tarp" as he handled each object, but their piping voices could not repeat the words. Kaiser amused himself by trying to imitate their sounds for the articles. He was fairly successful. He was certain that he could soon learn enough to carry on a limited conversation.
The male became bored after a time and left, but the girl stayed until Kaiser finished. She motioned to him then to follow. When they reached the river bank, he saw that she wanted him to go into the water.
Before he had time to decide, Kaiser heard the small bell of the communicator from the tent behind him. He stood undecided for a moment, then returned and read the message on the tape:
STILL ANXIOUSLY AWAITING WORD FROM YOU.
IN MEANTIME, GIVE VERY CLOSE ATTENTION TO FOLLOWING.
WE KNOW THAT THE SYMBIOTES MUST BE ABLE TO MAKE RADICAL CHANGES IN THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE SEAL-PEOPLE. THERE IS EVERY PROBABILITY THAT YOURS WILL ATTEMPT TO DO THE SAME TO YOU—TO BETTER FIT YOUR BODY TO ITS PRESENT ENVIRONMENT.
THE DANGER, WHICH WE HESITATED TO MENTION UNTIL NOW—WHEN YOU HAVE FORCED US BY YOUR OBSTINATE SILENCE—IS THAT IT CAN ALTER YOUR MIND ALSO. YOUR REPORT ON SECOND TRIBE OF SEAL-PEOPLE STRONGLY INDICATES THAT THIS IS ALREADY HAPPENING. THEY WERE PROBABLY NOT MORE INTELLIGENT AND HUMANLIKE THAN THE OTHERS. ON THE CONTRARY, YOU ARE BECOMING MORE LIKE THEM.
DANGER ACUTE. RETURN IMMEDIATELY. REPEAT: IMMEDIATELY!
SS II
Kaiser picked up a large rock and slowly, methodically pounded the communicator into a flattened jumble of metal and loose parts.
When he finished, he returned to the waiting girl on the river bank. She pointed at his plastic trousers and made laughing sounds in her throat. Kaiser returned the laugh and stripped off the trousers. They ran, still laughing, into the water.
Already the long pink hair that had been growing on his body during the past week was beginning to turn brown at the roots.
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What equipment does Star possess and use throughout the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about DEATH STAR by TOM PACE.
Relevant chunks:
DEATH STAR
By TOM PACE
Trapped by the most feared of space pirates Devil Garrett, Starrett Blade was fighting for his life. Weaponless, his ship gone, he was pinning his hopes on a girl—who wanted him dead.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1945. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Starrett Blade crouched in the rocks by the tiny Centaurian lake. It was only about two or three hundred feet across, but probably thousands of feet deep. This lake, and hundreds of others like it, were the only things to break the monotony of the flat, rocky surface of Alpha Centauri III—called the most barren planet in space.
Ten minutes ago, Star Blade's ship had spun into the stagnant waters before him. An emergency release had flung the air-lock doors open, and the air pressure had flung Star out. And now he was waiting for Devil Garrett to come down to the water's edge to search for him.
For eight years, Devil Garrett had been the top space pirate in the void. For a year, Star himself had personally been hunting him. And on a tour over Alpha III, a Barden energy-beam had stabbed up at Blade's ship, and Star Blade had crashed into the lake.
That Barden Beam had Star worried and puzzled. It took a million volts of power for a split-second flash of the beam. Garrett didn't have an atomics plant on Alpha III—if he had, escaping rays would point it out, no matter how well it was camouflaged. There was no water power, for there was no running water. There were only the lakes ... and tidal power was out, for Alpha III had no moon.
However, that could wait. Star slid the electron knife from his water-proof sheath, gripped it firmly. He could hear quick footsteps as a man came down the trail that led directly past his hiding place.
It wasn't Garrett, which was disappointing. But it was one of his men, and he was heavily armed. That didn't worry Star.
His fighting had earned Starrett Blade the nickname of "Death Star."
The man walked to the water's edge, and peered out over the pool. He saw the bubbles that were coming up from the sinking ship, and he nodded, grunted in satisfaction, and started to turn back.
Star landed on him, knocking him sprawling on the rock. The pirate jerked up an arm, holding the jet-gun.
The stabbing lance of blue fire cracked from the electron knife, dug into the man's heart.
Star tossed the dead pirate's cloak over his shoulders, and thrust both electron blade and jet-gun into his belt. He straightened, and saw the leveled gun from the corner of his eye.
He got the jet in his right hand, the knife in his left, and went into a dive that flipped him behind a rock. The three actions took only a split-second, and the blast from the jet-gun flaked rock where he had been standing.
While a jet-gun is the most deadly weapon known, you have to press a loading stud to slide another blast-capsule into place. Death Star knew this very well. So he knew he was safe in coming up from behind the spur of stone to fire his own gun.
If his reflexes hadn't been as quick as they were, he would have blasted the girl.
He stopped, and stood for a second, staring at the girl. She was something to invite stares, too. In the moment that lasted between her next move, he had time to register that she was about five feet five tall, black-haired—the kind of black hair that looks like silken spun darkness—dark-eyed, and possessing both a face and a form that would make anyone stop and gulp.
Then the moment of half-awed survey was over, and she leveled the jet on him, and said in a trembling voice, "Drop those weapons, or I'll blast you ... pirate !"
Death Star said, "That jet-gun is empty. I can see the register on the magazine. And I'm not a pirate. I'm Starrett Blade."
The useless jet-gun slid out of the girl's hand, and she gave a half-gasp. "Starrett Blade! I—I don't believe ..." she broke off abruptly. "So you're Death Star! A fine story for a hired killer, a pirate."
Star reddened. "Look," he snapped, "I don't know who's been talking to you, but ..." he whirled, and his hand whipped the jet-gun from his belt. As he did so, the girl jerked up the jet-gun she had dropped, and flung it with all her strength. The blow landed on his arm and side, and paralyzed him long enough for the man who had leaped out behind him to land a stunning blow against his head. As Star went down, he dizzily cursed himself for becoming interested in the argument with the girl, so that he did not heed his reflexes in time ... and dimly, he wondered why it had seemed so important to convince the lovely dark-haired girl.
Then a bit of the cosmos seemed to fall on Star's head, and he was hurled into blackness.
An eternity seemed to pass.
Deep in the blackness, a light was born. It leaped toward him, a far-away comet rocketing along, coming from some far, unknown corner of the galaxy. It became a flaming sun in a gray-green space, and strangely, there seemed to be several odd planets circling about the sun. Some of them were vast pieces of queer electronic machinery. Some were vague, villainous-looking men. One was the dark-haired girl, and there was lovely contempt in her dark-star pools of eyes.
Then into the midst of this queer universe, there swam a new planet. It was the face of a man, and the man was Devil Garrett.
That brought Star up, out of his daze, onto his feet as though he had been doused with cold water. He stood there, not staring, just looking at Garrett.
The most famous killer in the void was big. He was six feet three, and twice as strong as he looked. He wore a huge high-velocity jet-gun, and a set of electron knives, all of the finest workmanship. He was sitting on a laboratory chair of steel, and the chair bent slightly under his great weight.
He smiled at Star, and there was a touch of hell in the smile. He said,
"Ah, Mr. Garrett."
Star's jaw dropped. "Garrett? What do you—" he broke off. A glance at the girl told him what the purpose was.
"Look, Mr. Devil Garrett," said the pirate, still smiling softly, "Miss Hinton is aware of your identity. There is no need to attempt to fool us.... I've known it was you ever since I flashed that beam at your ship. And you needn't flatter yourself that the Devil's luck is going to hold out as far as you are concerned. For in a very short while, I'm going to have you executed ... before a stellar vision screen, connected with Section Void Headquarters! I wish the authorities to see Devil Garrett die, so that I might collect the reward that is offered on you!"
Star stood quiet, and looked straight into Garrett's eyes. After a minute of silence, Garrett's lips twisted into a smile, and he said mockingly, "Well, pirate? What are you thinking of?"
Star said, in a low, cold voice, "I'm thinking of putting an electron fire-blade into your face, Devil Garrett!"
Garrett laughed ... huge, rather evil, bluff laughter. The mirth of a person who is both powerful and dangerous. And then the girl leaped forward, shaking with rage.
"You beast! Murderer! To accuse this man ... you fool, you might have been able to complete any scheme of escape you had, if you hadn't called yourself Starrett Blade! Mr. Blade...." She gestured toward Garrett, who made a mocking, sardonic bow. "... has given me ample proof that he is who he says! And this long before you came. He's shown me papers giving a description and showing a tri-dimension picture of you...."
Fire leaped in Star's eyes. "Listen ..." he snapped furiously, as he started to step forward. Then Garrett made a signal with his hand, and someone drove a fist against the base of Star's skull.
When Star came to, he was in a cell of sorts. A man standing by the door told him that he was to be executed, "... after Mr. Blade and the lady have eaten." Starrett swore at him, and the man went out, with a mocking "Goodbye, Mr. Garrett!"
Star got up. His head spun, and he almost fell at first, but the daze left in his head from the two blows quickly cleared away. He felt for various weapons which he had hidden about him ... and found them gone. Garrett's men had searched carefully.
Star sat down, his head spinning more now from mystery than from physical pain. He had to keep himself in a whole skin, of course. That was most important right now. But other things were bothering him, tugging at his mind like waves slapping around a swamped ship, each trying to shove it in a different direction.
There was the girl. Star wondered why she always leaped into his mind first. And there was the way Garrett was trying to leave the impression that he was Blade, so that he could kill Blade as Garrett.
Obviously, the reason for that was the girl, Miss Hinton, Garrett had called her. She had been shown faked papers by Garrett, papers proving that the two were ... were whatever Garrett had twisted the story into!
Star clutched at his head. He was in a mess. He was going to be killed, and he was going to die without knowing the score. And he didn't like that. Nor did he like dying as Star Blade shouldn't die; executed as a "wolf's-head" pirate. The girl would be watching, and he felt as if that would make it far worse.
His head came up, and he smiled flintily. He still had an ace card! One hand felt for it, and he shook his head slowly. It was a gamble ... but all the others had been found.
Blade looked up quickly, as the door opened. Two men came into the cell, carrying jet-guns. They motioned Blade to his feet. "Come on, Blade." One began, when the other hit him across the mouth.
"You fool!" he hissed. "You better not call him that; suppose that girl was to hear it? Until the boss gets what he wants on Earth, that girl has got to think that he's Blade! We're killing this guy as Devil Garrett! And a loud-mouthed fool like you ... look out!"
Blade had landed on the bickering men, and was grappling with the one who had called him by name. As the other leaped forward, swinging a clubbing blow with a jet-gun, Star tripped one man into the corner, and ducked under the gun. He hit the man in the stomach, drove a shoulder up under his arms, and smashed the man's face in with a series of sharp blows. The man went reeling backward across the room, and Star's hand leaped toward that "ace card" which he still held.
Devil Garrett stepped in the door, and made a mock out of a courteous bow. As he did so, Star snarled in rage, but stood very still, for the electron knife in Garrett's hand did not waver.
Garrett gestured silently toward the door, and Star, equally silent, walked over and out, at the point of the weapon.
Star Blade stood before a transmitter, and thought about death.
He was very close to it. Garrett stood five yards away, a gun in his hand, and the muzzle trained on Blade's chest. The gun was the universally used weapon of execution, an old projectile-firing weapon.
Star did not doubt that Devil Garrett was an excellent shot with it.
The girl, very round-eyed and nervous, sat by Garrett. He had explained to her that Garrett was the type of pirate that it is law to kill, or have executed, by anyone. Which was very true.
A man stepped away from the transmitter, and nodded to Garrett. Star felt a surge of hope, as he saw that it was a two-way transmitter. If the image of an Interstellar Command headquarters was tuned in—Garrett would undoubtedly do it, if only to show the police that he had killed Starrett Blade—then Garrett could not kill him and cut the beam in time to prevent one of the police from giving a cry that would echo over the sub-space beam arriving almost instantly in this room, and let the girl know that she had been tricked. And Garrett would not want that. Not that it would matter to Starrett Blade.
Then Star saw what kind of a transmitter it was, and he groaned. It was not a Hineson Sub-space beamer ... it was an old-style transmitter which had different wave speeds, because of the different space-bridger units in it.
The visual image would arrive many seconds before the sound did. Thus the girl would not hear Garrett revealed, but would see only Blade's death. And then ... whatever Garrett had planned, Blade wished heartily that he could have the chance to interfere.
The beam was coming in. Star saw the mists swimming on the screen change, solidify into a figure ... the figure of District Commander Weddel seated at a desk. He saw Weddel's eyebrows rise, saw his lips move—then Garrett stepped over a pace, and Weddel saw him, saw the gun in his hand....
The police officer yelled, silently, and came to his feet, an expression of shocked surprise on his face—surprise, Blade thought desperately, that the girl might interpret as shock at seeing Devil Garrett.
Which was right, in a way.
Then, as Commander Weddel leapt to his feet, as Devil Garrett's finger tightened on the trigger, as the girl sucked in her breath involuntarily, Star Blade scooped up a bit of metal—a fork—and flung it at the vision transmitter.
Not at the screen. But at the equipment behind the dial-board. At a certain small unit, which was almost covered by wires and braces for the large tubes. And the fork struck it, bit deep, and caused result.
Result in the form of a burned-out set. If television equipment can curse, that set cursed them. Its spitting of sparks and blue electric flame mingled with a strange, high-pitched whine.
It was the diversion that caused Garrett to miss Star, which gave him time to pull three or four of Garrett's men onto the floor with him. One of the men drove the butt of a jet-gun into the side of Star's head, and for the third time, he went very limp. The last thing he saw was the girl.
Somehow, the expression on her face was different from what it had been. He was searching for the difference, when the blow struck him. Somewhere in the space that lies between consciousness and unconsciousness, he reflected bitterly that if he kept staring at the girl when he should be fighting, he might not recover some day. This was the third time that he had been knocked out that way. It was not getting monotonous. He still felt it a novelty.
Star awoke in the same prison cell, facing the wall away from the door. He wondered if he were still alive, tried to move his head, and decided that he wasn't. He didn't even get up or look around when he dimly heard the door being opened.
But when he heard the girl's voice, he came up and around very swiftly, despite his head.
It was the girl all right. Even through the tumbled mists of his brain, he could see that she was not a dream. And as he reeled and fell against the wall, she was beside him in a flash, her arm supporting him.
At first he tried to push himself erect, his head whirling with sick dizziness, and bewilderment. Through a twisting haze, he peered up at the girl's face. It reflected a look that, amazingly, was one of—with no other phrase to do—compassion. Star half-sighed, and laid his head on the girl's breast, and closed his eyes.
In a minute or two, she said tensely, "Are you all right?" Star looked up at her.
"I guess so. Here—give a hand while I get my balance." She held him as he tried a step or two, and then he straightened. "I guess I'll be all right, now," he smiled. "My head feels like—say! How come you're doing this? What made you change your mind? And who are you?"
She said quickly, breathlessly, "I know you're Star Blade, now. That transmission set.... I can read lips! I knew what that officer was saying! It was just as if I had heard him say that ... that you were Starrett Blade and that man out there is Devil Garrett!" she made a choking sound. "And I've been here, alone, for a month! For a month!"
"A month? Huh—please—you...?"
Star took a breath, and started over. "You.... Who are you? What are you doing here?"
She said, "I'm Anne Hinton. My father is Old John Hinton. Have you heard of him?"
"Of course!" said Star. "He manufactures most of the equipment ' Blade Cosmian ' uses. Weapons, Hineson Sub-Spacers, Star-Traveler craft ... the ship I was in when Garrett brought me down was a Hinton craft. I should have recognized the name. But go on. What—"
"Garrett communicated with dad, secretly. He posed as Starrett Blade, as you, and told dad that he was developing certain new power processes. And he is! He has a new—or maybe it isn't so new—way of electrolyzing water to liberate hydrogen and oxygen."
"I think I understand," said Star quickly. "When the oxygen and hydrogen are allowed to combine, and produce an explosion which drive a turbine-generator. Then that could be hitched up to a cyclotron, and even the most barren of Alpha's lake-rock planets could be...."
"No," she shook her head puzzledly. "It's just electric power. He said that atomics would release stray rays that would attract pirates."
"I know," Star nodded, abstractedly. "I was thinking of another application of it ... hmm. But say! What was Garrett after? I know that he wouldn't do this just to get a secret process sold. He must have had another plan behind it. Got any idea?"
Anne shook her head slowly. "I don't know. I can't see...."
"Perhaps I could help you?" Devil Garrett asked smoothly from the door.
Star whirled, thrust Anne behind him, but there was no way out. Garrett stood in the door, and there were men behind him. The jet in his hand could kill both of the two at one shot. And they had no weapons to resist with.
Devil Garrett stepped them out of the room, and down the corridor, through a large door Star had noticed at the end of the passage, and into a huge room.
It must have been a thousand feet long, and half that wide. It was at least a hundred yards deep. And it was almost filled with gigantic machines.
Between the machinery, the spaces were almost filled with steel ladders and cat-walks. Crews of men swarmed over them. It was the largest mass of equipment Starrett had ever seen.
His eyes began to pick out details. Those huge vat-like things down at the far end, with the large cables running into them, and the mighty pumps connected to them ... they were probably the electrolysis chambers.
And those great pipes, they must carry the hydrogen and oxygen from the electro chambers to the large replicas of engines, which could be nothing else but the explosion chambers, where the gases were allowed to re-unite, and explode. And there by the giant engines, those must be turbines, which in turn connected with the vast-sized generators just under the platforms on which they stood.
Star Blade whistled softly through his teeth. A huge enterprise! It could be ... but for a moment he had forgotten Devil Garrett.
The girl standing by his side, Star turned toward Garrett. "Well?"
Garrett smiled his mocking grin. "You grasp the principle, of course. But let me show you ... you see those pipes that run from the turbines after the wheels?"
"Yes. They carry the gases off. Where do they lead?"
"Into giant subterranean caverns beneath the surface!" Garrett said.
"Now look over there, on the platforms across from us. Can you recognize a Barden energy-beamer, Blade? Run by power from my little plant here, which is run by water from a thousand lakes!
"Just imagine, if you can, hundreds of those plants all over Alpha III. And each one with dozens of high-powered Barden beams to protect it! And Hinton ray screens to protect us from radio-controlled rocket shells from space, or Barden Rays, or any other weapon of offence, or to warn if anyone lands on this planet!" Garrett leaned forward, his eyes aglow.
"Blade, I'll take over the few governing posts on this little planet, and I'll rule an entire world, a whole planet to myself! It'll be the first time in history! And it won't be the last. With the Hinton secret patents, the plans of all John Hinton's inventions and processes...."
Star twisted, and got his "ace card" out of its hiding place.
It was a jet weapon, little more than a jet-blast capsule for a jet-gun. The sides were thicker and stronger, and there was a device fixed on it so it could be fired. Altogether, it was somewhat smaller than an old-style fountain pen.
He twisted up from the floor, and moved faster than he had moved ever before. Star was famous for his speed and the quickness and alertness of his reflexes. He earned his fame a score of times over in that one instant.
And Devil Garrett died.
There was perhaps an eighth of a second between the staff of blue white fire from the tiny jet in Star's hand and the huge broadsword of fire from Garrett's gun. But in the split-second Star's fire knifed into Garrett's vitals, and Garrett gave a convulsive jerk, and fired even as his muscles started the jerking movement.
And the flame went over Star's head, singeing his scalp.
Of the four men with Garrett, one let go of the struggling Anne, and swore as he snatched at an electron knife in his belt. Anne's hand had already whipped the knife out, and without bothering to press the electron stud, she buried the knife in his back.
Two of the remaining men whirled, and went for the door as though a devil was after them. The other tried to get a jet-gun out. It was his final mistake. A blue lance from Anne's knife whipped close enough to him to make him dodge, and then Star got his hand on Garrett's jet.
The other two men had, in their flight, taken a door which led, not into the large corridor, but into a small room at one side, a room filled with instruments and recording devices for the machinery in the room below. Star leaped to the side of the door, and called, "Are you going to come out, or am I coming in to get you?"
There was a short silence, in which Anne heard one say hoarsely, "He can't get us ... we could get him if he came in the door."
"Oh, yes?" was the answer. "Do you know who that guy is? He's the one they call 'Death Star.' I'm not facing Starrett Blade in a gun fight. You can do what you like, but I'm leaving." Then he lifted his voice.
"Hey, Blade! I'm coming out. Don't shoot."
"Okay," threw back Star and the man appeared in the doorway, empty hands held high. After a second, the other joined him.
Anne turned to Star. "Now I know why they call you 'Death Star' Blade," she said, and gestured toward the men who had surrendered, and the two whom Starrett had shot down.
He mused there for a minute. Then Anne broke the silence with, "Star, what are we going to do now? Garrett's men will be up here in a little while. We can't get to a sub-space beam. What are we going to do when they come up to investigate?"
Starrett Blade laughed. "Do? Well, we could turn them over to Commander Weddel!"
" What? "
Grinning broadly, Star pointed, with a flourish, at the door. Anne spun about, and found Commander Weddel grinning in the door from the corridor.
"Very simple," said Star across the lounge to Anne. "When I smashed the vision set with that dinner fork, I broke a small unit which is included in all sets. You know, a direction finder doesn't work, except in the liner-beam principle, in space, because of the diffusing effect of unrestricted cosmic rays."
"Yes, I knew that," said Anne. "But how—"
Starrett grinned again. "A type of beam has been found which it is impossible for cosmics to disturb. But you can't send messages on it, so it is made in a little unit on every set. If that unit is broken, the set automatically releases a signal beam. This is a distress signal, and the location of the set that sent out the signal is recorded at the Section Headquarters. When Commander Weddel saw me throw something at the set, and it went dead, he looked at the automatic record, and found out that a signal had been sent in from a location on Alpha Cen's third planet. Then he had a high-velocity cruiser brought out and dropped in, in time to pick up some pieces." He stopped, and idly toyed with a sheaf of papers, then held them up. "See these papers?"
"Uh-huh. What are they, Star?"
"They are the main plans of Devil Garrett's power plant, and they're the one good thing he's ever done. These plans are going to bring the barren, rocky Centauri planets to life!"
He got up, and paced to the window, and stood there, looking out, and up through the plastic port. "The planets of Centauri!" he murmured softly. "Seven circling Alpha alone. And all seven are barren, rocky, level except for the thousands of lakes ... lakes that are going to be the life of Centauri!"
He turned back to the window. "And all because a pirate named Devil Garrett built a vast power plant to use to garner more power!"
"You know, Anne, as a mockery, and a warning, I think I'll propose that this planet be officially named ... 'Garrett'!"
She looked up at him, and there was laughter bright in her eyes, and tugging at her mouth. "Yes, there ought to be a reason," she murmured. Star wavered. She was so darn close.
After a minute, she turned her head, and looked up at him. "Star, how soon will there be those gardens and woods you described? I mean, how long before Garrett can be turned into that kind of world you described?"
"Why ... under pressure, we can do it in six months. Why?"
"Not half quick enough," she murmured happily, "but it'll have to do, Star." Laughing, she turned her face up to his. "Have you ever thought that planet Garrett will be wonderful for a honeymoon?"
Question:
What equipment does Star possess and use throughout the story?
Answer:
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[
"When Star’s ship is hit by the electric beam, he has an electron knife with him. And when he heard footsteps coming his way, he holds onto it firmly. When the man gets near the water and sees the ship sink, Star quickly kills him with the electron knife by stabbing right to his heart. He takes the man’s jet-gun with him as well. He is also going to use the jet-gun on the girl, but his great reflexes are able to stop him from doing so, however, she paralyzes him first. After he is knocked out and brought to the cell, he looks for his weapons, but they are all taken by Garrett’s men except one. At the place that execution is supposed to take place, Star kicks the metal fork towards the visual transmitter, which will send signals for help. When Garrett takes them to the machinery room, the girl takes the jet weapon from Garrett, Star uses a tiny jet to shoot Garret right before Garret shot him. While Star’s scalp gets injured, he is able to shoot right at Garret’s vitals with his quickness and alertness, thus making him die almost immediately.",
"Star possesses a jet-gun and an electron blade which he stores on his belt. Additionally, he maintains an additional jet weapon discreetly stored on his person. His primary weapon, the jet-gun, is a deadly weapon, but one which must be reloaded by pressing a loading stuff to slide ammunition into place. His electron blade, stored in a water-proof sheath, is a blade whose full potential is realizable when it is activated. Upon the pressing of its electron stud, the electron blade produces blue fire. The jet weapon, which Star uses to kill Devil Garrett, is slightly smaller than a fountain pen and has thick sides. Star refers to this weapon as his “ace”. \n",
"Some of the equipment that Star uses in the story is supplied by John Hinton, including the ship he flies at the beginning of the story, which is shot down. Aside from the ship, Star possesses several weapons throughout the story, including an electron knife and a gun. Once Star is captured by Garrett, he is stripped of most of his weapons, except for his hidden \"ace card\", which is revealed to be a jet gun concealed in a smaller form. Star also possesses knowledge of transmitters and their functions; because of this, he is able to use Garrett's transmitter to alert the authorities of his location by breaking a unit of the machine that sends a distress signal. ",
"In the beginning, Star uses an electron knife that he keeps in a water-proof covering. The knife produces a blue fire when it is used to stab someone. When Star Blade is about to be executed by the transmitter, he pulls out a metal fork. The metal fork damages the transmitter by striking a small area where there are wires and braces. The metal fork prevents Star from being executed by the transmitter. The last weapon that Star has on him after he has used the previous two is a jet weapon the size of a fountain pen. He uses the jet weapon to kill Garrett. "
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63419
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DEATH STAR
By TOM PACE
Trapped by the most feared of space pirates Devil Garrett, Starrett Blade was fighting for his life. Weaponless, his ship gone, he was pinning his hopes on a girl—who wanted him dead.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1945. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Starrett Blade crouched in the rocks by the tiny Centaurian lake. It was only about two or three hundred feet across, but probably thousands of feet deep. This lake, and hundreds of others like it, were the only things to break the monotony of the flat, rocky surface of Alpha Centauri III—called the most barren planet in space.
Ten minutes ago, Star Blade's ship had spun into the stagnant waters before him. An emergency release had flung the air-lock doors open, and the air pressure had flung Star out. And now he was waiting for Devil Garrett to come down to the water's edge to search for him.
For eight years, Devil Garrett had been the top space pirate in the void. For a year, Star himself had personally been hunting him. And on a tour over Alpha III, a Barden energy-beam had stabbed up at Blade's ship, and Star Blade had crashed into the lake.
That Barden Beam had Star worried and puzzled. It took a million volts of power for a split-second flash of the beam. Garrett didn't have an atomics plant on Alpha III—if he had, escaping rays would point it out, no matter how well it was camouflaged. There was no water power, for there was no running water. There were only the lakes ... and tidal power was out, for Alpha III had no moon.
However, that could wait. Star slid the electron knife from his water-proof sheath, gripped it firmly. He could hear quick footsteps as a man came down the trail that led directly past his hiding place.
It wasn't Garrett, which was disappointing. But it was one of his men, and he was heavily armed. That didn't worry Star.
His fighting had earned Starrett Blade the nickname of "Death Star."
The man walked to the water's edge, and peered out over the pool. He saw the bubbles that were coming up from the sinking ship, and he nodded, grunted in satisfaction, and started to turn back.
Star landed on him, knocking him sprawling on the rock. The pirate jerked up an arm, holding the jet-gun.
The stabbing lance of blue fire cracked from the electron knife, dug into the man's heart.
Star tossed the dead pirate's cloak over his shoulders, and thrust both electron blade and jet-gun into his belt. He straightened, and saw the leveled gun from the corner of his eye.
He got the jet in his right hand, the knife in his left, and went into a dive that flipped him behind a rock. The three actions took only a split-second, and the blast from the jet-gun flaked rock where he had been standing.
While a jet-gun is the most deadly weapon known, you have to press a loading stud to slide another blast-capsule into place. Death Star knew this very well. So he knew he was safe in coming up from behind the spur of stone to fire his own gun.
If his reflexes hadn't been as quick as they were, he would have blasted the girl.
He stopped, and stood for a second, staring at the girl. She was something to invite stares, too. In the moment that lasted between her next move, he had time to register that she was about five feet five tall, black-haired—the kind of black hair that looks like silken spun darkness—dark-eyed, and possessing both a face and a form that would make anyone stop and gulp.
Then the moment of half-awed survey was over, and she leveled the jet on him, and said in a trembling voice, "Drop those weapons, or I'll blast you ... pirate !"
Death Star said, "That jet-gun is empty. I can see the register on the magazine. And I'm not a pirate. I'm Starrett Blade."
The useless jet-gun slid out of the girl's hand, and she gave a half-gasp. "Starrett Blade! I—I don't believe ..." she broke off abruptly. "So you're Death Star! A fine story for a hired killer, a pirate."
Star reddened. "Look," he snapped, "I don't know who's been talking to you, but ..." he whirled, and his hand whipped the jet-gun from his belt. As he did so, the girl jerked up the jet-gun she had dropped, and flung it with all her strength. The blow landed on his arm and side, and paralyzed him long enough for the man who had leaped out behind him to land a stunning blow against his head. As Star went down, he dizzily cursed himself for becoming interested in the argument with the girl, so that he did not heed his reflexes in time ... and dimly, he wondered why it had seemed so important to convince the lovely dark-haired girl.
Then a bit of the cosmos seemed to fall on Star's head, and he was hurled into blackness.
An eternity seemed to pass.
Deep in the blackness, a light was born. It leaped toward him, a far-away comet rocketing along, coming from some far, unknown corner of the galaxy. It became a flaming sun in a gray-green space, and strangely, there seemed to be several odd planets circling about the sun. Some of them were vast pieces of queer electronic machinery. Some were vague, villainous-looking men. One was the dark-haired girl, and there was lovely contempt in her dark-star pools of eyes.
Then into the midst of this queer universe, there swam a new planet. It was the face of a man, and the man was Devil Garrett.
That brought Star up, out of his daze, onto his feet as though he had been doused with cold water. He stood there, not staring, just looking at Garrett.
The most famous killer in the void was big. He was six feet three, and twice as strong as he looked. He wore a huge high-velocity jet-gun, and a set of electron knives, all of the finest workmanship. He was sitting on a laboratory chair of steel, and the chair bent slightly under his great weight.
He smiled at Star, and there was a touch of hell in the smile. He said,
"Ah, Mr. Garrett."
Star's jaw dropped. "Garrett? What do you—" he broke off. A glance at the girl told him what the purpose was.
"Look, Mr. Devil Garrett," said the pirate, still smiling softly, "Miss Hinton is aware of your identity. There is no need to attempt to fool us.... I've known it was you ever since I flashed that beam at your ship. And you needn't flatter yourself that the Devil's luck is going to hold out as far as you are concerned. For in a very short while, I'm going to have you executed ... before a stellar vision screen, connected with Section Void Headquarters! I wish the authorities to see Devil Garrett die, so that I might collect the reward that is offered on you!"
Star stood quiet, and looked straight into Garrett's eyes. After a minute of silence, Garrett's lips twisted into a smile, and he said mockingly, "Well, pirate? What are you thinking of?"
Star said, in a low, cold voice, "I'm thinking of putting an electron fire-blade into your face, Devil Garrett!"
Garrett laughed ... huge, rather evil, bluff laughter. The mirth of a person who is both powerful and dangerous. And then the girl leaped forward, shaking with rage.
"You beast! Murderer! To accuse this man ... you fool, you might have been able to complete any scheme of escape you had, if you hadn't called yourself Starrett Blade! Mr. Blade...." She gestured toward Garrett, who made a mocking, sardonic bow. "... has given me ample proof that he is who he says! And this long before you came. He's shown me papers giving a description and showing a tri-dimension picture of you...."
Fire leaped in Star's eyes. "Listen ..." he snapped furiously, as he started to step forward. Then Garrett made a signal with his hand, and someone drove a fist against the base of Star's skull.
When Star came to, he was in a cell of sorts. A man standing by the door told him that he was to be executed, "... after Mr. Blade and the lady have eaten." Starrett swore at him, and the man went out, with a mocking "Goodbye, Mr. Garrett!"
Star got up. His head spun, and he almost fell at first, but the daze left in his head from the two blows quickly cleared away. He felt for various weapons which he had hidden about him ... and found them gone. Garrett's men had searched carefully.
Star sat down, his head spinning more now from mystery than from physical pain. He had to keep himself in a whole skin, of course. That was most important right now. But other things were bothering him, tugging at his mind like waves slapping around a swamped ship, each trying to shove it in a different direction.
There was the girl. Star wondered why she always leaped into his mind first. And there was the way Garrett was trying to leave the impression that he was Blade, so that he could kill Blade as Garrett.
Obviously, the reason for that was the girl, Miss Hinton, Garrett had called her. She had been shown faked papers by Garrett, papers proving that the two were ... were whatever Garrett had twisted the story into!
Star clutched at his head. He was in a mess. He was going to be killed, and he was going to die without knowing the score. And he didn't like that. Nor did he like dying as Star Blade shouldn't die; executed as a "wolf's-head" pirate. The girl would be watching, and he felt as if that would make it far worse.
His head came up, and he smiled flintily. He still had an ace card! One hand felt for it, and he shook his head slowly. It was a gamble ... but all the others had been found.
Blade looked up quickly, as the door opened. Two men came into the cell, carrying jet-guns. They motioned Blade to his feet. "Come on, Blade." One began, when the other hit him across the mouth.
"You fool!" he hissed. "You better not call him that; suppose that girl was to hear it? Until the boss gets what he wants on Earth, that girl has got to think that he's Blade! We're killing this guy as Devil Garrett! And a loud-mouthed fool like you ... look out!"
Blade had landed on the bickering men, and was grappling with the one who had called him by name. As the other leaped forward, swinging a clubbing blow with a jet-gun, Star tripped one man into the corner, and ducked under the gun. He hit the man in the stomach, drove a shoulder up under his arms, and smashed the man's face in with a series of sharp blows. The man went reeling backward across the room, and Star's hand leaped toward that "ace card" which he still held.
Devil Garrett stepped in the door, and made a mock out of a courteous bow. As he did so, Star snarled in rage, but stood very still, for the electron knife in Garrett's hand did not waver.
Garrett gestured silently toward the door, and Star, equally silent, walked over and out, at the point of the weapon.
Star Blade stood before a transmitter, and thought about death.
He was very close to it. Garrett stood five yards away, a gun in his hand, and the muzzle trained on Blade's chest. The gun was the universally used weapon of execution, an old projectile-firing weapon.
Star did not doubt that Devil Garrett was an excellent shot with it.
The girl, very round-eyed and nervous, sat by Garrett. He had explained to her that Garrett was the type of pirate that it is law to kill, or have executed, by anyone. Which was very true.
A man stepped away from the transmitter, and nodded to Garrett. Star felt a surge of hope, as he saw that it was a two-way transmitter. If the image of an Interstellar Command headquarters was tuned in—Garrett would undoubtedly do it, if only to show the police that he had killed Starrett Blade—then Garrett could not kill him and cut the beam in time to prevent one of the police from giving a cry that would echo over the sub-space beam arriving almost instantly in this room, and let the girl know that she had been tricked. And Garrett would not want that. Not that it would matter to Starrett Blade.
Then Star saw what kind of a transmitter it was, and he groaned. It was not a Hineson Sub-space beamer ... it was an old-style transmitter which had different wave speeds, because of the different space-bridger units in it.
The visual image would arrive many seconds before the sound did. Thus the girl would not hear Garrett revealed, but would see only Blade's death. And then ... whatever Garrett had planned, Blade wished heartily that he could have the chance to interfere.
The beam was coming in. Star saw the mists swimming on the screen change, solidify into a figure ... the figure of District Commander Weddel seated at a desk. He saw Weddel's eyebrows rise, saw his lips move—then Garrett stepped over a pace, and Weddel saw him, saw the gun in his hand....
The police officer yelled, silently, and came to his feet, an expression of shocked surprise on his face—surprise, Blade thought desperately, that the girl might interpret as shock at seeing Devil Garrett.
Which was right, in a way.
Then, as Commander Weddel leapt to his feet, as Devil Garrett's finger tightened on the trigger, as the girl sucked in her breath involuntarily, Star Blade scooped up a bit of metal—a fork—and flung it at the vision transmitter.
Not at the screen. But at the equipment behind the dial-board. At a certain small unit, which was almost covered by wires and braces for the large tubes. And the fork struck it, bit deep, and caused result.
Result in the form of a burned-out set. If television equipment can curse, that set cursed them. Its spitting of sparks and blue electric flame mingled with a strange, high-pitched whine.
It was the diversion that caused Garrett to miss Star, which gave him time to pull three or four of Garrett's men onto the floor with him. One of the men drove the butt of a jet-gun into the side of Star's head, and for the third time, he went very limp. The last thing he saw was the girl.
Somehow, the expression on her face was different from what it had been. He was searching for the difference, when the blow struck him. Somewhere in the space that lies between consciousness and unconsciousness, he reflected bitterly that if he kept staring at the girl when he should be fighting, he might not recover some day. This was the third time that he had been knocked out that way. It was not getting monotonous. He still felt it a novelty.
Star awoke in the same prison cell, facing the wall away from the door. He wondered if he were still alive, tried to move his head, and decided that he wasn't. He didn't even get up or look around when he dimly heard the door being opened.
But when he heard the girl's voice, he came up and around very swiftly, despite his head.
It was the girl all right. Even through the tumbled mists of his brain, he could see that she was not a dream. And as he reeled and fell against the wall, she was beside him in a flash, her arm supporting him.
At first he tried to push himself erect, his head whirling with sick dizziness, and bewilderment. Through a twisting haze, he peered up at the girl's face. It reflected a look that, amazingly, was one of—with no other phrase to do—compassion. Star half-sighed, and laid his head on the girl's breast, and closed his eyes.
In a minute or two, she said tensely, "Are you all right?" Star looked up at her.
"I guess so. Here—give a hand while I get my balance." She held him as he tried a step or two, and then he straightened. "I guess I'll be all right, now," he smiled. "My head feels like—say! How come you're doing this? What made you change your mind? And who are you?"
She said quickly, breathlessly, "I know you're Star Blade, now. That transmission set.... I can read lips! I knew what that officer was saying! It was just as if I had heard him say that ... that you were Starrett Blade and that man out there is Devil Garrett!" she made a choking sound. "And I've been here, alone, for a month! For a month!"
"A month? Huh—please—you...?"
Star took a breath, and started over. "You.... Who are you? What are you doing here?"
She said, "I'm Anne Hinton. My father is Old John Hinton. Have you heard of him?"
"Of course!" said Star. "He manufactures most of the equipment ' Blade Cosmian ' uses. Weapons, Hineson Sub-Spacers, Star-Traveler craft ... the ship I was in when Garrett brought me down was a Hinton craft. I should have recognized the name. But go on. What—"
"Garrett communicated with dad, secretly. He posed as Starrett Blade, as you, and told dad that he was developing certain new power processes. And he is! He has a new—or maybe it isn't so new—way of electrolyzing water to liberate hydrogen and oxygen."
"I think I understand," said Star quickly. "When the oxygen and hydrogen are allowed to combine, and produce an explosion which drive a turbine-generator. Then that could be hitched up to a cyclotron, and even the most barren of Alpha's lake-rock planets could be...."
"No," she shook her head puzzledly. "It's just electric power. He said that atomics would release stray rays that would attract pirates."
"I know," Star nodded, abstractedly. "I was thinking of another application of it ... hmm. But say! What was Garrett after? I know that he wouldn't do this just to get a secret process sold. He must have had another plan behind it. Got any idea?"
Anne shook her head slowly. "I don't know. I can't see...."
"Perhaps I could help you?" Devil Garrett asked smoothly from the door.
Star whirled, thrust Anne behind him, but there was no way out. Garrett stood in the door, and there were men behind him. The jet in his hand could kill both of the two at one shot. And they had no weapons to resist with.
Devil Garrett stepped them out of the room, and down the corridor, through a large door Star had noticed at the end of the passage, and into a huge room.
It must have been a thousand feet long, and half that wide. It was at least a hundred yards deep. And it was almost filled with gigantic machines.
Between the machinery, the spaces were almost filled with steel ladders and cat-walks. Crews of men swarmed over them. It was the largest mass of equipment Starrett had ever seen.
His eyes began to pick out details. Those huge vat-like things down at the far end, with the large cables running into them, and the mighty pumps connected to them ... they were probably the electrolysis chambers.
And those great pipes, they must carry the hydrogen and oxygen from the electro chambers to the large replicas of engines, which could be nothing else but the explosion chambers, where the gases were allowed to re-unite, and explode. And there by the giant engines, those must be turbines, which in turn connected with the vast-sized generators just under the platforms on which they stood.
Star Blade whistled softly through his teeth. A huge enterprise! It could be ... but for a moment he had forgotten Devil Garrett.
The girl standing by his side, Star turned toward Garrett. "Well?"
Garrett smiled his mocking grin. "You grasp the principle, of course. But let me show you ... you see those pipes that run from the turbines after the wheels?"
"Yes. They carry the gases off. Where do they lead?"
"Into giant subterranean caverns beneath the surface!" Garrett said.
"Now look over there, on the platforms across from us. Can you recognize a Barden energy-beamer, Blade? Run by power from my little plant here, which is run by water from a thousand lakes!
"Just imagine, if you can, hundreds of those plants all over Alpha III. And each one with dozens of high-powered Barden beams to protect it! And Hinton ray screens to protect us from radio-controlled rocket shells from space, or Barden Rays, or any other weapon of offence, or to warn if anyone lands on this planet!" Garrett leaned forward, his eyes aglow.
"Blade, I'll take over the few governing posts on this little planet, and I'll rule an entire world, a whole planet to myself! It'll be the first time in history! And it won't be the last. With the Hinton secret patents, the plans of all John Hinton's inventions and processes...."
Star twisted, and got his "ace card" out of its hiding place.
It was a jet weapon, little more than a jet-blast capsule for a jet-gun. The sides were thicker and stronger, and there was a device fixed on it so it could be fired. Altogether, it was somewhat smaller than an old-style fountain pen.
He twisted up from the floor, and moved faster than he had moved ever before. Star was famous for his speed and the quickness and alertness of his reflexes. He earned his fame a score of times over in that one instant.
And Devil Garrett died.
There was perhaps an eighth of a second between the staff of blue white fire from the tiny jet in Star's hand and the huge broadsword of fire from Garrett's gun. But in the split-second Star's fire knifed into Garrett's vitals, and Garrett gave a convulsive jerk, and fired even as his muscles started the jerking movement.
And the flame went over Star's head, singeing his scalp.
Of the four men with Garrett, one let go of the struggling Anne, and swore as he snatched at an electron knife in his belt. Anne's hand had already whipped the knife out, and without bothering to press the electron stud, she buried the knife in his back.
Two of the remaining men whirled, and went for the door as though a devil was after them. The other tried to get a jet-gun out. It was his final mistake. A blue lance from Anne's knife whipped close enough to him to make him dodge, and then Star got his hand on Garrett's jet.
The other two men had, in their flight, taken a door which led, not into the large corridor, but into a small room at one side, a room filled with instruments and recording devices for the machinery in the room below. Star leaped to the side of the door, and called, "Are you going to come out, or am I coming in to get you?"
There was a short silence, in which Anne heard one say hoarsely, "He can't get us ... we could get him if he came in the door."
"Oh, yes?" was the answer. "Do you know who that guy is? He's the one they call 'Death Star.' I'm not facing Starrett Blade in a gun fight. You can do what you like, but I'm leaving." Then he lifted his voice.
"Hey, Blade! I'm coming out. Don't shoot."
"Okay," threw back Star and the man appeared in the doorway, empty hands held high. After a second, the other joined him.
Anne turned to Star. "Now I know why they call you 'Death Star' Blade," she said, and gestured toward the men who had surrendered, and the two whom Starrett had shot down.
He mused there for a minute. Then Anne broke the silence with, "Star, what are we going to do now? Garrett's men will be up here in a little while. We can't get to a sub-space beam. What are we going to do when they come up to investigate?"
Starrett Blade laughed. "Do? Well, we could turn them over to Commander Weddel!"
" What? "
Grinning broadly, Star pointed, with a flourish, at the door. Anne spun about, and found Commander Weddel grinning in the door from the corridor.
"Very simple," said Star across the lounge to Anne. "When I smashed the vision set with that dinner fork, I broke a small unit which is included in all sets. You know, a direction finder doesn't work, except in the liner-beam principle, in space, because of the diffusing effect of unrestricted cosmic rays."
"Yes, I knew that," said Anne. "But how—"
Starrett grinned again. "A type of beam has been found which it is impossible for cosmics to disturb. But you can't send messages on it, so it is made in a little unit on every set. If that unit is broken, the set automatically releases a signal beam. This is a distress signal, and the location of the set that sent out the signal is recorded at the Section Headquarters. When Commander Weddel saw me throw something at the set, and it went dead, he looked at the automatic record, and found out that a signal had been sent in from a location on Alpha Cen's third planet. Then he had a high-velocity cruiser brought out and dropped in, in time to pick up some pieces." He stopped, and idly toyed with a sheaf of papers, then held them up. "See these papers?"
"Uh-huh. What are they, Star?"
"They are the main plans of Devil Garrett's power plant, and they're the one good thing he's ever done. These plans are going to bring the barren, rocky Centauri planets to life!"
He got up, and paced to the window, and stood there, looking out, and up through the plastic port. "The planets of Centauri!" he murmured softly. "Seven circling Alpha alone. And all seven are barren, rocky, level except for the thousands of lakes ... lakes that are going to be the life of Centauri!"
He turned back to the window. "And all because a pirate named Devil Garrett built a vast power plant to use to garner more power!"
"You know, Anne, as a mockery, and a warning, I think I'll propose that this planet be officially named ... 'Garrett'!"
She looked up at him, and there was laughter bright in her eyes, and tugging at her mouth. "Yes, there ought to be a reason," she murmured. Star wavered. She was so darn close.
After a minute, she turned her head, and looked up at him. "Star, how soon will there be those gardens and woods you described? I mean, how long before Garrett can be turned into that kind of world you described?"
"Why ... under pressure, we can do it in six months. Why?"
"Not half quick enough," she murmured happily, "but it'll have to do, Star." Laughing, she turned her face up to his. "Have you ever thought that planet Garrett will be wonderful for a honeymoon?"
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Who is Murra Foray and how is she significant to the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Delay in Transit by F. L. (Floyd L.) Wallace.
Relevant chunks:
DELAY IN TRANSIT
By F. L. WALLACE
Illustrated by SIBLEY
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
An unprovoked, meaningless night attack is terrifying enough on your own home planet, worse on a world across the Galaxy. But the horror is the offer of help that cannot be accepted!
"Muscles tense," said Dimanche. "Neural index 1.76, unusually high. Adrenalin squirting through his system. In effect, he's stalking you. Intent: probably assault with a deadly weapon."
"Not interested," said Cassal firmly, his subvocalization inaudible to anyone but Dimanche. "I'm not the victim type. He was standing on the walkway near the brink of the thoroughfare. I'm going back to the habitat hotel and sit tight."
"First you have to get there," Dimanche pointed out. "I mean, is it safe for a stranger to walk through the city?"
"Now that you mention it, no," answered Cassal. He looked around apprehensively. "Where is he?"
"Behind you. At the moment he's pretending interest in a merchandise display."
A native stamped by, eyes brown and incurious. Apparently he was accustomed to the sight of an Earthman standing alone, Adam's apple bobbing up and down silently. It was a Godolphian axiom that all travelers were crazy.
Cassal looked up. Not an air taxi in sight; Godolph shut down at dusk. It would be pure luck if he found a taxi before morning. Of course he could walk back to the hotel, but was that such a good idea?
A Godolphian city was peculiar. And, though not intended, it was peculiarly suited to certain kinds of violence. A human pedestrian was at a definite disadvantage.
"Correction," said Dimanche. "Not simple assault. He has murder in mind."
"It still doesn't appeal to me," said Cassal. Striving to look unconcerned, he strolled toward the building side of the walkway and stared into the interior of a small cafe. Warm, bright and dry. Inside, he might find safety for a time.
Damn the man who was following him! It would be easy enough to elude him in a normal city. On Godolph, nothing was normal. In an hour the streets would be brightly lighted—for native eyes. A human would consider it dim.
"Why did he choose me?" asked Cassal plaintively. "There must be something he hopes to gain."
"I'm working on it," said Dimanche. "But remember, I have limitations. At short distances I can scan nervous systems, collect and interpret physiological data. I can't read minds. The best I can do is report what a person says or subvocalizes. If you're really interested in finding out why he wants to kill you, I suggest you turn the problem over to the godawful police."
"Godolph, not godawful," corrected Cassal absently.
That was advice he couldn't follow, good as it seemed. He could give the police no evidence save through Dimanche. There were various reasons, many of them involving the law, for leaving the device called Dimanche out of it. The police would act if they found a body. His own, say, floating face-down on some quiet street. That didn't seem the proper approach, either.
"Weapons?"
"The first thing I searched him for. Nothing very dangerous. A long knife, a hard striking object. Both concealed on his person."
Cassal strangled slightly. Dimanche needed a good stiff course in semantics. A knife was still the most silent of weapons. A man could die from it. His hand strayed toward his pocket. He had a measure of protection himself.
"Report," said Dimanche. "Not necessarily final. Based, perhaps, on tenuous evidence."
"Let's have it anyway."
"His motivation is connected somehow with your being marooned here. For some reason you can't get off this planet."
That was startling information, though not strictly true. A thousand star systems were waiting for him, and a ship to take him to each one.
Of course, the one ship he wanted hadn't come in. Godolph was a transfer point for stars nearer the center of the Galaxy. When he had left Earth, he had known he would have to wait a few days here. He hadn't expected a delay of nearly three weeks. Still, it wasn't unusual. Interstellar schedules over great distances were not as reliable as they might be.
Was this man, whoever and whatever he might be, connected with that delay? According to Dimanche, the man thought he was. He was self-deluded or did he have access to information that Cassal didn't?
Denton Cassal, sales engineer, paused for a mental survey of himself. He was a good engineer and, because he was exceptionally well matched to his instrument, the best salesman that Neuronics, Inc., had. On the basis of these qualifications, he had been selected to make a long journey, the first part of which already lay behind him. He had to go to Tunney 21 to see a man. That man wasn't important to anyone save the company that employed him, and possibly not even to them.
The thug trailing him wouldn't be interested in Cassal himself, his mission, which was a commercial one, nor the man on Tunney. And money wasn't the objective, if Dimanche's analysis was right. What did the thug want?
Secrets? Cassal had none, except, in a sense, Dimanche. And that was too well kept on Earth, where the instrument was invented and made, for anyone this far away to have learned about it.
And yet the thug wanted to kill him. Wanted to? Regarded him as good as dead. It might pay him to investigate the matter further, if it didn't involve too much risk.
"Better start moving." That was Dimanche. "He's getting suspicious."
Cassal went slowly along the narrow walkway that bordered each side of that boulevard, the transport tide. It was raining again. It usually was on Godolph, which was a weather-controlled planet where the natives like rain.
He adjusted the controls of the weak force field that repelled the rain. He widened the angle of the field until water slanted through it unhindered. He narrowed it around him until it approached visibility and the drops bounced away. He swore at the miserable climate and the near amphibians who created it.
A few hundred feet away, a Godolphian girl waded out of the transport tide and climbed to the walkway. It was this sort of thing that made life dangerous for a human—Venice revised, brought up to date in a faster-than-light age.
Water. It was a perfect engineering material. Simple, cheap, infinitely flexible. With a minimum of mechanism and at break-neck speed, the ribbon of the transport tide flowed at different levels throughout the city. The Godolphian merely plunged in and was carried swiftly and noiselessly to his destination. Whereas a human—Cassal shivered. If he were found drowned, it would be considered an accident. No investigation would be made. The thug who was trailing him had certainly picked the right place.
The Godolphian girl passed. She wore a sleek brown fur, her own. Cassal was almost positive she muttered a polite "Arf?" as she sloshed by. What she meant by that, he didn't know and didn't intend to find out.
"Follow her," instructed Dimanche. "We've got to investigate our man at closer range."
Obediently, Cassal turned and began walking after the girl. Attractive in an anthropomorphic, seal-like way, even from behind. Not graceful out of her element, though.
The would-be assassin was still looking at merchandise as Cassal retraced his steps. A man, or at least man type. A big fellow, physically quite capable of violence, if size had anything to do with it. The face, though, was out of character. Mild, almost meek. A scientist or scholar. It didn't fit with murder.
"Nothing," said Dimanche disgustedly. "His mind froze when we got close. I could feel his shoulderblades twitching as we passed. Anticipated guilt, of course. Projecting to you the action he plans. That makes the knife definite."
Well beyond the window at which the thug watched and waited, Cassal stopped. Shakily he produced a cigarette and fumbled for a lighter.
"Excellent thinking," commended Dimanche. "He won't attempt anything on this street. Too dangerous. Turn aside at the next deserted intersection and let him follow the glow of your cigarette."
The lighter flared in his hand. "That's one way of finding out," said Cassal. "But wouldn't I be a lot safer if I just concentrated on getting back to the hotel?"
"I'm curious. Turn here."
"Go to hell," said Cassal nervously. Nevertheless, when he came to that intersection, he turned there.
It was a Godolphian equivalent of an alley, narrow and dark, oily slow-moving water gurgling at one side, high cavernous walls looming on the other.
He would have to adjust the curiosity factor of Dimanche. It was all very well to be interested in the man who trailed him, but there was also the problem of coming out of this adventure alive. Dimanche, an electronic instrument, naturally wouldn't consider that.
"Easy," warned Dimanche. "He's at the entrance to the alley, walking fast. He's surprised and pleased that you took this route."
"I'm surprised, too," remarked Cassal. "But I wouldn't say I'm pleased. Not just now."
"Careful. Even subvocalized conversation is distracting." The mechanism concealed within his body was silent for an instant and then continued:
"His blood pressure is rising, breathing is faster. At a time like this, he may be ready to verbalize why he wants to murder you. This is critical."
"That's no lie," agreed Cassal bitterly. The lighter was in his hand. He clutched it grimly. It was difficult not to look back. The darkness assumed an even more sinister quality.
"Quiet," said Dimanche. "He's verbalizing about you."
"He's decided I'm a nice fellow after all. He's going to stop and ask me for a light."
"I don't think so," answered Dimanche. "He's whispering: 'Poor devil. I hate to do it. But it's really his life or mine'."
"He's more right than he knows. Why all this violence, though? Isn't there any clue?"
"None at all," admitted Dimanche. "He's very close. You'd better turn around."
Cassal turned, pressed the stud on the lighter. It should have made him feel more secure, but it didn't. He could see very little.
A dim shadow rushed at him. He jumped away from the water side of the alley, barely in time. He could feel the rush of air as the assailant shot by.
"Hey!" shouted Cassal.
Echoes answered; nothing else did. He had the uncomfortable feeling that no one was going to come to his assistance.
"He wasn't expecting that reaction," explained Dimanche. "That's why he missed. He's turned around and is coming back."
"I'm armed!" shouted Cassal.
"That won't stop him. He doesn't believe you."
Cassal grasped the lighter. That is, it had been a lighter a few seconds before. Now a needle-thin blade had snapped out and projected stiffly. Originally it had been designed as an emergency surgical instrument. A little imagination and a few changes had altered its function, converting it into a compact, efficient stiletto.
"Twenty feet away," advised Dimanche. "He knows you can't see him, but he can see your silhouette by the light from the main thoroughfare. What he doesn't know is that I can detect every move he makes and keep you posted below the level of his hearing."
"Stay on him," growled Cassal nervously. He flattened himself against the wall.
"To the right," whispered Dimanche. "Lunge forward. About five feet. Low."
Sickly, he did so. He didn't care to consider the possible effects of a miscalculation. In the darkness, how far was five feet? Fortunately, his estimate was correct. The rapier encountered yielding resistance, the soggy kind: flesh. The tough blade bent, but did not break. His opponent gasped and broke away.
"Attack!" howled Dimanche against the bone behind his ear. "You've got him. He can't imagine how you know where he is in the darkness. He's afraid."
Attack he did, slicing about wildly. Some of the thrusts landed; some didn't. The percentage was low, the total amount high. His opponent fell to the ground, gasped and was silent.
Cassal fumbled in his pockets and flipped on a light. The man lay near the water side of the alley. One leg was crumpled under him. He didn't move.
"Heartbeat slow," said Dimanche solemnly. "Breathing barely perceptible."
"Then he's not dead," said Cassal in relief.
Foam flecked from the still lips and ran down the chin. Blood oozed from cuts on the face.
"Respiration none, heartbeat absent," stated Dimanche.
Horrified, Cassal gazed at the body. Self-defense, of course, but would the police believe it? Assuming they did, they'd still have to investigate. The rapier was an illegal concealed weapon. And they would question him until they discovered Dimanche. Regrettable, but what could he do about it?
Suppose he were detained long enough to miss the ship bound for Tunney
21?
Grimly, he laid down the rapier. He might as well get to the bottom of this. Why had the man attacked? What did he want?
"I don't know," replied Dimanche irritably. "I can interpret body data—a live body. I can't work on a piece of meat."
Cassal searched the body thoroughly. Miscellaneous personal articles of no value in identifying the man. A clip with a startling amount of money in it. A small white card with something scribbled on it. A picture of a woman and a small child posed against a background which resembled no world Cassal had ever seen. That was all.
Cassal stood up in bewilderment. Dimanche to the contrary, there seemed to be no connection between this dead man and his own problem of getting to Tunney 21.
Right now, though, he had to dispose of the body. He glanced toward the boulevard. So far no one had been attracted by the violence.
He bent down to retrieve the lighter-rapier. Dimanche shouted at him. Before he could react, someone landed on him. He fell forward, vainly trying to grasp the weapon. Strong fingers felt for his throat as he was forced to the ground.
He threw the attacker off and staggered to his feet. He heard footsteps rushing away. A slight splash followed. Whoever it was, he was escaping by way of water.
Whoever it was. The man he had thought he had slain was no longer in sight.
"Interpret body data, do you?" muttered Cassal. "Liveliest dead man I've ever been strangled by."
"It's just possible there are some breeds of men who can control the basic functions of their body," said Dimanche defensively. "When I checked him, he had no heartbeat."
"Remind me not to accept your next evaluation so completely," grunted Cassal. Nevertheless, he was relieved, in a fashion. He hadn't wanted to kill the man. And now there was nothing he'd have to explain to the police.
He needed the cigarette he stuck between his lips. For the second time he attempted to pick up the rapier-lighter. This time he was successful. Smoke swirled into his lungs and quieted his nerves. He squeezed the weapon into the shape of a lighter and put it away.
Something, however, was missing—his wallet.
The thug had relieved him of it in the second round of the scuffle. Persistent fellow. Damned persistent.
It really didn't matter. He fingered the clip he had taken from the supposedly dead body. He had intended to turn it over to the police. Now he might as well keep it to reimburse him for his loss. It contained more money than his wallet had.
Except for the identification tab he always carried in his wallet, it was more than a fair exchange. The identification, a rectangular piece of plastic, was useful in establishing credit, but with the money he now had, he wouldn't need credit. If he did, he could always send for another tab.
A white card fluttered from the clip. He caught it as it fell. Curiously he examined it. Blank except for one crudely printed word, STAB. His unknown assailant certainly had tried.
The old man stared at the door, an obsolete visual projector wobbling precariously on his head. He closed his eyes and the lettering on the door disappeared. Cassal was too far away to see what it had been. The technician opened his eyes and concentrated. Slowly a new sign formed on the door.
TRAVELERS AID BUREAU Murra Foray, First Counselor
It was a drab sign, but, then, it was a dismal, backward planet. The old technician passed on to the next door and closed his eyes again.
With a sinking feeling, Cassal walked toward the entrance. He needed help and he had to find it in this dingy rathole.
Inside, though, it wasn't dingy and it wasn't a rathole. More like a maze, an approved scientific one. Efficient, though not comfortable. Travelers Aid was busier than he thought it would be. Eventually he managed to squeeze into one of the many small counseling rooms.
A woman appeared on the screen, crisp and cool. "Please answer everything the machine asks. When the tape is complete, I'll be available for consultation."
Cassal wasn't sure he was going to like her. "Is this necessary?" he asked. "It's merely a matter of information."
"We have certain regulations we abide by." The woman smiled frostily.
"I can't give you any information until you comply with them."
"Sometimes regulations are silly," said Cassal firmly. "Let me speak to the first counselor."
"You are speaking to her," she said. Her face disappeared from the screen.
Cassal sighed. So far he hadn't made a good impression.
Travelers Aid Bureau, in addition to regulations, was abundantly supplied with official curiosity. When the machine finished with him, Cassal had the feeling he could be recreated from the record it had of him. His individuality had been capsuled into a series of questions and answers. One thing he drew the line at—why he wanted to go to Tunney
21 was his own business.
The first counselor reappeared. Age, indeterminate. Not, he supposed, that anyone would be curious about it. Slightly taller than average, rather on the slender side. Face was broad at the brow, narrow at the chin and her eyes were enigmatic. A dangerous woman.
She glanced down at the data. "Denton Cassal, native of Earth. Destination, Tunney 21." She looked up at him. "Occupation, sales engineer. Isn't that an odd combination?" Her smile was quite superior.
"Not at all. Scientific training as an engineer. Special knowledge of customer relations."
"Special knowledge of a thousand races? How convenient." Her eyebrows arched.
"I think so," he agreed blandly. "Anything else you'd like to know?"
"Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."
He could believe that or not as he wished. He didn't.
"You refused to answer why you were going to Tunney 21. Perhaps I can guess. They're the best scientists in the Galaxy. You wish to study under them."
Close—but wrong on two counts. They were good scientists, though not necessarily the best. For instance, it was doubtful that they could build Dimanche, even if they had ever thought of it, which was even less likely.
There was, however, one relatively obscure research worker on Tunney 21 that Neuronics wanted on their staff. If the fragments of his studies that had reached Earth across the vast distance meant anything, he could help Neuronics perfect instantaneous radio. The company that could build a radio to span the reaches of the Galaxy with no time lag could set its own price, which could be control of all communications, transport, trade—a galactic monopoly. Cassal's share would be a cut of all that.
His part was simple, on the surface. He was to persuade that researcher to come to Earth, if he could . Literally, he had to guess the Tunnesian's price before the Tunnesian himself knew it. In addition, the reputation of Tunnesian scientists being exceeded only by their arrogance, Cassal had to convince him that he wouldn't be working for ignorant Earth savages. The existence of such an instrument as Dimanche was a key factor.
Her voice broke through his thoughts. "Now, then, what's your problem?"
"I was told on Earth I might have to wait a few days on Godolph. I've been here three weeks. I want information on the ship bound for Tunney
21."
"Just a moment." She glanced at something below the angle of the screen. She looked up and her eyes were grave. " Rickrock C arrived yesterday. Departed for Tunney early this morning."
"Departed?" He got up and sat down again, swallowing hard. "When will the next ship arrive?"
"Do you know how many stars there are in the Galaxy?" she asked.
He didn't answer.
"That's right," she said. "Billions. Tunney, according to the notation, is near the center of the Galaxy, inside the third ring. You've covered about a third of the distance to it. Local traffic, anything within a thousand light-years, is relatively easy to manage. At longer distances, you take a chance. You've had yours and missed it. Frankly, Cassal, I don't know when another ship bound for Tunney will show up on or near Godolph. Within the next five years—maybe."
He blanched. "How long would it take to get there using local transportation, star-hopping?"
"Take my advice: don't try it. Five years, if you're lucky."
"I don't need that kind of luck."
"I suppose not." She hesitated. "You're determined to go on?" At the emphatic nod, she sighed. "If that's your decision, we'll try to help you. To start things moving, we'll need a print of your identification tab."
"There's something funny about her," Dimanche decided. It was the usual speaking voice of the instrument, no louder than the noise the blood made in coursing through arteries and veins. Cassal could hear it plainly, because it was virtually inside his ear.
Cassal ignored his private voice. "Identification tab? I don't have it with me. In fact, I may have lost it."
She smiled in instant disbelief. "We're not trying to pry into any part of your past you may wish concealed. However, it's much easier for us to help you if you have your identification. Now if you can't remember your real name and where you put your identification—" She arose and left the screen. "Just a moment."
He glared uneasily at the spot where the first counselor wasn't. His real name!
"Relax," Dimanche suggested. "She didn't mean it as a personal insult."
Presently she returned.
"I have news for you, whoever you are."
"Cassal," he said firmly. "Denton Cassal, sales engineer, Earth. If you don't believe it, send back to—" He stopped. It had taken him four months to get to Godolph, non-stop, plus a six-month wait on Earth for a ship to show up that was bound in the right direction. Over distances such as these, it just wasn't practical to send back to Earth for anything.
"I see you understand." She glanced at the card in her hand. "The spaceport records indicate that when Rickrock C took off this morning, there was a Denton Cassal on board, bound for Tunney 21."
"It wasn't I," he said dazedly. He knew who it was, though. The man who had tried to kill him last night. The reason for the attack now became clear. The thug had wanted his identification tab. Worse, he had gotten it.
"No doubt it wasn't," she said wearily. "Outsiders don't seem to understand what galactic travel entails."
Outsiders? Evidently what she called those who lived beyond the second transfer ring. Were those who lived at the edge of the Galaxy, beyond the first ring, called Rimmers? Probably.
She was still speaking: "Ten years to cross the Galaxy, without stopping. At present, no ship is capable of that. Real scheduling is impossible. Populations shift and have to be supplied. A ship is taken off a run for repairs and is never put back on. It's more urgently needed elsewhere. The man who depended on it is left waiting; years pass before he learns it's never coming.
"If we had instantaneous radio, that would help. Confusion wouldn't vanish overnight, but it would diminish. We wouldn't have to depend on ships for all the news. Reservations could be made ahead of time, credit established, lost identification replaced—"
"I've traveled before," he interrupted stiffly. "I've never had any trouble."
She seemed to be exaggerating the difficulties. True, the center was more congested. Taking each star as the starting point for a limited number of ships and using statistical probability as a guide—why, no man would arrive at his predetermined destination.
But that wasn't the way it worked. Manifestly, you couldn't compare galactic transportation to the erratic paths of air molecules in a giant room. Or could you?
For the average man, anyone who didn't have his own inter-stellar ship, was the comparison too apt? It might be.
"You've traveled outside, where there are still free planets waiting to be settled. Where a man is welcome, if he's able to work." She paused.
"The center is different. Populations are excessive. Inside the third ring, no man is allowed off a ship without an identification tab. They don't encourage immigration."
In effect, that meant no ship bound for the center would take a passenger without identification. No ship owner would run the risk of having a permanent guest on board, someone who couldn't be rid of when his money was gone.
Cassal held his head in his hands. Tunney 21 was inside the third ring.
"Next time," she said, "don't let anyone take your identification."
"I won't," he promised grimly.
The woman looked directly at him. Her eyes were bright. He revised his estimate of her age drastically downward. She couldn't be as old as he. Nothing outward had happened, but she no longer seemed dowdy. Not that he was interested. Still, it might pay him to be friendly to the first counselor.
"We're a philanthropic agency," said Murra Foray. "Your case is special, though—"
"I understand," he said gruffly. "You accept contributions."
She nodded. "If the donor is able to give. We don't ask so much that you'll have to compromise your standard of living." But she named a sum that would force him to do just that if getting to Tunney 21 took any appreciable time.
He stared at her unhappily. "I suppose it's worth it. I can always work, if I have to."
"As a salesman?" she asked. "I'm afraid you'll find it difficult to do business with Godolphians."
Irony wasn't called for at a time like this, he thought reproachfully.
"Not just another salesman," he answered definitely. "I have special knowledge of customer reactions. I can tell exactly—"
He stopped abruptly. Was she baiting him? For what reason? The instrument he called Dimanche was not known to the Galaxy at large. From the business angle, it would be poor policy to hand out that information at random. Aside from that, he needed every advantage he could get. Dimanche was his special advantage.
"Anyway," he finished lamely, "I'm a first class engineer. I can always find something in that line."
"A scientist, maybe," murmured Murra Foray. "But in this part of the Milky Way, an engineer is regarded as merely a technician who hasn't yet gained practical experience." She shook her head. "You'll do better as a salesman."
He got up, glowering. "If that's all—"
"It is. We'll keep you informed. Drop your contribution in the slot provided for that purpose as you leave."
A door, which he hadn't noticed in entering the counselling cubicle, swung open. The agency was efficient.
"Remember," the counselor called out as he left, "identification is hard to work with. Don't accept a crude forgery."
He didn't answer, but it was an idea worth considering. The agency was also eminently practical.
The exit path guided him firmly to an inconspicuous and yet inescapable contribution station. He began to doubt the philanthropic aspect of the bureau.
"I've got it," said Dimanche as Cassal gloomily counted out the sum the first counselor had named.
"Got what?" asked Cassal. He rolled the currency into a neat bundle, attached his name, and dropped it into the chute.
"The woman, Murra Foray, the first counselor. She's a Huntner."
"What's a Huntner?"
"A sub-race of men on the other side of the Galaxy. She was vocalizing about her home planet when I managed to locate her."
"Any other information?"
"None. Electronic guards were sliding into place as soon as I reached her. I got out as fast as I could."
"I see." The significance of that, if any, escaped him. Nevertheless, it sounded depressing.
"What I want to know is," said Dimanche, "why such precautions as electronic guards? What does Travelers Aid have that's so secret?"
Cassal grunted and didn't answer. Dimanche could be annoyingly inquisitive at times.
Cassal had entered one side of a block-square building. He came out on the other side. The agency was larger than he had thought. The old man was staring at a door as Cassal came out. He had apparently changed every sign in the building. His work finished, the technician was removing the visual projector from his head as Cassal came up to him. He turned and peered.
"You stuck here, too?" he asked in the uneven voice of the aged.
"Stuck?" repeated Cassal. "I suppose you can call it that. I'm waiting for my ship." He frowned. He was the one who wanted to ask questions.
"Why all the redecoration? I thought Travelers Aid was an old agency. Why did you change so many signs? I could understand it if the agency were new."
The old man chuckled. "Re-organization. The previous first counselor resigned suddenly, in the middle of the night, they say. The new one didn't like the name of the agency, so she ordered it changed."
She would do just that, thought Cassal. "What about this Murra Foray?"
The old man winked mysteriously. He opened his mouth and then seemed overcome with senile fright. Hurriedly he shuffled away.
Cassal gazed after him, baffled. The old man was afraid for his job, afraid of the first counselor. Why he should be, Cassal didn't know. He shrugged and went on. The agency was now in motion in his behalf, but he didn't intend to depend on that alone.
Question:
Who is Murra Foray and how is she significant to the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Murra Foray is the First Counselor of the Traveler's Aid Bureau on Godolph. Little is known about her personally, other than the fact that she is a Huntner, a people from across the Galaxy. Foray was an intimidating, cold woman, who was particularly curious about Cassal. Upon Cassal's arrival, she interrogates him about his personal life before offering help. Additionally, once Cassal realizes he had missed the ship to Tunney 21, and is stranded on Godolph, Murra Foray offers little support or sympathy. Instead, she reprimands him for lack of identification and nevertheless presses for a financial contribution. Foray is a mysterious character, whose motives are questioned, especially by Dimanche; while Dimanche is usually able to read people, Foray had electronic guards protecting information, indicating that the Traveler's Aid Bureau is hiding something.",
"Murra Foray is the First Counselor at Travelers Aid Bureau. She is significant to the story because Cassal goes to her for help because he is unsure where the ship is that is supposed to take him to Tunney 21. She is described as being cool, clean, and with bright eyes. She is possibly younger than Cassal. Murra informs Cassal that without his identification card, no ship would be willing to let him board as identification is necessary to leave the ship in the region that Tunney 21 is located. She describes the Travelers Aid Bureau as a philanthropic agency that can help him solve his issue, for a price. She informs him that they will keep him informed. \n\nDimanche assesses Murra and claims that she is a Huntner, which is a sub-race of men that are located on the other side of the galaxy. Dimanche was not able to gather more information because she was blocking him from collecting data. After Cassal questions an old man about Murra, he receives a jarring reaction that he waves off without concern. \n",
"Murra Foray is the first counselor of the travelers aid bureau, she looks enigmatic and dangerous. At first, she is doubtful about Cassel’s destination to Tunney 21 and his occupation as a sales engineer. She points out that there are a thousand races, how is Cassal able to have special knowledge of all those different types of customers. \n\nLater she tells Cassal that his ship has already left in the morning. And no one is sure when the next ship will be coming to Godolph. Murra suggests five years if lucky. Star hopping would also take that much of time since he has only covered one third of the whole distance. Then later Murra realizes that someone has already boarded the ship under Cassal’s name, using Cassal’s identification. Now the stalker’s motive of stealing his wallet becomes clear. Then Murra suggests that he donate to the bureau so that they will help him with his special case, which he did. Afterwards, Dimanche suggest that Murra is a Huntner. But before Dimanche can learn anything else, the electronic guards stopped him. Outside the building of the bureau, Cassal learned that even the old man switching the signs on the building is afraid of Murra Foray. ",
"Murra Foray is the new first counselor at the Travelers Aid Bureau on Godolph. She is a Huntner, a sub-race of humans from the other side of the galaxy. First appearing on a screen in a Bureau counseling room in which the protagonist Denton Cassal enters, she asks him to fill out a questionnaire. Cassal is unable to determine her age, but comments that she is taller than average, lean, and has a broad face that narrows at her chin. \n\tMurra asks Cassal why he has not answered the question about the purpose of his onward journey to Tunney 21, and speculates that it is to recruit a scientist for his company. She reveals to him that the transport for which he had been waiting had already departed, and offers her help in arranging alternate transportation to Tunney. She elicits a monetary donation from Cassal before terminating their conversation. \n\tAs Cassal leaves the counseling room, he encounters an old technician who seems afraid of Murra. \n"
] |
50998
|
DELAY IN TRANSIT
By F. L. WALLACE
Illustrated by SIBLEY
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
An unprovoked, meaningless night attack is terrifying enough on your own home planet, worse on a world across the Galaxy. But the horror is the offer of help that cannot be accepted!
"Muscles tense," said Dimanche. "Neural index 1.76, unusually high. Adrenalin squirting through his system. In effect, he's stalking you. Intent: probably assault with a deadly weapon."
"Not interested," said Cassal firmly, his subvocalization inaudible to anyone but Dimanche. "I'm not the victim type. He was standing on the walkway near the brink of the thoroughfare. I'm going back to the habitat hotel and sit tight."
"First you have to get there," Dimanche pointed out. "I mean, is it safe for a stranger to walk through the city?"
"Now that you mention it, no," answered Cassal. He looked around apprehensively. "Where is he?"
"Behind you. At the moment he's pretending interest in a merchandise display."
A native stamped by, eyes brown and incurious. Apparently he was accustomed to the sight of an Earthman standing alone, Adam's apple bobbing up and down silently. It was a Godolphian axiom that all travelers were crazy.
Cassal looked up. Not an air taxi in sight; Godolph shut down at dusk. It would be pure luck if he found a taxi before morning. Of course he could walk back to the hotel, but was that such a good idea?
A Godolphian city was peculiar. And, though not intended, it was peculiarly suited to certain kinds of violence. A human pedestrian was at a definite disadvantage.
"Correction," said Dimanche. "Not simple assault. He has murder in mind."
"It still doesn't appeal to me," said Cassal. Striving to look unconcerned, he strolled toward the building side of the walkway and stared into the interior of a small cafe. Warm, bright and dry. Inside, he might find safety for a time.
Damn the man who was following him! It would be easy enough to elude him in a normal city. On Godolph, nothing was normal. In an hour the streets would be brightly lighted—for native eyes. A human would consider it dim.
"Why did he choose me?" asked Cassal plaintively. "There must be something he hopes to gain."
"I'm working on it," said Dimanche. "But remember, I have limitations. At short distances I can scan nervous systems, collect and interpret physiological data. I can't read minds. The best I can do is report what a person says or subvocalizes. If you're really interested in finding out why he wants to kill you, I suggest you turn the problem over to the godawful police."
"Godolph, not godawful," corrected Cassal absently.
That was advice he couldn't follow, good as it seemed. He could give the police no evidence save through Dimanche. There were various reasons, many of them involving the law, for leaving the device called Dimanche out of it. The police would act if they found a body. His own, say, floating face-down on some quiet street. That didn't seem the proper approach, either.
"Weapons?"
"The first thing I searched him for. Nothing very dangerous. A long knife, a hard striking object. Both concealed on his person."
Cassal strangled slightly. Dimanche needed a good stiff course in semantics. A knife was still the most silent of weapons. A man could die from it. His hand strayed toward his pocket. He had a measure of protection himself.
"Report," said Dimanche. "Not necessarily final. Based, perhaps, on tenuous evidence."
"Let's have it anyway."
"His motivation is connected somehow with your being marooned here. For some reason you can't get off this planet."
That was startling information, though not strictly true. A thousand star systems were waiting for him, and a ship to take him to each one.
Of course, the one ship he wanted hadn't come in. Godolph was a transfer point for stars nearer the center of the Galaxy. When he had left Earth, he had known he would have to wait a few days here. He hadn't expected a delay of nearly three weeks. Still, it wasn't unusual. Interstellar schedules over great distances were not as reliable as they might be.
Was this man, whoever and whatever he might be, connected with that delay? According to Dimanche, the man thought he was. He was self-deluded or did he have access to information that Cassal didn't?
Denton Cassal, sales engineer, paused for a mental survey of himself. He was a good engineer and, because he was exceptionally well matched to his instrument, the best salesman that Neuronics, Inc., had. On the basis of these qualifications, he had been selected to make a long journey, the first part of which already lay behind him. He had to go to Tunney 21 to see a man. That man wasn't important to anyone save the company that employed him, and possibly not even to them.
The thug trailing him wouldn't be interested in Cassal himself, his mission, which was a commercial one, nor the man on Tunney. And money wasn't the objective, if Dimanche's analysis was right. What did the thug want?
Secrets? Cassal had none, except, in a sense, Dimanche. And that was too well kept on Earth, where the instrument was invented and made, for anyone this far away to have learned about it.
And yet the thug wanted to kill him. Wanted to? Regarded him as good as dead. It might pay him to investigate the matter further, if it didn't involve too much risk.
"Better start moving." That was Dimanche. "He's getting suspicious."
Cassal went slowly along the narrow walkway that bordered each side of that boulevard, the transport tide. It was raining again. It usually was on Godolph, which was a weather-controlled planet where the natives like rain.
He adjusted the controls of the weak force field that repelled the rain. He widened the angle of the field until water slanted through it unhindered. He narrowed it around him until it approached visibility and the drops bounced away. He swore at the miserable climate and the near amphibians who created it.
A few hundred feet away, a Godolphian girl waded out of the transport tide and climbed to the walkway. It was this sort of thing that made life dangerous for a human—Venice revised, brought up to date in a faster-than-light age.
Water. It was a perfect engineering material. Simple, cheap, infinitely flexible. With a minimum of mechanism and at break-neck speed, the ribbon of the transport tide flowed at different levels throughout the city. The Godolphian merely plunged in and was carried swiftly and noiselessly to his destination. Whereas a human—Cassal shivered. If he were found drowned, it would be considered an accident. No investigation would be made. The thug who was trailing him had certainly picked the right place.
The Godolphian girl passed. She wore a sleek brown fur, her own. Cassal was almost positive she muttered a polite "Arf?" as she sloshed by. What she meant by that, he didn't know and didn't intend to find out.
"Follow her," instructed Dimanche. "We've got to investigate our man at closer range."
Obediently, Cassal turned and began walking after the girl. Attractive in an anthropomorphic, seal-like way, even from behind. Not graceful out of her element, though.
The would-be assassin was still looking at merchandise as Cassal retraced his steps. A man, or at least man type. A big fellow, physically quite capable of violence, if size had anything to do with it. The face, though, was out of character. Mild, almost meek. A scientist or scholar. It didn't fit with murder.
"Nothing," said Dimanche disgustedly. "His mind froze when we got close. I could feel his shoulderblades twitching as we passed. Anticipated guilt, of course. Projecting to you the action he plans. That makes the knife definite."
Well beyond the window at which the thug watched and waited, Cassal stopped. Shakily he produced a cigarette and fumbled for a lighter.
"Excellent thinking," commended Dimanche. "He won't attempt anything on this street. Too dangerous. Turn aside at the next deserted intersection and let him follow the glow of your cigarette."
The lighter flared in his hand. "That's one way of finding out," said Cassal. "But wouldn't I be a lot safer if I just concentrated on getting back to the hotel?"
"I'm curious. Turn here."
"Go to hell," said Cassal nervously. Nevertheless, when he came to that intersection, he turned there.
It was a Godolphian equivalent of an alley, narrow and dark, oily slow-moving water gurgling at one side, high cavernous walls looming on the other.
He would have to adjust the curiosity factor of Dimanche. It was all very well to be interested in the man who trailed him, but there was also the problem of coming out of this adventure alive. Dimanche, an electronic instrument, naturally wouldn't consider that.
"Easy," warned Dimanche. "He's at the entrance to the alley, walking fast. He's surprised and pleased that you took this route."
"I'm surprised, too," remarked Cassal. "But I wouldn't say I'm pleased. Not just now."
"Careful. Even subvocalized conversation is distracting." The mechanism concealed within his body was silent for an instant and then continued:
"His blood pressure is rising, breathing is faster. At a time like this, he may be ready to verbalize why he wants to murder you. This is critical."
"That's no lie," agreed Cassal bitterly. The lighter was in his hand. He clutched it grimly. It was difficult not to look back. The darkness assumed an even more sinister quality.
"Quiet," said Dimanche. "He's verbalizing about you."
"He's decided I'm a nice fellow after all. He's going to stop and ask me for a light."
"I don't think so," answered Dimanche. "He's whispering: 'Poor devil. I hate to do it. But it's really his life or mine'."
"He's more right than he knows. Why all this violence, though? Isn't there any clue?"
"None at all," admitted Dimanche. "He's very close. You'd better turn around."
Cassal turned, pressed the stud on the lighter. It should have made him feel more secure, but it didn't. He could see very little.
A dim shadow rushed at him. He jumped away from the water side of the alley, barely in time. He could feel the rush of air as the assailant shot by.
"Hey!" shouted Cassal.
Echoes answered; nothing else did. He had the uncomfortable feeling that no one was going to come to his assistance.
"He wasn't expecting that reaction," explained Dimanche. "That's why he missed. He's turned around and is coming back."
"I'm armed!" shouted Cassal.
"That won't stop him. He doesn't believe you."
Cassal grasped the lighter. That is, it had been a lighter a few seconds before. Now a needle-thin blade had snapped out and projected stiffly. Originally it had been designed as an emergency surgical instrument. A little imagination and a few changes had altered its function, converting it into a compact, efficient stiletto.
"Twenty feet away," advised Dimanche. "He knows you can't see him, but he can see your silhouette by the light from the main thoroughfare. What he doesn't know is that I can detect every move he makes and keep you posted below the level of his hearing."
"Stay on him," growled Cassal nervously. He flattened himself against the wall.
"To the right," whispered Dimanche. "Lunge forward. About five feet. Low."
Sickly, he did so. He didn't care to consider the possible effects of a miscalculation. In the darkness, how far was five feet? Fortunately, his estimate was correct. The rapier encountered yielding resistance, the soggy kind: flesh. The tough blade bent, but did not break. His opponent gasped and broke away.
"Attack!" howled Dimanche against the bone behind his ear. "You've got him. He can't imagine how you know where he is in the darkness. He's afraid."
Attack he did, slicing about wildly. Some of the thrusts landed; some didn't. The percentage was low, the total amount high. His opponent fell to the ground, gasped and was silent.
Cassal fumbled in his pockets and flipped on a light. The man lay near the water side of the alley. One leg was crumpled under him. He didn't move.
"Heartbeat slow," said Dimanche solemnly. "Breathing barely perceptible."
"Then he's not dead," said Cassal in relief.
Foam flecked from the still lips and ran down the chin. Blood oozed from cuts on the face.
"Respiration none, heartbeat absent," stated Dimanche.
Horrified, Cassal gazed at the body. Self-defense, of course, but would the police believe it? Assuming they did, they'd still have to investigate. The rapier was an illegal concealed weapon. And they would question him until they discovered Dimanche. Regrettable, but what could he do about it?
Suppose he were detained long enough to miss the ship bound for Tunney
21?
Grimly, he laid down the rapier. He might as well get to the bottom of this. Why had the man attacked? What did he want?
"I don't know," replied Dimanche irritably. "I can interpret body data—a live body. I can't work on a piece of meat."
Cassal searched the body thoroughly. Miscellaneous personal articles of no value in identifying the man. A clip with a startling amount of money in it. A small white card with something scribbled on it. A picture of a woman and a small child posed against a background which resembled no world Cassal had ever seen. That was all.
Cassal stood up in bewilderment. Dimanche to the contrary, there seemed to be no connection between this dead man and his own problem of getting to Tunney 21.
Right now, though, he had to dispose of the body. He glanced toward the boulevard. So far no one had been attracted by the violence.
He bent down to retrieve the lighter-rapier. Dimanche shouted at him. Before he could react, someone landed on him. He fell forward, vainly trying to grasp the weapon. Strong fingers felt for his throat as he was forced to the ground.
He threw the attacker off and staggered to his feet. He heard footsteps rushing away. A slight splash followed. Whoever it was, he was escaping by way of water.
Whoever it was. The man he had thought he had slain was no longer in sight.
"Interpret body data, do you?" muttered Cassal. "Liveliest dead man I've ever been strangled by."
"It's just possible there are some breeds of men who can control the basic functions of their body," said Dimanche defensively. "When I checked him, he had no heartbeat."
"Remind me not to accept your next evaluation so completely," grunted Cassal. Nevertheless, he was relieved, in a fashion. He hadn't wanted to kill the man. And now there was nothing he'd have to explain to the police.
He needed the cigarette he stuck between his lips. For the second time he attempted to pick up the rapier-lighter. This time he was successful. Smoke swirled into his lungs and quieted his nerves. He squeezed the weapon into the shape of a lighter and put it away.
Something, however, was missing—his wallet.
The thug had relieved him of it in the second round of the scuffle. Persistent fellow. Damned persistent.
It really didn't matter. He fingered the clip he had taken from the supposedly dead body. He had intended to turn it over to the police. Now he might as well keep it to reimburse him for his loss. It contained more money than his wallet had.
Except for the identification tab he always carried in his wallet, it was more than a fair exchange. The identification, a rectangular piece of plastic, was useful in establishing credit, but with the money he now had, he wouldn't need credit. If he did, he could always send for another tab.
A white card fluttered from the clip. He caught it as it fell. Curiously he examined it. Blank except for one crudely printed word, STAB. His unknown assailant certainly had tried.
The old man stared at the door, an obsolete visual projector wobbling precariously on his head. He closed his eyes and the lettering on the door disappeared. Cassal was too far away to see what it had been. The technician opened his eyes and concentrated. Slowly a new sign formed on the door.
TRAVELERS AID BUREAU Murra Foray, First Counselor
It was a drab sign, but, then, it was a dismal, backward planet. The old technician passed on to the next door and closed his eyes again.
With a sinking feeling, Cassal walked toward the entrance. He needed help and he had to find it in this dingy rathole.
Inside, though, it wasn't dingy and it wasn't a rathole. More like a maze, an approved scientific one. Efficient, though not comfortable. Travelers Aid was busier than he thought it would be. Eventually he managed to squeeze into one of the many small counseling rooms.
A woman appeared on the screen, crisp and cool. "Please answer everything the machine asks. When the tape is complete, I'll be available for consultation."
Cassal wasn't sure he was going to like her. "Is this necessary?" he asked. "It's merely a matter of information."
"We have certain regulations we abide by." The woman smiled frostily.
"I can't give you any information until you comply with them."
"Sometimes regulations are silly," said Cassal firmly. "Let me speak to the first counselor."
"You are speaking to her," she said. Her face disappeared from the screen.
Cassal sighed. So far he hadn't made a good impression.
Travelers Aid Bureau, in addition to regulations, was abundantly supplied with official curiosity. When the machine finished with him, Cassal had the feeling he could be recreated from the record it had of him. His individuality had been capsuled into a series of questions and answers. One thing he drew the line at—why he wanted to go to Tunney
21 was his own business.
The first counselor reappeared. Age, indeterminate. Not, he supposed, that anyone would be curious about it. Slightly taller than average, rather on the slender side. Face was broad at the brow, narrow at the chin and her eyes were enigmatic. A dangerous woman.
She glanced down at the data. "Denton Cassal, native of Earth. Destination, Tunney 21." She looked up at him. "Occupation, sales engineer. Isn't that an odd combination?" Her smile was quite superior.
"Not at all. Scientific training as an engineer. Special knowledge of customer relations."
"Special knowledge of a thousand races? How convenient." Her eyebrows arched.
"I think so," he agreed blandly. "Anything else you'd like to know?"
"Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."
He could believe that or not as he wished. He didn't.
"You refused to answer why you were going to Tunney 21. Perhaps I can guess. They're the best scientists in the Galaxy. You wish to study under them."
Close—but wrong on two counts. They were good scientists, though not necessarily the best. For instance, it was doubtful that they could build Dimanche, even if they had ever thought of it, which was even less likely.
There was, however, one relatively obscure research worker on Tunney 21 that Neuronics wanted on their staff. If the fragments of his studies that had reached Earth across the vast distance meant anything, he could help Neuronics perfect instantaneous radio. The company that could build a radio to span the reaches of the Galaxy with no time lag could set its own price, which could be control of all communications, transport, trade—a galactic monopoly. Cassal's share would be a cut of all that.
His part was simple, on the surface. He was to persuade that researcher to come to Earth, if he could . Literally, he had to guess the Tunnesian's price before the Tunnesian himself knew it. In addition, the reputation of Tunnesian scientists being exceeded only by their arrogance, Cassal had to convince him that he wouldn't be working for ignorant Earth savages. The existence of such an instrument as Dimanche was a key factor.
Her voice broke through his thoughts. "Now, then, what's your problem?"
"I was told on Earth I might have to wait a few days on Godolph. I've been here three weeks. I want information on the ship bound for Tunney
21."
"Just a moment." She glanced at something below the angle of the screen. She looked up and her eyes were grave. " Rickrock C arrived yesterday. Departed for Tunney early this morning."
"Departed?" He got up and sat down again, swallowing hard. "When will the next ship arrive?"
"Do you know how many stars there are in the Galaxy?" she asked.
He didn't answer.
"That's right," she said. "Billions. Tunney, according to the notation, is near the center of the Galaxy, inside the third ring. You've covered about a third of the distance to it. Local traffic, anything within a thousand light-years, is relatively easy to manage. At longer distances, you take a chance. You've had yours and missed it. Frankly, Cassal, I don't know when another ship bound for Tunney will show up on or near Godolph. Within the next five years—maybe."
He blanched. "How long would it take to get there using local transportation, star-hopping?"
"Take my advice: don't try it. Five years, if you're lucky."
"I don't need that kind of luck."
"I suppose not." She hesitated. "You're determined to go on?" At the emphatic nod, she sighed. "If that's your decision, we'll try to help you. To start things moving, we'll need a print of your identification tab."
"There's something funny about her," Dimanche decided. It was the usual speaking voice of the instrument, no louder than the noise the blood made in coursing through arteries and veins. Cassal could hear it plainly, because it was virtually inside his ear.
Cassal ignored his private voice. "Identification tab? I don't have it with me. In fact, I may have lost it."
She smiled in instant disbelief. "We're not trying to pry into any part of your past you may wish concealed. However, it's much easier for us to help you if you have your identification. Now if you can't remember your real name and where you put your identification—" She arose and left the screen. "Just a moment."
He glared uneasily at the spot where the first counselor wasn't. His real name!
"Relax," Dimanche suggested. "She didn't mean it as a personal insult."
Presently she returned.
"I have news for you, whoever you are."
"Cassal," he said firmly. "Denton Cassal, sales engineer, Earth. If you don't believe it, send back to—" He stopped. It had taken him four months to get to Godolph, non-stop, plus a six-month wait on Earth for a ship to show up that was bound in the right direction. Over distances such as these, it just wasn't practical to send back to Earth for anything.
"I see you understand." She glanced at the card in her hand. "The spaceport records indicate that when Rickrock C took off this morning, there was a Denton Cassal on board, bound for Tunney 21."
"It wasn't I," he said dazedly. He knew who it was, though. The man who had tried to kill him last night. The reason for the attack now became clear. The thug had wanted his identification tab. Worse, he had gotten it.
"No doubt it wasn't," she said wearily. "Outsiders don't seem to understand what galactic travel entails."
Outsiders? Evidently what she called those who lived beyond the second transfer ring. Were those who lived at the edge of the Galaxy, beyond the first ring, called Rimmers? Probably.
She was still speaking: "Ten years to cross the Galaxy, without stopping. At present, no ship is capable of that. Real scheduling is impossible. Populations shift and have to be supplied. A ship is taken off a run for repairs and is never put back on. It's more urgently needed elsewhere. The man who depended on it is left waiting; years pass before he learns it's never coming.
"If we had instantaneous radio, that would help. Confusion wouldn't vanish overnight, but it would diminish. We wouldn't have to depend on ships for all the news. Reservations could be made ahead of time, credit established, lost identification replaced—"
"I've traveled before," he interrupted stiffly. "I've never had any trouble."
She seemed to be exaggerating the difficulties. True, the center was more congested. Taking each star as the starting point for a limited number of ships and using statistical probability as a guide—why, no man would arrive at his predetermined destination.
But that wasn't the way it worked. Manifestly, you couldn't compare galactic transportation to the erratic paths of air molecules in a giant room. Or could you?
For the average man, anyone who didn't have his own inter-stellar ship, was the comparison too apt? It might be.
"You've traveled outside, where there are still free planets waiting to be settled. Where a man is welcome, if he's able to work." She paused.
"The center is different. Populations are excessive. Inside the third ring, no man is allowed off a ship without an identification tab. They don't encourage immigration."
In effect, that meant no ship bound for the center would take a passenger without identification. No ship owner would run the risk of having a permanent guest on board, someone who couldn't be rid of when his money was gone.
Cassal held his head in his hands. Tunney 21 was inside the third ring.
"Next time," she said, "don't let anyone take your identification."
"I won't," he promised grimly.
The woman looked directly at him. Her eyes were bright. He revised his estimate of her age drastically downward. She couldn't be as old as he. Nothing outward had happened, but she no longer seemed dowdy. Not that he was interested. Still, it might pay him to be friendly to the first counselor.
"We're a philanthropic agency," said Murra Foray. "Your case is special, though—"
"I understand," he said gruffly. "You accept contributions."
She nodded. "If the donor is able to give. We don't ask so much that you'll have to compromise your standard of living." But she named a sum that would force him to do just that if getting to Tunney 21 took any appreciable time.
He stared at her unhappily. "I suppose it's worth it. I can always work, if I have to."
"As a salesman?" she asked. "I'm afraid you'll find it difficult to do business with Godolphians."
Irony wasn't called for at a time like this, he thought reproachfully.
"Not just another salesman," he answered definitely. "I have special knowledge of customer reactions. I can tell exactly—"
He stopped abruptly. Was she baiting him? For what reason? The instrument he called Dimanche was not known to the Galaxy at large. From the business angle, it would be poor policy to hand out that information at random. Aside from that, he needed every advantage he could get. Dimanche was his special advantage.
"Anyway," he finished lamely, "I'm a first class engineer. I can always find something in that line."
"A scientist, maybe," murmured Murra Foray. "But in this part of the Milky Way, an engineer is regarded as merely a technician who hasn't yet gained practical experience." She shook her head. "You'll do better as a salesman."
He got up, glowering. "If that's all—"
"It is. We'll keep you informed. Drop your contribution in the slot provided for that purpose as you leave."
A door, which he hadn't noticed in entering the counselling cubicle, swung open. The agency was efficient.
"Remember," the counselor called out as he left, "identification is hard to work with. Don't accept a crude forgery."
He didn't answer, but it was an idea worth considering. The agency was also eminently practical.
The exit path guided him firmly to an inconspicuous and yet inescapable contribution station. He began to doubt the philanthropic aspect of the bureau.
"I've got it," said Dimanche as Cassal gloomily counted out the sum the first counselor had named.
"Got what?" asked Cassal. He rolled the currency into a neat bundle, attached his name, and dropped it into the chute.
"The woman, Murra Foray, the first counselor. She's a Huntner."
"What's a Huntner?"
"A sub-race of men on the other side of the Galaxy. She was vocalizing about her home planet when I managed to locate her."
"Any other information?"
"None. Electronic guards were sliding into place as soon as I reached her. I got out as fast as I could."
"I see." The significance of that, if any, escaped him. Nevertheless, it sounded depressing.
"What I want to know is," said Dimanche, "why such precautions as electronic guards? What does Travelers Aid have that's so secret?"
Cassal grunted and didn't answer. Dimanche could be annoyingly inquisitive at times.
Cassal had entered one side of a block-square building. He came out on the other side. The agency was larger than he had thought. The old man was staring at a door as Cassal came out. He had apparently changed every sign in the building. His work finished, the technician was removing the visual projector from his head as Cassal came up to him. He turned and peered.
"You stuck here, too?" he asked in the uneven voice of the aged.
"Stuck?" repeated Cassal. "I suppose you can call it that. I'm waiting for my ship." He frowned. He was the one who wanted to ask questions.
"Why all the redecoration? I thought Travelers Aid was an old agency. Why did you change so many signs? I could understand it if the agency were new."
The old man chuckled. "Re-organization. The previous first counselor resigned suddenly, in the middle of the night, they say. The new one didn't like the name of the agency, so she ordered it changed."
She would do just that, thought Cassal. "What about this Murra Foray?"
The old man winked mysteriously. He opened his mouth and then seemed overcome with senile fright. Hurriedly he shuffled away.
Cassal gazed after him, baffled. The old man was afraid for his job, afraid of the first counselor. Why he should be, Cassal didn't know. He shrugged and went on. The agency was now in motion in his behalf, but he didn't intend to depend on that alone.
|
Who is Salvation Smith, and what is his significance in the story?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Lorelei Death by Nelson S. Bond.
Relevant chunks:
THE LORELEI DEATH
by NELSON S. BOND
Far out in limitless Space she plied her deadly trade ... a Lorelei of the void, beckoning spacemen to death and destruction with her beautiful siren lure.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1941. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Chip Warren stood before an oblong of glass set into one wall of the spaceship Chickadee II , stared at what he saw reflected therefrom—and frowned. He didn't like it. Not a bit! It was too—too—
He turned away angrily, ripped the offending article from about his neck, and chose another necktie from the rack. This one was brighter, gaudier, much more in keeping with the gaiety of his mood. He emitted a grunt of satisfaction, spun from the mirror to face his two companions triumphantly.
"There! How do you like that ?"
Syd Palmer, short and chubby, tow-headed and liquid-blue of eye, always languid save when engaged in the solution of some engineering problem concerned with the space vessel he mothered like a brooding hen, moaned insultingly and forced a shudder.
"Sunspots! Novae! Flying comets! And he wears 'em around his neck!"
"You," Chip told him serenely, "have no appreciation of beauty. What do you think of it, Padre?"
"Salvation" Smith, a tall, gangling scarecrow garbed in rusty black, a lean-jawed, hawkeyed man with tumbled locks of silver framing his weathered cheeks like a halo, concealed his grin poorly. "Well, my boy," he admitted, "there is some Biblical precedent for your—ahem!—clamorous raiment. 'So Joseph made for himself a coat which was of many colors—'"
"Both of you," declared Chip, "give me a pain in the pants! Stick-in-the-muds! Here we are in port for the first time in months, cargo-bins loaded to the gunwales with enough ekalastron to make us rich for life—and you sit here like a pair of stuffed owls!
"Well, not me! I'm going to take a night off, throw myself a party the likes of which was never seen around these parts. Put a candle in the window, chilluns, 'cause li'l' Chip won't be home till the wee, sma' hours!"
Syd chuckled.
"O.Q., big shot. But don't get too cozy with any of those joy-joint entertainers. Remember what happened to poor old Dougal MacNeer!"
Salvation said soberly, "Syd's just fooling, my boy. But I would be careful if I were you. We're in the Belt, you know. The forces of law and order do not always govern these wild outposts of civilization as well as might be hoped. The planetoids are dens of iniquity, violent and unheeding the words of Him who rules all—"
The old man's lips etched a straight line, reminding Chip that Salvation Smith was not one of those milk-and-water missionaries who espoused the principle of "turning the other cheek" to evildoers. Salvation was not the ordained emissary of any church. A devoutly religious man with the heart of an adventurer, he had taken upon himself the mission of carrying to outland tribes the story of the God he worshipped.
That his God was the fierce Yahveh of the Old Testament, a God of anger and retribution, was made evident by the methods Salvation sometimes employed in winning his converts. For not only was Salvation acknowledged the most pious man in space; he was also conceded to be the best hand with a gun!
Now Chip gave quiet answer. "I know, Padre: I'll be careful. Well, Syd—sure you won't change your mind and come along?"
"No can do, chum. The spaceport repair crew's still smearing this jalopy with ek. Got to stay and watch 'em."
"O.Q. I'm off alone, then. See you later!"
And, whistling, Chip Warren stepped through the lock of the Chickadee onto the soil of the asteroid Danae.
Danae was, thought Chip as he strolled along briskly toward the town beyond the spaceport, a most presentable hunk of rock. Nice lucentite Dome ... good atmo ... a fine artificial grav system based on Terra normal. It seemed to be a popular little fueling-stop, too, for its cradle-bins were laden with vessels from every planet in the System, and as he gained the main drag he found himself rubbing shoulders with citizens of every known world. Lumbering, albino Venusians, petal-headed Martians, Jovian runts, greenies from far Uranus, Earthman—all were here.
Quite a likely place, he thought happily, to chuck a brawl. A brilliantly gleaming xenon sign before him welcomed visitors to:
XU'UL'S SOLAREST Barroom—Casino—Dancing 100—Lovely Hostesses—100
He entered, and was immediately deluged by a bevy of charm-gals vying for the privilege of: (1) helping him beat the roulette wheel; (2) helping him drink the house dry, and/or (3) separating him as swiftly as possible from the credits in his money belt.
Chip shook them off, gently but firmly. He wanted a good time, true; but he wanted it solo. The main cabaret was too crowded; he passed through it and another equally blatant room wherein twoscore Venusians were straining the structure with a native "sing-stomp," and ended up finally, with a sigh of relief, in a small, dimly-lighted private bar unfrequented by anyone save a bored and listless Martian bartender.
The chrysanthemum-pated son of the desertland roused himself as Chip entered, rustled his petals and piped a ready greeting.
"Welcoom, ssirr! Trrink, pleasse?"
This was more like it! Chip grinned.
"Scotch," he said. " Old Spaceman. And let's have a new bottle, Curly. None of that doctored swill."
"Of courrsse, ssirr!" piped the bar-keep aggrievedly. He pushed a bottle across the mahogany; Chip flipped a golden credit-token back at him.
"Tell me when I've guzzled this, and I'll start work on another." He took a deep, appreciative sniff. "And don't let any of those dizzy dolls in here," he ordered. "I've got a lot of back drinking to catch up on, and I don't want to be disturbed— Hey! "
In his alarm, he almost dropped the bottle. For the door suddenly burst open, and in its frame loomed a figure in Space Patrol blues. A finger pointed in Chip's direction and a bull-o'-Bashan voice roared:
" Stop! Bartender—grab that man! He's a desperate criminal, wanted on four planets for murder!"
Shock momentarily immobilized Chip. Not so the bartender. He was, it seemed, an ardent pacifist. With a bleat of panic fear he scampered from his post, his metallic stilts clattering off in the distance. Chip's accuser moved forward from the shadows; dim light illumined his features. And—
" Johnny! " Chip's voice lifted in a note of jubilant surprise.
"Johnny Haldane—you old scoundrel! Where in the void did you drop from?"
The S.S.P. man chuckled and returned Chip's greeting with a bone-grinding handclasp.
"I might ask the same of you, chum! Lord, it's been ages since we've crossed 'jectory! When I saw you meandering across the Casino, you could have knocked me down with a jetblast! What's new? Is old Syd still with you?"
"We're still shipmates. But he's back at the spaceport. The jerry-crew is plating our crate with ek, and—"
"Ek! Plating a private cruiser!" Haldane stared at him in astonishment, then whistled. "Sweet Sacred Stars, you must be filthy with credits to be able to coat an entire ship with ekalastron!"
"You," boasted Chip, "ain't heard nothing yet!" And he told him how they had discovered an entire mountain of the previous new element, No.
97 in the periodic table, on frigid Titania, satellite of far Uranus.
"It was touch-and-go for a while," he admitted, "whether we'd be the luckiest three guys in space—or the deadest! But we passed through the flaming caverns like old Shadrach in the Bible—remember?—and here we are!"
[1]
Haldane was exuberant. "A mountain of ekalastron!" he gloated.
"That's the greatest contribution to spaceflight since Biggs' velocity-intensifier!" It was no overstatement. "Element No. 97 was a metal so light that a man could carry in one hand enough to coat the entire hull of a battleship—yet so adamant that a gossamer film of it would deflect a meteor! A metal strong enough to crush diamonds to ash—but so resilient that, when properly treated, it would rebound like rubber! What are you going to do with it, Chip? Put it on the open market?"
Warren shook his head.
"Not exactly. We talked it over carefully—Syd and Salvation and I—and we decided there are some space-rats to whom it shouldn't be made available. Privateers and outlaws, you know. So we turned control of the mines over to the Space Patrol at Uranus, and visiphoned the Earth authorities we were bringing in one cargo—"
"Visiphoned!" interrupted Haldane sharply. "Did you say visiphoned?"
"Why—why, yes."
"From where?"
"Oh, just before we reached the Belt. We don't have a very strong transmitter, you know. Sa-a-ay, what's all the excitement, pal? Did we do something that was wrong?"
Haldane frowned worriedly. "I don't know, Chip. It wasn't anything wrong , but what you did was damned dangerous. For if your message was intercepted, you may have played into the very hands of—the Lorelei!"
Chip stared at his friend bewilderedly for a moment. Then he grinned.
"Hey—I must be getting slightly whacky in my old age. I stand here with an unopened bottle in my hands and hear things! For a minute I thought you said 'Lorelei.' The Lorelei, my space-cop friend, is a myth. An old Teutonic myth about a beautiful damsel who sits out in the middle of a sea on a treacherous rock, combing her golden locks, warbling and luring her fascinated admirers to destruction."
He grunted. "A dirty trick, if you ask me. Catch a snort of this alleged Scotch, pal, and I'll torture your eardrums with the whole, sad story." He started to sing. "' Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten —'"
The Patrolman laid a hand on his arm, silenced him.
"It's not funny, Chip. You've described the Lorelei exactly. That's how she got her name. An incredibly beautiful woman who wantonly lures space-mariners to their death.
"The only difference is that her 'rock' is an asteroid somewhere in the Belt—and she does not sing, she calls! She began exercising her vicious appeal about two months ago, Earth reckoning. Since then, no less than a dozen spacecraft—freighters, liners, even one Patrolship—have fallen prey to her wiles. Their crews have been brutally murdered, their cargos stolen."
"Wait a minute!" interrupted Chip shrewdly. "How do you know about her if the crews have been murdered?"
"She has a habit of locking the controls," explained Haldane, "and setting ravaged ships adrift. Apparently there is no room on her hideout—wherever it is—for empty hulks. One of these ships was salvaged by a courageous cabin-boy who hid from the Lorelei and her pirate band beneath a closetful of soiled linens in the laundry. He described her. His description goes perfectly with less accurate glimpses seen over the visiphones of several score spacecraft!"
Chip said soberly, "So it's no joke, eh, pal? Sorry I popped off. I thought you were pulling my leg. Where do I come into this mess, though?"
"Ekalastron!" grunted Johnny succinctly. "A jackpot prize for any corsair! And you advertised a cargo of it over the etherwaves! The Lorelei will be waiting for you with her tongue hanging out. The only thing for you to do, kid, is go back to Jupiter or Io as fast as you can get there. Make the Patrol give you a convoy—"
A sudden light danced in Chip Warren's eyes. It was a light Syd Palmer would have groaned to see—for it usually presaged trouble. It was a bright, hard, reckless light.
"Hold your jets, Johnny!" drawled Chip. "Aren't you forgetting one thing? In a couple more hours, I can face the Lorelei and her whole mob—and be damned to them! She can't touch the Chickadee , because it's being plated right now!"
Haldane snapped his fingers in quick remembrance.
"By thunder, you're right! Her shells will ricochet off the Chickadee's hull like hail off a tin roof. Chip, are you in any hurry to reach Earth? I thought not. What do you say we go after the Lorelei together ! I'll swear you in as a Deputy Patrolman; we'll take the Chickadee and—"
"It's a deal!" declared Chip promptly. "You got any idea where this Lorelei's hangout is?"
"That's why I'm here on Danae. I got a tip that one of the Lorelei's men put in here for supplies. I hoped maybe I could single him out somehow, follow him when he jetted for his base, and in that way— Chip! Look out! "
Haldane shouted and moved at the same time. His arm lashed out wildly, thrusting, smashing Chip to the floor in a sprawling heap. The as-yet unopened bottle was now violently opened; it splintered into a thousand shards against a wall.
Bruised and shaken, Chip lifted his head to see what had caused Johnny's alarm. Even as he did so, the dull gloom of the bar was blazoned with searing effulgence. A lancet of flame leaped from the dark, rearward doorway, burst in Johnny Haldane's face!
The Patrolman cried once, a choking cry that died in a mewling whimper. His unused pistol slipped from slackening fingers, and he sagged to the floor. Again crimson lightning laced the shadows; Haldane's body jerked, and the air was raw with the hot, sickening stench of charred flesh.
With an instinct born of bitter years, Chip had come to his knees behind the shelter of the mahogany bar. But now his own flame-pistol was in his hand, and a dreadful rage was mingled with the agony in his heart. Reckless of results, he sprang to his feet, gun spewing livid death into the shadows.
His blast found a mark. For an instant flame haloed a human face drawn in inhuman pain. A heavy, sultry, bestial face, already puckered with one long, ugly scar that ran from right temple to jawbone, now newly scarred with the red brand of Chip's marksmanship.
Then, before Chip could fire again, came the rasp of pounding footsteps. The man turned and fled. Chip bent over his fallen friend, seeking, with hands that did not even feel the heat, fluttering life beneath still smoldering cloth.
He felt—nothing. Johnny was dead.
A snarl of sheer animal rage burst from Chip's lips. Someone would pay for this; pay dearly! Help was coming now. He himself would lead the hue-and-cry that would track a foul murderer to his lair. He spun as the footsteps drew nearer.
"Hurry!" he cried. "This way! Follow me—"
In a bound, he hurdled the bar, lingered at the door only long enough to let the others mark his course. For they had burst into the room, now, a full score of them. Excited, hard-bitten dogs of space, quick-triggered and willing. Once more he cried for help.
"After him! Come on! He—"
And then—disaster struck! For a reedy voice broke from the van of the mob. The voice of the Martian bartender.
"That's him!" he piped sibilantly. "That's the man! He's a desperate criminal, wanted on four planets for murder! The Patrolman came to arrest him— and now he's murdered the Spacie !"
II
The stunning injustice of that accusation came close to costing Chip Warren his life. For a split second he stood motionless in the doorway, gaping lips forming denial. Words which were never to be uttered, for suddenly a raw-boned miner wrenched a Moeller from its holster, leveled and fired.
The hot tongue of death licked hungrily at the young spaceman's cheek, scorched air crackled in his eardrums. Now was no time to squander in vain argument. Chip ducked, spun, and hurled himself through the doorway. There still remained one hope. That he might catch the real murderer, and in that way clear himself....
But the door led to a small, deserted vestibule, and it to an alleyway behind Xu'ul's Solarest. Viewing that maze of byways and passages, Chip knew his hope was futile. There remained but one thing to do. Get out of here. But quick!
It was no hard task. The labyrinth swallowed him as it had engulfed the scarred killer; in a few minutes even the footsteps of his pursuers could no longer be heard. And Chip worked his cautious way back to the spaceport, and to the bin wherein was cradled the Chickadee .
Syd Palmer looked up in surprise as Chip let himself in the electro-lock. The chubby engineer gasped, "Salvation, look what the cat drug in! His high-flying Nibs! What's the matter, Chip? Night-life too much for you?"
"Never mind that now!" panted Chip. "Is this tin can ready to roll? Warm the hypos. We're lifting gravs—"
Palmer said anxiously, "Now, wait a minute! The men haven't quite finished plating the hull, Chip!"
"Can't help that! We've got important business. In a very few minutes— Ahh! There he goes now!" Chip had gone to the perilens the moment he entered the ship; now he saw in its reflector that which he had expected. The gushing orange spume of a spaceship roaring from its cradle. "Hurry, Syd!"
There were a lot of things Syd Palmer wanted to ask. He wanted to know who went where ; he was bursting with curiosity about the "important business" which had brought his pal back from town in such a rush; his keen eye also had detected a needle-gun burn on Chip's coat-sleeve. But he was too good a companion to waste time now on such trivia.
"O.Q.," he snapped. "It's your pigeon!"
And he disappeared. They heard his voice calling to the workmen, the scuff of equipment being disengaged from the Chickadee's hull, the thin, high whine of warming hypatomics. Salvation looked at Warren quizzically.
"It smells," he ventured gently, "like trouble."
"It is trouble," Chip told him. "Plenty trouble!"
"In that case—" said the old man mildly—"I guess I'd better get the rotor stripped for action." He stepped to the gunnery turret, dropped the fore-irons and stripped their weapon for action. "'Be ye men of peace,'" he intoned, "'but gird firmly thy loins for righteous battle!' Thus saith the Lord God which is Jehovah. Selah!"
Then came Syd's cry from the depths of the hyporoom.
"All set, Chip! Lift gravs!"
Warren's finger found a stud. And with a gusty roar the Chickadee rocketed into space on a pillar of flame.
Two hours later, Chip was still following the bright pinpoint of scarlet which marked the course of his quarry.
In the time that had elapsed since their take-off, he had told his friends the whole story. When he told about the Lorelei, Salvation Smith's seamy old features screwed up in a perplexed grimace. "A woman pirate in the Belt, son? I find it hard to believe. Yet—" And when he described the death of Johnny Haldane, anger smoldered in the missionary's eyes, and Syd Palmer's hands knotted into tight, white fists. Said Syd, "A man with a scar, eh? Well, we'll catch him sooner or later. And when we do—" His tone boded no good to the man who had slain an old and loved friend.
"As a matter of fact," offered Salvation, "we've got him now. Any time you say the word, Chip. We're faster than he is. We can close in on him in five minutes."
"I know," nodded Warren grimly. "But we won't do it—yet. I'm borrowing a bit of Johnny's strategy. I've been plotting his course. As soon as I'm sure of his destination, we'll take care of him . But our first and most vital problem is to locate the Lorelei's hideaway."
Syd said, "That's all right with me, chum. I like a good scrap as much as the next guy. Better, maybe. But this isn't our concern, strictly speaking. What we ought to do is report this matter to the Space Patrol, let them take care of it."
Salvation shook his head.
"That's where you're mistaken, Sydney. This is very much our concern. So much so, in fact, that we dare not make port again until it's cleared up. I think you have forgotten that it is not the scar-faced man who is wanted for the killing of Haldane—but Chip!"
"B-but—" gasped Palmer—"b-but that's ridiculous! Chip and Johnny were old buddies. Lifelong friends!"
"Nevertheless, the circumstantial evidence indicates Chip's guilt. Twenty men saw him standing over Johnny's dead body, with a flame-pistol in his hand. And the barkeep heard Johnny 'arrest' Chip and accuse him of murder!"
Chip said ruefully, "That's right, Syd. It was only a joke, but it backfired. The bartender thought Johnny meant it. He scooted out of there like a bat out of Hades. I'm in it up to my neck unless we can bring back evidence that Scarface actually did the killing. And that may not be so easy."
He stirred restlessly. "But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now our job is to keep this rat in sight. We've gone farther already than I expected we would." He turned to the old preacher.
"Where do you think we're going, Padre? Out of the Belt entirely?"
"I've been wondering that myself, son. I don't know for sure, of course, but it looks to me as if we're going for the Bog. If so, you'd better keep a weather-eye peeled."
"The Bog!" Chip had never penetrated the planetoids so deeply before, but he knew of the Bog by hearsay. All men did. A treacherous region of tightly packed asteroids, a mad and whirling scramble of the gigantic rocks which, aeons ago, had been a planet. Few spacemen dared penetrate the Bog. Of those who did dare, few returned to tell the tale. "The Bog! Say! I'd better keep a sharp lookout!"
He turned to the perilens once more, fastened an eye to its lens. And then—
"Syd!" he cried. "Salvation! Look! She—she—!"
He pressed the plunger that transferred the perilens image to the central viewscreen. And as he did so, a phantom filled the area which should have revealed yawning space, gay with the spangles of a myriad glowing orbs. The vision of an unbelievably beautiful girl, the golden-crowned embodiment of a man's fondest dreaming, eyes wide with an indistinguishable emotion, arms stretched wide in mute appeal.
And from the throats of all came simultaneous recognition.
" The Lorelei! "
At the same moment came a plea from the enchantress of space through a second medium. For no reason anyone could explain, the ship's telaudio wakened to life; over it came to their ears the actual words of the girl:
" Help! Oh, help! Can anyone hear me? Help —"
Even though he knew this to be only a ruse, a deliberate, dastardly trap set for the unwary, Chip Warren's pulse leaped in hot response to that desperate plea. Even with the warning of Johnny Haldane fresh in his memory, some gallantry deep within him spurred him to the aid of this lovely vision. Here was a woman a man could live for, fight for, die for! A woman like no other in the universe.
Then common sense came to his rescue. He wrenched his gaze from the tempting shadow, cried: "Kill that wavelength! Tune the lens on another beam, Syd!"
Palmer, bedazzled but obedient, spun the dial of the perilens . Despite his vastly improved science Man had never yet succeeded in devising a transparent medium through which to view the void wherein he soared; the perilens was a device which translated impinging light-waves into a picture of that which lay outside the ship's hull. When or where electrical disturbances existed in space, its frequency could be changed for greater clarity. This was what Syd now attempted.
But to no avail! For it mattered not which cycle he tuned to—the image persisted. Still on the viewscreen that pleading figure beckoned piteously. And still the cabin rang to the prayers of that heart-tugging voice:
" Help! Oh, help! Can anyone hear me? Help —"
Gone, now, was any fascination that thrilling vision might previously have held for Chip Warren. Understanding of their plight dawned coldly upon him, and his brow became dark with anger.
" We're blanketed! Flying blind! Salvation, radio a general alarm! Syd, jazz the hypos to max. Shift trajectory to fourteen-oh-three North and loft ... fire No. 3 jet...."
He had hurled himself into the bucket-shaped pilot's seat; now his fingers played the controls like those of a mad organist. The Chickadee groaned from prow to stern, trembled like a tortured thing as he thrust it into a rising spiral.
It was a desperate chance he was taking. Increasing his speed thus, it was certain he would be spotted by the man he had been following; the flaming jets of the Chickadee must form a crimson arch against black space visible for hundreds—thousands!—of miles. Nor was there any way of knowing what lay in the path Chip thus blindly chose. Titanic death might loom on every side. But they had to fight clear of this spot of blindness, clear their instruments....
And then it came! A jarring concussion that smashed against the prow of the Chickadee like a battering ram. Chip flew headlong out of his bucket to spreadeagle on the heaving iron floor. He heard, above the grinding plaint of shattered steel the bellowing prayer of Salvation Smith:
"We've crashed! 'Into Thy hands, O Lord of old—'"
Then Syd's angry cry, "Crashed, hell! He's smashed us with a tractor-blast!"
Chip stared at his companion numbly.
"But—but that's impossible! We're plated with ek! A tractor-cannon couldn't hurt us—"
" Half-plated! " howled Syd savagely. "And those damn fools started working from the stern of the Chickadee ! We're vulnerable up front, and that's where he got us! In a minute this can will be leaking like a sieve. I'll get out bulgers. Hold 'er to her course, Chip!"
He dove for the lockers wherein were hung the space-suits, tore them hastily from their hangers. Chip again spun the perilens vernier. No good! No space ... no stars ... just a beautiful phantom crying them to certain doom. By now he was aware that from a dozen sprung plates air was seeping, but he fought down despair. While there remained hope, a man had to keep on fighting.
He scrambled back into the bucket-seat, experimented with controls that answered sluggishly. Salvation had sprung to the rotor-gun, was now angrily jerking its lanyard, lacing the void with death-dealing bursts that had no mark. The old man's eyes were brands of fire, his white hair clung wetly to his forehead. His rage was terrible to behold.
"'Yes, truly shall I destroy them!'" he cried, "'who loose their stealth upon me like a thief from the night—'"
Then suddenly there came a second and more frightful blow. The straining Chickadee stopped as though pole-axed by a gigantic fist. Stopped and shuddered and screamed in metal agony. This time inertia flung Chip headlong, helpless, into the control racks. Brazen studs took the impact of his body; crushing pain banded about his temples, and a red wetness ran into his eyes, blurring and blinding him, burning.
For an instant there flamed before him a universe of incandescent stars, weaving, shimmering, merging. The vision of a woman whose hair was a golden glory....
After that—nothing!
III
From a billion miles away, from a bourne unguessable thousands of light-years distant, came the faint, far whisper of a voice. Nearer and nearer it came, and ever faster, till it throbbed upon Chip's eardrums with booming savagery.
"—coming to, now. Good! We'll soon find out—"
Chip opened his eyes, too dazed, at first, to understand the situation in which he found himself. Gone was the familiar control-turret of the Chickadee , gone the bulger into which he had so hastily clambered. He lay on the parched, rocky soil of a—a something. A planetoid, perhaps. And he was surrounded by a motley crew of strangers: scum of all the planets that circle the Sun....
Then recollection flooded back upon him, sudden and complete. The chase ... the call of the fateful Lorelei ... the crash! New strength, born of anger, surged through him. He lifted his head.
"My—my companions?" he demanded weakly.
The leader of those who encircled him, a mighty hulk of a man, massive of shoulder and thigh, black-haired, with an unshaven blue jaw, raven-bright eyes and a jutting, aquiline nose like the beak of a hawk, loosed a satisfied grunt.
"Ah! Back to normal, eh, sailor? Damn near time!"
Climbing to his feet sent a swift wave of giddiness through Chip—but he managed it. He fought down the vertigo which threatened to overwhelm him, and confronted the big man boldly.
"What," he stormed, "is the meaning of this?"
The giant stared at him for a moment, his jaw slack. Then his raven-bright eyes glittered; he slapped a trunklike thigh and guffawed in boisterous mirth.
"Hear that?" he roared to his companions. "Quite a guy, ain't he?
'What's the meanin' o' this?' he asks! Game little fightin' cock, hey?" Then he sobered abruptly, and a grim light replaced the amusement in his eyes. Here was not a man to be trifled with, Chip realized. His tone assumed a biting edge. "The meanin' is, my bucko," he answered mirthlessly, "that you've run afoul o' your last reef. Unless you have a sane head on your shoulders, and you're willing to talk fast and straight!"
"Talk?"
"Don't stall. We've already unloaded your bins. We found it. And a nice haul, too. Thanks for lettin' us know it was on the way." The burly one chuckled coarsely. "We'd have took it, anyway, but you helped matters out by comin' to us."
Johnny Haldane had been right, then. Chip remembered his friend's ominous warning. "—if your message was intercepted, you may have played into the hands of—" He said slowly, "Then you are the Lorelei's men?"
"The who? Never mind that, bucko, just talk. That ekalastron—where did it come from?"
And it occurred to Warren suddenly that although the big man did hold the whip hand, he was still not in possession of the most important secret of all! While the location of the ekalastron mine remained a secret, a deadlock existed.
"And if I won't tell—?" he countered shrewdly.
"Why, then, sailor—" The pirate leader's hamlike fists tightened, and a cold light glinted in his eyes—"why, then I guess maybe I'll have to beat it out o' you!"
Question:
Who is Salvation Smith, and what is his significance in the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Salvation Smith is a highly-religious man and a missionary. However, his god is not a gentle one. Salvation Smith is a scarecrow of a man, tall and lean, who dresses in all black with wavy gray hair. He believed in spreading the word of Yahveh of the Old Testament and took his words to heart. Salvation did not turn away from evil, in fact, he was one of the best shooters in space. Salvation Smith stays behind with Syd Palmer at the beginning of the story, after wisely warning Chip to be careful during his night on the town. Chip and Syd both respect Salvation for his knowledge, faith, and strength, so he is usually listened to. \nIn the end, Salvation helps Chip escape from the authorities and men wrongfully pursuing him and tries to save them from destruction when they encounter the Lorelei. However, the story ends without a complete resolution for Salvation. The readers are unsure if he survived the crash, or if he’d been taken hostage by the pirates. Salvation Smith is often a voice of reason, as well as a great companion throughout the story. \n",
"Salvation Smith is the father of Chip Warren. He is a tall thin man on the older side, with silver hair and a bit of a sickly look to him. His role in the story is that of a missionary; although not affiliated with any church in particular, he is determined to tell the story of his own faith and has enough motivation to do so independently, as part of an adventure. \"his God was the fierce Yahveh of the Old Testament, a God of anger and retribution\" His reputation was two-fold: extreme religiousness but also excellent at handling a weapon. ",
"Salvation Smith is an older gentleman on the Chickadee II crew. He is a tall, rangy man, hawkeyed and gray-haired, with weathered cheeks, who wears black. He is devoutly religious although he is not affiliated with any church. He often integrates Biblical scriptures and analogies in his speech. With the heart of an explorer, Smith has given himself the mission of taking the message of the God he worships to the places they travel in space. Smith doesn’t focus on the merciful, loving New Testament nature of God but rather the Old Testament nature of God as angry and vengeful. In addition, Smith is an excellent marksman and mans the gunnery turret of the Chickadee. Although he works with Chip and Syd, he is also their friend. Smith warns Chip to be careful when he goes out for a drink on Danae, and when Chip returns in a panic to leave immediately, Smith remains calm and supportive. Recognizing trouble is ahead, he immediately prepares the weapon in the gunnery turret for use. \n Smith is also a wise advisor; when Syd says they should turn the whole matter of chasing the pirate/assailant to the Space Patrol, Smith is the one who points out that they can’t port anywhere until they can clear Chip because Chip is wanted for the murder of Haldane. The circumstantial evidence against Chip is strong, and 20 witnesses saw him standing over the dead body with a weapon drawn. Furthermore, the bartender heard Haldane “accuse” Chip of murder. When the assailant leads them deeper into space than Chip has ever gone, he asks Smith where he thinks they are headed, and Smith predicts it’s the Bog where asteroids are prevalent and difficult to avoid. \n",
"Salvation Smith is a tall, gangly missionary with a lean jaw, long, silver hair, weathered cheeks, and the heart of an adventurer. He is one of the crew members of the Chickadee. Although he is prone to quoting scripture and warning his crewmates of the violence and iniquities of the planetoids they visit, Salvation is not officially ordained through the church. However, his devout religious beliefs compel him to bring the story of his God to outland tribes. The God he worships is \"the fierce Yahveh of the Old Testament,\" and Salvation sometimes resorts to strong-arm methods in bringing converts to his faith; he is quite gifted with a gun. Because of their affection for him, Chip and Syd call him \"Padre.\" When Chip returns to the ship to chase down Lorelei's goon who had killed Johnny, Salvation mans the gunnery turret and prepares for battle. When Syd wants to abandon the effort to catch the goon, Salvation stands with Chip, reminding Syd that authorities believe Chip was responsible for Johnny's death. When the goon takes advantage of the distraction employed by Lorelei, Salvation lets loose with the gunfire, shooting at an invisible target."
] |
62039
|
THE LORELEI DEATH
by NELSON S. BOND
Far out in limitless Space she plied her deadly trade ... a Lorelei of the void, beckoning spacemen to death and destruction with her beautiful siren lure.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1941. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Chip Warren stood before an oblong of glass set into one wall of the spaceship Chickadee II , stared at what he saw reflected therefrom—and frowned. He didn't like it. Not a bit! It was too—too—
He turned away angrily, ripped the offending article from about his neck, and chose another necktie from the rack. This one was brighter, gaudier, much more in keeping with the gaiety of his mood. He emitted a grunt of satisfaction, spun from the mirror to face his two companions triumphantly.
"There! How do you like that ?"
Syd Palmer, short and chubby, tow-headed and liquid-blue of eye, always languid save when engaged in the solution of some engineering problem concerned with the space vessel he mothered like a brooding hen, moaned insultingly and forced a shudder.
"Sunspots! Novae! Flying comets! And he wears 'em around his neck!"
"You," Chip told him serenely, "have no appreciation of beauty. What do you think of it, Padre?"
"Salvation" Smith, a tall, gangling scarecrow garbed in rusty black, a lean-jawed, hawkeyed man with tumbled locks of silver framing his weathered cheeks like a halo, concealed his grin poorly. "Well, my boy," he admitted, "there is some Biblical precedent for your—ahem!—clamorous raiment. 'So Joseph made for himself a coat which was of many colors—'"
"Both of you," declared Chip, "give me a pain in the pants! Stick-in-the-muds! Here we are in port for the first time in months, cargo-bins loaded to the gunwales with enough ekalastron to make us rich for life—and you sit here like a pair of stuffed owls!
"Well, not me! I'm going to take a night off, throw myself a party the likes of which was never seen around these parts. Put a candle in the window, chilluns, 'cause li'l' Chip won't be home till the wee, sma' hours!"
Syd chuckled.
"O.Q., big shot. But don't get too cozy with any of those joy-joint entertainers. Remember what happened to poor old Dougal MacNeer!"
Salvation said soberly, "Syd's just fooling, my boy. But I would be careful if I were you. We're in the Belt, you know. The forces of law and order do not always govern these wild outposts of civilization as well as might be hoped. The planetoids are dens of iniquity, violent and unheeding the words of Him who rules all—"
The old man's lips etched a straight line, reminding Chip that Salvation Smith was not one of those milk-and-water missionaries who espoused the principle of "turning the other cheek" to evildoers. Salvation was not the ordained emissary of any church. A devoutly religious man with the heart of an adventurer, he had taken upon himself the mission of carrying to outland tribes the story of the God he worshipped.
That his God was the fierce Yahveh of the Old Testament, a God of anger and retribution, was made evident by the methods Salvation sometimes employed in winning his converts. For not only was Salvation acknowledged the most pious man in space; he was also conceded to be the best hand with a gun!
Now Chip gave quiet answer. "I know, Padre: I'll be careful. Well, Syd—sure you won't change your mind and come along?"
"No can do, chum. The spaceport repair crew's still smearing this jalopy with ek. Got to stay and watch 'em."
"O.Q. I'm off alone, then. See you later!"
And, whistling, Chip Warren stepped through the lock of the Chickadee onto the soil of the asteroid Danae.
Danae was, thought Chip as he strolled along briskly toward the town beyond the spaceport, a most presentable hunk of rock. Nice lucentite Dome ... good atmo ... a fine artificial grav system based on Terra normal. It seemed to be a popular little fueling-stop, too, for its cradle-bins were laden with vessels from every planet in the System, and as he gained the main drag he found himself rubbing shoulders with citizens of every known world. Lumbering, albino Venusians, petal-headed Martians, Jovian runts, greenies from far Uranus, Earthman—all were here.
Quite a likely place, he thought happily, to chuck a brawl. A brilliantly gleaming xenon sign before him welcomed visitors to:
XU'UL'S SOLAREST Barroom—Casino—Dancing 100—Lovely Hostesses—100
He entered, and was immediately deluged by a bevy of charm-gals vying for the privilege of: (1) helping him beat the roulette wheel; (2) helping him drink the house dry, and/or (3) separating him as swiftly as possible from the credits in his money belt.
Chip shook them off, gently but firmly. He wanted a good time, true; but he wanted it solo. The main cabaret was too crowded; he passed through it and another equally blatant room wherein twoscore Venusians were straining the structure with a native "sing-stomp," and ended up finally, with a sigh of relief, in a small, dimly-lighted private bar unfrequented by anyone save a bored and listless Martian bartender.
The chrysanthemum-pated son of the desertland roused himself as Chip entered, rustled his petals and piped a ready greeting.
"Welcoom, ssirr! Trrink, pleasse?"
This was more like it! Chip grinned.
"Scotch," he said. " Old Spaceman. And let's have a new bottle, Curly. None of that doctored swill."
"Of courrsse, ssirr!" piped the bar-keep aggrievedly. He pushed a bottle across the mahogany; Chip flipped a golden credit-token back at him.
"Tell me when I've guzzled this, and I'll start work on another." He took a deep, appreciative sniff. "And don't let any of those dizzy dolls in here," he ordered. "I've got a lot of back drinking to catch up on, and I don't want to be disturbed— Hey! "
In his alarm, he almost dropped the bottle. For the door suddenly burst open, and in its frame loomed a figure in Space Patrol blues. A finger pointed in Chip's direction and a bull-o'-Bashan voice roared:
" Stop! Bartender—grab that man! He's a desperate criminal, wanted on four planets for murder!"
Shock momentarily immobilized Chip. Not so the bartender. He was, it seemed, an ardent pacifist. With a bleat of panic fear he scampered from his post, his metallic stilts clattering off in the distance. Chip's accuser moved forward from the shadows; dim light illumined his features. And—
" Johnny! " Chip's voice lifted in a note of jubilant surprise.
"Johnny Haldane—you old scoundrel! Where in the void did you drop from?"
The S.S.P. man chuckled and returned Chip's greeting with a bone-grinding handclasp.
"I might ask the same of you, chum! Lord, it's been ages since we've crossed 'jectory! When I saw you meandering across the Casino, you could have knocked me down with a jetblast! What's new? Is old Syd still with you?"
"We're still shipmates. But he's back at the spaceport. The jerry-crew is plating our crate with ek, and—"
"Ek! Plating a private cruiser!" Haldane stared at him in astonishment, then whistled. "Sweet Sacred Stars, you must be filthy with credits to be able to coat an entire ship with ekalastron!"
"You," boasted Chip, "ain't heard nothing yet!" And he told him how they had discovered an entire mountain of the previous new element, No.
97 in the periodic table, on frigid Titania, satellite of far Uranus.
"It was touch-and-go for a while," he admitted, "whether we'd be the luckiest three guys in space—or the deadest! But we passed through the flaming caverns like old Shadrach in the Bible—remember?—and here we are!"
[1]
Haldane was exuberant. "A mountain of ekalastron!" he gloated.
"That's the greatest contribution to spaceflight since Biggs' velocity-intensifier!" It was no overstatement. "Element No. 97 was a metal so light that a man could carry in one hand enough to coat the entire hull of a battleship—yet so adamant that a gossamer film of it would deflect a meteor! A metal strong enough to crush diamonds to ash—but so resilient that, when properly treated, it would rebound like rubber! What are you going to do with it, Chip? Put it on the open market?"
Warren shook his head.
"Not exactly. We talked it over carefully—Syd and Salvation and I—and we decided there are some space-rats to whom it shouldn't be made available. Privateers and outlaws, you know. So we turned control of the mines over to the Space Patrol at Uranus, and visiphoned the Earth authorities we were bringing in one cargo—"
"Visiphoned!" interrupted Haldane sharply. "Did you say visiphoned?"
"Why—why, yes."
"From where?"
"Oh, just before we reached the Belt. We don't have a very strong transmitter, you know. Sa-a-ay, what's all the excitement, pal? Did we do something that was wrong?"
Haldane frowned worriedly. "I don't know, Chip. It wasn't anything wrong , but what you did was damned dangerous. For if your message was intercepted, you may have played into the very hands of—the Lorelei!"
Chip stared at his friend bewilderedly for a moment. Then he grinned.
"Hey—I must be getting slightly whacky in my old age. I stand here with an unopened bottle in my hands and hear things! For a minute I thought you said 'Lorelei.' The Lorelei, my space-cop friend, is a myth. An old Teutonic myth about a beautiful damsel who sits out in the middle of a sea on a treacherous rock, combing her golden locks, warbling and luring her fascinated admirers to destruction."
He grunted. "A dirty trick, if you ask me. Catch a snort of this alleged Scotch, pal, and I'll torture your eardrums with the whole, sad story." He started to sing. "' Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten —'"
The Patrolman laid a hand on his arm, silenced him.
"It's not funny, Chip. You've described the Lorelei exactly. That's how she got her name. An incredibly beautiful woman who wantonly lures space-mariners to their death.
"The only difference is that her 'rock' is an asteroid somewhere in the Belt—and she does not sing, she calls! She began exercising her vicious appeal about two months ago, Earth reckoning. Since then, no less than a dozen spacecraft—freighters, liners, even one Patrolship—have fallen prey to her wiles. Their crews have been brutally murdered, their cargos stolen."
"Wait a minute!" interrupted Chip shrewdly. "How do you know about her if the crews have been murdered?"
"She has a habit of locking the controls," explained Haldane, "and setting ravaged ships adrift. Apparently there is no room on her hideout—wherever it is—for empty hulks. One of these ships was salvaged by a courageous cabin-boy who hid from the Lorelei and her pirate band beneath a closetful of soiled linens in the laundry. He described her. His description goes perfectly with less accurate glimpses seen over the visiphones of several score spacecraft!"
Chip said soberly, "So it's no joke, eh, pal? Sorry I popped off. I thought you were pulling my leg. Where do I come into this mess, though?"
"Ekalastron!" grunted Johnny succinctly. "A jackpot prize for any corsair! And you advertised a cargo of it over the etherwaves! The Lorelei will be waiting for you with her tongue hanging out. The only thing for you to do, kid, is go back to Jupiter or Io as fast as you can get there. Make the Patrol give you a convoy—"
A sudden light danced in Chip Warren's eyes. It was a light Syd Palmer would have groaned to see—for it usually presaged trouble. It was a bright, hard, reckless light.
"Hold your jets, Johnny!" drawled Chip. "Aren't you forgetting one thing? In a couple more hours, I can face the Lorelei and her whole mob—and be damned to them! She can't touch the Chickadee , because it's being plated right now!"
Haldane snapped his fingers in quick remembrance.
"By thunder, you're right! Her shells will ricochet off the Chickadee's hull like hail off a tin roof. Chip, are you in any hurry to reach Earth? I thought not. What do you say we go after the Lorelei together ! I'll swear you in as a Deputy Patrolman; we'll take the Chickadee and—"
"It's a deal!" declared Chip promptly. "You got any idea where this Lorelei's hangout is?"
"That's why I'm here on Danae. I got a tip that one of the Lorelei's men put in here for supplies. I hoped maybe I could single him out somehow, follow him when he jetted for his base, and in that way— Chip! Look out! "
Haldane shouted and moved at the same time. His arm lashed out wildly, thrusting, smashing Chip to the floor in a sprawling heap. The as-yet unopened bottle was now violently opened; it splintered into a thousand shards against a wall.
Bruised and shaken, Chip lifted his head to see what had caused Johnny's alarm. Even as he did so, the dull gloom of the bar was blazoned with searing effulgence. A lancet of flame leaped from the dark, rearward doorway, burst in Johnny Haldane's face!
The Patrolman cried once, a choking cry that died in a mewling whimper. His unused pistol slipped from slackening fingers, and he sagged to the floor. Again crimson lightning laced the shadows; Haldane's body jerked, and the air was raw with the hot, sickening stench of charred flesh.
With an instinct born of bitter years, Chip had come to his knees behind the shelter of the mahogany bar. But now his own flame-pistol was in his hand, and a dreadful rage was mingled with the agony in his heart. Reckless of results, he sprang to his feet, gun spewing livid death into the shadows.
His blast found a mark. For an instant flame haloed a human face drawn in inhuman pain. A heavy, sultry, bestial face, already puckered with one long, ugly scar that ran from right temple to jawbone, now newly scarred with the red brand of Chip's marksmanship.
Then, before Chip could fire again, came the rasp of pounding footsteps. The man turned and fled. Chip bent over his fallen friend, seeking, with hands that did not even feel the heat, fluttering life beneath still smoldering cloth.
He felt—nothing. Johnny was dead.
A snarl of sheer animal rage burst from Chip's lips. Someone would pay for this; pay dearly! Help was coming now. He himself would lead the hue-and-cry that would track a foul murderer to his lair. He spun as the footsteps drew nearer.
"Hurry!" he cried. "This way! Follow me—"
In a bound, he hurdled the bar, lingered at the door only long enough to let the others mark his course. For they had burst into the room, now, a full score of them. Excited, hard-bitten dogs of space, quick-triggered and willing. Once more he cried for help.
"After him! Come on! He—"
And then—disaster struck! For a reedy voice broke from the van of the mob. The voice of the Martian bartender.
"That's him!" he piped sibilantly. "That's the man! He's a desperate criminal, wanted on four planets for murder! The Patrolman came to arrest him— and now he's murdered the Spacie !"
II
The stunning injustice of that accusation came close to costing Chip Warren his life. For a split second he stood motionless in the doorway, gaping lips forming denial. Words which were never to be uttered, for suddenly a raw-boned miner wrenched a Moeller from its holster, leveled and fired.
The hot tongue of death licked hungrily at the young spaceman's cheek, scorched air crackled in his eardrums. Now was no time to squander in vain argument. Chip ducked, spun, and hurled himself through the doorway. There still remained one hope. That he might catch the real murderer, and in that way clear himself....
But the door led to a small, deserted vestibule, and it to an alleyway behind Xu'ul's Solarest. Viewing that maze of byways and passages, Chip knew his hope was futile. There remained but one thing to do. Get out of here. But quick!
It was no hard task. The labyrinth swallowed him as it had engulfed the scarred killer; in a few minutes even the footsteps of his pursuers could no longer be heard. And Chip worked his cautious way back to the spaceport, and to the bin wherein was cradled the Chickadee .
Syd Palmer looked up in surprise as Chip let himself in the electro-lock. The chubby engineer gasped, "Salvation, look what the cat drug in! His high-flying Nibs! What's the matter, Chip? Night-life too much for you?"
"Never mind that now!" panted Chip. "Is this tin can ready to roll? Warm the hypos. We're lifting gravs—"
Palmer said anxiously, "Now, wait a minute! The men haven't quite finished plating the hull, Chip!"
"Can't help that! We've got important business. In a very few minutes— Ahh! There he goes now!" Chip had gone to the perilens the moment he entered the ship; now he saw in its reflector that which he had expected. The gushing orange spume of a spaceship roaring from its cradle. "Hurry, Syd!"
There were a lot of things Syd Palmer wanted to ask. He wanted to know who went where ; he was bursting with curiosity about the "important business" which had brought his pal back from town in such a rush; his keen eye also had detected a needle-gun burn on Chip's coat-sleeve. But he was too good a companion to waste time now on such trivia.
"O.Q.," he snapped. "It's your pigeon!"
And he disappeared. They heard his voice calling to the workmen, the scuff of equipment being disengaged from the Chickadee's hull, the thin, high whine of warming hypatomics. Salvation looked at Warren quizzically.
"It smells," he ventured gently, "like trouble."
"It is trouble," Chip told him. "Plenty trouble!"
"In that case—" said the old man mildly—"I guess I'd better get the rotor stripped for action." He stepped to the gunnery turret, dropped the fore-irons and stripped their weapon for action. "'Be ye men of peace,'" he intoned, "'but gird firmly thy loins for righteous battle!' Thus saith the Lord God which is Jehovah. Selah!"
Then came Syd's cry from the depths of the hyporoom.
"All set, Chip! Lift gravs!"
Warren's finger found a stud. And with a gusty roar the Chickadee rocketed into space on a pillar of flame.
Two hours later, Chip was still following the bright pinpoint of scarlet which marked the course of his quarry.
In the time that had elapsed since their take-off, he had told his friends the whole story. When he told about the Lorelei, Salvation Smith's seamy old features screwed up in a perplexed grimace. "A woman pirate in the Belt, son? I find it hard to believe. Yet—" And when he described the death of Johnny Haldane, anger smoldered in the missionary's eyes, and Syd Palmer's hands knotted into tight, white fists. Said Syd, "A man with a scar, eh? Well, we'll catch him sooner or later. And when we do—" His tone boded no good to the man who had slain an old and loved friend.
"As a matter of fact," offered Salvation, "we've got him now. Any time you say the word, Chip. We're faster than he is. We can close in on him in five minutes."
"I know," nodded Warren grimly. "But we won't do it—yet. I'm borrowing a bit of Johnny's strategy. I've been plotting his course. As soon as I'm sure of his destination, we'll take care of him . But our first and most vital problem is to locate the Lorelei's hideaway."
Syd said, "That's all right with me, chum. I like a good scrap as much as the next guy. Better, maybe. But this isn't our concern, strictly speaking. What we ought to do is report this matter to the Space Patrol, let them take care of it."
Salvation shook his head.
"That's where you're mistaken, Sydney. This is very much our concern. So much so, in fact, that we dare not make port again until it's cleared up. I think you have forgotten that it is not the scar-faced man who is wanted for the killing of Haldane—but Chip!"
"B-but—" gasped Palmer—"b-but that's ridiculous! Chip and Johnny were old buddies. Lifelong friends!"
"Nevertheless, the circumstantial evidence indicates Chip's guilt. Twenty men saw him standing over Johnny's dead body, with a flame-pistol in his hand. And the barkeep heard Johnny 'arrest' Chip and accuse him of murder!"
Chip said ruefully, "That's right, Syd. It was only a joke, but it backfired. The bartender thought Johnny meant it. He scooted out of there like a bat out of Hades. I'm in it up to my neck unless we can bring back evidence that Scarface actually did the killing. And that may not be so easy."
He stirred restlessly. "But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now our job is to keep this rat in sight. We've gone farther already than I expected we would." He turned to the old preacher.
"Where do you think we're going, Padre? Out of the Belt entirely?"
"I've been wondering that myself, son. I don't know for sure, of course, but it looks to me as if we're going for the Bog. If so, you'd better keep a weather-eye peeled."
"The Bog!" Chip had never penetrated the planetoids so deeply before, but he knew of the Bog by hearsay. All men did. A treacherous region of tightly packed asteroids, a mad and whirling scramble of the gigantic rocks which, aeons ago, had been a planet. Few spacemen dared penetrate the Bog. Of those who did dare, few returned to tell the tale. "The Bog! Say! I'd better keep a sharp lookout!"
He turned to the perilens once more, fastened an eye to its lens. And then—
"Syd!" he cried. "Salvation! Look! She—she—!"
He pressed the plunger that transferred the perilens image to the central viewscreen. And as he did so, a phantom filled the area which should have revealed yawning space, gay with the spangles of a myriad glowing orbs. The vision of an unbelievably beautiful girl, the golden-crowned embodiment of a man's fondest dreaming, eyes wide with an indistinguishable emotion, arms stretched wide in mute appeal.
And from the throats of all came simultaneous recognition.
" The Lorelei! "
At the same moment came a plea from the enchantress of space through a second medium. For no reason anyone could explain, the ship's telaudio wakened to life; over it came to their ears the actual words of the girl:
" Help! Oh, help! Can anyone hear me? Help —"
Even though he knew this to be only a ruse, a deliberate, dastardly trap set for the unwary, Chip Warren's pulse leaped in hot response to that desperate plea. Even with the warning of Johnny Haldane fresh in his memory, some gallantry deep within him spurred him to the aid of this lovely vision. Here was a woman a man could live for, fight for, die for! A woman like no other in the universe.
Then common sense came to his rescue. He wrenched his gaze from the tempting shadow, cried: "Kill that wavelength! Tune the lens on another beam, Syd!"
Palmer, bedazzled but obedient, spun the dial of the perilens . Despite his vastly improved science Man had never yet succeeded in devising a transparent medium through which to view the void wherein he soared; the perilens was a device which translated impinging light-waves into a picture of that which lay outside the ship's hull. When or where electrical disturbances existed in space, its frequency could be changed for greater clarity. This was what Syd now attempted.
But to no avail! For it mattered not which cycle he tuned to—the image persisted. Still on the viewscreen that pleading figure beckoned piteously. And still the cabin rang to the prayers of that heart-tugging voice:
" Help! Oh, help! Can anyone hear me? Help —"
Gone, now, was any fascination that thrilling vision might previously have held for Chip Warren. Understanding of their plight dawned coldly upon him, and his brow became dark with anger.
" We're blanketed! Flying blind! Salvation, radio a general alarm! Syd, jazz the hypos to max. Shift trajectory to fourteen-oh-three North and loft ... fire No. 3 jet...."
He had hurled himself into the bucket-shaped pilot's seat; now his fingers played the controls like those of a mad organist. The Chickadee groaned from prow to stern, trembled like a tortured thing as he thrust it into a rising spiral.
It was a desperate chance he was taking. Increasing his speed thus, it was certain he would be spotted by the man he had been following; the flaming jets of the Chickadee must form a crimson arch against black space visible for hundreds—thousands!—of miles. Nor was there any way of knowing what lay in the path Chip thus blindly chose. Titanic death might loom on every side. But they had to fight clear of this spot of blindness, clear their instruments....
And then it came! A jarring concussion that smashed against the prow of the Chickadee like a battering ram. Chip flew headlong out of his bucket to spreadeagle on the heaving iron floor. He heard, above the grinding plaint of shattered steel the bellowing prayer of Salvation Smith:
"We've crashed! 'Into Thy hands, O Lord of old—'"
Then Syd's angry cry, "Crashed, hell! He's smashed us with a tractor-blast!"
Chip stared at his companion numbly.
"But—but that's impossible! We're plated with ek! A tractor-cannon couldn't hurt us—"
" Half-plated! " howled Syd savagely. "And those damn fools started working from the stern of the Chickadee ! We're vulnerable up front, and that's where he got us! In a minute this can will be leaking like a sieve. I'll get out bulgers. Hold 'er to her course, Chip!"
He dove for the lockers wherein were hung the space-suits, tore them hastily from their hangers. Chip again spun the perilens vernier. No good! No space ... no stars ... just a beautiful phantom crying them to certain doom. By now he was aware that from a dozen sprung plates air was seeping, but he fought down despair. While there remained hope, a man had to keep on fighting.
He scrambled back into the bucket-seat, experimented with controls that answered sluggishly. Salvation had sprung to the rotor-gun, was now angrily jerking its lanyard, lacing the void with death-dealing bursts that had no mark. The old man's eyes were brands of fire, his white hair clung wetly to his forehead. His rage was terrible to behold.
"'Yes, truly shall I destroy them!'" he cried, "'who loose their stealth upon me like a thief from the night—'"
Then suddenly there came a second and more frightful blow. The straining Chickadee stopped as though pole-axed by a gigantic fist. Stopped and shuddered and screamed in metal agony. This time inertia flung Chip headlong, helpless, into the control racks. Brazen studs took the impact of his body; crushing pain banded about his temples, and a red wetness ran into his eyes, blurring and blinding him, burning.
For an instant there flamed before him a universe of incandescent stars, weaving, shimmering, merging. The vision of a woman whose hair was a golden glory....
After that—nothing!
III
From a billion miles away, from a bourne unguessable thousands of light-years distant, came the faint, far whisper of a voice. Nearer and nearer it came, and ever faster, till it throbbed upon Chip's eardrums with booming savagery.
"—coming to, now. Good! We'll soon find out—"
Chip opened his eyes, too dazed, at first, to understand the situation in which he found himself. Gone was the familiar control-turret of the Chickadee , gone the bulger into which he had so hastily clambered. He lay on the parched, rocky soil of a—a something. A planetoid, perhaps. And he was surrounded by a motley crew of strangers: scum of all the planets that circle the Sun....
Then recollection flooded back upon him, sudden and complete. The chase ... the call of the fateful Lorelei ... the crash! New strength, born of anger, surged through him. He lifted his head.
"My—my companions?" he demanded weakly.
The leader of those who encircled him, a mighty hulk of a man, massive of shoulder and thigh, black-haired, with an unshaven blue jaw, raven-bright eyes and a jutting, aquiline nose like the beak of a hawk, loosed a satisfied grunt.
"Ah! Back to normal, eh, sailor? Damn near time!"
Climbing to his feet sent a swift wave of giddiness through Chip—but he managed it. He fought down the vertigo which threatened to overwhelm him, and confronted the big man boldly.
"What," he stormed, "is the meaning of this?"
The giant stared at him for a moment, his jaw slack. Then his raven-bright eyes glittered; he slapped a trunklike thigh and guffawed in boisterous mirth.
"Hear that?" he roared to his companions. "Quite a guy, ain't he?
'What's the meanin' o' this?' he asks! Game little fightin' cock, hey?" Then he sobered abruptly, and a grim light replaced the amusement in his eyes. Here was not a man to be trifled with, Chip realized. His tone assumed a biting edge. "The meanin' is, my bucko," he answered mirthlessly, "that you've run afoul o' your last reef. Unless you have a sane head on your shoulders, and you're willing to talk fast and straight!"
"Talk?"
"Don't stall. We've already unloaded your bins. We found it. And a nice haul, too. Thanks for lettin' us know it was on the way." The burly one chuckled coarsely. "We'd have took it, anyway, but you helped matters out by comin' to us."
Johnny Haldane had been right, then. Chip remembered his friend's ominous warning. "—if your message was intercepted, you may have played into the hands of—" He said slowly, "Then you are the Lorelei's men?"
"The who? Never mind that, bucko, just talk. That ekalastron—where did it come from?"
And it occurred to Warren suddenly that although the big man did hold the whip hand, he was still not in possession of the most important secret of all! While the location of the ekalastron mine remained a secret, a deadlock existed.
"And if I won't tell—?" he countered shrewdly.
"Why, then, sailor—" The pirate leader's hamlike fists tightened, and a cold light glinted in his eyes—"why, then I guess maybe I'll have to beat it out o' you!"
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How is the theme of global warming explored throughout the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Expendables by Jim Harmon.
Relevant chunks:
THE EXPENDABLES
BY JIM HARMON
It was just a little black box, useful for getting rid of things. Trouble was, it worked too well!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"You see my problem, Professor?" Tony Carmen held his pinkly manicured, flashily ringed hands wide.
I saw his problem and it was warmly embarrassing.
"Really, Mr. Carmen," I said, "this isn't the sort of thing you discuss with a total stranger. I'm not a doctor—not of medicine, anyway—or a lawyer."
"They can't help me. I need an operator in your line."
"I work for the United States government. I can't become involved in anything illegal."
Carmen smoothed down the front of his too-tight midnight blue suit and touched the diamond sticking in his silver tie. "You can't, Professor Venetti? Ever hear of the Mafia?"
"I've heard of it," I said uneasily. "An old fraternal organization something like the Moose or Rosicrucians, founded in Sicily. It allegedly controls organized crime in the U.S. But that is a responsibility-eluding myth that honest Italian-Americans are stamping out. We don't even like to see the word in print."
"I can understand honest Italian-Americans feeling that way. But guys like me know the Mafia is still with it. We can put the squeeze on marks like you pretty easy."
You don't have to tell even a third generation American about the Mafia. Maybe that was the trouble. I had heard too much and for too long. All the stories I had ever heard about the Mafia, true or false, built up an unendurable threat.
"All right, I'll try to help you, Carmen. But ... that is, you didn't kill any of these people?"
He snorted. "I haven't killed anybody since early 1943."
"Please," I said weakly. "You needn't incriminate yourself with me."
"I was in the Marines," Carmen said hotly. "Listen, Professor, these aren't no Prohibition times. Not many people get made for a hit these days. Mother, most of these bodies they keep ditching at my club haven't been murdered by anybody. They're accident victims. Rumbums with too much anti-freeze for a summer's day, Spanish-American War vets going to visit Teddy in the natural course of events. Harry Keno just stows them at my place to embarrass me. Figures to make me lose my liquor license or take a contempt before the Grand Jury."
"I don't suppose you could just go to the police—" I saw the answer in his eyes. "No. I don't suppose you could."
"I told you once, Professor, but I'll tell you again. I have to get rid of these bodies they keep leaving in my kitchen. I can take 'em and throw them in the river, sure. But what if me or my boys are stopped en route by some tipped badge?"
"Quicklime?" I suggested automatically.
"What are you talking about? Are you sure you're some kind of scientist? Lime doesn't do much to a stiff at all. Kind of putrifies them like...."
"I forgot," I admitted. "I'd read it in so many stories I'd forgotten it wouldn't work. And I suppose the furnace leaves ashes and there's always traces of hair and teeth in the garbage disposal... An interesting problem, at that."
"I figured you could handle it," Carmen said, leaning back comfortably in the favorite chair of my bachelor apartment. "I heard you were working on something to get rid of trash for the government."
"That," I told him, "is restricted information. I subcontracted that work from the big telephone laboratories. How did you find it out?"
"Ways, Professor, ways."
The government did want me to find a way to dispose of wastes—radioactive wastes. It was the most important problem any country could have in this time of growing atomic industry. Now a small-time gangster was asking me to use this research to help him dispose of hot corpses. It made my scientific blood seethe. But the shadow of the Black Hand cooled it off.
"Maybe I can find something in that area of research to help you," I said. "I'll call you."
"Don't take too long, Professor," Carmen said cordially.
The big drum topped with a metallic coolie's hat had started out as a neutralizer for radioactivity. Now I didn't know what to call it.
The AEC had found burying canisters of hot rubbish in the desert or in the Gulf had eventually proved unsatisfactory. Earth tremors or changes of temperature split the tanks in the ground, causing leaks. The undersea containers rusted and corroded through the time, poisoning fish and fishermen.
Through the SBA I had been awarded a subcontract to work on the problem. The ideal solution would be to find a way to neutralize radioactive emanations, alpha, beta, X et cetera. (No, my dear, et cetera rays aren't any more dangerous than the rest.) But this is easier written than done.
Of course, getting energy to destroy energy without producing energy or matter is a violation of the maxim of the conservation of energy. But I didn't let that stop me—any more than I would have let the velocity of light put any limitations on a spacecraft engine had I been engaged to work on one. You can't allow other people's ideas to tie you hand and foot. There are some who tell me, however, that my refusal to honor such time-tested cliches is why I only have a small private laboratory owned by myself, my late wife's father and the bank, instead of working in the vast facilities of Bell, Du Pont, or General Motors. To this, I can only smile and nod.
But even refusing to be balked by conservative ideas, I failed.
I could not neutralize radioactivity. All I had been able to do (by a basic disturbance in the electromagnetogravitational co-ordinant system for Earth-Sun) was to reduce the mass of the radioactive matter.
This only concentrated the radiations, as in boiling contaminated water. It did make the hot stuff vaguely easier to handle, but it was no breakthrough on the central problem.
Now, in the middle of this, I was supposed to find a way to get rid of some damned bodies for Carmen.
Pressed for time and knowing the results wouldn't have to be so precise or carefully defined for a racketeer as for the United States government, I began experimenting.
I cut corners.
I bypassed complete safety circuits.
I put dangerous overloads on some transformers and doodled with the wiring diagrams. If I got some kind of passable incinerator I would be happy.
I turned the machine on.
The lights popped out.
There were changes that should be made before I tried that again, but instead I only found a larger fuse for a heavier load and jammed that in the switchbox.
I flipped my machine into service once again. The lights flickered and held.
The dials on my control board told me the story. It was hard to take.
But there it was.
The internal Scale showed zero.
I had had a slightly hot bar of silver alloy inside. It was completely gone. Mass zero. The temperature gauge showed that there had been no change in centigrade reading that couldn't be explained by the mechanical operation of the machine itself. There had been no sudden discharge of electricity or radioactivity. I checked for a standard anti-gravity effect but there was none. Gravity inside the cylinder had gone to zero but never to minus.
I was at last violating conservation of energy—not by successfully inverting the cube of the ionization factor, but by destroying mass ... by simply making it cease to exist with no cause-and-effect side effects.
I knew the government wouldn't be interested, since I couldn't explain how my device worked. No amount of successful demonstration could ever convince anybody with any scientific training that it actually did work.
But I shrewdly judged that Tony Carmen wouldn't ask an embarrassing
"how" when he was incapable of understanding the explanation.
"Yeah, but how does it work?" Tony Carmen demanded of me, sleeking his mirror-black hair and staring up at the disk-topped drum.
"Why do you care?" I asked irritably. "It will dispose of your bodies for you."
"I got a reason that goes beyond the stiff, but let's stick to that just for now. Where are these bodies going? I don't want them winding up in the D.A.'s bathtub."
"Why not? How could they trace them back to you?"
"You're the scientist," Tony said hotly. "I got great respect for those crime lab boys. Maybe the stiff got some of my exclusive brand of talc on it, I don't know."
"Listen here, Carmen," I said, "what makes you think these bodies are going somewhere? Think of it only as a kind of—incinerator."
"Not on your life, Professor. The gadget don't get hot so how can it burn? It don't use enough electricity to fry. It don't cut 'em up or crush 'em down, or dissolve them in acid. I've seen disappearing cabinets before."
Mafia or not, I saw red. "Are you daring to suggest that I am working some trick with trap doors or sliding panels?"
"Easy, Professor," Carmen said, effortlessly shoving me back with one palm. "I'm not saying you have the machine rigged. It's just that you have to be dropping the stuff through a sliding panel in—well, everything around us. You're sliding all that aside and dropping things through. But I want to know where they wind up. Reasonable?"
Carmen was an uneducated lout and a criminal but he had an instinctive feel for the mechanics of physics.
"I don't know where the stuff goes, Carmen," I finally admitted. "It might go into another plane of existence. 'Another dimension' the writers for the American Weekly would describe it. Or into our past, or our future."
The swarthy racketeer pursed his lips and apparently did some rapid calculation.
"I don't mind the first two, but I don't like them going into the future. If they do that, they may show up again in six months."
"Or six million years."
"You'll have to cut that future part out, Professor."
I was beginning to get a trifle impatient. All those folk tales I had heard about the Mafia were getting more distant. "See here, Carmen, I could lie to you and say they went into the prehistoric past and you would never know the difference. But the truth is, I just don't know where the processed material goes. There's a chance it may go into the future, yes. But unless it goes exactly one year or exactly so many years it would appear in empty space ... because the earth will have moved from the spot it was transmitted. I don't know for sure. Perhaps the slight Deneb-ward movement of the Solar System would wreck a perfect three-point landing even then and cause the dispatched materials to burn up from atmospheric friction, like meteors. You will just have to take a chance on the future. That's the best I can do."
Carmen inhaled deeply. "Okay. I'll risk it. Pretty long odds against any squeal on the play. How many of these things can you turn out, Professor?"
"I can construct a duplicate of this device so that you may destroy the unwanted corpses that you would have me believe are delivered to you with the regularity of the morning milk run."
The racketeer waved that suggestion aside. "I'm talking about a big operation, Venetti. These things can take the place of incinerators, garbage disposals, waste baskets...."
"Impractical," I snorted. "You don't realize the tremendous amount of electrical power these devices require...."
"Nuts! From what you said, the machine is like a TV set; it takes a lot of power to get it started, but then on it coasts on its own generators."
"There's something to what you say," I admitted in the face of his unexpected information. "But I can hardly turn my invention over to your entirely persuasive salesmen, I'm sure. This is part of the results of an investigation for the government. Washington will have to decide what to do with the machine."
"Listen, Professor," Carmen began, "the Mafia—"
"What makes you think I'm any more afraid of the Mafia than I am of the F.B.I.? I may have already sealed my fate by letting you in on this much. Machinegunning is hardly a less attractive fate to me than a poor security rating. To me, being dead professionally would be as bad as being dead biologically."
Tony Carmen laid a heavy hand on my shoulder. I finally deduced he intended to be cordial.
"Of course," he said smoothly "you have to give this to Washington but there are ways , Professor. I know. I'm a business man—"
"You are ?" I said.
He named some of the businesses in which he held large shares of stock.
"You are ."
"I've had experience in this sort of thing. We simply leak the information to a few hundred well selected persons about all that your machine can do. We'll call 'em Expendables, because they can expend anything."
"I," I interjected, "planned to call it the Venetti Machine."
"Professor, who calls the radio the Marconi these days?"
"There are Geiger-Muller Counters, though," I said.
"You don't have to give a Geiger counter the sex appeal of a TV set or a hardtop convertible. We'll call them Expendables. No home will be complete without one."
"Perfect for disposing of unwanted bodies," I mused. "The murder rate will go alarmingly with those devices within easy reach."
"Did that stop Sam Colt or Henry Ford?" Tony Carmen asked reasonably....
Naturally, I was aware that the government would not be interested in my machine. I am not a Fortean, a psychic, a psionicist or a screwball. But the government frequently gets things it doesn't know what to do with—like airplanes in the 'twenties. When it doesn't know what to do, it doesn't do it.
There have been hundreds of workable perpetual motion machines patented, for example. Of course, they weren't vices in the strictest sense of the word. Many of them used the external power of gravity, they would wear out or slow down in time from friction, but for the meanwhile, for some ten to two hundred years they would just sit there, moving. No one had ever been able to figure out what to do with them.
I knew the AEC wasn't going to dump tons of radioactive waste (with some possible future reclaimation value) into a machine which they didn't believe actually could work.
Tony Carmen knew exactly what to do with an Expendable once he got his hands on it.
Naturally, that was what I had been afraid of.
The closed sedan was warm, even in early December.
Outside, the street was a progression of shadowed block forms. I was shivering slightly, my teeth rattling like the porcelain they were. Was this the storied "ride," I wondered?
Carmen finally returned to the car, unlatched the door and slid in. He did not reinsert the ignition key. I did not feel like sprinting down the deserted street.
"The boys will have it set up in a minute," Tony the racketeer informed me.
"What?" The firing squad?
"The Expendable, of course."
"Here? You dragged me out here to see how you have prostituted my invention? I presume you've set it up with a 'Keep Our City Clean' sign pasted on it."
He chuckled. It was a somewhat nasty sound, or so I imagined.
A flashlight winked in the sooty twilight.
"Okay. Let's go," Tony said, slapping my shoulder.
I got out of the car, rubbing my flabby bicep. Whenever I took my teen-age daughter to the beach from my late wife's parents' home, I frequently found 230 pound bullies did kick sand in my ears.
The machine was installed on the corner, half covered with a gloomy white shroud, and fearlessly plugged into the city lighting system via a blanketed streetlamp. Two hoods hovered in a doorway ready to take care of the first cop with a couple of fifties or a single .38, as necessity dictated.
Tony guided my elbow. "Okay, Professor, I think I understand the bit now, but I'll let you run it up with the flagpole for me, to see how it waves to the national anthem."
"Here?" I spluttered once more. "I told you, Carmen, I wanted nothing more to do with you. Your check is still on deposit...."
"You didn't want anything to do with me in the first place." The thug's teeth flashed in the night. "Throw your contraption into gear, buddy."
That was the first time the tone of respect, even if faked, had gone out of his voice. I moved to the switchboard of my invention. What remained was as simple as adjusting a modern floor lamp to a medium light position. I flipped.
Restraining any impulse toward colloqualism, I was also deeply disturbed by what next occurred.
One of the massive square shapes on the horizon vanished.
"What have you done?" I yelped, ripping the cover off the machine.
Even under the uncertain illumination of the smogged stars I could see that the unit was half gone—in fact, exactly halved.
"Squint the Seal is one of my boys. He used to be a mechanic in the old days for Burger, Madle, the guys who used to rob banks and stuff." There was an unmistakable note of boyish admiration in Carmen's voice.
"He figured the thing would work like that. Separate the poles and you increase the size of the working area."
"You mean square the operational field. Your idiot doesn't even know mechanics."
"No, but he knows all about how any kind of machine works."
"You call that working?" I demanded. "Do you realize what you have there, Carmen?"
"Sure. A disintegrator ray, straight out of Startling Stories ."
My opinion as to the type of person who followed the pages of science-fiction magazines with fluttering lips and tracing finger was upheld.
I looked at the old warehouse and of course didn't see it.
"What was this a test for?" I asked, fearful of the Frankenstein I had made. "What are you planning to do now?"
"This was no test, Venetti. This was it. I just wiped out Harry Keno and his intimates right in the middle of their confidential squat."
"Good heavens. That's uncouthly old-fashioned of you, Carmen! Why, that's murder ."
"Not," Carmen said, "without no corpus delecti ."
"The body of the crime remains without the body of the victim," I remembered from my early Ellery Queen training.
"You're talking too much, Professor," Tony suggested. "Remember, you did it with your machine."
"Yes," I said at length. "And why are we standing here letting those machines sit there?"
There were two small items of interest to me in the Times the following morning.
One two-inch story—barely making page one because of a hole to fill at the bottom of an account of the number of victims of Indian summer heat prostration—told of the incineration of a warehouse on Fleet Street by an ingenious new arson bomb that left "virtually" no trace. (Maybe the fire inspector had planted a few traces to make his explanation more creditable.)
The second item was further over in a science column just off the editorial page. It told of the government—!—developing a new process of waste disposal rivaling the old Buck Rogers disintegrator ray.
This, I presumed, was one of Tony Carmen's information leaks.
If he hoped to arouse the public into demanding my invention I doubted he would succeed. The public had been told repeatedly of a new radioactive process for preserving food and a painless way of spraying injections through the skin. But they were still stuck with refrigerators and hypodermic needles.
I had forced my way half-way through the paper and the terrible coffee I made when the doorbell rang.
I was hardly surprised when it turned out to be Tony Carmen behind the front door.
He pushed in, slapping a rolled newspaper in his palm. "Action, Professor."
"The district attorney has indicted you?" I asked hopefully.
"He's not even indicted you , Venetti. No, I got a feeler on this plant in the Times ."
I shook my head. "The government will take over the invention, no matter what the public wants."
"The public? Who cares about the public? The Arcivox corporation wants this machine of yours. They have their agents tracing the plant now. They will go from the columnist to his legman to my man and finally to you. Won't be long before they get here. An hour maybe."
"Arcivox makes radios and TV sets. What do they want with the Expendables?"
"Opening up a new appliance line with real innovations. I hear they got a new refrigerator. All open. Just shelves—no doors or sides. They want a revolutionary garbage disposal too."
"Do you own stock in the company? Is that how you know?"
"I own stock in a competitor. That's how I know," Carmen informed me.
"Listen, Professor, you can sell to Arcivox and still keep control of the patents through a separate corporation. And I'll give you 49% of its stock."
This was Carmen's idea of a magnanimous offer for my invention. It was a pretty good offer—49% and my good health.
"But will the government let Arcivox have the machine for commercial use?"
"The government would let Arcivox have the hydrogen bomb if they found a commercial use for it."
There was a sturdy knock on the door, not a shrill ring of the bell.
"That must be Arcivox now," Carmen growled. "They have the best detectives in the business. You know what to tell them?"
I knew what to tell them.
I peeled off my wet shirt and threw it across the corner of my desk, casting a reproving eye at the pastel air-conditioner in the window. It wasn't really the machine's fault—The water department reported the reservoir too low to run water-cooled systems. It would be a day or two before I could get the gas type into my office.
Miss Brown, my secretary, was getting a good look at my pale, bony chest. Well, for the salary she got, she could stand to look. Of course, she herself was wearing a modest one-strap sun dress, not shorts and halters like some of the girls.
"My," she observed "it certainly is humid for March, isn't it, Professor Venetti?"
I agreed that it was.
She got her pad and pencil ready.
"Wheedling form letter to Better Mousetraps. Where are our royalties for the last quarter of the year? We know we didn't have a full three months with our Expendable Field in operation on the new traps, but we want the payola for what we have coming.
"Condescending form letter to Humane Lethal Equipment. Absolutely do not send the California penal system any chambers equipped with our patented field until legislature officially approves them. We got away with it in New Mexico, but we're older and wiser now.
"Rush priority telegram to President, United States, any time in the next ten days. Thanks for citation, et cetera. Glad buddy system working out well in training battlefield disintegrator teams.
"Indignant form letter to Arcivox. We do not feel we are properly a co-respondent in your damage suits. Small children and appliances have always been a problem, viz ice boxes and refrigerators. Suggest you put a more complicated latch on the handles of the dangerously inferior doors you have covering our efficient, patented field."
I leaned back and took a breather. There was no getting around it—I just wasn't happy as a business man. I had been counting on being only a figurehead in the Expendable Patent Holding Corporation, but Tony Carmen didn't like office work. And he hadn't anyone he trusted any more than me. Even.
I jerked open a drawer and pulled off a paper towel from the roll I had stolen in the men's room. Scrubbing my chest and neck with it, I smoothed it out and dropped it into the wastebasket. It slid down the tapering sides and through the narrow slot above the Expendable Field. I had redesigned the wastebaskets after a janitor had stepped in one. But Gimpy was happy now, with the $50,000 we paid him.
I opened my mouth and Miss Brown's pencil perked up its eraser, reflecting her fierce alertness.
Tony Carmen banged open the door, and I closed my mouth.
"G-men on the way here," he blurted and collapsed into a chair opposite Miss Brown.
"Don't revert to type," I warned him. "What kind of G-Men? FBI? FCC? CIA? FDA? USTD?"
"Investigators for the Atomic Energy Commission."
The solemn, conservatively dressed young man in the door touched the edge of his snap-brim hat as he said it.
"Miss Brown, would you mind letting our visitor use your chair?" I asked.
"Not at all, sir," she said dreamily.
"May I suggest," I said, "that we might get more business done if you then removed yourself from the chair first."
Miss Brown leaped to her feet with a healthy galvanic response and quit the vicinity with her usual efficiency.
Once seated, the AEC man said "I'll get right to the point. You may find this troublesome, gentlemen, but your government intends to confiscate all of the devices using your so-called Expendable field, and forever bar their manufacture in this country or their importation."
"You stinking G-men aren't getting away with this," Carmen said ingratiatingly. "Ever hear of the Mafia?"
"Not much," the young man admitted earnestly, "since the FBI finished with its deportations a few years back."
I cleared my throat. "I must admit that the destruction of a multi-billion business is disconcerting before lunch. May we ask why you took this step?"
The agent inserted a finger between his collar and tie. "Have you noticed how unseasonably warm it is?"
"I wondered if you had. You're going to have heat prostration if you keep that suit coat on five minutes more."
The young man collapsed back in his chair, loosening the top button of his ivy league jacket, looking from my naked hide to the gossomer scrap of sport shirt Carmen wore. "We have to dress inconspicuously in the service," he panted weakly.
I nodded understandingly. "What does the heat have to do with the outlawing of the Expendables?"
"At first we thought there might be some truth in the folk nonsense that nuclear tests had something to do with raising the mean temperature of the world," the AEC man said. "But our scientists quickly found they weren't to blame."
"Clever of them."
"Yes, they saw that the widespread use of your machines was responsible for the higher temperature. Your device violates the law of conservation of energy, seemingly . It seemingly destroys matter without creating energy. Actually—"
He paused dramatically.
"Actually, your device added the energy it created in destroying matter to the energy potential of the planet in the form of heat . You see what that means? If your devices continue in operation, the mean temperature of Earth will rise to the point where we burst into flame. They must be outlawed!"
"I agree," I said reluctantly.
Tony Carmen spoke up. "No, you don't, Professor. We don't agree to that."
I waved his protests aside.
"I would agree," I said, "except that it wouldn't work. Explain the danger to the public, let them feel the heat rise themselves, and they will hoard Expendables against seizure and continue to use them, until we do burst into flame, as you put it so religiously."
"Why?" the young man demanded.
"Because Expendables are convenient. There is a ban on frivolous use of water due to the dire need. But the police still have to go stop people from watering lawns, and I suspect not a few swimming pools are being filled on the sly. Water is somebody else's worry. So will be generating enough heat to turn Eden into Hell."
"Mass psychology isn't my strongest point," the young man said worriedly. "But I suspect you may be right. Then—we'll be damned?"
"No, not necessarily," I told him comfortingly. "All we have to do is use up the excess energy with engines of a specific design."
"But can we design those engines in time?" the young man wondered with uncharacteristic gloom.
"Certainly," I said, practising the power of positive thinking. "Now that your world-wide testing laboratories have confirmed a vague fear of mine, I can easily reverse the field of the Expendable device and create a rather low-efficiency engine that consumes the excess energy in our planetary potential."
The agent of the AEC whose name I can never remember was present along
with Tony Carmen the night my assistants finished with the work I had
outlined.
While it was midnight outside, the fluorescents made the scene more
visible than sunlight. My Disexpendable was a medium-sized drum in a
tripod frame with an unturned coolie's hat at the bottom.
Breathlessly, I closed the switch and the scooped disc began slowly to
revolve.
"Is it my imagination," the agent asked, "or is it getting cooler in
here?"
"Professor." Carmen gave me a warning nudge.
There was now something on the revolving disc. It was a bar of some
shiny gray metal.
"Kill the power, Professor," Carmen said.
"Can it be," I wondered, "that the machine is somehow recreating or
drawing back the processed material from some other time or dimension?"
"Shut the thing off, Venetti!" the racketeer demanded.
But too late.
There was now a somewhat dead man sitting in the saddle of the turning
circle of metal.
If Harry Keno had only been sane when he turned up on that
merry-go-round in Boston I feel we would have learned much of immense
value on the nature of time and space.
As it is, I feel that it is a miscarriage of justice to hold me in
connection with the murders I am sure Tony Carmen did commit.
I hope this personal account when published will end the vicious
story supported by the district attorney that it was I who sought Tony
Carmen out and offered to dispose of his enemies and that I sought his
financial backing for the exploitation of my invention.
This is the true, and only true, account of the development of the
machine known as the Expendable.
I am only sorry, now that the temperature has been standardized once
more, that the Expendable's antithesis, the Disexpendable, is of too
low an order of efficiency to be of much value as a power source in
these days of nuclear and solar energy. So the world is again stuck
with the problem of waste disposal ... including all that I dumped
before. But as a great American once said, you can't win 'em all.
If you so desire, you may send your generous and fruitful letters
towards my upcoming defense in care of this civic-minded publication.
Question:
How is the theme of global warming explored throughout the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Throughout the story, a racketeer demands a professor create a machine to destroy the dead body he has without leaving any traces. The professor invented the device that can destroy mass into nothingness without knowing where the decomposed particles or mass go. However, later in the story, it reveals that the missing energy is turned into heat under the rule of energy conservation, resulting in a rising global temperature. The officials come to ban the usage and production of the machine, but the professor knows that people will still use it for its convenience, just like what people do concerning the wasteful use of water when it is in dire need. The professor ends up creating a machine whose side effect would cool down the temperature to fix the problem. The theme of global warming is explored through the conflicted balance between convenience and environmental damage. People tend to use what is convenient for them with the knowledge of its ecological harm until the consequence is no longer recoverable. The author tries to imply that if we keep wasting resources and damage the environment for our benefit, global warming will reach a point where the earth is no longer recoverable. It is also mentioned in the professor’s thought when he is thinking about selling the machine that tons of patented perpetual motion machines are created, used, and remain as trash without the means to get rid of them. People don’t care whether there is a solution to get rid of those trash completely or don’t know how, but they still produce and use them. This preference for convenience over the environment indicates that humans would not stop their pollution until they bear the consequence of their deeds, not to mention improve the situation of global warming.",
"Professor Venetti was struggling when creating the mechanism because the physical law of energy conservation didn’t allow him to destroy energy without its simultaneous recreation. Eventually, we learn that the Expandable was actually recreating the energy of the disintegrated matter in the form of heat. His invention led to global warming - the increase in the mean temperature on Earth. The professor realizes the danger of his invention but also admits that it’s unlikely people would quickly stop using such a convenient mechanism. They would ignore the consequences. ",
"Global warming is an important theme throughout the story. At first, Venetti wanted to create a machine that could reduce the environmental impact of radioactive and nuclear waste. This type of waste harmed the environment, as before the expendables the waste was put underground, where it would seep into the ocean and water supplies. After the use of expendables increased, it seemed like there was little environmental impact, but then it was revealed that the expendables actually increased global warming. This led to Veretti creating a new device that could reverse the effects, leading to all the dead bodies coming back and Veretti getting put on trial. ",
"One of the main themes explored in “The Expenables” is the concept of global warming. Even though published in 1962, the story gives a commentary on the roots of global warming and human responses to it. Initially, we are introduced to the issue of waste with the government and a scientist trying to figure out a way out of it. The ideal thought that we could create an invention that could simply “remove” trash reminds the readers of how we as humans take the consequences of our actions for granted and think that anything can be fixed, even global littering. This shows that we tend to tackle such global problems at the end of their timeline rather than try to genuinely prevent them from happening in the first place. By the end of the story, however, even when a machine has been successfully created to fix this issue, another one, an increase in Earth temperature still occurs. In other words, as the law of conversion of energy states in the story that an energy cannot be destroyed without producing another energy is similar to saying that every action has to have a consequence. The readers recognize that they cannot get the best of both worlds all the time. Venetti also mentions to the Atomic Energy Commission when they want to end the Expendables that the public would not agree to do so because of how convenient it is just like failure to stop them from watering lawns. This symbolizes how global warming or any global issue usually arises from humans’ carelessness and laziness, assuming that their actions are of little importance on this big Earth.\n"
] |
61171
|
THE EXPENDABLES
BY JIM HARMON
It was just a little black box, useful for getting rid of things. Trouble was, it worked too well!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"You see my problem, Professor?" Tony Carmen held his pinkly manicured, flashily ringed hands wide.
I saw his problem and it was warmly embarrassing.
"Really, Mr. Carmen," I said, "this isn't the sort of thing you discuss with a total stranger. I'm not a doctor—not of medicine, anyway—or a lawyer."
"They can't help me. I need an operator in your line."
"I work for the United States government. I can't become involved in anything illegal."
Carmen smoothed down the front of his too-tight midnight blue suit and touched the diamond sticking in his silver tie. "You can't, Professor Venetti? Ever hear of the Mafia?"
"I've heard of it," I said uneasily. "An old fraternal organization something like the Moose or Rosicrucians, founded in Sicily. It allegedly controls organized crime in the U.S. But that is a responsibility-eluding myth that honest Italian-Americans are stamping out. We don't even like to see the word in print."
"I can understand honest Italian-Americans feeling that way. But guys like me know the Mafia is still with it. We can put the squeeze on marks like you pretty easy."
You don't have to tell even a third generation American about the Mafia. Maybe that was the trouble. I had heard too much and for too long. All the stories I had ever heard about the Mafia, true or false, built up an unendurable threat.
"All right, I'll try to help you, Carmen. But ... that is, you didn't kill any of these people?"
He snorted. "I haven't killed anybody since early 1943."
"Please," I said weakly. "You needn't incriminate yourself with me."
"I was in the Marines," Carmen said hotly. "Listen, Professor, these aren't no Prohibition times. Not many people get made for a hit these days. Mother, most of these bodies they keep ditching at my club haven't been murdered by anybody. They're accident victims. Rumbums with too much anti-freeze for a summer's day, Spanish-American War vets going to visit Teddy in the natural course of events. Harry Keno just stows them at my place to embarrass me. Figures to make me lose my liquor license or take a contempt before the Grand Jury."
"I don't suppose you could just go to the police—" I saw the answer in his eyes. "No. I don't suppose you could."
"I told you once, Professor, but I'll tell you again. I have to get rid of these bodies they keep leaving in my kitchen. I can take 'em and throw them in the river, sure. But what if me or my boys are stopped en route by some tipped badge?"
"Quicklime?" I suggested automatically.
"What are you talking about? Are you sure you're some kind of scientist? Lime doesn't do much to a stiff at all. Kind of putrifies them like...."
"I forgot," I admitted. "I'd read it in so many stories I'd forgotten it wouldn't work. And I suppose the furnace leaves ashes and there's always traces of hair and teeth in the garbage disposal... An interesting problem, at that."
"I figured you could handle it," Carmen said, leaning back comfortably in the favorite chair of my bachelor apartment. "I heard you were working on something to get rid of trash for the government."
"That," I told him, "is restricted information. I subcontracted that work from the big telephone laboratories. How did you find it out?"
"Ways, Professor, ways."
The government did want me to find a way to dispose of wastes—radioactive wastes. It was the most important problem any country could have in this time of growing atomic industry. Now a small-time gangster was asking me to use this research to help him dispose of hot corpses. It made my scientific blood seethe. But the shadow of the Black Hand cooled it off.
"Maybe I can find something in that area of research to help you," I said. "I'll call you."
"Don't take too long, Professor," Carmen said cordially.
The big drum topped with a metallic coolie's hat had started out as a neutralizer for radioactivity. Now I didn't know what to call it.
The AEC had found burying canisters of hot rubbish in the desert or in the Gulf had eventually proved unsatisfactory. Earth tremors or changes of temperature split the tanks in the ground, causing leaks. The undersea containers rusted and corroded through the time, poisoning fish and fishermen.
Through the SBA I had been awarded a subcontract to work on the problem. The ideal solution would be to find a way to neutralize radioactive emanations, alpha, beta, X et cetera. (No, my dear, et cetera rays aren't any more dangerous than the rest.) But this is easier written than done.
Of course, getting energy to destroy energy without producing energy or matter is a violation of the maxim of the conservation of energy. But I didn't let that stop me—any more than I would have let the velocity of light put any limitations on a spacecraft engine had I been engaged to work on one. You can't allow other people's ideas to tie you hand and foot. There are some who tell me, however, that my refusal to honor such time-tested cliches is why I only have a small private laboratory owned by myself, my late wife's father and the bank, instead of working in the vast facilities of Bell, Du Pont, or General Motors. To this, I can only smile and nod.
But even refusing to be balked by conservative ideas, I failed.
I could not neutralize radioactivity. All I had been able to do (by a basic disturbance in the electromagnetogravitational co-ordinant system for Earth-Sun) was to reduce the mass of the radioactive matter.
This only concentrated the radiations, as in boiling contaminated water. It did make the hot stuff vaguely easier to handle, but it was no breakthrough on the central problem.
Now, in the middle of this, I was supposed to find a way to get rid of some damned bodies for Carmen.
Pressed for time and knowing the results wouldn't have to be so precise or carefully defined for a racketeer as for the United States government, I began experimenting.
I cut corners.
I bypassed complete safety circuits.
I put dangerous overloads on some transformers and doodled with the wiring diagrams. If I got some kind of passable incinerator I would be happy.
I turned the machine on.
The lights popped out.
There were changes that should be made before I tried that again, but instead I only found a larger fuse for a heavier load and jammed that in the switchbox.
I flipped my machine into service once again. The lights flickered and held.
The dials on my control board told me the story. It was hard to take.
But there it was.
The internal Scale showed zero.
I had had a slightly hot bar of silver alloy inside. It was completely gone. Mass zero. The temperature gauge showed that there had been no change in centigrade reading that couldn't be explained by the mechanical operation of the machine itself. There had been no sudden discharge of electricity or radioactivity. I checked for a standard anti-gravity effect but there was none. Gravity inside the cylinder had gone to zero but never to minus.
I was at last violating conservation of energy—not by successfully inverting the cube of the ionization factor, but by destroying mass ... by simply making it cease to exist with no cause-and-effect side effects.
I knew the government wouldn't be interested, since I couldn't explain how my device worked. No amount of successful demonstration could ever convince anybody with any scientific training that it actually did work.
But I shrewdly judged that Tony Carmen wouldn't ask an embarrassing
"how" when he was incapable of understanding the explanation.
"Yeah, but how does it work?" Tony Carmen demanded of me, sleeking his mirror-black hair and staring up at the disk-topped drum.
"Why do you care?" I asked irritably. "It will dispose of your bodies for you."
"I got a reason that goes beyond the stiff, but let's stick to that just for now. Where are these bodies going? I don't want them winding up in the D.A.'s bathtub."
"Why not? How could they trace them back to you?"
"You're the scientist," Tony said hotly. "I got great respect for those crime lab boys. Maybe the stiff got some of my exclusive brand of talc on it, I don't know."
"Listen here, Carmen," I said, "what makes you think these bodies are going somewhere? Think of it only as a kind of—incinerator."
"Not on your life, Professor. The gadget don't get hot so how can it burn? It don't use enough electricity to fry. It don't cut 'em up or crush 'em down, or dissolve them in acid. I've seen disappearing cabinets before."
Mafia or not, I saw red. "Are you daring to suggest that I am working some trick with trap doors or sliding panels?"
"Easy, Professor," Carmen said, effortlessly shoving me back with one palm. "I'm not saying you have the machine rigged. It's just that you have to be dropping the stuff through a sliding panel in—well, everything around us. You're sliding all that aside and dropping things through. But I want to know where they wind up. Reasonable?"
Carmen was an uneducated lout and a criminal but he had an instinctive feel for the mechanics of physics.
"I don't know where the stuff goes, Carmen," I finally admitted. "It might go into another plane of existence. 'Another dimension' the writers for the American Weekly would describe it. Or into our past, or our future."
The swarthy racketeer pursed his lips and apparently did some rapid calculation.
"I don't mind the first two, but I don't like them going into the future. If they do that, they may show up again in six months."
"Or six million years."
"You'll have to cut that future part out, Professor."
I was beginning to get a trifle impatient. All those folk tales I had heard about the Mafia were getting more distant. "See here, Carmen, I could lie to you and say they went into the prehistoric past and you would never know the difference. But the truth is, I just don't know where the processed material goes. There's a chance it may go into the future, yes. But unless it goes exactly one year or exactly so many years it would appear in empty space ... because the earth will have moved from the spot it was transmitted. I don't know for sure. Perhaps the slight Deneb-ward movement of the Solar System would wreck a perfect three-point landing even then and cause the dispatched materials to burn up from atmospheric friction, like meteors. You will just have to take a chance on the future. That's the best I can do."
Carmen inhaled deeply. "Okay. I'll risk it. Pretty long odds against any squeal on the play. How many of these things can you turn out, Professor?"
"I can construct a duplicate of this device so that you may destroy the unwanted corpses that you would have me believe are delivered to you with the regularity of the morning milk run."
The racketeer waved that suggestion aside. "I'm talking about a big operation, Venetti. These things can take the place of incinerators, garbage disposals, waste baskets...."
"Impractical," I snorted. "You don't realize the tremendous amount of electrical power these devices require...."
"Nuts! From what you said, the machine is like a TV set; it takes a lot of power to get it started, but then on it coasts on its own generators."
"There's something to what you say," I admitted in the face of his unexpected information. "But I can hardly turn my invention over to your entirely persuasive salesmen, I'm sure. This is part of the results of an investigation for the government. Washington will have to decide what to do with the machine."
"Listen, Professor," Carmen began, "the Mafia—"
"What makes you think I'm any more afraid of the Mafia than I am of the F.B.I.? I may have already sealed my fate by letting you in on this much. Machinegunning is hardly a less attractive fate to me than a poor security rating. To me, being dead professionally would be as bad as being dead biologically."
Tony Carmen laid a heavy hand on my shoulder. I finally deduced he intended to be cordial.
"Of course," he said smoothly "you have to give this to Washington but there are ways , Professor. I know. I'm a business man—"
"You are ?" I said.
He named some of the businesses in which he held large shares of stock.
"You are ."
"I've had experience in this sort of thing. We simply leak the information to a few hundred well selected persons about all that your machine can do. We'll call 'em Expendables, because they can expend anything."
"I," I interjected, "planned to call it the Venetti Machine."
"Professor, who calls the radio the Marconi these days?"
"There are Geiger-Muller Counters, though," I said.
"You don't have to give a Geiger counter the sex appeal of a TV set or a hardtop convertible. We'll call them Expendables. No home will be complete without one."
"Perfect for disposing of unwanted bodies," I mused. "The murder rate will go alarmingly with those devices within easy reach."
"Did that stop Sam Colt or Henry Ford?" Tony Carmen asked reasonably....
Naturally, I was aware that the government would not be interested in my machine. I am not a Fortean, a psychic, a psionicist or a screwball. But the government frequently gets things it doesn't know what to do with—like airplanes in the 'twenties. When it doesn't know what to do, it doesn't do it.
There have been hundreds of workable perpetual motion machines patented, for example. Of course, they weren't vices in the strictest sense of the word. Many of them used the external power of gravity, they would wear out or slow down in time from friction, but for the meanwhile, for some ten to two hundred years they would just sit there, moving. No one had ever been able to figure out what to do with them.
I knew the AEC wasn't going to dump tons of radioactive waste (with some possible future reclaimation value) into a machine which they didn't believe actually could work.
Tony Carmen knew exactly what to do with an Expendable once he got his hands on it.
Naturally, that was what I had been afraid of.
The closed sedan was warm, even in early December.
Outside, the street was a progression of shadowed block forms. I was shivering slightly, my teeth rattling like the porcelain they were. Was this the storied "ride," I wondered?
Carmen finally returned to the car, unlatched the door and slid in. He did not reinsert the ignition key. I did not feel like sprinting down the deserted street.
"The boys will have it set up in a minute," Tony the racketeer informed me.
"What?" The firing squad?
"The Expendable, of course."
"Here? You dragged me out here to see how you have prostituted my invention? I presume you've set it up with a 'Keep Our City Clean' sign pasted on it."
He chuckled. It was a somewhat nasty sound, or so I imagined.
A flashlight winked in the sooty twilight.
"Okay. Let's go," Tony said, slapping my shoulder.
I got out of the car, rubbing my flabby bicep. Whenever I took my teen-age daughter to the beach from my late wife's parents' home, I frequently found 230 pound bullies did kick sand in my ears.
The machine was installed on the corner, half covered with a gloomy white shroud, and fearlessly plugged into the city lighting system via a blanketed streetlamp. Two hoods hovered in a doorway ready to take care of the first cop with a couple of fifties or a single .38, as necessity dictated.
Tony guided my elbow. "Okay, Professor, I think I understand the bit now, but I'll let you run it up with the flagpole for me, to see how it waves to the national anthem."
"Here?" I spluttered once more. "I told you, Carmen, I wanted nothing more to do with you. Your check is still on deposit...."
"You didn't want anything to do with me in the first place." The thug's teeth flashed in the night. "Throw your contraption into gear, buddy."
That was the first time the tone of respect, even if faked, had gone out of his voice. I moved to the switchboard of my invention. What remained was as simple as adjusting a modern floor lamp to a medium light position. I flipped.
Restraining any impulse toward colloqualism, I was also deeply disturbed by what next occurred.
One of the massive square shapes on the horizon vanished.
"What have you done?" I yelped, ripping the cover off the machine.
Even under the uncertain illumination of the smogged stars I could see that the unit was half gone—in fact, exactly halved.
"Squint the Seal is one of my boys. He used to be a mechanic in the old days for Burger, Madle, the guys who used to rob banks and stuff." There was an unmistakable note of boyish admiration in Carmen's voice.
"He figured the thing would work like that. Separate the poles and you increase the size of the working area."
"You mean square the operational field. Your idiot doesn't even know mechanics."
"No, but he knows all about how any kind of machine works."
"You call that working?" I demanded. "Do you realize what you have there, Carmen?"
"Sure. A disintegrator ray, straight out of Startling Stories ."
My opinion as to the type of person who followed the pages of science-fiction magazines with fluttering lips and tracing finger was upheld.
I looked at the old warehouse and of course didn't see it.
"What was this a test for?" I asked, fearful of the Frankenstein I had made. "What are you planning to do now?"
"This was no test, Venetti. This was it. I just wiped out Harry Keno and his intimates right in the middle of their confidential squat."
"Good heavens. That's uncouthly old-fashioned of you, Carmen! Why, that's murder ."
"Not," Carmen said, "without no corpus delecti ."
"The body of the crime remains without the body of the victim," I remembered from my early Ellery Queen training.
"You're talking too much, Professor," Tony suggested. "Remember, you did it with your machine."
"Yes," I said at length. "And why are we standing here letting those machines sit there?"
There were two small items of interest to me in the Times the following morning.
One two-inch story—barely making page one because of a hole to fill at the bottom of an account of the number of victims of Indian summer heat prostration—told of the incineration of a warehouse on Fleet Street by an ingenious new arson bomb that left "virtually" no trace. (Maybe the fire inspector had planted a few traces to make his explanation more creditable.)
The second item was further over in a science column just off the editorial page. It told of the government—!—developing a new process of waste disposal rivaling the old Buck Rogers disintegrator ray.
This, I presumed, was one of Tony Carmen's information leaks.
If he hoped to arouse the public into demanding my invention I doubted he would succeed. The public had been told repeatedly of a new radioactive process for preserving food and a painless way of spraying injections through the skin. But they were still stuck with refrigerators and hypodermic needles.
I had forced my way half-way through the paper and the terrible coffee I made when the doorbell rang.
I was hardly surprised when it turned out to be Tony Carmen behind the front door.
He pushed in, slapping a rolled newspaper in his palm. "Action, Professor."
"The district attorney has indicted you?" I asked hopefully.
"He's not even indicted you , Venetti. No, I got a feeler on this plant in the Times ."
I shook my head. "The government will take over the invention, no matter what the public wants."
"The public? Who cares about the public? The Arcivox corporation wants this machine of yours. They have their agents tracing the plant now. They will go from the columnist to his legman to my man and finally to you. Won't be long before they get here. An hour maybe."
"Arcivox makes radios and TV sets. What do they want with the Expendables?"
"Opening up a new appliance line with real innovations. I hear they got a new refrigerator. All open. Just shelves—no doors or sides. They want a revolutionary garbage disposal too."
"Do you own stock in the company? Is that how you know?"
"I own stock in a competitor. That's how I know," Carmen informed me.
"Listen, Professor, you can sell to Arcivox and still keep control of the patents through a separate corporation. And I'll give you 49% of its stock."
This was Carmen's idea of a magnanimous offer for my invention. It was a pretty good offer—49% and my good health.
"But will the government let Arcivox have the machine for commercial use?"
"The government would let Arcivox have the hydrogen bomb if they found a commercial use for it."
There was a sturdy knock on the door, not a shrill ring of the bell.
"That must be Arcivox now," Carmen growled. "They have the best detectives in the business. You know what to tell them?"
I knew what to tell them.
I peeled off my wet shirt and threw it across the corner of my desk, casting a reproving eye at the pastel air-conditioner in the window. It wasn't really the machine's fault—The water department reported the reservoir too low to run water-cooled systems. It would be a day or two before I could get the gas type into my office.
Miss Brown, my secretary, was getting a good look at my pale, bony chest. Well, for the salary she got, she could stand to look. Of course, she herself was wearing a modest one-strap sun dress, not shorts and halters like some of the girls.
"My," she observed "it certainly is humid for March, isn't it, Professor Venetti?"
I agreed that it was.
She got her pad and pencil ready.
"Wheedling form letter to Better Mousetraps. Where are our royalties for the last quarter of the year? We know we didn't have a full three months with our Expendable Field in operation on the new traps, but we want the payola for what we have coming.
"Condescending form letter to Humane Lethal Equipment. Absolutely do not send the California penal system any chambers equipped with our patented field until legislature officially approves them. We got away with it in New Mexico, but we're older and wiser now.
"Rush priority telegram to President, United States, any time in the next ten days. Thanks for citation, et cetera. Glad buddy system working out well in training battlefield disintegrator teams.
"Indignant form letter to Arcivox. We do not feel we are properly a co-respondent in your damage suits. Small children and appliances have always been a problem, viz ice boxes and refrigerators. Suggest you put a more complicated latch on the handles of the dangerously inferior doors you have covering our efficient, patented field."
I leaned back and took a breather. There was no getting around it—I just wasn't happy as a business man. I had been counting on being only a figurehead in the Expendable Patent Holding Corporation, but Tony Carmen didn't like office work. And he hadn't anyone he trusted any more than me. Even.
I jerked open a drawer and pulled off a paper towel from the roll I had stolen in the men's room. Scrubbing my chest and neck with it, I smoothed it out and dropped it into the wastebasket. It slid down the tapering sides and through the narrow slot above the Expendable Field. I had redesigned the wastebaskets after a janitor had stepped in one. But Gimpy was happy now, with the $50,000 we paid him.
I opened my mouth and Miss Brown's pencil perked up its eraser, reflecting her fierce alertness.
Tony Carmen banged open the door, and I closed my mouth.
"G-men on the way here," he blurted and collapsed into a chair opposite Miss Brown.
"Don't revert to type," I warned him. "What kind of G-Men? FBI? FCC? CIA? FDA? USTD?"
"Investigators for the Atomic Energy Commission."
The solemn, conservatively dressed young man in the door touched the edge of his snap-brim hat as he said it.
"Miss Brown, would you mind letting our visitor use your chair?" I asked.
"Not at all, sir," she said dreamily.
"May I suggest," I said, "that we might get more business done if you then removed yourself from the chair first."
Miss Brown leaped to her feet with a healthy galvanic response and quit the vicinity with her usual efficiency.
Once seated, the AEC man said "I'll get right to the point. You may find this troublesome, gentlemen, but your government intends to confiscate all of the devices using your so-called Expendable field, and forever bar their manufacture in this country or their importation."
"You stinking G-men aren't getting away with this," Carmen said ingratiatingly. "Ever hear of the Mafia?"
"Not much," the young man admitted earnestly, "since the FBI finished with its deportations a few years back."
I cleared my throat. "I must admit that the destruction of a multi-billion business is disconcerting before lunch. May we ask why you took this step?"
The agent inserted a finger between his collar and tie. "Have you noticed how unseasonably warm it is?"
"I wondered if you had. You're going to have heat prostration if you keep that suit coat on five minutes more."
The young man collapsed back in his chair, loosening the top button of his ivy league jacket, looking from my naked hide to the gossomer scrap of sport shirt Carmen wore. "We have to dress inconspicuously in the service," he panted weakly.
I nodded understandingly. "What does the heat have to do with the outlawing of the Expendables?"
"At first we thought there might be some truth in the folk nonsense that nuclear tests had something to do with raising the mean temperature of the world," the AEC man said. "But our scientists quickly found they weren't to blame."
"Clever of them."
"Yes, they saw that the widespread use of your machines was responsible for the higher temperature. Your device violates the law of conservation of energy, seemingly . It seemingly destroys matter without creating energy. Actually—"
He paused dramatically.
"Actually, your device added the energy it created in destroying matter to the energy potential of the planet in the form of heat . You see what that means? If your devices continue in operation, the mean temperature of Earth will rise to the point where we burst into flame. They must be outlawed!"
"I agree," I said reluctantly.
Tony Carmen spoke up. "No, you don't, Professor. We don't agree to that."
I waved his protests aside.
"I would agree," I said, "except that it wouldn't work. Explain the danger to the public, let them feel the heat rise themselves, and they will hoard Expendables against seizure and continue to use them, until we do burst into flame, as you put it so religiously."
"Why?" the young man demanded.
"Because Expendables are convenient. There is a ban on frivolous use of water due to the dire need. But the police still have to go stop people from watering lawns, and I suspect not a few swimming pools are being filled on the sly. Water is somebody else's worry. So will be generating enough heat to turn Eden into Hell."
"Mass psychology isn't my strongest point," the young man said worriedly. "But I suspect you may be right. Then—we'll be damned?"
"No, not necessarily," I told him comfortingly. "All we have to do is use up the excess energy with engines of a specific design."
"But can we design those engines in time?" the young man wondered with uncharacteristic gloom.
"Certainly," I said, practising the power of positive thinking. "Now that your world-wide testing laboratories have confirmed a vague fear of mine, I can easily reverse the field of the Expendable device and create a rather low-efficiency engine that consumes the excess energy in our planetary potential."
The agent of the AEC whose name I can never remember was present along
with Tony Carmen the night my assistants finished with the work I had
outlined.
While it was midnight outside, the fluorescents made the scene more
visible than sunlight. My Disexpendable was a medium-sized drum in a
tripod frame with an unturned coolie's hat at the bottom.
Breathlessly, I closed the switch and the scooped disc began slowly to
revolve.
"Is it my imagination," the agent asked, "or is it getting cooler in
here?"
"Professor." Carmen gave me a warning nudge.
There was now something on the revolving disc. It was a bar of some
shiny gray metal.
"Kill the power, Professor," Carmen said.
"Can it be," I wondered, "that the machine is somehow recreating or
drawing back the processed material from some other time or dimension?"
"Shut the thing off, Venetti!" the racketeer demanded.
But too late.
There was now a somewhat dead man sitting in the saddle of the turning
circle of metal.
If Harry Keno had only been sane when he turned up on that
merry-go-round in Boston I feel we would have learned much of immense
value on the nature of time and space.
As it is, I feel that it is a miscarriage of justice to hold me in
connection with the murders I am sure Tony Carmen did commit.
I hope this personal account when published will end the vicious
story supported by the district attorney that it was I who sought Tony
Carmen out and offered to dispose of his enemies and that I sought his
financial backing for the exploitation of my invention.
This is the true, and only true, account of the development of the
machine known as the Expendable.
I am only sorry, now that the temperature has been standardized once
more, that the Expendable's antithesis, the Disexpendable, is of too
low an order of efficiency to be of much value as a power source in
these days of nuclear and solar energy. So the world is again stuck
with the problem of waste disposal ... including all that I dumped
before. But as a great American once said, you can't win 'em all.
If you so desire, you may send your generous and fruitful letters
towards my upcoming defense in care of this civic-minded publication.
|
Describe the relationship between Corporal Bettiejean and Sergeant Andy.
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Plague by Teddy Keller.
Relevant chunks:
THE PLAGUE
By TEDDY KELLER
Suppose a strictly one hundred per cent American plague showed up.... One that attacked only people within the political borders of the United States!
Illustrated by Schoenherr
Sergeant Major Andrew McCloud ignored the jangling telephones and the excited jabber of a room full of brass, and lit a cigarette. Somebody had to keep his head in this mess. Everybody was about to flip.
Like the telephone. Two days ago Corporal Bettijean Baker had been answering the rare call on the single line—in that friendly, husky voice that gave even generals pause—by saying, "Good morning. Office of the Civil Health and Germ Warfare Protection Co-ordinator." Now there was a switchboard out in the hall with a web of lines running to a dozen girls at a half dozen desks wedged into the outer office. And now the harried girls answered with a hasty, "Germ War Protection."
All the brass hats in Washington had suddenly discovered this office deep in the recesses of the Pentagon. And none of them could quite comprehend what had happened. The situation might have been funny, or at least pathetic, if it hadn't been so desperate. Even so, Andy McCloud's nerves and patience had frayed thin.
"I told you, general," he snapped to the flustered brigadier, "Colonel Patterson was retired ten days ago. I don't know what happened. Maybe this replacement sawbones got strangled in red tape. Anyhow, the brand-new lieutenant hasn't showed up here. As far as I know, I'm in charge."
"But this is incredible," a two-star general wailed. "A mysterious epidemic is sweeping the country, possibly an insidious germ attack timed to precede an all-out invasion, and a noncom is sitting on top of the whole powder keg."
Andy's big hands clenched into fists and he had to wait a moment before he could speak safely. Doggone the freckles and the unruly mop of hair that give him such a boyish look. "May I remind you, general," he said, "that I've been entombed here for two years. My staff and I know what to do. If you'll give us some co-operation and a priority, we'll try to figure this thing out."
"But good heavens," a chicken colonel moaned, "this is all so irregular. A noncom!" He said it like a dirty word.
"Irregular, hell," the brigadier snorted, the message getting through.
"There're ways. Gentlemen, I suggest we clear out of here and let the sergeant get to work." He took a step toward the door, and the other officers, protesting and complaining, moved along after him. As they drifted out, he turned and said, "We'll clear your office for top priority." Then dead serious, he added, "Son, a whole nation could panic at any moment. You've got to come through."
Andy didn't waste time standing. He merely nodded to the general, snubbed out his cigarette, and buzzed the intercom. "Bettijean, will you bring me all the latest reports, please?" Then he peeled out of his be-ribboned blouse and rolled up his sleeves. He allowed himself one moment to enjoy the sight of the slim, black-headed corporal who entered his office.
Bettijean crossed briskly to his desk. She gave him a motherly smile as she put down a thick sheaf of papers. "You look beat," she said.
"Brass give you much trouble?"
"Not much. We're top priority now." He ran fingers through the thick, brown hair and massaged his scalp, trying to generate stimulation to his wary and confused brain. "What's new?"
"I've gone though some of these," she said. "Tried to save you a little time."
"Thanks. Sit down."
She pulled up a chair and thumbed through the papers. "So far, no fatalities. That's why there's no panic yet, I guess. But it's spreading like ... well, like a plague." Fear flickered deep in her dark eyes.
"Any water reports?" Andy asked.
"Wichita O.K., Indianapolis O.K., Tulsa O.K., Buffalo O.K.,—and a bunch more. No indication there. Except"—she fished out a one-page report—"some little town in Tennessee. Yesterday there was a campaign for everybody to write their congressman about some deal and today they were to vote on a new water system. Hardly anybody showed up at the polls. They've all got it."
Andy shrugged. "You can drink water, but don't vote for it. Oh, that's a big help." He rummaged through the clutter on his desk and came up with a crude chart. "Any trends yet?"
"It's hitting everybody," Bettijean said helplessly. "Not many kids so far, thank heavens. But housewives, businessmen, office workers, teachers, preachers—rich, poor—from Florida to Alaska. Just when you called me in, one of the girls thought she had a trend. The isolated mountain areas of the West and South. But reports are too fragmentary."
"What is it?" he cried suddenly, banging the desk. "People deathly ill, but nobody dying. And doctors can't identify the poison until they have a fatality for an autopsy. People stricken in every part of the country, but the water systems are pure. How does it spread?"
"In food?"
"How? There must be hundreds of canneries and dairies and packing plants over the country. How could they all goof at the same time—even if it was sabotage?"
"On the wind?"
"But who could accurately predict every wind over the entire country—even Alaska and Hawaii—without hitting Canada or Mexico? And why wouldn't everybody get it in a given area?"
Bettijean's smooth brow furrowed and she reached across the desk to grip his icy, sweating hands. "Andy, do ... do you think it's ... well, an enemy?"
"I don't know," he said. "I just don't know."
For a long moment he sat there, trying to draw strength from her, punishing his brain for the glimmer of an idea. Finally, shaking his head, he pushed back into his chair and reached for the sheaf of papers.
"We've got to find a clue—a trend—an inkling of something." He nodded toward the outer office. "Stop all in-coming calls. Get those girls on lines to hospitals in every city and town in the country. Have them contact individual doctors in rural areas. Then line up another relief crew, and get somebody carting in more coffee and sandwiches. And on those calls, be sure we learn the sex, age, and occupation of the victims. You and I'll start with Washington."
Bettijean snapped to her feet, grinned her encouragement and strode from the room. Andy could hear her crisp instructions to the girls on the phones. Sucking air through his teeth, he reached for his phone and directory.
He dialed until every finger of his right hand was sore. He spoke to worried doctors and frantic hospital administrators and hysterical nurses. His firm, fine penmanship deteriorated to a barely legible scrawl as writer's cramp knotted his hand and arm. His voice burned down to a rasping whisper. But columns climbed up his rough chart and broken lines pointed vaguely to trends.
It was hours later when Bettijean came back into the office with another stack of papers. Andy hung up his phone and reached for a cigarette. At that moment the door banged open. Nerves raw, Bettijean cried out. Andy's cigarette tumbled from his trembling fingers.
"Sergeant," the chicken colonel barked, parading into the office.
Andy swore under his breath and eyed the two young officers who trailed after the colonel. Emotionally exhausted, he had to clamp his jaw against a huge laugh that struggled up in his throat. For just an instant there, the colonel had reminded him of a movie version of General Rommel strutting up and down before his tanks. But it wasn't a swagger stick the colonel had tucked under his arm. It was a folded newspaper. Opening it, the colonel flung it down on Andy's desk.
"RED PLAGUE SWEEPS NATION," the scare headline screamed. Andy's first glance caught such phrases as "alleged Russian plot" and "germ warfare" and "authorities hopelessly baffled."
Snatching the paper, Andy balled it and hurled it from him. "That'll help a lot," he growled hoarsely.
"Well, then, Sergeant." The colonel tried to relax his square face, but tension rode every weathered wrinkle and fear glinted behind the pale gray eyes. "So you finally recognize the gravity of the situation."
Andy's head snapped up, heated words searing towards his lips. Bettijean stepped quickly around the desk and laid a steady hand on his shoulder.
"Colonel," she said levelly, "you should know better than that."
A shocked young captain exploded, "Corporal. Maybe you'd better report to—"
"All right," Andy said sharply.
For a long moment he stared at his clenched fists. Then he exhaled slowly and, to the colonel, flatly and without apology, he said,
"You'll have to excuse the people in this office if they overlook some of the G.I. niceties. We've been without sleep for two days, we're surviving on sandwiches and coffee, and we're fighting a war here that makes every other one look like a Sunday School picnic." He felt Bettijean's hand tighten reassuringly on his shoulder and he gave her a tired smile. Then he hunched forward and picked up a report. "So say what you came here to say and let us get back to work."
"Sergeant," the captain said, as if reading from a manual,
"insubordination cannot be tolerated, even under emergency conditions. Your conduct here will be noted and—"
"Oh, good heavens!" Bettijean cried, her fingers biting into Andy's shoulder. "Do you have to come in here trying to throw your weight around when this man—"
"That's enough," the colonel snapped. "I had hoped that you two would co-operate, but...." He let the sentence trail off as he swelled up a bit with his own importance. "I have turned Washington upside down to get these two officers from the surgeon general's office. Sergeant. Corporal. You are relieved of your duties as of this moment. You will report to my office at once for suitable disciplinary action."
Bettijean sucked in a strained breath and her hand flew to her mouth.
"But you can't—"
"Let's go," Andy said, pushing up from his chair. Ignoring the brass, he turned to her and brushed his lips across hers. "Let them sweat a while. Let 'em have the whole stinking business. Whatever they do to us, at least we can get some sleep."
"But you can't quit now," Bettijean protested. "These brass hats don't know from—"
"Corporal!" the colonel roared.
And from the door, an icy voice said, "Yes, colonel?"
The colonel and his captains wheeled, stared and saluted. "Oh, general," the colonel said. "I was just—"
"I know," the brigadier said, stepping into the room. "I've been listening to you. And I thought I suggested that everybody leave the sergeant and his staff alone."
"But, general, I—"
The general showed the colonel his back and motioned Andy into his chair. He glanced to Bettijean and a smile warmed his wedge face.
"Corporal, were you speaking just then as a woman or as a soldier?"
Crimson erupted into Bettijean's face and her tight laugh said many things. She shrugged. "Both I guess."
The general waved her to a chair and, oblivious of the colonel, pulled up a chair for himself. The last trace of humor drained from his face as he leaned elbows on the desk. "Andy, this is even worse than we had feared."
Andy fumbled for a cigarette and Bettijean passed him a match. A captain opened his mouth to speak, but the colonel shushed him.
"I've just come from Intelligence," the general said. "We haven't had a report—nothing from our agents, from the Diplomatic Corps, from the civilian newspapermen—not a word from any Iron Curtain country for a day and half. Everybody's frantic. The last item we had—it was a coded message the Reds'd tried to censor—was an indication of something big in the works."
"A day and half ago," Andy mused. "Just about the time we knew we had an epidemic. And about the time they knew it."
"It could be just propaganda," Bettijean said hopefully, "proving that they could cripple us from within."
The general nodded. "Or it could be the softening up for an all-out effort. Every American base in the world is alerted and every serviceman is being issued live ammunition. If we're wrong, we've still got an epidemic and panic that could touch it off. If we're right ... well, we've got to know. What can you do?"
Andy dropped his haggard face into his hands. His voice came through muffled. "I can sit here and cry." For an eternity he sat there, futility piling on helplessness, aware of Bettijean's hand on his arm. He heard the colonel try to speak and sensed the general's movement that silenced him.
Suddenly he sat upright and slapped a palm down on the desk. "We'll find your answers, sir. All we ask is co-operation."
The general gave both Andy and Bettijean a long, sober look, then launched himself from the chair. Pivoting, he said, "Colonel, you and your captains will be stationed by that switchboard out there. For the duration of this emergency, you will take orders only from the sergeant and the corporal here."
"But, general," the colonel wailed, "a noncom? I'm assigned—"
The general snorted. "Insubordination cannot be tolerated—unless you find a two-star general to outrank me. Now, as I said before, let's get out of here and let these people work."
The brass exited wordlessly. Bettijean sighed noisily. Andy found his cigarette dead and lit another. He fancied a tiny lever in his brain and he shifted gears to direct his thinking back into the proper channel. Abruptly his fatigue began to lift. He picked up the new pile of reports Bettijean had brought in.
She move around the desk and sat, noting the phone book he had used, studying the names he had crossed off. "Did you learn anything?" she asked.
Andy coughed, trying to clear his raw throat. "It's crazy," he said.
"From the Senate and House on down, I haven't found a single government worker sick."
"I found a few," she said. "Over in a Virginia hospital."
"But I did find," Andy said, flipping through pages of his own scrawl, "a society matron and her social secretary, a whole flock of office workers—business, not government—and new parents and newly engaged girls and...." He shrugged.
"Did you notice anything significant about those office workers?"
Andy nodded. "I was going to ask you the same, since I was just guessing. I hadn't had time to check it out."
"Well, I checked some. Practically none of my victims came from big offices, either business or industry. They were all out of one and two-girl offices or small businesses."
"That was my guess. And do you know that I didn't find a doctor, dentist or attorney?"
"Nor a single postal worker."
Andy tried to smile. "One thing we do know. It's not a communicable thing. Thank heaven for—"
He broke off as a cute blonde entered and put stacks of reports before both Andy and Bettijean. The girl hesitated, fidgeting, fingers to her teeth. Then, without speaking, she hurried out.
Andy stared at the top sheet and groaned. "This may be something. Half the adult population of Aspen, Colorado, is down."
"What?" Bettijean frowned over the report in her hands. "It's the same thing—only not quite as severe—in Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico."
"Writers?"
"Mostly. Some artists, too, and musicians. And poets are among the hard hit."
"This is insane," Andy muttered. "Doctors and dentists are fine—writers and poets are sick. Make sense out of that."
Bettijean held up a paper and managed a confused smile. "Here's a country doctor in Tennessee. He doesn't even know what it's all about. Nobody's sick in his valley."
"Somebody in our outer office is organized," Andy said, pulling at his cigarette. "Here're reports from a dozen military installations all lumped together."
"What does it show?"
"Black-out. By order of somebody higher up—no medical releases. Must mean they've got it." He scratched the growing stubble on his chin.
"If this were a fifth column setup, wouldn't the armed forces be the first hit?"
"Sure," Bettijean brightened, then sobered. "Maybe not. The brass could keep it secret if an epidemic hit an army camp. And they could slap a control condition on any military area. But the panic will come from the general public."
"Here's another batch," Andy said. "Small college towns under twenty-five thousand population. All hard hit."
"Well, it's not split intellectually. Small colleges and small offices and writers get it. Doctors don't and dentists don't. But we can't tell who's got it on the military bases."
"And it's not geographical. Look, remember those two reports from Tennessee? That place where they voted on water bonds or something, everybody had it. But the country doctor in another section hadn't even heard of it." Andy could only shake his head.
Bettijean heaved herself up from the chair and trudged back to the outer office. She returned momentarily with a tray of food. Putting a paper cup of coffee and a sandwich in front of Andy, she sat down and nibbled at her snack like an exhausted chipmunk.
Andy banged a fist at his desk again. Coffee splashed over the rim of his cup onto the clutter of papers. "It's here," he said angrily.
"It's here somewhere, but we can't find it."
"The answer?"
"Of course. What is it that girls in small offices do or eat or drink or wear that girls in large offices don't do or eat or drink or wear? What do writers and doctors do differently? Or poets and dentists? What are we missing? What—"
In the outer office a girl cried out. A body thumped against a desk, then a chair, then to the floor. Two girls screamed.
Andy bolted up from his chair. Racing to the door, he shouted back to Bettijean, "Get a staff doctor and a chemist from the lab."
It was the girl who had been so nervous in his office earlier. Now she lay in a pathetic little heap between her desk and chair, whimpering, shivering, eyes wide with horror. The other girls clustered at the hall door, plainly ready to stampede.
"It's not contagious," Andy growled. "Find some blankets or coats to cover her. And get a glass of water."
The other girls, glad for the excuse, dashed away. Andy scooped up the fallen girl and put her down gently on the close-jammed desks. He used a chair cushion for a pillow. By then the other girls were back with a blanket and the glass of water. He covered the girl, gave her a sip of water and heard somebody murmur, "Poor Janis."
"Now," Andy said brightly, "how's that, Janis?"
She mustered a smile, and breathed, "Better. I ... I was so scared. Fever and dizzy ... symptoms like the epidemic."
"Now you know there's nothing to be afraid of," Andy said, feeling suddenly and ridiculously like a pill roller with a practiced bedside manner. "You know you may feel pretty miserable, but nobody's conked out with this stuff yet."
Janis breathed out and her taut body relaxed.
"Don't hurry," Andy said, "but I want you to tell me everything that you did—everything you ate or drank—in the last ... oh, twelve hours." He felt a pressure behind him and swiveled his head to see Bettijean standing there. He tried to smile.
"What time is it?" Janis asked weakly.
Andy glanced to a wall clock, then gave it a double take.
One of the girls said, "It's three o'clock in the morning." She edged nearer Andy, obviously eager to replace Janis as the center of attention. Andy ignored her.
"I ... I've been here since ... golly, yesterday morning at nine," Janis said. "I came to work as usual and...."
Slowly, haltingly, she recited the routine of a routine work day, then told about the quick snack that sufficed for supper and about staying on her phone and typewriter for another five hours. "It was about eleven when the relief crew came in."
"What did you do then?" Andy asked.
"I ... I took a break and...." Her ivory skin reddened, the color spreading into the roots of her fluffy curls, and she turned her face away from Andy. "And I had a sandwich and some coffee and got a little nap in the ladies' lounge and ... and that's all."
"And that's not all," Andy prompted. "What else?"
"Nothing," Janis said too quickly.
Andy shook his head. "Tell it all and maybe it'll help."
"But ... but...."
"Was it something against regulations?"
"I ... I don't know. I think...."
"I'll vouch for your job in this office."
"Well...." She seemed on the verge of tears and her pleading glance sought out Andy, then Bettijean, then her co-workers. Finally, resigned, she said, "I ... I wrote a letter to my mother."
Andy swallowed against his groan of disappointment. "And you told her about what we were doing here."
Janis nodded, and tears welled into her wide eyes.
"Did you mail it?"
"Y ... yes."
"You didn't use a government envelope to save a stamp?"
"Oh, no. I always carry a few stamps with me." She choked down a sob.
"Did I do wrong?"
"No, I don't think so," Andy said, patting her shoulder. "There's certainly nothing secret about this epidemic. Now you just take it easy and—. Oh, here's a doctor now."
The doctor, a white-headed Air Force major, bustled into the room. A lab technician in a white smock was close behind. Andy could only shrug and indicate the girl.
Turning away, lighting a cigarette, he tried to focus on the tangle of thoughts that spun through his head. Doctors, writers, society matrons, office workers—Aspen, Taos and college towns—thousands of people sick—but none in that valley in Tennessee—and few government workers—just one girl in his office—and she was sicker and more frightened about a letter—and....
"Hey, wait!" Andy yelled.
Everyone in the room froze as Andy spun around, dashed to Bettijean's desk and yanked out the wide, top drawer. He pawed through it, straightened, then leaped across to the desk Janis had used. He snatched open drawer after drawer. In a bottom one he found her purse. Ripping it open, he dumped the contents on the desk and clawed through the pile until he found what he wanted. Handing it to the lab technician, he said, "Get me a report. Fast."
The technician darted out.
Andy wheeled to Bettijean. "Get the brass in here. And call the general first." To the doctor, he said, "Give that girl the best of everything."
Then he ducked back to his own office and to the pile of reports. He was still poring over them when the general arrived. Half a dozen other brass hats, none of whom had been to bed, were close behind. The lab technician arrived a minute later. He shook his head as he handed his hastily scribbled report to Andy.
It was Bettijean who squeezed into the office and broke the brittle silence. "Andy, for heaven's sake, what is it?" Then she moved around the desk to stand behind him as he faced the officers.
"Have you got something?" the brigadier asked. "Some girl outside was babbling about writers and doctors, and dentists and college students, and little secretaries and big secretaries. Have you established a trend?"
Andy glanced at the lab report and his smile was as relieved as it was weary. "Our problem," he said, "was in figuring out what a writer does that a doctor doesn't—why girls from small offices were sick—and why senators and postal workers weren't—why college students caught the bug and people in a Tennessee community didn't.
"The lab report isn't complete. They haven't had time to isolate the poison and prescribe medication. But"—he held up a four-cent stamp—"here's the villain, gentlemen."
The big brass stood stunned and shocked. Mouths flapped open and eyes bugged at Andy, at the stamp.
Bettijean said, "Sure. College kids and engaged girls and new parents and especially writers and artists and poets—they'd all lick lots of stamps. Professional men have secretaries. Big offices have postage-meter machines. And government offices have free franking. And"—she threw her arms around the sergeant's neck—"Andy, you're wonderful."
"The old American ingenuity," the colonel said, reaching for Andy's phone. "I knew we could lick it. Now all we have to do—"
"At ease, colonel," the brigadier said sharply. He waited until the colonel had retreated, then addressed Andy. "It's your show. What do you suggest?"
"Get somebody—maybe even the President—on all radio and TV networks. Explain frankly about the four-centers and warn against licking any stamps. Then—"
He broke off as his phone rang. Answering, he listened for a moment, then hung up and said, "But before the big announcement, get somebody checking on the security clearances at whatever plant it is where they print stamps. This's a big deal. Somebody may've been planted years ago for this operation. It shouldn't be too hard.
"But there's no evidence it was a plot yet. Could be pure accident—some chemical in the stickum spoiled. Do they keep the stickum in barrels? Find out who had access. And ... oh, the phone call. That was the lab. The antidote's simple and the cure should be quick. They can phone or broadcast the medical information to doctors. The man on the phone said they could start emptying hospitals in six hours. And maybe we should release some propaganda. "United States whips mystery virus," or something like that. And we could send the Kremlin a stamp collection and.... Aw, you take it, sir. I'm pooped."
The general wheeled to fire a salvo of commands. Officers poured into the corridor. Only the brigadier remained, a puzzled frown crinkling his granite brow.
"But you said that postal workers weren't getting sick."
Andy chucked. "That's right. Did you ever see a post office clerk lick a stamp? They always use a sponge."
The general looked to Bettijean, to Andy, to the stamp. He grinned and the grin became a rumbling laugh. "How would you two like a thirty-day furlough to rest up—or to get better acquainted?"
Bettijean squealed. Andy reached for her hand.
"And while you're gone," the general continued, "I'll see what strings I can pull. If I can't wangle you a couple of battlefield commissions, I'll zip you both through O.C.S. so fast you won't even have time to pin on the bars."
But neither Andy nor Bettijean had heard a word after the mention of furlough. Like a pair of puppy-lovers, they were sinking into the depths of each other's eyes.
And the general was still chuckling as he picked up the lone four-cent stamp in his left hand, made a gun of his right hand, and marched the stamp out of the office under guard.
THE END
Question:
Describe the relationship between Corporal Bettiejean and Sergeant Andy.
Answer:
|
[
"Sergeant Andrew McCloud is Corporal Bettijean Baker’s superior, both in rank and position at the Germ War office. They have worked together before, perhaps for the two years that Andy has been stationed there. Their relationship ranges from colleagues to lovers, sharing kisses at work or gentle shoulder touches, while still maintaining a professional atmosphere. \n\tThey begin the story extremely stressed, due to the sudden epidemic, and use their combined brain power to find the root cause of the disease. After hours of working together and defending each other to their higher-ups, they are able to identify different groups of people that have been infected, all of which are random and don’t show a clear trend. After the truth is discovered, that the disease is being spread through licking stamps, Corporal Bettijean and Sergeant Andrew are granted a 30-day vacation together, with the promises of getting to know each other better. They accept gratefully, and stare into each other’s eyes. \n\tThough their relationship may be inappropriate in the modern office, it’s clear through their constant defense of the other and dedication to the cause, that their romance is just as strong as their professional relationship. \n",
"Corporal Bettiejean and Sergeant Andy are colleagues at the Office of Civil Health and Germ Warfare Protection. When Andy is suddenly in charge as the Co-ordinator of the office, Bettiejean is his assistant. The two of them work together to comb through the reports about various aspects of infrastructure that could be responsible for the transmission of the epidemic. Part of this process involves a lot of brainstorming, and throwing ideas back and forth about what the problem could be. When their superior officers come by, and the colonel starts yelling at Andy, Bettiejean defends him and tries to make the colonel realize his rude behavior is entirely unhelpful, which is eventually escalated into an emotional discussion as her grip on Andy’s shoulder grows tighter. She supports him in other ways, too, including handing Andy a match when he tries to light a cigarette, which he does often. The two of them kept the hope for a solution in mind as they worked through more piles of reports, and when Andy develops his theory about the postage stamps being the culprit, it is Bettijean that he sends to call in their superiors. She comes into his office to check on him, and is there while Andy explains that they have a solution. Apparently their interactions have been visible to the rest of the staff in the office, as the general gives them a month of furlough after the root of the problem has been identified, teasing them a bit about the chance to get to know each other. As the story ends, they are looking into each other’s eyes longingly, ready to take the month off. ",
"Bettijean and Andy are in a professional relationship with Andy as Bettijean's superior. They are also on close personal terms with romantic overtones.\n\nAs the crisis intensifies, Andy and Bettijean work together to pour through the details of the illness. They view each other as a team although with Bettijean clearly subordinate to Andy. She follows Andy's orders but is also valued for her contribution and viewed as an equal.\n\nAs the crisis is averted, the pair are rewarded with a vacation furlough and pending promotion. The pair are only excited about the furlough and it is implied that they will spend it together as lovers. ",
"Corporal Bettlejean and Sargeant McCloud have a friendly and important relationship. Bettlejean shows her intense interest in McCloud when she checks in on him about how he’s feeling and how their colleagues are treating him. She tries her best to help Andy in his work and set him up to be successful at his job. When McCloud wants to fire back at colonel chicken for what he sees as mistreatment, Bettlejean gently reminds him to keep his composure with only a small and silent gesture. \n\nMcCloud looks at the various groups of people who have come down with the sickness and compares them to those that are fine, and he realizes that the illness is most likely caused by licking postage stamps. Bettlejean beams with pride as he makes his announcement. She is not jealous of his sharp wit and hard work. She supports his reasoning and immediately congratulates him on his brilliant idea. \n\nThroughout the story, McCloud and Bettlejean work together to solve the mystery, and they are quietly flirtatious, even in front of their coworkers. It is clear that the general has picked up on their attraction to one another when he suggests that they use their much deserved time off to get to know each other better. The two confirm that they will in fact be seeing more of each other when they hold hands at the news. \n\n"
] |
30062
|
THE PLAGUE
By TEDDY KELLER
Suppose a strictly one hundred per cent American plague showed up.... One that attacked only people within the political borders of the United States!
Illustrated by Schoenherr
Sergeant Major Andrew McCloud ignored the jangling telephones and the excited jabber of a room full of brass, and lit a cigarette. Somebody had to keep his head in this mess. Everybody was about to flip.
Like the telephone. Two days ago Corporal Bettijean Baker had been answering the rare call on the single line—in that friendly, husky voice that gave even generals pause—by saying, "Good morning. Office of the Civil Health and Germ Warfare Protection Co-ordinator." Now there was a switchboard out in the hall with a web of lines running to a dozen girls at a half dozen desks wedged into the outer office. And now the harried girls answered with a hasty, "Germ War Protection."
All the brass hats in Washington had suddenly discovered this office deep in the recesses of the Pentagon. And none of them could quite comprehend what had happened. The situation might have been funny, or at least pathetic, if it hadn't been so desperate. Even so, Andy McCloud's nerves and patience had frayed thin.
"I told you, general," he snapped to the flustered brigadier, "Colonel Patterson was retired ten days ago. I don't know what happened. Maybe this replacement sawbones got strangled in red tape. Anyhow, the brand-new lieutenant hasn't showed up here. As far as I know, I'm in charge."
"But this is incredible," a two-star general wailed. "A mysterious epidemic is sweeping the country, possibly an insidious germ attack timed to precede an all-out invasion, and a noncom is sitting on top of the whole powder keg."
Andy's big hands clenched into fists and he had to wait a moment before he could speak safely. Doggone the freckles and the unruly mop of hair that give him such a boyish look. "May I remind you, general," he said, "that I've been entombed here for two years. My staff and I know what to do. If you'll give us some co-operation and a priority, we'll try to figure this thing out."
"But good heavens," a chicken colonel moaned, "this is all so irregular. A noncom!" He said it like a dirty word.
"Irregular, hell," the brigadier snorted, the message getting through.
"There're ways. Gentlemen, I suggest we clear out of here and let the sergeant get to work." He took a step toward the door, and the other officers, protesting and complaining, moved along after him. As they drifted out, he turned and said, "We'll clear your office for top priority." Then dead serious, he added, "Son, a whole nation could panic at any moment. You've got to come through."
Andy didn't waste time standing. He merely nodded to the general, snubbed out his cigarette, and buzzed the intercom. "Bettijean, will you bring me all the latest reports, please?" Then he peeled out of his be-ribboned blouse and rolled up his sleeves. He allowed himself one moment to enjoy the sight of the slim, black-headed corporal who entered his office.
Bettijean crossed briskly to his desk. She gave him a motherly smile as she put down a thick sheaf of papers. "You look beat," she said.
"Brass give you much trouble?"
"Not much. We're top priority now." He ran fingers through the thick, brown hair and massaged his scalp, trying to generate stimulation to his wary and confused brain. "What's new?"
"I've gone though some of these," she said. "Tried to save you a little time."
"Thanks. Sit down."
She pulled up a chair and thumbed through the papers. "So far, no fatalities. That's why there's no panic yet, I guess. But it's spreading like ... well, like a plague." Fear flickered deep in her dark eyes.
"Any water reports?" Andy asked.
"Wichita O.K., Indianapolis O.K., Tulsa O.K., Buffalo O.K.,—and a bunch more. No indication there. Except"—she fished out a one-page report—"some little town in Tennessee. Yesterday there was a campaign for everybody to write their congressman about some deal and today they were to vote on a new water system. Hardly anybody showed up at the polls. They've all got it."
Andy shrugged. "You can drink water, but don't vote for it. Oh, that's a big help." He rummaged through the clutter on his desk and came up with a crude chart. "Any trends yet?"
"It's hitting everybody," Bettijean said helplessly. "Not many kids so far, thank heavens. But housewives, businessmen, office workers, teachers, preachers—rich, poor—from Florida to Alaska. Just when you called me in, one of the girls thought she had a trend. The isolated mountain areas of the West and South. But reports are too fragmentary."
"What is it?" he cried suddenly, banging the desk. "People deathly ill, but nobody dying. And doctors can't identify the poison until they have a fatality for an autopsy. People stricken in every part of the country, but the water systems are pure. How does it spread?"
"In food?"
"How? There must be hundreds of canneries and dairies and packing plants over the country. How could they all goof at the same time—even if it was sabotage?"
"On the wind?"
"But who could accurately predict every wind over the entire country—even Alaska and Hawaii—without hitting Canada or Mexico? And why wouldn't everybody get it in a given area?"
Bettijean's smooth brow furrowed and she reached across the desk to grip his icy, sweating hands. "Andy, do ... do you think it's ... well, an enemy?"
"I don't know," he said. "I just don't know."
For a long moment he sat there, trying to draw strength from her, punishing his brain for the glimmer of an idea. Finally, shaking his head, he pushed back into his chair and reached for the sheaf of papers.
"We've got to find a clue—a trend—an inkling of something." He nodded toward the outer office. "Stop all in-coming calls. Get those girls on lines to hospitals in every city and town in the country. Have them contact individual doctors in rural areas. Then line up another relief crew, and get somebody carting in more coffee and sandwiches. And on those calls, be sure we learn the sex, age, and occupation of the victims. You and I'll start with Washington."
Bettijean snapped to her feet, grinned her encouragement and strode from the room. Andy could hear her crisp instructions to the girls on the phones. Sucking air through his teeth, he reached for his phone and directory.
He dialed until every finger of his right hand was sore. He spoke to worried doctors and frantic hospital administrators and hysterical nurses. His firm, fine penmanship deteriorated to a barely legible scrawl as writer's cramp knotted his hand and arm. His voice burned down to a rasping whisper. But columns climbed up his rough chart and broken lines pointed vaguely to trends.
It was hours later when Bettijean came back into the office with another stack of papers. Andy hung up his phone and reached for a cigarette. At that moment the door banged open. Nerves raw, Bettijean cried out. Andy's cigarette tumbled from his trembling fingers.
"Sergeant," the chicken colonel barked, parading into the office.
Andy swore under his breath and eyed the two young officers who trailed after the colonel. Emotionally exhausted, he had to clamp his jaw against a huge laugh that struggled up in his throat. For just an instant there, the colonel had reminded him of a movie version of General Rommel strutting up and down before his tanks. But it wasn't a swagger stick the colonel had tucked under his arm. It was a folded newspaper. Opening it, the colonel flung it down on Andy's desk.
"RED PLAGUE SWEEPS NATION," the scare headline screamed. Andy's first glance caught such phrases as "alleged Russian plot" and "germ warfare" and "authorities hopelessly baffled."
Snatching the paper, Andy balled it and hurled it from him. "That'll help a lot," he growled hoarsely.
"Well, then, Sergeant." The colonel tried to relax his square face, but tension rode every weathered wrinkle and fear glinted behind the pale gray eyes. "So you finally recognize the gravity of the situation."
Andy's head snapped up, heated words searing towards his lips. Bettijean stepped quickly around the desk and laid a steady hand on his shoulder.
"Colonel," she said levelly, "you should know better than that."
A shocked young captain exploded, "Corporal. Maybe you'd better report to—"
"All right," Andy said sharply.
For a long moment he stared at his clenched fists. Then he exhaled slowly and, to the colonel, flatly and without apology, he said,
"You'll have to excuse the people in this office if they overlook some of the G.I. niceties. We've been without sleep for two days, we're surviving on sandwiches and coffee, and we're fighting a war here that makes every other one look like a Sunday School picnic." He felt Bettijean's hand tighten reassuringly on his shoulder and he gave her a tired smile. Then he hunched forward and picked up a report. "So say what you came here to say and let us get back to work."
"Sergeant," the captain said, as if reading from a manual,
"insubordination cannot be tolerated, even under emergency conditions. Your conduct here will be noted and—"
"Oh, good heavens!" Bettijean cried, her fingers biting into Andy's shoulder. "Do you have to come in here trying to throw your weight around when this man—"
"That's enough," the colonel snapped. "I had hoped that you two would co-operate, but...." He let the sentence trail off as he swelled up a bit with his own importance. "I have turned Washington upside down to get these two officers from the surgeon general's office. Sergeant. Corporal. You are relieved of your duties as of this moment. You will report to my office at once for suitable disciplinary action."
Bettijean sucked in a strained breath and her hand flew to her mouth.
"But you can't—"
"Let's go," Andy said, pushing up from his chair. Ignoring the brass, he turned to her and brushed his lips across hers. "Let them sweat a while. Let 'em have the whole stinking business. Whatever they do to us, at least we can get some sleep."
"But you can't quit now," Bettijean protested. "These brass hats don't know from—"
"Corporal!" the colonel roared.
And from the door, an icy voice said, "Yes, colonel?"
The colonel and his captains wheeled, stared and saluted. "Oh, general," the colonel said. "I was just—"
"I know," the brigadier said, stepping into the room. "I've been listening to you. And I thought I suggested that everybody leave the sergeant and his staff alone."
"But, general, I—"
The general showed the colonel his back and motioned Andy into his chair. He glanced to Bettijean and a smile warmed his wedge face.
"Corporal, were you speaking just then as a woman or as a soldier?"
Crimson erupted into Bettijean's face and her tight laugh said many things. She shrugged. "Both I guess."
The general waved her to a chair and, oblivious of the colonel, pulled up a chair for himself. The last trace of humor drained from his face as he leaned elbows on the desk. "Andy, this is even worse than we had feared."
Andy fumbled for a cigarette and Bettijean passed him a match. A captain opened his mouth to speak, but the colonel shushed him.
"I've just come from Intelligence," the general said. "We haven't had a report—nothing from our agents, from the Diplomatic Corps, from the civilian newspapermen—not a word from any Iron Curtain country for a day and half. Everybody's frantic. The last item we had—it was a coded message the Reds'd tried to censor—was an indication of something big in the works."
"A day and half ago," Andy mused. "Just about the time we knew we had an epidemic. And about the time they knew it."
"It could be just propaganda," Bettijean said hopefully, "proving that they could cripple us from within."
The general nodded. "Or it could be the softening up for an all-out effort. Every American base in the world is alerted and every serviceman is being issued live ammunition. If we're wrong, we've still got an epidemic and panic that could touch it off. If we're right ... well, we've got to know. What can you do?"
Andy dropped his haggard face into his hands. His voice came through muffled. "I can sit here and cry." For an eternity he sat there, futility piling on helplessness, aware of Bettijean's hand on his arm. He heard the colonel try to speak and sensed the general's movement that silenced him.
Suddenly he sat upright and slapped a palm down on the desk. "We'll find your answers, sir. All we ask is co-operation."
The general gave both Andy and Bettijean a long, sober look, then launched himself from the chair. Pivoting, he said, "Colonel, you and your captains will be stationed by that switchboard out there. For the duration of this emergency, you will take orders only from the sergeant and the corporal here."
"But, general," the colonel wailed, "a noncom? I'm assigned—"
The general snorted. "Insubordination cannot be tolerated—unless you find a two-star general to outrank me. Now, as I said before, let's get out of here and let these people work."
The brass exited wordlessly. Bettijean sighed noisily. Andy found his cigarette dead and lit another. He fancied a tiny lever in his brain and he shifted gears to direct his thinking back into the proper channel. Abruptly his fatigue began to lift. He picked up the new pile of reports Bettijean had brought in.
She move around the desk and sat, noting the phone book he had used, studying the names he had crossed off. "Did you learn anything?" she asked.
Andy coughed, trying to clear his raw throat. "It's crazy," he said.
"From the Senate and House on down, I haven't found a single government worker sick."
"I found a few," she said. "Over in a Virginia hospital."
"But I did find," Andy said, flipping through pages of his own scrawl, "a society matron and her social secretary, a whole flock of office workers—business, not government—and new parents and newly engaged girls and...." He shrugged.
"Did you notice anything significant about those office workers?"
Andy nodded. "I was going to ask you the same, since I was just guessing. I hadn't had time to check it out."
"Well, I checked some. Practically none of my victims came from big offices, either business or industry. They were all out of one and two-girl offices or small businesses."
"That was my guess. And do you know that I didn't find a doctor, dentist or attorney?"
"Nor a single postal worker."
Andy tried to smile. "One thing we do know. It's not a communicable thing. Thank heaven for—"
He broke off as a cute blonde entered and put stacks of reports before both Andy and Bettijean. The girl hesitated, fidgeting, fingers to her teeth. Then, without speaking, she hurried out.
Andy stared at the top sheet and groaned. "This may be something. Half the adult population of Aspen, Colorado, is down."
"What?" Bettijean frowned over the report in her hands. "It's the same thing—only not quite as severe—in Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico."
"Writers?"
"Mostly. Some artists, too, and musicians. And poets are among the hard hit."
"This is insane," Andy muttered. "Doctors and dentists are fine—writers and poets are sick. Make sense out of that."
Bettijean held up a paper and managed a confused smile. "Here's a country doctor in Tennessee. He doesn't even know what it's all about. Nobody's sick in his valley."
"Somebody in our outer office is organized," Andy said, pulling at his cigarette. "Here're reports from a dozen military installations all lumped together."
"What does it show?"
"Black-out. By order of somebody higher up—no medical releases. Must mean they've got it." He scratched the growing stubble on his chin.
"If this were a fifth column setup, wouldn't the armed forces be the first hit?"
"Sure," Bettijean brightened, then sobered. "Maybe not. The brass could keep it secret if an epidemic hit an army camp. And they could slap a control condition on any military area. But the panic will come from the general public."
"Here's another batch," Andy said. "Small college towns under twenty-five thousand population. All hard hit."
"Well, it's not split intellectually. Small colleges and small offices and writers get it. Doctors don't and dentists don't. But we can't tell who's got it on the military bases."
"And it's not geographical. Look, remember those two reports from Tennessee? That place where they voted on water bonds or something, everybody had it. But the country doctor in another section hadn't even heard of it." Andy could only shake his head.
Bettijean heaved herself up from the chair and trudged back to the outer office. She returned momentarily with a tray of food. Putting a paper cup of coffee and a sandwich in front of Andy, she sat down and nibbled at her snack like an exhausted chipmunk.
Andy banged a fist at his desk again. Coffee splashed over the rim of his cup onto the clutter of papers. "It's here," he said angrily.
"It's here somewhere, but we can't find it."
"The answer?"
"Of course. What is it that girls in small offices do or eat or drink or wear that girls in large offices don't do or eat or drink or wear? What do writers and doctors do differently? Or poets and dentists? What are we missing? What—"
In the outer office a girl cried out. A body thumped against a desk, then a chair, then to the floor. Two girls screamed.
Andy bolted up from his chair. Racing to the door, he shouted back to Bettijean, "Get a staff doctor and a chemist from the lab."
It was the girl who had been so nervous in his office earlier. Now she lay in a pathetic little heap between her desk and chair, whimpering, shivering, eyes wide with horror. The other girls clustered at the hall door, plainly ready to stampede.
"It's not contagious," Andy growled. "Find some blankets or coats to cover her. And get a glass of water."
The other girls, glad for the excuse, dashed away. Andy scooped up the fallen girl and put her down gently on the close-jammed desks. He used a chair cushion for a pillow. By then the other girls were back with a blanket and the glass of water. He covered the girl, gave her a sip of water and heard somebody murmur, "Poor Janis."
"Now," Andy said brightly, "how's that, Janis?"
She mustered a smile, and breathed, "Better. I ... I was so scared. Fever and dizzy ... symptoms like the epidemic."
"Now you know there's nothing to be afraid of," Andy said, feeling suddenly and ridiculously like a pill roller with a practiced bedside manner. "You know you may feel pretty miserable, but nobody's conked out with this stuff yet."
Janis breathed out and her taut body relaxed.
"Don't hurry," Andy said, "but I want you to tell me everything that you did—everything you ate or drank—in the last ... oh, twelve hours." He felt a pressure behind him and swiveled his head to see Bettijean standing there. He tried to smile.
"What time is it?" Janis asked weakly.
Andy glanced to a wall clock, then gave it a double take.
One of the girls said, "It's three o'clock in the morning." She edged nearer Andy, obviously eager to replace Janis as the center of attention. Andy ignored her.
"I ... I've been here since ... golly, yesterday morning at nine," Janis said. "I came to work as usual and...."
Slowly, haltingly, she recited the routine of a routine work day, then told about the quick snack that sufficed for supper and about staying on her phone and typewriter for another five hours. "It was about eleven when the relief crew came in."
"What did you do then?" Andy asked.
"I ... I took a break and...." Her ivory skin reddened, the color spreading into the roots of her fluffy curls, and she turned her face away from Andy. "And I had a sandwich and some coffee and got a little nap in the ladies' lounge and ... and that's all."
"And that's not all," Andy prompted. "What else?"
"Nothing," Janis said too quickly.
Andy shook his head. "Tell it all and maybe it'll help."
"But ... but...."
"Was it something against regulations?"
"I ... I don't know. I think...."
"I'll vouch for your job in this office."
"Well...." She seemed on the verge of tears and her pleading glance sought out Andy, then Bettijean, then her co-workers. Finally, resigned, she said, "I ... I wrote a letter to my mother."
Andy swallowed against his groan of disappointment. "And you told her about what we were doing here."
Janis nodded, and tears welled into her wide eyes.
"Did you mail it?"
"Y ... yes."
"You didn't use a government envelope to save a stamp?"
"Oh, no. I always carry a few stamps with me." She choked down a sob.
"Did I do wrong?"
"No, I don't think so," Andy said, patting her shoulder. "There's certainly nothing secret about this epidemic. Now you just take it easy and—. Oh, here's a doctor now."
The doctor, a white-headed Air Force major, bustled into the room. A lab technician in a white smock was close behind. Andy could only shrug and indicate the girl.
Turning away, lighting a cigarette, he tried to focus on the tangle of thoughts that spun through his head. Doctors, writers, society matrons, office workers—Aspen, Taos and college towns—thousands of people sick—but none in that valley in Tennessee—and few government workers—just one girl in his office—and she was sicker and more frightened about a letter—and....
"Hey, wait!" Andy yelled.
Everyone in the room froze as Andy spun around, dashed to Bettijean's desk and yanked out the wide, top drawer. He pawed through it, straightened, then leaped across to the desk Janis had used. He snatched open drawer after drawer. In a bottom one he found her purse. Ripping it open, he dumped the contents on the desk and clawed through the pile until he found what he wanted. Handing it to the lab technician, he said, "Get me a report. Fast."
The technician darted out.
Andy wheeled to Bettijean. "Get the brass in here. And call the general first." To the doctor, he said, "Give that girl the best of everything."
Then he ducked back to his own office and to the pile of reports. He was still poring over them when the general arrived. Half a dozen other brass hats, none of whom had been to bed, were close behind. The lab technician arrived a minute later. He shook his head as he handed his hastily scribbled report to Andy.
It was Bettijean who squeezed into the office and broke the brittle silence. "Andy, for heaven's sake, what is it?" Then she moved around the desk to stand behind him as he faced the officers.
"Have you got something?" the brigadier asked. "Some girl outside was babbling about writers and doctors, and dentists and college students, and little secretaries and big secretaries. Have you established a trend?"
Andy glanced at the lab report and his smile was as relieved as it was weary. "Our problem," he said, "was in figuring out what a writer does that a doctor doesn't—why girls from small offices were sick—and why senators and postal workers weren't—why college students caught the bug and people in a Tennessee community didn't.
"The lab report isn't complete. They haven't had time to isolate the poison and prescribe medication. But"—he held up a four-cent stamp—"here's the villain, gentlemen."
The big brass stood stunned and shocked. Mouths flapped open and eyes bugged at Andy, at the stamp.
Bettijean said, "Sure. College kids and engaged girls and new parents and especially writers and artists and poets—they'd all lick lots of stamps. Professional men have secretaries. Big offices have postage-meter machines. And government offices have free franking. And"—she threw her arms around the sergeant's neck—"Andy, you're wonderful."
"The old American ingenuity," the colonel said, reaching for Andy's phone. "I knew we could lick it. Now all we have to do—"
"At ease, colonel," the brigadier said sharply. He waited until the colonel had retreated, then addressed Andy. "It's your show. What do you suggest?"
"Get somebody—maybe even the President—on all radio and TV networks. Explain frankly about the four-centers and warn against licking any stamps. Then—"
He broke off as his phone rang. Answering, he listened for a moment, then hung up and said, "But before the big announcement, get somebody checking on the security clearances at whatever plant it is where they print stamps. This's a big deal. Somebody may've been planted years ago for this operation. It shouldn't be too hard.
"But there's no evidence it was a plot yet. Could be pure accident—some chemical in the stickum spoiled. Do they keep the stickum in barrels? Find out who had access. And ... oh, the phone call. That was the lab. The antidote's simple and the cure should be quick. They can phone or broadcast the medical information to doctors. The man on the phone said they could start emptying hospitals in six hours. And maybe we should release some propaganda. "United States whips mystery virus," or something like that. And we could send the Kremlin a stamp collection and.... Aw, you take it, sir. I'm pooped."
The general wheeled to fire a salvo of commands. Officers poured into the corridor. Only the brigadier remained, a puzzled frown crinkling his granite brow.
"But you said that postal workers weren't getting sick."
Andy chucked. "That's right. Did you ever see a post office clerk lick a stamp? They always use a sponge."
The general looked to Bettijean, to Andy, to the stamp. He grinned and the grin became a rumbling laugh. "How would you two like a thirty-day furlough to rest up—or to get better acquainted?"
Bettijean squealed. Andy reached for her hand.
"And while you're gone," the general continued, "I'll see what strings I can pull. If I can't wangle you a couple of battlefield commissions, I'll zip you both through O.C.S. so fast you won't even have time to pin on the bars."
But neither Andy nor Bettijean had heard a word after the mention of furlough. Like a pair of puppy-lovers, they were sinking into the depths of each other's eyes.
And the general was still chuckling as he picked up the lone four-cent stamp in his left hand, made a gun of his right hand, and marched the stamp out of the office under guard.
THE END
|
What is the plot of the story?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Home is Where You Left It by Stephen Marlowe.
Relevant chunks:
HOME IS WHERE YOU LEFT IT
By ADAM CHASE
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories February
1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The chance of mass slaughter was their eternal nightmare.
How black is the blackest treachery? Is the most callous
traitor entitled to mercy? Steve pondered these questions. His decision?
That at times the villain should possibly be spoken of as a hero.
Only the shells of deserted mud-brick houses greeted Steve Cantwell when
he reached the village.
He poked around in them for a while. The desert heat was searing,
parching, and the Sirian sun gleamed balefully off the blades of Steve's
unicopter, which had brought him from Oasis City, almost five hundred
miles away. He had remembered heat from his childhood here on Sirius'
second planet with the Earth colony, but not heat like this. It was like
a magnet drawing all the moisture out of his body.
He walked among the buildings, surprise and perhaps sadness etched on
his gaunt, weather-beaten face. Childhood memories flooded back: the
single well from which all the families drew their water, the mud-brick
house, hardly different from the others and just four walls and a roof
now, in which he'd lived with his aunt after his parents had been killed
in a Kumaji raid, the community center where he'd spent his happiest
time as a boy.
He went to the well and hoisted up a pailful of water. The winch creaked
as he remembered. He ladled out the water, suddenly very thirsty, and
brought the ladle to his lips.
He hurled the ladle away. The water was bitter. Not brackish.
Poisoned.
He spat with fury, then kneeled and stuffed his mouth with sand, almost
gagging. After a while he spat out the sand too and opened his canteen
and rinsed his mouth. His lips and mouth were paralyzed by contact with
the poison. He walked quickly across the well-square to his aunt's
house. Inside, it was dim but hardly cooler. Steve was sweating, the
saline sweat making him blink. He scowled, not understanding. The table
was set in his aunt's house. A coffeepot was on the stove and last
night's partially-consumed dinner still on the table.
The well had been poisoned, the town had been deserted on the spur of
the moment, and Steve had returned to his boyhood home from Earth—too
late for anything.
He went outside into the square. A lizard was sunning itself and staring
at him with lidless eyes. When he moved across the square, the lizard
scurried away.
"Earthman!" a quavering voice called.
Steve ran toward the sound. In the scant shadow of the community center,
a Kumaji was resting. He was a withered old man, all skin and bones and
sweat-stiffened tunic, with enormous red-rimmed eyes. His purple skin,
which had been blasted by the merciless sun, was almost black.
Steve held the canteen to his lips and watched his throat working almost
spasmodically to get the water down. After a while Steve withdrew the
canteen and said:
"What happened here?"
"They're gone. All gone."
"Yes, but what happened?"
"The Kumaji—"
"You're Kumaji."
"This is my town," the old man said. "I lived with the Earthmen. Now
they're gone."
"But you stayed here—"
"To die," the old man said, without self-pity. "I'm too old to flee, too
old to fight, too old for anything but death. More water."
Steve gave him another drink. "You still haven't told me what happened."
Actually, though, Steve could guess. With the twenty-second century
Earth population hovering at the eleven billion mark, colonies were
sought everywhere. Even on a parched desert wasteland like this. The
Kumaji tribesmen had never accepted the colony as a fact of their life
on the desert, and in a way Steve could not blame them. It meant one
oasis less for their own nomadic sustenance. When Steve was a boy,
Kumaji raids were frequent. At school on Earth and Luna he'd read about
the raids, how they'd increased in violence, how the Earth government,
so far away and utterly unable to protect its distant colony, had
suggested withdrawal from the Kumaji desert settlement, especially since
a colony could exist there under only the most primitive conditions,
almost like the purple-skinned Kumaji natives themselves.
"When did it happen?" Steve demanded.
"Last night." It was now midafternoon. "Three folks died," the Kumaji
said in his almost perfect English, "from the poisoning of the well. The
well was the last straw. The colonists had no choice. They had to go,
and go fast, taking what little water they had left in the houses."
"Will they try to walk all the way through to Oasis City?" Oasis City,
built at the confluence of two underground rivers which came to the
surface there and flowed the rest of the way to the sea above ground,
was almost five hundred miles from the colony. Five hundred miles of
trackless sands and hundred-and-thirty-degree heat....
"They have to," the old man said. "And they have to hurry. Men, women
and children. The Kumaji are after them."
Steve felt irrational hatred then. He thought it would help if he could
find some of the nomadic tribesmen and kill them. It might help the way
he felt, he knew, but it certainly wouldn't help the fleeing colonists,
trekking across a parched wilderness—to the safety of Oasis City—or
death.
"Come on," Steve said, making up his mind. "The unicopter can hold two
in a pinch."
"You're going after them?"
"I've got to. They're my people. I've been away too long."
"Say, you're young Cantwell, aren't you? Now I remember."
"Yes, I'm Steve Cantwell."
"I'm not going anyplace, young fellow."
"But you can't stay here, without any good water to drink, without—"
"I'm staying," the old man said, still without self-pity, just
matter-of-factly. "The Earth folks have no room for me and I can't blame
'em. The Kumaji'll kill me for a renegade, I figure. I lived a good,
long life. I've no regrets. Go after your people, young fellow. They'll
need every extra strong right arm they can get. You got any weapons?"
"No," Steve said.
"Too bad. Well, good-bye and good luck."
"But you can't—"
"Oh, I'm staying. I want to stay. This is my home. It's the only home
I'll ever have. Good luck, young fellow."
Slowly, Steve walked to his unicopter. It was nothing more than a small
metal disk on which to stand, and a shaft with four turbo-blades. It
could do sixty miles an hour at an elevation of two thousand feet.
Steve turned the little turbo-jet engine over, then on impulse ran back
to the old man and gave him his canteen, turning away before it could be
refused and striding quickly back to the unicopter and getting himself
airborne without looking at the deserted village or the old man again.
The old man's voice called after him: "Tell the people ... hurry ...
Kumaji looking for them to kill ... desert wind ought to wipe out their
trail ... but hurry...."
The voice faded into the faint rushing sound of the hot desert wind.
Steve gazed down on bare sun-blasted rock, on rippled dunes, on
hate-haze. He circled wider and wider, seeking his people.
Hours later he spotted the caravan in the immensity of sand and
wasteland. He brought the unicopter down quickly, with a rush of air and
a whine of turbojets. He alighted in the sand in front of the
slow-moving column. It was like something out of Earth's Middle
East—and Middle Ages. They had even imported camels for their life here
on the Sirian desert, deciding the Earth camel was a better beast of
burden than anything the Sirius II wastelands had to offer. They walked
beside the great-humped beasts of burden, the animals piled high with
the swaying baggage of their belongings. They moved through the sands
with agonizing slowness. Already, after only one day's travel, Steve
could see that some of the people were spent and exhausted and had to
ride on camelback. They had gone perhaps fifteen miles, with almost five
hundred to go across searing desert, the Kumaji seeking them....
"Hullo!" Steve shouted, and a man armed with an atorifle came striding
clumsily through the sand toward him. "Cantwell's the name," Steve said.
"I'm one of you."
Bleak hostility in his face, the man approached. "Cantwell. Yeah, I
remember you. Colony wasn't good enough for young Steve Cantwell. Oh,
no. Had to go off to Earth to get himself educated. What are you doing
here now on that fancy aircraft of yours, coming to crow at our wake?"
The bitterness surprised Steve. He recognized the man now as Tobias
Whiting, who had been the Colony's most successful man when Steve was a
boy. Except for his bitterness and for the bleak self-pity and defeat in
his eyes, the years had been good to Tobias Whiting. He was probably in
his mid-forties now, twenty years Steve's senior, but he was
well-muscled, his flesh was solid, his step bold and strong. He was a
big muscular man with a craggy, handsome face. In ten years he had
hardly changed at all, while Steve Cantwell, the boy, had become Steve
Cantwell the man. He had been the Colony's official trader with the
Kumajis, and had grown rich—by colony standards—at his business. Now,
Steve realized, all that was behind him, and he could only flee with the
others—either back to the terribly crowded Earth or on in search of a
new colony on some other outworld, if they could get the transportation.
Perhaps that explained his bitterness.
"So you've come back, eh? You sure picked a time, Cantwell."
The refugees were still about a quarter of a mile off, coming up slowly.
They hardly seemed to be moving at all. "Is my aunt all right?" Steve
said. She was the only family he remembered.
Tobias Whiting shook his head slowly. "I hate to be the one to tell you
this. Brace yourself for a shock. Your aunt was one of those who died
from the poisoned water last night."
For a long moment, Steve said nothing. The only emotion he felt was
pity—pity for the hard life his aunt had lived, and the hard death.
Sadness would come later, if there was to be a time for sadness.
The caravan reached them then. The first person Steve saw was a girl.
She wore the shroud-like desert garment and her face—it would be a
pretty face under other circumstances, Steve realized—was etched with
lines of fatigue. Steve did not recognize her. "Who is he, Dad?" the
girl said.
"Young Cantwell. Remember?"
So this was Mary Whiting, Steve thought. Why, she'd been a moppet ten
years ago! How old? Ten years old maybe. The years crowded him suddenly.
She was a woman now....
"Steve Cantwell?" Mary said. "Of course I remember. Hello, Steve. I—I'm
sorry you had to come back at a time like this. I'm sorry about your
aunt. If there's anything I can do...."
Steve shook his head, then shook the hand she offered him. She was a
slim, strong girl with a firm handshake. Her concern for him at a time
like this was little short of amazing, especially since it was
completely genuine.
He appreciated it.
Tobias Whiting said: "Shame of it is, Cantwell, some of us could get
along with the Kumaji. I had a pretty good business here, you know
that." He looked with bitterness at the dusty file of refugees. "But I
never got a credit out of it. Wherever we wind up, my girl and I will be
poor again. We could have been rich."
Steve asked, "What happened to all your profits?"
"Tied up with a Kumaji moneylender, but thanks to what happened I'll
never see it again."
Mary winced, as if her father's words and his self-pity were painful to
her. Then others came up and a few minutes were spent in back-pounding
and hand-shaking as some of the men who had been boys with Steve came up
to recognize and be recognized. Their greeting was warm, as Tobias
Whiting's had been cool. Despite the knowledge of what lay behind all of
them, and what still lay ahead, it was a little like homecoming.
But Steve liked Mary Whiting's warm, friendly smile best of all. It was
comforting and reassuring.
Three days later, Tobias Whiting disappeared.
The caravan had been making no more than ten or fifteen miles a day.
Their water supply was almost gone but on the fourth day they hoped to
reach an oasis in the desert. Two of the older folks had died of
fatigue. A third was critically ill and there was little that could be
done for him. The food supply was running short, but they could always
slaughter their camels for food and make their way to Oasis City, still
four hundred and some miles away, with nothing but the clothes on their
backs.
And then, during the fourth night, Tobias Whiting disappeared, taking
Steve's unicopter. A sentry had heard the low muffled whine of the
turbojets during the night and had seen the small craft take off, but
had assumed Steve had taken it up for some reason. Each day Steve had
done so, reconnoitering for signs of the Kumaji.
"But why?" someone asked. "Why?"
At first there was no answer. Then a woman whose husband had died the
day before said: "It's no secret Whiting has plenty of money—with the
Kumaji."
None of them looked at Mary. She stood there defiantly, not saying
anything, and Steve squeezed her hand.
"Now, wait a minute," one of Whiting's friends said.
"Wait, nothing." This was Jeremy Gort, who twice had been mayor of the
colony. "I know how Whiting's mind works. He slaved all his life for
that money, that's the way he'll see it. Cantwell, didn't you say the
Kumaji were looking for us, to kill us?"
"That's what I was told," Steve said.
"All right," Gort went on relentlessly. "Then this is what I figure must
have happened. Whiting got to brooding over his lost fortune and finally
decided he had to have it. So, he went off at night in Cantwell's
'copter, determined to get it. Only catch is, folks, if I know the
Kumaji, they won't just give it to him—not by a long sight."
"No?" someone asked.
"No sir. They'll trade. For our location. And if Whiting went off like
that without even saying good-bye to his girl here, my guess is he'll
make the trade." His voice reflected some bitterness.
Mary went to Gort and slapped his face. The elderly man did not even
blink. "Well," he asked her gently, "did your pa tell you he was going?"
"N-no," Mary said. There were tears in her eyes, but she did not cry.
Gort turned to Steve. "Cantwell, can he get far in that 'copter?"
Steve shook his head. "Ten or fifteen miles is all. Almost out of fuel,
Mr. Gort. You saw how I took her up for only a quick mile swing each
day. He won't get far."
"He'll crash in the desert?"
"Crash or crash-land," Steve said.
Mary sobbed, and bit her lip, and was silent.
"We've got to stop him," Gort said. "And fast. If he gets to the Kumaji,
they'll send down a raiding party and we'll be finished. We could never
fight them off without the protection of our village. Near as I can
figure, there's a Kumaji base fifty miles due north of here. Whiting
knows it too, so that's where he'll be going, I figure. Can't spare more
than a couple of men to look for him, though, in case the Kumaji find
us—or are led to us—and attack."
Steve said, "I should have taken something out of the 'copter every
night, so it couldn't start. I'll go."
Mary came forward boldly. "I have to go. He's my father. If he crashed
out there, he may be hurt. He may be—dying."
Gort looked at her. "And if he's trying to sell us out to the Kumajis?"
"Then—then I'll do whatever Steve asks me to. I promise."
"That's good enough for me," Steve said.
A few minutes later, armed with atorifles and their share of the food
and water that was left, Steve and Mary set out northward across the
sand while the caravan continued east. Fear of what they might find
mounted.
The first night, they camped in the lee of low sandhills. The second
night they found a small spring with brackish but drinkable water. On
the third day, having covered half the distance to the Kumaji
settlement, they began to encounter Kumaji patrols, on foot or thlotback , the six-legged desert animals running so swiftly over the
sands and so low to the ground that they almost seemed to be gliding.
Steve and Mary hardly spoke. Talk was unnecessary. But slowly a bond
grew between them. Steve liked this slim silent girl who had come out
here with him risking her life although she must have known deep in her
heart that her father had almost certainly decided to turn traitor in
order to regain his fortune.
On the fourth day, they spotted the unicopter from a long way off and
made their way toward it. It had come much further than Steve had
expected. With sinking heart he realized that Tobias Whiting, if he
escaped the crash-landing without injury, must surely have reached the
Kumaji encampment by now.
"It doesn't seem badly damaged," Mary said.
The platform had buckled slightly, the 'copter was tilted over, one of
the rotors twisted, its end buried in sand. Tobias Whiting wasn't there.
"No," Steve said. "It's hardly damaged at all. Your father got out of it
all right."
"To go—to them?"
"I think so, Mary. I don't want to pass judgment until we're sure. I'm
sorry."
"Oh, Steve! Steve! What will we do? What can we do?"
"Find him, if it isn't too late. Come on."
"North?"
"North."
"And if by some miracle we find him?"
Steve said nothing. The answer—capture or death—was obvious. But you
couldn't tell that to a traitor's daughter, could you?
As it turned out, they did not find Tobias Whiting through their own
efforts. Half an hour after setting out from the unicopter, they were
spotted by a roving band of Kumajis, who came streaking toward them on
their thlots . Mary raised her atorifle, but Steve struck the barrel
aside. "They'd kill us," he said. "We can only surrender."
They were hobbled and led painfully across the sand. They were taken
that way to a small Kumaji encampment, and thrust within a circular
tent.
Tobias Whiting was in there.
"Mary!" he cried. "My God! Mary...."
"We came for you, Dad," she said coldly. "To stop you. To ... to kill
you if necessary."
"Mary...."
"Oh, Dad, why did you do it? Why?"
"We couldn't start all over again, could we? You have a right to live
the sort of life I planned for you. You...."
"Whiting," Steve said, "did you tell them yet?"
"No. No, I haven't. I have information to trade, sure. But I want to
make sure it's going to the right people. I want to get our...."
"Dad! Our money, and all those deaths?"
"It doesn't matter now. I—I had changed my mind, Mary. Truly. But now,
now that you're a prisoner, what if I don't talk? Don't you see, they'll
torture you. They'll make you talk. And that way—we get nothing. I
couldn't stand to see them hurt you."
"They can do—what they think they have to do. I'll tell them nothing."
"You won't have to," Whiting said. "I'll tell them when we reach the
larger settlement. They're taking us there tomorrow, they told me."
"Then we've got to get out of here tonight," Steve said.
The low sun cast the shadow of their guard against the thlot skin wall
of their tent. He was a single man, armed with a long, pike-like weapon.
When darkness came, if the guard were not increased....
They were brought a pasty gruel for their supper, and ate in silence and
distaste, ate because they needed the strength. Mary said, "Dad, I don't
want you to tell them anything. Dad, please. If you thought you were
doing it for me...."
"I've made up my mind," Tobias Whiting said.
Mary turned to Steve, in despair. "Steve," she said. "Steve.
Do—whatever you have to do. I—I'll understand."
Steve didn't answer her. Wasn't Whiting right now? he thought. If Steve
silenced him, wouldn't the Kumaji torture them for the information?
Steve could stand up to it perhaps—but he couldn't stand to see them
hurt Mary. He'd talk if they did that....
Then silencing Whiting wasn't the answer. But the Kumajis had one
willing prisoner and two unwilling ones. They knew that. If the willing
one yelled for help but the yelling was kept to a minimum so only one
guard, the man outside, came....
Darkness in the Kumaji encampment.
Far off, a lone tribesman singing a chant old as the desert.
"Are you asleep?" Mary asked.
"No," Steve said.
"Dad is. Listen to the way he's breathing—like a baby. As if—as if he
wasn't going to betray all our people. Oh, I hate him, I hate him!"
Steve crawled to where the older man was sleeping. Tobias Whiting's
voice surprised him. "I'm not asleep. I was thinking. I—"
"I'm going to kill you," Steve said very softly, and sprang at Whiting.
He paused, though. It was a calculated pause, and Whiting cried out as
Steve had hoped he would. Then his hands found the older man's throat
and closed there—not to kill him but to keep him from crying out again.
Sand stirred, the tentflap lifted, and a bulky figure rushed inside.
Steve got up, met him halfway, felt the jarring contact of their bodies.
The pike came up dimly in the darkness, the point scraping against
Steve's ribs as the guard lunged awkwardly. Steve's fingers sought the
thick-muscled neck, clamped there—squeezing.
The guard writhed. His feet drummed the sand. With one hand he stabbed
out wildly with the unwieldy pike. There was a cry from Mary and the
guard managed a low squawking noise. Outside, the rest of the camp
seemed undisturbed. There was death in Steve's strong tightening
fingers. There had to be death there. Death for the Kumaji guard—or
death for the fleeing Earthmen, who had lost one colony and must seek
another.
They fell together on the sand, the guard still struggling. Steve
couldn't release his throat to grab the pike. The guard stabbed out
awkwardly, blindly with it, kicking up sand. Then Tobias Whiting moaned,
but Steve hardly heard him.
When the guard's legs stopped drumming, Steve released him. The man was
either dead or so close to death that he would be out for hours. Steve
had never killed a man before, had never in violence and with intent to
kill attacked a man....
"Steve!"
It was Mary, calling his name and crying.
"It's Dad. Dad was—hit. The pike, a wild stab. He's hit bad—"
Steve crawled over to them. It was very dark. He could barely make out
Tobias Whiting's pain-contorted face.
"My stomach," Whiting said, gasping for breath. "The pain...."
Steve probed with his hands, found the wound. Blood was rushing out. He
couldn't stop it and he knew it and he thought Whiting knew it too. He
touched Mary's hand, and held it. Mary sobbed against him, crying
softly.
"You two ..." Whiting gasped. "You two ... Mary, Mary girl. Is—he—what
you want?"
"Yes, Dad. Oh, yes!"
"You can get her out of here, Cantwell?"
"I think so," Steve said.
"Then go. Go while you can. I'll tell them—due south. The Earthmen are
heading due south. They'll go—south. They won't find the caravan.
You'll—all—get away. If it's—what you want, Mary."
She leaned away from Steve, kissing her father. She asked Steve: "Isn't
there anything we can do for him?"
Steve shook his head. "But he's got to live long enough to tell them, to
deceive them."
"I'll live long enough," Whiting said, and Steve knew then that he
would. "Luck to—all of you. From a—very foolish—man...."
Steve took Mary's hand and pulled her out into the hot, dark, wind-blown
night. He carried the dead Kumaji's pike and they slipped across the
sand to where the thlots were hobbled for the night. He hardly
remembered the rest of it. There was violence and death, but necessary
death. He killed a man with the pike, and unhobbled one of the thlots .
The animal screamed and two more Kumajis came sleepily through the night
to see what was the matter. With the long edge of the pike's blade he
decapitated one of them. He slammed the shaft of the weapon across the
other's face, probably breaking his jaw. The camp was in a turmoil. In
the darkness he flung Mary on the thlot's bare back in front of him,
and they glided off across the sand.
Pursuit was disorganized—and unsuccessful. It was too dark for
effective pursuit, as Steve had hoped it would be. They rode swiftly all
night and continued riding with the dawn. They could have gone in any
direction. The wind-driven sand would obliterate their trail.
Two days later they reached the caravan. As they rode up, Mary said,
"Steve, do you have to tell them?"
"We can tell them this," Steve said. "Your father died a hero's death,
sending the Kumajis off in the wrong direction."
"And not—not what he'd planned to do at first."
"No. We'll tell them that was his intention all the while. A man can
make a mistake, can't he?"
"I love you, Steve. I love you."
Then they rode down on the caravan. Somehow Steve knew they would all
reach Oasis City in safety.
With Mary he would find a new world out in the vastness of space.
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Steve Cantwell grew up in a desert village on Sirius' second planet, he lived with his aunt. It is one of the human colonies, and it has never been accepted by the Kumaji tribesmen - the natives who have been raiding the settlements for years. Steve went to Earth to get an education, but now he came back to the planet. He flew from Oasis City to his native village on a unicopter only to find the deserted buildings and poisoned water. A Kumaji, who lived with the earthmen, tells him that the natives poisoned the well - three people died, and everybody else had to leave their home and walk to Oasis City through the desert wasteland. Now the Kumaji are looking for them to kill. The man stayed here to die since he’s too old to flee or fight. Steve gives him his water canteen and flies away to find the other citizens. Hours later, he spots a caravan with camels. He first meets Tobias Whiting, who was the most successful man in the village when Steve was a child. The man greets him coldly and soon informs Steve that his aunt was one of the people who died from the poisoned water. Then he introduces him to his daughter Mary, the young woman who charms Steve. Tobias says he had a profitable business, but all his money is gone now. Three days later, he disappears, taking Steve’s unicopter with him. The other members suppose that Tobias decided to trade the caravan’s location for his profits, thus betraying them. Mary and Steve take some food and head towards the Kumaji base to the north of the caravan since Tobias probably decided to fly there. Four days later, they spot the empty unicopter and realize that Tobias must’ve reached the base by now. They keep walking and soon surrender to the Kumajis, who put them in a circular tent where they meet Tobias. He explains to Mary that he wants to give her the life she deserves. Now he’s determined to tell the Kumaji everything since his daughter got captured, and the Kumaji might torture her for information. Steve devises an escape plan: at night, he makes Tobias scream for a second to make one of the guards come in. Steve kills this one Kumaji, but the guard manages to lethally wound Tobias while fighting with the attacker. Whiting blesses Mary and Steve and orders them to leave, promising that he’ll deceive the Kumaji and not share the true location of the caravan. The couple runs from the tent, and Steve kills several more guards before gliding off on the thlot’s - desert animal - back with Mary. They reach the caravan two days later and decide to tell everyone that Whiting initially went to the Kumaji to save everyone. Mary admits to Steve that she loves him.",
"Steve Cantwell reaches a village after coming in his unicopter from Oasis City. He thinks about his childhood memories as he walks around, sadly thinking about living in the mud-house with his aunt after his parents were killed in a Kumaji raid, and the community center. As he tries the water, he realizes it is poisoned and stuffs sand in his mouth. As he goes into his aunt’s house, an old Kumaji appears and tells him that everyone left. Steve thinks about the Kumaji raids from when he was a boy, and the old one talks about how the poisoned well was the last straw for the colonists to leave for Oasis City. Steve offers to take the old man with him in the unicopter, but he refuses and insists that the town is his home. Steve then goes to look for his people in the desert, and he finds them hiking through the desert. Steve goes to introduce himself again, but a man named Tobias Whiting only responds to him bitterly. He tells Steve that his aunt was one of the people who died, and his daughter Mary Whiting meets up with them later. Tobias Whiting complains about never having money because of the Kumaji, but Mary Whiting gives him a smile. Tobias disappears three days later, and he takes Steve’s unicopter on the fourth night to go and retrieve his fortune. Mary slaps Gort, but he asks Steve how far Tobias will get with the unicopter. They get captured by the Kumaji and see that Tobias is waiting for them at the camp. Mary asks her father why he did what he did, and Steve asks if he has told them the information yet. At night, Mary asks if Steve has gone to sleep yet. Tobias is clearly asleep, and Mary is furious about her father betraying their people. Steve threatens to kill Tobias, but he ends up killing a guard instead. Tobias, however, is injured by the pike and lays there in pain. He asks Mary if Steve is the person she wants, and he tells the two of them to go south with the rest of the Earthmen. Tobias reassures them that he will live long enough to deceive the Kumaji. Steve escapes with Mary, killing a few more of the Kumaji before taking off on the thlot. They ride off into the distance, letting the sand obstruct their trail. Steve promises that they will tell the rest of the colony that Mary’s father died as a hero, and she proclaims her love for him. The two of them know that they will reach Oasis City safely, and there is a new world out in space. ",
"This story follows Steve Cantwell, a young Earthmen who has returned from being educated on Earth back to his home in the Sirian desert. Upon arrival, he finds his village hastily abandoned - including his aunt - and the well poisoned. He finds an old Kumaji man in the community center, who informs him of what happened. The Kumaji tribesmen had raided the village as they felt the colony took up an oasis belonging to their own nomadic needs. By poisoning the well, the colonists were forced to travel by foot and camel across the arid desert to try and reach Oasis City, located 500 miles away. \n\nCantwell decides to hop into his unicopter to meet the travelling caravan and warn them of the Kumaji. He insists theres room for the old man, but the old man chooses to stay and die in his home. Reluctantly, Cantwell leaves the old man with the remaining water his in canteen. Later, Cantwell finds the caravan and reunites with familiar faces from his boyhood. This includes Tobias Whiting, previously the Colony's most successful man through his trading and business with the Kumajis, his daughter Mary, and some other childhood friends. Whiting describes how despite his relationship with the Kumajis and supposed riches, he and his daughter are forced to escape as refugees as well. \n\nDays after travelling with the caravan, Whiting disappears with Cantwell's unicopter. After discussing with some of the colony members, it is suggested that Whiting had gone off with the intention of trading with the Kumajis again: the colony's location in return for his money. Steve and Mary decide to follow and stop him. After a couple days travel, they find the unicopter crashed. Though initially reassured by the fact that Whiting was alive, they soon get spotted and captured by a band of Kumajis. Led to the Kumajis' encampment, they are met by Whiting. It seems that even if Whiting has changed his mind, the presence of his daughter and Cantwell could mean that the Kumajis were willing to torture the information of out Whiting regardless. \n\nAt night, Steve enacts a plan. He pretends to choke Whiting and draws the attention of the guard. They enter a scuffle, with the guard dying, but not without Whiting having taken a fatal stabbing from the guard's pike. Whiting vows instead to misinform the Kumajis on the caravan's location, and insists on the Steve getting Mary out safely. The pair manage to escape on a stolen thlotback and as they ride up to the caravan, plan to tell Whiting's demise as a hero. ",
"The story revolves around Steve Cantwell, a human raised on a desert planet who decides to return home after years away.. When he arrives at his village, he sees the whole village is deserted, and attacked. The water well is poisoned, and the only person that he can find is an old man that tells him what happened. After overpopulation on earth increased dramatically, many humans turned to other planets to colonize. This desert planet was an example of that. The humans who lived in this village had always had trouble with the native tribe, as they weren’t happy that the humans arrived at their home. This led to constant raids by the tribe, and is eventually what led to the humans abandoning the village to live in a city 500 miles away. After the old man told him what happened, Steve leaves in his ship to find the caravan of the surviving humans, as the old man wanted to stay in the village. After Steve finds them, he meets with people from the village, most of which remember him. Together, they continue their journey towards the large city and towards safety from the natives. One day, one of the men of the party takes Steve’s ship. It is assumed that he wanted to negotiate with the natives, as he had a lot of money with them. In return, the man would give them the location of the rest of the humans. Steve and the man’s daughter leave in order to find him and stop when. After getting captured by the natives, they meet with the man again, who wants to go ahead with his plan of betraying the rest of the humans. Steve understands that this can’t happen, so he lures a guard in and kills him. In the process, the man dies, but manages to go back on his plan and sends the natives to a wrong location. Steve and the daughter leave, excited to meet up with the others and start a new life in the city. "
] |
32890
|
HOME IS WHERE YOU LEFT IT
By ADAM CHASE
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories February
1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The chance of mass slaughter was their eternal nightmare.
How black is the blackest treachery? Is the most callous
traitor entitled to mercy? Steve pondered these questions. His decision?
That at times the villain should possibly be spoken of as a hero.
Only the shells of deserted mud-brick houses greeted Steve Cantwell when
he reached the village.
He poked around in them for a while. The desert heat was searing,
parching, and the Sirian sun gleamed balefully off the blades of Steve's
unicopter, which had brought him from Oasis City, almost five hundred
miles away. He had remembered heat from his childhood here on Sirius'
second planet with the Earth colony, but not heat like this. It was like
a magnet drawing all the moisture out of his body.
He walked among the buildings, surprise and perhaps sadness etched on
his gaunt, weather-beaten face. Childhood memories flooded back: the
single well from which all the families drew their water, the mud-brick
house, hardly different from the others and just four walls and a roof
now, in which he'd lived with his aunt after his parents had been killed
in a Kumaji raid, the community center where he'd spent his happiest
time as a boy.
He went to the well and hoisted up a pailful of water. The winch creaked
as he remembered. He ladled out the water, suddenly very thirsty, and
brought the ladle to his lips.
He hurled the ladle away. The water was bitter. Not brackish.
Poisoned.
He spat with fury, then kneeled and stuffed his mouth with sand, almost
gagging. After a while he spat out the sand too and opened his canteen
and rinsed his mouth. His lips and mouth were paralyzed by contact with
the poison. He walked quickly across the well-square to his aunt's
house. Inside, it was dim but hardly cooler. Steve was sweating, the
saline sweat making him blink. He scowled, not understanding. The table
was set in his aunt's house. A coffeepot was on the stove and last
night's partially-consumed dinner still on the table.
The well had been poisoned, the town had been deserted on the spur of
the moment, and Steve had returned to his boyhood home from Earth—too
late for anything.
He went outside into the square. A lizard was sunning itself and staring
at him with lidless eyes. When he moved across the square, the lizard
scurried away.
"Earthman!" a quavering voice called.
Steve ran toward the sound. In the scant shadow of the community center,
a Kumaji was resting. He was a withered old man, all skin and bones and
sweat-stiffened tunic, with enormous red-rimmed eyes. His purple skin,
which had been blasted by the merciless sun, was almost black.
Steve held the canteen to his lips and watched his throat working almost
spasmodically to get the water down. After a while Steve withdrew the
canteen and said:
"What happened here?"
"They're gone. All gone."
"Yes, but what happened?"
"The Kumaji—"
"You're Kumaji."
"This is my town," the old man said. "I lived with the Earthmen. Now
they're gone."
"But you stayed here—"
"To die," the old man said, without self-pity. "I'm too old to flee, too
old to fight, too old for anything but death. More water."
Steve gave him another drink. "You still haven't told me what happened."
Actually, though, Steve could guess. With the twenty-second century
Earth population hovering at the eleven billion mark, colonies were
sought everywhere. Even on a parched desert wasteland like this. The
Kumaji tribesmen had never accepted the colony as a fact of their life
on the desert, and in a way Steve could not blame them. It meant one
oasis less for their own nomadic sustenance. When Steve was a boy,
Kumaji raids were frequent. At school on Earth and Luna he'd read about
the raids, how they'd increased in violence, how the Earth government,
so far away and utterly unable to protect its distant colony, had
suggested withdrawal from the Kumaji desert settlement, especially since
a colony could exist there under only the most primitive conditions,
almost like the purple-skinned Kumaji natives themselves.
"When did it happen?" Steve demanded.
"Last night." It was now midafternoon. "Three folks died," the Kumaji
said in his almost perfect English, "from the poisoning of the well. The
well was the last straw. The colonists had no choice. They had to go,
and go fast, taking what little water they had left in the houses."
"Will they try to walk all the way through to Oasis City?" Oasis City,
built at the confluence of two underground rivers which came to the
surface there and flowed the rest of the way to the sea above ground,
was almost five hundred miles from the colony. Five hundred miles of
trackless sands and hundred-and-thirty-degree heat....
"They have to," the old man said. "And they have to hurry. Men, women
and children. The Kumaji are after them."
Steve felt irrational hatred then. He thought it would help if he could
find some of the nomadic tribesmen and kill them. It might help the way
he felt, he knew, but it certainly wouldn't help the fleeing colonists,
trekking across a parched wilderness—to the safety of Oasis City—or
death.
"Come on," Steve said, making up his mind. "The unicopter can hold two
in a pinch."
"You're going after them?"
"I've got to. They're my people. I've been away too long."
"Say, you're young Cantwell, aren't you? Now I remember."
"Yes, I'm Steve Cantwell."
"I'm not going anyplace, young fellow."
"But you can't stay here, without any good water to drink, without—"
"I'm staying," the old man said, still without self-pity, just
matter-of-factly. "The Earth folks have no room for me and I can't blame
'em. The Kumaji'll kill me for a renegade, I figure. I lived a good,
long life. I've no regrets. Go after your people, young fellow. They'll
need every extra strong right arm they can get. You got any weapons?"
"No," Steve said.
"Too bad. Well, good-bye and good luck."
"But you can't—"
"Oh, I'm staying. I want to stay. This is my home. It's the only home
I'll ever have. Good luck, young fellow."
Slowly, Steve walked to his unicopter. It was nothing more than a small
metal disk on which to stand, and a shaft with four turbo-blades. It
could do sixty miles an hour at an elevation of two thousand feet.
Steve turned the little turbo-jet engine over, then on impulse ran back
to the old man and gave him his canteen, turning away before it could be
refused and striding quickly back to the unicopter and getting himself
airborne without looking at the deserted village or the old man again.
The old man's voice called after him: "Tell the people ... hurry ...
Kumaji looking for them to kill ... desert wind ought to wipe out their
trail ... but hurry...."
The voice faded into the faint rushing sound of the hot desert wind.
Steve gazed down on bare sun-blasted rock, on rippled dunes, on
hate-haze. He circled wider and wider, seeking his people.
Hours later he spotted the caravan in the immensity of sand and
wasteland. He brought the unicopter down quickly, with a rush of air and
a whine of turbojets. He alighted in the sand in front of the
slow-moving column. It was like something out of Earth's Middle
East—and Middle Ages. They had even imported camels for their life here
on the Sirian desert, deciding the Earth camel was a better beast of
burden than anything the Sirius II wastelands had to offer. They walked
beside the great-humped beasts of burden, the animals piled high with
the swaying baggage of their belongings. They moved through the sands
with agonizing slowness. Already, after only one day's travel, Steve
could see that some of the people were spent and exhausted and had to
ride on camelback. They had gone perhaps fifteen miles, with almost five
hundred to go across searing desert, the Kumaji seeking them....
"Hullo!" Steve shouted, and a man armed with an atorifle came striding
clumsily through the sand toward him. "Cantwell's the name," Steve said.
"I'm one of you."
Bleak hostility in his face, the man approached. "Cantwell. Yeah, I
remember you. Colony wasn't good enough for young Steve Cantwell. Oh,
no. Had to go off to Earth to get himself educated. What are you doing
here now on that fancy aircraft of yours, coming to crow at our wake?"
The bitterness surprised Steve. He recognized the man now as Tobias
Whiting, who had been the Colony's most successful man when Steve was a
boy. Except for his bitterness and for the bleak self-pity and defeat in
his eyes, the years had been good to Tobias Whiting. He was probably in
his mid-forties now, twenty years Steve's senior, but he was
well-muscled, his flesh was solid, his step bold and strong. He was a
big muscular man with a craggy, handsome face. In ten years he had
hardly changed at all, while Steve Cantwell, the boy, had become Steve
Cantwell the man. He had been the Colony's official trader with the
Kumajis, and had grown rich—by colony standards—at his business. Now,
Steve realized, all that was behind him, and he could only flee with the
others—either back to the terribly crowded Earth or on in search of a
new colony on some other outworld, if they could get the transportation.
Perhaps that explained his bitterness.
"So you've come back, eh? You sure picked a time, Cantwell."
The refugees were still about a quarter of a mile off, coming up slowly.
They hardly seemed to be moving at all. "Is my aunt all right?" Steve
said. She was the only family he remembered.
Tobias Whiting shook his head slowly. "I hate to be the one to tell you
this. Brace yourself for a shock. Your aunt was one of those who died
from the poisoned water last night."
For a long moment, Steve said nothing. The only emotion he felt was
pity—pity for the hard life his aunt had lived, and the hard death.
Sadness would come later, if there was to be a time for sadness.
The caravan reached them then. The first person Steve saw was a girl.
She wore the shroud-like desert garment and her face—it would be a
pretty face under other circumstances, Steve realized—was etched with
lines of fatigue. Steve did not recognize her. "Who is he, Dad?" the
girl said.
"Young Cantwell. Remember?"
So this was Mary Whiting, Steve thought. Why, she'd been a moppet ten
years ago! How old? Ten years old maybe. The years crowded him suddenly.
She was a woman now....
"Steve Cantwell?" Mary said. "Of course I remember. Hello, Steve. I—I'm
sorry you had to come back at a time like this. I'm sorry about your
aunt. If there's anything I can do...."
Steve shook his head, then shook the hand she offered him. She was a
slim, strong girl with a firm handshake. Her concern for him at a time
like this was little short of amazing, especially since it was
completely genuine.
He appreciated it.
Tobias Whiting said: "Shame of it is, Cantwell, some of us could get
along with the Kumaji. I had a pretty good business here, you know
that." He looked with bitterness at the dusty file of refugees. "But I
never got a credit out of it. Wherever we wind up, my girl and I will be
poor again. We could have been rich."
Steve asked, "What happened to all your profits?"
"Tied up with a Kumaji moneylender, but thanks to what happened I'll
never see it again."
Mary winced, as if her father's words and his self-pity were painful to
her. Then others came up and a few minutes were spent in back-pounding
and hand-shaking as some of the men who had been boys with Steve came up
to recognize and be recognized. Their greeting was warm, as Tobias
Whiting's had been cool. Despite the knowledge of what lay behind all of
them, and what still lay ahead, it was a little like homecoming.
But Steve liked Mary Whiting's warm, friendly smile best of all. It was
comforting and reassuring.
Three days later, Tobias Whiting disappeared.
The caravan had been making no more than ten or fifteen miles a day.
Their water supply was almost gone but on the fourth day they hoped to
reach an oasis in the desert. Two of the older folks had died of
fatigue. A third was critically ill and there was little that could be
done for him. The food supply was running short, but they could always
slaughter their camels for food and make their way to Oasis City, still
four hundred and some miles away, with nothing but the clothes on their
backs.
And then, during the fourth night, Tobias Whiting disappeared, taking
Steve's unicopter. A sentry had heard the low muffled whine of the
turbojets during the night and had seen the small craft take off, but
had assumed Steve had taken it up for some reason. Each day Steve had
done so, reconnoitering for signs of the Kumaji.
"But why?" someone asked. "Why?"
At first there was no answer. Then a woman whose husband had died the
day before said: "It's no secret Whiting has plenty of money—with the
Kumaji."
None of them looked at Mary. She stood there defiantly, not saying
anything, and Steve squeezed her hand.
"Now, wait a minute," one of Whiting's friends said.
"Wait, nothing." This was Jeremy Gort, who twice had been mayor of the
colony. "I know how Whiting's mind works. He slaved all his life for
that money, that's the way he'll see it. Cantwell, didn't you say the
Kumaji were looking for us, to kill us?"
"That's what I was told," Steve said.
"All right," Gort went on relentlessly. "Then this is what I figure must
have happened. Whiting got to brooding over his lost fortune and finally
decided he had to have it. So, he went off at night in Cantwell's
'copter, determined to get it. Only catch is, folks, if I know the
Kumaji, they won't just give it to him—not by a long sight."
"No?" someone asked.
"No sir. They'll trade. For our location. And if Whiting went off like
that without even saying good-bye to his girl here, my guess is he'll
make the trade." His voice reflected some bitterness.
Mary went to Gort and slapped his face. The elderly man did not even
blink. "Well," he asked her gently, "did your pa tell you he was going?"
"N-no," Mary said. There were tears in her eyes, but she did not cry.
Gort turned to Steve. "Cantwell, can he get far in that 'copter?"
Steve shook his head. "Ten or fifteen miles is all. Almost out of fuel,
Mr. Gort. You saw how I took her up for only a quick mile swing each
day. He won't get far."
"He'll crash in the desert?"
"Crash or crash-land," Steve said.
Mary sobbed, and bit her lip, and was silent.
"We've got to stop him," Gort said. "And fast. If he gets to the Kumaji,
they'll send down a raiding party and we'll be finished. We could never
fight them off without the protection of our village. Near as I can
figure, there's a Kumaji base fifty miles due north of here. Whiting
knows it too, so that's where he'll be going, I figure. Can't spare more
than a couple of men to look for him, though, in case the Kumaji find
us—or are led to us—and attack."
Steve said, "I should have taken something out of the 'copter every
night, so it couldn't start. I'll go."
Mary came forward boldly. "I have to go. He's my father. If he crashed
out there, he may be hurt. He may be—dying."
Gort looked at her. "And if he's trying to sell us out to the Kumajis?"
"Then—then I'll do whatever Steve asks me to. I promise."
"That's good enough for me," Steve said.
A few minutes later, armed with atorifles and their share of the food
and water that was left, Steve and Mary set out northward across the
sand while the caravan continued east. Fear of what they might find
mounted.
The first night, they camped in the lee of low sandhills. The second
night they found a small spring with brackish but drinkable water. On
the third day, having covered half the distance to the Kumaji
settlement, they began to encounter Kumaji patrols, on foot or thlotback , the six-legged desert animals running so swiftly over the
sands and so low to the ground that they almost seemed to be gliding.
Steve and Mary hardly spoke. Talk was unnecessary. But slowly a bond
grew between them. Steve liked this slim silent girl who had come out
here with him risking her life although she must have known deep in her
heart that her father had almost certainly decided to turn traitor in
order to regain his fortune.
On the fourth day, they spotted the unicopter from a long way off and
made their way toward it. It had come much further than Steve had
expected. With sinking heart he realized that Tobias Whiting, if he
escaped the crash-landing without injury, must surely have reached the
Kumaji encampment by now.
"It doesn't seem badly damaged," Mary said.
The platform had buckled slightly, the 'copter was tilted over, one of
the rotors twisted, its end buried in sand. Tobias Whiting wasn't there.
"No," Steve said. "It's hardly damaged at all. Your father got out of it
all right."
"To go—to them?"
"I think so, Mary. I don't want to pass judgment until we're sure. I'm
sorry."
"Oh, Steve! Steve! What will we do? What can we do?"
"Find him, if it isn't too late. Come on."
"North?"
"North."
"And if by some miracle we find him?"
Steve said nothing. The answer—capture or death—was obvious. But you
couldn't tell that to a traitor's daughter, could you?
As it turned out, they did not find Tobias Whiting through their own
efforts. Half an hour after setting out from the unicopter, they were
spotted by a roving band of Kumajis, who came streaking toward them on
their thlots . Mary raised her atorifle, but Steve struck the barrel
aside. "They'd kill us," he said. "We can only surrender."
They were hobbled and led painfully across the sand. They were taken
that way to a small Kumaji encampment, and thrust within a circular
tent.
Tobias Whiting was in there.
"Mary!" he cried. "My God! Mary...."
"We came for you, Dad," she said coldly. "To stop you. To ... to kill
you if necessary."
"Mary...."
"Oh, Dad, why did you do it? Why?"
"We couldn't start all over again, could we? You have a right to live
the sort of life I planned for you. You...."
"Whiting," Steve said, "did you tell them yet?"
"No. No, I haven't. I have information to trade, sure. But I want to
make sure it's going to the right people. I want to get our...."
"Dad! Our money, and all those deaths?"
"It doesn't matter now. I—I had changed my mind, Mary. Truly. But now,
now that you're a prisoner, what if I don't talk? Don't you see, they'll
torture you. They'll make you talk. And that way—we get nothing. I
couldn't stand to see them hurt you."
"They can do—what they think they have to do. I'll tell them nothing."
"You won't have to," Whiting said. "I'll tell them when we reach the
larger settlement. They're taking us there tomorrow, they told me."
"Then we've got to get out of here tonight," Steve said.
The low sun cast the shadow of their guard against the thlot skin wall
of their tent. He was a single man, armed with a long, pike-like weapon.
When darkness came, if the guard were not increased....
They were brought a pasty gruel for their supper, and ate in silence and
distaste, ate because they needed the strength. Mary said, "Dad, I don't
want you to tell them anything. Dad, please. If you thought you were
doing it for me...."
"I've made up my mind," Tobias Whiting said.
Mary turned to Steve, in despair. "Steve," she said. "Steve.
Do—whatever you have to do. I—I'll understand."
Steve didn't answer her. Wasn't Whiting right now? he thought. If Steve
silenced him, wouldn't the Kumaji torture them for the information?
Steve could stand up to it perhaps—but he couldn't stand to see them
hurt Mary. He'd talk if they did that....
Then silencing Whiting wasn't the answer. But the Kumajis had one
willing prisoner and two unwilling ones. They knew that. If the willing
one yelled for help but the yelling was kept to a minimum so only one
guard, the man outside, came....
Darkness in the Kumaji encampment.
Far off, a lone tribesman singing a chant old as the desert.
"Are you asleep?" Mary asked.
"No," Steve said.
"Dad is. Listen to the way he's breathing—like a baby. As if—as if he
wasn't going to betray all our people. Oh, I hate him, I hate him!"
Steve crawled to where the older man was sleeping. Tobias Whiting's
voice surprised him. "I'm not asleep. I was thinking. I—"
"I'm going to kill you," Steve said very softly, and sprang at Whiting.
He paused, though. It was a calculated pause, and Whiting cried out as
Steve had hoped he would. Then his hands found the older man's throat
and closed there—not to kill him but to keep him from crying out again.
Sand stirred, the tentflap lifted, and a bulky figure rushed inside.
Steve got up, met him halfway, felt the jarring contact of their bodies.
The pike came up dimly in the darkness, the point scraping against
Steve's ribs as the guard lunged awkwardly. Steve's fingers sought the
thick-muscled neck, clamped there—squeezing.
The guard writhed. His feet drummed the sand. With one hand he stabbed
out wildly with the unwieldy pike. There was a cry from Mary and the
guard managed a low squawking noise. Outside, the rest of the camp
seemed undisturbed. There was death in Steve's strong tightening
fingers. There had to be death there. Death for the Kumaji guard—or
death for the fleeing Earthmen, who had lost one colony and must seek
another.
They fell together on the sand, the guard still struggling. Steve
couldn't release his throat to grab the pike. The guard stabbed out
awkwardly, blindly with it, kicking up sand. Then Tobias Whiting moaned,
but Steve hardly heard him.
When the guard's legs stopped drumming, Steve released him. The man was
either dead or so close to death that he would be out for hours. Steve
had never killed a man before, had never in violence and with intent to
kill attacked a man....
"Steve!"
It was Mary, calling his name and crying.
"It's Dad. Dad was—hit. The pike, a wild stab. He's hit bad—"
Steve crawled over to them. It was very dark. He could barely make out
Tobias Whiting's pain-contorted face.
"My stomach," Whiting said, gasping for breath. "The pain...."
Steve probed with his hands, found the wound. Blood was rushing out. He
couldn't stop it and he knew it and he thought Whiting knew it too. He
touched Mary's hand, and held it. Mary sobbed against him, crying
softly.
"You two ..." Whiting gasped. "You two ... Mary, Mary girl. Is—he—what
you want?"
"Yes, Dad. Oh, yes!"
"You can get her out of here, Cantwell?"
"I think so," Steve said.
"Then go. Go while you can. I'll tell them—due south. The Earthmen are
heading due south. They'll go—south. They won't find the caravan.
You'll—all—get away. If it's—what you want, Mary."
She leaned away from Steve, kissing her father. She asked Steve: "Isn't
there anything we can do for him?"
Steve shook his head. "But he's got to live long enough to tell them, to
deceive them."
"I'll live long enough," Whiting said, and Steve knew then that he
would. "Luck to—all of you. From a—very foolish—man...."
Steve took Mary's hand and pulled her out into the hot, dark, wind-blown
night. He carried the dead Kumaji's pike and they slipped across the
sand to where the thlots were hobbled for the night. He hardly
remembered the rest of it. There was violence and death, but necessary
death. He killed a man with the pike, and unhobbled one of the thlots .
The animal screamed and two more Kumajis came sleepily through the night
to see what was the matter. With the long edge of the pike's blade he
decapitated one of them. He slammed the shaft of the weapon across the
other's face, probably breaking his jaw. The camp was in a turmoil. In
the darkness he flung Mary on the thlot's bare back in front of him,
and they glided off across the sand.
Pursuit was disorganized—and unsuccessful. It was too dark for
effective pursuit, as Steve had hoped it would be. They rode swiftly all
night and continued riding with the dawn. They could have gone in any
direction. The wind-driven sand would obliterate their trail.
Two days later they reached the caravan. As they rode up, Mary said,
"Steve, do you have to tell them?"
"We can tell them this," Steve said. "Your father died a hero's death,
sending the Kumajis off in the wrong direction."
"And not—not what he'd planned to do at first."
"No. We'll tell them that was his intention all the while. A man can
make a mistake, can't he?"
"I love you, Steve. I love you."
Then they rode down on the caravan. Somehow Steve knew they would all
reach Oasis City in safety.
With Mary he would find a new world out in the vastness of space.
|
How do others react upon hearing the narrator’s name?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about I, the Unspeakable by Walter J. Sheldon.
Relevant chunks:
I, the Unspeakable
By WALT SHELDON
Illustrated by LOUIS MARCHETTI
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction April 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"What's in a name?" might be very dangerous to ask in certain societies, in which sticks and stones are also a big problem!
I fought to be awake. I was dreaming, but I think I must have blushed. I must have blushed in my sleep.
" Do it! " she said. " Please do it! For me! "
It was the voice that always came, low, intense, seductive, the sound of your hand on silk ... and to a citizen of Northem, a conformist, it was shocking. I was a conformist then; I was still one that morning.
I awoke. The glowlight was on, slowly increasing. I was in my living machine in Center Four, where I belonged, and all the familiar things were about me, reality was back, but I was breathing very hard.
I lay on the pneumo a while before getting up. I looked at the chroner: 0703 hours, Day 17, Month IX, New Century Three. My morning nuro-tablets had already popped from the tube, and the timer had begun to boil an egg. The egg was there because the realfood allotment had been increased last month. The balance of trade with Southem had just swung a decimal or two our way.
I rose finally, stepped to the mirror, switched it to positive and looked at myself. New wrinkles—or maybe just a deepening of the old ones. It was beginning to show; the past two years were leaving traces.
I hadn't worried about my appearance when I'd been with the Office of Weapons. There, I'd been able to keep pretty much to myself, doing research on magnetic mechanics as applied to space drive. But other jobs, where you had to be among people, might be different. I needed every possible thing in my favor.
Yes, I still hoped for a job, even after two years. I still meant to keep on plugging, making the rounds.
I'd go out again today.
The timer clicked and my egg was ready. I swallowed the tablets and then took the egg to the table to savor it and make it last.
As I leaned forward to sit, the metal tag dangled from my neck, catching the glowlight. My identity tag.
Everything came back in a rush—
My name. The dream and her voice. And her suggestion.
Would I dare? Would I start out this very morning and take the risk, the terrible risk?
You remember renumbering. Two years ago. You remember how it was then; how everybody looked forward to his new designation, and how everybody made jokes about the way the letters came out, and how all the records were for a while fouled up beyond recognition.
The telecomics kidded renumbering. One went a little too far and they psycho-scanned him and then sent him to Marscol as a dangerous nonconform.
If you were disappointed with your new designation, you didn't complain. You didn't want a sudden visit from the Deacons during the night.
There had to be renumbering. We all understood that. With the population of Northem already past two billion, the old designations were too clumsy. Renumbering was efficient. It contributed to the good of Northem. It helped advance the warless struggle with Southem.
The equator is the boundary. I understand that once there was a political difference and that the two superstates sprawled longitudinally, not latitudinally, over the globe. Now they are pretty much the same. There is the truce, and they are both geared for war. They are both efficient states, as tightly controlled as an experiment with enzymes, as microsurgery, as the temper of a diplomat.
We were renumbered, then, in Northem. You know the system: everybody now has six digits and an additional prefix or suffix of four letters. Stateleader, for instance, has the designation AAAA-111/111. Now, to address somebody by calling off four letters is a little clumsy. We try to pronounce them when they are pronounceable. That is, no one says to Stateleader, "Good morning, A-A-A-A." They say, "Good morning, Aaaa."
Reading the last quote, I notice a curious effect. It says what I feel. Of course I didn't feel that way on that particular morning. I was still conformal; the last thing in my mind was that I would infract and be psycho-scanned.
Four letters then, and in many cases a pronounceable four letter word.
A four letter word.
Yes, you suspect already. You know what a four letter word can be.
Mine was.
It was unspeakable.
The slight weight on my forehead reminded me that I still wore my sleep-learner. I'd been studying administrative cybernetics, hoping to qualify in that field, although it was a poor substitute for a space drive expert. I removed the band and stepped across the room and turned off the oscillator. I went back to my egg and my bitter memories.
I will never forget the first day I received my new four letter combination and reported it to my chief, as required. I was unthinkably embarrassed. He didn't say anything. He just swallowed and choked and became crimson when he saw it. He didn't dare pass it to his secretarial engineer; he went to the administrative circuits and registered it himself.
I can't blame him for easing me out. He was trying to run an efficient organization, after all, and no doubt I upset its efficiency. My work was important—magnetic mechanics was the only way to handle quanta reaction, or the so-called non-energy drive, and was therefore the answer to feasible space travel beyond our present limit of Mars—and there were frequent inspection tours by Big Wheels and Very Important Persons.
Whenever anyone, especially a woman, asked my name, the embarrassment would become a crackling electric field all about us. The best tactic was just not to answer.
The chief called me in one day. He looked haggard.
"Er—old man," he said, not quite able to bring himself to utter my name, "I'm going to have to switch you to another department. How would you like to work on nutrition kits? Very interesting work."
"Nutrition kits? Me? On nutrition kits?"
"Well, I—er—know it sounds unusual, but it justifies. I just had the cybs work it over in the light of present regulations, and it justifies."
Everything had to justify, of course. Every act in the monthly report had to be covered by regulations and cross-regulations. Of course there were so many regulations that if you just took the time to work it out, you could justify damn near anything. I knew what the chief was up to. Just to remove me from my post would have taken a year of applications and hearings and innumerable visits to the capital in Center One. But if I should infract—deliberately infract—it would enable the chief to let me go. The equivalent of resigning.
"I'll infract," I said. "Rather than go on nutrition kits, I'll infract."
He looked vastly relieved. "Uh—fine," he said. "I rather hoped you would."
It took a week or so. Then I was on Non-Productive status and issued an N/P book for my necessities. Very few luxury coupons in the N/P book. I didn't really mind at first. My new living machine was smaller, but basically comfortable, and since I was still a loyal member of the state and a verified conformist, I wouldn't starve.
But I didn't know what I was in for.
I went from bureau to bureau, office to office, department to department—any place where they might use a space drive expert. A pattern began to emerge; the same story everywhere. When I mentioned my specialty they would look delighted. When I handed them my tag and they saw my name, they would go into immediate polite confusion. As soon as they recovered they would say they'd call me if anything turned up....
A few weeks of this and I became a bit dazed.
And then there was the problem of everyday existence. You might say it's lucky to be an N/P for a while. I've heard people say that. Basic needs provided, worlds of leisure time; on the surface it sounds attractive.
But let me give you an example. Say it is monthly realfood day. You go to the store, your mouth already watering in anticipation. You take your place in line and wait for your package. The distributor takes your coupon book and is all ready to reach for your package—and then he sees the fatal letters N/P. Non-Producer. A drone, a drain upon the State. You can see his stare curdle. He scowls at the book again.
"Not sure this is in order. Better go to the end of the line. We'll check it later."
You know what happens before the end of the line reaches the counter. No more packages.
Well, I couldn't get myself off N/P status until I got a post, and with my name I couldn't get a post.
Nor could I change my name. You know what happens when you try to change something already on the records. The very idea of wanting change implies criticism of the State. Unthinkable behavior.
That was why this curious dream voice shocked me so. The thing that it suggested was quite as embarrassing as its non-standard, emotional, provocative tone.
Bear with me; I'm getting to the voice—to her —in a moment.
I want to tell you first about the loneliness, the terrible loneliness. I could hardly join group games at any of the rec centers. I could join no special interest clubs or even State Loyalty chapters. Although I dabbled with theoretical research in my own quarters, I could scarcely submit any findings for publication—not with my name attached. A pseudonym would have been non-regulation and illegal.
But there was the worst thing of all. I could not mate.
Funny, I hadn't thought about mating until it became impossible. I remember the first time, out of sheer idleness, I wandered into a Eugenic Center. I filled out my form very carefully and submitted it for analysis and assignment. The clerk saw my name, and did the usual double-take. He coughed and swallowed and fidgeted.
He said, "Of course you understand that we must submit your application to the woman authorized to spend time in the mating booths with you, and that she has the right to refuse."
"Yes, I understand that."
"M'm," he said, and dismissed me with a nod.
I waited for a call in the next few weeks, still hoping, but I knew no woman would consent to meet a man with my name, let alone enter a mating booth with him.
The urge to reproduce myself became unbearable. I concocted all sorts of wild schemes.
I might infract socially and be classified a nonconform and sent to Marscol. I'd heard rumors that in that desolate land, on that desolate planet, both mingling and mating were rather disgustingly unrestricted. Casual mating would be terribly dangerous, of course, with all the wild irradiated genes from the atomic decade still around, but I felt I'd be willing to risk that. Well, almost....
About then I began to have these dreams. As I've told you, in the dream there was only this woman's seductive voice. The first time I heard it I awoke in a warm sweat and swore something had gone wrong with the sleep-learner. You never hear the actual words with this machine, of course; you simply absorb the concepts unconsciously. Still, it seemed an explanation. I checked thoroughly. Nothing wrong.
The next night I heard the woman's voice again.
" Try it ," she said. " Do it. Start tomorrow to get your name changed. There will be a way. There must be a way. The rules are so mixed up that a clever man can do almost anything. Do it, please—for me. "
She was not only trying to get me to commit nonconformity, but making heretical remarks besides. I awoke that time and half-expected a Deacon to pop out of the tube and turn his electric club upon me.
And I heard the voice nearly every night.
It hammered away.
" What if you do fail? Almost anything would be better than the miserable existence you're leading now! "
One morning I even caught myself wondering just how I'd go about this idea of hers. Wondering what the first step might be.
She seemed to read my thoughts. That night she said, " Consult the cybs in the Govpub office. If you look hard enough and long enough, you'll find a way. "
Now, on this morning of the seventeenth day in the ninth month, I ate my boiled egg slowly and actually toyed with the idea. I thought of being on productive status again. I had almost lost my fanatical craving to be useful to the State, but I did want to be busy—desperately. I didn't want to be despised any more. I didn't want to be lonely. I wanted to reproduce myself.
I made my decision suddenly. Waves of emotion carried me along. I got up, crossed the room to the directory, and pushbuttoned to find the location of the nearest Govpub office.
I didn't know what would happen and almost didn't care.
II
Like most important places, the Govpub Office in Center Four was underground. I could have taken a tunnelcar more quickly, but it seemed pleasanter to travel topside. Or maybe I just wanted to put this off a bit. Think about it. Compose myself.
At the entrance to the Govpub warren there was a big director cyb, a plate with a speaker and switch. The sign on it said to switch it on and get close to the speaker and I did.
The cyb's mechanical voice—they never seem to get the "th" sounds right—said, "This is Branch Four of the Office of Government Publications. Say, 'Publications,' and/or, 'Information desired,' as thoroughly and concisely as possible. Use approved voice and standard phraseology."
Well, simple enough so far. I had always rather prided myself on my knack for approved voice, those flat, emotionless tones that indicate efficiency. And I would never forget how to speak Statese. I said,
"Applicant desires all pertinent information relative assignment, change or amendment of State Serial designations, otherwise generally referred to as nomenclature."
There was a second's delay while the audio patterns tripped relays and brought the memory tubes in.
Then the cyb said, "Proceed to Numbering and Identity section. Consult alphabetical list and diagram on your left for location of same."
"Thanks," I said absent-mindedly.
I started to turn away and the cyb said, "Information on tanks is military information and classified. State authorization for—"
I switched it off.
Numbering and Identity wasn't hard to find. I took the shaft to the proper level and then it was only a walk of a few hundred yards through the glowlit corridors.
N. & I. turned out to be a big room, somewhat circular, very high-ceilinged, with banks of cyb controls covering the upper walls. Narrow passageways, like spokes, led off in several directions. There was an information desk in the center of the room.
I looked that way and my heart went into free fall.
There was a girl at the information desk. An exceptionally attractive girl. She was well within the limits of acceptable standard, and her features were even enough, and her hair a middle blonde—but she had something else. Hard to describe. It was a warmth, a buoyancy, a sense of life and intense animation. It didn't exactly show; it radiated. It seemed to sing out from her clear complexion, from her figure, which even a tunic could not hide, from everything about her.
And if I were to state my business, I would have to tell her my name.
I almost backed out right then. I stopped momentarily. And then common sense took hold and I realized that if I were to go through with this thing, here would be only the first of a long series of embarrassments and discomforts. It had to be done.
I walked up to the desk and the girl turned to face me, and I could have sworn that a faint smile crossed her lips. It was swift, like the shadow of a bird across one of the lawns in one of the great parks topside. Very non-standard. Yet I wasn't offended; if anything, I felt suddenly and disturbingly pleased.
"What information is desired?" she asked. Her voice was standard—or was it?
Again I had the feeling of restrained warmth.
I used colloquial. "I want to get the dope on State Serial designations, how they're assigned and so forth. Especially how they might be changed."
She put a handsteno on the desk top and said, "Name? Address? Post?"
I froze. I stood there and stared at her.
She looked up and said, "Well?"
"I—er—no post at present. N/P status."
Her fingers moved on the steno.
I gave her my address and she recorded that.
Then I paused again.
She said, "And your name?"
I took a deep breath and told her.
I didn't want to look into her eyes. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't find a decent excuse to. I saw her eyes become wide and noticed for the first time that they were a warm gray, almost a mouse color. I felt like laughing at that irrelevant observation, but more than that I felt like turning and running. I felt like climbing and dashing all over the walls like a frustrated cat and yelling at the top of my lungs. I felt like anything but standing there and looking stupid, meeting her stare—
She looked down quickly and recorded my name. It took her a little longer than necessary. In that time she recovered. Somewhat.
"All right," she said finally, "I'll make a search."
She turned to a row of buttons on a console in the center of the desk and began to press them in various combinations. A typer clicked away. She tore off a slip of paper, consulted it, and said, "Information desired is in Bank 29. Please follow me."
Well, following her was a pleasure, anyway. I could watch the movement of her hips and torso as she walked. She was not tall, but long-legged and extremely lithe. Graceful and rhythmic. Very, very feminine, almost beyond standard in that respect. I felt blood throb in my temples and was heartily ashamed of myself.
I would like to be in a mating booth with her, I thought, the full authorized twenty minutes. And I knew I was unconformist and the realization hardly scared me at all.
She led me down one of the long passageways.
A few moments later I said, "Don't you sometimes get—well, pretty lonely working here?" Personal talk at a time like this wasn't approved behavior, but I couldn't help it.
She answered hesitantly, but at least she answered. She said, "Not terribly. The cybs are company enough most of the time."
"You don't get many visitors, then."
"Not right here. N. & I. isn't a very popular section. Most people who come to Govpub spend their time researching in the ancient manuscript room. The—er—social habits of the pre-atomic civilization."
I laughed. I knew what she meant, all right. Pre-atomics and their ideas about free mating always fascinated people. I moved up beside her. "What's your name, by the way?"
"L-A-R-A 339/827."
I pronounced it. "Lara. Lah-rah. That's beautiful. Fits you, too."
She didn't answer; she kept her eyes straight ahead and I saw the faint spot of color on her cheek.
I had a sudden impulse to ask her to meet me after hours at one of the rec centers. If it had been my danger alone, I might have, but I couldn't very well ask her to risk discovery of a haphazard, unauthorized arrangement like that and the possibility of going to the psycho-scan.
We came to a turn in the corridor and something happened; I'm not sure just how it happened. I keep telling myself that my movements were not actually deliberate. I was to the right of her. The turn was to the left. She turned quickly, and I didn't, so that I bumped into her, knocking her off balance. I grabbed her to keep her from falling.
For a moment we stood there, face to face, touching each other lightly. I held her by the arms. I felt the primitive warmth of her breath. Our eyes held together ... proton ... electron ... I felt her tremble.
She broke from my grip suddenly and started off again.
After that she was very business-like.
We came finally to the controls of Bank 29 and she stood before them and began to press button combinations. I watched her work; I watched her move. I had almost forgotten why I'd come here. The lights blinked on and off and the typers clacked softly as the machine sorted out information.
She had a long printed sheet from the roll presently. She frowned at it and turned to me. "You can take this along and study it," she said,
"but I'm afraid what you have in mind may be—a little difficult."
She must have guessed what I had in mind. I said, "I didn't think it would be easy."
"It seems that the only agency authorized to change a State Serial under any circumstances is Opsych."
"Opsych?" You can't keep up with all these departments.
"The Office of Psychological Adjustment. They can change you if you go from a lower to higher E.A.C."
"I don't get it, exactly."
As she spoke I had the idea that there was sympathy in her voice. Just an overtone. "Well," she said, "as you know, the post a person is qualified to hold often depends largely on his Emotional Adjustment Category. Now if he improves and passes from, let us say, Grade 3 to Grade 4, he will probably change his place of work. In order to protect him from any associative maladjustments developed under the old E.A.C, he is permitted a new number."
I groaned. "But I'm already in the highest E.A.C.!"
"It looks very uncertain then."
"Sometimes I think I'd be better off in the mines, or on Marscol—or—in the hell of the pre-atomics!"
She looked amused. "What did you say your E.A.C. was?"
"Oh, all right. Sorry." I controlled myself and grinned. "I guess this whole thing has been just a little too much for me. Maybe my E.A.C.'s even gone down."
"That might be your chance then."
"How do you mean?"
"If you could get to the top man in Opsych and demonstrate that your number has inadvertently changed your E.A.C., he might be able to justify a change."
"By the State, he might!" I punched my palm. "Only how do I get to him?"
"I can find his location on the cyb here. Center One, the capital, for a guess. You'll have to get a travel permit to go there, of course. Just a moment."
She worked at the machine again, trying it on general data. The printed slip came out a moment later and she read it to me. Chief, Opsych, was in the capital all right. It didn't give the exact location of his office, but it did tell how to find the underground bay in Center One containing the Opsych offices.
We headed back through the passageway then and she kept well ahead of me. I couldn't keep my eyes from her walk, from the way she walked with everything below her shoulders. My blood was pounding at my temples again.
I tried to keep the conversation going. "Do you think it'll be hard to get a travel permit?"
"Not impossible. My guess is that you'll be at Travbur all day tomorrow, maybe even the next day. But you ought to be able to swing it if you hold out long enough."
I sighed. "I know. It's that way everywhere in Northem. Our motto ought to be, 'Why make it difficult when with just a little more effort you can make it impossible?'"
She started to laugh, and then, as she emerged from the passageway into the big circular room, she cut her laugh short.
A second later, as I came along, I saw why.
There were two Deacons by the central desk. They were burly and had that hard, pinched-face look and wore the usual black belts. Electric clubs hung from the belts. Spidery looking pistols were at their sides.
I didn't know whether these two had heard my crack or not. I know they kept looking at me.
Lara and I crossed the room silently, she back to her desk, I to the exit door. The Deacons' remote, disapproving eyes swung in azimuth, tracking us.
I walked out and wanted to turn and smile at Lara, and get into my smile something of the hope that someday, somewhere, I'd see her again—but of course I didn't dare.
III
I had the usual difficulties at Travbur the next day. I won't go into them, except to say that I was batted from office to office like a ping pong ball, and that, when I finally got my travel permit, I was made to feel that I had stolen an original Picasso from the State Museum.
I made it in a day. Just. I got my permit thirty seconds before closing time. I was to take the jetcopter to Center One at 0700 hours the following morning.
In my living machine that evening, I was much too excited to work at theoretical research as I usually did after a hard day of tramping around. I bathed, I paced a while, I sat and hummed nervously and got up and paced again. I turned on the telepuppets. There was a drama about the space pilots who fly the nonconformist prisoners to the forests and pulp-acetate plants on Mars. Seemed that the Southem political prisoners who are confined to the southern hemisphere of Mars, wanted to attack and conquer the north. The nonconformists, led by our pilot, came through for the State in the end. Corn is thicker than water. Standard.
There were, however, some good stereofilm shots of the limitless forests of Mars, and I wondered what it would be like to live there, in a green, fresh-smelling land. Pleasant, I supposed, if you could put up with the no doubt revolting morality of a prison planet.
And the drama seemed to point out that there was no more security for the nonconformists out there than for us here on Earth. Maybe somewhere in the universe, I thought, there would be peace for men. Somewhere beyond the solar system, perhaps, someday when we had the means to go there....
Yet instinct told me that wasn't the answer, either. I thought of a verse by an ancient pre-atomic poet named Hoffenstein. (People had unwieldy, random combinations of letters for names in those days.) The poem went:
Wherever I go,
I
go too,
And spoil everything.
That was it. The story of mankind.
I turned the glowlight down and lay on the pneumo after a while, but I didn't sleep for a long, long time.
Then, when I did sleep, when I had been sleeping, I heard the voice again. The low, seductive woman's voice—the startling, shocking voice out of my unconscious.
" You have taken the first step ," she said. " You are on your way to freedom. Don't stop now. Don't sink back into the lifelessness of conformity. Go on ... on and on. Keep struggling, for that is the only answer.... "
I didn't exactly talk back, but in the queer way of the dream, I thought objections. I was in my thirties, at the mid-point of my life, and the whole of that life had been spent under the State. I knew no other way to act. Suppressing what little individuality I might have was, for me, a way of survival. I was chockful of prescribed, stereotyped reactions, and I held onto them even when something within me told me what they were. This wasn't easy, this breaking away, not even this slight departure from the secure, camouflaged norm....
" The woman, Lara, attracts you ," said the voice.
I suppose at that point I twitched or rolled in my sleep. Yes, the voice was right, the woman Lara attracted me. So much that I ached with it.
" Take her. Find a way. When you succeed in changing your name, and know that you can do things, then find a way. There will be a way. "
The idea at once thrilled and frightened me.
I woke writhing and in a sweat again.
It was morning.
I dressed and headed for the jetcopter stage and the ship for Center One.
The ship was comfortable and departed on time, a transport with seats for about twenty passengers. I sat near the tail and moodily busied myself watching the gaunt brown earth far below. Between Centers there was mostly desert, only occasional patches of green. Before the atomic decade, I had heard, nearly all the earth was green and teemed with life ... birds, insects, animals, people, too. It was hard rock and sand now, with a few scrubs hanging on for life. The pre-atomics, who hadn't mastered synthesization, would have a hard time scratching existence from the earth today.
I tried to break the sad mood, and started to look around at some of the other passengers. That was when I first noticed the prisoners in the forward seats. Man and woman, they were, a youngish, rather non-descript couple, thin, very quiet. They were manacled and two Deacons sat across from them. The Deacons' backs were turned to me and I could see the prisoners' faces.
They had curious faces. Their eyes were indescribably sad, and yet their lips seemed to be ready to smile at any moment.
They were holding hands, not seeming to care about this vulgar emotional display.
I had the sudden crazy idea that Lara and I were sitting there, holding hands like that, nonconforming in the highest, and that we were wonderfully happy. Our eyes were sad too, but we were really happy, quietly happy, and that was why our lips stayed upon the brink of a smile.
Question:
How do others react upon hearing the narrator’s name?
Answer:
|
[
"Typically, people are unwelcoming of the narrator upon learning his name. During his job search, he is welcome in virtue of his previous experience in space drives, but is quickly dismissed upon sharing his name. In submitting his application to mate at a Eugenic Center, the clerk dismisses the narrator’s chances of finding a mate with a reminder that the women are able to refuse. Lara, the information clerk at the department of Numbering and Identity, is taken aback and hesitates in recording the narrator’s personal information. \n",
"People around the narrator are embarrassed to even utter his name. When he reports his name to his chief of his past job, his boss was speechless, and definitely was feeling awkward. He did not give the name to the secretarial engineer, who usually takes care of the names. Instead, he went directly to the administrative circuits. Later, the boss asked him to resign, simply because of his name. Moreover, when trying to get hired for other jobs, upon hearing his name, the employer would react with confusion, and they would try to be polite and say that they will call if any thing turn up. The women at the Eugenic Center have similar reactions. They would be embarrassed, and then tell him that they will call if anything comes up. But they never do. At monthly realfood day, he can hardly get the package because the distributor sees his post and realizes that he is a Non-Producer, they would tell him to go to the end of the line, where the food never gets there. Even Lara was a bit shocked, and she has to take some time to recover. ",
"Upon hearing the narrator's name, people are shocked, and sympathetically try to ignore it. Firstly, when the narrator first reports his name to the chief, he reacts silently and refuses to share it with anyone else. The chief then does not refer to the narrator by his name, instead calling him by nicknames. When the clerk at the Eugenic Center hears the narrator's name, he coughs awkwardly and reminds the narrator that women have the right to refuse entering the mating booth with him. When Lara hears the narrator's name, she tries to hide her reaction and looks down, but takes longer to record it.",
"People have various reactions when they hear the narrator’s name. When he first reports his name to his chief, the chief does not respond directly and instead becomes red in the face and chokes from the shock. Individuals at the different bureaus during his search for a job are excited when they learn of his job specialty, but lose their delight when they see his name on his name tag. A clerk at the Eugenic Center reacts to the narrator’s name with surprise and becomes uncomfortable, shown by his fidgeting and coughing that follows hearing the name. In general, many people have an uncomfortable reaction to his name and have to take a second to process it and recover from their reaction. "
] |
51210
|
I, the Unspeakable
By WALT SHELDON
Illustrated by LOUIS MARCHETTI
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction April 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"What's in a name?" might be very dangerous to ask in certain societies, in which sticks and stones are also a big problem!
I fought to be awake. I was dreaming, but I think I must have blushed. I must have blushed in my sleep.
" Do it! " she said. " Please do it! For me! "
It was the voice that always came, low, intense, seductive, the sound of your hand on silk ... and to a citizen of Northem, a conformist, it was shocking. I was a conformist then; I was still one that morning.
I awoke. The glowlight was on, slowly increasing. I was in my living machine in Center Four, where I belonged, and all the familiar things were about me, reality was back, but I was breathing very hard.
I lay on the pneumo a while before getting up. I looked at the chroner: 0703 hours, Day 17, Month IX, New Century Three. My morning nuro-tablets had already popped from the tube, and the timer had begun to boil an egg. The egg was there because the realfood allotment had been increased last month. The balance of trade with Southem had just swung a decimal or two our way.
I rose finally, stepped to the mirror, switched it to positive and looked at myself. New wrinkles—or maybe just a deepening of the old ones. It was beginning to show; the past two years were leaving traces.
I hadn't worried about my appearance when I'd been with the Office of Weapons. There, I'd been able to keep pretty much to myself, doing research on magnetic mechanics as applied to space drive. But other jobs, where you had to be among people, might be different. I needed every possible thing in my favor.
Yes, I still hoped for a job, even after two years. I still meant to keep on plugging, making the rounds.
I'd go out again today.
The timer clicked and my egg was ready. I swallowed the tablets and then took the egg to the table to savor it and make it last.
As I leaned forward to sit, the metal tag dangled from my neck, catching the glowlight. My identity tag.
Everything came back in a rush—
My name. The dream and her voice. And her suggestion.
Would I dare? Would I start out this very morning and take the risk, the terrible risk?
You remember renumbering. Two years ago. You remember how it was then; how everybody looked forward to his new designation, and how everybody made jokes about the way the letters came out, and how all the records were for a while fouled up beyond recognition.
The telecomics kidded renumbering. One went a little too far and they psycho-scanned him and then sent him to Marscol as a dangerous nonconform.
If you were disappointed with your new designation, you didn't complain. You didn't want a sudden visit from the Deacons during the night.
There had to be renumbering. We all understood that. With the population of Northem already past two billion, the old designations were too clumsy. Renumbering was efficient. It contributed to the good of Northem. It helped advance the warless struggle with Southem.
The equator is the boundary. I understand that once there was a political difference and that the two superstates sprawled longitudinally, not latitudinally, over the globe. Now they are pretty much the same. There is the truce, and they are both geared for war. They are both efficient states, as tightly controlled as an experiment with enzymes, as microsurgery, as the temper of a diplomat.
We were renumbered, then, in Northem. You know the system: everybody now has six digits and an additional prefix or suffix of four letters. Stateleader, for instance, has the designation AAAA-111/111. Now, to address somebody by calling off four letters is a little clumsy. We try to pronounce them when they are pronounceable. That is, no one says to Stateleader, "Good morning, A-A-A-A." They say, "Good morning, Aaaa."
Reading the last quote, I notice a curious effect. It says what I feel. Of course I didn't feel that way on that particular morning. I was still conformal; the last thing in my mind was that I would infract and be psycho-scanned.
Four letters then, and in many cases a pronounceable four letter word.
A four letter word.
Yes, you suspect already. You know what a four letter word can be.
Mine was.
It was unspeakable.
The slight weight on my forehead reminded me that I still wore my sleep-learner. I'd been studying administrative cybernetics, hoping to qualify in that field, although it was a poor substitute for a space drive expert. I removed the band and stepped across the room and turned off the oscillator. I went back to my egg and my bitter memories.
I will never forget the first day I received my new four letter combination and reported it to my chief, as required. I was unthinkably embarrassed. He didn't say anything. He just swallowed and choked and became crimson when he saw it. He didn't dare pass it to his secretarial engineer; he went to the administrative circuits and registered it himself.
I can't blame him for easing me out. He was trying to run an efficient organization, after all, and no doubt I upset its efficiency. My work was important—magnetic mechanics was the only way to handle quanta reaction, or the so-called non-energy drive, and was therefore the answer to feasible space travel beyond our present limit of Mars—and there were frequent inspection tours by Big Wheels and Very Important Persons.
Whenever anyone, especially a woman, asked my name, the embarrassment would become a crackling electric field all about us. The best tactic was just not to answer.
The chief called me in one day. He looked haggard.
"Er—old man," he said, not quite able to bring himself to utter my name, "I'm going to have to switch you to another department. How would you like to work on nutrition kits? Very interesting work."
"Nutrition kits? Me? On nutrition kits?"
"Well, I—er—know it sounds unusual, but it justifies. I just had the cybs work it over in the light of present regulations, and it justifies."
Everything had to justify, of course. Every act in the monthly report had to be covered by regulations and cross-regulations. Of course there were so many regulations that if you just took the time to work it out, you could justify damn near anything. I knew what the chief was up to. Just to remove me from my post would have taken a year of applications and hearings and innumerable visits to the capital in Center One. But if I should infract—deliberately infract—it would enable the chief to let me go. The equivalent of resigning.
"I'll infract," I said. "Rather than go on nutrition kits, I'll infract."
He looked vastly relieved. "Uh—fine," he said. "I rather hoped you would."
It took a week or so. Then I was on Non-Productive status and issued an N/P book for my necessities. Very few luxury coupons in the N/P book. I didn't really mind at first. My new living machine was smaller, but basically comfortable, and since I was still a loyal member of the state and a verified conformist, I wouldn't starve.
But I didn't know what I was in for.
I went from bureau to bureau, office to office, department to department—any place where they might use a space drive expert. A pattern began to emerge; the same story everywhere. When I mentioned my specialty they would look delighted. When I handed them my tag and they saw my name, they would go into immediate polite confusion. As soon as they recovered they would say they'd call me if anything turned up....
A few weeks of this and I became a bit dazed.
And then there was the problem of everyday existence. You might say it's lucky to be an N/P for a while. I've heard people say that. Basic needs provided, worlds of leisure time; on the surface it sounds attractive.
But let me give you an example. Say it is monthly realfood day. You go to the store, your mouth already watering in anticipation. You take your place in line and wait for your package. The distributor takes your coupon book and is all ready to reach for your package—and then he sees the fatal letters N/P. Non-Producer. A drone, a drain upon the State. You can see his stare curdle. He scowls at the book again.
"Not sure this is in order. Better go to the end of the line. We'll check it later."
You know what happens before the end of the line reaches the counter. No more packages.
Well, I couldn't get myself off N/P status until I got a post, and with my name I couldn't get a post.
Nor could I change my name. You know what happens when you try to change something already on the records. The very idea of wanting change implies criticism of the State. Unthinkable behavior.
That was why this curious dream voice shocked me so. The thing that it suggested was quite as embarrassing as its non-standard, emotional, provocative tone.
Bear with me; I'm getting to the voice—to her —in a moment.
I want to tell you first about the loneliness, the terrible loneliness. I could hardly join group games at any of the rec centers. I could join no special interest clubs or even State Loyalty chapters. Although I dabbled with theoretical research in my own quarters, I could scarcely submit any findings for publication—not with my name attached. A pseudonym would have been non-regulation and illegal.
But there was the worst thing of all. I could not mate.
Funny, I hadn't thought about mating until it became impossible. I remember the first time, out of sheer idleness, I wandered into a Eugenic Center. I filled out my form very carefully and submitted it for analysis and assignment. The clerk saw my name, and did the usual double-take. He coughed and swallowed and fidgeted.
He said, "Of course you understand that we must submit your application to the woman authorized to spend time in the mating booths with you, and that she has the right to refuse."
"Yes, I understand that."
"M'm," he said, and dismissed me with a nod.
I waited for a call in the next few weeks, still hoping, but I knew no woman would consent to meet a man with my name, let alone enter a mating booth with him.
The urge to reproduce myself became unbearable. I concocted all sorts of wild schemes.
I might infract socially and be classified a nonconform and sent to Marscol. I'd heard rumors that in that desolate land, on that desolate planet, both mingling and mating were rather disgustingly unrestricted. Casual mating would be terribly dangerous, of course, with all the wild irradiated genes from the atomic decade still around, but I felt I'd be willing to risk that. Well, almost....
About then I began to have these dreams. As I've told you, in the dream there was only this woman's seductive voice. The first time I heard it I awoke in a warm sweat and swore something had gone wrong with the sleep-learner. You never hear the actual words with this machine, of course; you simply absorb the concepts unconsciously. Still, it seemed an explanation. I checked thoroughly. Nothing wrong.
The next night I heard the woman's voice again.
" Try it ," she said. " Do it. Start tomorrow to get your name changed. There will be a way. There must be a way. The rules are so mixed up that a clever man can do almost anything. Do it, please—for me. "
She was not only trying to get me to commit nonconformity, but making heretical remarks besides. I awoke that time and half-expected a Deacon to pop out of the tube and turn his electric club upon me.
And I heard the voice nearly every night.
It hammered away.
" What if you do fail? Almost anything would be better than the miserable existence you're leading now! "
One morning I even caught myself wondering just how I'd go about this idea of hers. Wondering what the first step might be.
She seemed to read my thoughts. That night she said, " Consult the cybs in the Govpub office. If you look hard enough and long enough, you'll find a way. "
Now, on this morning of the seventeenth day in the ninth month, I ate my boiled egg slowly and actually toyed with the idea. I thought of being on productive status again. I had almost lost my fanatical craving to be useful to the State, but I did want to be busy—desperately. I didn't want to be despised any more. I didn't want to be lonely. I wanted to reproduce myself.
I made my decision suddenly. Waves of emotion carried me along. I got up, crossed the room to the directory, and pushbuttoned to find the location of the nearest Govpub office.
I didn't know what would happen and almost didn't care.
II
Like most important places, the Govpub Office in Center Four was underground. I could have taken a tunnelcar more quickly, but it seemed pleasanter to travel topside. Or maybe I just wanted to put this off a bit. Think about it. Compose myself.
At the entrance to the Govpub warren there was a big director cyb, a plate with a speaker and switch. The sign on it said to switch it on and get close to the speaker and I did.
The cyb's mechanical voice—they never seem to get the "th" sounds right—said, "This is Branch Four of the Office of Government Publications. Say, 'Publications,' and/or, 'Information desired,' as thoroughly and concisely as possible. Use approved voice and standard phraseology."
Well, simple enough so far. I had always rather prided myself on my knack for approved voice, those flat, emotionless tones that indicate efficiency. And I would never forget how to speak Statese. I said,
"Applicant desires all pertinent information relative assignment, change or amendment of State Serial designations, otherwise generally referred to as nomenclature."
There was a second's delay while the audio patterns tripped relays and brought the memory tubes in.
Then the cyb said, "Proceed to Numbering and Identity section. Consult alphabetical list and diagram on your left for location of same."
"Thanks," I said absent-mindedly.
I started to turn away and the cyb said, "Information on tanks is military information and classified. State authorization for—"
I switched it off.
Numbering and Identity wasn't hard to find. I took the shaft to the proper level and then it was only a walk of a few hundred yards through the glowlit corridors.
N. & I. turned out to be a big room, somewhat circular, very high-ceilinged, with banks of cyb controls covering the upper walls. Narrow passageways, like spokes, led off in several directions. There was an information desk in the center of the room.
I looked that way and my heart went into free fall.
There was a girl at the information desk. An exceptionally attractive girl. She was well within the limits of acceptable standard, and her features were even enough, and her hair a middle blonde—but she had something else. Hard to describe. It was a warmth, a buoyancy, a sense of life and intense animation. It didn't exactly show; it radiated. It seemed to sing out from her clear complexion, from her figure, which even a tunic could not hide, from everything about her.
And if I were to state my business, I would have to tell her my name.
I almost backed out right then. I stopped momentarily. And then common sense took hold and I realized that if I were to go through with this thing, here would be only the first of a long series of embarrassments and discomforts. It had to be done.
I walked up to the desk and the girl turned to face me, and I could have sworn that a faint smile crossed her lips. It was swift, like the shadow of a bird across one of the lawns in one of the great parks topside. Very non-standard. Yet I wasn't offended; if anything, I felt suddenly and disturbingly pleased.
"What information is desired?" she asked. Her voice was standard—or was it?
Again I had the feeling of restrained warmth.
I used colloquial. "I want to get the dope on State Serial designations, how they're assigned and so forth. Especially how they might be changed."
She put a handsteno on the desk top and said, "Name? Address? Post?"
I froze. I stood there and stared at her.
She looked up and said, "Well?"
"I—er—no post at present. N/P status."
Her fingers moved on the steno.
I gave her my address and she recorded that.
Then I paused again.
She said, "And your name?"
I took a deep breath and told her.
I didn't want to look into her eyes. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't find a decent excuse to. I saw her eyes become wide and noticed for the first time that they were a warm gray, almost a mouse color. I felt like laughing at that irrelevant observation, but more than that I felt like turning and running. I felt like climbing and dashing all over the walls like a frustrated cat and yelling at the top of my lungs. I felt like anything but standing there and looking stupid, meeting her stare—
She looked down quickly and recorded my name. It took her a little longer than necessary. In that time she recovered. Somewhat.
"All right," she said finally, "I'll make a search."
She turned to a row of buttons on a console in the center of the desk and began to press them in various combinations. A typer clicked away. She tore off a slip of paper, consulted it, and said, "Information desired is in Bank 29. Please follow me."
Well, following her was a pleasure, anyway. I could watch the movement of her hips and torso as she walked. She was not tall, but long-legged and extremely lithe. Graceful and rhythmic. Very, very feminine, almost beyond standard in that respect. I felt blood throb in my temples and was heartily ashamed of myself.
I would like to be in a mating booth with her, I thought, the full authorized twenty minutes. And I knew I was unconformist and the realization hardly scared me at all.
She led me down one of the long passageways.
A few moments later I said, "Don't you sometimes get—well, pretty lonely working here?" Personal talk at a time like this wasn't approved behavior, but I couldn't help it.
She answered hesitantly, but at least she answered. She said, "Not terribly. The cybs are company enough most of the time."
"You don't get many visitors, then."
"Not right here. N. & I. isn't a very popular section. Most people who come to Govpub spend their time researching in the ancient manuscript room. The—er—social habits of the pre-atomic civilization."
I laughed. I knew what she meant, all right. Pre-atomics and their ideas about free mating always fascinated people. I moved up beside her. "What's your name, by the way?"
"L-A-R-A 339/827."
I pronounced it. "Lara. Lah-rah. That's beautiful. Fits you, too."
She didn't answer; she kept her eyes straight ahead and I saw the faint spot of color on her cheek.
I had a sudden impulse to ask her to meet me after hours at one of the rec centers. If it had been my danger alone, I might have, but I couldn't very well ask her to risk discovery of a haphazard, unauthorized arrangement like that and the possibility of going to the psycho-scan.
We came to a turn in the corridor and something happened; I'm not sure just how it happened. I keep telling myself that my movements were not actually deliberate. I was to the right of her. The turn was to the left. She turned quickly, and I didn't, so that I bumped into her, knocking her off balance. I grabbed her to keep her from falling.
For a moment we stood there, face to face, touching each other lightly. I held her by the arms. I felt the primitive warmth of her breath. Our eyes held together ... proton ... electron ... I felt her tremble.
She broke from my grip suddenly and started off again.
After that she was very business-like.
We came finally to the controls of Bank 29 and she stood before them and began to press button combinations. I watched her work; I watched her move. I had almost forgotten why I'd come here. The lights blinked on and off and the typers clacked softly as the machine sorted out information.
She had a long printed sheet from the roll presently. She frowned at it and turned to me. "You can take this along and study it," she said,
"but I'm afraid what you have in mind may be—a little difficult."
She must have guessed what I had in mind. I said, "I didn't think it would be easy."
"It seems that the only agency authorized to change a State Serial under any circumstances is Opsych."
"Opsych?" You can't keep up with all these departments.
"The Office of Psychological Adjustment. They can change you if you go from a lower to higher E.A.C."
"I don't get it, exactly."
As she spoke I had the idea that there was sympathy in her voice. Just an overtone. "Well," she said, "as you know, the post a person is qualified to hold often depends largely on his Emotional Adjustment Category. Now if he improves and passes from, let us say, Grade 3 to Grade 4, he will probably change his place of work. In order to protect him from any associative maladjustments developed under the old E.A.C, he is permitted a new number."
I groaned. "But I'm already in the highest E.A.C.!"
"It looks very uncertain then."
"Sometimes I think I'd be better off in the mines, or on Marscol—or—in the hell of the pre-atomics!"
She looked amused. "What did you say your E.A.C. was?"
"Oh, all right. Sorry." I controlled myself and grinned. "I guess this whole thing has been just a little too much for me. Maybe my E.A.C.'s even gone down."
"That might be your chance then."
"How do you mean?"
"If you could get to the top man in Opsych and demonstrate that your number has inadvertently changed your E.A.C., he might be able to justify a change."
"By the State, he might!" I punched my palm. "Only how do I get to him?"
"I can find his location on the cyb here. Center One, the capital, for a guess. You'll have to get a travel permit to go there, of course. Just a moment."
She worked at the machine again, trying it on general data. The printed slip came out a moment later and she read it to me. Chief, Opsych, was in the capital all right. It didn't give the exact location of his office, but it did tell how to find the underground bay in Center One containing the Opsych offices.
We headed back through the passageway then and she kept well ahead of me. I couldn't keep my eyes from her walk, from the way she walked with everything below her shoulders. My blood was pounding at my temples again.
I tried to keep the conversation going. "Do you think it'll be hard to get a travel permit?"
"Not impossible. My guess is that you'll be at Travbur all day tomorrow, maybe even the next day. But you ought to be able to swing it if you hold out long enough."
I sighed. "I know. It's that way everywhere in Northem. Our motto ought to be, 'Why make it difficult when with just a little more effort you can make it impossible?'"
She started to laugh, and then, as she emerged from the passageway into the big circular room, she cut her laugh short.
A second later, as I came along, I saw why.
There were two Deacons by the central desk. They were burly and had that hard, pinched-face look and wore the usual black belts. Electric clubs hung from the belts. Spidery looking pistols were at their sides.
I didn't know whether these two had heard my crack or not. I know they kept looking at me.
Lara and I crossed the room silently, she back to her desk, I to the exit door. The Deacons' remote, disapproving eyes swung in azimuth, tracking us.
I walked out and wanted to turn and smile at Lara, and get into my smile something of the hope that someday, somewhere, I'd see her again—but of course I didn't dare.
III
I had the usual difficulties at Travbur the next day. I won't go into them, except to say that I was batted from office to office like a ping pong ball, and that, when I finally got my travel permit, I was made to feel that I had stolen an original Picasso from the State Museum.
I made it in a day. Just. I got my permit thirty seconds before closing time. I was to take the jetcopter to Center One at 0700 hours the following morning.
In my living machine that evening, I was much too excited to work at theoretical research as I usually did after a hard day of tramping around. I bathed, I paced a while, I sat and hummed nervously and got up and paced again. I turned on the telepuppets. There was a drama about the space pilots who fly the nonconformist prisoners to the forests and pulp-acetate plants on Mars. Seemed that the Southem political prisoners who are confined to the southern hemisphere of Mars, wanted to attack and conquer the north. The nonconformists, led by our pilot, came through for the State in the end. Corn is thicker than water. Standard.
There were, however, some good stereofilm shots of the limitless forests of Mars, and I wondered what it would be like to live there, in a green, fresh-smelling land. Pleasant, I supposed, if you could put up with the no doubt revolting morality of a prison planet.
And the drama seemed to point out that there was no more security for the nonconformists out there than for us here on Earth. Maybe somewhere in the universe, I thought, there would be peace for men. Somewhere beyond the solar system, perhaps, someday when we had the means to go there....
Yet instinct told me that wasn't the answer, either. I thought of a verse by an ancient pre-atomic poet named Hoffenstein. (People had unwieldy, random combinations of letters for names in those days.) The poem went:
Wherever I go,
I
go too,
And spoil everything.
That was it. The story of mankind.
I turned the glowlight down and lay on the pneumo after a while, but I didn't sleep for a long, long time.
Then, when I did sleep, when I had been sleeping, I heard the voice again. The low, seductive woman's voice—the startling, shocking voice out of my unconscious.
" You have taken the first step ," she said. " You are on your way to freedom. Don't stop now. Don't sink back into the lifelessness of conformity. Go on ... on and on. Keep struggling, for that is the only answer.... "
I didn't exactly talk back, but in the queer way of the dream, I thought objections. I was in my thirties, at the mid-point of my life, and the whole of that life had been spent under the State. I knew no other way to act. Suppressing what little individuality I might have was, for me, a way of survival. I was chockful of prescribed, stereotyped reactions, and I held onto them even when something within me told me what they were. This wasn't easy, this breaking away, not even this slight departure from the secure, camouflaged norm....
" The woman, Lara, attracts you ," said the voice.
I suppose at that point I twitched or rolled in my sleep. Yes, the voice was right, the woman Lara attracted me. So much that I ached with it.
" Take her. Find a way. When you succeed in changing your name, and know that you can do things, then find a way. There will be a way. "
The idea at once thrilled and frightened me.
I woke writhing and in a sweat again.
It was morning.
I dressed and headed for the jetcopter stage and the ship for Center One.
The ship was comfortable and departed on time, a transport with seats for about twenty passengers. I sat near the tail and moodily busied myself watching the gaunt brown earth far below. Between Centers there was mostly desert, only occasional patches of green. Before the atomic decade, I had heard, nearly all the earth was green and teemed with life ... birds, insects, animals, people, too. It was hard rock and sand now, with a few scrubs hanging on for life. The pre-atomics, who hadn't mastered synthesization, would have a hard time scratching existence from the earth today.
I tried to break the sad mood, and started to look around at some of the other passengers. That was when I first noticed the prisoners in the forward seats. Man and woman, they were, a youngish, rather non-descript couple, thin, very quiet. They were manacled and two Deacons sat across from them. The Deacons' backs were turned to me and I could see the prisoners' faces.
They had curious faces. Their eyes were indescribably sad, and yet their lips seemed to be ready to smile at any moment.
They were holding hands, not seeming to care about this vulgar emotional display.
I had the sudden crazy idea that Lara and I were sitting there, holding hands like that, nonconforming in the highest, and that we were wonderfully happy. Our eyes were sad too, but we were really happy, quietly happy, and that was why our lips stayed upon the brink of a smile.
|
What is the irony of the “Makers” in the story?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Orphans of the Void by Michael Shaara.
Relevant chunks:
Orphans of the Void
By MICHAEL SHAARA
Illustrated by EMSH
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction June 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Finding a cause worth dying for is no great trick—the Universe is full of them. Finding one worth living for is the genuine problem!
In the region of the Coal Sack Nebula, on the dead fourth planet of a star called Tyban, Captain Steffens of the Mapping Command stood counting buildings. Eleven. No, twelve. He wondered if there was any significance in the number. He had no idea.
"What do you make of it?" he asked.
Lieutenant Ball, the executive officer of the ship, almost tried to scratch his head before he remembered that he was wearing a spacesuit.
"Looks like a temporary camp," Ball said. "Very few buildings, and all built out of native materials, the only stuff available. Castaways, maybe?"
Steffens was silent as he walked up onto the rise. The flat weathered stone jutted out of the sand before him.
"No inscriptions," he pointed out.
"They would have been worn away. See the wind grooves? Anyway, there's not another building on the whole damn planet. You wouldn't call it much of a civilization."
"You don't think these are native?"
Ball said he didn't. Steffens nodded.
Standing there and gazing at the stone, Steffens felt the awe of great age. He had a hunch, deep and intuitive, that this was old— too old. He reached out a gloved hand, ran it gently over the smooth stone ridges of the wall. Although the atmosphere was very thin, he noticed that the buildings had no airlocks.
Ball's voice sounded in his helmet: "Want to set up shop, Skipper?"
Steffens paused. "All right, if you think it will do any good."
"You never can tell. Excavation probably won't be much use. These things are on a raised rock foundation, swept clean by the wind. And you can see that the rock itself is native—" he indicated the ledge beneath their feet—"and was cut out a long while back."
"How long?"
Ball toed the sand uncomfortably. "I wouldn't like to say off-hand."
"Make a rough estimate."
Ball looked at the captain, knowing what was in his mind. He smiled wryly and said: "Five thousand years? Ten thousand? I don't know."
Steffens whistled.
Ball pointed again at the wall. "Look at the striations. You can tell from that alone. It would take even a brisk Earth wind at least several thousand years to cut that deep, and the wind here has only a fraction of that force."
The two men stood for a long moment in silence. Man had been in interstellar space for three hundred years and this was the first uncovered evidence of an advanced, space-crossing, alien race. It was an historic moment, but neither of them was thinking about history.
Man had been in space for only three hundred years. Whatever had built these had been in space for thousands of years.
Which ought to give them , thought Steffens uncomfortably, one hell of a good head-start.
While the excav crew worked steadily, turning up nothing, Steffens remained alone among the buildings. Ball came out to him, looked dryly at the walls.
"Well," he said, "whoever they were, we haven't heard from them since."
"No? How can you be sure?" Steffens grunted. "A space-borne race was roaming this part of the Galaxy while men were still pitching spears at each other, that long ago. And this planet is only a parsec from Varius II, a civilization as old as Earth's. Did whoever built these get to Varius? Or did they get to Earth? How can you know?"
He kicked at the sand distractedly. "And most important, where are they now? A race with several thousand years...."
"Fifteen thousand," Ball said. When Steffens looked up, he added:
"That's what the geology boys say. Fifteen thousand, at the least."
Steffens turned to stare unhappily at the buildings. When he realized now how really old they were, a sudden thought struck him.
"But why buildings? Why did they have to build in stone, to last? There's something wrong with that. They shouldn't have had a need to build, unless they were castaways. And castaways would have left something behind. The only reason they would need a camp would be—"
"If the ship left and some of them stayed."
Steffens nodded. "But then the ship must have come back. Where did it go?" He ceased kicking at the sand and looked up into the blue-black midday sky. "We'll never know."
"How about the other planets?" Ball asked.
"The report was negative. Inner too hot, outer too heavy and cold. The third planet is the only one with a decent temperature range, but it has a CO
2
atmosphere."
"How about moons?"
Steffens shrugged. "We could try them and find out."
The third planet was a blank, gleaming ball until they were in close, and then the blankness resolved into folds and piling clouds and dimly, in places, the surface showed through. The ship went down through the clouds, falling the last few miles on her brakers. They came into the misty gas below, leveled off and moved along the edge of the twilight zone.
The moons of this solar system had yielded nothing. The third planet, a hot, heavy world which had no free oxygen and from which the monitors had detected nothing, was all that was left. Steffens expected nothing, but he had to try.
At a height of several miles, the ship moved up the zone, scanning, moving in the familiar slow spiral of the Mapping Command. Faint dark outlines of bare rocks and hills moved by below.
Steffens turned the screen to full magnification and watched silently.
After a while he saw a city.
The main screen being on, the whole crew saw it. Someone shouted and they stopped to stare, and Steffens was about to call for altitude when he saw that the city was dead.
He looked down on splintered walls that were like cloudy glass pieces rising above a plain, rising in a shattered circle. Near the center of the city, there was a huge, charred hole at least three miles in diameter and very deep. In all the piled rubble, nothing moved.
Steffens went down low to make sure, then brought the ship around and headed out across the main continent into the bright area of the sun. The rocks rolled by below, there was no vegetation at all, and then there were more cities—all with the black depression, the circular stamp that blotted away and fused the buildings into nothing.
No one on the ship had anything to say. None had ever seen a war, for there had not been war on Earth or near it for more than three hundred years.
The ship circled around to the dark side of the planet. When they were down below a mile, the radiation counters began to react. It became apparent, from the dials, that there could be nothing alive.
After a while Ball said: "Well, which do you figure? Did our friends from the fourth planet do this, or were they the same people as these?"
Steffens did not take his eyes from the screen. They were coming around to the daylight side.
"We'll go down and look for the answer," he said. "Break out the radiation suits."
He paused, thinking. If the ones on the fourth planet were alien to this world, they were from outer space, could not have come from one of the other planets here. They had starships and were warlike. Then, thousands of years ago. He began to realize how important it really was that Ball's question be answered.
When the ship had gone very low, looking for a landing site, Steffens was still by the screen. It was Steffens, then, who saw the thing move.
Down far below, it had been a still black shadow, and then it moved. Steffens froze. And he knew, even at that distance, that it was a robot.
Tiny and black, a mass of hanging arms and legs, the thing went gliding down the slope of a hill. Steffens saw it clearly for a full second, saw the dull ball of its head tilt upward as the ship came over, and then the hill was past.
Quickly Steffens called for height. The ship bucked beneath him and blasted straight up; some of the crew went crashing to the deck. Steffens remained by the screen, increasing the magnification as the ship drew away. And he saw another, then two, then a black gliding group, all matched with bunches of hanging arms.
Nothing alive but robots, he thought, robots . He adjusted to full close up as quickly as he could and the picture focused on the screen. Behind him he heard a crewman grunt in amazement.
A band of clear, plasticlike stuff ran round the head—it would be the eye, a band of eye that saw all ways. On the top of the head was a single round spot of the plastic, and the rest was black metal, joined, he realized, with fantastic perfection. The angle of sight was now almost perpendicular. He could see very little of the branching arms of the trunk, but what had been on the screen was enough. They were the most perfect robots he had ever seen.
The ship leveled off. Steffens had no idea what to do; the sudden sight of the moving things had unnerved him. He had already sounded the alert, flicked out the defense screens. Now he had nothing to do. He tried to concentrate on what the League Law would have him do.
The Law was no help. Contact with planet-bound races was forbidden under any circumstances. But could a bunch of robots be called a race? The Law said nothing about robots because Earthmen had none. The building of imaginative robots was expressly forbidden. But at any rate, Steffens thought, he had made contact already.
While Steffens stood by the screen, completely bewildered for the first time in his space career, Lieutenant Ball came up, hobbling slightly. From the bright new bruise on his cheek, Steffens guessed that the sudden climb had caught him unaware. The exec was pale with surprise.
"What were they?" he said blankly. "Lord, they looked like robots!"
"They were."
Ball stared confoundedly at the screen. The things were now a confusion of dots in the mist.
"Almost humanoid," Steffens said, "but not quite."
Ball was slowly absorbing the situation. He turned to gaze inquiringly at Steffens.
"Well, what do we do now?"
Steffens shrugged. "They saw us. We could leave now and let them quite possibly make a ... a legend out of our visit, or we could go down and see if they tie in with the buildings on Tyban IV."
" Can we go down?"
"Legally? I don't know. If they are robots, yes, since robots cannot constitute a race. But there's another possibility." He tapped his fingers on the screen confusedly. "They don't have to be robots at all. They could be the natives."
Ball gulped. "I don't follow you."
"They could be the original inhabitants of this planet—the brains of them, at least, protected in radiation-proof metal. Anyway," he added,
"they're the most perfect mechanicals I've ever seen."
Ball shook his head, sat down abruptly. Steffens turned from the screen, strode nervously across the Main Deck, thinking.
The Mapping Command, they called it. Theoretically, all he was supposed to do was make a closeup examination of unexplored systems, checking for the presence of life-forms as well as for the possibilities of human colonization. Make a check and nothing else. But he knew very clearly that if he returned to Sirius base without investigating this robot situation, he could very well be court-martialed one way or the other, either for breaking the Law of Contact or for dereliction of duty.
And there was also the possibility, which abruptly occurred to him, that the robots might well be prepared to blow his ship to hell and gone.
He stopped in the center of the deck. A whole new line of thought opened up. If the robots were armed and ready ... could this be an outpost?
An outpost!
He turned and raced for the bridge. If he went in and landed and was lost, then the League might never know in time. If he went in and stirred up trouble....
The thought in his mind was scattered suddenly, like a mist blown away. A voice was speaking in his mind, a deep calm voice that seemed to say:
" Greetings. Do not be alarmed. We do not wish you to be alarmed. Our desire is only to serve.... "
"Greetings, it said! Greetings!" Ball was mumbling incredulously through shocked lips.
Everyone on the ship had heard the voice. When it spoke again, Steffens was not sure whether it was just one voice or many voices.
"We await your coming," it said gravely, and repeated: "Our desire is only to serve."
And then the robots sent a picture .
As perfect and as clear as a tridim movie, a rectangular plate took shape in Steffens' mind. On the face of the plate, standing alone against a background of red-brown, bare rocks, was one of the robots. With slow, perfect movement, the robot carefully lifted one of the hanging arms of its side, of its right side, and extended it toward Steffens, a graciously offered hand.
Steffens felt a peculiar, compelling urge to take the hand, realized right away that the urge to take the hand was not entirely his. The robot mind had helped.
When the picture vanished, he knew that the others had seen it. He waited for a while; there was no further contact, but the feeling of the robot's urging was still strong within him. He had an idea that, if they wanted to, the robots could control his mind. So when nothing more happened, he began to lose his fear.
While the crew watched in fascination, Steffens tried to talk back. He concentrated hard on what he was saying, said it aloud for good measure, then held his own hand extended in the robot manner of shaking hands.
"Greetings," he said, because it was what they had said, and explained: "We have come from the stars."
It was overly dramatic, but so was the whole situation. He wondered baffledly if he should have let the Alien Contact crew handle it. Order someone to stand there, feeling like a fool, and think a message?
No, it was his responsibility; he had to go on:
"We request—we respectfully request permission to land upon your planet."
Steffens had not realized that there were so many.
They had been gathering since his ship was first seen, and now there were hundreds of them clustered upon the hill. Others were arriving even as the skiff landed; they glided in over the rocky hills with fantastic ease and power, so that Steffens felt a momentary anxiety. Most of the robots were standing with the silent immobility of metal. Others threaded their way to the fore and came near the skiff, but none touched it, and a circle was cleared for Steffens when he came out.
One of the near robots came forward alone, moving, as Steffens now saw, on a number of short, incredibly strong and agile legs. The black thing paused before him, extended a hand as it had done in the picture. Steffens took it, he hoped, warmly; felt the power of the metal through the glove of his suit.
"Welcome," the robot said, speaking again to his mind, and now Steffens detected a peculiar alteration in the robot's tone. It was less friendly now, less—Steffens could not understand—somehow less interested , as if the robot had been—expecting someone else.
"Thank you," Steffens said. "We are deeply grateful for your permission to land."
"Our desire," the robot repeated mechanically, "is only to serve."
Suddenly, Steffens began to feel alone, surrounded by machines. He tried to push the thought out of his mind, because he knew that they should seem inhuman. But....
"Will the others come down?" asked the robot, still mechanically.
Steffens felt his embarrassment. The ship lay high in the mist above, jets throbbing gently.
"They must remain with the ship," Steffens said aloud, trusting to the robot's formality not to ask him why. Although, if they could read his mind, there was no need to ask.
For a long while, neither spoke, long enough for Steffens to grow tense and uncomfortable. He could not think of a thing to say, the robot was obviously waiting, and so, in desperation, he signaled the Aliencon men to come on out of the skiff.
They came, wonderingly, and the ring of robots widened. Steffens heard the one robot speak again. The voice was now much more friendly.
"We hope you will forgive us for intruding upon your thought. It is our—custom—not to communicate unless we are called upon. But when we observed that you were in ignorance of our real—nature—and were about to leave our planet, we decided to put aside our custom, so that you might base your decision upon sufficient data."
Steffens replied haltingly that he appreciated their action.
"We perceive," the robot went on, "that you are unaware of our complete access to your mind, and would perhaps be—dismayed—to learn that we have been gathering information from you. We must—apologize. Our only purpose was so that we could communicate with you. Only that information was taken which is necessary for communication and—understanding. We will enter your minds henceforth only at your request."
Steffens did not react to the news that his mind was being probed as violently as he might have. Nevertheless it was a shock, and he retreated into observant silence as the Aliencon men went to work.
The robot which seemed to have been doing the speaking was in no way different from any of the others in the group. Since each of the robots was immediately aware of all that was being said or thought, Steffens guessed that they had sent one forward just for appearance's sake, because they perceived that the Earthmen would feel more at home. The picture of the extended hand, the characteristic handshake of Earthmen, had probably been borrowed, too, for the same purpose of making him and the others feel at ease. The one jarring note was the robot's momentary lapse, those unexplainable few seconds when the things had seemed almost disappointed. Steffens gave up wondering about that and began to examine the first robot in detail.
It was not very tall, being at least a foot shorter than the Earthmen. The most peculiar thing about it, except for the circling eye-band of the head, was a mass of symbols which were apparently engraved upon the metal chest. Symbols in row upon row—numbers, perhaps—were upon the chest, and repeated again below the level of the arms, and continued in orderly rows across the front of the robot, all the way down to the base of the trunk. If they were numbers, Steffens thought, then it was a remarkably complicated system. But he noticed the same pattern on the nearer robots, all apparently identical. He was forced to conclude that the symbols were merely decoration and let it go tentatively at that, although the answer seemed illogical.
It wasn't until he was on his way home that Steffens remembered the symbols again. And only then did he realized what they were.
After a while, convinced that there was no danger, Steffens had the ship brought down. When the crew came out of the airlock, they were met by the robots, and each man found himself with a robot at his side, humbly requesting to be of service. There were literally thousands of the robots now, come from all over the barren horizon. The mass of them stood apart, immobile on a plain near the ship, glinting in the sun like a vast, metallic field of black wheat.
The robots had obviously been built to serve. Steffens began to feel their pleasure, to sense it in spite of the blank, expressionless faces. They were almost like children in their eagerness, yet they were still reserved. Whoever had built them, Steffens thought in wonder, had built them well.
Ball came to join Steffens, staring at the robots through the clear plastic of his helmet with baffledly widened eyes. A robot moved out from the mass in the field, allied itself to him. The first to speak had remained with Steffens.
Realizing that the robot could hear every word he was saying, Ball was for a while apprehensive. But the sheer unreality of standing and talking with a multi-limbed, intelligent hunk of dead metal upon the bare rock of a dead, ancient world, the unreality of it slowly died. It was impossible not to like the things. There was something in their very lines which was pleasant and relaxing.
Their builders, Steffens thought, had probably thought of that, too.
"There's no harm in them," said Ball at last, openly, not minding if the robots heard. "They seem actually glad we're here. My God, whoever heard of a robot being glad?"
Steffens, embarrassed, spoke quickly to the nearest mechanical: "I hope you will forgive us our curiosity, but—yours is a remarkable race. We have never before made contact with a race like yours." It was said haltingly, but it was the best he could do.
The robot made a singularly human nodding motion of its head.
"I perceive that the nature of our construction is unfamiliar to you. Your question is whether or not we are entirely 'mechanical.' I am not exactly certain as to what the word 'mechanical' is intended to convey—I would have to examine your thought more fully—but I believe that there is fundamental similarity between our structures."
The robot paused. Steffens had a distinct impression that it was disconcerted.
"I must tell you," the thing went on, "that we ourselves are—curious." It stopped suddenly, struggling with a word it could not comprehend. Steffens waited, listening with absolute interest. It said at length:
"We know of only two types of living structure. Ours, which is largely metallic, and that of the Makers , which would appear to be somewhat more like yours. I am not a—doctor—and therefore cannot acquaint you with the specific details of the Makers' composition, but if you are interested I will have a doctor brought forward. It will be glad to be of assistance."
It was Steffens' turn to struggle, and the robot waited patiently while Ball and the second robot looked on in silence. The Makers, obviously, were whoever or whatever had built the robots, and the "doctors," Steffens decided, were probably just that—doctor-robots, designed specifically to care for the apparently flesh-bodies of the Makers.
The efficiency of the things continued to amaze him, but the question he had been waiting to ask came out now with a rush:
"Can you tell us where the Makers are?"
Both robots stood motionless. It occurred to Steffens that he couldn't really be sure which was speaking. The voice that came to him spoke with difficulty.
"The Makers—are not here."
Steffens stared in puzzlement. The robot detected his confusion and went on:
"The Makers have gone away. They have been gone for a very long time."
Could that be pain in its voice, Steffens wondered, and then the spectre of the ruined cities rose harsh in his mind.
War. The Makers had all been killed in that war. And these had not been killed.
He tried to grasp it, but he couldn't. There were robots here in the midst of a radiation so lethal that nothing , nothing could live; robots on a dead planet, living in an atmosphere of carbon dioxide.
The carbon dioxide brought him up sharp.
If there had been life here once, there would have been plant life as well, and therefore oxygen. If the war had been so long ago that the free oxygen had since gone out of the atmosphere—good God, how old were the robots? Steffens looked at Ball, then at the silent robots, then out across the field to where the rest of them stood. The black wheat. Steffens felt a deep chill.
Were they immortal?
"Would you like to see a doctor?"
Steffens jumped at the familiar words, then realized to what the robot was referring.
"No, not yet," he said, "thank you." He swallowed hard as the robots continued waiting patiently.
"Could you tell me," he said at last, "how old you are? Individually?"
"By your reckoning," said his robot, and paused to make the calculation, "I am forty-four years, seven months, and eighteen days of age, with ten years and approximately nine months yet to be alive."
Steffens tried to understand that.
"It would perhaps simplify our conversations," said the robot, "if you were to refer to me by a name, as is your custom. Using the first—letters—of my designation, my name would translate as Elb."
"Glad to meet you," Steffens mumbled.
"You are called 'Stef,'" said the robot obligingly. Then it added, pointing an arm at the robot near Ball: "The age of—Peb—is seventeen years, one month and four days. Peb has therefore remaining some thirty-eight years."
Steffens was trying to keep up. Then the life span was obviously about fifty-five years. But the cities, and the carbon dioxide? The robot, Elb, had said that the Makers were similar to him, and therefore oxygen and plant life would have been needed. Unless—
He remembered the buildings on Tyban IV.
Unless the Makers had not come from this planet at all.
His mind helplessly began to revolve. It was Ball who restored order.
"Do you build yourselves?" the exec asked.
Peb answered quickly, that faint note of happiness again apparent, as if the robot was glad for the opportunity of answering.
"No, we do not build ourselves. We are made by the—" another pause for a word—"by the Factory ."
"The Factory?"
"Yes. It was built by the Makers. Would you care to see it?"
Both of the Earthmen nodded dumbly.
"Would you prefer to use your—skiff? It is quite a long way from here."
It was indeed a long way, even by skiff. Some of the Aliencon crew went along with them. And near the edge of the twilight zone, on the other side of the world, they saw the Factory outlined in the dim light of dusk. A huge, fantastic block, wrought of gray and cloudy metal, lay in a valley between two worn mountains. Steffens went down low, circling in the skiff, stared in awe at the size of the building. Robots moved outside the thing, little black bugs in the distance—moving around their birthplace.
The Earthmen remained for several weeks. During that time, Steffens was usually with Elb, talking now as often as he listened, and the Aliencon team roamed the planet freely, investigating what was certainly the strangest culture in history. There was still the mystery of those buildings on Tyban IV; that, as well as the robots' origin, would have to be cleared up before they could leave.
Surprisingly, Steffens did not think about the future. Whenever he came near a robot, he sensed such a general, comfortable air of good feeling that it warmed him, and he was so preoccupied with watching the robots that he did little thinking.
Something he had not realized at the beginning was that he was as unusual to the robots as they were to him. It came to him with a great shock that not one of the robots had ever seen a living thing. Not a bug, a worm, a leaf. They did not know what flesh was. Only the doctors knew that, and none of them could readily understand what was meant by the words "organic matter." It had taken them some time to recognize that the Earthmen wore suits which were not parts of their bodies, and it was even more difficult for them to understand why the suits were needed.
But when they did understand, the robots did a surprising thing.
At first, because of the excessive radiation, none of the Earthmen could remain outside the ship for long, even in radiation suits. And one morning, when Steffens came out of the ship, it was to discover that hundreds of the robots, working through the night, had effectively decontaminated the entire area.
It was at this point that Steffens asked how many robots there were. He learned to his amazement that there were more than nine million. The great mass of them had politely remained a great distance from the ship, spread out over the planet, since they were highly radioactive.
Steffens, meanwhile, courteously allowed Elb to probe into his mind. The robot extracted all the knowledge of matter that Steffens held, pondered over the knowledge and tried to digest it, and passed it on to the other robots. Steffens, in turn, had a difficult time picturing the mind of a thing that had never known life.
He had a vague idea of the robot's history—more, perhaps, then they knew themselves—but he refrained from forming an opinion until Aliencon made its report. What fascinated him was Elb's amazing philosophy, the only outlook, really, that the robot could have had.
"What do you do ?" Steffens asked.
Elb replied quickly, with characteristic simplicity: "We can do very little. A certain amount of physical knowledge was imparted to us at birth by the Makers. We spend the main part of our time expanding that knowledge wherever possible. We have made some progress in the natural sciences, and some in mathematics. Our purpose in being, you see, is to serve the Makers. Any ability we can acquire will make us that much more fit to serve when the Makers return."
"When they return?" It had not occurred to Steffens until now that the robots expected the Makers to do so.
Elb regarded him out of the band of the circling eye. "I see you had surmised that the Makers were not coming back."
If the robot could have laughed, Steffens thought it would have, then. But it just stood there, motionless, its tone politely emphatic.
"It has always been our belief that the Makers would return. Why else would we have been built?"
Steffens thought the robot would go on, but it didn't. The question, to Elb, was no question at all.
Although Steffens knew already what the robot could not possibly have known—that the Makers were gone and would never come back—he was a long time understanding. What he did was push this speculation into the back of his mind, to keep it from Elb. He had no desire to destroy a faith.
But it created a problem in him. He had begun to picture for Elb the structure of human society, and the robot—a machine which did not eat or sleep—listened gravely and tried to understand. One day Steffens mentioned God.
"God?" the robot repeated without comprehension. "What is God?"
Steffens explained briefly, and the robot answered:
"It is a matter which has troubled us. We thought at first that you were the Makers returning—" Steffens remembered the brief lapse, the seeming disappointment he had sensed—"but then we probed your minds and found that you were not, that you were another kind of being, unlike either the Makers or ourselves. You were not even—" Elb caught himself—"you did not happen to be telepaths. Therefore we troubled over who made you. We did detect the word 'Maker' in your theology, but it seemed to have a peculiar—" Elb paused for a long while—"an untouchable, intangible meaning which varies among you."
Steffens understood. He nodded.
The Makers were the robots' God, were all the God they needed. The Makers had built them, the planet, the universe. If he were to ask them who made the Makers, it would be like their asking him who made God.
It was an ironic parallel, and he smiled to himself.
But on that planet, it was the last time he smiled.
Question:
What is the irony of the “Makers” in the story?
Answer:
|
[
"The “Makers” are to the robots as gods of creation are to humans. The robots believe that the Makers wouldn’t have created them if they wouldn’t return for them one day, and so steadfastly believe that the Makers will visit. They tell Steffens that the Makers were similar to his human form. This is evidenced by the disappointment the robots display when the humans land and the robots realize they do not communicate telepathically, thus cannot be the Makers they were expecting.\nSteffens states the “ironic parallel” of the Makers at the end of the story because the humans wish to understand who created the robots, but they can’t possibly answer that question because it would be like asking a human who created their god.\n",
"The “Makers” are humanoid aliens from over 15,000 years ago. They built the robots currently living on the radioactive wasteland to serve their every need. However, when their civilization was destroyed in the war, nothing remained of them aside from their robots. The robots idolize their Makers since they quite literally created them as well as the universe they exist in. Steffens draws the parallel between the robots’ Makers and humans’ God. He considers asking them who made the Makers, but then realizes that would be like asking who made God. ",
"The Makers were the race of people who had built the robots that the humans discover in the story. When the humans visit the planet, the robots are the only moving things on the surface: it seems that the Makers were likely destroyed in whatever radioactive explosion destroyed their city. The robots, when probing the minds of the humans, found the idea of the Maker to be the God of Earth, and tried to make connections between the two ideas. Much in the same way, the Maker of any sort had been responsible for building the creatures that lived to serve it. Unfortunately, given the evidence of some kind of war, the humans don't think the Makers are going to return to the planet they are visiting, which means that the robots will be working forever to serve the Makers who they will not see again; that is, they will never meet their makers. Even though their goals are based on self-improvement, they have no way of knowing if the main source of their motivation is even real anymore. It could also easily be confusing, if the humans asked where the Makers came from, because Steffens did not want to confuse the robots by asking them who the God of their own God was, so to speak. ",
"\n\tThe irony of the Makers is that they are the robots’ God and parallel to the human concept of God. Just as human theology holds that God created the universe and humans, in the robots’ understanding, the Makers created them, the planet, and the universe. There are other parallels as well; Christianity teaches that God dwelled among humans in his human form as Jesus. The Makers lived among the robots. Jesus was crucified and dead for three days until he returned to life and the people who knew him. Likewise, the Makers are gone, yet the robots fully expect them to return. Human theology teaches that God created humans to worship him and serve him; the Makers created the robots to serve them. In the absence of their Makers, the robots expectantly await their return just as Christians await the second coming of Jesus.\n\tFurthermore, the robots want to please their Makers and serve them the best they can. For this reason, in the Makers’ absence, the robots have worked to improve themselves, learning what they can about natural science and mathematics. When Elb probes Steffens’s mind to learn more about matter, his purpose is to enhance their knowledge. Likewise, humans seek to gain more knowledge about God and his teachings to serve God better.\n\tIt is also ironic that Steffens concludes that the Makers died in a war due to the ruined cities they discovered, but he doesn’t want to harm the robots’ faith in the return of their Makers. \n\t\n"
] |
50827
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Orphans of the Void
By MICHAEL SHAARA
Illustrated by EMSH
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction June 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Finding a cause worth dying for is no great trick—the Universe is full of them. Finding one worth living for is the genuine problem!
In the region of the Coal Sack Nebula, on the dead fourth planet of a star called Tyban, Captain Steffens of the Mapping Command stood counting buildings. Eleven. No, twelve. He wondered if there was any significance in the number. He had no idea.
"What do you make of it?" he asked.
Lieutenant Ball, the executive officer of the ship, almost tried to scratch his head before he remembered that he was wearing a spacesuit.
"Looks like a temporary camp," Ball said. "Very few buildings, and all built out of native materials, the only stuff available. Castaways, maybe?"
Steffens was silent as he walked up onto the rise. The flat weathered stone jutted out of the sand before him.
"No inscriptions," he pointed out.
"They would have been worn away. See the wind grooves? Anyway, there's not another building on the whole damn planet. You wouldn't call it much of a civilization."
"You don't think these are native?"
Ball said he didn't. Steffens nodded.
Standing there and gazing at the stone, Steffens felt the awe of great age. He had a hunch, deep and intuitive, that this was old— too old. He reached out a gloved hand, ran it gently over the smooth stone ridges of the wall. Although the atmosphere was very thin, he noticed that the buildings had no airlocks.
Ball's voice sounded in his helmet: "Want to set up shop, Skipper?"
Steffens paused. "All right, if you think it will do any good."
"You never can tell. Excavation probably won't be much use. These things are on a raised rock foundation, swept clean by the wind. And you can see that the rock itself is native—" he indicated the ledge beneath their feet—"and was cut out a long while back."
"How long?"
Ball toed the sand uncomfortably. "I wouldn't like to say off-hand."
"Make a rough estimate."
Ball looked at the captain, knowing what was in his mind. He smiled wryly and said: "Five thousand years? Ten thousand? I don't know."
Steffens whistled.
Ball pointed again at the wall. "Look at the striations. You can tell from that alone. It would take even a brisk Earth wind at least several thousand years to cut that deep, and the wind here has only a fraction of that force."
The two men stood for a long moment in silence. Man had been in interstellar space for three hundred years and this was the first uncovered evidence of an advanced, space-crossing, alien race. It was an historic moment, but neither of them was thinking about history.
Man had been in space for only three hundred years. Whatever had built these had been in space for thousands of years.
Which ought to give them , thought Steffens uncomfortably, one hell of a good head-start.
While the excav crew worked steadily, turning up nothing, Steffens remained alone among the buildings. Ball came out to him, looked dryly at the walls.
"Well," he said, "whoever they were, we haven't heard from them since."
"No? How can you be sure?" Steffens grunted. "A space-borne race was roaming this part of the Galaxy while men were still pitching spears at each other, that long ago. And this planet is only a parsec from Varius II, a civilization as old as Earth's. Did whoever built these get to Varius? Or did they get to Earth? How can you know?"
He kicked at the sand distractedly. "And most important, where are they now? A race with several thousand years...."
"Fifteen thousand," Ball said. When Steffens looked up, he added:
"That's what the geology boys say. Fifteen thousand, at the least."
Steffens turned to stare unhappily at the buildings. When he realized now how really old they were, a sudden thought struck him.
"But why buildings? Why did they have to build in stone, to last? There's something wrong with that. They shouldn't have had a need to build, unless they were castaways. And castaways would have left something behind. The only reason they would need a camp would be—"
"If the ship left and some of them stayed."
Steffens nodded. "But then the ship must have come back. Where did it go?" He ceased kicking at the sand and looked up into the blue-black midday sky. "We'll never know."
"How about the other planets?" Ball asked.
"The report was negative. Inner too hot, outer too heavy and cold. The third planet is the only one with a decent temperature range, but it has a CO
2
atmosphere."
"How about moons?"
Steffens shrugged. "We could try them and find out."
The third planet was a blank, gleaming ball until they were in close, and then the blankness resolved into folds and piling clouds and dimly, in places, the surface showed through. The ship went down through the clouds, falling the last few miles on her brakers. They came into the misty gas below, leveled off and moved along the edge of the twilight zone.
The moons of this solar system had yielded nothing. The third planet, a hot, heavy world which had no free oxygen and from which the monitors had detected nothing, was all that was left. Steffens expected nothing, but he had to try.
At a height of several miles, the ship moved up the zone, scanning, moving in the familiar slow spiral of the Mapping Command. Faint dark outlines of bare rocks and hills moved by below.
Steffens turned the screen to full magnification and watched silently.
After a while he saw a city.
The main screen being on, the whole crew saw it. Someone shouted and they stopped to stare, and Steffens was about to call for altitude when he saw that the city was dead.
He looked down on splintered walls that were like cloudy glass pieces rising above a plain, rising in a shattered circle. Near the center of the city, there was a huge, charred hole at least three miles in diameter and very deep. In all the piled rubble, nothing moved.
Steffens went down low to make sure, then brought the ship around and headed out across the main continent into the bright area of the sun. The rocks rolled by below, there was no vegetation at all, and then there were more cities—all with the black depression, the circular stamp that blotted away and fused the buildings into nothing.
No one on the ship had anything to say. None had ever seen a war, for there had not been war on Earth or near it for more than three hundred years.
The ship circled around to the dark side of the planet. When they were down below a mile, the radiation counters began to react. It became apparent, from the dials, that there could be nothing alive.
After a while Ball said: "Well, which do you figure? Did our friends from the fourth planet do this, or were they the same people as these?"
Steffens did not take his eyes from the screen. They were coming around to the daylight side.
"We'll go down and look for the answer," he said. "Break out the radiation suits."
He paused, thinking. If the ones on the fourth planet were alien to this world, they were from outer space, could not have come from one of the other planets here. They had starships and were warlike. Then, thousands of years ago. He began to realize how important it really was that Ball's question be answered.
When the ship had gone very low, looking for a landing site, Steffens was still by the screen. It was Steffens, then, who saw the thing move.
Down far below, it had been a still black shadow, and then it moved. Steffens froze. And he knew, even at that distance, that it was a robot.
Tiny and black, a mass of hanging arms and legs, the thing went gliding down the slope of a hill. Steffens saw it clearly for a full second, saw the dull ball of its head tilt upward as the ship came over, and then the hill was past.
Quickly Steffens called for height. The ship bucked beneath him and blasted straight up; some of the crew went crashing to the deck. Steffens remained by the screen, increasing the magnification as the ship drew away. And he saw another, then two, then a black gliding group, all matched with bunches of hanging arms.
Nothing alive but robots, he thought, robots . He adjusted to full close up as quickly as he could and the picture focused on the screen. Behind him he heard a crewman grunt in amazement.
A band of clear, plasticlike stuff ran round the head—it would be the eye, a band of eye that saw all ways. On the top of the head was a single round spot of the plastic, and the rest was black metal, joined, he realized, with fantastic perfection. The angle of sight was now almost perpendicular. He could see very little of the branching arms of the trunk, but what had been on the screen was enough. They were the most perfect robots he had ever seen.
The ship leveled off. Steffens had no idea what to do; the sudden sight of the moving things had unnerved him. He had already sounded the alert, flicked out the defense screens. Now he had nothing to do. He tried to concentrate on what the League Law would have him do.
The Law was no help. Contact with planet-bound races was forbidden under any circumstances. But could a bunch of robots be called a race? The Law said nothing about robots because Earthmen had none. The building of imaginative robots was expressly forbidden. But at any rate, Steffens thought, he had made contact already.
While Steffens stood by the screen, completely bewildered for the first time in his space career, Lieutenant Ball came up, hobbling slightly. From the bright new bruise on his cheek, Steffens guessed that the sudden climb had caught him unaware. The exec was pale with surprise.
"What were they?" he said blankly. "Lord, they looked like robots!"
"They were."
Ball stared confoundedly at the screen. The things were now a confusion of dots in the mist.
"Almost humanoid," Steffens said, "but not quite."
Ball was slowly absorbing the situation. He turned to gaze inquiringly at Steffens.
"Well, what do we do now?"
Steffens shrugged. "They saw us. We could leave now and let them quite possibly make a ... a legend out of our visit, or we could go down and see if they tie in with the buildings on Tyban IV."
" Can we go down?"
"Legally? I don't know. If they are robots, yes, since robots cannot constitute a race. But there's another possibility." He tapped his fingers on the screen confusedly. "They don't have to be robots at all. They could be the natives."
Ball gulped. "I don't follow you."
"They could be the original inhabitants of this planet—the brains of them, at least, protected in radiation-proof metal. Anyway," he added,
"they're the most perfect mechanicals I've ever seen."
Ball shook his head, sat down abruptly. Steffens turned from the screen, strode nervously across the Main Deck, thinking.
The Mapping Command, they called it. Theoretically, all he was supposed to do was make a closeup examination of unexplored systems, checking for the presence of life-forms as well as for the possibilities of human colonization. Make a check and nothing else. But he knew very clearly that if he returned to Sirius base without investigating this robot situation, he could very well be court-martialed one way or the other, either for breaking the Law of Contact or for dereliction of duty.
And there was also the possibility, which abruptly occurred to him, that the robots might well be prepared to blow his ship to hell and gone.
He stopped in the center of the deck. A whole new line of thought opened up. If the robots were armed and ready ... could this be an outpost?
An outpost!
He turned and raced for the bridge. If he went in and landed and was lost, then the League might never know in time. If he went in and stirred up trouble....
The thought in his mind was scattered suddenly, like a mist blown away. A voice was speaking in his mind, a deep calm voice that seemed to say:
" Greetings. Do not be alarmed. We do not wish you to be alarmed. Our desire is only to serve.... "
"Greetings, it said! Greetings!" Ball was mumbling incredulously through shocked lips.
Everyone on the ship had heard the voice. When it spoke again, Steffens was not sure whether it was just one voice or many voices.
"We await your coming," it said gravely, and repeated: "Our desire is only to serve."
And then the robots sent a picture .
As perfect and as clear as a tridim movie, a rectangular plate took shape in Steffens' mind. On the face of the plate, standing alone against a background of red-brown, bare rocks, was one of the robots. With slow, perfect movement, the robot carefully lifted one of the hanging arms of its side, of its right side, and extended it toward Steffens, a graciously offered hand.
Steffens felt a peculiar, compelling urge to take the hand, realized right away that the urge to take the hand was not entirely his. The robot mind had helped.
When the picture vanished, he knew that the others had seen it. He waited for a while; there was no further contact, but the feeling of the robot's urging was still strong within him. He had an idea that, if they wanted to, the robots could control his mind. So when nothing more happened, he began to lose his fear.
While the crew watched in fascination, Steffens tried to talk back. He concentrated hard on what he was saying, said it aloud for good measure, then held his own hand extended in the robot manner of shaking hands.
"Greetings," he said, because it was what they had said, and explained: "We have come from the stars."
It was overly dramatic, but so was the whole situation. He wondered baffledly if he should have let the Alien Contact crew handle it. Order someone to stand there, feeling like a fool, and think a message?
No, it was his responsibility; he had to go on:
"We request—we respectfully request permission to land upon your planet."
Steffens had not realized that there were so many.
They had been gathering since his ship was first seen, and now there were hundreds of them clustered upon the hill. Others were arriving even as the skiff landed; they glided in over the rocky hills with fantastic ease and power, so that Steffens felt a momentary anxiety. Most of the robots were standing with the silent immobility of metal. Others threaded their way to the fore and came near the skiff, but none touched it, and a circle was cleared for Steffens when he came out.
One of the near robots came forward alone, moving, as Steffens now saw, on a number of short, incredibly strong and agile legs. The black thing paused before him, extended a hand as it had done in the picture. Steffens took it, he hoped, warmly; felt the power of the metal through the glove of his suit.
"Welcome," the robot said, speaking again to his mind, and now Steffens detected a peculiar alteration in the robot's tone. It was less friendly now, less—Steffens could not understand—somehow less interested , as if the robot had been—expecting someone else.
"Thank you," Steffens said. "We are deeply grateful for your permission to land."
"Our desire," the robot repeated mechanically, "is only to serve."
Suddenly, Steffens began to feel alone, surrounded by machines. He tried to push the thought out of his mind, because he knew that they should seem inhuman. But....
"Will the others come down?" asked the robot, still mechanically.
Steffens felt his embarrassment. The ship lay high in the mist above, jets throbbing gently.
"They must remain with the ship," Steffens said aloud, trusting to the robot's formality not to ask him why. Although, if they could read his mind, there was no need to ask.
For a long while, neither spoke, long enough for Steffens to grow tense and uncomfortable. He could not think of a thing to say, the robot was obviously waiting, and so, in desperation, he signaled the Aliencon men to come on out of the skiff.
They came, wonderingly, and the ring of robots widened. Steffens heard the one robot speak again. The voice was now much more friendly.
"We hope you will forgive us for intruding upon your thought. It is our—custom—not to communicate unless we are called upon. But when we observed that you were in ignorance of our real—nature—and were about to leave our planet, we decided to put aside our custom, so that you might base your decision upon sufficient data."
Steffens replied haltingly that he appreciated their action.
"We perceive," the robot went on, "that you are unaware of our complete access to your mind, and would perhaps be—dismayed—to learn that we have been gathering information from you. We must—apologize. Our only purpose was so that we could communicate with you. Only that information was taken which is necessary for communication and—understanding. We will enter your minds henceforth only at your request."
Steffens did not react to the news that his mind was being probed as violently as he might have. Nevertheless it was a shock, and he retreated into observant silence as the Aliencon men went to work.
The robot which seemed to have been doing the speaking was in no way different from any of the others in the group. Since each of the robots was immediately aware of all that was being said or thought, Steffens guessed that they had sent one forward just for appearance's sake, because they perceived that the Earthmen would feel more at home. The picture of the extended hand, the characteristic handshake of Earthmen, had probably been borrowed, too, for the same purpose of making him and the others feel at ease. The one jarring note was the robot's momentary lapse, those unexplainable few seconds when the things had seemed almost disappointed. Steffens gave up wondering about that and began to examine the first robot in detail.
It was not very tall, being at least a foot shorter than the Earthmen. The most peculiar thing about it, except for the circling eye-band of the head, was a mass of symbols which were apparently engraved upon the metal chest. Symbols in row upon row—numbers, perhaps—were upon the chest, and repeated again below the level of the arms, and continued in orderly rows across the front of the robot, all the way down to the base of the trunk. If they were numbers, Steffens thought, then it was a remarkably complicated system. But he noticed the same pattern on the nearer robots, all apparently identical. He was forced to conclude that the symbols were merely decoration and let it go tentatively at that, although the answer seemed illogical.
It wasn't until he was on his way home that Steffens remembered the symbols again. And only then did he realized what they were.
After a while, convinced that there was no danger, Steffens had the ship brought down. When the crew came out of the airlock, they were met by the robots, and each man found himself with a robot at his side, humbly requesting to be of service. There were literally thousands of the robots now, come from all over the barren horizon. The mass of them stood apart, immobile on a plain near the ship, glinting in the sun like a vast, metallic field of black wheat.
The robots had obviously been built to serve. Steffens began to feel their pleasure, to sense it in spite of the blank, expressionless faces. They were almost like children in their eagerness, yet they were still reserved. Whoever had built them, Steffens thought in wonder, had built them well.
Ball came to join Steffens, staring at the robots through the clear plastic of his helmet with baffledly widened eyes. A robot moved out from the mass in the field, allied itself to him. The first to speak had remained with Steffens.
Realizing that the robot could hear every word he was saying, Ball was for a while apprehensive. But the sheer unreality of standing and talking with a multi-limbed, intelligent hunk of dead metal upon the bare rock of a dead, ancient world, the unreality of it slowly died. It was impossible not to like the things. There was something in their very lines which was pleasant and relaxing.
Their builders, Steffens thought, had probably thought of that, too.
"There's no harm in them," said Ball at last, openly, not minding if the robots heard. "They seem actually glad we're here. My God, whoever heard of a robot being glad?"
Steffens, embarrassed, spoke quickly to the nearest mechanical: "I hope you will forgive us our curiosity, but—yours is a remarkable race. We have never before made contact with a race like yours." It was said haltingly, but it was the best he could do.
The robot made a singularly human nodding motion of its head.
"I perceive that the nature of our construction is unfamiliar to you. Your question is whether or not we are entirely 'mechanical.' I am not exactly certain as to what the word 'mechanical' is intended to convey—I would have to examine your thought more fully—but I believe that there is fundamental similarity between our structures."
The robot paused. Steffens had a distinct impression that it was disconcerted.
"I must tell you," the thing went on, "that we ourselves are—curious." It stopped suddenly, struggling with a word it could not comprehend. Steffens waited, listening with absolute interest. It said at length:
"We know of only two types of living structure. Ours, which is largely metallic, and that of the Makers , which would appear to be somewhat more like yours. I am not a—doctor—and therefore cannot acquaint you with the specific details of the Makers' composition, but if you are interested I will have a doctor brought forward. It will be glad to be of assistance."
It was Steffens' turn to struggle, and the robot waited patiently while Ball and the second robot looked on in silence. The Makers, obviously, were whoever or whatever had built the robots, and the "doctors," Steffens decided, were probably just that—doctor-robots, designed specifically to care for the apparently flesh-bodies of the Makers.
The efficiency of the things continued to amaze him, but the question he had been waiting to ask came out now with a rush:
"Can you tell us where the Makers are?"
Both robots stood motionless. It occurred to Steffens that he couldn't really be sure which was speaking. The voice that came to him spoke with difficulty.
"The Makers—are not here."
Steffens stared in puzzlement. The robot detected his confusion and went on:
"The Makers have gone away. They have been gone for a very long time."
Could that be pain in its voice, Steffens wondered, and then the spectre of the ruined cities rose harsh in his mind.
War. The Makers had all been killed in that war. And these had not been killed.
He tried to grasp it, but he couldn't. There were robots here in the midst of a radiation so lethal that nothing , nothing could live; robots on a dead planet, living in an atmosphere of carbon dioxide.
The carbon dioxide brought him up sharp.
If there had been life here once, there would have been plant life as well, and therefore oxygen. If the war had been so long ago that the free oxygen had since gone out of the atmosphere—good God, how old were the robots? Steffens looked at Ball, then at the silent robots, then out across the field to where the rest of them stood. The black wheat. Steffens felt a deep chill.
Were they immortal?
"Would you like to see a doctor?"
Steffens jumped at the familiar words, then realized to what the robot was referring.
"No, not yet," he said, "thank you." He swallowed hard as the robots continued waiting patiently.
"Could you tell me," he said at last, "how old you are? Individually?"
"By your reckoning," said his robot, and paused to make the calculation, "I am forty-four years, seven months, and eighteen days of age, with ten years and approximately nine months yet to be alive."
Steffens tried to understand that.
"It would perhaps simplify our conversations," said the robot, "if you were to refer to me by a name, as is your custom. Using the first—letters—of my designation, my name would translate as Elb."
"Glad to meet you," Steffens mumbled.
"You are called 'Stef,'" said the robot obligingly. Then it added, pointing an arm at the robot near Ball: "The age of—Peb—is seventeen years, one month and four days. Peb has therefore remaining some thirty-eight years."
Steffens was trying to keep up. Then the life span was obviously about fifty-five years. But the cities, and the carbon dioxide? The robot, Elb, had said that the Makers were similar to him, and therefore oxygen and plant life would have been needed. Unless—
He remembered the buildings on Tyban IV.
Unless the Makers had not come from this planet at all.
His mind helplessly began to revolve. It was Ball who restored order.
"Do you build yourselves?" the exec asked.
Peb answered quickly, that faint note of happiness again apparent, as if the robot was glad for the opportunity of answering.
"No, we do not build ourselves. We are made by the—" another pause for a word—"by the Factory ."
"The Factory?"
"Yes. It was built by the Makers. Would you care to see it?"
Both of the Earthmen nodded dumbly.
"Would you prefer to use your—skiff? It is quite a long way from here."
It was indeed a long way, even by skiff. Some of the Aliencon crew went along with them. And near the edge of the twilight zone, on the other side of the world, they saw the Factory outlined in the dim light of dusk. A huge, fantastic block, wrought of gray and cloudy metal, lay in a valley between two worn mountains. Steffens went down low, circling in the skiff, stared in awe at the size of the building. Robots moved outside the thing, little black bugs in the distance—moving around their birthplace.
The Earthmen remained for several weeks. During that time, Steffens was usually with Elb, talking now as often as he listened, and the Aliencon team roamed the planet freely, investigating what was certainly the strangest culture in history. There was still the mystery of those buildings on Tyban IV; that, as well as the robots' origin, would have to be cleared up before they could leave.
Surprisingly, Steffens did not think about the future. Whenever he came near a robot, he sensed such a general, comfortable air of good feeling that it warmed him, and he was so preoccupied with watching the robots that he did little thinking.
Something he had not realized at the beginning was that he was as unusual to the robots as they were to him. It came to him with a great shock that not one of the robots had ever seen a living thing. Not a bug, a worm, a leaf. They did not know what flesh was. Only the doctors knew that, and none of them could readily understand what was meant by the words "organic matter." It had taken them some time to recognize that the Earthmen wore suits which were not parts of their bodies, and it was even more difficult for them to understand why the suits were needed.
But when they did understand, the robots did a surprising thing.
At first, because of the excessive radiation, none of the Earthmen could remain outside the ship for long, even in radiation suits. And one morning, when Steffens came out of the ship, it was to discover that hundreds of the robots, working through the night, had effectively decontaminated the entire area.
It was at this point that Steffens asked how many robots there were. He learned to his amazement that there were more than nine million. The great mass of them had politely remained a great distance from the ship, spread out over the planet, since they were highly radioactive.
Steffens, meanwhile, courteously allowed Elb to probe into his mind. The robot extracted all the knowledge of matter that Steffens held, pondered over the knowledge and tried to digest it, and passed it on to the other robots. Steffens, in turn, had a difficult time picturing the mind of a thing that had never known life.
He had a vague idea of the robot's history—more, perhaps, then they knew themselves—but he refrained from forming an opinion until Aliencon made its report. What fascinated him was Elb's amazing philosophy, the only outlook, really, that the robot could have had.
"What do you do ?" Steffens asked.
Elb replied quickly, with characteristic simplicity: "We can do very little. A certain amount of physical knowledge was imparted to us at birth by the Makers. We spend the main part of our time expanding that knowledge wherever possible. We have made some progress in the natural sciences, and some in mathematics. Our purpose in being, you see, is to serve the Makers. Any ability we can acquire will make us that much more fit to serve when the Makers return."
"When they return?" It had not occurred to Steffens until now that the robots expected the Makers to do so.
Elb regarded him out of the band of the circling eye. "I see you had surmised that the Makers were not coming back."
If the robot could have laughed, Steffens thought it would have, then. But it just stood there, motionless, its tone politely emphatic.
"It has always been our belief that the Makers would return. Why else would we have been built?"
Steffens thought the robot would go on, but it didn't. The question, to Elb, was no question at all.
Although Steffens knew already what the robot could not possibly have known—that the Makers were gone and would never come back—he was a long time understanding. What he did was push this speculation into the back of his mind, to keep it from Elb. He had no desire to destroy a faith.
But it created a problem in him. He had begun to picture for Elb the structure of human society, and the robot—a machine which did not eat or sleep—listened gravely and tried to understand. One day Steffens mentioned God.
"God?" the robot repeated without comprehension. "What is God?"
Steffens explained briefly, and the robot answered:
"It is a matter which has troubled us. We thought at first that you were the Makers returning—" Steffens remembered the brief lapse, the seeming disappointment he had sensed—"but then we probed your minds and found that you were not, that you were another kind of being, unlike either the Makers or ourselves. You were not even—" Elb caught himself—"you did not happen to be telepaths. Therefore we troubled over who made you. We did detect the word 'Maker' in your theology, but it seemed to have a peculiar—" Elb paused for a long while—"an untouchable, intangible meaning which varies among you."
Steffens understood. He nodded.
The Makers were the robots' God, were all the God they needed. The Makers had built them, the planet, the universe. If he were to ask them who made the Makers, it would be like their asking him who made God.
It was an ironic parallel, and he smiled to himself.
But on that planet, it was the last time he smiled.
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Who is Martin Kesserich, and what has happened to him in his past?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Yesterday House by Fritz Leiber.
Relevant chunks:
Yesterday House
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by ASHMAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Meeting someone who's been dead for twenty years is shocking enough for anyone with a belief in ghosts—worse for one with none!
I
The narrow cove was quiet as the face of an expectant child, yet so near the ruffled Atlantic that the last push of wind carried the Annie O. its full length. The man in gray flannels and sweatshirt let the sail come crumpling down and hurried past its white folds at a gait made comically awkward by his cramped muscles. Slowly the rocky ledge came nearer. Slowly the blue V inscribed on the cove's surface by the sloop's prow died. Sloop and ledge kissed so gently that he hardly had to reach out his hand.
He scrambled ashore, dipping a sneaker in the icy water, and threw the line around a boulder. Unkinking himself, he looked back through the cove's high and rocky mouth at the gray-green scattering of islands and the faint dark line that was the coast of Maine. He almost laughed in satisfaction at having disregarded vague warnings and done the thing every man yearns to do once in his lifetime—gone to the farthest island out.
He must have looked longer than he realized, because by the time he dropped his gaze the cove was again as glassy as if the Annie O. had always been there. And the splotches made by his sneaker on the rock had faded in the hot sun. There was something very unusual about the quietness of this place. As if time, elsewhere hurrying frantically, paused here to rest. As if all changes were erased on this one bit of Earth.
The man's lean, melancholy face crinkled into a grin at the banal fancy. He turned his back on his new friend, the little green sloop, without one thought for his nets and specimen bottles, and set out to explore. The ground rose steeply at first and the oaks were close, but after a little way things went downhill and the leaves thinned and he came out on more rocks—and realized that he hadn't quite gone to the farthest one out.
Joined to this island by a rocky spine, which at the present low tide would have been dry but for the spray, was another green, high island that the first had masked from him all the while he had been sailing. He felt a thrill of discovery, just as he'd wondered back in the woods whether his might not be the first human feet to kick through the underbrush. After all, there were thousands of these islands.
Then he was dropping down the rocks, his lanky limbs now moving smoothly enough.
To the landward side of the spine, the water was fairly still. It even began with another deep cove, in which he glimpsed the spiny spheres of sea urchins. But from seaward the waves chopped in, sprinkling his trousers to the knees and making him wince pleasurably at the thought of what vast wings of spray and towers of solid water must crash up from here in a storm.
He crossed the rocks at a trot, ran up a short grassy slope, raced through a fringe of trees—and came straight up against an eight-foot fence of heavy mesh topped with barbed wire and backed at a short distance with high, heavy shrubbery.
Without pausing for surprise—in fact, in his holiday mood, using surprise as a goad—he jumped for the branch of an oak whose trunk touched the fence, scorning the easier lower branch on the other side of the tree. Then he drew himself up, worked his way to some higher branches that crossed the fence, and dropped down inside.
Suddenly cautious, he gently parted the shrubbery and, before the first surprise could really sink in, had another.
A closely mown lawn dotted with more shrubbery ran up to a snug white Cape Cod cottage. The single strand of a radio aerial stretched the length of the roof. Parked on a neat gravel driveway that crossed just in front of the cottage was a short, square-lined touring car that he recognized from remembered pictures as an ancient Essex. The whole scene had about it the same odd quietness as the cove.
Then, with the air of a clock-work toy coming to life, the white door opened and an elderly woman came out, dressed in a long, lace-edged dress and wide, lacy hat. She climbed into the driver's seat of the Essex, sitting there very stiff and tall. The motor began to chug bravely, gravel skittered, and the car rolled off between the trees.
The door of the house opened again and a slim girl emerged. She wore a white silk dress that fell straight from square neck-line to hip-height waistline, making the skirt seem very short. Her dark hair was bound with a white bandeau so that it curved close to her cheeks. A dark necklace dangled against the white of the dress. A newspaper was tucked under her arm.
She crossed the driveway and tossed the paper down on a rattan table between three rattan chairs and stood watching a squirrel zigzag across the lawn.
The man stepped through the wall of shrubbery, called, "hello!" and walked toward her.
She whirled around and stared at him as still as if her heart had stopped beating. Then she darted behind the table and waited for him there. Granting the surprise of his appearance, her alarm seemed not so much excessive as eerie. As if, the man thought, he were not an ordinary stranger, but a visitor from another planet.
Approaching closer, he saw that she was trembling and that her breath was coming in rapid, irregular gasps. Yet the slim, sweet, patrician face that stared into his had an underlying expression of expectancy that reminded him of the cove. She couldn't have been more than eighteen.
He stopped short of the table. Before he could speak, she stammered out, "Are you he?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, smiling puzzledly.
"The one who sends me the little boxes."
"I was out sailing and I happened to land in the far cove. I didn't dream that anyone lived on this island, or even came here."
"No one ever does come here," she replied. Her manner had changed, becoming at once more wary and less agitated, though still eerily curious.
"It startled me tremendously to find this place," he blundered on.
"Especially the road and the car. Why, this island can't be more than a quarter of a mile wide."
"The road goes down to the wharf," she explained, "and up to the top of the island, where my aunts have a tree-house."
He tore his mind away from the picture of a woman dressed like Queen Mary clambering up a tree. "Was that your aunt I saw driving off?"
"One of them. The other's taken the motorboat in for supplies." She looked at him doubtfully. "I'm not sure they'll like it if they find someone here."
"There are just the three of you?" he cut in quickly, looking down the empty road that vanished among the oaks.
She nodded.
"I suppose you go in to the mainland with your aunts quite often?"
She shook her head.
"It must get pretty dull for you."
"Not very," she said, smiling. "My aunts bring me the papers and other things. Even movies. We've got a projector. My favorite stars are Antonio Morino and Alice Terry. I like her better even than Clara Bow."
He looked at her hard for a moment. "I suppose you read a lot?"
She nodded. "Fitzgerald's my favorite author." She started around the table, hesitated, suddenly grew shy. "Would you like some lemonade?"
He'd noticed the dewed silver pitcher, but only now realized his thirst. Yet when she handed him a glass, he held it untasted and said awkwardly, "I haven't introduced myself. I'm Jack Barry."
She stared at his outstretched right hand, slowly extended her own toward it, shook it up and down exactly once, then quickly dropped it.
He chuckled and gulped some lemonade. "I'm a biology student. Been working at Wood's Hole the first part of the summer. But now I'm here to do research in marine ecology—that's sort of sea-life patterns—of the in-shore islands. Under the direction of Professor Kesserich. You know about him, of course?"
She shook her head.
"Probably the greatest living biologist," he was proud to inform her. "Human physiology as well. Tremendous geneticist. In a class with Carlson and Jacques Loeb. Martin Kesserich—he lives over there at town. I'm staying with him. You ought to have heard of him." He grinned. "Matter of fact, I'd never have met you if it hadn't been for Mrs. Kesserich."
The girl looked puzzled.
Jack explained, "The old boy's been off to Europe on some conferences, won't be back for a couple days more. But I was to get started anyhow. When I went out this morning Mrs. Kesserich—she's a drab sort of person—said to me, 'Don't try to sail to the farther islands.' So, of course, I had to. By the way, you still haven't told me your name."
"Mary Alice Pope," she said, speaking slowly and with an odd wonder, as if she were saying it for the first time.
"You're pretty shy, aren't you?"
"How would I know?"
The question stopped Jack. He couldn't think of anything to say to this strangely attractive girl dressed almost like a "flapper."
"Will you sit down?" she asked him gravely.
The rattan chair sighed under his weight. He made another effort to talk. "I'll bet you'll be glad when summer's over."
"Why?"
"So you'll be able to go back to the mainland."
"But I never go to the mainland."
"You mean you stay out here all winter?" he asked incredulously, his mind filled with a vision of snow and frozen spray and great gray waves.
"Oh, yes. We get all our supplies on hand before winter. My aunts are very capable. They don't always wear long lace dresses. And now I help them."
"But that's impossible!" he said with sudden sympathetic anger. "You can't be shut off this way from people your own age!"
"You're the first one I ever met." She hesitated. "I never saw a boy or a man before, except in movies."
"You're joking!"
"No, it's true."
"But why are they doing it to you?" he demanded, leaning forward. "Why are they inflicting this loneliness on you, Mary?"
She seemed to have gained poise from his loss of it. "I don't know why. I'm to find out soon. But actually I'm not lonely. May I tell you a secret?" She touched his hand, this time with only the faintest trembling. "Every night the loneliness gathers in around me—you're right about that. But then every morning new life comes to me in a little box."
"What's that?" he said sharply.
"Sometimes there's a poem in the box, sometimes a book, or pictures, or flowers, or a ring, but always a note. Next to the notes I like the poems best. My favorite is the one by Matthew Arnold that ends,
'Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude—'"
"Wait a minute," he interrupted. "Who sends you these boxes?"
"I don't know."
"But how are the notes signed?"
"They're wonderful notes," she said. "So wise, so gay, so tender, you'd imagine them being written by John Barrymore or Lindbergh."
"Yes, but how are they signed?"
She hesitated. "Never anything but 'Your Lover.'"
"And so when you first saw me, you thought—" He began, then stopped because she was blushing.
"How long have you been getting them?"
"Ever since I can remember. I have two closets of the boxes. The new ones are either by my bed when I wake or at my place at breakfast."
"But how does this—person get these boxes to you out here? Does he give them to your aunts and do they put them there?"
"I'm not sure."
"But how can they get them in winter?"
"I don't know."
"Look here," he said, pouring himself more lemonade, "how long is it since you've been to the mainland?"
"Almost eighteen years. My aunts tell me I was born there in the middle of the war."
"What war?" he asked startledly, spilling some lemonade.
"The World War, of course. What's the matter?"
Jack Barr was staring down at the spilled lemonade and feeling a kind of terror he'd never experienced in his waking life. Nothing around him had changed. He could still feel the same hot sun on his shoulders, the same icy glass in his hand, scent the same lemon-acid odor in his nostrils. He could still hear the faint chop-chop of the waves.
And yet everything had changed, gone dark and dizzy as a landscape glimpsed just before a faint. All the little false notes had come to a sudden focus. For the lemonade had spilled on the headline of the newspaper the girl had tossed down, and the headline read:
HITLER IN NEW DEFIANCE
Under the big black banner of that head swam smaller ones:
Foes of Machado Riot in Havana
Big NRA Parade Planned
Balbo Speaks in New York
Suddenly he felt a surge of relief. He had noticed that the paper was yellow and brittle-edged.
"Why are you so interested in old newspapers?" he asked.
"I wouldn't call day-before-yesterday's paper old," the girl objected, pointing at the dateline: July 20, 1933.
"You're trying to joke," Jack told her.
"No, I'm not."
"But it's 1953."
"Now it's you who are joking."
"But the paper's yellow."
"The paper's always yellow."
He laughed uneasily. "Well, if you actually think it's 1933, perhaps you're to be envied," he said, with a sardonic humor he didn't quite feel. "Then you can't know anything about the Second World War, or television, or the V-2s, or Bikini bathing suits, or the atomic bomb, or—"
"Stop!" She had sprung up and retreated around her chair, white-faced.
"I don't like what you're saying."
"But—"
"No, please! Jokes that may be quite harmless on the mainland sound different here."
"I'm really not joking," he said after a moment.
She grew quite frantic at that. "I can show you all last week's papers! I can show you magazines and other things. I can prove it!"
She started toward the house. He followed. He felt his heart begin to pound.
At the white door she paused, looking worriedly down the road. Jack thought he could hear the faint chug of a motorboat. She pushed open the door and he followed her inside. The small-windowed room was dark after the sunlight. Jack got an impression of solid old furniture, a fireplace with brass andirons.
"Flash!" croaked a gritty voice. "After their disastrous break day before yesterday, stocks are recovering. Leading issues...."
Jack realized that he had started and had involuntarily put his arm around the girl's shoulders. At the same time he noticed that the voice was coming from the curved brown trumpet of an old-fashioned radio loudspeaker.
The girl didn't pull away from him. He turned toward her. Although her gray eyes were on him, her attention had gone elsewhere.
"I can hear the car. They're coming back. They won't like it that you're here."
"All right they won't like it."
Her agitation grew. "No, you must go."
"I'll come back tomorrow," he heard himself saying.
"Flash! It looks as if the World Economic Conference may soon adjourn, mouthing jeers at old Uncle Sam who is generally referred to as Uncle Shylock."
Jack felt a numbness on his neck. The room seemed to be darkening, the girl growing stranger still.
"You must go before they see you."
"Flash! Wiley Post has just completed his solo circuit of the Globe, after a record-breaking flight of 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes. Asked how he felt after the energy-draining feat, Post quipped...."
He was halfway across the lawn before he realized the terror into which the grating radio voice had thrown him.
He leaped for the branch over-hanging the fence, vaulted up with the risky help of a foot on the barbed top. A surprised squirrel, lacking time to make its escape up the trunk, sprang to the ground ahead of him. With terrible suddenness, two steel-jawed semicircles clanked together just over the squirrel's head. Jack landed with one foot to either side of the sprung trap, while the squirrel darted off with a squeak.
Jack plunged down the slope to the rocky spine and ran across it, spray from the rising waves spattering him to the waist. Panting now, he stumbled up into the oaks and undergrowth of the first island, fought his way through it, finally reached the silent cove. He loosed the line of the Annie O. , dragged it as near to the cove's mouth as he could, plunged knee-deep in freezing water to give it a final shove, scrambled aboard, snatched up the boathook and punched at the rocks.
As soon as the Annie O. was nosing out of the cove into the cross waves, he yanked up the sail. The freshening wind filled it and sent the sloop heeling over, with inches of white water over the lee rail, and plunging ahead.
For a long while, Jack was satisfied to think of nothing but the wind and the waves and the sail and speed and danger, to have all his attention taken up balancing one against the other, so that he wouldn't have to ask himself what year it was and whether time was an illusion, and wonder about flappers and hidden traps.
When he finally looked back at the island, he was amazed to see how tiny it had grown, as distant as the mainland.
Then he saw a gray motorboat astern. He watched it as it slowly overtook him. It was built like a lifeboat, with a sturdy low cabin in the bow and wheel amidship. Whoever was at the wheel had long gray hair that whipped in the wind. The longer he looked, the surer he was that it was a woman wearing a lace dress. Something that stuck up inches over the cabin flashed darkly beside her. Only when she lifted it to the roof of the cabin did it occur to him that it might be a rifle.
But just then the motorboat swung around in a turn that sent waves drenching over it, and headed back toward the island. He watched it for a minute in wonder, then his attention was jolted by an angry hail.
Three fishing smacks, also headed toward town, were about to cross his bow. He came around into the wind and waited with shaking sail, watching a man in a lumpy sweater shake a fist at him. Then he turned and gratefully followed the dark, wide, fanlike sterns and age-yellowed sails.
II
The exterior of Martin Kesserich's home—a weathered white cube with narrow, sharp-paned windows, topped by a cupola—was nothing like its lavish interior.
In much the same way, Mrs. Kesserich clashed with the darkly gleaming furniture, persian rugs and bronze vases around her. Her shapeless black form, poised awkwardly on the edge of a huge sofa, made Jack think of a cow that had strayed into the drawing room. He wondered again how a man like Kesserich had come to marry such a creature.
Yet when she lifted up her little eyes from the shadows, he had the uneasy feeling that she knew a great deal about him. The eyes were still those of a domestic animal, but of a wise one that has been watching the house a long, long while from the barnyard.
He asked abruptly, "Do you know anything of a girl around here named Mary Alice Pope?"
The silence lasted so long that he began to think she'd gone into some bovine trance. Then, without a word, she got up and went over to a tall cabinet. Feeling on a ledge behind it for a key, she opened a panel, opened a cardboard box inside it, took something from the box and handed him a photograph. He held it up to the failing light and sucked in his breath with surprise.
It was a picture of the girl he'd met that afternoon. Same flat-bosomed dress—flowered rather than white—no bandeau, same beads. Same proud, demure expression, perhaps a bit happier.
"That is Mary Alice Pope," Mrs. Kesserich said in a strangely flat voice. "She was Martin's fiancee. She was killed in a railway accident in 1933."
The small sound of the cabinet door closing brought Jack back to reality. He realized that he no longer had the photograph. Against the gloom by the cabinet, Mrs. Kesserich's white face looked at him with what seemed a malicious eagerness.
"Sit down," she said, "and I'll tell you about it."
Without a thought as to why she hadn't asked him a single question—he was much too dazed for that—he obeyed. Mrs. Kesserich resumed her position on the edge of the sofa.
"You must understand, Mr. Barr, that Mary Alice Pope was the one love of Martin's life. He is a man of very deep and strong feelings, yet as you probably know, anything but kindly or demonstrative. Even when he first came here from Hungary with his older sisters Hani and Hilda, there was a cloak of loneliness about him—or rather about the three of them.
"Hani and Hilda were athletic outdoor women, yet fiercely proud—I don't imagine they ever spoke to anyone in America except as to a servant—and with a seething distaste for all men except Martin. They showered all their devotion on him. So of course, though Martin didn't realize it, they were consumed with jealousy when he fell in love with Mary Alice Pope. They'd thought that since he'd reached forty without marrying, he was safe.
"Mary Alice came from a pure-bred, or as a biologist would say, inbred British stock. She was very young, but very sweet, and up to a point very wise. She sensed Hani and Hilda's feelings right away and did everything she could to win them over. For instance, though she was afraid of horses, she took up horseback riding, because that was Hani and Hilda's favorite pastime. Naturally, Martin knew nothing of her fear, and naturally his sisters knew about it from the first. But—and here is where Mary's wisdom fell short—her brave gesture did not pacify them: it only increased their hatred.
"Except for his research, Martin was blind to everything but his love. It was a beautiful and yet frightening passion, an insane cherishing as narrow and intense as his sisters hatred."
With a start, Jack remembered that it was Mrs. Kesserich telling him all this.
She went on, "Martin's love directed his every move. He was building a home for himself and Mary, and in his mind he was building a wonderful future for them as well—not vaguely, if you know Martin, but year by year, month by month. This winter, he'd plan, they would visit Buenos Aires, next summer they would sail down the inland passage and he would teach Mary Hungarian for their trip to Buda-Pesth the year after, where he would occupy a chair at the university for a few months ... and so on. Finally the time for their marriage drew near. Martin had been away. His research was keeping him very busy—"
Jack broke in with, "Wasn't that about the time he did his definitive work on growth and fertilization?"
Mrs. Kesserich nodded with solemn appreciation in the gathering darkness. "But now he was coming home, his work done. It was early evening, very chilly, but Hani and Hilda felt they had to ride down to the station to meet their brother. And although she dreaded it, Mary rode with them, for she knew how delighted he would be at her cantering to the puffing train and his running up to lift her down from the saddle to welcome him home.
"Of course there was Martin's luggage to be considered, so the station wagon had to be sent down for that." She looked defiantly at Jack. "I drove the station wagon. I was Martin's laboratory assistant."
She paused. "It was almost dark, but there was still a white cold line of sky to the west. Hani and Hilda, with Mary between them, were waiting on their horses at the top of the hill that led down to the station. The train had whistled and its headlight was graying the gravel of the crossing.
"Suddenly Mary's horse squealed and plunged down the hill. Hani and Hilda followed—to try to catch her, they said, but they didn't manage that, only kept her horse from veering off. Mary never screamed, but as her horse reared on the tracks, I saw her face in the headlight's glare.
"Martin must have guessed, or at least feared what had happened, for he was out of the train and running along the track before it stopped. In fact, he was the first to kneel down beside Mary—I mean, what had been Mary—and was holding her all bloody and shattered in his arms."
A door slammed. There were steps in the hall. Mrs. Kesserich stiffened and was silent. Jack turned.
The blur of a face hung in the doorway to the hall—a seemingly young, sensitive, suavely handsome face with aristocratic jaw. Then there was a click and the lights flared up and Jack saw the close-cropped gray hair and the lines around the eyes and nostrils, while the sensitive mouth grew sardonic. Yet the handsomeness stayed, and somehow the youth, too, or at least a tremendous inner vibrancy.
"Hello, Barr," Martin Kesserich said, ignoring his wife.
The great biologist had come home.
III
"Oh, yes, and Jamieson had a feeble paper on what he called individualization in marine worms. Barr, have you ever thought much about the larger aspects of the problem of individuality?"
Jack jumped slightly. He had let his thoughts wander very far.
"Not especially, sir," he mumbled.
The house was still. A few minutes after the professor's arrival, Mrs. Kesserich had gone off with an anxious glance at Jack. He knew why and wished he could reassure her that he would not mention their conversation to the professor.
Kesserich had spent perhaps a half hour briefing him on the more important papers delivered at the conferences. Then, almost as if it were a teacher's trick to show up a pupil's inattention, he had suddenly posed this question about individuality.
"You know what I mean, of course," Kesserich pressed. "The factors that make you you, and me me."
"Heredity and environment," Jack parroted like a freshman.
Kesserich nodded. "Suppose—this is just speculation—that we could control heredity and environment. Then we could re-create the same individual at will."
Jack felt a shiver go through him. "To get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits. That'd be far beyond us."
"What about identical twins?" Kesserich pointed out. "And then there's parthenogenesis to be considered. One might produce a duplicate of the mother without the intervention of the male." Although his voice had grown more idly speculative, Kesserich seemed to Jack to be smiling secretly. "There are many examples in the lower animal forms, to say nothing of the technique by which Loeb caused a sea urchin to reproduce with no more stimulus than a salt solution."
Jack felt the hair rising on his neck. "Even then you wouldn't get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits."
"Not if the parent were of very pure stock? Not if there were some special technique for selecting ova that would reproduce all the mother's traits?"
"But environment would change things," Jack objected. "The duplicate would be bound to develop differently."
"Is environment so important? Newman tells about a pair of identical twins separated from birth, unaware of each other's existence. They met by accident when they were twenty-one. Each was a telephone repairman. Each had a wife the same age. Each had a baby son. And each had a fox terrier called 'Trixie.' That's without trying to make environments similar. But suppose you did try. Suppose you saw to it that each of them had exactly the same experiences at the same times...."
For a moment it seemed to Jack that the room was dimming and wavering, becoming a dark pool in which the only motionless thing was Kesserich's sphinx-like face.
"Well, we've escaped quite far enough from Jamieson's marine worms," the biologist said, all brisk again. He said it as if Jack were the one who had led the conversation down wild and unprofitable channels.
"Let's get on to your project. I want to talk it over now, because I won't have any time for it tomorrow."
Jack looked at him blankly.
"Tomorrow I must attend to a very important matter," the biologist explained.
IV
Morning sunlight brightened the colors of the wax flowers under glass on the high bureau that always seemed to emit the faint odor of old hair combings. Jack pulled back the diamond-patterned quilt and blinked the sleep from his eyes. He expected his mind to be busy wondering about Kesserich and his wife—things said and half said last night—but found instead that his thoughts swung instantly to Mary Alice Pope, as if to a farthest island in a world of people.
Downstairs, the house was empty. After a long look at the cabinet—he felt behind it, but the key was gone—he hurried down to the waterfront. He stopped only for a bowl of chowder and, as an afterthought, to buy half a dozen newspapers.
The sea was bright, the brisk wind just right for the Annie O. There was eagerness in the way it smacked the sail and in the creak of the mast. And when he reached the cove, it was no longer still, but nervous with faint ripples, as if time had finally begun to stir.
After the same struggle with the underbrush, he came out on the rocky spine and passed the cove of the sea urchins. The spiny creatures struck an uncomfortable chord in his memory.
This time he climbed the second island cautiously, scraping the innocent-seeming ground ahead of him intently with a boathook he'd brought along for the purpose. He was only a few yards from the fence when he saw Mary Alice Pope standing behind it.
He hadn't realized that his heart would begin to pound or that, at the same time, a shiver of almost supernatural dread would go through him.
The girl eyed him with an uneasy hostility and immediately began to speak in a hushed, hurried voice. "You must go away at once and never come back. You're a wicked man, but I don't want you to be hurt. I've been watching for you all morning."
He tossed the newspapers over the fence. "You don't have to read them now," he told her. "Just look at the datelines and a few of the headlines."
When she finally lifted her eyes to his again, she was trembling. She tried unsuccessfully to speak.
"Listen to me," he said. "You've been the victim of a scheme to make you believe you were born around 1916 instead of 1933, and that it's
1933 now instead of 1951. I'm not sure why it's been done, though I think I know who you really are."
"But," the girl faltered, "my aunts tell me it's 1933."
"They would."
"And there are the papers ... the magazines ... the radio."
"The papers are old ones. The radio's faked—some sort of recording. I could show you if I could get at it."
" These papers might be faked," she said, pointing to where she'd let them drop on the ground.
"They're new," he said. "Only old papers get yellow."
"But why would they do it to me? Why? "
"Come with me to the mainland, Mary. That'll set you straight quicker than anything."
"I couldn't," she said, drawing back. "He's coming tonight."
"He?"
"The man who sends me the boxes ... and my life."
Jack shivered. When he spoke, his voice was rough and quick. "A life that's completely a lie, that's cut you off from the world. Come with me, Mary."
Question:
Who is Martin Kesserich, and what has happened to him in his past?
Answer:
|
[
"Martin Kesserich is a biologist and professor. He lives in a coastal town in Main with his wife. He has taken in Jack Barry, to live with and study under him. He moved to America long ago from Hungary with his two sisters, Hani and Hilda. In America, he meets Mary Alice Pope, a young beautiful, intelligent girl whom he falls in love with. They plan a life together. He will build a house for them to live in and raise a family in. They will travel the world together, he will teach her Hungarian. They will marry. Soon before the day they planned to be their wedding day, Martin is called away to business. He takes the train home after the journey. On his way back, Mary Alice rides on horseback with his two sisters to greet him at the station. But, as Mary Alice sits on her horse on top of a slope overlooking the train tracks, the horse becomes spooked, and gallops down to the rail. She is thrown onto the railway line. Martin sees this, and immediately throws himself out of the moving train to save her. But it's too late. Before he can reach her, she is crushed by the train. He sits, heartbroken, with her body in his hands. Years later, he marries Mrs Kesserich, whom he doesn't seem to have any affection towards, mainly ignoring each other. Treating each other with coldness and a lack of love. ",
"Martin Kesserich is a renowned biologist and professor. He has done a wide range of research and study on topics such as fertilization, heredity, and growth. Despite his success and achievement, Martin has had a rough past. Arriving to America from Hungary with his sisters, he soon fell in love with Mary Alice Pope. The two were infatuated with each other, despite his sisters, Hani and Hilda, despising Mary. One evening, Mary is killed in a railroad accident, and Martin witnesses the death of his fiancee.",
"Martin Kesserich is a famous biologist, physiologist, and geneticist. Jack stays as a student and researches with him as well. In the past, he had come from Hungary with his two sisters Hilda and Hani. He had an intense love for Alice Mary Pope, while his sisters were greatly devoted to him. He was guided by his love and planned many things for the two of them, including travel plans to Buenos Aires, teaching Mary Hungarian to go to Buda-Pesth, and even when he will occupy a chair at the university. He eventually lost Mary Alice in a railway accident when she lost control of her horse during a ride down to the station. ",
"Martin Kesserich is a great biologist, the greatest in Jack's opinion who is his student. Martin is a geneticist and a scientist in human physiology as well. In his past he came with two older sisters from Hungary to America a long time ago. He fell in a deep and all-consuming kind of love with a young girl called Mary Alice at the age of forty. By then the biologist had only two passions - his study and his love, his sisters were jealous and hated the girl. Martin was planning every day of the future together with Mary, he was building a house and approaching the time of marriage. A terrible accident happened in 1933 when he was returning from a work trip, Mary and the sisters were waiting for his train to arrive and Mary's horse rushed to the railway before the train. Mary died and Martin kneeled down before the shattered body on the track. "
] |
50905
|
Yesterday House
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by ASHMAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Meeting someone who's been dead for twenty years is shocking enough for anyone with a belief in ghosts—worse for one with none!
I
The narrow cove was quiet as the face of an expectant child, yet so near the ruffled Atlantic that the last push of wind carried the Annie O. its full length. The man in gray flannels and sweatshirt let the sail come crumpling down and hurried past its white folds at a gait made comically awkward by his cramped muscles. Slowly the rocky ledge came nearer. Slowly the blue V inscribed on the cove's surface by the sloop's prow died. Sloop and ledge kissed so gently that he hardly had to reach out his hand.
He scrambled ashore, dipping a sneaker in the icy water, and threw the line around a boulder. Unkinking himself, he looked back through the cove's high and rocky mouth at the gray-green scattering of islands and the faint dark line that was the coast of Maine. He almost laughed in satisfaction at having disregarded vague warnings and done the thing every man yearns to do once in his lifetime—gone to the farthest island out.
He must have looked longer than he realized, because by the time he dropped his gaze the cove was again as glassy as if the Annie O. had always been there. And the splotches made by his sneaker on the rock had faded in the hot sun. There was something very unusual about the quietness of this place. As if time, elsewhere hurrying frantically, paused here to rest. As if all changes were erased on this one bit of Earth.
The man's lean, melancholy face crinkled into a grin at the banal fancy. He turned his back on his new friend, the little green sloop, without one thought for his nets and specimen bottles, and set out to explore. The ground rose steeply at first and the oaks were close, but after a little way things went downhill and the leaves thinned and he came out on more rocks—and realized that he hadn't quite gone to the farthest one out.
Joined to this island by a rocky spine, which at the present low tide would have been dry but for the spray, was another green, high island that the first had masked from him all the while he had been sailing. He felt a thrill of discovery, just as he'd wondered back in the woods whether his might not be the first human feet to kick through the underbrush. After all, there were thousands of these islands.
Then he was dropping down the rocks, his lanky limbs now moving smoothly enough.
To the landward side of the spine, the water was fairly still. It even began with another deep cove, in which he glimpsed the spiny spheres of sea urchins. But from seaward the waves chopped in, sprinkling his trousers to the knees and making him wince pleasurably at the thought of what vast wings of spray and towers of solid water must crash up from here in a storm.
He crossed the rocks at a trot, ran up a short grassy slope, raced through a fringe of trees—and came straight up against an eight-foot fence of heavy mesh topped with barbed wire and backed at a short distance with high, heavy shrubbery.
Without pausing for surprise—in fact, in his holiday mood, using surprise as a goad—he jumped for the branch of an oak whose trunk touched the fence, scorning the easier lower branch on the other side of the tree. Then he drew himself up, worked his way to some higher branches that crossed the fence, and dropped down inside.
Suddenly cautious, he gently parted the shrubbery and, before the first surprise could really sink in, had another.
A closely mown lawn dotted with more shrubbery ran up to a snug white Cape Cod cottage. The single strand of a radio aerial stretched the length of the roof. Parked on a neat gravel driveway that crossed just in front of the cottage was a short, square-lined touring car that he recognized from remembered pictures as an ancient Essex. The whole scene had about it the same odd quietness as the cove.
Then, with the air of a clock-work toy coming to life, the white door opened and an elderly woman came out, dressed in a long, lace-edged dress and wide, lacy hat. She climbed into the driver's seat of the Essex, sitting there very stiff and tall. The motor began to chug bravely, gravel skittered, and the car rolled off between the trees.
The door of the house opened again and a slim girl emerged. She wore a white silk dress that fell straight from square neck-line to hip-height waistline, making the skirt seem very short. Her dark hair was bound with a white bandeau so that it curved close to her cheeks. A dark necklace dangled against the white of the dress. A newspaper was tucked under her arm.
She crossed the driveway and tossed the paper down on a rattan table between three rattan chairs and stood watching a squirrel zigzag across the lawn.
The man stepped through the wall of shrubbery, called, "hello!" and walked toward her.
She whirled around and stared at him as still as if her heart had stopped beating. Then she darted behind the table and waited for him there. Granting the surprise of his appearance, her alarm seemed not so much excessive as eerie. As if, the man thought, he were not an ordinary stranger, but a visitor from another planet.
Approaching closer, he saw that she was trembling and that her breath was coming in rapid, irregular gasps. Yet the slim, sweet, patrician face that stared into his had an underlying expression of expectancy that reminded him of the cove. She couldn't have been more than eighteen.
He stopped short of the table. Before he could speak, she stammered out, "Are you he?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, smiling puzzledly.
"The one who sends me the little boxes."
"I was out sailing and I happened to land in the far cove. I didn't dream that anyone lived on this island, or even came here."
"No one ever does come here," she replied. Her manner had changed, becoming at once more wary and less agitated, though still eerily curious.
"It startled me tremendously to find this place," he blundered on.
"Especially the road and the car. Why, this island can't be more than a quarter of a mile wide."
"The road goes down to the wharf," she explained, "and up to the top of the island, where my aunts have a tree-house."
He tore his mind away from the picture of a woman dressed like Queen Mary clambering up a tree. "Was that your aunt I saw driving off?"
"One of them. The other's taken the motorboat in for supplies." She looked at him doubtfully. "I'm not sure they'll like it if they find someone here."
"There are just the three of you?" he cut in quickly, looking down the empty road that vanished among the oaks.
She nodded.
"I suppose you go in to the mainland with your aunts quite often?"
She shook her head.
"It must get pretty dull for you."
"Not very," she said, smiling. "My aunts bring me the papers and other things. Even movies. We've got a projector. My favorite stars are Antonio Morino and Alice Terry. I like her better even than Clara Bow."
He looked at her hard for a moment. "I suppose you read a lot?"
She nodded. "Fitzgerald's my favorite author." She started around the table, hesitated, suddenly grew shy. "Would you like some lemonade?"
He'd noticed the dewed silver pitcher, but only now realized his thirst. Yet when she handed him a glass, he held it untasted and said awkwardly, "I haven't introduced myself. I'm Jack Barry."
She stared at his outstretched right hand, slowly extended her own toward it, shook it up and down exactly once, then quickly dropped it.
He chuckled and gulped some lemonade. "I'm a biology student. Been working at Wood's Hole the first part of the summer. But now I'm here to do research in marine ecology—that's sort of sea-life patterns—of the in-shore islands. Under the direction of Professor Kesserich. You know about him, of course?"
She shook her head.
"Probably the greatest living biologist," he was proud to inform her. "Human physiology as well. Tremendous geneticist. In a class with Carlson and Jacques Loeb. Martin Kesserich—he lives over there at town. I'm staying with him. You ought to have heard of him." He grinned. "Matter of fact, I'd never have met you if it hadn't been for Mrs. Kesserich."
The girl looked puzzled.
Jack explained, "The old boy's been off to Europe on some conferences, won't be back for a couple days more. But I was to get started anyhow. When I went out this morning Mrs. Kesserich—she's a drab sort of person—said to me, 'Don't try to sail to the farther islands.' So, of course, I had to. By the way, you still haven't told me your name."
"Mary Alice Pope," she said, speaking slowly and with an odd wonder, as if she were saying it for the first time.
"You're pretty shy, aren't you?"
"How would I know?"
The question stopped Jack. He couldn't think of anything to say to this strangely attractive girl dressed almost like a "flapper."
"Will you sit down?" she asked him gravely.
The rattan chair sighed under his weight. He made another effort to talk. "I'll bet you'll be glad when summer's over."
"Why?"
"So you'll be able to go back to the mainland."
"But I never go to the mainland."
"You mean you stay out here all winter?" he asked incredulously, his mind filled with a vision of snow and frozen spray and great gray waves.
"Oh, yes. We get all our supplies on hand before winter. My aunts are very capable. They don't always wear long lace dresses. And now I help them."
"But that's impossible!" he said with sudden sympathetic anger. "You can't be shut off this way from people your own age!"
"You're the first one I ever met." She hesitated. "I never saw a boy or a man before, except in movies."
"You're joking!"
"No, it's true."
"But why are they doing it to you?" he demanded, leaning forward. "Why are they inflicting this loneliness on you, Mary?"
She seemed to have gained poise from his loss of it. "I don't know why. I'm to find out soon. But actually I'm not lonely. May I tell you a secret?" She touched his hand, this time with only the faintest trembling. "Every night the loneliness gathers in around me—you're right about that. But then every morning new life comes to me in a little box."
"What's that?" he said sharply.
"Sometimes there's a poem in the box, sometimes a book, or pictures, or flowers, or a ring, but always a note. Next to the notes I like the poems best. My favorite is the one by Matthew Arnold that ends,
'Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude—'"
"Wait a minute," he interrupted. "Who sends you these boxes?"
"I don't know."
"But how are the notes signed?"
"They're wonderful notes," she said. "So wise, so gay, so tender, you'd imagine them being written by John Barrymore or Lindbergh."
"Yes, but how are they signed?"
She hesitated. "Never anything but 'Your Lover.'"
"And so when you first saw me, you thought—" He began, then stopped because she was blushing.
"How long have you been getting them?"
"Ever since I can remember. I have two closets of the boxes. The new ones are either by my bed when I wake or at my place at breakfast."
"But how does this—person get these boxes to you out here? Does he give them to your aunts and do they put them there?"
"I'm not sure."
"But how can they get them in winter?"
"I don't know."
"Look here," he said, pouring himself more lemonade, "how long is it since you've been to the mainland?"
"Almost eighteen years. My aunts tell me I was born there in the middle of the war."
"What war?" he asked startledly, spilling some lemonade.
"The World War, of course. What's the matter?"
Jack Barr was staring down at the spilled lemonade and feeling a kind of terror he'd never experienced in his waking life. Nothing around him had changed. He could still feel the same hot sun on his shoulders, the same icy glass in his hand, scent the same lemon-acid odor in his nostrils. He could still hear the faint chop-chop of the waves.
And yet everything had changed, gone dark and dizzy as a landscape glimpsed just before a faint. All the little false notes had come to a sudden focus. For the lemonade had spilled on the headline of the newspaper the girl had tossed down, and the headline read:
HITLER IN NEW DEFIANCE
Under the big black banner of that head swam smaller ones:
Foes of Machado Riot in Havana
Big NRA Parade Planned
Balbo Speaks in New York
Suddenly he felt a surge of relief. He had noticed that the paper was yellow and brittle-edged.
"Why are you so interested in old newspapers?" he asked.
"I wouldn't call day-before-yesterday's paper old," the girl objected, pointing at the dateline: July 20, 1933.
"You're trying to joke," Jack told her.
"No, I'm not."
"But it's 1953."
"Now it's you who are joking."
"But the paper's yellow."
"The paper's always yellow."
He laughed uneasily. "Well, if you actually think it's 1933, perhaps you're to be envied," he said, with a sardonic humor he didn't quite feel. "Then you can't know anything about the Second World War, or television, or the V-2s, or Bikini bathing suits, or the atomic bomb, or—"
"Stop!" She had sprung up and retreated around her chair, white-faced.
"I don't like what you're saying."
"But—"
"No, please! Jokes that may be quite harmless on the mainland sound different here."
"I'm really not joking," he said after a moment.
She grew quite frantic at that. "I can show you all last week's papers! I can show you magazines and other things. I can prove it!"
She started toward the house. He followed. He felt his heart begin to pound.
At the white door she paused, looking worriedly down the road. Jack thought he could hear the faint chug of a motorboat. She pushed open the door and he followed her inside. The small-windowed room was dark after the sunlight. Jack got an impression of solid old furniture, a fireplace with brass andirons.
"Flash!" croaked a gritty voice. "After their disastrous break day before yesterday, stocks are recovering. Leading issues...."
Jack realized that he had started and had involuntarily put his arm around the girl's shoulders. At the same time he noticed that the voice was coming from the curved brown trumpet of an old-fashioned radio loudspeaker.
The girl didn't pull away from him. He turned toward her. Although her gray eyes were on him, her attention had gone elsewhere.
"I can hear the car. They're coming back. They won't like it that you're here."
"All right they won't like it."
Her agitation grew. "No, you must go."
"I'll come back tomorrow," he heard himself saying.
"Flash! It looks as if the World Economic Conference may soon adjourn, mouthing jeers at old Uncle Sam who is generally referred to as Uncle Shylock."
Jack felt a numbness on his neck. The room seemed to be darkening, the girl growing stranger still.
"You must go before they see you."
"Flash! Wiley Post has just completed his solo circuit of the Globe, after a record-breaking flight of 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes. Asked how he felt after the energy-draining feat, Post quipped...."
He was halfway across the lawn before he realized the terror into which the grating radio voice had thrown him.
He leaped for the branch over-hanging the fence, vaulted up with the risky help of a foot on the barbed top. A surprised squirrel, lacking time to make its escape up the trunk, sprang to the ground ahead of him. With terrible suddenness, two steel-jawed semicircles clanked together just over the squirrel's head. Jack landed with one foot to either side of the sprung trap, while the squirrel darted off with a squeak.
Jack plunged down the slope to the rocky spine and ran across it, spray from the rising waves spattering him to the waist. Panting now, he stumbled up into the oaks and undergrowth of the first island, fought his way through it, finally reached the silent cove. He loosed the line of the Annie O. , dragged it as near to the cove's mouth as he could, plunged knee-deep in freezing water to give it a final shove, scrambled aboard, snatched up the boathook and punched at the rocks.
As soon as the Annie O. was nosing out of the cove into the cross waves, he yanked up the sail. The freshening wind filled it and sent the sloop heeling over, with inches of white water over the lee rail, and plunging ahead.
For a long while, Jack was satisfied to think of nothing but the wind and the waves and the sail and speed and danger, to have all his attention taken up balancing one against the other, so that he wouldn't have to ask himself what year it was and whether time was an illusion, and wonder about flappers and hidden traps.
When he finally looked back at the island, he was amazed to see how tiny it had grown, as distant as the mainland.
Then he saw a gray motorboat astern. He watched it as it slowly overtook him. It was built like a lifeboat, with a sturdy low cabin in the bow and wheel amidship. Whoever was at the wheel had long gray hair that whipped in the wind. The longer he looked, the surer he was that it was a woman wearing a lace dress. Something that stuck up inches over the cabin flashed darkly beside her. Only when she lifted it to the roof of the cabin did it occur to him that it might be a rifle.
But just then the motorboat swung around in a turn that sent waves drenching over it, and headed back toward the island. He watched it for a minute in wonder, then his attention was jolted by an angry hail.
Three fishing smacks, also headed toward town, were about to cross his bow. He came around into the wind and waited with shaking sail, watching a man in a lumpy sweater shake a fist at him. Then he turned and gratefully followed the dark, wide, fanlike sterns and age-yellowed sails.
II
The exterior of Martin Kesserich's home—a weathered white cube with narrow, sharp-paned windows, topped by a cupola—was nothing like its lavish interior.
In much the same way, Mrs. Kesserich clashed with the darkly gleaming furniture, persian rugs and bronze vases around her. Her shapeless black form, poised awkwardly on the edge of a huge sofa, made Jack think of a cow that had strayed into the drawing room. He wondered again how a man like Kesserich had come to marry such a creature.
Yet when she lifted up her little eyes from the shadows, he had the uneasy feeling that she knew a great deal about him. The eyes were still those of a domestic animal, but of a wise one that has been watching the house a long, long while from the barnyard.
He asked abruptly, "Do you know anything of a girl around here named Mary Alice Pope?"
The silence lasted so long that he began to think she'd gone into some bovine trance. Then, without a word, she got up and went over to a tall cabinet. Feeling on a ledge behind it for a key, she opened a panel, opened a cardboard box inside it, took something from the box and handed him a photograph. He held it up to the failing light and sucked in his breath with surprise.
It was a picture of the girl he'd met that afternoon. Same flat-bosomed dress—flowered rather than white—no bandeau, same beads. Same proud, demure expression, perhaps a bit happier.
"That is Mary Alice Pope," Mrs. Kesserich said in a strangely flat voice. "She was Martin's fiancee. She was killed in a railway accident in 1933."
The small sound of the cabinet door closing brought Jack back to reality. He realized that he no longer had the photograph. Against the gloom by the cabinet, Mrs. Kesserich's white face looked at him with what seemed a malicious eagerness.
"Sit down," she said, "and I'll tell you about it."
Without a thought as to why she hadn't asked him a single question—he was much too dazed for that—he obeyed. Mrs. Kesserich resumed her position on the edge of the sofa.
"You must understand, Mr. Barr, that Mary Alice Pope was the one love of Martin's life. He is a man of very deep and strong feelings, yet as you probably know, anything but kindly or demonstrative. Even when he first came here from Hungary with his older sisters Hani and Hilda, there was a cloak of loneliness about him—or rather about the three of them.
"Hani and Hilda were athletic outdoor women, yet fiercely proud—I don't imagine they ever spoke to anyone in America except as to a servant—and with a seething distaste for all men except Martin. They showered all their devotion on him. So of course, though Martin didn't realize it, they were consumed with jealousy when he fell in love with Mary Alice Pope. They'd thought that since he'd reached forty without marrying, he was safe.
"Mary Alice came from a pure-bred, or as a biologist would say, inbred British stock. She was very young, but very sweet, and up to a point very wise. She sensed Hani and Hilda's feelings right away and did everything she could to win them over. For instance, though she was afraid of horses, she took up horseback riding, because that was Hani and Hilda's favorite pastime. Naturally, Martin knew nothing of her fear, and naturally his sisters knew about it from the first. But—and here is where Mary's wisdom fell short—her brave gesture did not pacify them: it only increased their hatred.
"Except for his research, Martin was blind to everything but his love. It was a beautiful and yet frightening passion, an insane cherishing as narrow and intense as his sisters hatred."
With a start, Jack remembered that it was Mrs. Kesserich telling him all this.
She went on, "Martin's love directed his every move. He was building a home for himself and Mary, and in his mind he was building a wonderful future for them as well—not vaguely, if you know Martin, but year by year, month by month. This winter, he'd plan, they would visit Buenos Aires, next summer they would sail down the inland passage and he would teach Mary Hungarian for their trip to Buda-Pesth the year after, where he would occupy a chair at the university for a few months ... and so on. Finally the time for their marriage drew near. Martin had been away. His research was keeping him very busy—"
Jack broke in with, "Wasn't that about the time he did his definitive work on growth and fertilization?"
Mrs. Kesserich nodded with solemn appreciation in the gathering darkness. "But now he was coming home, his work done. It was early evening, very chilly, but Hani and Hilda felt they had to ride down to the station to meet their brother. And although she dreaded it, Mary rode with them, for she knew how delighted he would be at her cantering to the puffing train and his running up to lift her down from the saddle to welcome him home.
"Of course there was Martin's luggage to be considered, so the station wagon had to be sent down for that." She looked defiantly at Jack. "I drove the station wagon. I was Martin's laboratory assistant."
She paused. "It was almost dark, but there was still a white cold line of sky to the west. Hani and Hilda, with Mary between them, were waiting on their horses at the top of the hill that led down to the station. The train had whistled and its headlight was graying the gravel of the crossing.
"Suddenly Mary's horse squealed and plunged down the hill. Hani and Hilda followed—to try to catch her, they said, but they didn't manage that, only kept her horse from veering off. Mary never screamed, but as her horse reared on the tracks, I saw her face in the headlight's glare.
"Martin must have guessed, or at least feared what had happened, for he was out of the train and running along the track before it stopped. In fact, he was the first to kneel down beside Mary—I mean, what had been Mary—and was holding her all bloody and shattered in his arms."
A door slammed. There were steps in the hall. Mrs. Kesserich stiffened and was silent. Jack turned.
The blur of a face hung in the doorway to the hall—a seemingly young, sensitive, suavely handsome face with aristocratic jaw. Then there was a click and the lights flared up and Jack saw the close-cropped gray hair and the lines around the eyes and nostrils, while the sensitive mouth grew sardonic. Yet the handsomeness stayed, and somehow the youth, too, or at least a tremendous inner vibrancy.
"Hello, Barr," Martin Kesserich said, ignoring his wife.
The great biologist had come home.
III
"Oh, yes, and Jamieson had a feeble paper on what he called individualization in marine worms. Barr, have you ever thought much about the larger aspects of the problem of individuality?"
Jack jumped slightly. He had let his thoughts wander very far.
"Not especially, sir," he mumbled.
The house was still. A few minutes after the professor's arrival, Mrs. Kesserich had gone off with an anxious glance at Jack. He knew why and wished he could reassure her that he would not mention their conversation to the professor.
Kesserich had spent perhaps a half hour briefing him on the more important papers delivered at the conferences. Then, almost as if it were a teacher's trick to show up a pupil's inattention, he had suddenly posed this question about individuality.
"You know what I mean, of course," Kesserich pressed. "The factors that make you you, and me me."
"Heredity and environment," Jack parroted like a freshman.
Kesserich nodded. "Suppose—this is just speculation—that we could control heredity and environment. Then we could re-create the same individual at will."
Jack felt a shiver go through him. "To get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits. That'd be far beyond us."
"What about identical twins?" Kesserich pointed out. "And then there's parthenogenesis to be considered. One might produce a duplicate of the mother without the intervention of the male." Although his voice had grown more idly speculative, Kesserich seemed to Jack to be smiling secretly. "There are many examples in the lower animal forms, to say nothing of the technique by which Loeb caused a sea urchin to reproduce with no more stimulus than a salt solution."
Jack felt the hair rising on his neck. "Even then you wouldn't get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits."
"Not if the parent were of very pure stock? Not if there were some special technique for selecting ova that would reproduce all the mother's traits?"
"But environment would change things," Jack objected. "The duplicate would be bound to develop differently."
"Is environment so important? Newman tells about a pair of identical twins separated from birth, unaware of each other's existence. They met by accident when they were twenty-one. Each was a telephone repairman. Each had a wife the same age. Each had a baby son. And each had a fox terrier called 'Trixie.' That's without trying to make environments similar. But suppose you did try. Suppose you saw to it that each of them had exactly the same experiences at the same times...."
For a moment it seemed to Jack that the room was dimming and wavering, becoming a dark pool in which the only motionless thing was Kesserich's sphinx-like face.
"Well, we've escaped quite far enough from Jamieson's marine worms," the biologist said, all brisk again. He said it as if Jack were the one who had led the conversation down wild and unprofitable channels.
"Let's get on to your project. I want to talk it over now, because I won't have any time for it tomorrow."
Jack looked at him blankly.
"Tomorrow I must attend to a very important matter," the biologist explained.
IV
Morning sunlight brightened the colors of the wax flowers under glass on the high bureau that always seemed to emit the faint odor of old hair combings. Jack pulled back the diamond-patterned quilt and blinked the sleep from his eyes. He expected his mind to be busy wondering about Kesserich and his wife—things said and half said last night—but found instead that his thoughts swung instantly to Mary Alice Pope, as if to a farthest island in a world of people.
Downstairs, the house was empty. After a long look at the cabinet—he felt behind it, but the key was gone—he hurried down to the waterfront. He stopped only for a bowl of chowder and, as an afterthought, to buy half a dozen newspapers.
The sea was bright, the brisk wind just right for the Annie O. There was eagerness in the way it smacked the sail and in the creak of the mast. And when he reached the cove, it was no longer still, but nervous with faint ripples, as if time had finally begun to stir.
After the same struggle with the underbrush, he came out on the rocky spine and passed the cove of the sea urchins. The spiny creatures struck an uncomfortable chord in his memory.
This time he climbed the second island cautiously, scraping the innocent-seeming ground ahead of him intently with a boathook he'd brought along for the purpose. He was only a few yards from the fence when he saw Mary Alice Pope standing behind it.
He hadn't realized that his heart would begin to pound or that, at the same time, a shiver of almost supernatural dread would go through him.
The girl eyed him with an uneasy hostility and immediately began to speak in a hushed, hurried voice. "You must go away at once and never come back. You're a wicked man, but I don't want you to be hurt. I've been watching for you all morning."
He tossed the newspapers over the fence. "You don't have to read them now," he told her. "Just look at the datelines and a few of the headlines."
When she finally lifted her eyes to his again, she was trembling. She tried unsuccessfully to speak.
"Listen to me," he said. "You've been the victim of a scheme to make you believe you were born around 1916 instead of 1933, and that it's
1933 now instead of 1951. I'm not sure why it's been done, though I think I know who you really are."
"But," the girl faltered, "my aunts tell me it's 1933."
"They would."
"And there are the papers ... the magazines ... the radio."
"The papers are old ones. The radio's faked—some sort of recording. I could show you if I could get at it."
" These papers might be faked," she said, pointing to where she'd let them drop on the ground.
"They're new," he said. "Only old papers get yellow."
"But why would they do it to me? Why? "
"Come with me to the mainland, Mary. That'll set you straight quicker than anything."
"I couldn't," she said, drawing back. "He's coming tonight."
"He?"
"The man who sends me the boxes ... and my life."
Jack shivered. When he spoke, his voice was rough and quick. "A life that's completely a lie, that's cut you off from the world. Come with me, Mary."
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Who is Robson Hind and what happens to him throughout the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Lost Tribes of Venus by Erik Fennel.
Relevant chunks:
THE LOST TRIBES OF VENUS
By ERIK FENNEL
On mist-shrouded Venus, where hostile swamp meets hostile sea ... there did Barry Barr—Earthman transmuted—swap his Terran heritage for the deep dark waters of Tana; for the strangely beautiful Xintel of the blue-brown skin.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories May 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Evil luck brought the meteorite to those particular space-time coordinates as Number Four rode the downhill spiral toward Venus. The football-sized chunk of nickel-iron and rock overtook the ship at a relative speed of only a few hundred miles per hour and passed close enough to come within the tremendous pseudo-gravatic fields of the idling drivers.
It swerved into a paraboloid course, following the flux lines, and was dragged directly against one of the three projecting nozzles. Energy of motion was converted to heat and a few meteoric fragments fused themselves to the nonmetallic tube casing.
In the jet room the positronic line accelerator for that particular driver fouled under the intolerable overload, and the backsurge sent searing heat and deadly radiation blasting through the compartment before the main circuit breakers could clack open.
The bellow of the alarm horn brought Barry Barr fully awake, shattering a delightfully intimate dream of the dark haired girl he hoped to see again soon in Venus Colony. As he unbuckled his bunk straps and started aft at a floating, bounding run his weightlessness told him instantly that Number Four was in free fall with dead drivers.
Red warning lights gleamed wickedly above the safety-locked jet room door, and Nick Podtiaguine, the air machines specialist, was manipulating the emergency controls with Captain Reno at his elbow. One by one the crew crowded into the corridor and watched in tense silence.
The automatic lock clicked off as the jet room returned to habitable conditions, and at Captain Reno's gesture two men swung the door open. Quickly the commander entered the blasted jet room. Barry Barr was close behind him.
Robson Hind, jet chief of Four and electronics expert for Venus Colony, hung back until others had gone in first. His handsome, heavy face had lost its usual ruddiness.
Captain Reno surveyed the havoc. Young Ryan's body floated eerily in the zero gravity, charred into instant death by the back-blast. The line accelerator was a shapeless ruin, but except for broken meter glasses and scorched control handles other mechanical damage appeared minor. They had been lucky.
"Turnover starts in six hours twelve minutes," the captain said meaningfully.
Robson Hind cleared his throat. "We can change accelerators in two hours," he declared. With a quick reassumption of authority he began to order his crew into action.
It took nearer three hours than two to change accelerators despite Hind's shouted orders.
At last the job was completed. Hind made a final check, floated over to the control panel and started the fuel feed. With a confident smile he threw in the accelerator switch.
The meter needles climbed, soared past the red lines without pausing, and just in time to prevent a second blowback, Hind cut the power.
" There's metal in the field! " His voice was high and unsteady.
Everyone knew what that meant. The slightest trace of magnetic material would distort the delicately balanced cylinder of force that contained and directed the Hoskins blast, making it suicidal to operate.
Calmly Captain Reno voiced the thought in every mind.
"It must be cleared. From the outside."
Several of the men swore under their breaths. Interplanetary space was constantly bombarded, with an intensity inverse to the prevailing gravitation, by something called Sigma radiation. Man had never encountered it until leaving Earth, and little was known of it except that short exposure killed test animals and left their bodies unpredictably altered.
Inside the ship it was safe enough, for the sleek hull was charged with a Kendall power-shield, impervious to nearly any Sigma concentration. But the shielding devices in the emergency spacesuits were small and had never been space-tested in a region of nearly equalized gravitations.
The man who emerged from the airlock would be flipping a coin with a particularly unpleasant form of death.
Many pairs of eyes turned toward Robson Hind. He was jet chief.
"I'm assigned, not expendable," he protested hastily. "If there were more trouble later...." His face was pasty.
Assigned. That was the key word. Barry Barr felt a lump tightening in his stomach as the eyes shifted to him. He had some training in Hoskins drivers. He knew alloys and power tools. And he was riding Four unassigned after that broken ankle had made him miss Three. He was the logical man.
"For the safety of the ship." That phrase, taken from the ancient Earthbound code of the sea, had occurred repeatedly in the indoctrination manual at Training Base. He remembered it, and remembered further the contingent plans regarding assigned and unassigned personnel.
For a moment he stood indecisively, the nervous, unhumorous smile quirking across his angular face making him look more like an untried boy than a structural engineer who had fought his way up through some of the toughest tropical construction camps of Earth. His lean body, built more for quick, neatly coordinated action than brute power, balanced handily in the zero gravity as he ran one hand through his sandy hair in a gesture of uncertainty.
He knew that not even the captain would order him through the airlock.
But the members of the Five Ship Plan had been selected in part for a sense of responsibility.
"Nick, will you help me button up?" he asked with forced calmness.
For an instant he thought he detected a sly gleam in Hind's eyes. But then the jet chief was pressing forward with the others to shake his hand.
Rebellious reluctance flared briefly in Barry's mind. Dorothy Voorhees had refused to make a definite promise before blasting off in Three—in fact he hadn't even seen her during her last few days on Earth. But still he felt he had the inside track despite Hind's money and the brash assurance that went with it. But if Hind only were to reach Venus alive—
The blazing disc of Sol, the minor globes of the planets, the unwinking pinpoints of the stars, all stared with cosmic disinterest at the tiny figure crawling along the hull. His spacesuit trapped and amplified breathing and heartbeats into a roaring chaos that was an invitation to blind panic, and all the while there was consciousness of the insidiously deadly Sigma radiations.
Barry found the debris of the meteorite, an ugly shining splotch against the dull superceramic tube, readied his power chisel, started cutting. Soon it became a tedious, torturingly strenuous manual task requiring little conscious thought, and Barry's mind touched briefly on the events that had brought him here.
First Luna, and that had been murderous. Man had encountered Sigma for the first time, and many had died before the Kendall-shield was perfected. And the chemical-fueled rockets of those days had been inherently poor.
Hoskins semi-atomics had made possible the next step—to Mars. But men had found Mars barren, swept clear of all life in the cataclysm that had shattered the trans-Martian planet to form the Asteroid Belt.
Venus, its true surface forever hidden by enshrouding mists, had been well within one-way range. But Hoskins fuel requirements for a round trip added up to something beyond critical mass. Impossible.
But the Five Ship Plan had evolved, a joint enterprise of government and various private groups. Five vessels were to go out, each fueled to within a whiskered neutron of spontaneous detonation, manned by specialists who, it was hoped, could maintain themselves under alien conditions.
On Venus the leftover fuel from all five would be transferred to whichever ship had survived the outbound voyage in best condition. That one would return to Earth. Permanent base or homeward voyage with colonists crowded aboard like defeated sardines? Only time would tell.
Barry Barr had volunteered, and because the enlightened guesses of the experts called for men and women familiar with tropical conditions, he had survived the rigorous weeding-out process. His duties in Venus Colony would be to refabricate the discarded ships into whatever form was most needed—most particularly a launching ramp—and to study native Venusian materials.
Dorothy Voorhees had signed on as toxicologist and dietician. When the limited supply of Earth food ran out the Colony would be forced to rely upon Venusian plants and animals. She would guard against subtle delayed-action poisons, meanwhile devising ways of preparing Venusian materials to suit Earth tastes and digestions.
Barry had met her at Training Base and known at once that his years of loneliness had come to an end.
She seemed utterly independent, self-contained, completely intellectual despite her beauty, but Barry had not been deceived. From the moment of first meeting he had sensed within her deep springs of suppressed emotion, and he had understood. He too had come up the hard way, alone, and been forced to develop a shell of hardness and cold, single-minded devotion to his work. Gradually, often unwillingly under his insistence, her aloofness had begun to melt.
But Robson Hind too had been attracted. He was the only son of the business manager of the great Hoskins Corporation which carried a considerable share in the Five Ship Plan. Dorothy's failure to virtually fall into his arms had only piqued his desires.
The man's smooth charm had fascinated the girl and his money had opened to her an entirely new world of lavish nightclubs and extravagantly expensive entertainments, but her inborn shrewdness had sensed some factor in his personality that had made her hesitate.
Barry had felt a distrust of Hind apart from the normal dislike of rivalry. He had looked forward to being with Dorothy aboard Three, and had made no secret of his satisfaction when Hind's efforts to have himself transferred to Three also or the girl to Four had failed.
But then a scaffold had slipped while Three was being readied, and with a fractured ankle he had been forced to miss the ship.
He unclipped the magnetic detector from his belt and ran it inch by inch over the nozzle. He found one spot of metal, pinhead-sized, but enough to cause trouble, and once more swung his power chisel into stuttering action.
Then it was done.
As quickly as possible he inched back to the airlock. Turnover had to start according to calculations.
Barry opened his eyes. The ship was in normal deceleration and Nick Podtiaguine was watching him from a nearby bunk.
"I could eat a cow with the smallpox," Barry declared.
Nick grinned. "No doubt. You slept around the clock and more. Nice job of work out there."
Barry unhitched his straps and sat up.
"Say," he asked anxiously. "What's haywire with the air?"
Nick looked startled. "Nothing. Everything checked out when I came off watch a few minutes ago."
Barry shrugged. "Probably just me. Guess I'll go see if I can mooch a handout."
He found himself a hero. The cook was ready to turn the galley inside out while a radio engineer and an entomologist hovered near to wait on him. But he couldn't enjoy the meal. The sensations of heat and dryness he had noticed on awakening grew steadily worse. It became difficult to breathe.
He started to rise, and abruptly the room swirled and darkened around him. Even as he sank into unconsciousness he knew the answer.
The suit's Kendall-shield had leaked!
Four plunged toward Venus tail first, the Hoskins jets flaring ahead. The single doctor for the Colony had gone out in Two and the crewmen trained in first aid could do little to relieve Barry's distress. Fainting spells alternated with fever and delirium and an unquenchable thirst. His breathing became increasingly difficult.
A few thousand miles out Four picked up a microbeam. A feeling of exultation surged through the ship as Captain Reno passed the word, for the beam meant that some Earthmen were alive upon Venus. They were not necessarily diving straight toward oblivion. Barry, sick as he was, felt the thrill of the unknown world that lay ahead.
Into a miles-thick layer of opacity Four roared, with Captain Reno himself jockeying throttles to keep it balanced on its self-created support of flame.
"You're almost in," a voice chanted into his headphones through crackling, sizzling static. "Easy toward spherical one-thirty. Hold it! Lower. Lower. CUT YOUR POWER!"
The heavy hull dropped sickeningly, struck with a mushy thud, settled, steadied.
Barry was weak, but with Nick Podtiaguine steadying him he was waiting with the others when Captain Reno gave the last order.
"Airlock open. Both doors."
Venusian air poured in.
"For this I left Panama?" one of the men yelped.
"Enough to gag a maggot," another agreed with hand to nose.
It was like mid-summer noon in a tropical mangrove swamp, hot and unbearably humid and overpowering with the stench of decaying vegetation.
But Barry took one deep breath, then another. The stabbing needles in his chest blunted, and the choking band around his throat loosened.
The outer door swung wide. He blinked, and a shift in the encompassing vapors gave him his first sight of a world bathed in subdued light.
Four had landed in a marsh with the midships lock only a few feet above a quagmire surface still steaming from the final rocket blast. Nearby the identical hulls of Two and Three stood upright in the mud. The mist shifted again and beyond the swamp he could see the low, rounded outlines of the collapsible buildings Two and Three had carried in their cargo pits. They were set on a rock ledge rising a few feet out of the marsh. The Colony!
Men were tossing sections of lattice duckboard out upon the swamp, extending a narrow walkway toward Four's airlock, and within a few minutes the new arrivals were scrambling down.
Barry paid little attention to the noisy greetings and excited talk. Impatiently he trotted toward the rock ledge, searching for one particular figure among the men and women who waited.
"Dorothy!" he said fervently.
Then his arms were around her and she was responding to his kiss.
Then unexpected pain tore at his chest. Her lovely face took on an expression of fright even as it wavered and grew dim. The last thing he saw was Robson Hind looming beside her.
By the glow of an overhead tubelight he recognized the kindly, deeply lined features of the man bending over him. Dr. Carl Jensen, specialist in tropical diseases. He tried to sit up but the doctor laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.
"Water!" Barry croaked.
The doctor held out a glass. Then his eyes widened incredulously as his patient deliberately drew in a breath while drinking, sucking water directly into his lungs.
"Doctor," he asked, keeping his voice low to spare his throat. "What are my chances? On the level."
Dr. Jensen shook his head thoughtfully. "There's not a thing—not a damned solitary thing—I can do. It's something new to medical science."
Barry lay still.
"Your body is undergoing certain radical changes," the doctor continued, "and you know as much—more about your condition than I do. If a normal person who took water into his lungs that way didn't die of a coughing spasm, congestive pneumonia would get him sure. But it seems to give you relief."
Barry scratched his neck, where a thickened, darkening patch on each side itched infuriatingly.
"What are these changes?" he asked. "What's this?"
"Those things seem to be—" the doctor began hesitantly. "Damn it, I know it sounds crazy but they're rudimentary gills."
Barry accepted the outrageous statement unemotionally. He was beyond shock.
"But there must be—"
Pain struck again, so intense his body twisted and arched involuntarily. Then the prick of a needle brought merciful oblivion.
II
Barry's mind was working furiously. The changes the Sigma radiations had inflicted upon his body might reverse themselves spontaneously, Dr. Jensen had mentioned during a second visit—but for that to happen he must remain alive. That meant easing all possible strains.
When the doctor came in again Barry asked him to find Nick Podtiaguine. Within a few minutes the mechanic appeared.
"Cheez, it's good to see you, Barry," he began.
"Stuff it," the sick man interrupted. "I want favors. Can do?"
Nick nodded vigorously.
"First cut that air conditioner and get the window open."
Nick stared as though he were demented, but obeyed, unbolting the heavy plastic window panel and lifting it aside. He made a face at the damp, malodorous Venusian air but to Barry it brought relief.
It was not enough, but it indicated he was on the right track. And he was not an engineer for nothing.
"Got a pencil?" he asked.
He drew only a rough sketch, for Nick was far too competent to need detailed drawings.
"Think you can get materials?"
Nick glanced at the sketch. "Hell, man, for you I can get anything the Colony has. You saved Four and everybody knows it."
"Two days?"
Nick looked insulted.
He was back in eight hours, and with him came a dozen helpers. A power line and water tube were run through the metal partition to the corridor, connections were made, and the machine Barry had sketched was ready.
Nick flipped the switch. The thing whined shrilly. From a fanshaped nozzle came innumerable droplets of water, droplets of colloidal size that hung in the air and only slowly coalesced into larger drops that fell toward the metal floor.
Barry nodded, a smile beginning to spread across his drawn features.
"Perfect. Now put the window back."
Outside lay the unknown world of Venus, and an open, unguarded window might invite disaster.
A few hours later Dr. Jensen found his patient in a normal sleep. The room was warm and the air was so filled with water-mist it was almost liquid. Coalescing drops dripped from the walls and curving ceiling and furniture, from the half clad body of the sleeping man, and the scavenger pump made greedy gulping sounds as it removed excess water from the floor.
The doctor shook his head as he backed out, his clothes clinging wet from the short exposure.
It was abnormal.
But so was Barry Barr.
With breathing no longer a continuous agony Barry began to recover some of his strength. But for several days much of his time was spent in sleep and Dorothy Voorhees haunted his dreams.
Whenever he closed his eyes he could see her as clearly as though she were with him—her face with the exotic high cheek-bones—her eyes a deep gray in fascinating contrast to her raven hair—lips that seemed to promise more of giving than she had ever allowed herself to fulfil—her incongruously pert, humorous little nose that was a legacy from some venturesome Irishman—her slender yet firmly lithe body.
After a few days Dr. Jensen permitted him to have visitors. They came in a steady stream, the people from Four and men he had not seen since Training Base days, and although none could endure his semi-liquid atmosphere more than a few minutes at a time Barry enjoyed their visits.
But the person for whom he waited most anxiously did not arrive. At each knock Barry's heart would leap, and each time he settled back with a sigh of disappointment. Days passed and still Dorothy did not come to him. He could not go to her, and stubborn pride kept him from even inquiring. All the while he was aware of Robson Hind's presence in the Colony, and only weakness kept him from pacing his room like a caged animal.
Through his window he could see nothing but the gradual brightening and darkening of the enveloping fog as the slow 82-hour Venusian day progressed, but from his visitors' words he learned something of Venusian conditions and the story of the Colony.
Number One had bumbled in on visual, the pilot depending on the smeary images of infra-sight goggles. An inviting grassy plain had proved to be a layer of algae floating on quicksand. Frantically the crew had blasted down huge balsa-like marsh trees, cutting up the trunks with flame guns to make crude rafts. They had performed fantastic feats of strength and endurance but managed to salvage only half their equipment before the shining nose of One had vanished in the gurgling ooze.
Lost in a steaming, stinking marsh teeming with alien creatures that slithered and crawled and swam and flew, blinded by the eternal fog, the crew had proved the rightness of their choice as pioneers. For weeks they had floundered across the deadly terrain until at last, beside a stagnant-looking slough that drained sluggishly into a warm, almost tideless sea a mile away, they had discovered an outcropping of rock. It was the only solid ground they had encountered.
One man had died, his swamp suit pierced by a poisonous thorn, but the others had hand-hauled the radio beacon piece by piece and set it up in time to guide Two to a safe landing. Houses had been assembled, the secondary power units of the spaceship put to work, and the colony had established a tenuous foothold.
Three had landed beside Two a few months later, bringing reinforcements, but the day-by-day demands of the little colony's struggle for survival had so far been too pressing to permit extended or detailed explorations. Venus remained a planet of unsolved mysteries.
The helicopter brought out in Three had made several flights which by radar and sound reflection had placed vague outlines on the blank maps. The surface appeared to be half water, with land masses mainly jungle-covered swamp broken by a few rocky ledges, but landings away from base had been judged too hazardous.
Test borings from the ledge had located traces of oil and radioactive minerals, while enough Venusian plants had proven edible to provide an adequate though monotonous food source.
Venus was the diametric opposite of lifeless Mars. Through the fog gigantic insects hummed and buzzed like lost airplanes, but fortunately they were harmless and timid.
In the swamps wildly improbable life forms grew and reproduced and fought and died, and many of those most harmless in appearance possessed surprisingly venomous characteristics.
The jungle had been flamed away in a huge circle around the colony to minimize the chances of surprise by anything that might attack, but the blasting was an almost continuous process. The plants of Venus grew with a vigor approaching fury.
Most spectacular of the Venusian creatures were the amphibious armored monsters, saurian or semi-saurians with a slight resemblance to the brontosauri that had once lived on Earth, massive swamp-dwellers that used the slough beside the colony's ledge as a highway. They were apparently vegetarians, but thorough stupidity in tremendous bulk made them dangerous. One had damaged a building by blundering against it, and since then the colony had remained alert, using weapons to repel the beasts.
The most important question—that of the presence or absence of intelligent, civilized Venusians—remained unanswered. Some of the men reported a disquieting feeling of being watched, particularly when near open water, but others argued that any intelligent creatures would have established contact.
Barry developed definite external signs of what the Sigma radiation had done to him. The skin between his fingers and toes spread, grew into membranous webs. The swellings in his neck became more pronounced and dark parallel lines appeared.
But despite the doctor's pessimistic reports that the changes had not stopped, Barry continued to tell himself he was recovering. He had to believe and keep on believing to retain sanity in the face of the weird, unclassifiable feelings that surged through his body. Still he was subject to fits of almost suicidal depression, and Dorothy's failure to visit him did not help his mental condition.
Then one day he woke from a nap and thought he was still dreaming. Dorothy was leaning over him.
"Barry! Barry!" she whispered. "I can't help it. I love you even if you do have a wife and child in Philadelphia. I know it's wrong but all that seems so far away it doesn't matter any more." Tears glistened in her eyes.
"Huh?" he grunted. "Who? Me?"
"Please, Barry, don't lie. She wrote to me before Three blasted off—oh, the most piteous letter!"
Barry was fully awake now. "I'm not married. I have no child. I've never been in Philadelphia," he shouted. His lips thinned.
"I—think—I—know—who—wrote—that—letter!" he declared grimly.
"Robson wouldn't!" she objected, shocked, but there was a note of doubt in her voice.
Then she was in his arms, sobbing openly.
"I believe you, Barry."
She stayed with him for hours, and she had changed since the days at Training Base. Long months away from the patterned restraints of civilization, living each day on the edge of unknown perils, had awakened in her the realization that she was a human being and a woman, as well as a toxicologist.
When the water-mist finally forced her departure she left Barry joyous and confident of his eventual recovery. For a few minutes anger simmered in his brain as he contemplated the pleasure of rearranging Robson Hind's features.
The accident with the scaffold had been remarkably convenient, but this time the ruthless, restless, probably psychopathic drive that had made Robson Hind more than just another rich man's spoiled son had carried him too far. Barry wondered whether it had been inefficiency or judiciously distributed money that had made the psychometrists overlook some undesirable traits in Hind's personality in accepting him for the Five Ship Plan.
But even with his trickery Hind had lost.
He slept, and woke with a feeling of doom.
The slow Venusian twilight had ended in blackness and the overhead tubelight was off.
He sat up, and apprehension gave way to burning torture in his chest.
Silence! He fumbled for the light switch, then knelt beside the mist machine that no longer hummed. Power and water supplies were both dead, cut off outside his room.
Floating droplets were merging and falling to the floor. Soon the air would be dry, and he would be choking and strangling. He turned to call for help.
The door was locked!
He tugged and the knob came away in his hand. The retaining screw had been removed.
He beat upon the panel, first with his fists and then with the metal doorknob, but the insulation between the double alloy sheets was efficient soundproofing. Furiously he hurled himself upon it, only to bounce back with a bruised shoulder. He was trapped.
Working against time and eventual death he snatched a metal chair and swung with all his force at the window, again, again, yet again. A small crack appeared in the transparent plastic, branched under continued hammering, became a rough star. He gathered his waning strength, then swung once more. The tough plastic shattered.
He tugged at the jagged pieces still clinging to the frame. Fog-laden Venusian air poured in—but it was not enough!
He dragged himself head first through the narrow opening, landed sprawling on hands and knees in the darkness. In his ears a confused rustling drone from the alien swamp mingled with the roar of approaching unconsciousness.
There was a smell in his nostrils. The smell of water. He lurched forward at a shambling run, stumbling over the uneven ground.
Then he plunged from the rocky ledge into the slough. Flashes of colored light flickered before his eyes as he went under. But Earth habits were still strong; instinctively he held his breath.
Then he fainted. Voluntary control of his body vanished. His mouth hung slack and the breathing reflex that had been an integral part of his life since the moment of birth forced him to inhale.
Bubbles floated upward and burst. Then Barry Barr was lying in the ooze of the bottom. And he was breathing, extracting vital oxygen from the brackish, silt-clouded water.
III
Slowly his racing heartbeat returned to normal. Gradually he became aware of the stench of decaying plants and of musky taints he knew instinctively were the scents of underwater animals. Then with a shock the meaning became clear. He had become a water-breather, cut off from all other Earthmen, no longer entirely human. His fellows in the colony were separated from him now by a gulf more absolute than the airless void between Earth and Venus.
Something slippery and alive touched him near one armpit. He opened his eyes in the black water and his groping hand clutched something burrowing into his skin. With a shudder of revulsion he crushed a fat worm between his fingers.
Then dozens of them—hundreds—were upon him from all sides. He was wearing only a pair of khaki pants but the worms ignored his chest to congregate around his face, intent on attacking the tender skin of his eyelids.
For a minute his flailing hands fought them off, but they came in increasing numbers and clung like leeches. Pain spread as they bit and burrowed, and blindly he began to swim.
Faster and faster. He could sense the winding banks of the slough and kept to midchannel, swimming with his eyes tightly closed. One by one the worms dropped off.
He stopped, opened his eyes, not on complete darkness this time but on a faint blue-green luminescence from far below. The water was saltier here, and clearer.
He had swum down the slough and out into the ocean. He tried to turn back, obsessed by a desire to be near the colony even though he could not go ashore without strangling, but he had lost all sense of direction.
He was still weak and his lungs were not completely adjusted to underwater life. Again he grew dizzy and faint. The slow movements of hands and feet that held him just below the surface grew feeble and ceased. He sank.
Down into dimly luminous water he dropped, and with his respiratory system completely water-filled there was no sensation of pressure. At last he floated gently to the bottom and lay motionless.
Shouting voices awakened him, an exultant battle cry cutting through a gasping scream of anguish. Streaks of bright orange light were moving toward him in a twisting pattern. At the head of each trail was a figure. A human figure that weaved and swam in deadly moving combat. One figure drifted limply bottomward.
Hallucination, Barry told himself. Then one of the figures broke from the group. Almost overhead it turned sharply downward and the feet moved in a powerful flutter-kick. A slender spear aimed directly at the Earthman.
Barry threw himself aside. The spear point plunged deep into the sticky, yielding bottom and Barry grappled with its wielder.
Pointed fingernails raked his cheek. Barry's balled fist swung in a roundhouse blow but water resistance slowed the punch to ineffectiveness. The creature only shook its head and came in kicking and clawing.
Barry braced his feet against the bottom and leaped. His head butted the attacker's chest and at the same instant he lashed a short jab to the creature's belly. It slumped momentarily, its face working.
Human—or nearly so—the thing was, with a stocky, powerful body and webbed hands and feet. A few scraps of clothing, seemingly worn more for ornament than covering, clung to the fishbelly-white skin. The face was coarse and savage.
It shook off the effects of Barry's punch and one webbed hand snatched a short tube from its belt.
Barry remembered the spring-opening knife in his pocket, and even as he flicked the blade out the tube-weapon fired. Sound thrummed in the water and the water grew milky with a myriad of bubbles. Something zipped past his head, uncomfortably close.
Then Barry struck, felt his knife slice flesh and grate against bone. He struck again even as the undersea being screamed and went limp.
Barry stared through the reddening water.
Another figure plunged toward him. Barry jerked the dead Venusian's spear from the mud and raised it defensively.
But the figure paid no attention. This one was a female who fled desperately from two men closing in from opposite sides. One threw his spear, using an odd pushing motion, and as she checked and dodged, the other was upon her from behind.
One arm went around her neck in a strangler's hold, bending her slender body backward. Together captor and struggling captive sank toward the bottom. The other recovered his thrown spear and moved in to help secure her arms and legs with lengths of cord.
One scooped up the crossbow the girl had dropped. The other ripped at her brief skirt and from her belt took a pair of tubes like the one the dead Venusian had fired at Barry, handling them as though they were loot of the greatest value. He jerked cruelly at the slender metallic necklace the girl wore but it did not break.
He punched the helpless girl in the abdomen with the butt of his spear. The girl writhed but she did not attempt to cry out.
Barry bounded toward them in a series of soaring leaps, knife and spear ready. One Venusian turned to meet him, grinning maliciously.
Barry dug one foot into the bottom and sidestepped a spear thrust. His own lunge missed completely. Then he and the Venusian were inside each other's spear points, chest to chest. A pointed hook strapped to the inside of the creature's wrist just missed Barry's throat. The Earthman arched his body backward and his knife flashed upward. The creature gasped and pulled away, clutching with both hands at a gaping wound in its belly.
The other one turned too late as Barry leaped.
Barry's hilt cracked against its jawbone.
Question:
Who is Robson Hind and what happens to him throughout the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Robson Hind is a very wealthy man and jet chief of Number Four. The son of the manager of Hoskins Corporation, Hind was basically guaranteed a spot in the Five Ship Plan. Just like Barry Barr, he was instantly attracted to Dorothy Voorhees and her jet-black hair, high cheekbones, and intelligence. Before their ships take off, Hind conspires to join her on Number Three or transfer her to Number Four. However, his scheme eventually fails. Before Three lifts off, he sends Dorothy a letter pretending to be Barry’s imaginary wife from Philadelphia, asking her to stay away from him so his wife and children can still have him. This works for a time in keeping Dorothy away from Barry. Once again, however, Hind’s scheme ultimately fails once they arrive on Venus and Dorothy is near Barry again. \nWhile on Number Four, Hind refuses to exit the spaceship to work on the meteor shards, citing his assigned status. When Barry volunteers, Hind is secretly happy, almost as if he wants him out of the picture for good. \nAfter their arrival on Venus, Dorothy stays away from Barry for a time, but eventually runs into his hospital room and embraces him. She discovers that Hind’s letter was a lie and rushes into Barry’s arms for good. Presumably, once Hind discovered this, he dismantled Barry’s life-saving moisture machine and locked him in the room to die. \n",
"Robson Hind is the jet chief of Four, the fourth of the five ships sent to Venus under the Five Ship Plan. As a member of the Five Ship Plan, he has been vetted both for his jobs skills and his personality and sense of responsibility, but he is uncouth, unethical, and self-centered. He is the son of the business manager of the Hoskins Corporation which holds a large share in the Five Ship Plan. Additionally, he is competing with Barry Barr for the affections of the beautiful young woman, Dorothy Voorhees. Dorothy likes Barry, but she can’t help but be impressed by the smooth-talking Hinds whose wealth enables him to entertain her in style. When Dorothy is assigned to ship Three, Hinds tries to have her reassigned to Four and then himself to Three, neither of which works. \n\tAlthough Hinds knows his job, he is questionable in his suitability for the Five Ship Plan. As Number Four descends toward Venus, a meteorite sideswipes the ship, and a few pieces break off and fuse themselves to the nonmetallic tube casing of a nozzle, causing the driver to overload, sending heat and radiation into the compartment and killing the person in there. Once they can enter the compartment, Hinds hangs back and enters last. He is responsible for changing the accelerators and afterward throws the switch confidently only to have the system almost overload again before he switches it off. Hinds determines the problem is metal in the field, which will require someone to go outside the ship and cut it out. This is a dangerous job because of the high levels of Sigma concentration that are known to kill lab animals with just a brief exposure. What isn’t known is how well a spacesuit will protect a human. Everyone waits to see who will volunteer, and their eyes turn to Hinds, who quickly reminds them he is assigned and therefore not expendable. Barry Barr volunteers since he is unassigned.\n\tWhen Barr is under the doctor’s care, he desperately wants to see Dorothy, and when she finally comes, she claims she can’t stay away because she loves him too much, even if he has a wife and child. She received a letter just before Three blasted off. Barr isn’t married, and he strongly suspects that Hinds is behind the fake letter. Hinds is also responsible for almost killing Barr by cutting the power and water to the humidifier that keeps him alive and locking the door so Barr can’t escape.\n",
"Robson Hind is the jet chief of Number Four as well as the electronics expert for Venus Colony. He is young, handsome, and wealthy. The sole child of the business manager of Hoskins Corporation, Hind's position with the Five Ship Plan could be attributed to the fact that his father's business held a large share of it. When the meteorite strikes Number Four, Hind immediately says he cannot go outside to fix it because he has an assignment on the ship, and he is non-expendable. He barely conceals a smile when Barry offers to take care of it instead. Like Barry, Hind is attracted to Dorothy Voorhees. However, in spite of his charms and his lavish doting, Hind fails to capture Dorothy's heart because she senses something she does not like in his personality. This shrewdness of character perception turns out to be quite accurate when Hind writes a letter to Dorothy pretending to be Barry's non-existent wife revealing herself to Dorothy and telling her that Barry also has a child in Philadelphia. This only delays Dorothy's confession of love to Barry, so Hind steps up his efforts to keep the two separated. He locks Barry in his room and disables the machine that had been supplying Venusian air for Barry to breathe. Although Hind's efforts to kill Barry fail, he does succeed in driving him away into the ocean where Barry will presumably stay.",
"Robson Hind is a member of the crew of Number Four, where he serves as the jet chief, and will be the electronics expert for Venus Colony. He has bold, handsome features and gives the impression of being strong without being large. Hind is the one who cuts the power lines to prevent a second blowback while they're all trying to find a solution for their freefall. He is looked to for guidance throughout the problem-solving due to his leadership position, and was the best candidate to clear the Sigma radiation but defered the role to Barry Barr to protect himself. There is tension because Barry and Robson both like Dorothy Voorhees. Dorothy is under the impression that Barry is married to someone else, and it turns out Robson Hind likely is the one who planted this misinformation in her mind through writing a false letter."
] |
63932
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THE LOST TRIBES OF VENUS
By ERIK FENNEL
On mist-shrouded Venus, where hostile swamp meets hostile sea ... there did Barry Barr—Earthman transmuted—swap his Terran heritage for the deep dark waters of Tana; for the strangely beautiful Xintel of the blue-brown skin.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories May 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Evil luck brought the meteorite to those particular space-time coordinates as Number Four rode the downhill spiral toward Venus. The football-sized chunk of nickel-iron and rock overtook the ship at a relative speed of only a few hundred miles per hour and passed close enough to come within the tremendous pseudo-gravatic fields of the idling drivers.
It swerved into a paraboloid course, following the flux lines, and was dragged directly against one of the three projecting nozzles. Energy of motion was converted to heat and a few meteoric fragments fused themselves to the nonmetallic tube casing.
In the jet room the positronic line accelerator for that particular driver fouled under the intolerable overload, and the backsurge sent searing heat and deadly radiation blasting through the compartment before the main circuit breakers could clack open.
The bellow of the alarm horn brought Barry Barr fully awake, shattering a delightfully intimate dream of the dark haired girl he hoped to see again soon in Venus Colony. As he unbuckled his bunk straps and started aft at a floating, bounding run his weightlessness told him instantly that Number Four was in free fall with dead drivers.
Red warning lights gleamed wickedly above the safety-locked jet room door, and Nick Podtiaguine, the air machines specialist, was manipulating the emergency controls with Captain Reno at his elbow. One by one the crew crowded into the corridor and watched in tense silence.
The automatic lock clicked off as the jet room returned to habitable conditions, and at Captain Reno's gesture two men swung the door open. Quickly the commander entered the blasted jet room. Barry Barr was close behind him.
Robson Hind, jet chief of Four and electronics expert for Venus Colony, hung back until others had gone in first. His handsome, heavy face had lost its usual ruddiness.
Captain Reno surveyed the havoc. Young Ryan's body floated eerily in the zero gravity, charred into instant death by the back-blast. The line accelerator was a shapeless ruin, but except for broken meter glasses and scorched control handles other mechanical damage appeared minor. They had been lucky.
"Turnover starts in six hours twelve minutes," the captain said meaningfully.
Robson Hind cleared his throat. "We can change accelerators in two hours," he declared. With a quick reassumption of authority he began to order his crew into action.
It took nearer three hours than two to change accelerators despite Hind's shouted orders.
At last the job was completed. Hind made a final check, floated over to the control panel and started the fuel feed. With a confident smile he threw in the accelerator switch.
The meter needles climbed, soared past the red lines without pausing, and just in time to prevent a second blowback, Hind cut the power.
" There's metal in the field! " His voice was high and unsteady.
Everyone knew what that meant. The slightest trace of magnetic material would distort the delicately balanced cylinder of force that contained and directed the Hoskins blast, making it suicidal to operate.
Calmly Captain Reno voiced the thought in every mind.
"It must be cleared. From the outside."
Several of the men swore under their breaths. Interplanetary space was constantly bombarded, with an intensity inverse to the prevailing gravitation, by something called Sigma radiation. Man had never encountered it until leaving Earth, and little was known of it except that short exposure killed test animals and left their bodies unpredictably altered.
Inside the ship it was safe enough, for the sleek hull was charged with a Kendall power-shield, impervious to nearly any Sigma concentration. But the shielding devices in the emergency spacesuits were small and had never been space-tested in a region of nearly equalized gravitations.
The man who emerged from the airlock would be flipping a coin with a particularly unpleasant form of death.
Many pairs of eyes turned toward Robson Hind. He was jet chief.
"I'm assigned, not expendable," he protested hastily. "If there were more trouble later...." His face was pasty.
Assigned. That was the key word. Barry Barr felt a lump tightening in his stomach as the eyes shifted to him. He had some training in Hoskins drivers. He knew alloys and power tools. And he was riding Four unassigned after that broken ankle had made him miss Three. He was the logical man.
"For the safety of the ship." That phrase, taken from the ancient Earthbound code of the sea, had occurred repeatedly in the indoctrination manual at Training Base. He remembered it, and remembered further the contingent plans regarding assigned and unassigned personnel.
For a moment he stood indecisively, the nervous, unhumorous smile quirking across his angular face making him look more like an untried boy than a structural engineer who had fought his way up through some of the toughest tropical construction camps of Earth. His lean body, built more for quick, neatly coordinated action than brute power, balanced handily in the zero gravity as he ran one hand through his sandy hair in a gesture of uncertainty.
He knew that not even the captain would order him through the airlock.
But the members of the Five Ship Plan had been selected in part for a sense of responsibility.
"Nick, will you help me button up?" he asked with forced calmness.
For an instant he thought he detected a sly gleam in Hind's eyes. But then the jet chief was pressing forward with the others to shake his hand.
Rebellious reluctance flared briefly in Barry's mind. Dorothy Voorhees had refused to make a definite promise before blasting off in Three—in fact he hadn't even seen her during her last few days on Earth. But still he felt he had the inside track despite Hind's money and the brash assurance that went with it. But if Hind only were to reach Venus alive—
The blazing disc of Sol, the minor globes of the planets, the unwinking pinpoints of the stars, all stared with cosmic disinterest at the tiny figure crawling along the hull. His spacesuit trapped and amplified breathing and heartbeats into a roaring chaos that was an invitation to blind panic, and all the while there was consciousness of the insidiously deadly Sigma radiations.
Barry found the debris of the meteorite, an ugly shining splotch against the dull superceramic tube, readied his power chisel, started cutting. Soon it became a tedious, torturingly strenuous manual task requiring little conscious thought, and Barry's mind touched briefly on the events that had brought him here.
First Luna, and that had been murderous. Man had encountered Sigma for the first time, and many had died before the Kendall-shield was perfected. And the chemical-fueled rockets of those days had been inherently poor.
Hoskins semi-atomics had made possible the next step—to Mars. But men had found Mars barren, swept clear of all life in the cataclysm that had shattered the trans-Martian planet to form the Asteroid Belt.
Venus, its true surface forever hidden by enshrouding mists, had been well within one-way range. But Hoskins fuel requirements for a round trip added up to something beyond critical mass. Impossible.
But the Five Ship Plan had evolved, a joint enterprise of government and various private groups. Five vessels were to go out, each fueled to within a whiskered neutron of spontaneous detonation, manned by specialists who, it was hoped, could maintain themselves under alien conditions.
On Venus the leftover fuel from all five would be transferred to whichever ship had survived the outbound voyage in best condition. That one would return to Earth. Permanent base or homeward voyage with colonists crowded aboard like defeated sardines? Only time would tell.
Barry Barr had volunteered, and because the enlightened guesses of the experts called for men and women familiar with tropical conditions, he had survived the rigorous weeding-out process. His duties in Venus Colony would be to refabricate the discarded ships into whatever form was most needed—most particularly a launching ramp—and to study native Venusian materials.
Dorothy Voorhees had signed on as toxicologist and dietician. When the limited supply of Earth food ran out the Colony would be forced to rely upon Venusian plants and animals. She would guard against subtle delayed-action poisons, meanwhile devising ways of preparing Venusian materials to suit Earth tastes and digestions.
Barry had met her at Training Base and known at once that his years of loneliness had come to an end.
She seemed utterly independent, self-contained, completely intellectual despite her beauty, but Barry had not been deceived. From the moment of first meeting he had sensed within her deep springs of suppressed emotion, and he had understood. He too had come up the hard way, alone, and been forced to develop a shell of hardness and cold, single-minded devotion to his work. Gradually, often unwillingly under his insistence, her aloofness had begun to melt.
But Robson Hind too had been attracted. He was the only son of the business manager of the great Hoskins Corporation which carried a considerable share in the Five Ship Plan. Dorothy's failure to virtually fall into his arms had only piqued his desires.
The man's smooth charm had fascinated the girl and his money had opened to her an entirely new world of lavish nightclubs and extravagantly expensive entertainments, but her inborn shrewdness had sensed some factor in his personality that had made her hesitate.
Barry had felt a distrust of Hind apart from the normal dislike of rivalry. He had looked forward to being with Dorothy aboard Three, and had made no secret of his satisfaction when Hind's efforts to have himself transferred to Three also or the girl to Four had failed.
But then a scaffold had slipped while Three was being readied, and with a fractured ankle he had been forced to miss the ship.
He unclipped the magnetic detector from his belt and ran it inch by inch over the nozzle. He found one spot of metal, pinhead-sized, but enough to cause trouble, and once more swung his power chisel into stuttering action.
Then it was done.
As quickly as possible he inched back to the airlock. Turnover had to start according to calculations.
Barry opened his eyes. The ship was in normal deceleration and Nick Podtiaguine was watching him from a nearby bunk.
"I could eat a cow with the smallpox," Barry declared.
Nick grinned. "No doubt. You slept around the clock and more. Nice job of work out there."
Barry unhitched his straps and sat up.
"Say," he asked anxiously. "What's haywire with the air?"
Nick looked startled. "Nothing. Everything checked out when I came off watch a few minutes ago."
Barry shrugged. "Probably just me. Guess I'll go see if I can mooch a handout."
He found himself a hero. The cook was ready to turn the galley inside out while a radio engineer and an entomologist hovered near to wait on him. But he couldn't enjoy the meal. The sensations of heat and dryness he had noticed on awakening grew steadily worse. It became difficult to breathe.
He started to rise, and abruptly the room swirled and darkened around him. Even as he sank into unconsciousness he knew the answer.
The suit's Kendall-shield had leaked!
Four plunged toward Venus tail first, the Hoskins jets flaring ahead. The single doctor for the Colony had gone out in Two and the crewmen trained in first aid could do little to relieve Barry's distress. Fainting spells alternated with fever and delirium and an unquenchable thirst. His breathing became increasingly difficult.
A few thousand miles out Four picked up a microbeam. A feeling of exultation surged through the ship as Captain Reno passed the word, for the beam meant that some Earthmen were alive upon Venus. They were not necessarily diving straight toward oblivion. Barry, sick as he was, felt the thrill of the unknown world that lay ahead.
Into a miles-thick layer of opacity Four roared, with Captain Reno himself jockeying throttles to keep it balanced on its self-created support of flame.
"You're almost in," a voice chanted into his headphones through crackling, sizzling static. "Easy toward spherical one-thirty. Hold it! Lower. Lower. CUT YOUR POWER!"
The heavy hull dropped sickeningly, struck with a mushy thud, settled, steadied.
Barry was weak, but with Nick Podtiaguine steadying him he was waiting with the others when Captain Reno gave the last order.
"Airlock open. Both doors."
Venusian air poured in.
"For this I left Panama?" one of the men yelped.
"Enough to gag a maggot," another agreed with hand to nose.
It was like mid-summer noon in a tropical mangrove swamp, hot and unbearably humid and overpowering with the stench of decaying vegetation.
But Barry took one deep breath, then another. The stabbing needles in his chest blunted, and the choking band around his throat loosened.
The outer door swung wide. He blinked, and a shift in the encompassing vapors gave him his first sight of a world bathed in subdued light.
Four had landed in a marsh with the midships lock only a few feet above a quagmire surface still steaming from the final rocket blast. Nearby the identical hulls of Two and Three stood upright in the mud. The mist shifted again and beyond the swamp he could see the low, rounded outlines of the collapsible buildings Two and Three had carried in their cargo pits. They were set on a rock ledge rising a few feet out of the marsh. The Colony!
Men were tossing sections of lattice duckboard out upon the swamp, extending a narrow walkway toward Four's airlock, and within a few minutes the new arrivals were scrambling down.
Barry paid little attention to the noisy greetings and excited talk. Impatiently he trotted toward the rock ledge, searching for one particular figure among the men and women who waited.
"Dorothy!" he said fervently.
Then his arms were around her and she was responding to his kiss.
Then unexpected pain tore at his chest. Her lovely face took on an expression of fright even as it wavered and grew dim. The last thing he saw was Robson Hind looming beside her.
By the glow of an overhead tubelight he recognized the kindly, deeply lined features of the man bending over him. Dr. Carl Jensen, specialist in tropical diseases. He tried to sit up but the doctor laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.
"Water!" Barry croaked.
The doctor held out a glass. Then his eyes widened incredulously as his patient deliberately drew in a breath while drinking, sucking water directly into his lungs.
"Doctor," he asked, keeping his voice low to spare his throat. "What are my chances? On the level."
Dr. Jensen shook his head thoughtfully. "There's not a thing—not a damned solitary thing—I can do. It's something new to medical science."
Barry lay still.
"Your body is undergoing certain radical changes," the doctor continued, "and you know as much—more about your condition than I do. If a normal person who took water into his lungs that way didn't die of a coughing spasm, congestive pneumonia would get him sure. But it seems to give you relief."
Barry scratched his neck, where a thickened, darkening patch on each side itched infuriatingly.
"What are these changes?" he asked. "What's this?"
"Those things seem to be—" the doctor began hesitantly. "Damn it, I know it sounds crazy but they're rudimentary gills."
Barry accepted the outrageous statement unemotionally. He was beyond shock.
"But there must be—"
Pain struck again, so intense his body twisted and arched involuntarily. Then the prick of a needle brought merciful oblivion.
II
Barry's mind was working furiously. The changes the Sigma radiations had inflicted upon his body might reverse themselves spontaneously, Dr. Jensen had mentioned during a second visit—but for that to happen he must remain alive. That meant easing all possible strains.
When the doctor came in again Barry asked him to find Nick Podtiaguine. Within a few minutes the mechanic appeared.
"Cheez, it's good to see you, Barry," he began.
"Stuff it," the sick man interrupted. "I want favors. Can do?"
Nick nodded vigorously.
"First cut that air conditioner and get the window open."
Nick stared as though he were demented, but obeyed, unbolting the heavy plastic window panel and lifting it aside. He made a face at the damp, malodorous Venusian air but to Barry it brought relief.
It was not enough, but it indicated he was on the right track. And he was not an engineer for nothing.
"Got a pencil?" he asked.
He drew only a rough sketch, for Nick was far too competent to need detailed drawings.
"Think you can get materials?"
Nick glanced at the sketch. "Hell, man, for you I can get anything the Colony has. You saved Four and everybody knows it."
"Two days?"
Nick looked insulted.
He was back in eight hours, and with him came a dozen helpers. A power line and water tube were run through the metal partition to the corridor, connections were made, and the machine Barry had sketched was ready.
Nick flipped the switch. The thing whined shrilly. From a fanshaped nozzle came innumerable droplets of water, droplets of colloidal size that hung in the air and only slowly coalesced into larger drops that fell toward the metal floor.
Barry nodded, a smile beginning to spread across his drawn features.
"Perfect. Now put the window back."
Outside lay the unknown world of Venus, and an open, unguarded window might invite disaster.
A few hours later Dr. Jensen found his patient in a normal sleep. The room was warm and the air was so filled with water-mist it was almost liquid. Coalescing drops dripped from the walls and curving ceiling and furniture, from the half clad body of the sleeping man, and the scavenger pump made greedy gulping sounds as it removed excess water from the floor.
The doctor shook his head as he backed out, his clothes clinging wet from the short exposure.
It was abnormal.
But so was Barry Barr.
With breathing no longer a continuous agony Barry began to recover some of his strength. But for several days much of his time was spent in sleep and Dorothy Voorhees haunted his dreams.
Whenever he closed his eyes he could see her as clearly as though she were with him—her face with the exotic high cheek-bones—her eyes a deep gray in fascinating contrast to her raven hair—lips that seemed to promise more of giving than she had ever allowed herself to fulfil—her incongruously pert, humorous little nose that was a legacy from some venturesome Irishman—her slender yet firmly lithe body.
After a few days Dr. Jensen permitted him to have visitors. They came in a steady stream, the people from Four and men he had not seen since Training Base days, and although none could endure his semi-liquid atmosphere more than a few minutes at a time Barry enjoyed their visits.
But the person for whom he waited most anxiously did not arrive. At each knock Barry's heart would leap, and each time he settled back with a sigh of disappointment. Days passed and still Dorothy did not come to him. He could not go to her, and stubborn pride kept him from even inquiring. All the while he was aware of Robson Hind's presence in the Colony, and only weakness kept him from pacing his room like a caged animal.
Through his window he could see nothing but the gradual brightening and darkening of the enveloping fog as the slow 82-hour Venusian day progressed, but from his visitors' words he learned something of Venusian conditions and the story of the Colony.
Number One had bumbled in on visual, the pilot depending on the smeary images of infra-sight goggles. An inviting grassy plain had proved to be a layer of algae floating on quicksand. Frantically the crew had blasted down huge balsa-like marsh trees, cutting up the trunks with flame guns to make crude rafts. They had performed fantastic feats of strength and endurance but managed to salvage only half their equipment before the shining nose of One had vanished in the gurgling ooze.
Lost in a steaming, stinking marsh teeming with alien creatures that slithered and crawled and swam and flew, blinded by the eternal fog, the crew had proved the rightness of their choice as pioneers. For weeks they had floundered across the deadly terrain until at last, beside a stagnant-looking slough that drained sluggishly into a warm, almost tideless sea a mile away, they had discovered an outcropping of rock. It was the only solid ground they had encountered.
One man had died, his swamp suit pierced by a poisonous thorn, but the others had hand-hauled the radio beacon piece by piece and set it up in time to guide Two to a safe landing. Houses had been assembled, the secondary power units of the spaceship put to work, and the colony had established a tenuous foothold.
Three had landed beside Two a few months later, bringing reinforcements, but the day-by-day demands of the little colony's struggle for survival had so far been too pressing to permit extended or detailed explorations. Venus remained a planet of unsolved mysteries.
The helicopter brought out in Three had made several flights which by radar and sound reflection had placed vague outlines on the blank maps. The surface appeared to be half water, with land masses mainly jungle-covered swamp broken by a few rocky ledges, but landings away from base had been judged too hazardous.
Test borings from the ledge had located traces of oil and radioactive minerals, while enough Venusian plants had proven edible to provide an adequate though monotonous food source.
Venus was the diametric opposite of lifeless Mars. Through the fog gigantic insects hummed and buzzed like lost airplanes, but fortunately they were harmless and timid.
In the swamps wildly improbable life forms grew and reproduced and fought and died, and many of those most harmless in appearance possessed surprisingly venomous characteristics.
The jungle had been flamed away in a huge circle around the colony to minimize the chances of surprise by anything that might attack, but the blasting was an almost continuous process. The plants of Venus grew with a vigor approaching fury.
Most spectacular of the Venusian creatures were the amphibious armored monsters, saurian or semi-saurians with a slight resemblance to the brontosauri that had once lived on Earth, massive swamp-dwellers that used the slough beside the colony's ledge as a highway. They were apparently vegetarians, but thorough stupidity in tremendous bulk made them dangerous. One had damaged a building by blundering against it, and since then the colony had remained alert, using weapons to repel the beasts.
The most important question—that of the presence or absence of intelligent, civilized Venusians—remained unanswered. Some of the men reported a disquieting feeling of being watched, particularly when near open water, but others argued that any intelligent creatures would have established contact.
Barry developed definite external signs of what the Sigma radiation had done to him. The skin between his fingers and toes spread, grew into membranous webs. The swellings in his neck became more pronounced and dark parallel lines appeared.
But despite the doctor's pessimistic reports that the changes had not stopped, Barry continued to tell himself he was recovering. He had to believe and keep on believing to retain sanity in the face of the weird, unclassifiable feelings that surged through his body. Still he was subject to fits of almost suicidal depression, and Dorothy's failure to visit him did not help his mental condition.
Then one day he woke from a nap and thought he was still dreaming. Dorothy was leaning over him.
"Barry! Barry!" she whispered. "I can't help it. I love you even if you do have a wife and child in Philadelphia. I know it's wrong but all that seems so far away it doesn't matter any more." Tears glistened in her eyes.
"Huh?" he grunted. "Who? Me?"
"Please, Barry, don't lie. She wrote to me before Three blasted off—oh, the most piteous letter!"
Barry was fully awake now. "I'm not married. I have no child. I've never been in Philadelphia," he shouted. His lips thinned.
"I—think—I—know—who—wrote—that—letter!" he declared grimly.
"Robson wouldn't!" she objected, shocked, but there was a note of doubt in her voice.
Then she was in his arms, sobbing openly.
"I believe you, Barry."
She stayed with him for hours, and she had changed since the days at Training Base. Long months away from the patterned restraints of civilization, living each day on the edge of unknown perils, had awakened in her the realization that she was a human being and a woman, as well as a toxicologist.
When the water-mist finally forced her departure she left Barry joyous and confident of his eventual recovery. For a few minutes anger simmered in his brain as he contemplated the pleasure of rearranging Robson Hind's features.
The accident with the scaffold had been remarkably convenient, but this time the ruthless, restless, probably psychopathic drive that had made Robson Hind more than just another rich man's spoiled son had carried him too far. Barry wondered whether it had been inefficiency or judiciously distributed money that had made the psychometrists overlook some undesirable traits in Hind's personality in accepting him for the Five Ship Plan.
But even with his trickery Hind had lost.
He slept, and woke with a feeling of doom.
The slow Venusian twilight had ended in blackness and the overhead tubelight was off.
He sat up, and apprehension gave way to burning torture in his chest.
Silence! He fumbled for the light switch, then knelt beside the mist machine that no longer hummed. Power and water supplies were both dead, cut off outside his room.
Floating droplets were merging and falling to the floor. Soon the air would be dry, and he would be choking and strangling. He turned to call for help.
The door was locked!
He tugged and the knob came away in his hand. The retaining screw had been removed.
He beat upon the panel, first with his fists and then with the metal doorknob, but the insulation between the double alloy sheets was efficient soundproofing. Furiously he hurled himself upon it, only to bounce back with a bruised shoulder. He was trapped.
Working against time and eventual death he snatched a metal chair and swung with all his force at the window, again, again, yet again. A small crack appeared in the transparent plastic, branched under continued hammering, became a rough star. He gathered his waning strength, then swung once more. The tough plastic shattered.
He tugged at the jagged pieces still clinging to the frame. Fog-laden Venusian air poured in—but it was not enough!
He dragged himself head first through the narrow opening, landed sprawling on hands and knees in the darkness. In his ears a confused rustling drone from the alien swamp mingled with the roar of approaching unconsciousness.
There was a smell in his nostrils. The smell of water. He lurched forward at a shambling run, stumbling over the uneven ground.
Then he plunged from the rocky ledge into the slough. Flashes of colored light flickered before his eyes as he went under. But Earth habits were still strong; instinctively he held his breath.
Then he fainted. Voluntary control of his body vanished. His mouth hung slack and the breathing reflex that had been an integral part of his life since the moment of birth forced him to inhale.
Bubbles floated upward and burst. Then Barry Barr was lying in the ooze of the bottom. And he was breathing, extracting vital oxygen from the brackish, silt-clouded water.
III
Slowly his racing heartbeat returned to normal. Gradually he became aware of the stench of decaying plants and of musky taints he knew instinctively were the scents of underwater animals. Then with a shock the meaning became clear. He had become a water-breather, cut off from all other Earthmen, no longer entirely human. His fellows in the colony were separated from him now by a gulf more absolute than the airless void between Earth and Venus.
Something slippery and alive touched him near one armpit. He opened his eyes in the black water and his groping hand clutched something burrowing into his skin. With a shudder of revulsion he crushed a fat worm between his fingers.
Then dozens of them—hundreds—were upon him from all sides. He was wearing only a pair of khaki pants but the worms ignored his chest to congregate around his face, intent on attacking the tender skin of his eyelids.
For a minute his flailing hands fought them off, but they came in increasing numbers and clung like leeches. Pain spread as they bit and burrowed, and blindly he began to swim.
Faster and faster. He could sense the winding banks of the slough and kept to midchannel, swimming with his eyes tightly closed. One by one the worms dropped off.
He stopped, opened his eyes, not on complete darkness this time but on a faint blue-green luminescence from far below. The water was saltier here, and clearer.
He had swum down the slough and out into the ocean. He tried to turn back, obsessed by a desire to be near the colony even though he could not go ashore without strangling, but he had lost all sense of direction.
He was still weak and his lungs were not completely adjusted to underwater life. Again he grew dizzy and faint. The slow movements of hands and feet that held him just below the surface grew feeble and ceased. He sank.
Down into dimly luminous water he dropped, and with his respiratory system completely water-filled there was no sensation of pressure. At last he floated gently to the bottom and lay motionless.
Shouting voices awakened him, an exultant battle cry cutting through a gasping scream of anguish. Streaks of bright orange light were moving toward him in a twisting pattern. At the head of each trail was a figure. A human figure that weaved and swam in deadly moving combat. One figure drifted limply bottomward.
Hallucination, Barry told himself. Then one of the figures broke from the group. Almost overhead it turned sharply downward and the feet moved in a powerful flutter-kick. A slender spear aimed directly at the Earthman.
Barry threw himself aside. The spear point plunged deep into the sticky, yielding bottom and Barry grappled with its wielder.
Pointed fingernails raked his cheek. Barry's balled fist swung in a roundhouse blow but water resistance slowed the punch to ineffectiveness. The creature only shook its head and came in kicking and clawing.
Barry braced his feet against the bottom and leaped. His head butted the attacker's chest and at the same instant he lashed a short jab to the creature's belly. It slumped momentarily, its face working.
Human—or nearly so—the thing was, with a stocky, powerful body and webbed hands and feet. A few scraps of clothing, seemingly worn more for ornament than covering, clung to the fishbelly-white skin. The face was coarse and savage.
It shook off the effects of Barry's punch and one webbed hand snatched a short tube from its belt.
Barry remembered the spring-opening knife in his pocket, and even as he flicked the blade out the tube-weapon fired. Sound thrummed in the water and the water grew milky with a myriad of bubbles. Something zipped past his head, uncomfortably close.
Then Barry struck, felt his knife slice flesh and grate against bone. He struck again even as the undersea being screamed and went limp.
Barry stared through the reddening water.
Another figure plunged toward him. Barry jerked the dead Venusian's spear from the mud and raised it defensively.
But the figure paid no attention. This one was a female who fled desperately from two men closing in from opposite sides. One threw his spear, using an odd pushing motion, and as she checked and dodged, the other was upon her from behind.
One arm went around her neck in a strangler's hold, bending her slender body backward. Together captor and struggling captive sank toward the bottom. The other recovered his thrown spear and moved in to help secure her arms and legs with lengths of cord.
One scooped up the crossbow the girl had dropped. The other ripped at her brief skirt and from her belt took a pair of tubes like the one the dead Venusian had fired at Barry, handling them as though they were loot of the greatest value. He jerked cruelly at the slender metallic necklace the girl wore but it did not break.
He punched the helpless girl in the abdomen with the butt of his spear. The girl writhed but she did not attempt to cry out.
Barry bounded toward them in a series of soaring leaps, knife and spear ready. One Venusian turned to meet him, grinning maliciously.
Barry dug one foot into the bottom and sidestepped a spear thrust. His own lunge missed completely. Then he and the Venusian were inside each other's spear points, chest to chest. A pointed hook strapped to the inside of the creature's wrist just missed Barry's throat. The Earthman arched his body backward and his knife flashed upward. The creature gasped and pulled away, clutching with both hands at a gaping wound in its belly.
The other one turned too late as Barry leaped.
Barry's hilt cracked against its jawbone.
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What is the plot of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Master of Life and Death by Robert Silverberg.
Relevant chunks:
MASTER of Life and Death
by ROBERT SILVERBERG
ACE BOOKS A Division of A. A. Wyn, Inc. 23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y.
MASTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
Copyright 1957, by A. A. Wyn, Inc. All Rights Reserved
For Antigone— Who Thinks We're Property
Printed in U.S.A.
[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
THE MAN WHO RATIONED BABIES
By the 23rd century Earth's population had reached seven billion. Mankind was in danger of perishing for lack of elbow room—unless prompt measures were taken. Roy Walton had the power to enforce those measures. But though his job was in the service of humanity, he soon found himself the most hated man in the world.
For it was his job to tell parents their children were unfit to live; he had to uproot people from their homes and send them to remote areas of the world. Now, threatened by mobs of outraged citizens, denounced and blackened by the press, Roy Walton had to make a decision: resign his post, or use his power to destroy his enemies, become a dictator in the hopes of saving humanity from its own folly. In other words, should he become the MASTER OF LIFE AND DEATH?
CAST OF CHARACTERS
ROY WALTON
He had to adopt the motto— the ends justify the means .
FITZMAUGHAM
His reward for devoted service was—an assassin's bullet.
FRED WALTON
His ambition was to fill his brother's shoes—but he underestimated their size.
LEE PERCY
His specialty was sugarcoating bitter pills.
PRIOR
With the pen as his only weapon, could he save his son?
DR. LAMARRE
He died for discovering the secret of immortality.
Contents
I
The offices of the Bureau of Population Equalization, vulgarly known as Popeek, were located on the twentieth through twenty-ninth floors of the Cullen Building, a hundred-story monstrosity typical of twenty-second-century neo-Victorian at its overdecorated worst. Roy Walton, Popeek's assistant administrator, had to apologize to himself each morning as he entered the hideous place.
Since taking the job, he had managed to redecorate his own office—on the twenty-eighth floor, immediately below Director FitzMaugham's—but that had created only one minor oasis in the esthetically repugnant building. It couldn't be helped, though; Popeek was unpopular, though necessary; and, like the public hangman of some centuries earlier, the Bureau did not rate attractive quarters.
So Walton had removed some of the iridescent chrome scalloping that trimmed the walls, replaced the sash windows with opaquers, and changed the massive ceiling fixture to more subtle electroluminescents. But the mark of the last century was stamped irrevocably on both building and office.
Which was as it should be, Walton had finally realized. It was the last century's foolishness that had made Popeek necessary, after all.
His desk was piled high with reports, and more kept arriving via pneumochute every minute. The job of assistant administrator was a thankless one, he thought; as much responsibility as Director FitzMaugham, and half the pay.
He lifted a report from one eyebrow-high stack, smoothed the crinkly paper carefully, and read it.
It was a despatch from Horrocks, the Popeek agent currently on duty in Patagonia. It was dated 4 June 2232 , six days before, and after a long and rambling prologue in the usual Horrocks manner it went on to say, Population density remains low here: 17.3 per square mile, far below optimum. Looks like a prime candidate for equalization.
Walton agreed. He reached for his voicewrite and said sharply, "Memo from Assistant Administrator Walton, re equalization of ..." He paused, picking a trouble-spot at random, "... central Belgium. Will the section chief in charge of this area please consider the advisability of transferring population excess to fertile areas in Patagonia? Recommendation: establishment of industries in latter region, to ease transition."
He shut his eyes, dug his thumbs into them until bright flares of light shot across his eyeballs, and refused to let himself be bothered by the multiple problems involved in dumping several hundred thousand Belgians into Patagonia. He forced himself to cling to one of Director FitzMaugham's oft-repeated maxims, If you want to stay sane, think of these people as pawns in a chess game—not as human beings.
Walton sighed. This was the biggest chess problem in the history of humanity, and the way it looked now, all the solutions led to checkmate in a century or less. They could keep equalizing population only so long, shifting like loggers riding logs in a rushing river, before trouble came.
There was another matter to be attended to now. He picked up the voicewrite again. "Memo from the assistant administrator, re establishment of new policy on reports from local agents: hire a staff of three clever girls to make a précis of each report, eliminating irrelevant data."
It was a basic step, one that should have been taken long ago. Now, with three feet of reports stacked on his desk, it was mandatory. One of the troubles with Popeek was its newness; it had been established so suddenly that most of its procedures were still in the formative stage.
He took another report from the heap. This one was the data sheet of the Zurich Euthanasia Center, and he gave it a cursory scanning. During the past week, eleven substandard children and twenty-three substandard adults had been sent on to Happysleep.
That was the grimmest form of population equalization. Walton initialed the report, earmarked it for files, and dumped it in the pneumochute.
The annunciator chimed.
"I'm busy," Walton said immediately.
"There's a Mr. Prior to see you," the annunciator's calm voice said.
"He insists it's an emergency."
"Tell Mr. Prior I can't see anyone for at least three hours." Walton stared gloomily at the growing pile of paper on his desk. "Tell him he can have ten minutes with me at—oh, say, 1300."
Walton heard an angry male voice muttering something in the outer office, and then the annunciator said, "He insists he must see you immediately in reference to a Happysleep commitment."
"Commitments are irrevocable," Walton said heavily. The last thing in the world he wanted was to see a man whose child or parent had just been committed. "Tell Mr. Prior I can't see him at all."
Walton found his fingers trembling; he clamped them tight to the edge of his desk to steady himself. It was all right sitting up here in this ugly building and initialing commitment papers, but actually to see one of those people and try to convince him of the need—
The door burst open.
A tall, dark-haired man in an open jacket came rushing through and paused dramatically just over the threshold. Immediately behind him came three unsmiling men in the gray silk-sheen uniforms of security. They carried drawn needlers.
"Are you Administrator Walton?" the big man asked, in an astonishingly deep, rich voice. "I have to see you. I'm Lyle Prior."
The three security men caught up and swarmed all over Prior. One of them turned apologetically to Walton. "We're terribly sorry about this, sir. He just broke away and ran. We can't understand how he got in here, but he did."
"Ah—yes. So I noticed," Walton remarked drily. "See if he's planning to assassinate anybody, will you?"
"Administrator Walton!" Prior protested. "I'm a man of peace! How can you accuse me of—"
One of the security men hit him. Walton stiffened and resisted the urge to reprimand the man. He was only doing his job, after all.
"Search him," Walton said.
They gave Prior an efficient going-over. "He's clean, Mr. Walton. Should we take him to security, or downstairs to health?"
"Neither. Leave him here with me."
"Are you sure you—"
"Get out of here," Walton snapped. As the three security men slinked away, he added, "And figure out some more efficient system for protecting me. Some day an assassin is going to sneak through here and get me. Not that I give a damn about myself, you understand; it's simply that I'm indispensable. There isn't another lunatic in the world who'd take this job. Now get out !"
They wasted no time in leaving. Walton waited until the door closed and jammed down hard on the lockstud. His tirade, he knew, was wholly unjustified; if he had remembered to lock his door as regulations prescribed, Prior would never have broken in. But he couldn't admit that to the guards.
"Take a seat, Mr. Prior."
"I have to thank you for granting me this audience," Prior said, without a hint of sarcasm in his booming voice. "I realize you're a terribly busy man."
"I am." Another three inches of paper had deposited itself on Walton's desk since Prior had entered. "You're very lucky to have hit the psychological moment for your entrance. At any other time I'd have had you brigged for a month, but just now I'm in need of a little diversion. Besides, I very much admire your work, Mr. Prior."
"Thank you." Again that humility, startling in so big and commanding a man. "I hadn't expected to find—I mean that you—"
"That a bureaucrat should admire poetry? Is that what you're groping for?"
Prior reddened. "Yes," he admitted.
Grinning, Walton said, "I have to do something when I go home at night. I don't really read Popeek reports twenty-four hours a day. No more than twenty; that's my rule. I thought your last book was quite remarkable."
"The critics didn't," Prior said diffidently.
"Critics! What do they know?" Walton demanded. "They swing in cycles. Ten years ago it was form and technique, and you got the Melling Prize. Now it's message, political content that counts. That's not poetry, Mr. Prior—and there are still a few of us who recognize what poetry is. Take Yeats, for instance—"
Walton was ready to launch into a discussion of every poet from Prior back to Surrey and Wyatt; anything to keep from the job at hand, anything to keep his mind from Popeek. But Prior interrupted him.
"Mr. Walton...."
"Yes?"
"My son Philip ... he's two weeks old now...."
Walton understood. "No, Prior. Please don't ask." Walton's skin felt cold; his hands, tightly clenched, were clammy.
"He was committed to Happysleep this morning—potentially tubercular. The boy's perfectly sound, Mr. Walton. Couldn't you—"
Walton rose. " No ," he said, half-commanding, half-pleading. "Don't ask me to do it. I can't make any exceptions, not even for you. You're an intelligent man; you understand our program."
"I voted for Popeek. I know all about Weeding the Garden and the Euthanasia Plan. But I hadn't expected—"
"You thought euthanasia was a fine thing for other people. So did everyone else," Walton said. "That's how the act was passed." Tenderly he said, "I can't do it. I can't spare your son. Our doctors give a baby every chance to live."
" I was tubercular. They cured me. What if they had practiced euthanasia a generation ago? Where would my poems be now?"
It was an unanswerable question; Walton tried to ignore it.
"Tuberculosis is an extremely rare disease, Mr. Prior. We can wipe it out completely if we strike at those with TB-susceptible genetic traits."
"Meaning you'll kill any children I have?" Prior asked.
"Those who inherit your condition," Walton said gently. "Go home, Mr. Prior. Burn me in effigy. Write a poem about me. But don't ask me to do the impossible. I can't catch any falling stars for you."
Prior rose. He was immense, a hulking tragic figure staring broodingly at Walton. For the first time since the poet's abrupt entry, Walton feared violence. His fingers groped for the needle gun he kept in his upper left desk drawer.
But Prior had no violence in him. "I'll leave you," he said somberly.
"I'm sorry, sir. Deeply sorry. For both of us."
Walton pressed the doorlock to let him out, then locked it again and slipped heavily into his chair. Three more reports slid out of the chute and landed on his desk. He stared at them as if they were three basilisks.
In the six weeks of Popeek's existence, three thousand babies had been ticketed for Happysleep, and three thousand sets of degenerate genes had been wiped from the race. Ten thousand subnormal males had been sterilized. Eight thousand dying oldsters had reached their graves ahead of time.
It was a tough-minded program. But why transmit palsy to unborn generations? Why let an adult idiot litter the world with subnormal progeny? Why force a man hopelessly cancerous to linger on in pain, consuming precious food?
Unpleasant? Sure. But the world had voted for it. Until Lang and his team succeeded in terraforming Venus, or until the faster-than-light outfit opened the stars to mankind, something had to be done about Earth's overpopulation. There were seven billion now and the figure was still growing.
Prior's words haunted him. I was tubercular ... where would my poems be now?
The big humble man was one of the great poets. Keats had been tubercular too.
What good are poets? he asked himself savagely.
The reply came swiftly: What good is anything, then? Keats, Shakespeare, Eliot, Yeats, Donne, Pound, Matthews ... and Prior. How much duller life would be without them, Walton thought, picturing his bookshelf—his one bookshelf, in his crowded little cubicle of a one-room home.
Sweat poured down his back as he groped toward his decision.
The step he was considering would disqualify him from his job if he admitted it, though he wouldn't do that. Under the Equalization Law, it would be a criminal act.
But just one baby wouldn't matter. Just one.
Prior's baby.
With nervous fingers he switched on the annunciator and said, "If there are any calls for me, take the message. I'll be out of my office for the next half-hour."
II
He stepped out of the office, glancing around furtively. The outer office was busy: half a dozen girls were answering calls, opening letters, coordinating activities. Walton slipped quickly past them into the hallway.
There was a knot of fear in his stomach as he turned toward the lift tube. Six weeks of pressure, six weeks of tension since Popeek was organized and old man FitzMaugham had tapped him for the second-in-command post ... and now, a rebellion. The sparing of a single child was a small rebellion, true, but he knew he was striking as effectively at the base of Popeek this way as if he had brought about repeal of the entire Equalization Law.
Well, just one lapse, he promised himself. I'll spare Prior's child, and after that I'll keep within the law.
He jabbed the lift tube indicator and the tube rose in its shaft. The clinic was on the twentieth floor.
"Roy."
At the sound of the quiet voice behind him, Walton jumped in surprise. He steadied himself, forcing himself to turn slowly. The director stood there.
"Good morning, Mr. FitzMaugham."
The old man was smiling serenely, his unlined face warm and friendly, his mop of white hair bright and full. "You look preoccupied, boy. Something the matter?"
Walton shook his head quickly. "Just a little tired, sir. There's been a lot of work lately."
As he said it, he knew how foolish it sounded. If anyone in Popeek worked harder than he did, it was the elderly director. FitzMaugham had striven for equalization legislature for fifty years, and now, at the age of eighty, he put in a sixteen-hour day at the task of saving mankind from itself.
The director smiled. "You never did learn how to budget your strength, Roy. You'll be a worn-out wreck before you're half my age. I'm glad you're adopting my habit of taking a coffee break in the morning, though. Mind if I join you?"
"I'm—not taking a break, sir. I have some work to do downstairs."
"Oh? Can't you take care of it by phone?"
"No, Mr. FitzMaugham." Walton felt as though he'd already been tried, drawn, and quartered. "It requires personal attention."
"I see." The deep, warm eyes bored into his. "You ought to slow down a little, I think."
"Yes, sir. As soon as the work eases up a little."
FitzMaugham chuckled. "In another century or two, you mean. I'm afraid you'll never learn how to relax, my boy."
The lift tube arrived. Walton stepped to one side, allowed the Director to enter, and got in himself. FitzMaugham pushed Fourteen ; there was a coffee shop down there. Hesitantly, Walton pushed twenty , covering the panel with his arm so the old man would be unable to see his destination.
As the tube began to descend, FitzMaugham said, "Did Mr. Prior come to see you this morning?"
"Yes," Walton said.
"He's the poet, isn't he? The one you say is so good?"
"That's right, sir," Walton said tightly.
"He came to see me first, but I had him referred down to you. What was on his mind?"
Walton hesitated. "He—he wanted his son spared from Happysleep. Naturally, I had to turn him down."
"Naturally," FitzMaugham agreed solemnly. "Once we make even one exception, the whole framework crumbles."
"Of course, sir."
The lift tube halted and rocked on its suspension. The door slid back, revealing a neat, gleaming sign:
FLOOR 20 Euthanasia Clinic and Files
Walton had forgotten the accursed sign. He began to wish he had avoided traveling down with the director. He felt that his purpose must seem nakedly obvious now.
The old man's eyes were twinkling amusedly. "I guess you get off here," he said. "I hope you catch up with your work soon, Roy. You really should take some time off for relaxation each day."
"I'll try, sir."
Walton stepped out of the tube and returned FitzMaugham's smile as the door closed again. Bitter thoughts assailed him as soon as he was alone.
Some fine criminal you are. You've given the show away already! And damn that smooth paternal smile. FitzMaugham knows! He must know!
Walton wavered, then abruptly made his decision. He sucked in a deep breath and walked briskly toward the big room where the euthanasia files were kept.
The room was large, as rooms went nowadays—thirty by twenty, with deck upon deck of Donnerson micro-memory-tubes racked along one wall and a bank of microfilm records along the other. In six weeks of life Popeek had piled up an impressive collection of data.
While he stood there, the computer chattered, lights flashed. New facts poured into the memory banks. It probably went on day and night.
"Can I help—oh, it's you, Mr. Walton," a white-smocked technician said. Popeek employed a small army of technicians, each one faceless and without personality, but always ready to serve. "Is there anything I can do?"
"I'm simply running a routine checkup. Mind if I use the machine?"
"Not at all, sir. Go right ahead."
Walton grinned lightly and stepped forward. The technician practically backed out of his presence.
No doubt I must radiate charisma , he thought. Within the building he wore a sort of luminous halo, by virtue of being Director FitzMaugham's protégé and second-in-command. Outside, in the colder reality of the crowded metropolis, he kept his identity and Popeek rank quietly to himself.
Frowning, he tried to remember the Prior boy's name. Ah ... Philip, wasn't it? He punched out a request for the card on Philip Prior.
A moment's pause followed, while the millions of tiny cryotronic circuits raced with information pulses, searching the Donnerson tubes for Philip Prior's record. Then, a brief squeaking sound and a yellow-brown card dropped out of the slot:
3216847AB1
PRIOR, Philip Hugh. Born 31 May 2232, New York General Hospital, New York. First son of Prior, Lyle Martin and Prior, Ava Leonard. Wgt. at birth 5lb. 3oz.
An elaborate description of the boy in great detail followed, ending with blood type, agglutinating characteristic, and gene-pattern, codified. Walton skipped impatiently through that and came to the notification typed in curt, impersonal green capital letters at the bottom of the card:
EXAMINED AT N Y EUTH CLINIC 10 JUNE 2332 EUTHANASIA RECOMMENDED
He glanced at his watch: the time was 1026. The boy was probably still somewhere in the clinic lab, waiting for the figurative axe to descend.
Walton had set up the schedule himself: the gas chamber delivered Happysleep each day at 1100 and 1500. He had about half an hour to save Philip Prior.
He peered covertly over his shoulder; no one was in sight. He slipped the baby's card into his breast pocket.
That done, he typed out a requisition for explanation of the gene-sorting code the clinic used. Symbols began pouring forth, and Walton puzzledly correlated them with the line of gibberish on Phillip Prior's record card. Finally he found the one he wanted: 3f2, tubercular-prone .
He scrapped the guide sheet he had and typed out a message to the machine. Revision of card number 3216847AB1 follows. Please alter in all circuits.
He proceeded to retype the child's card, omitting both the fatal symbol 3f2 and the notation recommending euthanasia from the new version. The machine beeped an acknowledgement. Walton smiled. So far, so good.
Then, he requested the boy's file all over again. After the customary pause, a card numbered 3216847AB1 dropped out of the slot. He read it.
The deletions had been made. As far as the machine was concerned, Philip Prior was a normal, healthy baby.
He glanced at his watch. 1037. Still twenty-three minutes before this morning's haul of unfortunates was put away.
Now came the real test: could he pry the baby away from the doctors without attracting too much attention to himself in the process?
Five doctors were bustling back and forth as Walton entered the main section of the clinic. There must have been a hundred babies there, each in a little pen of its own, and the doctors were humming from one to the next, while anxious parents watched from screens above.
The Equalization Law provided that every child be presented at its local clinic within two weeks of birth, for an examination and a certificate. Perhaps one in ten thousand would be denied a certificate ... and life.
"Hello, Mr. Walton. What brings you down here?"
Walton smiled affably. "Just a routine investigation, Doctor. I try to keep in touch with every department we have, you know."
"Mr. FitzMaugham was down here to look around a little while ago. We're really getting a going-over today, Mr. Walton!"
"Umm. Yes." Walton didn't like that, but there was nothing he could do about it. He'd have to rely on the old man's abiding faith in his protégé to pull him out of any possible stickiness that arose.
"Seen my brother around?" he asked.
"Fred? He's working in room seven, running analyses. Want me to get him for you, Mr. Walton?"
"No—no, don't bother him, thanks. I'll find him later." Inwardly, Walton felt relieved. Fred Walton, his younger brother, was a doctor in the employ of Popeek. Little love was lost between the brothers, and Roy did not care to have Fred know he was down there.
Strolling casually through the clinic, he peered at a few plump, squalling babies, and said, "Find many sour ones today?"
"Seven so far. They're scheduled for the 1100 chamber. Three tuberc, two blind, one congenital syph."
"That only makes six," Walton said.
"Oh, and a spastic," the doctor said. "Biggest haul we've had yet. Seven in one morning."
"Have any trouble with the parents?"
"What do you think?" the doctor asked. "But some of them seemed to understand. One of the tuberculars nearly raised the roof, though."
Walton shuddered. "You remember his name?" he asked, with feigned calm.
Silence for a moment. "No. Darned if I can think of it. I can look it up for you if you like."
"Don't bother," Walton said hurriedly.
He moved on, down the winding corridor that led to the execution chamber. Falbrough, the executioner, was studying a list of names at his desk when Walton appeared.
Falbrough didn't look like the sort of man who would enjoy his work. He was short and plump, with a high-domed bald head and glittering contact lenses in his weak blue eyes. "Morning, Mr. Walton."
"Good morning, Doctor Falbrough. You'll be operating soon, won't you?"
"Eleven hundred, as usual."
"Good. There's a new regulation in effect from now on," Walton said.
"To keep public opinion on our side."
"Sir?"
"Henceforth, until further notice, you're to check each baby that comes to you against the main file, just to make sure there's been no mistake. Got that?"
" Mistake? But how—"
"Never mind that, Falbrough. There was quite a tragic slip-up at one of the European centers yesterday. We may all hang for it if news gets out." How glibly I reel this stuff off , Walton thought in amazement.
Falbrough looked grave. "I see, sir. Of course. We'll double-check everything from now on."
"Good. Begin with the 1100 batch."
Walton couldn't bear to remain down in the clinic any longer. He left via a side exit, and signaled for a lift tube.
Minutes later he was back in his office, behind the security of a towering stack of work. His pulse was racing; his throat was dry. He remembered what FitzMaugham had said: Once we make even one exception, the whole framework crumbles.
Well, the framework had begun crumbling, then. And there was little doubt in Walton's mind that FitzMaugham knew or would soon know what he had done. He would have to cover his traces, somehow.
The annunciator chimed and said, "Dr. Falbrough of Happysleep calling you, sir."
"Put him on."
The screen lit and Falbrough's face appeared; its normal blandness had given way to wild-eyed tenseness.
"What is it, Doctor?"
"It's a good thing you issued that order when you did, sir! You'll never guess what just happened—"
"No guessing games, Falbrough. Speak up."
"I—well, sir, I ran checks on the seven babies they sent me this morning. And guess—I mean—well, one of them shouldn't have been sent to me!"
"No!"
"It's the truth, sir. A cute little baby indeed. I've got his card right here. The boy's name is Philip Prior, and his gene-pattern is fine."
"Any recommendation for euthanasia on the card?" Walton asked.
"No, sir."
Walton chewed at a ragged cuticle for a moment, counterfeiting great anxiety. "Falbrough, we're going to have to keep this very quiet. Someone slipped up in the examining room, and if word gets out that there's been as much as one mistake, we'll have a mob swarming over us in half an hour."
"Yes, sir." Falbrough looked terribly grave. "What should I do, sir?"
"Don't say a word about this to anyone , not even the men in the examining room. Fill out a certificate for the boy, find his parents, apologize and return him to them. And make sure you keep checking for any future cases of this sort."
"Certainly, sir. Is that all?"
"It is," Walton said crisply, and broke the contact. He took a deep breath and stared bleakly at the far wall.
The Prior boy was safe. And in the eyes of the law—the Equalization Law—Roy Walton was now a criminal. He was every bit as much a criminal as the man who tried to hide his dying father from the investigators, or the anxious parents who attempted to bribe an examining doctor.
He felt curiously dirty. And, now that he had betrayed FitzMaugham and the Cause, now that it was done, he had little idea why he had done it, why he had jeopardized the Popeek program, his position—his life, even—for the sake of one potentially tubercular baby.
Well, the thing was done.
No. Not quite. Later, when things had quieted down, he would have to finish the job by transferring all the men in the clinic to distant places and by obliterating the computer's memories of this morning's activities.
The annunciator chimed again. "Your brother is on the wire, sir."
Walton trembled imperceptibly as he said, "Put him on." Somehow, Fred never called unless he could say or do something unpleasant. And Walton was very much afraid that his brother meant no good by this call. No good at all.
III
Roy Walton watched his brother's head and shoulders take form out of the swirl of colors on the screen. Fred Walton was more compact, built closer to the ground than his rangy brother; he was a squat five-seven, next to Roy's lean six-two. Fred had always threatened to "get even" with his older brother as soon as they were the same size, but to Fred's great dismay he had never managed to catch up with Roy in height.
Even on the screen, Fred's neck and shoulders gave an impression of tremendous solidity and force. Walton waited for his brother's image to take shape, and when the time lag was over he said, "Well, Fred? What goes?"
His brother's eyes flickered sleepily. "They tell me you were down here a little while ago, Roy. How come I didn't rate a visit?"
"I wasn't in your section. It was official business, anyway. I didn't have time."
Walton fixed his eyes sharply on the caduceus emblem gleaming on Fred's lapel, and refused to look anywhere else.
Fred said slowly, "You had time to tinker with our computer, though."
"Official business!"
"Really, Roy?" His brother's tone was venomous. "I happened to be using the computer shortly after you this morning. I was curious—unpardonably so, dear brother. I requested a transcript of your conversation with the machine."
Sparks seemed to flow from the screen. Walton sat back, feeling numb. He managed to pull his sagging mouth back into a stiff hard line and say, "That's a criminal offense, Fred. Any use I make of a Popeek computer outlet is confidential."
"Criminal offence? Maybe so ... but that makes two of us, then. Eh, Roy?"
"How much do you know?"
"You wouldn't want me to recite it over a public communications system, would you? Your friend FitzMaugham might be listening to every word of this, and I have too much fraternal feeling for that. Ole Doc Walton doesn't want to get his bigwig big brother in trouble—oh, no!"
"Thanks for small blessings," Roy said acidly.
"You got me this job. You can take it away. Let's call it even for now, shall we?"
"Anything you like," Walton said. He was drenched in sweat, though the ingenious executive filter in the sending apparatus of the screen cloaked that fact and presented him as neat and fresh. "I have some work to do now." His voice was barely audible.
"I won't keep you any longer, then," Fred said.
The screen went dead.
Walton killed the contact at his end, got up, walked to the window. He nudged the opaquer control and the frosty white haze over the glass cleared away, revealing the fantastic beehive of the city outside.
Idiot! he thought. Fool!
He had risked everything to save one baby, one child probably doomed to an early death anyway. And FitzMaugham knew—the old man could see through Walton with ease—and Fred knew, too. His brother, and his father-substitute.
FitzMaugham might well choose to conceal Roy's defection this time, but would surely place less trust in him in the future. And as for Fred....
There was no telling what Fred might do. They had never been particularly close as brothers; they had lived with their parents (now almost totally forgotten) until Roy was nine and Fred seven. Their parents had gone down off Maracaibo in a jet crash; Roy and Fred had been sent to the public crèche.
After that it had been separate paths for the brothers. For Roy, an education in the law, a short spell as Senator FitzMaugham's private secretary, followed last month by his sudden elevation to assistant administrator of the newly-created Popeek Bureau. For Fred, medicine, unsuccessful private practice, finally a job in the Happysleep section of Popeek, thanks to Roy.
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Roy Walton is the Assistant Administrator of the Bureau of Population Equalization, otherwise known as Popeek. In the six weeks that they have been working, thousands of people have been euthanized, sterilized, and relocated in order to curb population growth and overcrowding. Roy Walton arrives at his desk, filled with papers, and settles into his miserable job. He asks for a relocation of the people of central Belgium to Patagonia before his receptionist alerts him Mr. Prior is here to see him. He refuses, but Mr. Prior sneaks through security and the unlocked door–Walton’s fault–and demands his attention. He is a famous poet, one Walton admires. He asks Walton to save his son who is to be euthanized for being tubercular. Walton turns him down, but after Prior leaves, his words swim in his head. He realizes he wants to save his baby, and so he sets off to do just that. He runs into his boss, Director FitzMaugham in the elevator and tries to lie his way through the encounter. He narrowly succeeds but is left with the feeling that Director FitzMaughan knew more than he was letting on. Walton gets off at the 20th floor and breezes past the receptionist to input Philp Porter into the computer. A series of cards come out, detailing all the baby’s specifics as well as the tubercular diagnosis. He deletes the cause for euthanization and inputs the new data into the system. He comes back clear. \nHoping no one saw him, he walks down past the hall of babies and chats with the doctor, asking where his brother, another doctor, is. Evidently, his brother is running analytics, so Walton is safe for now. He speaks with the executioner, Falbrough, and tells him to double-check every baby before euthanization, due to an unfortunate incident in Europe. Falbrough agrees, and Walton quickly slips back upstairs to his office. Worrying about his actions that day, Walton gets a call from Falbrough informing him that there was a mistake, and they saved a baby’s life that day. Walton tells him to keep it under wraps, and he quickly hangs up. Walton has now committed a felony, and he’s wondering what the long-term effects will be. His brother, Fred, calls him and tells him that he knows what he did. By accessing confidential information (a crime in and of itself), Fred knows that Roy saved that baby’s life illegally. He holds it over his head and asks for a favor in return, as well as silence on Roy’s end. The story ends with Roy’s fate up in the air as well as the fate of the new world order. \n",
"In the 23rd century, Earth is overpopulated with 7 billion people. Until Venus terraforming is up and running and travel to stars is feasible, the world’s citizens have approved Weeding the Garden and the Euthanasia plan to remove substandard people from society. The Bureau of Population Equalization is working to distribute the population more evenly, removing people from overpopulated areas and resettling them in sparsely populated areas. Roy Walton is the assistant administrator of the Bureau and makes decisions about moving groups of people. While these decisions bother him, he tries to follow the director’s maxim: to stay sane, he must think of the people as pawns, not human beings. In his office, facing three-foot mounds of paperwork, Roy can disassociate himself from the humans whose lives he is impacting.\n\tSuddenly, however, he is asked to meet with a Mr. Prior, whose two-week-old son is scheduled for euthanasia (Happysleep). He refuses to see Prior because these decisions are irrevocable, but Prior makes his way into Roy’s office anyway, and Roy recognizes him as a famous poet whose work he admires. Prior informs Roy that his son is committed to Happysleep because he is potentially tubercular; Prior informs Roy that he was tubercular as a child but was cured. And he reminds Roy that if euthanasia had been practiced a generation ago, his poetry wouldn’t exist. Roy tells Prior he cannot help him, but after Prior leaves, Roy is haunted. \n\tRoy decides to save Prior’s baby, convincing himself that saving one child won’t break the system, and makes his way to the euthanasia department. He takes the lift tube where he meets the director, who invites Roy to have a coffee break with him and asks if Mr. Prior met with Roy. The director says Prior tried to see him but that he referred him to Roy. When Roy turns down the coffee break and exits the lift on the euthanasia floor, he is sure the director knows what he is doing. Roy pulls the information on the baby and rewrites it, omitting the 3f2 designation: tubercular-prone. Roy also notifies the euthanasia doctor of a new policy, effective immediately, of checking the computer records for all babies before euthanasia due to a tragic error in Europe yesterday.\n\tRoy returns to his office and receives two significant phone calls. First, the euthanasia doctor for babies contacts him to let him know one baby scheduled for Happysleep that morning was indeed not due for it. The second call is from his brother, who works in the euthanasia department. When he learned that Roy had used the computer earlier and of the “mistake” for one of the babies, he requested a transcript of Roy’s work on the computer, so he knows of Roy’s crime. Roy and his brother have a hostile relationship, so Roy now has to worry about his brother revealing his crime, even though he says he won’t since Roy got him the job with the Bureau.\n",
"This story takes place in the 23rd century on a heavily overcrowded Earth. The main character, Roy Walton, is the assistant administrator of the Bureau of Population Equalization. In his own office in this ugly building, at a desk piled high with more reports than he could handle, he starts to look through them and responded to one. Because the Bureau is fairly new, procedures are also still being developed. Walton's staff lets him know someone is here to see him about a Happysleep commitment (meaning someone is going to be euthanized), and Lyle Prior bursts into the office. Walton lets him stay to have a meeting but kicks his guards out: it turns out Prior is a poet who Walton recognizes. They have a hard conversation about Lyle's son, a two-week-old who is genetically susceptible to tuberculosis and is thus sentenced to be euthanized. Lyle points out that he had tuberculosis as a child, and if he had been euthanized instead of cured, his poetry would not exist. Walton has to sit alone with this, as a huge fan of Prior's work, and thinks about the thousands who had been killed or sterilized in the six weeks his office had been open so far. Walton nervously decides he has to do something even though it would be illegal, and heads out of his office, promising himself that Prior's child is the only one he would break the law for. Walton runs into Director FitzMaugham who notices he looks preoccupied; they talk about Prior and FitzMaugham reminds Walton that if they made one exception to their rules, the entire system would fall. When Walton gets off the elevator, he worries that his destination has given away his mission, but heads into the room with the euthanasia files. After looking through Philip's files, he realizes he only has half an hour to act; he re-writes Philip's file to remove the euthanasia recommendation, but still has to retrieve the baby unnoticed. The doctors are surprised to see Walton in the clinic, especially because they'd seen the Director earlier as well. Walton asks if his younger brother, another doctor, is around, so that he can try to avoid him before continuing to the execution chamber to find Philip. Walton runs into Falbrough, the executioner, and tells him to double-check all of the files in case a mistake had been made, hoping that the updated file will take care of the issue for him. Walton returns to his office and gets a call from Falbrough who wasn't sure what to do about Philip, whose record did not have a euthanasia recommendation--Walton tells him to keep it quiet and to get the child back to his parents. As he let it sink in that he had broken the law, Walton's brother calls. Fred had noticed that Roy had messed with the computer system and knows everything that happened; Roy panics after hanging up the phone.",
"In the year 2232, the world has voted for the implementation of Equalization Laws and the establishment of the Bureau of Population Equalization, also called Popeek, in order to address the problem of overpopulation. Roy Walton is the second-in-command at Popeek, and his job is to oversee the population equalization process, which redistributes people from overcrowded cities into lower population density areas. In addition, he is responsible for the administration of the global Euthanasia Centers. These clinics carry out the controversial \"Happysleep\" procedure, which is effectively euthanasia, upon children and adults considered substandard. Having been appointed to his position by Director FitzMaugham (whom he had also worked for when FitzMaugham was a senator fighting for Equalization Laws), Roy is a reliable steward of his job, and he barricades himself in his office so he doesn't have to face those opposed to Happysleep. As Roy goes about his busy workday, including ordering a reporting on the feasibility of transferring Belgian citizens to Patagonia, the annunciator notifies him that Lyle Prior, the famous poet, is there to visit him. Lyle's son, Philip, has been scheduled for Happysleep because he had been born tubercular. As a fan of Lyle's poetry, Roy is pleased with his visit, but he does not grant Lyle's request. To do so would risk his career and subvert the work of Popeek and the Equalization Laws in general. After Lyle departs, Roy thinks about his argument that if Lyle had been euthanized for the same reason when he was a child, the world would have been denied his poetry. In spite of Roy's reservations, he decides to spare Philip, but only Philip. He takes an elevator down to the Euthanasia Clinic and is joined by Director FitzMaugham, who acts like he knows what Roy is up to. Roy proceeds to the files room at the clinic and accesses Philip's record on the computer; he removes the euthanasia recommendation from his record and proceeds to the area where Dr. Falbrough administers the fatal procedure. He informs Falbrough that a new policy requires baby's records to be checked again prior to being euthanized to avoid any errors. Upon returning to his office, Roy received a call from his brother Fred, who works as a doctor in the clinic. Fred says he knows Roy edited Philip's record, but he will keep it a secret and call it even since Roy had secured him the job in the clinic in the first place."
] |
50441
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MASTER of Life and Death
by ROBERT SILVERBERG
ACE BOOKS A Division of A. A. Wyn, Inc. 23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y.
MASTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
Copyright 1957, by A. A. Wyn, Inc. All Rights Reserved
For Antigone— Who Thinks We're Property
Printed in U.S.A.
[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
THE MAN WHO RATIONED BABIES
By the 23rd century Earth's population had reached seven billion. Mankind was in danger of perishing for lack of elbow room—unless prompt measures were taken. Roy Walton had the power to enforce those measures. But though his job was in the service of humanity, he soon found himself the most hated man in the world.
For it was his job to tell parents their children were unfit to live; he had to uproot people from their homes and send them to remote areas of the world. Now, threatened by mobs of outraged citizens, denounced and blackened by the press, Roy Walton had to make a decision: resign his post, or use his power to destroy his enemies, become a dictator in the hopes of saving humanity from its own folly. In other words, should he become the MASTER OF LIFE AND DEATH?
CAST OF CHARACTERS
ROY WALTON
He had to adopt the motto— the ends justify the means .
FITZMAUGHAM
His reward for devoted service was—an assassin's bullet.
FRED WALTON
His ambition was to fill his brother's shoes—but he underestimated their size.
LEE PERCY
His specialty was sugarcoating bitter pills.
PRIOR
With the pen as his only weapon, could he save his son?
DR. LAMARRE
He died for discovering the secret of immortality.
Contents
I
The offices of the Bureau of Population Equalization, vulgarly known as Popeek, were located on the twentieth through twenty-ninth floors of the Cullen Building, a hundred-story monstrosity typical of twenty-second-century neo-Victorian at its overdecorated worst. Roy Walton, Popeek's assistant administrator, had to apologize to himself each morning as he entered the hideous place.
Since taking the job, he had managed to redecorate his own office—on the twenty-eighth floor, immediately below Director FitzMaugham's—but that had created only one minor oasis in the esthetically repugnant building. It couldn't be helped, though; Popeek was unpopular, though necessary; and, like the public hangman of some centuries earlier, the Bureau did not rate attractive quarters.
So Walton had removed some of the iridescent chrome scalloping that trimmed the walls, replaced the sash windows with opaquers, and changed the massive ceiling fixture to more subtle electroluminescents. But the mark of the last century was stamped irrevocably on both building and office.
Which was as it should be, Walton had finally realized. It was the last century's foolishness that had made Popeek necessary, after all.
His desk was piled high with reports, and more kept arriving via pneumochute every minute. The job of assistant administrator was a thankless one, he thought; as much responsibility as Director FitzMaugham, and half the pay.
He lifted a report from one eyebrow-high stack, smoothed the crinkly paper carefully, and read it.
It was a despatch from Horrocks, the Popeek agent currently on duty in Patagonia. It was dated 4 June 2232 , six days before, and after a long and rambling prologue in the usual Horrocks manner it went on to say, Population density remains low here: 17.3 per square mile, far below optimum. Looks like a prime candidate for equalization.
Walton agreed. He reached for his voicewrite and said sharply, "Memo from Assistant Administrator Walton, re equalization of ..." He paused, picking a trouble-spot at random, "... central Belgium. Will the section chief in charge of this area please consider the advisability of transferring population excess to fertile areas in Patagonia? Recommendation: establishment of industries in latter region, to ease transition."
He shut his eyes, dug his thumbs into them until bright flares of light shot across his eyeballs, and refused to let himself be bothered by the multiple problems involved in dumping several hundred thousand Belgians into Patagonia. He forced himself to cling to one of Director FitzMaugham's oft-repeated maxims, If you want to stay sane, think of these people as pawns in a chess game—not as human beings.
Walton sighed. This was the biggest chess problem in the history of humanity, and the way it looked now, all the solutions led to checkmate in a century or less. They could keep equalizing population only so long, shifting like loggers riding logs in a rushing river, before trouble came.
There was another matter to be attended to now. He picked up the voicewrite again. "Memo from the assistant administrator, re establishment of new policy on reports from local agents: hire a staff of three clever girls to make a précis of each report, eliminating irrelevant data."
It was a basic step, one that should have been taken long ago. Now, with three feet of reports stacked on his desk, it was mandatory. One of the troubles with Popeek was its newness; it had been established so suddenly that most of its procedures were still in the formative stage.
He took another report from the heap. This one was the data sheet of the Zurich Euthanasia Center, and he gave it a cursory scanning. During the past week, eleven substandard children and twenty-three substandard adults had been sent on to Happysleep.
That was the grimmest form of population equalization. Walton initialed the report, earmarked it for files, and dumped it in the pneumochute.
The annunciator chimed.
"I'm busy," Walton said immediately.
"There's a Mr. Prior to see you," the annunciator's calm voice said.
"He insists it's an emergency."
"Tell Mr. Prior I can't see anyone for at least three hours." Walton stared gloomily at the growing pile of paper on his desk. "Tell him he can have ten minutes with me at—oh, say, 1300."
Walton heard an angry male voice muttering something in the outer office, and then the annunciator said, "He insists he must see you immediately in reference to a Happysleep commitment."
"Commitments are irrevocable," Walton said heavily. The last thing in the world he wanted was to see a man whose child or parent had just been committed. "Tell Mr. Prior I can't see him at all."
Walton found his fingers trembling; he clamped them tight to the edge of his desk to steady himself. It was all right sitting up here in this ugly building and initialing commitment papers, but actually to see one of those people and try to convince him of the need—
The door burst open.
A tall, dark-haired man in an open jacket came rushing through and paused dramatically just over the threshold. Immediately behind him came three unsmiling men in the gray silk-sheen uniforms of security. They carried drawn needlers.
"Are you Administrator Walton?" the big man asked, in an astonishingly deep, rich voice. "I have to see you. I'm Lyle Prior."
The three security men caught up and swarmed all over Prior. One of them turned apologetically to Walton. "We're terribly sorry about this, sir. He just broke away and ran. We can't understand how he got in here, but he did."
"Ah—yes. So I noticed," Walton remarked drily. "See if he's planning to assassinate anybody, will you?"
"Administrator Walton!" Prior protested. "I'm a man of peace! How can you accuse me of—"
One of the security men hit him. Walton stiffened and resisted the urge to reprimand the man. He was only doing his job, after all.
"Search him," Walton said.
They gave Prior an efficient going-over. "He's clean, Mr. Walton. Should we take him to security, or downstairs to health?"
"Neither. Leave him here with me."
"Are you sure you—"
"Get out of here," Walton snapped. As the three security men slinked away, he added, "And figure out some more efficient system for protecting me. Some day an assassin is going to sneak through here and get me. Not that I give a damn about myself, you understand; it's simply that I'm indispensable. There isn't another lunatic in the world who'd take this job. Now get out !"
They wasted no time in leaving. Walton waited until the door closed and jammed down hard on the lockstud. His tirade, he knew, was wholly unjustified; if he had remembered to lock his door as regulations prescribed, Prior would never have broken in. But he couldn't admit that to the guards.
"Take a seat, Mr. Prior."
"I have to thank you for granting me this audience," Prior said, without a hint of sarcasm in his booming voice. "I realize you're a terribly busy man."
"I am." Another three inches of paper had deposited itself on Walton's desk since Prior had entered. "You're very lucky to have hit the psychological moment for your entrance. At any other time I'd have had you brigged for a month, but just now I'm in need of a little diversion. Besides, I very much admire your work, Mr. Prior."
"Thank you." Again that humility, startling in so big and commanding a man. "I hadn't expected to find—I mean that you—"
"That a bureaucrat should admire poetry? Is that what you're groping for?"
Prior reddened. "Yes," he admitted.
Grinning, Walton said, "I have to do something when I go home at night. I don't really read Popeek reports twenty-four hours a day. No more than twenty; that's my rule. I thought your last book was quite remarkable."
"The critics didn't," Prior said diffidently.
"Critics! What do they know?" Walton demanded. "They swing in cycles. Ten years ago it was form and technique, and you got the Melling Prize. Now it's message, political content that counts. That's not poetry, Mr. Prior—and there are still a few of us who recognize what poetry is. Take Yeats, for instance—"
Walton was ready to launch into a discussion of every poet from Prior back to Surrey and Wyatt; anything to keep from the job at hand, anything to keep his mind from Popeek. But Prior interrupted him.
"Mr. Walton...."
"Yes?"
"My son Philip ... he's two weeks old now...."
Walton understood. "No, Prior. Please don't ask." Walton's skin felt cold; his hands, tightly clenched, were clammy.
"He was committed to Happysleep this morning—potentially tubercular. The boy's perfectly sound, Mr. Walton. Couldn't you—"
Walton rose. " No ," he said, half-commanding, half-pleading. "Don't ask me to do it. I can't make any exceptions, not even for you. You're an intelligent man; you understand our program."
"I voted for Popeek. I know all about Weeding the Garden and the Euthanasia Plan. But I hadn't expected—"
"You thought euthanasia was a fine thing for other people. So did everyone else," Walton said. "That's how the act was passed." Tenderly he said, "I can't do it. I can't spare your son. Our doctors give a baby every chance to live."
" I was tubercular. They cured me. What if they had practiced euthanasia a generation ago? Where would my poems be now?"
It was an unanswerable question; Walton tried to ignore it.
"Tuberculosis is an extremely rare disease, Mr. Prior. We can wipe it out completely if we strike at those with TB-susceptible genetic traits."
"Meaning you'll kill any children I have?" Prior asked.
"Those who inherit your condition," Walton said gently. "Go home, Mr. Prior. Burn me in effigy. Write a poem about me. But don't ask me to do the impossible. I can't catch any falling stars for you."
Prior rose. He was immense, a hulking tragic figure staring broodingly at Walton. For the first time since the poet's abrupt entry, Walton feared violence. His fingers groped for the needle gun he kept in his upper left desk drawer.
But Prior had no violence in him. "I'll leave you," he said somberly.
"I'm sorry, sir. Deeply sorry. For both of us."
Walton pressed the doorlock to let him out, then locked it again and slipped heavily into his chair. Three more reports slid out of the chute and landed on his desk. He stared at them as if they were three basilisks.
In the six weeks of Popeek's existence, three thousand babies had been ticketed for Happysleep, and three thousand sets of degenerate genes had been wiped from the race. Ten thousand subnormal males had been sterilized. Eight thousand dying oldsters had reached their graves ahead of time.
It was a tough-minded program. But why transmit palsy to unborn generations? Why let an adult idiot litter the world with subnormal progeny? Why force a man hopelessly cancerous to linger on in pain, consuming precious food?
Unpleasant? Sure. But the world had voted for it. Until Lang and his team succeeded in terraforming Venus, or until the faster-than-light outfit opened the stars to mankind, something had to be done about Earth's overpopulation. There were seven billion now and the figure was still growing.
Prior's words haunted him. I was tubercular ... where would my poems be now?
The big humble man was one of the great poets. Keats had been tubercular too.
What good are poets? he asked himself savagely.
The reply came swiftly: What good is anything, then? Keats, Shakespeare, Eliot, Yeats, Donne, Pound, Matthews ... and Prior. How much duller life would be without them, Walton thought, picturing his bookshelf—his one bookshelf, in his crowded little cubicle of a one-room home.
Sweat poured down his back as he groped toward his decision.
The step he was considering would disqualify him from his job if he admitted it, though he wouldn't do that. Under the Equalization Law, it would be a criminal act.
But just one baby wouldn't matter. Just one.
Prior's baby.
With nervous fingers he switched on the annunciator and said, "If there are any calls for me, take the message. I'll be out of my office for the next half-hour."
II
He stepped out of the office, glancing around furtively. The outer office was busy: half a dozen girls were answering calls, opening letters, coordinating activities. Walton slipped quickly past them into the hallway.
There was a knot of fear in his stomach as he turned toward the lift tube. Six weeks of pressure, six weeks of tension since Popeek was organized and old man FitzMaugham had tapped him for the second-in-command post ... and now, a rebellion. The sparing of a single child was a small rebellion, true, but he knew he was striking as effectively at the base of Popeek this way as if he had brought about repeal of the entire Equalization Law.
Well, just one lapse, he promised himself. I'll spare Prior's child, and after that I'll keep within the law.
He jabbed the lift tube indicator and the tube rose in its shaft. The clinic was on the twentieth floor.
"Roy."
At the sound of the quiet voice behind him, Walton jumped in surprise. He steadied himself, forcing himself to turn slowly. The director stood there.
"Good morning, Mr. FitzMaugham."
The old man was smiling serenely, his unlined face warm and friendly, his mop of white hair bright and full. "You look preoccupied, boy. Something the matter?"
Walton shook his head quickly. "Just a little tired, sir. There's been a lot of work lately."
As he said it, he knew how foolish it sounded. If anyone in Popeek worked harder than he did, it was the elderly director. FitzMaugham had striven for equalization legislature for fifty years, and now, at the age of eighty, he put in a sixteen-hour day at the task of saving mankind from itself.
The director smiled. "You never did learn how to budget your strength, Roy. You'll be a worn-out wreck before you're half my age. I'm glad you're adopting my habit of taking a coffee break in the morning, though. Mind if I join you?"
"I'm—not taking a break, sir. I have some work to do downstairs."
"Oh? Can't you take care of it by phone?"
"No, Mr. FitzMaugham." Walton felt as though he'd already been tried, drawn, and quartered. "It requires personal attention."
"I see." The deep, warm eyes bored into his. "You ought to slow down a little, I think."
"Yes, sir. As soon as the work eases up a little."
FitzMaugham chuckled. "In another century or two, you mean. I'm afraid you'll never learn how to relax, my boy."
The lift tube arrived. Walton stepped to one side, allowed the Director to enter, and got in himself. FitzMaugham pushed Fourteen ; there was a coffee shop down there. Hesitantly, Walton pushed twenty , covering the panel with his arm so the old man would be unable to see his destination.
As the tube began to descend, FitzMaugham said, "Did Mr. Prior come to see you this morning?"
"Yes," Walton said.
"He's the poet, isn't he? The one you say is so good?"
"That's right, sir," Walton said tightly.
"He came to see me first, but I had him referred down to you. What was on his mind?"
Walton hesitated. "He—he wanted his son spared from Happysleep. Naturally, I had to turn him down."
"Naturally," FitzMaugham agreed solemnly. "Once we make even one exception, the whole framework crumbles."
"Of course, sir."
The lift tube halted and rocked on its suspension. The door slid back, revealing a neat, gleaming sign:
FLOOR 20 Euthanasia Clinic and Files
Walton had forgotten the accursed sign. He began to wish he had avoided traveling down with the director. He felt that his purpose must seem nakedly obvious now.
The old man's eyes were twinkling amusedly. "I guess you get off here," he said. "I hope you catch up with your work soon, Roy. You really should take some time off for relaxation each day."
"I'll try, sir."
Walton stepped out of the tube and returned FitzMaugham's smile as the door closed again. Bitter thoughts assailed him as soon as he was alone.
Some fine criminal you are. You've given the show away already! And damn that smooth paternal smile. FitzMaugham knows! He must know!
Walton wavered, then abruptly made his decision. He sucked in a deep breath and walked briskly toward the big room where the euthanasia files were kept.
The room was large, as rooms went nowadays—thirty by twenty, with deck upon deck of Donnerson micro-memory-tubes racked along one wall and a bank of microfilm records along the other. In six weeks of life Popeek had piled up an impressive collection of data.
While he stood there, the computer chattered, lights flashed. New facts poured into the memory banks. It probably went on day and night.
"Can I help—oh, it's you, Mr. Walton," a white-smocked technician said. Popeek employed a small army of technicians, each one faceless and without personality, but always ready to serve. "Is there anything I can do?"
"I'm simply running a routine checkup. Mind if I use the machine?"
"Not at all, sir. Go right ahead."
Walton grinned lightly and stepped forward. The technician practically backed out of his presence.
No doubt I must radiate charisma , he thought. Within the building he wore a sort of luminous halo, by virtue of being Director FitzMaugham's protégé and second-in-command. Outside, in the colder reality of the crowded metropolis, he kept his identity and Popeek rank quietly to himself.
Frowning, he tried to remember the Prior boy's name. Ah ... Philip, wasn't it? He punched out a request for the card on Philip Prior.
A moment's pause followed, while the millions of tiny cryotronic circuits raced with information pulses, searching the Donnerson tubes for Philip Prior's record. Then, a brief squeaking sound and a yellow-brown card dropped out of the slot:
3216847AB1
PRIOR, Philip Hugh. Born 31 May 2232, New York General Hospital, New York. First son of Prior, Lyle Martin and Prior, Ava Leonard. Wgt. at birth 5lb. 3oz.
An elaborate description of the boy in great detail followed, ending with blood type, agglutinating characteristic, and gene-pattern, codified. Walton skipped impatiently through that and came to the notification typed in curt, impersonal green capital letters at the bottom of the card:
EXAMINED AT N Y EUTH CLINIC 10 JUNE 2332 EUTHANASIA RECOMMENDED
He glanced at his watch: the time was 1026. The boy was probably still somewhere in the clinic lab, waiting for the figurative axe to descend.
Walton had set up the schedule himself: the gas chamber delivered Happysleep each day at 1100 and 1500. He had about half an hour to save Philip Prior.
He peered covertly over his shoulder; no one was in sight. He slipped the baby's card into his breast pocket.
That done, he typed out a requisition for explanation of the gene-sorting code the clinic used. Symbols began pouring forth, and Walton puzzledly correlated them with the line of gibberish on Phillip Prior's record card. Finally he found the one he wanted: 3f2, tubercular-prone .
He scrapped the guide sheet he had and typed out a message to the machine. Revision of card number 3216847AB1 follows. Please alter in all circuits.
He proceeded to retype the child's card, omitting both the fatal symbol 3f2 and the notation recommending euthanasia from the new version. The machine beeped an acknowledgement. Walton smiled. So far, so good.
Then, he requested the boy's file all over again. After the customary pause, a card numbered 3216847AB1 dropped out of the slot. He read it.
The deletions had been made. As far as the machine was concerned, Philip Prior was a normal, healthy baby.
He glanced at his watch. 1037. Still twenty-three minutes before this morning's haul of unfortunates was put away.
Now came the real test: could he pry the baby away from the doctors without attracting too much attention to himself in the process?
Five doctors were bustling back and forth as Walton entered the main section of the clinic. There must have been a hundred babies there, each in a little pen of its own, and the doctors were humming from one to the next, while anxious parents watched from screens above.
The Equalization Law provided that every child be presented at its local clinic within two weeks of birth, for an examination and a certificate. Perhaps one in ten thousand would be denied a certificate ... and life.
"Hello, Mr. Walton. What brings you down here?"
Walton smiled affably. "Just a routine investigation, Doctor. I try to keep in touch with every department we have, you know."
"Mr. FitzMaugham was down here to look around a little while ago. We're really getting a going-over today, Mr. Walton!"
"Umm. Yes." Walton didn't like that, but there was nothing he could do about it. He'd have to rely on the old man's abiding faith in his protégé to pull him out of any possible stickiness that arose.
"Seen my brother around?" he asked.
"Fred? He's working in room seven, running analyses. Want me to get him for you, Mr. Walton?"
"No—no, don't bother him, thanks. I'll find him later." Inwardly, Walton felt relieved. Fred Walton, his younger brother, was a doctor in the employ of Popeek. Little love was lost between the brothers, and Roy did not care to have Fred know he was down there.
Strolling casually through the clinic, he peered at a few plump, squalling babies, and said, "Find many sour ones today?"
"Seven so far. They're scheduled for the 1100 chamber. Three tuberc, two blind, one congenital syph."
"That only makes six," Walton said.
"Oh, and a spastic," the doctor said. "Biggest haul we've had yet. Seven in one morning."
"Have any trouble with the parents?"
"What do you think?" the doctor asked. "But some of them seemed to understand. One of the tuberculars nearly raised the roof, though."
Walton shuddered. "You remember his name?" he asked, with feigned calm.
Silence for a moment. "No. Darned if I can think of it. I can look it up for you if you like."
"Don't bother," Walton said hurriedly.
He moved on, down the winding corridor that led to the execution chamber. Falbrough, the executioner, was studying a list of names at his desk when Walton appeared.
Falbrough didn't look like the sort of man who would enjoy his work. He was short and plump, with a high-domed bald head and glittering contact lenses in his weak blue eyes. "Morning, Mr. Walton."
"Good morning, Doctor Falbrough. You'll be operating soon, won't you?"
"Eleven hundred, as usual."
"Good. There's a new regulation in effect from now on," Walton said.
"To keep public opinion on our side."
"Sir?"
"Henceforth, until further notice, you're to check each baby that comes to you against the main file, just to make sure there's been no mistake. Got that?"
" Mistake? But how—"
"Never mind that, Falbrough. There was quite a tragic slip-up at one of the European centers yesterday. We may all hang for it if news gets out." How glibly I reel this stuff off , Walton thought in amazement.
Falbrough looked grave. "I see, sir. Of course. We'll double-check everything from now on."
"Good. Begin with the 1100 batch."
Walton couldn't bear to remain down in the clinic any longer. He left via a side exit, and signaled for a lift tube.
Minutes later he was back in his office, behind the security of a towering stack of work. His pulse was racing; his throat was dry. He remembered what FitzMaugham had said: Once we make even one exception, the whole framework crumbles.
Well, the framework had begun crumbling, then. And there was little doubt in Walton's mind that FitzMaugham knew or would soon know what he had done. He would have to cover his traces, somehow.
The annunciator chimed and said, "Dr. Falbrough of Happysleep calling you, sir."
"Put him on."
The screen lit and Falbrough's face appeared; its normal blandness had given way to wild-eyed tenseness.
"What is it, Doctor?"
"It's a good thing you issued that order when you did, sir! You'll never guess what just happened—"
"No guessing games, Falbrough. Speak up."
"I—well, sir, I ran checks on the seven babies they sent me this morning. And guess—I mean—well, one of them shouldn't have been sent to me!"
"No!"
"It's the truth, sir. A cute little baby indeed. I've got his card right here. The boy's name is Philip Prior, and his gene-pattern is fine."
"Any recommendation for euthanasia on the card?" Walton asked.
"No, sir."
Walton chewed at a ragged cuticle for a moment, counterfeiting great anxiety. "Falbrough, we're going to have to keep this very quiet. Someone slipped up in the examining room, and if word gets out that there's been as much as one mistake, we'll have a mob swarming over us in half an hour."
"Yes, sir." Falbrough looked terribly grave. "What should I do, sir?"
"Don't say a word about this to anyone , not even the men in the examining room. Fill out a certificate for the boy, find his parents, apologize and return him to them. And make sure you keep checking for any future cases of this sort."
"Certainly, sir. Is that all?"
"It is," Walton said crisply, and broke the contact. He took a deep breath and stared bleakly at the far wall.
The Prior boy was safe. And in the eyes of the law—the Equalization Law—Roy Walton was now a criminal. He was every bit as much a criminal as the man who tried to hide his dying father from the investigators, or the anxious parents who attempted to bribe an examining doctor.
He felt curiously dirty. And, now that he had betrayed FitzMaugham and the Cause, now that it was done, he had little idea why he had done it, why he had jeopardized the Popeek program, his position—his life, even—for the sake of one potentially tubercular baby.
Well, the thing was done.
No. Not quite. Later, when things had quieted down, he would have to finish the job by transferring all the men in the clinic to distant places and by obliterating the computer's memories of this morning's activities.
The annunciator chimed again. "Your brother is on the wire, sir."
Walton trembled imperceptibly as he said, "Put him on." Somehow, Fred never called unless he could say or do something unpleasant. And Walton was very much afraid that his brother meant no good by this call. No good at all.
III
Roy Walton watched his brother's head and shoulders take form out of the swirl of colors on the screen. Fred Walton was more compact, built closer to the ground than his rangy brother; he was a squat five-seven, next to Roy's lean six-two. Fred had always threatened to "get even" with his older brother as soon as they were the same size, but to Fred's great dismay he had never managed to catch up with Roy in height.
Even on the screen, Fred's neck and shoulders gave an impression of tremendous solidity and force. Walton waited for his brother's image to take shape, and when the time lag was over he said, "Well, Fred? What goes?"
His brother's eyes flickered sleepily. "They tell me you were down here a little while ago, Roy. How come I didn't rate a visit?"
"I wasn't in your section. It was official business, anyway. I didn't have time."
Walton fixed his eyes sharply on the caduceus emblem gleaming on Fred's lapel, and refused to look anywhere else.
Fred said slowly, "You had time to tinker with our computer, though."
"Official business!"
"Really, Roy?" His brother's tone was venomous. "I happened to be using the computer shortly after you this morning. I was curious—unpardonably so, dear brother. I requested a transcript of your conversation with the machine."
Sparks seemed to flow from the screen. Walton sat back, feeling numb. He managed to pull his sagging mouth back into a stiff hard line and say, "That's a criminal offense, Fred. Any use I make of a Popeek computer outlet is confidential."
"Criminal offence? Maybe so ... but that makes two of us, then. Eh, Roy?"
"How much do you know?"
"You wouldn't want me to recite it over a public communications system, would you? Your friend FitzMaugham might be listening to every word of this, and I have too much fraternal feeling for that. Ole Doc Walton doesn't want to get his bigwig big brother in trouble—oh, no!"
"Thanks for small blessings," Roy said acidly.
"You got me this job. You can take it away. Let's call it even for now, shall we?"
"Anything you like," Walton said. He was drenched in sweat, though the ingenious executive filter in the sending apparatus of the screen cloaked that fact and presented him as neat and fresh. "I have some work to do now." His voice was barely audible.
"I won't keep you any longer, then," Fred said.
The screen went dead.
Walton killed the contact at his end, got up, walked to the window. He nudged the opaquer control and the frosty white haze over the glass cleared away, revealing the fantastic beehive of the city outside.
Idiot! he thought. Fool!
He had risked everything to save one baby, one child probably doomed to an early death anyway. And FitzMaugham knew—the old man could see through Walton with ease—and Fred knew, too. His brother, and his father-substitute.
FitzMaugham might well choose to conceal Roy's defection this time, but would surely place less trust in him in the future. And as for Fred....
There was no telling what Fred might do. They had never been particularly close as brothers; they had lived with their parents (now almost totally forgotten) until Roy was nine and Fred seven. Their parents had gone down off Maracaibo in a jet crash; Roy and Fred had been sent to the public crèche.
After that it had been separate paths for the brothers. For Roy, an education in the law, a short spell as Senator FitzMaugham's private secretary, followed last month by his sudden elevation to assistant administrator of the newly-created Popeek Bureau. For Fred, medicine, unsuccessful private practice, finally a job in the Happysleep section of Popeek, thanks to Roy.
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What is the plot of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Snare by Richard Rein Smith.
Relevant chunks:
The Snare
By RICHARD R. SMITH
Illustrated by WEISS
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy January 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It's easy to find a solution when there is one—the trick is to do it if there is none!
I glanced at the path we had made across the Mare Serenitatis . The Latin translated as "the Sea of Serenity." It was well named because, as far as the eye could see in every direction, there was a smooth layer of pumice that resembled the surface of a calm sea. Scattered across the quiet sea of virgin Moon dust were occasional islands of rock that jutted abruptly toward the infinity of stars above. Considering everything, our surroundings conveyed a sense of serenity like none I had ever felt.
Our bounding path across the level expanse was clearly marked. Because of the light gravity, we had leaped high into the air with each step and every time we struck the ground, the impact had raised a cloud of dustlike pumice. Now the clouds of dust were slowly settling in the light gravity.
Above us, the stars were cold, motionless and crystal-clear. Indifferently, they sprayed a faint light on our surroundings ... a dim glow that was hardly sufficient for normal vision and was too weak to be reflected toward Earth.
We turned our head-lamps on the strange object before us. Five beams of light illuminated the smooth shape that protruded from the Moon's surface.
The incongruity was so awesome that for several minutes, we remained motionless and quiet. Miller broke the silence with his quavering voice, "Strange someone didn't notice it before."
Strange? The object rose a quarter of a mile above us, a huge, curving hulk of smooth metal. It was featureless and yet conveyed a sense of alienness . It was alien and yet it wasn't a natural formation. Something had made the thing, whatever it was. But was it strange that it hadn't been noticed before? Men had lived on the Moon for over a year, but the Moon was vast and the Mare Serenitatis covered three hundred and forty thousand square miles.
"What is it?" Marie asked breathlessly.
Her husband grunted his bafflement. "Who knows? But see how it curves? If it's a perfect sphere, it must be at least two miles in diameter!"
"If it's a perfect sphere," Miller suggested, "most of it must be beneath the Moon's surface."
"Maybe it isn't a sphere," my wife said. "Maybe this is all of it."
"Let's call Lunar City and tell the authorities about it." I reached for the radio controls on my suit.
Kane grabbed my arm. "No. Let's find out whatever we can by ourselves. If we tell the authorities, they'll order us to leave it alone. If we discover something really important, we'll be famous!"
I lowered my arm. His outburst seemed faintly childish to me. And yet it carried a good measure of common sense. If we discovered proof of an alien race, we would indeed be famous. The more we discovered for ourselves, the more famous we'd be. Fame was practically a synonym for prestige and wealth.
"All right," I conceded.
Miller stepped forward, moving slowly in the bulk of his spacesuit. Deliberately, he removed a small torch from his side and pressed the brilliant flame against the metal.
A few minutes later, the elderly mineralogist gave his opinion: "It's steel ... made thousands of years ago."
Someone gasped over the intercom, "Thousands of years! But wouldn't it be in worse shape than this if it was that old?"
Miller pointed at the small cut his torch had made in the metal. The notch was only a quarter of an inch deep. "I say steel because it's similar to steel. Actually, it's a much stronger alloy. Besides that, on the Moon, there's been no water or atmosphere to rust it. Not even a wind to disturb its surface. It's at least several thousand years old."
We slowly circled the alien structure. Several minutes later, Kane shouted, "Look!"
A few feet above the ground, the structure's smooth surface was broken by a circular opening that yawned invitingly. Kane ran ahead and flashed his head-lamp into the dark recess.
"There's a small room inside," he told us, and climbed through the opening.
We waited outside and focused our lamps through the five-foot opening to give him as much light as possible.
"Come on in, Marie," he called to his wife. "This is really something! It must be an alien race. There's all kinds of weird drawings on the walls and gadgets that look like controls for something...."
Briefly, my lamp flickered over Marie's pale face. Her features struggled with two conflicting emotions: She was frightened by the alienness of the thing and yet she wanted to be with her husband. She hesitated momentarily, then climbed through the passage.
"You want to go in?" my wife asked.
"Do you?"
"Let's."
I helped Verana through the opening, climbed through myself and turned to help Miller.
Miller was sixty years old. He was an excellent mineralogist, alert mentally, but with a body that was almost feeble. I reached out to help him as he stepped into the passageway.
For a brief second, he was framed in the opening, a dark silhouette against the star-studded sky.
The next second, he was thrown twenty yards into the air. He gasped with pain when he struck the ground. " Something pushed me!"
"Are you all right?"
"Yes."
He had fallen on a spot beyond our angle of vision. I started through the passage....
... and struck an invisible solid wall.
My eyes were on the circular opening. A metal panel emerged from a recess on one side and slid across the passage. The room darkened with the absence of starlight.
" What happened? "
"The door to this damned place closed," I explained.
" What? "
Before we could recover from the shock, the room filled with a brilliant glare. We turned off our lamps.
The room was approximately twelve feet long and nine feet wide. The ceiling was only a few inches above our heads and when I looked at the smooth, hard metal, I felt as if I were trapped in some alien vault.
The walls of the room were covered with strange drawings and instruments. Here and there, kaleidoscopic lights pulsed rhythmically.
Kane brushed past me and beat his gloved fists against the metal door that had imprisoned us.
"Miller!"
"Yes?"
"See if you can get this thing open from the outside."
I knelt before the door and explored its surface with my fingers. There were no visible recesses or controls.
Over the intercom network, everyone's breath mingled and formed a rough, harsh sound. I could discern the women's quick, frightened breaths that were almost sobs. Kane's breath was deep and strong; Miller's was faltering and weak.
"Miller, get help!"
"I'll—" The sound of his breathing ceased. We listened intently.
"What happened to him?"
"I'll phone Lunar City." My fingers fumbled at the radio controls and trembled beneath the thick gloves.
I turned the dials that would connect my radio with Lunar City....
Static grated against my ear drums.
Static!
I listened to the harsh, erratic sound and my voice was weak by comparison: "Calling Lunar City."
"Static!" Kane echoed my thoughts. His frown made deep clefts between his eyebrows. "There's no static between inter-lunar radio!"
Verana's voice was small and frightened. "That sounds like the static we hear over the bigger radios when we broadcast to Earth."
"It does," Marie agreed.
"But we wouldn't have that kind of static over our radio, unless—" Verana's eyes widened until the pupils were surrounded by circles of white—"unless we were in outer space!"
We stared at the metal door that had imprisoned us, afraid even to speak of our fantastic suspicion.
I deactivated my radio.
Marie screamed as an inner door opened to disclose a long, narrow corridor beyond.
Simultaneous with the opening of the second door, I felt air press against my spacesuit. Before, our suits had been puffed outward by the pressure of air inside. Now our spacesuits were slack and dangling on our bodies.
We looked at each other and then at the inviting corridor beyond the open door.
We went single file, first Kane, then his wife Marie. Verana followed next and I was the last.
We walked slowly, examining the strange construction. The walls were featureless but still seemed alien. At various places on the walls were the outlines of doors without handles or locks.
Kane pressed his shoulder against a door and shoved. The door was unyielding.
I manipulated the air-vent controls of my spacesuit, allowed a small amount of the corridor's air into my helmet and inhaled cautiously. It smelled all right. I waited and nothing happened. Gradually, I increased the intake, turned off the oxygenating machines and removed my helmet.
"Shut off your oxy," I suggested. "We might as well breathe the air in this place and save our supply. We may need the oxygen in our suits later."
They saw that I had removed my helmet and was still alive and one by one removed their own helmets.
At the end of the corridor, Kane stopped before a blank wall. The sweat on his face glistened dully; his chest rose and fell rapidly. Kane was a pilot and one of the prerequisites for the job of guiding tons of metal between Earth and the Moon was a good set of nerves. Kane excited easily, his temper was fiery, but his nerves were like steel.
"The end of the line," he grunted.
As though to disprove the statement, a door on his right side opened soundlessly.
He went through the doorway as if shoved violently by an invisible hand.
The door closed behind him.
Marie threw herself at the door and beat at the metal. "Harry!"
Verana rushed to her side. Another door on the opposite side of the corridor opened silently. The door was behind them; they didn't notice.
Before I could warn them, Marie floated across the corridor, through the doorway.
Verana and I stared at the darkness beyond the opening, our muscles frozen by shock.
The door closed behind Marie's screaming, struggling form.
Verana's face was white with fear. Apprehensively, she glanced at the other doors that lined the hall.
I put my arms around her, held her close.
"Antigravity machines, force rays," I suggested worriedly.
For several minutes, we remained motionless and silent. I recalled the preceding events of the day, searched for a sense of normality in them. The Kanes, Miller, Verana and I lived in Lunar City with hundreds of other people. Mankind had inhabited the Moon for over a year. Means of recreation were scarce. Many people explored the place to amuse themselves. After supper, we had decided to take a walk. As simple as that: a walk on the Moon.
We had expected only the familiar craters, chasms and weird rock formations. A twist of fate and here we were: imprisoned in an alien ship.
My legs quivered with fatigue, my heart throbbed heavily, Verana's perfume dizzied me. No, it wasn't a dream. Despite our incredible situation, there was no sensation of unreality.
I took Verana's hand and led her down the long corridor, retracing our steps.
We had walked not more than two yards when the rest of the doors opened soundlessly.
Verana's hand flew to her mouth to stifle a gasp.
Six doors were now open. The only two that remained closed were the ones that the Kanes had unwillingly entered.
This time, no invisible hand thrust us into any of the rooms.
I entered the nearest one. Verana followed hesitantly.
The walls of the large room were lined with shelves containing thousands of variously colored boxes and bottles. A table and four chairs were located in the center of the green, plasticlike floor. Each chair had no back, only a curving platform with a single supporting column.
"Ed!" I joined Verana on the other side of the room. She pointed a trembling finger at some crude drawings. "The things in this room are food!"
The drawings were so simple that anyone could have understood them. The first drawing portrayed a naked man and woman removing boxes and bottles from the shelves. The second picture showed the couple opening the containers. The third showed the man eating from one of the boxes and the woman drinking from a bottle.
"Let's see how it tastes," I said.
I selected an orange-colored box. The lid dissolved at the touch of my fingers.
The only contents were small cubes of a soft orange substance.
I tasted a small piece.
"Chocolate! Just like chocolate!"
Verana chose a nearby bottle and drank some of the bluish liquid.
"Milk!" she exclaimed.
"Perhaps we'd better look at the other rooms," I told her.
The next room we examined was obviously for recreation. Containers were filled with dozens of strange games and books of instructions in the form of simple drawings. The games were foreign, but designed in such a fashion that they would be interesting to Earthmen.
Two of the rooms were sleeping quarters. The floors were covered with a spongy substance and the lights were dim and soothing.
Another room contained a small bathing pool, running water, waste-disposal units and yellow cakes of soap.
The last room was an observatory. The ceiling and an entire wall were transparent. Outside, the stars shone clearly for a few seconds, then disappeared for an equal time, only to reappear in a different position.
"Hyper-space drive," Verana whispered softly. She was fascinated by the movement of the stars. For years, our scientists had sought a hyperspatial drive to conquer the stars.
We selected a comfortable chair facing the transparent wall, lit cigarettes and waited.
A few minutes later, Marie entered the room.
I noticed with some surprise that her face was calm. If she was excited, her actions didn't betray it.
She sat next to Verana.
"What happened?" my wife asked.
Marie crossed her legs and began in a rambling manner as if discussing a new recipe, "That was really a surprise, wasn't it? I was scared silly, at first. That room was dark and I didn't know what to expect. Something touched my head and I heard a telepathic voice—"
"Telepathic?" Verana interrupted.
"Yes. Well, this voice said not to worry and that it wasn't going to hurt me. It said it only wanted to learn something about us. It was the oddest feeling! All the time, this voice kept talking to me in a nice way and made me feel at ease ... and at the same time, I felt something search my mind and gather information. I could actually feel it search my memories!"
"What memories?" I inquired.
She frowned with concentration. "Memories of high school mostly. It seemed interested in English and history classes. And then it searched for memories of our customs and lives in general...."
Kane stalked into the room at that moment, his face red with anger.
" Do you know where we are? " he demanded. "When those damned aliens got me in that room, they explained what this is all about. We're guinea pigs!"
"Did they use telepathy to explain?" Verana asked. I suddenly remembered that she was a member of a club that investigated extra-sensory perception with the hope of learning how it operated. She was probably sorry she hadn't been contacted telepathically.
"Yeah," Kane replied. "I saw all sorts of mental pictures and they explained what they did to us. Those damned aliens want us for their zoo!"
"Start at the beginning," I suggested.
He flashed an angry glance at me, but seemed to calm somewhat. "This ship was made by a race from another galaxy. Thousands of years ago, they came to Earth in their spaceships when men were primitives living in caves. They wanted to know what our civilization would be like when we developed space flight. So they put this ship on the Moon as a sort of booby-trap. They put it there with the idea that when we made spaceships and went to the Moon, sooner or later, we'd find the ship and enter it— like rabbits in a snare! "
"And now the booby-trap is on its way home," I guessed.
"Yeah, this ship is taking us to their planet and they're going to keep us there while they study us."
"How long will the trip take?" I asked.
"Six months. We'll be bottled up in this crate for six whole damned months! And when we get there, we'll be prisoners!"
Marie's hypnotic spell was fading and once more her face showed the terror inside her.
"Don't feel so bad," I told Kane. "It could be worse. It should be interesting to see an alien race. We'll have our wives with us—"
"Maybe they'll dissect us!" Marie gasped.
Verana scoffed. "A race intelligent enough to build a ship like this? A race that was traveling between the stars when we were living in caves? Dissection is primitive. They won't have to dissect us in order to study us. They'll have more advanced methods."
"Maybe we can reach the ship's controls somehow," Kane said excitedly.
"We've got to try to change the ship's course and get back to the Moon!"
"It's impossible. Don't waste your time." The voice had no visible source and seemed to fill the room.
Verana snapped her fingers. "So that's why the aliens read Marie's mind! They wanted to learn our language so they could talk to us!"
Kane whirled in a complete circle, glaring at each of the four walls.
"Where are you? Who are you?"
"I'm located in a part of the ship you can't reach. I'm a machine."
"Is anyone else aboard besides ourselves?"
"No. I control the ship." Although the voice spoke without stilted phrases, the tone was cold and mechanical.
"What are your—your masters going to do with us?" Marie asked anxiously.
"You won't be harmed. My masters merely wish to question and examine you. Thousands of years ago, they wondered what your race would be like when it developed to the space-flight stage. They left this ship on your Moon only because they were curious. My masters have no animosity toward your race, only compassion and curiosity."
I remembered the way antigravity rays had shoved Miller from the ship and asked the machine, "Why didn't you let our fifth member board the ship?"
"The trip to my makers' planet will take six months. There are food, oxygen and living facilities for four only of your race. I had to prevent the fifth from entering the ship."
"Come on," Kane ordered. "We'll search this ship room by room and we'll find some way to make it take us back to Earth."
"It's useless," the ship warned us.
For five hours, we minutely examined every room. We had no tools to force our way through solid metal walls to the engine or control rooms. The only things in the ship that could be lifted and carried about were the containers of food and alien games. None were sufficiently heavy or hard enough to put even a scratch in the heavy metal.
Six rooms were open to our use. The two rooms in which the Kanes had been imprisoned were locked and there were no controls or locks to work on.
The rooms that we could enter were without doors, except the ones that opened into the corridor.
After intensive searching, we realized there was no way to damage the ship or reach any section other than our allotted space.
We gave up.
The women went to the sleeping compartments to rest and Kane I went to the "kitchen."
At random, we sampled the variously colored boxes and bottles and discussed our predicament.
"Trapped," Kane said angrily. "Trapped in a steel prison." He slammed his fist against the table top. "But there must be a way to get out! Every problem has a solution!"
"You sure?" I asked.
"What?"
" Does every problem have a solution? I don't believe it. Some problems are too great. Take the problem of a murderer in our civilization: John Doe has killed someone and his problem is to escape. Primarily, a murderer's problem is the same principle as ours. A murderer has to outwit an entire civilization. We have to outwit an entire civilization that was hundreds of times more advanced than ours is now when we were clubbing animals and eating the meat raw. Damned few criminals get away these days, even though they've got such crowds to lose themselves in. All we have is a ship that we can't control. I don't think we have a chance."
My resignation annoyed him. Each of us had reacted differently: Kane's wife was frightened, Verana was calm because of an inner serenity that few people have, I was resigned and Kane was angry.
For several minutes, we sampled the different foods. Every one had a distinctive flavor, comparable to that of a fruit or vegetable on Earth.
Kane lifted a brown bottle to his lips, took a huge gulp and almost choked.
"Whiskey!"
"My masters realized your race would develop intoxicants and tried to create a comparable one," the machine explained.
I selected a brown bottle and sampled the liquid. "A little stronger than our own," I informed the machine.
We drank until Kane was staggering about the room, shouting insults at the alien race and the mechanical voice that seemed to be everywhere. He beat his fist against a wall until blood trickled from bruised knuckles.
"Please don't hurt yourself," the machine pleaded.
" Why? " Kane screamed at the ceiling. "Why should you care?"
"My masters will be displeased with me if you arrive in a damaged condition."
Kane banged his head against a bulkhead; an ugly bruise formed rapidly.
"Shtop me, then!"
"I can't. My masters created no way for me to restrain or contact you other than use of your language."
It took fully fifteen minutes to drag Kane to his sleeping compartment.
After I left Kane in his wife's care, I went to the adjoining room and stretched out on the soft floor beside Verana.
I tried to think of some solution. We were locked in an alien ship at the start of a six months' journey to a strange planet. We had no tools or weapons.
Solution? I doubted if two dozen geniuses working steadily for years could think of one!
I wondered what the alien race was like. Intelligent, surely: They had foreseen our conquest of space flight when we hadn't even invented the wheel. That thought awed me—somehow they had analyzed our brains thousands of years ago and calculated what our future accomplishments would be.
They had been able to predict our scientific development, but they hadn't been able to tell how our civilization would develop. They were curious, so they had left an enormously elaborate piece of bait on the Moon.
The aliens were incredibly more advanced than ourselves. I couldn't help thinking, And to a rabbit in a snare, mankind must seem impossibly clever .
I decided to ask the machine about its makers in the "morning."
When I awoke, my head was throbbing painfully.
I opened my eyes and blinked several times to make sure they were functioning properly. I wasn't in the compartment where I had fallen asleep a few hours before.
I was tied to one of the chairs in the "kitchen." Beside me, Verana was bound to a chair by strips of cloth from her skirt, and across from us, Marie was secured to another chair.
Kane staggered into the room. Although he was visibly drunk, he appeared more sober than the night before. His dark hair was rumpled and his face was flushed, but his eyes gleamed with a growing alertness.
"Awake, huh?"
"What have you done, Harry?" his wife screamed at him. Her eyes were red with tears and her lips twisted in an expression of shame when she looked at him.
"Obvious, isn't it? While all of you were asleep, I conked each of you on the head, dragged you in here and tied you up." He smiled crookedly.
"It's amazing the things a person can do when he's pickled. I'm sorry I had to be so rough, but I have a plan and I knew you wouldn't agree or cooperate with me."
"What's your plan?" I asked.
He grinned wryly and crinkled bloodshot eyes. "I don't want to live in a zoo on an alien planet. I want to go home and prove my theory that this problem has a solution."
I grunted my disgust.
"The solution is simple," he said. "We're in a trap so strong that the aliens didn't establish any means to control our actions. When men put a lion in a strong cage, they don't worry about controlling the lion because the lion can't get out. We're in the same basic situation."
"So what?" Verana queried in a sarcastic tone.
"The aliens want us transported to their planet so they can examine and question us. Right?"
"Right."
"Ed, remember that remark the machine made last night?"
"What remark?"
"It said, ' My masters will be displeased with me if you arrive in a damaged condition.' What does that indicate to you?"
I assumed a baffled expression. I didn't have the slightest idea of what he was driving at and I told him so.
"Ed," he said, "if you could build an electronic brain capable of making decisions, how would you build it?"
"Hell, I don't know," I confessed.
"Well, if I could build an electronic brain like the one running this ship, I'd build it with a conscience so it'd do its best at all times."
"Machines always do their best," I argued. "Come on, untie us. I'm getting a crick in my back!" I didn't like the idea of being slugged while asleep. If Kane had been sober and if his wife hadn't been present, I would have let him know exactly what I thought of him.
" Our machines always do their best," he argued, "because we punch buttons and they respond in predetermined patterns. But the electronic brain in this ship isn't automatic. It makes decisions and I'll bet it even has to decide how much energy and time to put into each process!"
"So what?"
He shrugged muscular shoulders. "So this ship is operated by a thinking, conscientious machine. It's the first time I've encountered such a machine, but I think I know what will happen. I spent hours last night figuring—"
"What are you talking about?" I interrupted. "Are you so drunk that you don't know—"
"I'll show you, Ed."
He walked around the table and stood behind my chair. I felt his thick fingers around my throat and smelled the alcohol on his breath.
"Can you see me, machine?" he asked the empty air.
"Yes," the electronic brain replied.
"Watch!"
Kane tightened his fingers around my throat.
Verana and Marie screamed shrilly.
My head seemed to swell like a balloon; my throat gurgled painfully.
"Please stop," the machine pleaded.
"What will your masters think of you if I kill all of us? You'll return to them with a cargo of dead people!"
The machine didn't answer. I waited for the electronic brain to interfere and, with a cold knot in my stomach, realized the machine had said it had no way to control our actions!
"Your purpose won't be fulfilled, will it?" Kane demanded. "Not if you return with dead specimens!"
"No," the machine admitted.
"If you don't take us back to the Moon," Kane threatened, "I'll kill all of us !"
The alien electronic brain was silent.
By this time, I couldn't see and Kane's voice was a hollow, faraway thing that rang in my ears. I tugged at my bindings, but they only tightened as I struggled.
"If you take us back to the Moon, your masters will never know you failed in your mission. They won't know you failed because you won't bring them proof of your failure."
My fading consciousness tried to envision the alien mechanical brain as it struggled with the problem.
"Look at it this way," Kane persisted. "If you carry our corpses to your masters, all your efforts will have been useless. If you return us to the Moon alive, you'll still have a chance to carry out your mission later."
A long silence followed. Verana and Marie screamed at Kane to let go. A soft darkness seemed to fill the room, blurring everything, drowning even their shrieks in strangling blackness.
"You win," the machine conceded. "I'll return the ship to the Moon."
Kane released his grip on my throat.
"See?" he asked. "Didn't I tell you every problem has a solution?"
I didn't answer. I was too busy enjoying breathing again.
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Ed, along with his wife Verana, and their friends Kane, Miller and Marie are out for a walk on the surface of the Moon. They live there, working in the lunar city. They come across a spherical object, about 2 miles in diameter. Miller, a mineralogist, declares that the metal must be at least a few thousand years old. A circular door opens, revealing a small room inside. Kane enters the room. The rest of the group decide to join Kane, but as Miller tries to cross the threshold, he is thrown back. The door shuts behind the group and they are trapped inside. The group try to intercom back to Miller, and then radio back to Lunar City, but all they get is static. The group realise that they are flying through outer space. An inner door opens to reveal a passageway. They arrive at a dead end at the end of the passageway. Just then, a door opens to the right of Kane, an invisible force pushing him into a separate room, and locking the entrance behind him. Marie, his wife is lifted up and placed into a separate chamber. Ed and Verana search the corridor, the remaining doors opening for them. The couple wander around the rooms for eating, sleeping, recreation, bathing and an observatory. A few minutes later, they are joined by Marie and Kane. The two relay how they were told that this ship belongs to an Alien race which arrived on Earth thousands of years ago, and wanted to study humans once they gained the ability of space flight. They mean no harm and want to take them to their planet to study them. They are met by the voice of a faceless artificial intelligence controlling the ship. It informs them there is no way to turn it's course around. The group search the rooms for tools for escape, but soon realise that there is nothing. Kane tries to think of a solution to their problem. Kane starts to drink a liquid like whiskey, which makes him intoxicated. Kane begins to beat himself up. The machine tells him to stop, and that if it arrives with a damaged crew, it's masters will be disappointed. The machine informs the crew that it has no way to physically interact with or restrain them. *blank* brings Kane to his bunker and goes back to his wife to go to sleep. They wake up later, all tied to chairs in the \"kitchen\". Kane has knocked them out in their sleep and restrained them. Kane starts to choke Ed, asking the machine what will happen if the ship arrives to the alien world, and all the crew are dead. The machine would have failed its assignment. Kane proposes that if the machine takes them back to the Moon, then the computer will not have failed, and it might have the chance again to pick up a crew. The machine agrees and takes them on a course for the Moon. ",
"Mankind has moved from Earth and lived on the Moon for over a year. One evening, Ed and his wife Verana, along with Miller, Harry Kane and his wife Marie, decide to take a leisurely stroll on the Moon's surface. As they walk along the path, they stumble upon a strange large object, a spherical figure of metal that, according to Kane, an experienced mineralogist, was several thousand years old. As the group examines the object, they notice an opening forming on its surface. Kane climbs through the opening and convinces the rest of the group to follow him. As Miller climbs through the opening, he is suddenly pushed back onto the ground as the opening shuts, locking the four inside the object. They soon lose connection in their intercoms and realize that the static they hear is due to the fact that the object is beginning to move through outer space. Another door opens, revealing a long corridor, and Ed and the group take off their spacesuits, taking in the oxygen. As they reach the end of the corridor, two doors open as Marie and Kane are shoved into separate rooms. Ed and Verana, now alone, walk back down the corridor where six rooms are open, finding strange food, games, and an observatory. Marie returns in a trance, saying that a telepathic voice had reached out to her in the room and searched her memories. Kane walks in shortly after, enraged, explaining that aliens had taken the group captive after planting the object on the Moon as a booby trap; they are to be on the ship for six months and be experimented on as members of the human race. Kane suggests that the group find a way to take control of the ship, when a mysterious voice fills the room, discouraging him. The voice explains that it is a machine located in the ship, and that its masters want to study the group to fulfill their curiosity about humans. After searching the entirety of the rooms open to them, the group gives up, and Ed and Kane meet in the kitchen while their wives are asleep. Kane comes across a bottle of alcohol, and becomes intoxicated, growing increasingly violent. When he punches the wall, the machine asks him not to hurt himself, as its masters do not want the humans to arrive damaged. The next morning, Ed, Verana, and Marie awake tied to chairs in the kitchen, as Kane walks in, still drunk. Kane has a plan to make the machine let the group go; he strangles Ed, causing the machine to plead, and Kane gives the machine an ultimatum: return the group back to the Moon or bring the group to its masters, dead. The machine agrees to return the group to the Moon just before Ed loses consciousness.\n",
"Ed and his crew are traveling across the Mare Serenitatis (Sea of Serenity) on the Moon. They see a smooth metal object protruding from the surface and go closer to investigate. The object looks foreign, and Ed wants to call the Lunar City authorities. However, Kane stops him and says this could be an opportunity to become famous. Ed agrees with Kane’s idea, and Miller explains that the strange object was made thousands of years ago from an even stronger alloy than steel. The crew goes into the steel object through an opening, where Kane tells his wife, Marie, he sees gadgets for controls and weird drawings. Marie climbs through the passage, and Ed helps his wife Verana too. He tries to help Miller through the opening, but an invisible force suddenly pushes Miller out of view. Ed strikes an invisible wall and realizes that the door has closed on them. Suddenly, the lights turn on, and Kane tasks Miller with opening the door from the outside. Miller’s breath disappears soon after, and Ed tries to dial Lunar City but only hears static. They decide to explore the area, and a force suddenly shoves Kane through a door that closes behind him. Only Verana and Ed are left behind. Both of them are scared, and they go through the corridor again to see six open doors. They go into the nearest door and find containers alongside some drawings. Verana recognizes the strange containers as food, and they taste some of it. After exploring, they enter an observatory, where Marie joins them shortly after. She says that something spoke to her telepathically. Kane comes in angrily, and he exclaims that this ship is the booby-trap of a race from another galaxy. The trip is six months long, and a voice suddenly tells them that there is no chance they can bring the ship back to the Moon. The voice is a machine that is part of the ship, and it says that its masters are only curious about humans. The crew does not believe the voice, but they give up after five hours of fruitless searching. Kane gets drunk and has a violent outburst, which causes the machine to plead with him to stop because it will displease its alien masters. The next morning, Ed awakens to him, Marie, and Verana being tied in chairs by Kane. Kane then chokes Ed to show the machine that he is willing to kill everybody on this ship if it does not go back. He bargains with the machine and says that the alien masters will not learn about its failure to deliver live human cargo. The machine agrees to bring them back to the Moon. Kane lets go of Ed’s throat to triumphantly tell him that there is always a solution, while Ed is just happy to breathe again. ",
"A group of people are walking through a desert on the Moon when they discover a strange object which reminds a part of a sphere. The group decides to explore the object themselves to become wealthy and famous in case it's something important. The party finds a hole and gets inside the sphere. Suddenly, the door closes and leaves Miller, a feeble mineralogist outside. The group tries calling Lunar City but the radio is static as if they were in outer space.Then another door opens revealing a corridor and the party goes there, removing the helmets and breathing normally. Then another door opens and closes after Kane. Marie disappears behind another door in the same way. Ed and Verana are left alone, they are scared, so, when other doors open, Ed walks them both into the nearest one. One room follows another and in the end the couple sits down in an observatory and is soon joined by Marie. The least tells about a telepathic voice searching through her memories and calming her down. When Kane joins, he is angry about being guinea pigs. He explains that they are an experiment for aliens watching Earth develop for thousands of years already. Now the party is trapped and taken to an alien planet for study. While they are discussing the possibility of escape, the ship talks to them and says they can't escape but won't be harmed. It says the aliens are simply curious in examining people. After a full search the group gives up the idea to harm the ship or escape. The women go to sleep and the men are drinking in the kitchen. Ed is calm and curious, while Kane gets even more mad and aggressive than before. Ed drags Kane to the sleeping compartment and leaves with Marie. Ed goes to sleep with his wife. In the night Kane drags all three to the kitchen and ties them to chairs where they wake up. Kane plans to return home by any means and starts tightening his fingers around Ed's throat to make the machine act. After some thinking, the machine decides to return and Kane is proud of his success. "
] |
49901
|
The Snare
By RICHARD R. SMITH
Illustrated by WEISS
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy January 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It's easy to find a solution when there is one—the trick is to do it if there is none!
I glanced at the path we had made across the Mare Serenitatis . The Latin translated as "the Sea of Serenity." It was well named because, as far as the eye could see in every direction, there was a smooth layer of pumice that resembled the surface of a calm sea. Scattered across the quiet sea of virgin Moon dust were occasional islands of rock that jutted abruptly toward the infinity of stars above. Considering everything, our surroundings conveyed a sense of serenity like none I had ever felt.
Our bounding path across the level expanse was clearly marked. Because of the light gravity, we had leaped high into the air with each step and every time we struck the ground, the impact had raised a cloud of dustlike pumice. Now the clouds of dust were slowly settling in the light gravity.
Above us, the stars were cold, motionless and crystal-clear. Indifferently, they sprayed a faint light on our surroundings ... a dim glow that was hardly sufficient for normal vision and was too weak to be reflected toward Earth.
We turned our head-lamps on the strange object before us. Five beams of light illuminated the smooth shape that protruded from the Moon's surface.
The incongruity was so awesome that for several minutes, we remained motionless and quiet. Miller broke the silence with his quavering voice, "Strange someone didn't notice it before."
Strange? The object rose a quarter of a mile above us, a huge, curving hulk of smooth metal. It was featureless and yet conveyed a sense of alienness . It was alien and yet it wasn't a natural formation. Something had made the thing, whatever it was. But was it strange that it hadn't been noticed before? Men had lived on the Moon for over a year, but the Moon was vast and the Mare Serenitatis covered three hundred and forty thousand square miles.
"What is it?" Marie asked breathlessly.
Her husband grunted his bafflement. "Who knows? But see how it curves? If it's a perfect sphere, it must be at least two miles in diameter!"
"If it's a perfect sphere," Miller suggested, "most of it must be beneath the Moon's surface."
"Maybe it isn't a sphere," my wife said. "Maybe this is all of it."
"Let's call Lunar City and tell the authorities about it." I reached for the radio controls on my suit.
Kane grabbed my arm. "No. Let's find out whatever we can by ourselves. If we tell the authorities, they'll order us to leave it alone. If we discover something really important, we'll be famous!"
I lowered my arm. His outburst seemed faintly childish to me. And yet it carried a good measure of common sense. If we discovered proof of an alien race, we would indeed be famous. The more we discovered for ourselves, the more famous we'd be. Fame was practically a synonym for prestige and wealth.
"All right," I conceded.
Miller stepped forward, moving slowly in the bulk of his spacesuit. Deliberately, he removed a small torch from his side and pressed the brilliant flame against the metal.
A few minutes later, the elderly mineralogist gave his opinion: "It's steel ... made thousands of years ago."
Someone gasped over the intercom, "Thousands of years! But wouldn't it be in worse shape than this if it was that old?"
Miller pointed at the small cut his torch had made in the metal. The notch was only a quarter of an inch deep. "I say steel because it's similar to steel. Actually, it's a much stronger alloy. Besides that, on the Moon, there's been no water or atmosphere to rust it. Not even a wind to disturb its surface. It's at least several thousand years old."
We slowly circled the alien structure. Several minutes later, Kane shouted, "Look!"
A few feet above the ground, the structure's smooth surface was broken by a circular opening that yawned invitingly. Kane ran ahead and flashed his head-lamp into the dark recess.
"There's a small room inside," he told us, and climbed through the opening.
We waited outside and focused our lamps through the five-foot opening to give him as much light as possible.
"Come on in, Marie," he called to his wife. "This is really something! It must be an alien race. There's all kinds of weird drawings on the walls and gadgets that look like controls for something...."
Briefly, my lamp flickered over Marie's pale face. Her features struggled with two conflicting emotions: She was frightened by the alienness of the thing and yet she wanted to be with her husband. She hesitated momentarily, then climbed through the passage.
"You want to go in?" my wife asked.
"Do you?"
"Let's."
I helped Verana through the opening, climbed through myself and turned to help Miller.
Miller was sixty years old. He was an excellent mineralogist, alert mentally, but with a body that was almost feeble. I reached out to help him as he stepped into the passageway.
For a brief second, he was framed in the opening, a dark silhouette against the star-studded sky.
The next second, he was thrown twenty yards into the air. He gasped with pain when he struck the ground. " Something pushed me!"
"Are you all right?"
"Yes."
He had fallen on a spot beyond our angle of vision. I started through the passage....
... and struck an invisible solid wall.
My eyes were on the circular opening. A metal panel emerged from a recess on one side and slid across the passage. The room darkened with the absence of starlight.
" What happened? "
"The door to this damned place closed," I explained.
" What? "
Before we could recover from the shock, the room filled with a brilliant glare. We turned off our lamps.
The room was approximately twelve feet long and nine feet wide. The ceiling was only a few inches above our heads and when I looked at the smooth, hard metal, I felt as if I were trapped in some alien vault.
The walls of the room were covered with strange drawings and instruments. Here and there, kaleidoscopic lights pulsed rhythmically.
Kane brushed past me and beat his gloved fists against the metal door that had imprisoned us.
"Miller!"
"Yes?"
"See if you can get this thing open from the outside."
I knelt before the door and explored its surface with my fingers. There were no visible recesses or controls.
Over the intercom network, everyone's breath mingled and formed a rough, harsh sound. I could discern the women's quick, frightened breaths that were almost sobs. Kane's breath was deep and strong; Miller's was faltering and weak.
"Miller, get help!"
"I'll—" The sound of his breathing ceased. We listened intently.
"What happened to him?"
"I'll phone Lunar City." My fingers fumbled at the radio controls and trembled beneath the thick gloves.
I turned the dials that would connect my radio with Lunar City....
Static grated against my ear drums.
Static!
I listened to the harsh, erratic sound and my voice was weak by comparison: "Calling Lunar City."
"Static!" Kane echoed my thoughts. His frown made deep clefts between his eyebrows. "There's no static between inter-lunar radio!"
Verana's voice was small and frightened. "That sounds like the static we hear over the bigger radios when we broadcast to Earth."
"It does," Marie agreed.
"But we wouldn't have that kind of static over our radio, unless—" Verana's eyes widened until the pupils were surrounded by circles of white—"unless we were in outer space!"
We stared at the metal door that had imprisoned us, afraid even to speak of our fantastic suspicion.
I deactivated my radio.
Marie screamed as an inner door opened to disclose a long, narrow corridor beyond.
Simultaneous with the opening of the second door, I felt air press against my spacesuit. Before, our suits had been puffed outward by the pressure of air inside. Now our spacesuits were slack and dangling on our bodies.
We looked at each other and then at the inviting corridor beyond the open door.
We went single file, first Kane, then his wife Marie. Verana followed next and I was the last.
We walked slowly, examining the strange construction. The walls were featureless but still seemed alien. At various places on the walls were the outlines of doors without handles or locks.
Kane pressed his shoulder against a door and shoved. The door was unyielding.
I manipulated the air-vent controls of my spacesuit, allowed a small amount of the corridor's air into my helmet and inhaled cautiously. It smelled all right. I waited and nothing happened. Gradually, I increased the intake, turned off the oxygenating machines and removed my helmet.
"Shut off your oxy," I suggested. "We might as well breathe the air in this place and save our supply. We may need the oxygen in our suits later."
They saw that I had removed my helmet and was still alive and one by one removed their own helmets.
At the end of the corridor, Kane stopped before a blank wall. The sweat on his face glistened dully; his chest rose and fell rapidly. Kane was a pilot and one of the prerequisites for the job of guiding tons of metal between Earth and the Moon was a good set of nerves. Kane excited easily, his temper was fiery, but his nerves were like steel.
"The end of the line," he grunted.
As though to disprove the statement, a door on his right side opened soundlessly.
He went through the doorway as if shoved violently by an invisible hand.
The door closed behind him.
Marie threw herself at the door and beat at the metal. "Harry!"
Verana rushed to her side. Another door on the opposite side of the corridor opened silently. The door was behind them; they didn't notice.
Before I could warn them, Marie floated across the corridor, through the doorway.
Verana and I stared at the darkness beyond the opening, our muscles frozen by shock.
The door closed behind Marie's screaming, struggling form.
Verana's face was white with fear. Apprehensively, she glanced at the other doors that lined the hall.
I put my arms around her, held her close.
"Antigravity machines, force rays," I suggested worriedly.
For several minutes, we remained motionless and silent. I recalled the preceding events of the day, searched for a sense of normality in them. The Kanes, Miller, Verana and I lived in Lunar City with hundreds of other people. Mankind had inhabited the Moon for over a year. Means of recreation were scarce. Many people explored the place to amuse themselves. After supper, we had decided to take a walk. As simple as that: a walk on the Moon.
We had expected only the familiar craters, chasms and weird rock formations. A twist of fate and here we were: imprisoned in an alien ship.
My legs quivered with fatigue, my heart throbbed heavily, Verana's perfume dizzied me. No, it wasn't a dream. Despite our incredible situation, there was no sensation of unreality.
I took Verana's hand and led her down the long corridor, retracing our steps.
We had walked not more than two yards when the rest of the doors opened soundlessly.
Verana's hand flew to her mouth to stifle a gasp.
Six doors were now open. The only two that remained closed were the ones that the Kanes had unwillingly entered.
This time, no invisible hand thrust us into any of the rooms.
I entered the nearest one. Verana followed hesitantly.
The walls of the large room were lined with shelves containing thousands of variously colored boxes and bottles. A table and four chairs were located in the center of the green, plasticlike floor. Each chair had no back, only a curving platform with a single supporting column.
"Ed!" I joined Verana on the other side of the room. She pointed a trembling finger at some crude drawings. "The things in this room are food!"
The drawings were so simple that anyone could have understood them. The first drawing portrayed a naked man and woman removing boxes and bottles from the shelves. The second picture showed the couple opening the containers. The third showed the man eating from one of the boxes and the woman drinking from a bottle.
"Let's see how it tastes," I said.
I selected an orange-colored box. The lid dissolved at the touch of my fingers.
The only contents were small cubes of a soft orange substance.
I tasted a small piece.
"Chocolate! Just like chocolate!"
Verana chose a nearby bottle and drank some of the bluish liquid.
"Milk!" she exclaimed.
"Perhaps we'd better look at the other rooms," I told her.
The next room we examined was obviously for recreation. Containers were filled with dozens of strange games and books of instructions in the form of simple drawings. The games were foreign, but designed in such a fashion that they would be interesting to Earthmen.
Two of the rooms were sleeping quarters. The floors were covered with a spongy substance and the lights were dim and soothing.
Another room contained a small bathing pool, running water, waste-disposal units and yellow cakes of soap.
The last room was an observatory. The ceiling and an entire wall were transparent. Outside, the stars shone clearly for a few seconds, then disappeared for an equal time, only to reappear in a different position.
"Hyper-space drive," Verana whispered softly. She was fascinated by the movement of the stars. For years, our scientists had sought a hyperspatial drive to conquer the stars.
We selected a comfortable chair facing the transparent wall, lit cigarettes and waited.
A few minutes later, Marie entered the room.
I noticed with some surprise that her face was calm. If she was excited, her actions didn't betray it.
She sat next to Verana.
"What happened?" my wife asked.
Marie crossed her legs and began in a rambling manner as if discussing a new recipe, "That was really a surprise, wasn't it? I was scared silly, at first. That room was dark and I didn't know what to expect. Something touched my head and I heard a telepathic voice—"
"Telepathic?" Verana interrupted.
"Yes. Well, this voice said not to worry and that it wasn't going to hurt me. It said it only wanted to learn something about us. It was the oddest feeling! All the time, this voice kept talking to me in a nice way and made me feel at ease ... and at the same time, I felt something search my mind and gather information. I could actually feel it search my memories!"
"What memories?" I inquired.
She frowned with concentration. "Memories of high school mostly. It seemed interested in English and history classes. And then it searched for memories of our customs and lives in general...."
Kane stalked into the room at that moment, his face red with anger.
" Do you know where we are? " he demanded. "When those damned aliens got me in that room, they explained what this is all about. We're guinea pigs!"
"Did they use telepathy to explain?" Verana asked. I suddenly remembered that she was a member of a club that investigated extra-sensory perception with the hope of learning how it operated. She was probably sorry she hadn't been contacted telepathically.
"Yeah," Kane replied. "I saw all sorts of mental pictures and they explained what they did to us. Those damned aliens want us for their zoo!"
"Start at the beginning," I suggested.
He flashed an angry glance at me, but seemed to calm somewhat. "This ship was made by a race from another galaxy. Thousands of years ago, they came to Earth in their spaceships when men were primitives living in caves. They wanted to know what our civilization would be like when we developed space flight. So they put this ship on the Moon as a sort of booby-trap. They put it there with the idea that when we made spaceships and went to the Moon, sooner or later, we'd find the ship and enter it— like rabbits in a snare! "
"And now the booby-trap is on its way home," I guessed.
"Yeah, this ship is taking us to their planet and they're going to keep us there while they study us."
"How long will the trip take?" I asked.
"Six months. We'll be bottled up in this crate for six whole damned months! And when we get there, we'll be prisoners!"
Marie's hypnotic spell was fading and once more her face showed the terror inside her.
"Don't feel so bad," I told Kane. "It could be worse. It should be interesting to see an alien race. We'll have our wives with us—"
"Maybe they'll dissect us!" Marie gasped.
Verana scoffed. "A race intelligent enough to build a ship like this? A race that was traveling between the stars when we were living in caves? Dissection is primitive. They won't have to dissect us in order to study us. They'll have more advanced methods."
"Maybe we can reach the ship's controls somehow," Kane said excitedly.
"We've got to try to change the ship's course and get back to the Moon!"
"It's impossible. Don't waste your time." The voice had no visible source and seemed to fill the room.
Verana snapped her fingers. "So that's why the aliens read Marie's mind! They wanted to learn our language so they could talk to us!"
Kane whirled in a complete circle, glaring at each of the four walls.
"Where are you? Who are you?"
"I'm located in a part of the ship you can't reach. I'm a machine."
"Is anyone else aboard besides ourselves?"
"No. I control the ship." Although the voice spoke without stilted phrases, the tone was cold and mechanical.
"What are your—your masters going to do with us?" Marie asked anxiously.
"You won't be harmed. My masters merely wish to question and examine you. Thousands of years ago, they wondered what your race would be like when it developed to the space-flight stage. They left this ship on your Moon only because they were curious. My masters have no animosity toward your race, only compassion and curiosity."
I remembered the way antigravity rays had shoved Miller from the ship and asked the machine, "Why didn't you let our fifth member board the ship?"
"The trip to my makers' planet will take six months. There are food, oxygen and living facilities for four only of your race. I had to prevent the fifth from entering the ship."
"Come on," Kane ordered. "We'll search this ship room by room and we'll find some way to make it take us back to Earth."
"It's useless," the ship warned us.
For five hours, we minutely examined every room. We had no tools to force our way through solid metal walls to the engine or control rooms. The only things in the ship that could be lifted and carried about were the containers of food and alien games. None were sufficiently heavy or hard enough to put even a scratch in the heavy metal.
Six rooms were open to our use. The two rooms in which the Kanes had been imprisoned were locked and there were no controls or locks to work on.
The rooms that we could enter were without doors, except the ones that opened into the corridor.
After intensive searching, we realized there was no way to damage the ship or reach any section other than our allotted space.
We gave up.
The women went to the sleeping compartments to rest and Kane I went to the "kitchen."
At random, we sampled the variously colored boxes and bottles and discussed our predicament.
"Trapped," Kane said angrily. "Trapped in a steel prison." He slammed his fist against the table top. "But there must be a way to get out! Every problem has a solution!"
"You sure?" I asked.
"What?"
" Does every problem have a solution? I don't believe it. Some problems are too great. Take the problem of a murderer in our civilization: John Doe has killed someone and his problem is to escape. Primarily, a murderer's problem is the same principle as ours. A murderer has to outwit an entire civilization. We have to outwit an entire civilization that was hundreds of times more advanced than ours is now when we were clubbing animals and eating the meat raw. Damned few criminals get away these days, even though they've got such crowds to lose themselves in. All we have is a ship that we can't control. I don't think we have a chance."
My resignation annoyed him. Each of us had reacted differently: Kane's wife was frightened, Verana was calm because of an inner serenity that few people have, I was resigned and Kane was angry.
For several minutes, we sampled the different foods. Every one had a distinctive flavor, comparable to that of a fruit or vegetable on Earth.
Kane lifted a brown bottle to his lips, took a huge gulp and almost choked.
"Whiskey!"
"My masters realized your race would develop intoxicants and tried to create a comparable one," the machine explained.
I selected a brown bottle and sampled the liquid. "A little stronger than our own," I informed the machine.
We drank until Kane was staggering about the room, shouting insults at the alien race and the mechanical voice that seemed to be everywhere. He beat his fist against a wall until blood trickled from bruised knuckles.
"Please don't hurt yourself," the machine pleaded.
" Why? " Kane screamed at the ceiling. "Why should you care?"
"My masters will be displeased with me if you arrive in a damaged condition."
Kane banged his head against a bulkhead; an ugly bruise formed rapidly.
"Shtop me, then!"
"I can't. My masters created no way for me to restrain or contact you other than use of your language."
It took fully fifteen minutes to drag Kane to his sleeping compartment.
After I left Kane in his wife's care, I went to the adjoining room and stretched out on the soft floor beside Verana.
I tried to think of some solution. We were locked in an alien ship at the start of a six months' journey to a strange planet. We had no tools or weapons.
Solution? I doubted if two dozen geniuses working steadily for years could think of one!
I wondered what the alien race was like. Intelligent, surely: They had foreseen our conquest of space flight when we hadn't even invented the wheel. That thought awed me—somehow they had analyzed our brains thousands of years ago and calculated what our future accomplishments would be.
They had been able to predict our scientific development, but they hadn't been able to tell how our civilization would develop. They were curious, so they had left an enormously elaborate piece of bait on the Moon.
The aliens were incredibly more advanced than ourselves. I couldn't help thinking, And to a rabbit in a snare, mankind must seem impossibly clever .
I decided to ask the machine about its makers in the "morning."
When I awoke, my head was throbbing painfully.
I opened my eyes and blinked several times to make sure they were functioning properly. I wasn't in the compartment where I had fallen asleep a few hours before.
I was tied to one of the chairs in the "kitchen." Beside me, Verana was bound to a chair by strips of cloth from her skirt, and across from us, Marie was secured to another chair.
Kane staggered into the room. Although he was visibly drunk, he appeared more sober than the night before. His dark hair was rumpled and his face was flushed, but his eyes gleamed with a growing alertness.
"Awake, huh?"
"What have you done, Harry?" his wife screamed at him. Her eyes were red with tears and her lips twisted in an expression of shame when she looked at him.
"Obvious, isn't it? While all of you were asleep, I conked each of you on the head, dragged you in here and tied you up." He smiled crookedly.
"It's amazing the things a person can do when he's pickled. I'm sorry I had to be so rough, but I have a plan and I knew you wouldn't agree or cooperate with me."
"What's your plan?" I asked.
He grinned wryly and crinkled bloodshot eyes. "I don't want to live in a zoo on an alien planet. I want to go home and prove my theory that this problem has a solution."
I grunted my disgust.
"The solution is simple," he said. "We're in a trap so strong that the aliens didn't establish any means to control our actions. When men put a lion in a strong cage, they don't worry about controlling the lion because the lion can't get out. We're in the same basic situation."
"So what?" Verana queried in a sarcastic tone.
"The aliens want us transported to their planet so they can examine and question us. Right?"
"Right."
"Ed, remember that remark the machine made last night?"
"What remark?"
"It said, ' My masters will be displeased with me if you arrive in a damaged condition.' What does that indicate to you?"
I assumed a baffled expression. I didn't have the slightest idea of what he was driving at and I told him so.
"Ed," he said, "if you could build an electronic brain capable of making decisions, how would you build it?"
"Hell, I don't know," I confessed.
"Well, if I could build an electronic brain like the one running this ship, I'd build it with a conscience so it'd do its best at all times."
"Machines always do their best," I argued. "Come on, untie us. I'm getting a crick in my back!" I didn't like the idea of being slugged while asleep. If Kane had been sober and if his wife hadn't been present, I would have let him know exactly what I thought of him.
" Our machines always do their best," he argued, "because we punch buttons and they respond in predetermined patterns. But the electronic brain in this ship isn't automatic. It makes decisions and I'll bet it even has to decide how much energy and time to put into each process!"
"So what?"
He shrugged muscular shoulders. "So this ship is operated by a thinking, conscientious machine. It's the first time I've encountered such a machine, but I think I know what will happen. I spent hours last night figuring—"
"What are you talking about?" I interrupted. "Are you so drunk that you don't know—"
"I'll show you, Ed."
He walked around the table and stood behind my chair. I felt his thick fingers around my throat and smelled the alcohol on his breath.
"Can you see me, machine?" he asked the empty air.
"Yes," the electronic brain replied.
"Watch!"
Kane tightened his fingers around my throat.
Verana and Marie screamed shrilly.
My head seemed to swell like a balloon; my throat gurgled painfully.
"Please stop," the machine pleaded.
"What will your masters think of you if I kill all of us? You'll return to them with a cargo of dead people!"
The machine didn't answer. I waited for the electronic brain to interfere and, with a cold knot in my stomach, realized the machine had said it had no way to control our actions!
"Your purpose won't be fulfilled, will it?" Kane demanded. "Not if you return with dead specimens!"
"No," the machine admitted.
"If you don't take us back to the Moon," Kane threatened, "I'll kill all of us !"
The alien electronic brain was silent.
By this time, I couldn't see and Kane's voice was a hollow, faraway thing that rang in my ears. I tugged at my bindings, but they only tightened as I struggled.
"If you take us back to the Moon, your masters will never know you failed in your mission. They won't know you failed because you won't bring them proof of your failure."
My fading consciousness tried to envision the alien mechanical brain as it struggled with the problem.
"Look at it this way," Kane persisted. "If you carry our corpses to your masters, all your efforts will have been useless. If you return us to the Moon alive, you'll still have a chance to carry out your mission later."
A long silence followed. Verana and Marie screamed at Kane to let go. A soft darkness seemed to fill the room, blurring everything, drowning even their shrieks in strangling blackness.
"You win," the machine conceded. "I'll return the ship to the Moon."
Kane released his grip on my throat.
"See?" he asked. "Didn't I tell you every problem has a solution?"
I didn't answer. I was too busy enjoying breathing again.
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Describe Tim's role in the family.
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Jack of No Trades by Evelyn E. Smith.
Relevant chunks:
Jack of No Trades
By EVELYN E. SMITH
Illustrated by CAVAT
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy October 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I was psick of Psi powers, not having any. Or didn't I? Maybe they'd psee otherwise psomeday!
I walked into the dining room and collided with a floating mass of fabric, which promptly draped itself over me like a sentient shroud.
"Oh, for God's sake, Kevin!" my middle brother's voice came muffled through the folds. "If you can't help, at least don't hinder!"
I managed to struggle out of the tablecloth, even though it seemed to be trying to wrap itself around me. When Danny got excited, he lost his mental grip.
"I could help," I yelled as soon as I got my head free, "if anybody would let me and, what's more, I could set the table a damn sight faster by hand than you do with 'kinesis."
Just then Father appeared at the head of the table. He could as easily have walked downstairs as teleported, but I belonged to a family of exhibitionists. And Father tended to show off as if he were still a kid. Not that he looked his age—he was big and blond, like Danny and Tim and me, and could have passed for our older brother.
"Boys, boys!" he reproved us. "Danny, you ought to be ashamed of yourself—picking on poor Kev."
Even if it hadn't been Danny's fault, he would still have been blamed.
Nobody was ever supposed to raise a voice or a hand or a thought to poor afflicted Kev, because nature had picked on me enough. And the nicer everybody was to me, the nastier I became, since only when they lost their tempers could I get—or so I believed—their true attitude toward me.
How else could I tell?
"Sorry, fella," Dan apologized to me. The tablecloth spread itself out on the table. "Wrinkles," he grumbled to himself. "Wrinkles. And I had it so nice and smooth before. Mother will be furious."
"If she were going to be furious, she'd be furious already," Father reminded him sadly. It must be tough to be married to a deep-probe telepath, I thought, and I felt a sudden wave of sympathy for him. It was so seldom I got the chance to feel sorry for anyone except myself.
"But I think you'll find she understands."
"She knows, all right," Danny remarked as he went on into the kitchen,
"but I'm not sure she always understands."
I was surprised to find him so perceptive on the abstract level, because he wasn't what you might call an understanding person, either.
"There are tensions in this room," my sister announced as she slouched in, not quite awake yet, "and hatred. I could feel them all the way upstairs. And today I'm working on the Sleepsweet Mattress copy, so I must feel absolutely tranquil. Everyone will think beautiful thoughts, please."
She sat down just as a glass of orange juice was arriving at her place; Danny apparently didn't know she'd come in already. The glass bumped into the back of her neck, tilted and poured its contents over her shoulder and down her very considerable decolletage. Being a mere primitive, I couldn't help laughing.
"Danny, you fumbler!" she screamed.
Danny erupted from the kitchen. "How many times have I asked all of you not to sit down until I've got everything on the table? Always a lot of interfering busybodies getting in the way."
"I don't see why you have to set the table at all," she retorted. "A robot could do it better and faster than you. Even Kev could." She turned quickly toward me. "Oh, I am sorry, Kevin."
I didn't say anything; I was too busy pressing my hands down on the back of the chair to make my knuckles turn white.
Sylvia's face turned even whiter. "Father, stop him— stop him! He's hating again! I can't stand it!"
Father looked at me, then at her. "I don't think he can help it, Sylvia."
I grinned. "That's right—I'm just a poor atavism with no control over myself a-tall."
Finally my mother came in from the kitchen; she was an old-fashioned woman and didn't hold with robocooks. One quick glance at me gave her the complete details, even though I quickly protested, "It's illegal to probe anyone without permission."
"I used to probe you to find out when you needed your diapers changed," she said tartly, "and I'll probe you now. You should watch yourself, Sylvia—poor Kevin isn't responsible."
She didn't need to probe to get the blast of naked emotion that spurted out from me. My sister screamed and even Father looked uncomfortable. Danny stomped back into the kitchen, muttering to himself.
Mother's lips tightened. "Sylvia, go upstairs and change your dress. Kevin, do I have to make an appointment for you at the clinic again?" A psychiatrist never diagnosed members of his own family—that is, not officially; they couldn't help offering thumbnail diagnoses any more than they could help having thumbnails.
"No use," I said, deciding it was safe to drop into my chair. "Who can adjust me to an environment to which I'm fundamentally unsuited?"
"Maybe there is something physically wrong with him, Amy," my father suggested hopefully. "Maybe you should make an appointment for him at the cure-all?"
Mother shook her neatly coiffed head. "He's been to it dozens of times and he always checks out in splendid shape. None of us can spare the time to go with him again, just on an off-chance, and he could hardly be allowed to make such a long trip all by himself. Pity there isn't a machine in every community, but, then, we don't really need them."
Now that the virus diseases had been licked, people hardly ever got sick any more and, when they did, it was mostly psychosomatic. Life was so well organized that there weren't even many accidents these days. It was a safe, orderly existence for those who fitted into it—which accounted for more than ninety-five per cent of the population. The only ones who didn't adjust were those who couldn't, like me—psi-deficients, throwbacks to an earlier era. There were no physical cripples, because anybody could have a new arm or a new leg grafted on, but you couldn't graft psi powers onto an atavism or, if you could, the technique hadn't been developed yet.
"I feel a sense of impending doom brooding over this household," my youngest brother remarked cheerfully as he vaulted into his chair.
"You always do, Timothy," my mother said, unfolding her napkin. "And I must say it's not in good taste, especially at breakfast."
He reached for his juice. "Guess this is a doomed household. And what was all that emotional uproar about?"
"The usual," Sylvia said from the doorway before anyone else could answer. She slid warily into her chair. "Hey, Dan, I'm here!" she called. "If anything else comes in, it comes in manually, understand?"
"Oh, all right." Dan emerged from the kitchen with a tray of food floating ahead of him.
"The usual? Trouble with Kev?" Tim looked at me narrowly. "Somehow my sense of ominousness is connected with him."
"Well, that's perfectly natural—" Sylvia began, then stopped as Mother caught her eye.
"I didn't mean that," Tim said. "I still say Kev's got something we can't figure out."
"You've been saying that for years," Danny protested, "and he's been tested for every faculty under the Sun. He can't telepath or teleport or telekinesthesize or even teletype. He can't precognize or prefix or prepossess. He can't—"
"Strictly a bundle of no-talent, that's me," I interrupted, trying to keep my animal feelings from getting the better of me. That was how my family thought of me, I knew—as an animal, and not a very lovable one, either.
"No," Tim said, "he's just got something we haven't developed a test for. It'll come out some day, you'll see." He smiled at me.
I smiled at him gratefully; he was the only member of my family who really seemed to like me in spite of my handicap. "It won't work, Tim. I know you're trying to be kind, but—"
"He's not saying it just to be kind," my mother put in. "He means it. Not that I want to arouse false hopes, Kevin," she added with grim scrupulousness. "Tim's awfully young yet and I wouldn't trust his extracurricular prognostications too far."
Nonetheless, I couldn't help feeling a feeble renewal of old hopes. After all, young or not, Tim was a hell of a good prognosticator; he wouldn't have risen so rapidly to the position he held in the Weather Bureau if he hadn't been pretty near tops in foreboding.
Mother smiled sadly at my thoughts, but I didn't let that discourage me. As Danny had said, she knew but she didn't really understand . Nobody, for all of his or her psi power, really understood me.
Breakfast was finally over and the rest of my family dispersed to their various jobs. Father simply took his briefcase and disappeared—he was a traveling salesman and he had a morning appointment clear across the continent. The others, not having his particular gift, had to take the helibus to their different destinations. Mother, as I said, was a psychiatrist. Sylvia wrote advertising copy. Tim was a meteorologist. Dan was a junior executive in a furniture moving company and expected a promotion to senior rank as soon as he achieved a better mental grip on pianos.
Only I had no job, no profession, no place in life. Of course there were certain menial tasks a psi-negative could perform, but my parents would have none of them—partly for my sake, but mostly for the sake of their own community standing.
"We don't need what little money Kev could bring in," my father always said. "I can afford to support my family. He can stay home and take care of the house."
And that's what I did. Not that there was much to do except call a techno whenever one of the servomechanisms missed a beat. True enough, those things had to be watched mighty carefully because, if they broke down, it sometimes took days before the repair and/or replacement robots could come. There never were enough of them because ours was a constructive society. Still, being a machine-sitter isn't very much of a career. And every function that wasn't the prerogative of a machine could be done ten times more quickly and efficiently by some member of my family than I could do it. If I went ahead and did something anyway, they would just do it all over again when they got home.
So I had nothing to do all day. I had a special dispensation to take books out of the local Archives, because I was a deficient and couldn't receive the tellie programs. Almost everybody on Earth was telepathic to some degree and could get the amplified projections even if he couldn't transmit or receive with his natural powers. But I got nothing. I had to derive all my recreation from reading, and you can get awfully tired of books, especially when they're all at least a hundred years old and written by primitives. I could borrow sound tapes, but they also bored me after a while.
I thought maybe I could develop a talent for composing or painting, which would classify me as a telesensitive—artistic ability being considered as the oldest, if least important, psi power—but I couldn't even do anything like that.
About all there was left for me was to take long walks. Athletics were out of the question; I couldn't compete with psi-boys and they didn't want to compete with me. All the people in the neighborhood knew me and were nice to me, but I didn't need to be a 'path to tell what they were saying to one another when I hove into sight. "There's that oldest Faraday boy. Pity, such a talented family, to have a defective."
I didn't have a girl, either. Although some of them were sort of attracted to me—I could see that—they could hardly go out with me without exposing themselves to ridicule. In their sandals, I would have done the same thing, but that didn't stop me from hating them.
I wished I had been born a couple of hundred years ago—before people started playing around with nuclear energy and filling the air with radiations that they were afraid would turn human beings into hideous monsters. Instead, they developed the psi powers that had always been latent in the species until we developed into a race of supermen. I don't know why I say we —in 1960 or so, I might have been considered superior, but in 2102 I was just the Faradays' idiot boy.
Exploring space should have been my hope. If there had been anything useful or interesting on any of the other planets, I might have found a niche for myself there. In totally new surroundings, the psi powers geared to another environment might not be an advantage. But by the time I was ten, it was discovered that the other planets were just barren hunks of rock, with pressures and climates and atmospheres drastically unsuited to human life. A year or so before, the hyperdrive had been developed on Earth and ships had been sent out to explore the stars, but I had no hope left in that direction any more.
I was an atavism in a world of peace and plenty. Peace, because people couldn't indulge in war or even crime with so many telepaths running around—not because, I told myself, the capacity for primitive behavior wasn't just as latent in everybody else as the psi talent seemed latent in me. Tim must be right, I thought—I must have some undreamed-of power that only the right circumstances would bring out. But what was that power?
For years I had speculated on what my potential talent might be, explored every wild possibility I could conceive of and found none productive of even an ambiguous result with which I could fool myself. As I approached adulthood, I began to concede that I was probably nothing more than what I seemed to be—a simple psi-negative. Yet, from time to time, hope surged up again, as it had today, in spite of my knowledge that my hope was an impossibility. Who ever heard of latent psi powers showing themselves in an individual as old as twenty-six?
I was almost alone in the parks where I used to walk, because people liked to commune with one another those days rather than with nature. Even gardening had very little popularity. But I found myself most at home in those woodland—or, rather, pseudo-woodland—surroundings, able to identify more readily with the trees and flowers than I could with my own kind. A fallen tree or a broken blossom would excite more sympathy from me than the minor catastrophes that will beset any household, no matter how gifted, and I would shy away from bloody noses or cut fingers, thus giving myself a reputation for callousness as well as extrasensory imbecility.
However, I was no more callous in steering clear of human breakdowns than I was in not shedding tears over the household machines when they broke down, for I felt no more closely akin to my parents and siblings than I did to the mechanisms that served and, sometimes, failed us.
On that day, I walked farther than I had intended and, by the time I got back home, I found the rest of my family had returned before me. They seemed to be excited about something and were surprised to see me so calm.
"Aren't you even interested in anything outside your own immediate concerns, Kev?" Sylvia demanded, despite Father's efforts to shush her.
"Can't you remember that Kev isn't able to receive the tellies?" Tim shot back at her. "He probably doesn't even know what's happened."
"Well, what did happen?" I asked, trying not to snap.
"One starship got back from Alpha Centauri," Danny said excitedly.
"There are two inhabited Earth-type planets there!"
This was for me; this was it at last! I tried not to show my enthusiasm, though I knew that was futile. My relatives could keep their thoughts and emotions from me; I couldn't keep mine from them.
"What kind of life inhabits them? Humanoid?"
"Uh-uh." Danny shook his head. "And hostile. The crew of the starship says they were attacked immediately on landing. When they turned and left, they were followed here by one of the alien ships. Must be a pretty advanced race to have spaceships. Anyhow, the extraterrestrial ship headed back as soon as it got a fix on where ours was going."
"But if they're hostile," I said thoughtfully, "it might mean war."
"Of course. That's why everybody's so wrought up. We hope it's peace, but we'll have to prepare for war just in case."
There hadn't been a war on Earth for well over a hundred years, but we hadn't been so foolish as to obliterate all knowledge of military techniques and weapons. The alien ship wouldn't be able to come back with reinforcements—if such were its intention—in less than six months. This meant time to get together a stockpile of weapons, though we had no idea of how effective our defenses would be against the aliens' armament.
They might have strange and terrible weapons against which we would be powerless. On the other hand, our side would have the benefits of telekinetically guided missiles, teleported saboteurs, telepaths to pick up the alien strategy, and prognosticators to determine the outcome of each battle and see whether it was worth fighting in the first place.
Everybody on Earth hoped for peace. Everybody, that is, except me. I had been unable to achieve any sense of identity with the world in which I lived, and it was almost worth the loss of personal survival to know that my own smug species could look silly against a still more talented race.
"It isn't so much our defense that worries me," my mother muttered, "as lack of adequate medical machinery. War is bound to mean casualties and there aren't enough cure-alls on the planet to take care of them. It's useless to expect the government to build more right now; they'll be too busy producing weapons. Sylvia, you'd better take a leave of absence from your job and come down to Psycho Center to learn first-aid techniques. And you too, Kevin," she added, obviously a little surprised herself at what she was saying. "Probably you'd be even better at it than Sylvia since you aren't sensitive to other people's pain."
I looked at her.
"It is an ill wind," she agreed, smiling wryly, "but don't let me catch you thinking that way, Kevin. Can't you see it would be better that there should be no war and you should remain useless?"
I couldn't see it, of course, and she knew that, with her wretched talent for stripping away my feeble attempts at privacy. Psi-powers usually included some ability to form a mental shield; being without one, I was necessarily devoid of the other.
My attitude didn't matter, though, because it was definitely war. The aliens came back with a fleet clearly bent on our annihilation—even the 'paths couldn't figure out their motives, for the thought pattern was entirely different from ours—and the war was on.
I had enjoyed learning first-aid; it was the first time I had ever worked with people as an equal. And I was good at it because psi-powers aren't much of an advantage there. Telekinesis maybe a little, but I was big enough to lift anybody without needing any superhuman abilities—normal human abilities, rather.
"Gee, Mr. Faraday," one of the other students breathed, "you're so strong. And without 'kinesis or anything."
I looked at her and liked what I saw. She was blonde and pretty. "My name's not Mr. Faraday," I said. "It's Kevin."
"My name's Lucy," she giggled.
No girl had ever giggled at me in that way before. Immediately I started to envision a beautiful future for the two of us, then flushed when I realized that she might be a telepath. But she was winding a tourniquet around the arm of another member of the class with apparent unconcern.
"Hey, quit that!" the windee yelled. "You're making it too tight! I'll be mortified!"
So Lucy was obviously not a telepath. Later I found out she was only a low-grade telesensitive—just a poetess—so I had nothing to worry about as far as having my thoughts read went. I was a little afraid of Sylvia's kidding me about my first romance, but, as it happened, she got interested in one of the guys who was taking the class with us, and she was not only too busy to be bothered with me, but in too vulnerable a position herself.
However, when the actual bombs—or their alien equivalent—struck near our town, I wasn't nearly so happy, especially after they started carrying the wounded into the Psycho Center, which had been turned into a hospital for the duration. I took one look at the gory scene—I had never seen anybody really injured before; few people had, as a matter of fact—and started for the door. But Mother was already blocking the way. It was easy to see from which side of the family Tim had got his talent for prognostication.
"If the telepaths who can pick up all the pain can stand this, Kevin," she said, " you certainly can." And there was no kindness at all in the you .
She gave me a shove toward the nearest stretcher. "Go on—now's your chance to show you're of some use in this world."
Gritting my teeth, I turned to the man on the stretcher. Something had pretty near torn half his face away. It was all there, but not in the right place, and it wasn't pretty. I turned away, caught my mother's eye, and then I didn't even dare to throw up. I looked at that smashed face again and all the first-aid lessons I'd had flew out of my head as if some super-psi had plucked them from me.
The man was bleeding terribly. I had never seen blood pouring out like that before. The first thing to do, I figured sickly, was mop it up. I wet a sponge and dabbed gingerly at the face, but my hands were shaking so hard that the sponge slipped and my fingers were on the raw gaping wound. I could feel the warm viscosity of the blood and nothing, not even my mother, could keep my meal down this time, I thought.
Mother had uttered a sound of exasperation as I dropped the sponge. I could hear her coming toward me. Then I heard her gasp. I looked at my patient and my mouth dropped open. For suddenly there was no wound, no wound at all—just a little blood and the fellow's face was whole again. Not even a scar.
"Wha—wha happened?" he asked. "It doesn't hurt any more!"
He touched his cheek and looked up at me with frightened eyes. And I was frightened, too—too frightened to be sick, too frightened to do anything but stare witlessly at him.
"Touch some of the others, quick!" my mother commanded, pushing astounded attendants away from stretchers.
I touched broken limbs and torn bodies and shattered heads, and they were whole again right away. Everybody in the room was looking at me in the way I had always dreamed of being looked at. Lucy was opening and shutting her beautiful mouth like a beautiful fish. In fact, the whole thing was just like a dream, except that I was awake. I couldn't have imagined all those horrors.
But the horrors soon weren't horrors any more. I began to find them almost pleasing; the worse a wound was, the more I appreciated it. There was so much more satisfaction, virtually an esthetic thrill, in seeing a horrible jagged tear smooth away, heal, not in days, as it would have done under the cure-all, but in seconds.
"Timothy was right," my mother said, her eyes filled with tears, "and I was wrong ever to have doubted. You have a gift, son—" and she said the word son loud and clear so that everybody could hear it—"the greatest gift of all, that of healing." She looked at me proudly. And Lucy and the others looked at me as if I were a god or something.
I felt ... well, good.
"I wonder why we never thought of healing as a potential psi-power," my mother said to me later, when I was catching a snatch of rest and she was lighting cigarettes and offering me cups of coffee in an attempt to make up twenty-six years of indifference, perhaps dislike, all at once.
"The ability to heal is recorded in history, only we never paid much attention to it."
"Recorded?" I asked, a little jealously.
"Of course," she smiled. "Remember the King's Evil?"
I should have known without her reminding me, after all the old books I had read. "Scrofula, wasn't it? They called it that because the touch of certain kings was supposed to cure it ... and other diseases, too, I guess."
She nodded. "Certain people must have had the healing power and that's probably why they originally got to be the rulers."
In a very short time, I became a pretty important person. All the other deficients in the world were tested for the healing power and all of them turned out negative. I proved to be the only human healer alive, and not only that, I could work a thousand times more efficiently and effectively than any of the machines. The government built a hospital just for my work! Wounded people were ferried there from all over the world and I cured them. I could do practically everything except raise the dead and sometimes I wondered whether, with a little practice, I wouldn't be able to do even that.
When I came to my new office, whom did I find waiting there for me but Lucy, her trim figure enhanced by a snug blue and white uniform. "I'm your assistant, Kev," she said shyly.
I looked at her. "You are?"
"I—I hope you want me," she went on, coyness now mixing with apprehension.
I gave her shoulder a squeeze. "I do want you, Lucy. More than I can tell you now. After all this is over, there's something more I want to say. But right now—" I clapped her arm—"there's a job to be done."
"Yes, Kevin," she said, glaring at me for some reason I didn't have time to investigate or interpret at the moment. My patients were waiting for me.
They gave me everything else I could possibly need, except enough sleep, and I myself didn't want that. I wanted to heal. I wanted to show my fellow human beings that, though I couldn't receive or transmit thoughts or foretell the future or move things with my mind, all those powers were useless without life, and that was what I could give.
I took pride in my work. It was good to stop pain and ugliness, to know that, if it weren't for me, these people would be dead or permanently disfigured. In a sense, they were—well, my children; I felt a warm glow of affection toward them.
They felt the same way toward me. I knew because the secret of the hospital soon leaked out—during all those years of peace, the government had lost whatever facility it had for keeping secrets—and people used to come in droves, hoping for a glimpse of me.
The government pointed out that such crowds outside the building might attract the enemy's attention. I was the most important individual on Earth, they told my followers, and my safety couldn't be risked. The human race at this stage was pretty docile. The crowds went away. And it was right that they should; I didn't want to be risked any more than they wanted to risk me.
Plenty of people did come to see me officially—the President, generals, all kinds of big wheels, bringing citations, medals and other obsolete honors they'd revived primarily for me. It was wonderful. I began to love everybody.
"Don't you think you're putting too much of yourself into this, Kev?" Lucy asked me one day.
I gave her an incredulous glance. "You mean I shouldn't help people?"
"Of course you should help them. I didn't mean anything like that. Just ... well, you're getting too bound up in your work."
"Why shouldn't I be?" Then the truth, as I thought, dawned on me. "Are you jealous, Lucy?"
She lowered her eyes. "Not only that, but the war's bound to come to an end, you know, and—"
It was the first part of her sentence that interested me. "Why, do you mean—"
And just then a fresh batch of casualties arrived and I had to tend to them. For the next few days, I was so busy, I didn't get the chance to have the long talk with Lucy I'd wanted....
Then, after only four months, the war suddenly stopped. It seemed that the aliens' weapons, despite their undeniable mysteriousness, were not equal to ours. And they had the added disadvantage of being light-years away from home base. So the remnant of their fleet took off and blew itself up just outside of Mars, which we understood to be the equivalent of unconditional surrender. And it was; we never heard from the Centaurians again.
Peace once more. I had a little mopping up to do at the hospital; then I collected my possessions and went back home after a dignitary—only the Vice President this time—had thanked me on behalf of a grateful country. I wasn't needed any more.
Question:
Describe Tim's role in the family.
Answer:
|
[
"Tim is Kevin's youngest brother, and works as a meteorologist for the Weather Bureau. His ability is that of prognostication, meaning he is able to predict certain things about the future. This includes positive and negative things. For instance, at the beginning of the story, he feels a sense of impending doom. At the same time, he is the only one who has a positive outlook on Kevin's situation: he suspects that Kevin has a power that hasn't been discovered or isn't well-understood yet, but the rest of the family (including Kevin himself) figure that he doesn't have any special abilities at all. This is particularly contrasted with Kevin's mother, who doesn't ever speak highly of Kevin. Tim's encouragement gives Kevin hope for his own future regularly, and it helps him to know that someone is nice to him and doesn't think he is useless. ",
"Tim is the youngest brother in the family, and he has the unique gift of prognostication. Because of his ability to see into the future, Tim has gainful employment with the Weather Bureau. Compared to the rest of the family, Tim treats Kevin kindly and tells him that he believes he does have some special power; society simply hasn't developed a test to identify it yet. At breakfast, Tim also feels a sense of ominousness surrounding Kevin, which foreshadows the alien war that happens after the discovery of the Earth-like planets around Alpha Centauri and Kevin's important role in it. Because of his training in first-aid, Kevin works to help those injured in the war, and in the process, he discovers his ability to physically heal people with a simple touch of his hands. Tim's prediction that Kevin would discover his innate power gave Kevin hope and also came true.",
"Tim has the supernatural power of prognostication, and quickly rose to a high position as a meteorologist at the Weather Bureau. He has the same looks as the other men of the Faraday family - big and blond. \nTim defends Kev in the family when the rest of the siblings are picking on him about not having any supernatural powers (“psi-powers”). Tim says Kev must have a power they haven’t learned to test for yet, giving Kev a little boost of hope. Tim has a nagging sense that Kev has an ability they haven’t discovered yet and senses an ominousness in his future. Because of Tim’s supernatural ability to forecast the future, he foreshadows the discovery of Kev’s ability to heal.\n",
"Tim is the youngest of the Faraday family, but his power and talent are still remarkable, perhaps even more so due to his age. Like his brothers and his father, Tim is blonde and large and looked older than his siblings. Tim is a prognosticator, meaning he is able to sense things in the future. He works at the Weather Bureau and quickly rose to the top thanks to his supernatural ability. \nTim is the peacekeeper in the family. His foreboding senses told him long ago that Kevin has psi-powers, they just hadn’t been discovered that. Tim’s predictions give Kevin hope and keep him from going crazy. As well, he seems like the least dramatic of all the siblings and knows how to de-escalate any situation. \n"
] |
49838
|
Jack of No Trades
By EVELYN E. SMITH
Illustrated by CAVAT
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy October 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I was psick of Psi powers, not having any. Or didn't I? Maybe they'd psee otherwise psomeday!
I walked into the dining room and collided with a floating mass of fabric, which promptly draped itself over me like a sentient shroud.
"Oh, for God's sake, Kevin!" my middle brother's voice came muffled through the folds. "If you can't help, at least don't hinder!"
I managed to struggle out of the tablecloth, even though it seemed to be trying to wrap itself around me. When Danny got excited, he lost his mental grip.
"I could help," I yelled as soon as I got my head free, "if anybody would let me and, what's more, I could set the table a damn sight faster by hand than you do with 'kinesis."
Just then Father appeared at the head of the table. He could as easily have walked downstairs as teleported, but I belonged to a family of exhibitionists. And Father tended to show off as if he were still a kid. Not that he looked his age—he was big and blond, like Danny and Tim and me, and could have passed for our older brother.
"Boys, boys!" he reproved us. "Danny, you ought to be ashamed of yourself—picking on poor Kev."
Even if it hadn't been Danny's fault, he would still have been blamed.
Nobody was ever supposed to raise a voice or a hand or a thought to poor afflicted Kev, because nature had picked on me enough. And the nicer everybody was to me, the nastier I became, since only when they lost their tempers could I get—or so I believed—their true attitude toward me.
How else could I tell?
"Sorry, fella," Dan apologized to me. The tablecloth spread itself out on the table. "Wrinkles," he grumbled to himself. "Wrinkles. And I had it so nice and smooth before. Mother will be furious."
"If she were going to be furious, she'd be furious already," Father reminded him sadly. It must be tough to be married to a deep-probe telepath, I thought, and I felt a sudden wave of sympathy for him. It was so seldom I got the chance to feel sorry for anyone except myself.
"But I think you'll find she understands."
"She knows, all right," Danny remarked as he went on into the kitchen,
"but I'm not sure she always understands."
I was surprised to find him so perceptive on the abstract level, because he wasn't what you might call an understanding person, either.
"There are tensions in this room," my sister announced as she slouched in, not quite awake yet, "and hatred. I could feel them all the way upstairs. And today I'm working on the Sleepsweet Mattress copy, so I must feel absolutely tranquil. Everyone will think beautiful thoughts, please."
She sat down just as a glass of orange juice was arriving at her place; Danny apparently didn't know she'd come in already. The glass bumped into the back of her neck, tilted and poured its contents over her shoulder and down her very considerable decolletage. Being a mere primitive, I couldn't help laughing.
"Danny, you fumbler!" she screamed.
Danny erupted from the kitchen. "How many times have I asked all of you not to sit down until I've got everything on the table? Always a lot of interfering busybodies getting in the way."
"I don't see why you have to set the table at all," she retorted. "A robot could do it better and faster than you. Even Kev could." She turned quickly toward me. "Oh, I am sorry, Kevin."
I didn't say anything; I was too busy pressing my hands down on the back of the chair to make my knuckles turn white.
Sylvia's face turned even whiter. "Father, stop him— stop him! He's hating again! I can't stand it!"
Father looked at me, then at her. "I don't think he can help it, Sylvia."
I grinned. "That's right—I'm just a poor atavism with no control over myself a-tall."
Finally my mother came in from the kitchen; she was an old-fashioned woman and didn't hold with robocooks. One quick glance at me gave her the complete details, even though I quickly protested, "It's illegal to probe anyone without permission."
"I used to probe you to find out when you needed your diapers changed," she said tartly, "and I'll probe you now. You should watch yourself, Sylvia—poor Kevin isn't responsible."
She didn't need to probe to get the blast of naked emotion that spurted out from me. My sister screamed and even Father looked uncomfortable. Danny stomped back into the kitchen, muttering to himself.
Mother's lips tightened. "Sylvia, go upstairs and change your dress. Kevin, do I have to make an appointment for you at the clinic again?" A psychiatrist never diagnosed members of his own family—that is, not officially; they couldn't help offering thumbnail diagnoses any more than they could help having thumbnails.
"No use," I said, deciding it was safe to drop into my chair. "Who can adjust me to an environment to which I'm fundamentally unsuited?"
"Maybe there is something physically wrong with him, Amy," my father suggested hopefully. "Maybe you should make an appointment for him at the cure-all?"
Mother shook her neatly coiffed head. "He's been to it dozens of times and he always checks out in splendid shape. None of us can spare the time to go with him again, just on an off-chance, and he could hardly be allowed to make such a long trip all by himself. Pity there isn't a machine in every community, but, then, we don't really need them."
Now that the virus diseases had been licked, people hardly ever got sick any more and, when they did, it was mostly psychosomatic. Life was so well organized that there weren't even many accidents these days. It was a safe, orderly existence for those who fitted into it—which accounted for more than ninety-five per cent of the population. The only ones who didn't adjust were those who couldn't, like me—psi-deficients, throwbacks to an earlier era. There were no physical cripples, because anybody could have a new arm or a new leg grafted on, but you couldn't graft psi powers onto an atavism or, if you could, the technique hadn't been developed yet.
"I feel a sense of impending doom brooding over this household," my youngest brother remarked cheerfully as he vaulted into his chair.
"You always do, Timothy," my mother said, unfolding her napkin. "And I must say it's not in good taste, especially at breakfast."
He reached for his juice. "Guess this is a doomed household. And what was all that emotional uproar about?"
"The usual," Sylvia said from the doorway before anyone else could answer. She slid warily into her chair. "Hey, Dan, I'm here!" she called. "If anything else comes in, it comes in manually, understand?"
"Oh, all right." Dan emerged from the kitchen with a tray of food floating ahead of him.
"The usual? Trouble with Kev?" Tim looked at me narrowly. "Somehow my sense of ominousness is connected with him."
"Well, that's perfectly natural—" Sylvia began, then stopped as Mother caught her eye.
"I didn't mean that," Tim said. "I still say Kev's got something we can't figure out."
"You've been saying that for years," Danny protested, "and he's been tested for every faculty under the Sun. He can't telepath or teleport or telekinesthesize or even teletype. He can't precognize or prefix or prepossess. He can't—"
"Strictly a bundle of no-talent, that's me," I interrupted, trying to keep my animal feelings from getting the better of me. That was how my family thought of me, I knew—as an animal, and not a very lovable one, either.
"No," Tim said, "he's just got something we haven't developed a test for. It'll come out some day, you'll see." He smiled at me.
I smiled at him gratefully; he was the only member of my family who really seemed to like me in spite of my handicap. "It won't work, Tim. I know you're trying to be kind, but—"
"He's not saying it just to be kind," my mother put in. "He means it. Not that I want to arouse false hopes, Kevin," she added with grim scrupulousness. "Tim's awfully young yet and I wouldn't trust his extracurricular prognostications too far."
Nonetheless, I couldn't help feeling a feeble renewal of old hopes. After all, young or not, Tim was a hell of a good prognosticator; he wouldn't have risen so rapidly to the position he held in the Weather Bureau if he hadn't been pretty near tops in foreboding.
Mother smiled sadly at my thoughts, but I didn't let that discourage me. As Danny had said, she knew but she didn't really understand . Nobody, for all of his or her psi power, really understood me.
Breakfast was finally over and the rest of my family dispersed to their various jobs. Father simply took his briefcase and disappeared—he was a traveling salesman and he had a morning appointment clear across the continent. The others, not having his particular gift, had to take the helibus to their different destinations. Mother, as I said, was a psychiatrist. Sylvia wrote advertising copy. Tim was a meteorologist. Dan was a junior executive in a furniture moving company and expected a promotion to senior rank as soon as he achieved a better mental grip on pianos.
Only I had no job, no profession, no place in life. Of course there were certain menial tasks a psi-negative could perform, but my parents would have none of them—partly for my sake, but mostly for the sake of their own community standing.
"We don't need what little money Kev could bring in," my father always said. "I can afford to support my family. He can stay home and take care of the house."
And that's what I did. Not that there was much to do except call a techno whenever one of the servomechanisms missed a beat. True enough, those things had to be watched mighty carefully because, if they broke down, it sometimes took days before the repair and/or replacement robots could come. There never were enough of them because ours was a constructive society. Still, being a machine-sitter isn't very much of a career. And every function that wasn't the prerogative of a machine could be done ten times more quickly and efficiently by some member of my family than I could do it. If I went ahead and did something anyway, they would just do it all over again when they got home.
So I had nothing to do all day. I had a special dispensation to take books out of the local Archives, because I was a deficient and couldn't receive the tellie programs. Almost everybody on Earth was telepathic to some degree and could get the amplified projections even if he couldn't transmit or receive with his natural powers. But I got nothing. I had to derive all my recreation from reading, and you can get awfully tired of books, especially when they're all at least a hundred years old and written by primitives. I could borrow sound tapes, but they also bored me after a while.
I thought maybe I could develop a talent for composing or painting, which would classify me as a telesensitive—artistic ability being considered as the oldest, if least important, psi power—but I couldn't even do anything like that.
About all there was left for me was to take long walks. Athletics were out of the question; I couldn't compete with psi-boys and they didn't want to compete with me. All the people in the neighborhood knew me and were nice to me, but I didn't need to be a 'path to tell what they were saying to one another when I hove into sight. "There's that oldest Faraday boy. Pity, such a talented family, to have a defective."
I didn't have a girl, either. Although some of them were sort of attracted to me—I could see that—they could hardly go out with me without exposing themselves to ridicule. In their sandals, I would have done the same thing, but that didn't stop me from hating them.
I wished I had been born a couple of hundred years ago—before people started playing around with nuclear energy and filling the air with radiations that they were afraid would turn human beings into hideous monsters. Instead, they developed the psi powers that had always been latent in the species until we developed into a race of supermen. I don't know why I say we —in 1960 or so, I might have been considered superior, but in 2102 I was just the Faradays' idiot boy.
Exploring space should have been my hope. If there had been anything useful or interesting on any of the other planets, I might have found a niche for myself there. In totally new surroundings, the psi powers geared to another environment might not be an advantage. But by the time I was ten, it was discovered that the other planets were just barren hunks of rock, with pressures and climates and atmospheres drastically unsuited to human life. A year or so before, the hyperdrive had been developed on Earth and ships had been sent out to explore the stars, but I had no hope left in that direction any more.
I was an atavism in a world of peace and plenty. Peace, because people couldn't indulge in war or even crime with so many telepaths running around—not because, I told myself, the capacity for primitive behavior wasn't just as latent in everybody else as the psi talent seemed latent in me. Tim must be right, I thought—I must have some undreamed-of power that only the right circumstances would bring out. But what was that power?
For years I had speculated on what my potential talent might be, explored every wild possibility I could conceive of and found none productive of even an ambiguous result with which I could fool myself. As I approached adulthood, I began to concede that I was probably nothing more than what I seemed to be—a simple psi-negative. Yet, from time to time, hope surged up again, as it had today, in spite of my knowledge that my hope was an impossibility. Who ever heard of latent psi powers showing themselves in an individual as old as twenty-six?
I was almost alone in the parks where I used to walk, because people liked to commune with one another those days rather than with nature. Even gardening had very little popularity. But I found myself most at home in those woodland—or, rather, pseudo-woodland—surroundings, able to identify more readily with the trees and flowers than I could with my own kind. A fallen tree or a broken blossom would excite more sympathy from me than the minor catastrophes that will beset any household, no matter how gifted, and I would shy away from bloody noses or cut fingers, thus giving myself a reputation for callousness as well as extrasensory imbecility.
However, I was no more callous in steering clear of human breakdowns than I was in not shedding tears over the household machines when they broke down, for I felt no more closely akin to my parents and siblings than I did to the mechanisms that served and, sometimes, failed us.
On that day, I walked farther than I had intended and, by the time I got back home, I found the rest of my family had returned before me. They seemed to be excited about something and were surprised to see me so calm.
"Aren't you even interested in anything outside your own immediate concerns, Kev?" Sylvia demanded, despite Father's efforts to shush her.
"Can't you remember that Kev isn't able to receive the tellies?" Tim shot back at her. "He probably doesn't even know what's happened."
"Well, what did happen?" I asked, trying not to snap.
"One starship got back from Alpha Centauri," Danny said excitedly.
"There are two inhabited Earth-type planets there!"
This was for me; this was it at last! I tried not to show my enthusiasm, though I knew that was futile. My relatives could keep their thoughts and emotions from me; I couldn't keep mine from them.
"What kind of life inhabits them? Humanoid?"
"Uh-uh." Danny shook his head. "And hostile. The crew of the starship says they were attacked immediately on landing. When they turned and left, they were followed here by one of the alien ships. Must be a pretty advanced race to have spaceships. Anyhow, the extraterrestrial ship headed back as soon as it got a fix on where ours was going."
"But if they're hostile," I said thoughtfully, "it might mean war."
"Of course. That's why everybody's so wrought up. We hope it's peace, but we'll have to prepare for war just in case."
There hadn't been a war on Earth for well over a hundred years, but we hadn't been so foolish as to obliterate all knowledge of military techniques and weapons. The alien ship wouldn't be able to come back with reinforcements—if such were its intention—in less than six months. This meant time to get together a stockpile of weapons, though we had no idea of how effective our defenses would be against the aliens' armament.
They might have strange and terrible weapons against which we would be powerless. On the other hand, our side would have the benefits of telekinetically guided missiles, teleported saboteurs, telepaths to pick up the alien strategy, and prognosticators to determine the outcome of each battle and see whether it was worth fighting in the first place.
Everybody on Earth hoped for peace. Everybody, that is, except me. I had been unable to achieve any sense of identity with the world in which I lived, and it was almost worth the loss of personal survival to know that my own smug species could look silly against a still more talented race.
"It isn't so much our defense that worries me," my mother muttered, "as lack of adequate medical machinery. War is bound to mean casualties and there aren't enough cure-alls on the planet to take care of them. It's useless to expect the government to build more right now; they'll be too busy producing weapons. Sylvia, you'd better take a leave of absence from your job and come down to Psycho Center to learn first-aid techniques. And you too, Kevin," she added, obviously a little surprised herself at what she was saying. "Probably you'd be even better at it than Sylvia since you aren't sensitive to other people's pain."
I looked at her.
"It is an ill wind," she agreed, smiling wryly, "but don't let me catch you thinking that way, Kevin. Can't you see it would be better that there should be no war and you should remain useless?"
I couldn't see it, of course, and she knew that, with her wretched talent for stripping away my feeble attempts at privacy. Psi-powers usually included some ability to form a mental shield; being without one, I was necessarily devoid of the other.
My attitude didn't matter, though, because it was definitely war. The aliens came back with a fleet clearly bent on our annihilation—even the 'paths couldn't figure out their motives, for the thought pattern was entirely different from ours—and the war was on.
I had enjoyed learning first-aid; it was the first time I had ever worked with people as an equal. And I was good at it because psi-powers aren't much of an advantage there. Telekinesis maybe a little, but I was big enough to lift anybody without needing any superhuman abilities—normal human abilities, rather.
"Gee, Mr. Faraday," one of the other students breathed, "you're so strong. And without 'kinesis or anything."
I looked at her and liked what I saw. She was blonde and pretty. "My name's not Mr. Faraday," I said. "It's Kevin."
"My name's Lucy," she giggled.
No girl had ever giggled at me in that way before. Immediately I started to envision a beautiful future for the two of us, then flushed when I realized that she might be a telepath. But she was winding a tourniquet around the arm of another member of the class with apparent unconcern.
"Hey, quit that!" the windee yelled. "You're making it too tight! I'll be mortified!"
So Lucy was obviously not a telepath. Later I found out she was only a low-grade telesensitive—just a poetess—so I had nothing to worry about as far as having my thoughts read went. I was a little afraid of Sylvia's kidding me about my first romance, but, as it happened, she got interested in one of the guys who was taking the class with us, and she was not only too busy to be bothered with me, but in too vulnerable a position herself.
However, when the actual bombs—or their alien equivalent—struck near our town, I wasn't nearly so happy, especially after they started carrying the wounded into the Psycho Center, which had been turned into a hospital for the duration. I took one look at the gory scene—I had never seen anybody really injured before; few people had, as a matter of fact—and started for the door. But Mother was already blocking the way. It was easy to see from which side of the family Tim had got his talent for prognostication.
"If the telepaths who can pick up all the pain can stand this, Kevin," she said, " you certainly can." And there was no kindness at all in the you .
She gave me a shove toward the nearest stretcher. "Go on—now's your chance to show you're of some use in this world."
Gritting my teeth, I turned to the man on the stretcher. Something had pretty near torn half his face away. It was all there, but not in the right place, and it wasn't pretty. I turned away, caught my mother's eye, and then I didn't even dare to throw up. I looked at that smashed face again and all the first-aid lessons I'd had flew out of my head as if some super-psi had plucked them from me.
The man was bleeding terribly. I had never seen blood pouring out like that before. The first thing to do, I figured sickly, was mop it up. I wet a sponge and dabbed gingerly at the face, but my hands were shaking so hard that the sponge slipped and my fingers were on the raw gaping wound. I could feel the warm viscosity of the blood and nothing, not even my mother, could keep my meal down this time, I thought.
Mother had uttered a sound of exasperation as I dropped the sponge. I could hear her coming toward me. Then I heard her gasp. I looked at my patient and my mouth dropped open. For suddenly there was no wound, no wound at all—just a little blood and the fellow's face was whole again. Not even a scar.
"Wha—wha happened?" he asked. "It doesn't hurt any more!"
He touched his cheek and looked up at me with frightened eyes. And I was frightened, too—too frightened to be sick, too frightened to do anything but stare witlessly at him.
"Touch some of the others, quick!" my mother commanded, pushing astounded attendants away from stretchers.
I touched broken limbs and torn bodies and shattered heads, and they were whole again right away. Everybody in the room was looking at me in the way I had always dreamed of being looked at. Lucy was opening and shutting her beautiful mouth like a beautiful fish. In fact, the whole thing was just like a dream, except that I was awake. I couldn't have imagined all those horrors.
But the horrors soon weren't horrors any more. I began to find them almost pleasing; the worse a wound was, the more I appreciated it. There was so much more satisfaction, virtually an esthetic thrill, in seeing a horrible jagged tear smooth away, heal, not in days, as it would have done under the cure-all, but in seconds.
"Timothy was right," my mother said, her eyes filled with tears, "and I was wrong ever to have doubted. You have a gift, son—" and she said the word son loud and clear so that everybody could hear it—"the greatest gift of all, that of healing." She looked at me proudly. And Lucy and the others looked at me as if I were a god or something.
I felt ... well, good.
"I wonder why we never thought of healing as a potential psi-power," my mother said to me later, when I was catching a snatch of rest and she was lighting cigarettes and offering me cups of coffee in an attempt to make up twenty-six years of indifference, perhaps dislike, all at once.
"The ability to heal is recorded in history, only we never paid much attention to it."
"Recorded?" I asked, a little jealously.
"Of course," she smiled. "Remember the King's Evil?"
I should have known without her reminding me, after all the old books I had read. "Scrofula, wasn't it? They called it that because the touch of certain kings was supposed to cure it ... and other diseases, too, I guess."
She nodded. "Certain people must have had the healing power and that's probably why they originally got to be the rulers."
In a very short time, I became a pretty important person. All the other deficients in the world were tested for the healing power and all of them turned out negative. I proved to be the only human healer alive, and not only that, I could work a thousand times more efficiently and effectively than any of the machines. The government built a hospital just for my work! Wounded people were ferried there from all over the world and I cured them. I could do practically everything except raise the dead and sometimes I wondered whether, with a little practice, I wouldn't be able to do even that.
When I came to my new office, whom did I find waiting there for me but Lucy, her trim figure enhanced by a snug blue and white uniform. "I'm your assistant, Kev," she said shyly.
I looked at her. "You are?"
"I—I hope you want me," she went on, coyness now mixing with apprehension.
I gave her shoulder a squeeze. "I do want you, Lucy. More than I can tell you now. After all this is over, there's something more I want to say. But right now—" I clapped her arm—"there's a job to be done."
"Yes, Kevin," she said, glaring at me for some reason I didn't have time to investigate or interpret at the moment. My patients were waiting for me.
They gave me everything else I could possibly need, except enough sleep, and I myself didn't want that. I wanted to heal. I wanted to show my fellow human beings that, though I couldn't receive or transmit thoughts or foretell the future or move things with my mind, all those powers were useless without life, and that was what I could give.
I took pride in my work. It was good to stop pain and ugliness, to know that, if it weren't for me, these people would be dead or permanently disfigured. In a sense, they were—well, my children; I felt a warm glow of affection toward them.
They felt the same way toward me. I knew because the secret of the hospital soon leaked out—during all those years of peace, the government had lost whatever facility it had for keeping secrets—and people used to come in droves, hoping for a glimpse of me.
The government pointed out that such crowds outside the building might attract the enemy's attention. I was the most important individual on Earth, they told my followers, and my safety couldn't be risked. The human race at this stage was pretty docile. The crowds went away. And it was right that they should; I didn't want to be risked any more than they wanted to risk me.
Plenty of people did come to see me officially—the President, generals, all kinds of big wheels, bringing citations, medals and other obsolete honors they'd revived primarily for me. It was wonderful. I began to love everybody.
"Don't you think you're putting too much of yourself into this, Kev?" Lucy asked me one day.
I gave her an incredulous glance. "You mean I shouldn't help people?"
"Of course you should help them. I didn't mean anything like that. Just ... well, you're getting too bound up in your work."
"Why shouldn't I be?" Then the truth, as I thought, dawned on me. "Are you jealous, Lucy?"
She lowered her eyes. "Not only that, but the war's bound to come to an end, you know, and—"
It was the first part of her sentence that interested me. "Why, do you mean—"
And just then a fresh batch of casualties arrived and I had to tend to them. For the next few days, I was so busy, I didn't get the chance to have the long talk with Lucy I'd wanted....
Then, after only four months, the war suddenly stopped. It seemed that the aliens' weapons, despite their undeniable mysteriousness, were not equal to ours. And they had the added disadvantage of being light-years away from home base. So the remnant of their fleet took off and blew itself up just outside of Mars, which we understood to be the equivalent of unconditional surrender. And it was; we never heard from the Centaurians again.
Peace once more. I had a little mopping up to do at the hospital; then I collected my possessions and went back home after a dignitary—only the Vice President this time—had thanked me on behalf of a grateful country. I wasn't needed any more.
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What is the plot of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about A BOTTLE OF Old Wine by Richard O. Lewis.
Relevant chunks:
A grim tale of a future in which everyone is desperate to escape reality, and a hero who wants to have his wine and drink it, too.
A BOTTLE OF
Old Wine
By Richard O. Lewis
Illustrated by KELLY FREAS
Herbert Hyrel
settled himself more comfortably in his easy chair, extended his short legs further toward the fireplace, and let his eyes travel cautiously in the general direction of his wife.
She was in her chair as usual, her long legs curled up beneath her, the upper half of her face hidden in the bulk of her personalized, three-dimensional telovis. The telovis, of a stereoscopic nature, seemingly brought the performers with all their tinsel and color directly into the room of the watcher.
Hyrel had no way of seeing into the plastic affair she wore, but he guessed from the expression on the lower half of her face that she was watching one of the newer black-market sex-operas. In any event, there would be no sound, movement, or sign of life from her for the next three hours. To break the thread of the play for even a moment would ruin all the previous emotional build-up.
There had been a time when he hated her for those long and silent evenings, lonely hours during which he was completely ignored. It was different now, however, for those hours furnished him with time for an escape of his own.
His lips curled into a tight smile and his right hand fondled the unobtrusive switch beneath his trouser leg. He did not press the switch. He would wait a few minutes longer. But it was comforting to know that it was there, exhilarating to know that he could escape for a few hours by a mere flick of his finger.
He let his eyes stray to the dim light of the artificial flames in the fireplace. His hate for her was not bounded merely by those lonely hours she had forced upon him. No, it was far more encompassing.
He hated her with a deep, burning savagery that was deadly in its passion. He hated her for her money, the money she kept securely from him. He hated her for the paltry allowance she doled out to him, as if he were an irresponsible child. It was as if she were constantly reminding him in every glance and gesture, "I made a bad bargain when I married you. You wanted me, my money, everything, and had nothing to give in return except your own doltish self. You set a trap for me, baited with lies and a false front. Now you are caught in your own trap and will remain there like a mouse to eat from my hand whatever crumbs I stoop to give you."
But some day his hate would be appeased. Yes, some day soon he would kill her!
He shot a sideways glance at her, wondering if by chance she suspected.... She hadn't moved. Her lips were pouted into a half smile; the sex-opera had probably reached one of its more pleasurable moments.
Hyrel let his eyes shift back to the fireplace again. Yes, he would kill her. Then he would claim a rightful share of her money, be rid of her debasing dominance.
He let the
thought run around through his head, savoring it with mental taste buds. He would not kill her tonight. No, nor the next night. He would wait, wait until he had sucked the last measure of pleasure from the thought.
It was like having a bottle of rare old wine on a shelf where it could be viewed daily. It was like being able to pause again and again before the bottle, hold it up to the light, and say to it, "Some day, when my desire for you has reached the ultimate, I shall unstopper you quietly and sip you slowly to the last soul-satisfying drop." As long as the bottle remained there upon the shelf it was symbolic of that pleasurable moment....
He snapped out of his reverie and realized he had been wasting precious moments. There would be time enough tomorrow for gloating. Tonight, there were other things to do. Pleasurable things. He remembered the girl he had met the night before, and smiled smugly. Perhaps she would be awaiting him even now. If not, there would be another one....
He settled himself deeper into the chair, glanced once more at his wife, then let his head lean comfortably back against the chair's headrest. His hand upon his thigh felt the thin mesh that cloaked his body beneath his clothing like a sheer stocking. His fingers went again to the tiny switch. Again he hesitated.
Herbert Hyrel knew no more about the telporter suit he wore than he did about the radio in the corner, the TV set against the wall, or the personalized telovis his wife was wearing. You pressed one of the buttons on the radio; music came out. You pressed a button and clicked a dial on the TV; music and pictures came out. You pressed a button and made an adjustment on the telovis; three-dimensional, emotion-colored pictures leaped into the room. You pressed a tiny switch on the telporter suit; you were whisked away to a receiving set you had previously set up in secret.
He knew that the music and the images of the performers on the TV and telovis were brought to his room by some form of electrical impulse or wave while the actual musicians and performers remained in the studio. He knew that when he pressed the switch on his thigh something within him—his ectoplasm, higher self, the thing spirits use for materialization, whatever its real name—streamed out of him along an invisible channel, leaving his body behind in the chair in a conscious but dream-like state. His other self materialized in a small cabin in a hidden nook between a highway and a river where he had installed the receiving set a month ago.
He thought once more of the girl who might be waiting for him, smiled, and pressed the switch.
The dank air
of the cabin was chill to Herbert Hyrel's naked flesh. He fumbled through the darkness for the clothing he kept there, found his shorts and trousers, got hurriedly into them, then flicked on a pocket lighter and ignited a stub of candle upon the table. By the wavering light, he finished dressing in the black satin clothing, the white shirt, the flowing necktie and tam. He invoiced the contents of his billfold. Not much. And his monthly pittance was still two weeks away....
He had skimped for six months to salvage enough money from his allowance to make a down payment on the telporter suit. Since then, his expenses—monthly payments for the suit, cabin rent, costly liquor—had forced him to place his nights of escape on strict ration. He could not go on this way, he realized. Not now. Not since he had met the girl. He had to have more money. Perhaps he could not afford the luxury of leaving the wine bottle longer upon the shelf....
Riverside Club, where Hyrel arrived by bus and a hundred yards of walking, was exclusive. It catered to a clientele that had but three things in common: money, a desire for utter self-abandonment, and a sales slip indicating ownership of a telporter suit. The club was of necessity expensive, for self-telportation was strictly illegal, and police protection came high.
Herbert Hyrel adjusted his white, silken mask carefully at the door and shoved his sales slip through a small aperture where it was thoroughly scanned by unseen eyes. A buzzer sounded an instant later, the lock on the door clicked, and Hyrel pushed through into the exhilarating warmth of music and laughter.
The main room was large. Hidden lights along the walls sent slow beams of red, blue, vermillion, green, yellow and pink trailing across the domed ceiling in a heterogeneous pattern. The colored beams mingled, diffused, spread, were caught up by mirrors of various tints which diffused and mingled the lights once more until the whole effect was an ever-changing panorama of softly-melting shades.
The gay and bizarre costumes of the masked revelers on the dance floor and at the tables, unearthly in themselves, were made even more so by the altering light. Music flooded the room from unseen sources. Laughter—hysterical, drunken, filled with utter abandonment—came from the dance floor, the tables, and the private booths and rooms hidden cleverly within the walls.
Hyrel pushed himself to an unoccupied table, sat down and ordered a bottle of cheap whiskey. He would have preferred champagne, but his depleted finances forbade the more discriminate taste.
When his order arrived, he poured a glass tumbler half full and consumed it eagerly while his eyes scanned the room in search of the girl. He couldn't see her in the dim swirl of color. Had she arrived? Perhaps she was wearing a different costume than she had the night before. If so, recognition might prove difficult.
He poured himself another drink, promising himself he would go in search of her when the liquor began to take effect.
A woman clad in the revealing garb of a Persian dancer threw an arm about him from behind and kissed him on the cheek through the veil which covered the lower part of her face.
"Hi, honey," she giggled into his ear. "Havin' a time?"
He reached for the white arm to pull her to him, but she eluded his grasp and reeled away into the waiting arms of a tall toreador. Hyrel gulped his whiskey and watched her nestle into the arms of her partner and begin with him a sinuous, suggestive dance. The whiskey had begun its warming effect, and he laughed.
This was the land of the lotus eaters, the sanctuary of the escapists, the haven of all who wished to cast off their shell of inhibition and become the thing they dreamed themselves to be. Here one could be among his own kind, an actor upon a gay stage, a gaudy butterfly metamorphosed from the slug, a knight of old.
The Persian dancing girl was probably the wife of a boorish oaf whose idea of romance was spending an evening telling his wife how he came to be a successful bank president. But she had found her means of escape. Perhaps she had pleaded a sick headache and had retired to her room. And there upon the bed now reposed her shell of reality while her inner self, the shadowy one, completely materialized, became an exotic thing from the East in this never-never land.
The man, the toreador, had probably closeted himself within his library with a set of account books and had left strict orders not to be disturbed until he had finished with them.
Both would have terrific hangovers in the morning. But that, of course, would be fully compensated for by the memories of the evening.
Hyrel chuckled. The situation struck him as being funny: the shadowy self got drunk and had a good time, and the outer husk suffered the hangover in the morning. Strange. Strange how a device such as the telporter suit could cause the shadow of each bodily cell to leave the body, materialize, and become a reality in its own right. And yet ...
He looked
at the heel of his left hand. There was a long, irregular scar there. It was the result of a cut he had received nearly three weeks ago when he had fallen over this very table and had rammed his hand into a sliver of broken champagne glass. Later that evening, upon re-telporting back home, the pain of the cut had remained in his hand, but there was no sign of the cut itself on the hand of his outer self. The scar was peculiar to the shadowy body only. There was something about the shadowy body that carried the hurts to the outer body, but not the scars....
Sudden laughter broke out near him, and he turned quickly in that direction. A group of gaily costumed revelers was standing in a semi-circle about a small mound of clothing upon the floor. It was the costume of the toreador.
Hyrel laughed, too. It had happened many times before—a costume suddenly left empty as its owner, due to a threat of discovery at home, had had to press the switch in haste to bring his shadowy self—and complete consciousness—back to his outer self in a hurry.
A waiter picked up the clothing. He would put it safely away so that the owner could claim it upon his next visit to the club. Another waiter placed a fresh bottle of whiskey on the table before Hyrel, and Hyrel paid him for it.
The whiskey, reaching his head now in surges of warm cheerfulness, was filling him with abandonment, courage, and a desire for merriment. He pushed himself up from the table, joined the merry throng, threw his arm about the Persian dancer, drew her close.
They began dancing slowly to the throbbing rhythm, dancing and holding on to each other tightly. Hyrel could feel her hot breath through her veil upon his neck, adding to the headiness of the liquor. His feeling of depression and inferiority flowed suddenly from him. Once again he was the all-conquering male.
His arm trembled as it drew her still closer to him and he began dancing directly and purposefully toward the shadows of a clump of artificial palms near one corner of the room. There was an exit to the garden behind the palms.
Half way there they passed a secluded booth from which protruded a long leg clad in black mesh stocking. Hyrel paused as he recognized that part of the costume. It was she! The girl! The one he had met so briefly the night before!
His arm slid away from the Persian dancer, took hold of the mesh-clad leg, and pulled. A female form followed the leg from the booth and fell into his arms. He held her tightly, kissed her white neck, let her perfume send his thoughts reeling.
"Been looking for me, honey?" she whispered, her voice deep and throaty.
"You know it!"
He began whisking her away toward the palms. The Persian girl was pulled into the booth.
Yes, she was wearing the same costume she had worn the night before, that of a can-can dancer of the 90's. The mesh hose that encased her shapely legs were held up by flowered supporters in such a manner as to leave four inches of white leg exposed between hose top and lacy panties. Her skirt, frilled to suggest innumerable petticoats, fell away at each hip, leaving the front open to expose the full length of legs. She wore a wig of platinum hair encrusted with jewels that sparkled in the lights. Her jewel-studded mask was as white as her hair and covered the upper half of her face, except for the large almond slits for her eyes. A white purse, jewel crusted, dangled from one arm.
He stopped once before reaching the palms, drew her closer, kissed her long and ardently. Then he began pulling her on again.
She drew back when they reached the shelter of the fronds.
"Champagne, first," she whispered huskily into his ear.
His heart sank. He had very little money left. Well, it might buy a cheap brand....
She sipped
her champagne slowly and provocatively across the table from him. Her eyes sparkled behind the almond slits of her mask, caught the color changes and cast them back. She was wearing contact lenses of a garish green.
He wished she would hurry with her drink. He had horrible visions of his wife at home taking off her telovis and coming to his chair. He would then have to press the switch that would jerk his shadowy self back along its invisible connecting cord, jerk him back and leave but a small mound of clothes upon the chair at the table.
Deep depression laid hold of him. He would not be able to see her after tonight until he received his monthly dole two weeks hence. She wouldn't wait that long. Someone else would have her.
Unless ...
Yes, he knew now that he was going to kill his wife as soon as the opportunity presented itself. It would be a simple matter. With the aid of the telporter suit, he could establish an iron-clad alibi.
He took a long drink of whiskey and looked at the dancers about him. Sight of their gay costumes heightened his depression. He was wearing a cheap suit of satin, all he could afford. But some day soon he would show them! Some time soon he would be dressed as gaily....
"Something troubling you, honey?"
His gaze shot back to her and she blurred slightly before his eyes.
"No. Nothing at all!" He summoned a sickly smile and clutched her hand in his. "Come on. Let's dance."
He drew her from the chair and into his arms. She melted toward him as if desiring to become a part of him. A tremor of excitement surged through him and threatened to turn his knees into quivering jelly. He could not make his feet conform to the flooding rhythm of the music. He half stumbled, half pushed her along past the booths.
In the shelter of the palms he drew her savagely to him. "Let's—let's go outside." His voice was little more than a croak.
"But, honey!" She pushed herself away, her low voice maddening him. "Don't you have a private room? A girl doesn't like to be taken outside...."
Her words bit into his brain like the blade of a hot knife.
No, he didn't have a private room at the club like the others. A private room for his telporter receiver, a private room where he could take a willing guest. No! He couldn't afford it! No! No! NO! His lot was a cheap suit of satin! Cheap whiskey! Cheap champagne! A cheap shack by the river....
An inarticulate cry escaped his twisted lips. He clutched her roughly to him and dragged her through the door and into the moonlight, whiskey and anger lending him brutal strength.
He pulled her through the deserted garden. All the others had private rooms! He pulled her to the far end, behind a clump of squatty firs. His hands clawed at her. He tried to smother her mouth with kisses.
She eluded him deftly. "But, honey !" Her voice had gone deeper into her throat. "I just want to be sure about things. If you can't afford one of the private rooms—if you can't afford to show me a good time—if you can't come here real often ..."
The whiskey pounded and throbbed at his brain like blows from an unseen club. His ego curled and twisted within him like a headless serpent.
"I'll have money!" he shouted, struggling to hold her. "I'll have plenty of money! After tonight!"
"Then we'll wait," she said.
"We'll wait until tomorrow night."
"No!" he screamed. "You don't believe me! You're like the others! You think I'm no good! But I'll show you! I'll show all of you!"
She had gone
coldly rigid in his arms, unyielding.
Madness added to the pounding in his brain. Tears welled into his eyes.
"I'll show you! I'll kill her! Then I'll have money!" The hands clutching her shoulders shook her drunkenly. "You wait here! I'll go home and kill her now! Then I'll be back!"
"Silly boy!" Her low laughter rang hollowly in his ears. "And just who is it you are going to kill?"
"My wife!" he cried. "My wife! I'll ..."
A sudden sobering thought struck him. He was talking too much. And he wasn't making sense. He shouldn't be telling her this. Anyway, he couldn't get the money tonight even if he did kill his wife.
"And so you are going to kill your wife...."
He blinked the tears from his eyes. His chest was heaving, his heart pounding. He looked at her shimmering form. "Y-yes," he whispered.
Her eyes glinted strangely in the light of the moon. Her handbag glinted as she opened it, and something she took from it glittered coldly in her hand.
"Fool!"
The first shot tore squarely through his heart. And while he stood staring at her, mouth agape, a second shot burned its way through his bewildered brain.
Mrs. Herbert Hyrel
removed the telovis from her head and laid it carefully aside. She uncoiled her long legs from beneath her, walked to her husband's chair, and stood for a long moment looking down at him, her lips drawn back in contempt. Then she bent over him and reached down his thigh until her fingers contacted the small switch.
Seconds later, a slight tremor shook Hyrel's body. His eyes snapped open, air escaped his lungs, his lower jaw sagged inanely, and his head lolled to one side.
She stood a moment longer, watching his eyes become glazed and sightless. Then she walked to the telephone.
"Police?" she said. "This is Mrs. Herbert Hyrel. Something horrible has happened to my husband. Please come over immediately. Bring a doctor."
She hung up, went to her bathroom, stripped off her clothing, and slid carefully out of her telporter suit. This she folded neatly and tucked away into the false back of the medicine cabinet. She found a fresh pair of blue, plastifur pajamas and got into them.
She was just arriving back into the living room, tying the cord of her dressing gown about her slim waist, when she heard the sound of the police siren out front.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science Fiction July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
|
[
"The story begins in a living room where a husband and wife sit in their respective chairs, the wife wearing a headset called a telovis. The husband, Herbert Hyrel, figures she is watching a sex-opera as her escapist entertainment of choice, and waits a few minutes to start his own entertainment. As we waits, he considers his anger towards his wife: he no longer resented the time she spent not talking to him, while utilizing her telovis, but he did hate that she controlled the purse-strings in the household and gave him a small allowance. His anger had been pent up for some time, enough that he wanted to kill his wife, but for now he was satisfied with the idea of killing her. Once enough time had passed, he flicked a switch on the teleporter suit he was wearing and a version of his body appeared in a cabin in the woods that he was renting, where he had left himself a fresh outfit. He headed to the Riverside Club where he hoped to encounter a woman he had met recently, and when he got there he sat down and drank some cheap whiskey. He encountered a costumed woman who teased him, pulled away to dance with someone else, but came back to dance with him once the man she was with disappeared. This man had flipped the switch on his suit, disappearing and leaving behind a pile of clothes, presumably because he would have been discovered wherever his original body was. As Herbert danced and moved outside, he spotted the woman he had been looking for, wearing a suggestive costume and a platinum wig, her body and her purse all covered in jewels. She asked him for champagne, which he was upset about because he did not have much money, but he obliged and tried to move the night forward after he had had something to drink. Again, though, she requested he spend more money on her--this time, for a private room at the club so they did not have to be outside. She said she was asking him to prove to her that she could be spoiled, but this pressure reminded him how angry he was that he had to spend the little money he had trying to escape from his wife, budgeting in a way that limited his nights out just to have some privacy. He started yelling about how he would have more money soon, and eventually admitted that he would kill his wife to get it. Hearing this, the woman he was with pulled a gun out of her purse and shot him--it was his wife all along. The scene jumps back to the house, where the wife pulls off her telovis set, smugly turns off her husband's teleporter suit, and watches him gasp for air and die. She called the police to call for a doctor, hid her own teleporter suit, and waited for the police to show.",
"Herbert Hyrel finds himself in a loveless and difficult marriage. His wife has withdrawn herself, sticking to her televois or 3-D TV, and only gives him a monthly allowance. Her generational wealth makes him feel emasculated and weak, which only strengthens his hatred for her. Hyrel has recently invested in a teleporter suit, one that took him six months of saving to put the down payment on. This suit allows him to leave his corporeal body and travel to a shadow realm, where his conscious spirit can roam free. He uses this to drink, party, meet women, and escape from his wife and true reality. \nHe’s looking forward to traveling again, because of the woman he met last time in the flapper outfit. He hopes that this night will be the night she gives herself to him. After soaking in the wonderful thoughts of murdering his wife--which he plans to do as soon as the thought no longer brings him joy--Hyrel flicks the switch on his teleporter suit and arrives naked in a small cabin. Quickly, he changes into his cheap satin suit and makes his way to Riverside Club by taking the bus and walking. Once there, he orders a bottle of cheap whiskey, thanks to his depleting funds, and watches the masked dancers around him. A woman in a Persian-themed costume kisses him on the cheek but leaves him for another man. That man suddenly disappears, leaving only his costume behind. Hyrel reveals that those who get hurt in the shadow realm carry the hurt back with them in the real world. For example, he cut his hand in Riverside Club, and the pain traveled with him, but not the scar. \nThe Persian dancer joins him again, and they start to leave the club. He’s drawn to another woman the same from the night before. He swaps ladies and dances with her instead. She asks for champagne, which he reluctantly purchases. \nThey drink, and then he forces her out of the club. Feeling less-than, he forces himself on her, trying to kiss and grope her. She keeps asking him if he has enough money for her, where his private room is, and if he’ll be coming back soon. This only emasculates him more and he soon explodes, telling her that he’s going to kill his wife so he can finally have her money and do what he wants. \nThe flapper pulls out a gun and shoots him in the head and brain. She flicks the switch, and Mrs. Hyrel wakes up in her chair. She flicks the switch on Herbert, and he comes back in a vegetative state since his body brought back the pain, but not the scar. She calls the police, alibi in check, then removes and hides her teleporter suit. She puts on a pair of blue pajamas then meets the police at the door. \n",
"Herbert Hyrel is a man in an unhappy marriage who plots to murder his wife in order to be rid of her and inherit her money. Herbert despises the way his wife looks at him, and he imagines her denigrating him as a gold-digger with nothing to offer a woman, so he privately purchases a telporter suit--a thin, mesh body cover that can be worn under one's clothes and is used to transport the wearer's \"shadowy self\" to a receiver previously set in secret. While he believes his wife is watching a sex-opera using her telovis (a 3-D imaging device), Herbert engages the telporter and transports himself to a cabin situated between a highway and a river. There, he changes clothes and walks to the Riverside Club (a place where owners of telporter suits can gather to escape their dreary outer lives) where he plans to meet a girl he had met the previous night. Because telporting oneself is illegal, rooms at the club are very expensive in order to cover the costs of police protection and Herbert cannot afford a private room there with the allowance his wife gives him. The club is colorful and full of costumed, masked partyers, dancing together and drinking champagne. Herbert purchases a bottle of whiskey because he cannot afford the expensive champagne. As Herbert drinks, he becomes more relaxed and confident, and he watches a woman dressed in a Persian costume dancing with a man dressed as a bullfighter. Soon after, the bullfighter disappears, and Herbert is reminded that sometimes people at the club vanish suddenly when there is a threat they will be discovered in their outer lives. He also notices a scar on his hand and is reminded that when someone's shadow self is injured, their outer husk retains the feeling of pain but not the scar. Herbert dances with the Persian-costumed woman and becomes steadily more intoxicated by drink and by the atmosphere of revelry. Eventually, he finds the girl he had met the night before, recognizing her by her long, stockinged legs. She wears a platinum wig, a white mask, and green contact lenses, and they dance together and kiss. The drunker Herbert becomes, the more insecure he feels about his ability to satisfy the woman, and he begins lashing out at her, accidentally revealing his plans to kill his wife in order to take her money so he can start a new life with the mysterious woman. The woman laughs at him, and she withdraws a gun from her purse and shoots Herbert twice--once in the heart and then in the head. The woman is actually Mrs. Herbert Hyrel, and she has been using her own telporter suit to expose Herbert and dispose of him herself. Because Herbert’s gunshot wounds do not transfer with his shadowy self back to his outer body, it appears as if Herbert simply died. Mrs. Herbert Hyrel calls the police, hides the telporter suits, and awaits their arrival.",
"Herbert Hyrel and his wife have an unhappy marriage. Herbert hates his wife and feels as if she thinks she is better than he is. She has money but only gives him a small allowance, and he resents her for this. She isn’t fond of him either. Every night, she puts on her telovis for about three hours. Herbert thinks she is watching black-market sex-operas. Once she is caught up in the program, he uses his teleporter suit to escape to the Riverside Club. This is an exclusive club for people with teleporter suits, money, and a desire for self-abandonment. People go there to escape their boring, unpleasant lives and wear costumes to hide their identities while they engage in drunken, sexually-abandoned activities. Herbert has met a girl there and wants to see her again. He looks for her when he first arrives but doesn’t see her, so he is interested in a Persian dancing girl who flirts with him. She is with a man dressed as a toreador. Herbert catches a glimpse of the scar on his hand where he had cut it at the club three weeks ago. In his unteleported body, he feels the pain of the cut but has no cut. \n\tLater in the evening, the toreador disappears from the dance floor, leaving behind a pool of his clothes. This means that he had to teleport back to his real life immediately; it is something that has happened many times at the club. Emboldened by his whiskey, Herbert moves in and embraces the Persian dancing girl. He draws her toward the exit to the gardens when he sees a long leg wearing a black mesh stocking protruding from a private booth. That is what the girl from the previous evening was wearing. He pulls the stockinged girl from the booth and dances with her. The stockinged girl is wearing a can-can dancer costume. She insists on having a glass of champagne before Herbert takes her outside. While she drinks, he worries that he won’t be able to see her again until he gets his next allowance in two weeks and that she will find someone else in the meantime. He decides that he is going to kill his wife so he can have her money. When he tries to take the girl outside, she resists. She lets him know she wants him to have the money for a private room, show her a good time, and come see her often. He tells her he’ll have plenty of money after tonight and that he will kill his wife to get it. The dancer pulls a gun from her purse and shoots him. \n\tMrs. Hyrel removes her telovis and pushes Herbert’s teleport button to bring him back. His eyes open, and then he dies. She calls the police, saying something horrible has happened to her husband. Then she changes clothes, removing her teleporter suit, and hiding it behind a hidden door at the back of the medicine cabinet.\n"
] |
30004
|
A grim tale of a future in which everyone is desperate to escape reality, and a hero who wants to have his wine and drink it, too.
A BOTTLE OF
Old Wine
By Richard O. Lewis
Illustrated by KELLY FREAS
Herbert Hyrel
settled himself more comfortably in his easy chair, extended his short legs further toward the fireplace, and let his eyes travel cautiously in the general direction of his wife.
She was in her chair as usual, her long legs curled up beneath her, the upper half of her face hidden in the bulk of her personalized, three-dimensional telovis. The telovis, of a stereoscopic nature, seemingly brought the performers with all their tinsel and color directly into the room of the watcher.
Hyrel had no way of seeing into the plastic affair she wore, but he guessed from the expression on the lower half of her face that she was watching one of the newer black-market sex-operas. In any event, there would be no sound, movement, or sign of life from her for the next three hours. To break the thread of the play for even a moment would ruin all the previous emotional build-up.
There had been a time when he hated her for those long and silent evenings, lonely hours during which he was completely ignored. It was different now, however, for those hours furnished him with time for an escape of his own.
His lips curled into a tight smile and his right hand fondled the unobtrusive switch beneath his trouser leg. He did not press the switch. He would wait a few minutes longer. But it was comforting to know that it was there, exhilarating to know that he could escape for a few hours by a mere flick of his finger.
He let his eyes stray to the dim light of the artificial flames in the fireplace. His hate for her was not bounded merely by those lonely hours she had forced upon him. No, it was far more encompassing.
He hated her with a deep, burning savagery that was deadly in its passion. He hated her for her money, the money she kept securely from him. He hated her for the paltry allowance she doled out to him, as if he were an irresponsible child. It was as if she were constantly reminding him in every glance and gesture, "I made a bad bargain when I married you. You wanted me, my money, everything, and had nothing to give in return except your own doltish self. You set a trap for me, baited with lies and a false front. Now you are caught in your own trap and will remain there like a mouse to eat from my hand whatever crumbs I stoop to give you."
But some day his hate would be appeased. Yes, some day soon he would kill her!
He shot a sideways glance at her, wondering if by chance she suspected.... She hadn't moved. Her lips were pouted into a half smile; the sex-opera had probably reached one of its more pleasurable moments.
Hyrel let his eyes shift back to the fireplace again. Yes, he would kill her. Then he would claim a rightful share of her money, be rid of her debasing dominance.
He let the
thought run around through his head, savoring it with mental taste buds. He would not kill her tonight. No, nor the next night. He would wait, wait until he had sucked the last measure of pleasure from the thought.
It was like having a bottle of rare old wine on a shelf where it could be viewed daily. It was like being able to pause again and again before the bottle, hold it up to the light, and say to it, "Some day, when my desire for you has reached the ultimate, I shall unstopper you quietly and sip you slowly to the last soul-satisfying drop." As long as the bottle remained there upon the shelf it was symbolic of that pleasurable moment....
He snapped out of his reverie and realized he had been wasting precious moments. There would be time enough tomorrow for gloating. Tonight, there were other things to do. Pleasurable things. He remembered the girl he had met the night before, and smiled smugly. Perhaps she would be awaiting him even now. If not, there would be another one....
He settled himself deeper into the chair, glanced once more at his wife, then let his head lean comfortably back against the chair's headrest. His hand upon his thigh felt the thin mesh that cloaked his body beneath his clothing like a sheer stocking. His fingers went again to the tiny switch. Again he hesitated.
Herbert Hyrel knew no more about the telporter suit he wore than he did about the radio in the corner, the TV set against the wall, or the personalized telovis his wife was wearing. You pressed one of the buttons on the radio; music came out. You pressed a button and clicked a dial on the TV; music and pictures came out. You pressed a button and made an adjustment on the telovis; three-dimensional, emotion-colored pictures leaped into the room. You pressed a tiny switch on the telporter suit; you were whisked away to a receiving set you had previously set up in secret.
He knew that the music and the images of the performers on the TV and telovis were brought to his room by some form of electrical impulse or wave while the actual musicians and performers remained in the studio. He knew that when he pressed the switch on his thigh something within him—his ectoplasm, higher self, the thing spirits use for materialization, whatever its real name—streamed out of him along an invisible channel, leaving his body behind in the chair in a conscious but dream-like state. His other self materialized in a small cabin in a hidden nook between a highway and a river where he had installed the receiving set a month ago.
He thought once more of the girl who might be waiting for him, smiled, and pressed the switch.
The dank air
of the cabin was chill to Herbert Hyrel's naked flesh. He fumbled through the darkness for the clothing he kept there, found his shorts and trousers, got hurriedly into them, then flicked on a pocket lighter and ignited a stub of candle upon the table. By the wavering light, he finished dressing in the black satin clothing, the white shirt, the flowing necktie and tam. He invoiced the contents of his billfold. Not much. And his monthly pittance was still two weeks away....
He had skimped for six months to salvage enough money from his allowance to make a down payment on the telporter suit. Since then, his expenses—monthly payments for the suit, cabin rent, costly liquor—had forced him to place his nights of escape on strict ration. He could not go on this way, he realized. Not now. Not since he had met the girl. He had to have more money. Perhaps he could not afford the luxury of leaving the wine bottle longer upon the shelf....
Riverside Club, where Hyrel arrived by bus and a hundred yards of walking, was exclusive. It catered to a clientele that had but three things in common: money, a desire for utter self-abandonment, and a sales slip indicating ownership of a telporter suit. The club was of necessity expensive, for self-telportation was strictly illegal, and police protection came high.
Herbert Hyrel adjusted his white, silken mask carefully at the door and shoved his sales slip through a small aperture where it was thoroughly scanned by unseen eyes. A buzzer sounded an instant later, the lock on the door clicked, and Hyrel pushed through into the exhilarating warmth of music and laughter.
The main room was large. Hidden lights along the walls sent slow beams of red, blue, vermillion, green, yellow and pink trailing across the domed ceiling in a heterogeneous pattern. The colored beams mingled, diffused, spread, were caught up by mirrors of various tints which diffused and mingled the lights once more until the whole effect was an ever-changing panorama of softly-melting shades.
The gay and bizarre costumes of the masked revelers on the dance floor and at the tables, unearthly in themselves, were made even more so by the altering light. Music flooded the room from unseen sources. Laughter—hysterical, drunken, filled with utter abandonment—came from the dance floor, the tables, and the private booths and rooms hidden cleverly within the walls.
Hyrel pushed himself to an unoccupied table, sat down and ordered a bottle of cheap whiskey. He would have preferred champagne, but his depleted finances forbade the more discriminate taste.
When his order arrived, he poured a glass tumbler half full and consumed it eagerly while his eyes scanned the room in search of the girl. He couldn't see her in the dim swirl of color. Had she arrived? Perhaps she was wearing a different costume than she had the night before. If so, recognition might prove difficult.
He poured himself another drink, promising himself he would go in search of her when the liquor began to take effect.
A woman clad in the revealing garb of a Persian dancer threw an arm about him from behind and kissed him on the cheek through the veil which covered the lower part of her face.
"Hi, honey," she giggled into his ear. "Havin' a time?"
He reached for the white arm to pull her to him, but she eluded his grasp and reeled away into the waiting arms of a tall toreador. Hyrel gulped his whiskey and watched her nestle into the arms of her partner and begin with him a sinuous, suggestive dance. The whiskey had begun its warming effect, and he laughed.
This was the land of the lotus eaters, the sanctuary of the escapists, the haven of all who wished to cast off their shell of inhibition and become the thing they dreamed themselves to be. Here one could be among his own kind, an actor upon a gay stage, a gaudy butterfly metamorphosed from the slug, a knight of old.
The Persian dancing girl was probably the wife of a boorish oaf whose idea of romance was spending an evening telling his wife how he came to be a successful bank president. But she had found her means of escape. Perhaps she had pleaded a sick headache and had retired to her room. And there upon the bed now reposed her shell of reality while her inner self, the shadowy one, completely materialized, became an exotic thing from the East in this never-never land.
The man, the toreador, had probably closeted himself within his library with a set of account books and had left strict orders not to be disturbed until he had finished with them.
Both would have terrific hangovers in the morning. But that, of course, would be fully compensated for by the memories of the evening.
Hyrel chuckled. The situation struck him as being funny: the shadowy self got drunk and had a good time, and the outer husk suffered the hangover in the morning. Strange. Strange how a device such as the telporter suit could cause the shadow of each bodily cell to leave the body, materialize, and become a reality in its own right. And yet ...
He looked
at the heel of his left hand. There was a long, irregular scar there. It was the result of a cut he had received nearly three weeks ago when he had fallen over this very table and had rammed his hand into a sliver of broken champagne glass. Later that evening, upon re-telporting back home, the pain of the cut had remained in his hand, but there was no sign of the cut itself on the hand of his outer self. The scar was peculiar to the shadowy body only. There was something about the shadowy body that carried the hurts to the outer body, but not the scars....
Sudden laughter broke out near him, and he turned quickly in that direction. A group of gaily costumed revelers was standing in a semi-circle about a small mound of clothing upon the floor. It was the costume of the toreador.
Hyrel laughed, too. It had happened many times before—a costume suddenly left empty as its owner, due to a threat of discovery at home, had had to press the switch in haste to bring his shadowy self—and complete consciousness—back to his outer self in a hurry.
A waiter picked up the clothing. He would put it safely away so that the owner could claim it upon his next visit to the club. Another waiter placed a fresh bottle of whiskey on the table before Hyrel, and Hyrel paid him for it.
The whiskey, reaching his head now in surges of warm cheerfulness, was filling him with abandonment, courage, and a desire for merriment. He pushed himself up from the table, joined the merry throng, threw his arm about the Persian dancer, drew her close.
They began dancing slowly to the throbbing rhythm, dancing and holding on to each other tightly. Hyrel could feel her hot breath through her veil upon his neck, adding to the headiness of the liquor. His feeling of depression and inferiority flowed suddenly from him. Once again he was the all-conquering male.
His arm trembled as it drew her still closer to him and he began dancing directly and purposefully toward the shadows of a clump of artificial palms near one corner of the room. There was an exit to the garden behind the palms.
Half way there they passed a secluded booth from which protruded a long leg clad in black mesh stocking. Hyrel paused as he recognized that part of the costume. It was she! The girl! The one he had met so briefly the night before!
His arm slid away from the Persian dancer, took hold of the mesh-clad leg, and pulled. A female form followed the leg from the booth and fell into his arms. He held her tightly, kissed her white neck, let her perfume send his thoughts reeling.
"Been looking for me, honey?" she whispered, her voice deep and throaty.
"You know it!"
He began whisking her away toward the palms. The Persian girl was pulled into the booth.
Yes, she was wearing the same costume she had worn the night before, that of a can-can dancer of the 90's. The mesh hose that encased her shapely legs were held up by flowered supporters in such a manner as to leave four inches of white leg exposed between hose top and lacy panties. Her skirt, frilled to suggest innumerable petticoats, fell away at each hip, leaving the front open to expose the full length of legs. She wore a wig of platinum hair encrusted with jewels that sparkled in the lights. Her jewel-studded mask was as white as her hair and covered the upper half of her face, except for the large almond slits for her eyes. A white purse, jewel crusted, dangled from one arm.
He stopped once before reaching the palms, drew her closer, kissed her long and ardently. Then he began pulling her on again.
She drew back when they reached the shelter of the fronds.
"Champagne, first," she whispered huskily into his ear.
His heart sank. He had very little money left. Well, it might buy a cheap brand....
She sipped
her champagne slowly and provocatively across the table from him. Her eyes sparkled behind the almond slits of her mask, caught the color changes and cast them back. She was wearing contact lenses of a garish green.
He wished she would hurry with her drink. He had horrible visions of his wife at home taking off her telovis and coming to his chair. He would then have to press the switch that would jerk his shadowy self back along its invisible connecting cord, jerk him back and leave but a small mound of clothes upon the chair at the table.
Deep depression laid hold of him. He would not be able to see her after tonight until he received his monthly dole two weeks hence. She wouldn't wait that long. Someone else would have her.
Unless ...
Yes, he knew now that he was going to kill his wife as soon as the opportunity presented itself. It would be a simple matter. With the aid of the telporter suit, he could establish an iron-clad alibi.
He took a long drink of whiskey and looked at the dancers about him. Sight of their gay costumes heightened his depression. He was wearing a cheap suit of satin, all he could afford. But some day soon he would show them! Some time soon he would be dressed as gaily....
"Something troubling you, honey?"
His gaze shot back to her and she blurred slightly before his eyes.
"No. Nothing at all!" He summoned a sickly smile and clutched her hand in his. "Come on. Let's dance."
He drew her from the chair and into his arms. She melted toward him as if desiring to become a part of him. A tremor of excitement surged through him and threatened to turn his knees into quivering jelly. He could not make his feet conform to the flooding rhythm of the music. He half stumbled, half pushed her along past the booths.
In the shelter of the palms he drew her savagely to him. "Let's—let's go outside." His voice was little more than a croak.
"But, honey!" She pushed herself away, her low voice maddening him. "Don't you have a private room? A girl doesn't like to be taken outside...."
Her words bit into his brain like the blade of a hot knife.
No, he didn't have a private room at the club like the others. A private room for his telporter receiver, a private room where he could take a willing guest. No! He couldn't afford it! No! No! NO! His lot was a cheap suit of satin! Cheap whiskey! Cheap champagne! A cheap shack by the river....
An inarticulate cry escaped his twisted lips. He clutched her roughly to him and dragged her through the door and into the moonlight, whiskey and anger lending him brutal strength.
He pulled her through the deserted garden. All the others had private rooms! He pulled her to the far end, behind a clump of squatty firs. His hands clawed at her. He tried to smother her mouth with kisses.
She eluded him deftly. "But, honey !" Her voice had gone deeper into her throat. "I just want to be sure about things. If you can't afford one of the private rooms—if you can't afford to show me a good time—if you can't come here real often ..."
The whiskey pounded and throbbed at his brain like blows from an unseen club. His ego curled and twisted within him like a headless serpent.
"I'll have money!" he shouted, struggling to hold her. "I'll have plenty of money! After tonight!"
"Then we'll wait," she said.
"We'll wait until tomorrow night."
"No!" he screamed. "You don't believe me! You're like the others! You think I'm no good! But I'll show you! I'll show all of you!"
She had gone
coldly rigid in his arms, unyielding.
Madness added to the pounding in his brain. Tears welled into his eyes.
"I'll show you! I'll kill her! Then I'll have money!" The hands clutching her shoulders shook her drunkenly. "You wait here! I'll go home and kill her now! Then I'll be back!"
"Silly boy!" Her low laughter rang hollowly in his ears. "And just who is it you are going to kill?"
"My wife!" he cried. "My wife! I'll ..."
A sudden sobering thought struck him. He was talking too much. And he wasn't making sense. He shouldn't be telling her this. Anyway, he couldn't get the money tonight even if he did kill his wife.
"And so you are going to kill your wife...."
He blinked the tears from his eyes. His chest was heaving, his heart pounding. He looked at her shimmering form. "Y-yes," he whispered.
Her eyes glinted strangely in the light of the moon. Her handbag glinted as she opened it, and something she took from it glittered coldly in her hand.
"Fool!"
The first shot tore squarely through his heart. And while he stood staring at her, mouth agape, a second shot burned its way through his bewildered brain.
Mrs. Herbert Hyrel
removed the telovis from her head and laid it carefully aside. She uncoiled her long legs from beneath her, walked to her husband's chair, and stood for a long moment looking down at him, her lips drawn back in contempt. Then she bent over him and reached down his thigh until her fingers contacted the small switch.
Seconds later, a slight tremor shook Hyrel's body. His eyes snapped open, air escaped his lungs, his lower jaw sagged inanely, and his head lolled to one side.
She stood a moment longer, watching his eyes become glazed and sightless. Then she walked to the telephone.
"Police?" she said. "This is Mrs. Herbert Hyrel. Something horrible has happened to my husband. Please come over immediately. Bring a doctor."
She hung up, went to her bathroom, stripped off her clothing, and slid carefully out of her telporter suit. This she folded neatly and tucked away into the false back of the medicine cabinet. She found a fresh pair of blue, plastifur pajamas and got into them.
She was just arriving back into the living room, tying the cord of her dressing gown about her slim waist, when she heard the sound of the police siren out front.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science Fiction July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
|
What kinds of rules were introduced to the United Universe by different planets and for what reasons?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Tea Tray in the Sky by Evelyn E. Smith.
Relevant chunks:
Tea Tray in the Sky
By EVELYN E. SMITH
Illustrated by ASHMAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Visiting a society is tougher than being born into it. A 40 credit tour is no substitute!
The picture changed on the illuminated panel that filled the forward end of the shelf on which Michael lay. A haggard blonde woman sprawled apathetically in a chair.
"Rundown, nervous, hypertensive?" inquired a mellifluous voice. "In need of mental therapy? Buy Grugis juice; it's not expensive. And they swear by it on Meropé."
A disembodied pair of hands administered a spoonful of Grugis juice to the woman, whereupon her hair turned bright yellow, makeup bloomed on her face, her clothes grew briefer, and she burst into a fast Callistan clog.
"I see from your hair that you have been a member of one of the Brotherhoods," the passenger lying next to Michael on the shelf remarked inquisitively. He was a middle-aged man, his dust-brown hair thinning on top, his small blue eyes glittering preternaturally from the lenses fitted over his eyeballs.
Michael rubbed his fingers ruefully over the blond stubble on his scalp and wished he had waited until his tonsure were fully grown before he had ventured out into the world. But he had been so impatient to leave the Lodge, so impatient to exchange the flowing robes of the Brotherhood for the close-fitting breeches and tunic of the outer world that had seemed so glamorous and now proved so itchy.
"Yes," he replied courteously, for he knew the first rule of universal behavior, "I have been a Brother."
"Now why would a good-looking young fellow like you want to join a Brotherhood?" his shelf companion wanted to know. "Trouble over a female?"
Michael shook his head, smiling. "No, I have been a member of the Angeleno Brotherhood since I was an infant. My father brought me when he entered."
The other man clucked sympathetically. "No doubt he was grieved over the death of your mother."
Michael closed his eyes to shut out the sight of a baby protruding its fat face at him three-dimensionally, but he could not shut out its lisping voice: "Does your child refuse its food, grow wizened like a monkey? It will grow plump with oh-so-good Mealy Mush from Nunki."
"No, sir," Michael replied. "Father said that was one of the few blessings that brightened an otherwise benighted life."
Horror contorted his fellow traveller's plump features. "Be careful, young man!" he warned. "Lucky for you that you are talking to someone as broad-minded as I, but others aren't. You might be reported for violating a tabu. An Earth tabu, moreover."
"An Earth tabu?"
"Certainly. Motherhood is sacred here on Earth and so, of course, in the entire United Universe. You should have known that."
Michael blushed. He should indeed. For a year prior to his leaving the Lodge, he had carefully studied the customs and tabus of the Universe so that he should be able to enter the new life he planned for himself, with confidence and ease. Under the system of universal kinship, all the customs and all the tabus of all the planets were the law on all the other planets. For the Wise Ones had decided many years before that wars arose from not understanding one's fellows, not sympathizing with them. If every nation, every planet, every solar system had the same laws, customs, and habits, they reasoned, there would be no differences, and hence no wars.
Future events had proved them to be correct. For five hundred years there had been no war in the United Universe, and there was peace and plenty for all. Only one crime was recognized throughout the solar systems—injuring a fellow-creature by word or deed (and the telepaths of Aldebaran were still trying to add thought to the statute).
Why, then, Michael had questioned the Father Superior, was there any reason for the Lodge's existence, any reason for a group of humans to retire from the world and live in the simple ways of their primitive forefathers? When there had been war, injustice, tyranny, there had, perhaps, been an understandable emotional reason for fleeing the world. But now why refuse to face a desirable reality? Why turn one's face upon the present and deliberately go back to the life of the past—the high collars, vests and trousers, the inefficient coal furnaces, the rude gasoline tractors of medieval days?
The Father Superior had smiled. "You are not yet a fully fledged Brother, Michael. You cannot enter your novitiate until you've achieved your majority, and you won't be thirty for another five years. Why don't you spend some time outside and see how you like it?"
Michael had agreed, but before leaving he had spent months studying the ways of the United Universe. He had skimmed over Earth, because he had been so sure he'd know its ways instinctively. Remembering his preparations, he was astonished by his smug self-confidence.
A large scarlet pencil jumped merrily across the advideo screen. The face on the eraser opened its mouth and sang: "Our pencils are finest from point up to rubber, for the lead is from Yed, while the wood comes from Dschubba."
"Is there any way of turning that thing off?" Michael wanted to know.
The other man smiled. "If there were, my boy, do you think anybody would watch it? Furthermore, turning it off would violate the spirit of free enterprise. We wouldn't want that, would we?"
"Oh, no!" Michael agreed hastily. "Certainly not."
"And it might hurt the advertiser's feelings, cause him ego injury."
"How could I ever have had such a ridiculous idea?" Michael murmured, abashed.
"Allow me to introduce myself," said his companion. "My name is Pierce B. Carpenter. Aphrodisiacs are my line. Here's my card." He handed Michael a transparent tab with the photograph of Mr. Carpenter suspended inside, together with his registration number, his name, his address, and the Universal seal of approval. Clearly he was a character of the utmost respectability.
"My name's Michael Frey," the young man responded, smiling awkwardly.
"I'm afraid I don't have any cards."
"Well, you wouldn't have had any use for them where you were. Now, look here, son," Carpenter went on in a lowered voice, "I know you've just come from the Lodge and the mistakes you'll make will be through ignorance rather than deliberate malice. But the police wouldn't understand. You know what the sacred writings say: 'Ignorance of The Law is no excuse.' I'd be glad to give you any little tips I can. For instance, your hands...."
Michael spread his hands out in front of him. They were perfectly good hands, he thought. "Is there something wrong with them?"
Carpenter blushed and looked away. "Didn't you know that on Electra it is forbidden for anyone to appear in public with his hands bare?"
"Of course I know that," Michael said impatiently. "But what's that got to do with me?"
The salesman was wide-eyed. "But if it is forbidden on Electra, it becomes automatically prohibited here."
"But Electrans have eight fingers on each hand," Michael protested,
"with two fingernails on each—all covered with green scales."
Carpenter drew himself up as far as it was possible to do so while lying down. "Do eight fingers make one a lesser Universal?"
"Of course not, but—"
"Is he inferior to you then because he has sixteen fingernails?"
"Certainly not, but—"
"Would you like to be called guilty of—" Carpenter paused before the dreaded word—" intolerance ?"
"No, no, no !" Michael almost shrieked. It would be horrible for him to be arrested before he even had time to view Portyork. "I have lots of gloves in my pack," he babbled. "Lots and lots. I'll put some on right away."
With nervous haste, he pressed the lever which dropped his pack down from the storage compartment. It landed on his stomach. The device had been invented by one of the Dschubbans who are, as everyone knows, hoop-shaped.
Michael pushed the button marked Gloves A , and a pair of yellow gauntlets slid out.
Carpenter pressed his hands to his eyes. "Yellow is the color of death on Saturn, and you know how morbid the Saturnians are about passing away! No one ever wears yellow!"
"Sorry," Michael said humbly. The button marked Gloves B yielded a pair of rose-colored gloves which harmonized ill with his scarlet tunic and turquoise breeches, but he was past caring for esthetic effects.
"The quality's high," sang a quartet of beautiful female humanoids,
"but the price is meager. You know when you buy Plummy Fruitcake from Vega."
The salesman patted Michael's shoulder. "You staying a while in Portyork?" Michael nodded. "Then you'd better stick close to me for a while until you learn our ways. You can't run around loose by yourself until you've acquired civilized behavior patterns, or you'll get into trouble."
"Thank you, sir," Michael said gratefully. "It's very kind of you."
He twisted himself around—it was boiling hot inside the jet bus and his damp clothes were clinging uncomfortably—and struck his head against the bottom of the shelf above. "Awfully inconvenient arrangement here," he commented. "Wonder why they don't have seats."
"Because this arrangement," Carpenter said stiffly, "is the one that has proved suitable for the greatest number of intelligent life-forms."
"Oh, I see," Michael murmured. "I didn't get a look at the other passengers. Are there many extraterrestrials on the bus?"
"Dozens of them. Haven't you heard the Sirians singing?"
A low moaning noise had been pervading the bus, but Michael had thought it arose from defective jets.
"Oh, yes!" he agreed. "And very beautiful it is, too! But so sad."
"Sirians are always sad," the salesman told him. "Listen."
Michael strained his ears past the racket of the advideo. Sure enough, he could make out words: "Our wings were unfurled in a far distant world, our bodies are pain-racked, delirious. And never, it seems, will we see, save in dreams, the bright purple swamps of our Sirius...."
Carpenter brushed away a tear. "Poignant, isn't it?"
"Very, very touching," Michael agreed. "Are they sick or something?"
"Oh, no; they wouldn't have been permitted on the bus if they were. They're just homesick. Sirians love being homesick. That's why they leave Sirius in such great numbers."
"Fasten your suction disks, please," the stewardess, a pretty two-headed Denebian, ordered as she walked up and down the gangway.
"We're coming into Portyork. I have an announcement to make to all passengers on behalf of the United Universe. Zosma was admitted into the Union early this morning."
All the passengers cheered.
"Since it is considered immodest on Zosma," she continued, "ever to appear with the heads bare, henceforward it will be tabu to be seen in public without some sort of head-covering."
Wild scrabbling sounds indicated that all the passengers were searching their packs for headgear. Michael unearthed a violet cap.
The salesmen unfolded what looked like a medieval opera hat in piercingly bright green.
"Always got to keep on your toes," he whispered to the younger man.
"The Universe is expanding every minute."
The bus settled softly on the landing field and the passengers flew, floated, crawled, undulated, or walked out. Michael looked around him curiously. The Lodge had contained no extraterrestrials, for such of those as sought seclusion had Brotherhoods on their own planets.
Of course, even in Angeles he had seen other-worlders—humanoids from Vega, scaly Electrans, the wispy ubiquitous Sirians—but nothing to compare with the crowds that surged here. Scarlet Meropians rubbed tentacles with bulging-eyed Talithans; lumpish gray Jovians plodded alongside graceful, spidery Nunkians. And there were countless others whom he had seen pictured in books, but never before in reality.
The gaily colored costumes and bodies of these beings rendered kaleidoscopic a field already brilliant with red-and-green lights and banners. The effect was enhanced by Mr. Carpenter, whose emerald-green cloak was drawn back to reveal a chartreuse tunic and olive-green breeches which had apparently been designed for a taller and somewhat less pudgy man.
Carpenter rubbed modestly gloved hands together. "I have no immediate business, so supposing I start showing you the sights. What would you like to see first, Mr. Frey? Or would you prefer a nice, restful movid?"
"Frankly," Michael admitted, "the first thing I'd like to do is get myself something to eat. I didn't have any breakfast and I'm famished." Two small creatures standing close to him giggled nervously and scuttled off on six legs apiece.
"Shh, not so loud! There are females present." Carpenter drew the youth to a secluded corner. "Don't you know that on Theemim it's frightfully vulgar to as much as speak of eating in public?"
"But why?" Michael demanded in too loud a voice. "What's wrong with eating in public here on Earth?"
Carpenter clapped a hand over the young man's mouth. "Hush," he cautioned. "After all, on Earth there are things we don't do or even mention in public, aren't there?"
"Well, yes. But those are different."
"Not at all. Those rules might seem just as ridiculous to a Theemimian. But the Theemimians have accepted our customs just as we have accepted the Theemimians'. How would you like it if a Theemimian violated one of our tabus in public? You must consider the feelings of the Theemimians as equal to your own. Observe the golden rule: 'Do unto extraterrestrials as you would be done by.'"
"But I'm still hungry," Michael persisted, modulating his voice, however, to a decent whisper. "Do the proprieties demand that I starve to death, or can I get something to eat somewhere?"
"Naturally," the salesman whispered back. "Portyork provides for all bodily needs. Numerous feeding stations are conveniently located throughout the port, and there must be some on the field."
After gazing furtively over his shoulder to see that no females were watching, Carpenter approached a large map of the landing field and pressed a button. A tiny red light winked demurely for an instant.
"That's the nearest one," Carpenter explained.
Inside a small, white, functional-looking building unobtrusively marked "Feeding Station," Carpenter showed Michael where to insert a two-credit piece in a slot. A door slid back and admitted Michael into a tiny, austere room, furnished only with a table, a chair, a food compartment, and an advideo. The food consisted of tabloid synthetics and was tasteless. Michael knew that only primitive creatures waste time and energy in growing and preparing natural foods. It was all a matter of getting used to this stuff, he thought glumly, as he tried to chew food that was meant to be gulped.
A ferret-eyed Yeddan appeared on the advideo. "Do you suffer from gastric disorders? Does your viscera get in your hair? A horrid condition, but swift abolition is yours with Al-Brom from Altair."
Michael finished his meal in fifteen minutes and left the compartment to find Carpenter awaiting him in the lobby, impatiently glancing at the luminous time dial embedded in his wrist.
"Let's go to the Old Town," he suggested to Michael. "It will be of great interest to a student and a newcomer like yourself."
A few yards away from the feeding station, the travel agents were lined up in rows, each outside his spaceship, each shouting the advantages of the tour he offered:
"Better than a mustard plaster is a weekend spent on Castor."
"If you want to show you like her, take her for a week to Spica."
"Movid stars go to Mars."
Carpenter smiled politely at them. "No space trips for us today, gentlemen. We're staying on Terra." He guided the bewildered young man through the crowds and to the gates of the field. Outside, a number of surface vehicles were lined up, with the drivers loudly competing for business.
"Come, take a ride in my rocket car, suited to both gent and lady, lined with luxury hukka fur brought from afar, and perfumed with rare scents from Algedi."
"Whichever movid film you choose to view will be yours in my fine cab from Mizar. Just press a button—it won't cost you nuttin'—see a passionate drama of long-vanished Mu or the bloodhounds pursuing Eliza."
"All honor be laid at the feet of free trade, but, whatever your race or your birth, each passenger curls up with two dancing girls who rides in the taxi from Earth."
"Couldn't we—couldn't we walk? At least part of the way?" Michael faltered.
Carpenter stared. "Walk! Don't you know it's forbidden to walk more than two hundred yards in any one direction? Fomalhautians never walk."
"But they have no feet."
"That has nothing whatsoever to do with it."
Carpenter gently urged the young man into the Algedian cab ... which reeked. Michael held his nose, but his mentor shook his head. "No, no! Tpiu Number Five is the most esteemed aroma on Algedi. It would break the driver's heart if he thought you didn't like it. You wouldn't want to be had up for ego injury, would you?"
"Of course not," Michael whispered weakly.
"Brunettes are darker and blondes are fairer," the advideo informed him, "when they wash out their hair with shampoos made on Chara."
After a time, Michael got more or less used to Tpiu Number Five and was able to take some interest in the passing landscape. Portyork, the biggest spaceport in the United Universe, was, of course, the most cosmopolitan city—cosmopolitan in its architecture as well as its inhabitants. Silver domes of Earth were crowded next to the tall helical edifices of the Venusians.
"You'll notice that the current medieval revival has even reached architecture," Carpenter pointed out. "See those period houses in the Frank Lloyd Wright and Inigo Jones manner?"
"Very quaint," Michael commented.
Great floating red and green balls lit the streets, even though it was still daylight, and long scarlet-and-emerald streamers whipped out from the most unlikely places. As Michael opened his mouth to inquire about this, "We now interrupt the commercials," the advideo said, "to bring you a brand new version of one of the medieval ballads that are becoming so popular...."
"I shall scream," stated Carpenter, "if they play Beautiful Blue Deneb just once more.... No, thank the Wise Ones, I've never heard this before."
"Thuban, Thuban, I've been thinking," sang a buxom Betelgeusian, "what a Cosmos this could be, if land masses were transported to replace the wasteful sea."
"I guess the first thing for me to do," Michael began in a businesslike manner, "is to get myself a room at a hotel.... What have I said now?"
"The word hotel ," Carpenter explained through pursed lips, "is not used in polite society any more. It has come to have unpleasant connotations. It means—a place of dancing girls. I hardly think...."
"Certainly not," Michael agreed austerely. "I merely want a lodging."
"That word is also—well, you see," Carpenter told him, "on Zaniah it is unthinkable to go anywhere without one's family."
"They're a sort of ant, aren't they? The Zaniahans, I mean."
"More like bees. So those creatures who travel—" Carpenter lowered his voice modestly "— alone hire a family for the duration of their stay. There are a number of families available, but the better types come rather high. There has been talk of reviving the old-fashioned price controls, but the Wise Ones say this would limit free enterprise as much as—if you'll excuse my use of the expression—tariffs would."
The taxi let them off at a square meadow which was filled with transparent plastic domes housing clocks of all varieties, most of the antique type based on the old twenty-four hour day instead of the standard thirty hours. There were few extraterrestrial clocks because most non-humans had time sense, Michael knew, and needed no mechanical devices.
"This," said Carpenter, "is Times Square. Once it wasn't really square, but it is contrary to Nekkarian custom to do, say, imply, or permit the existence of anything that isn't true, so when Nekkar entered the Union, we had to square off the place. And, of course, install the clocks. Finest clock museum in the Union, I understand."
"The pictures in my history books—" Michael began.
"Did I hear you correctly, sir?" The capes of a bright blue cloak trembled with the indignation of a scarlet, many-tentacled being. "Did you use the word history ?" He pronounced it in terms of loathing. "I have been grossly insulted and I shall be forced to report you to the police, sir."
"Please don't!" Carpenter begged. "This youth has just come from one of the Brotherhoods and is not yet accustomed to the ways of our universe. I know that, because of the great sophistication for which your race is noted, you will overlook this little gaucherie on his part."
"Well," the red one conceded, "let it not be said that Meropians are not tolerant. But, be careful, young man," he warned Michael. "There are other beings less sophisticated than we. Guard your tongue, or you might find yourself in trouble."
He indicated the stalwart constable who, splendid in gold helmet and gold-spangled pink tights, surveyed the terrain haughtily from his floating platform in the air.
"I should have told you," Carpenter reproached himself as the Meropian swirled off. "Never mention the word 'history' in front of a Meropian. They rose from barbarism in one generation, and so they haven't any history at all. Naturally, they're sensitive in the extreme about it."
"Naturally," Michael said. "Tell me, Mr. Carpenter, is there some special reason for everything being decorated in red and green? I noticed it along the way and it's all over here, too."
"Why, Christmas is coming, my boy," Carpenter answered, surprised.
"It's July already—about time they got started fixing things up. Some places are so slack, they haven't even got their Mother's Week shrines cleared away."
A bevy of tiny golden-haired, winged creatures circled slowly over Times Square.
"Izarians," Carpenter explained "They're much in demand for Christmas displays."
The small mouths opened and clear soprano voices filled the air: "It came upon the midnight clear, that glorious song of old, from angels bending near the Earth to tune their harps of gold. Peace on Earth, good will to men, from Heaven's All-Celestial. Peace to the Universe as well and every extraterrestrial.... Beat the drum and clash the cymbals; buy your Christmas gifts at Nimble's."
"This beautiful walk you see before you," Carpenter said, waving an expository arm, "shaded by boogil trees from Dschubba, is called Broadway. To your left you will be delighted to see—"
"Listen, could we—" Michael began.
"—Forty-second Street, which is now actually the forty-second—"
"By the way—"
"It is extremely rude and hence illegal," Carpenter glared, "to interrupt anyone who is speaking."
"But I would like," Michael whispered very earnestly, "to get washed. If I might."
The other man frowned. "Let me see. I believe one of the old landmarks was converted into a lavatory. Only thing of suitable dimensions. Anyhow, it was absolutely useless for any other purpose. We have to take a taxi there; it's more than two hundred yards. Custom, you know."
"A taxi? Isn't there one closer?"
"Ah, impatient youth! There aren't too many altogether. The installations are extremely expensive."
They hailed the nearest taxi, which happened to be one of the variety equipped with dancing girls. Fortunately the ride was brief.
Michael gazed at the Empire State Building with interest. It was in a remarkable state of preservation and looked just like the pictures in his history—in his books, except that none of them showed the huge golden sign "Public-Washport" riding on its spire.
Attendants directed traffic from a large circular desk in the lobby.
"Mercurians, seventy-eighth floor. A group Vegans, fourteenth floor right. B group, fourteenth floor left. C group, fifteenth floor right. D group, fifteenth floor left. Sirians, forty-ninth floor. Female humans fiftieth floor right, males, fiftieth floor left. Uranians, basement...."
Carpenter and Michael shared an elevator with a group of sad-eyed, translucent Sirians, who were singing as usual and accompanying themselves on wemps , a cross between a harp and a flute. "Foreign planets are strange and we're subject to mange. Foreign atmospheres prove deleterious. Only with our mind's eye can we sail through the sky to the bright purple swamps of our Sirius."
The cost of the compartment was half that of the feeding station; one credit in the slot unlocked the door. There was an advideo here, too:
"Friend, do you clean yourself each day? Now, let's not be evasive, for each one has his favored way. Some use an abrasive and some use oil. Some shed their skins, in a brand-new hide emerging. Some rub with grease put up in tins. For others there's deterging. Some lick themselves to take off grime. Some beat it off with rope. Some cook it away in boiling lime. Old-fashioned ones use soap. More ways there are than I recall, and each of these will differ, but the only one that works for all is Omniclene from Kiffa."
"And now," smiled Carpenter as the two humans left the building, "we must see you registered for a nice family. Nothing too ostentatious, but, on the other hand, you mustn't count credits and ally yourself beneath your station."
Michael gazed pensively at two slender, snakelike Difdans writhing
"Only 99 Shopping Days Till Christmas" across an aquamarine sky.
"They won't be permanent?" he asked. "The family, I mean?"
"Certainly not. You merely hire them for whatever length of time you choose. But why are you so anxious?"
The young man blushed. "Well, I'm thinking of having a family of my own some day. Pretty soon, as a matter of fact."
Carpenter beamed. "That's nice; you're being adopted! I do hope it's an Earth family that's chosen you—it's so awkward being adopted by extraterrestrials."
"Oh, no! I'm planning to have my own. That is, I've got a—a girl, you see, and I thought after I had secured employment of some kind in Portyork, I'd send for her and we'd get married and...."
" Married! " Carpenter was now completely shocked. "You mustn't use that word! Don't you know marriage was outlawed years ago? Exclusive possession of a member of the opposite sex is slavery on Talitha. Furthermore, supposing somebody else saw your—er—friend and wanted her also; you wouldn't wish him to endure the frustration of not having her, would you?"
Michael squared his jaw. "You bet I would."
Carpenter drew himself away slightly, as if to avoid contamination.
"This is un-Universal. Young man, if I didn't have a kind heart, I would report you."
Michael was too preoccupied to be disturbed by this threat. "You mean if I bring my girl here, I'd have to share her?"
"Certainly. And she'd have to share you. If somebody wanted you, that is."
"Then I'm not staying here," Michael declared firmly, ashamed to admit even to himself how much relief his decision was bringing him. "I don't think I like it, anyhow. I'm going back to the Brotherhood."
There was a short cold silence.
"You know, son," Carpenter finally said, "I think you might be right. I don't want to hurt your feelings—you promise I won't hurt your feelings?" he asked anxiously, afraid, Michael realized, that he might call a policeman for ego injury.
"You won't hurt my feelings, Mr. Carpenter."
"Well, I believe that there are certain individuals who just cannot adapt themselves to civilized behavior patterns. It's much better for them to belong to a Brotherhood such as yours than to be placed in one of the government incarceratoriums, comfortable and commodious though they are."
"Much better," Michael agreed.
"By the way," Carpenter went on, "I realize this is just vulgar curiosity on my part and you have a right to refuse an answer without fear of hurting my feelings, but how do you happen to have a—er—girl when you belong to a Brotherhood?"
Michael laughed. "Oh, 'Brotherhood' is merely a generic term. Both sexes are represented in our society."
"On Talitha—" Carpenter began.
"I know," Michael interrupted him, like the crude primitive he was and always would be. "But our females don't mind being generic."
A group of Sirians was traveling on the shelf above him on the slow, very slow jet bus that was flying Michael back to Angeles, back to the Lodge, back to the Brotherhood, back to her. Their melancholy howling was getting on his nerves, but in a little while, he told himself, it would be all over. He would be back home, safe with his own kind.
"When our minds have grown tired, when our lives have expired, when our sorrows no longer can weary us, let our ashes return, neatly packed in an urn, to the bright purple swamps of our Sirius."
The advideo crackled: "The gown her fairy godmother once gave to Cinderella was created by the haute couture of fashion-wise Capella."
The ancient taxi was there, the one that Michael had taken from the Lodge, early that morning, to the little Angeleno landing field, as if it had been waiting for his return.
"I see you're back, son," the driver said without surprise. He set the noisy old rockets blasting. "I been to Portyork once. It's not a bad place to live in, but I hate to visit it."
"I'm back!" Michael sank into the motheaten sable cushions and gazed with pleasure at the familiar landmarks half seen in the darkness. "I'm back! And a loud sneer to civilization!"
"Better be careful, son," the driver warned. "I know this is a rural area, but civilization is spreading. There are secret police all over. How do you know I ain't a government spy? I could pull you in for insulting civilization."
The elderly black and white advideo flickered, broke into purring sound: "Do you find life continues to daze you? Do you find for a quick death you hanker? Why not try the new style euthanasia, performed by skilled workmen from Ancha?"
Not any more, Michael thought contentedly. He was going home.
Question:
What kinds of rules were introduced to the United Universe by different planets and for what reasons?
Answer:
|
[
"The United Universe's laws are a combination of laws of every planet involved. Earth has introduced the tabu regarding offending motherhood as it is sacred. Electra has prohibited appearing in public bare handed, because its people have eight fingers on each hand and feel different from others. Yellow is forbidden to wear as it represents death on Saturn. Zosma has just joined the United Universe and introduced the necessity to cover the heads in public, which is immodest on that planet. Theemimians do not eat in public, and so do all other beings in the United Universe. Fomalhautians do not have feet and, therefore, do not walk. So, it's prohibited to walk more than two hundred yards. Zaniahansn are like bees and go everywhere with their families, therefore, one can not travel alone in the universe. Nekkarians say and imply only what is true. Meropians do not have history and this word is offending for them, and forbidden, therefore. On Talitha marriage is slavery, and so is it on other planets. ",
"There are many rules introduced to the United Universe by different planets that affect what citizens can wear, say, or even do with their lives. One of the rules introduced by the United Universe is an Earth tabu. The story says that Motherhood is sacred on Earth and the entire universe, so talking about anything that contradicts it is the same as violating the law. Another rule is that one must not violate the spirit of free enterprise and cause ego injury. This rule allows advertisers to continue creating their constant advideos. In terms of what one can wear, it is illegal on Electra to appear in public with bare hands and immodest to appear without a head covering on Zosma. Even talking about eating is considered vulgar to Theemimian, while the disgusting aroma of the Algedian cab is a scent that must be enjoyed. Meropians are also extremely sensitive to word history, making it illegal to say around them. On Earth, it is also considered unthinkable to go anywhere without a family because of the Zaniahans. Despite needing a family, marriage is illegal because it is considered slavery on Talitha. These rules are all introduced and accepted as a means of keeping the universe together. The Wise Ones believe that keeping every custom, rule, and habit the same will foster universal peace. ",
"It is considered a crime to injure another through word or action, thus customs and laws of each planet are considered laws of all other planets. Firstly, courteous is an important rule of the United Universe. Secondly, motherhood is sacred on Earth, thus it was introduced to the United Universe and all planets have to consider it sacred. Moreover, the advideos cannot be turned off since it would hurt the spirit of free enterprise; hands are forbidden to be bare in public since Electrans have eight fingers on each hand and two nails on each finger, which are covered in green scales; and yellow cannot be wore since it is the color of death on Saturn. On the jet bus, they are told that Zosma has been just admitted to the Union and the people there do not appear with bare head in public, thus from now on, everyone has to wear some sort of headgear in public. Furthermore, Theemimians are afraid of vulgar, thus any vulgar words such as eating cannot be stated in public; Fomalhautians do not walk, thus it is forbidden for everyone in the Union to walk more than two hundred yards in one direction. Ego injury is also considered a crime. Surprisingly, the word “hotel” cannot be mentioned since it means a place of dancing girls in the current society; “lodging” is offensive to the Zaniahans since they almost always travel with a family; “married” was outlawed years ago because Talithas consider the exclusive possession of a opposite sex as slavery; “history” pisses the Meropians off since they do not have any history, they went from barbaric to civilized in one generation, and historical buildings such as the Empire State was considered useless. Finally, Times Square is actually a square because the Nekkars do not allow anything that is not true to exist; and it is illegal to interrupt someone when they are speaking. ",
"There were many rules introduced by the united universe for various reasons. It is forbidden to appear in public with your hands held by Electra because they have eight fingers, two of them being very ugly. You aren't allowed to wear yellow on Saturn, as it is the color of death. On Zosma it is illegal to appear with you head bare. On Them It is vulgar to speak about eating in public. The Fomalhaut Incas have made it illegal to walk more than two hundred feet in any direction. Because of the Zaniahan's it is forbidden to stay anywhere without one's family. On Nekkar, it is illegal to do, say or imply anything that isn;t true. The word history is not allowed because the Meropians deem it to be insulting. MArriage in earth was outlawed. \n"
] |
50847
|
Tea Tray in the Sky
By EVELYN E. SMITH
Illustrated by ASHMAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Visiting a society is tougher than being born into it. A 40 credit tour is no substitute!
The picture changed on the illuminated panel that filled the forward end of the shelf on which Michael lay. A haggard blonde woman sprawled apathetically in a chair.
"Rundown, nervous, hypertensive?" inquired a mellifluous voice. "In need of mental therapy? Buy Grugis juice; it's not expensive. And they swear by it on Meropé."
A disembodied pair of hands administered a spoonful of Grugis juice to the woman, whereupon her hair turned bright yellow, makeup bloomed on her face, her clothes grew briefer, and she burst into a fast Callistan clog.
"I see from your hair that you have been a member of one of the Brotherhoods," the passenger lying next to Michael on the shelf remarked inquisitively. He was a middle-aged man, his dust-brown hair thinning on top, his small blue eyes glittering preternaturally from the lenses fitted over his eyeballs.
Michael rubbed his fingers ruefully over the blond stubble on his scalp and wished he had waited until his tonsure were fully grown before he had ventured out into the world. But he had been so impatient to leave the Lodge, so impatient to exchange the flowing robes of the Brotherhood for the close-fitting breeches and tunic of the outer world that had seemed so glamorous and now proved so itchy.
"Yes," he replied courteously, for he knew the first rule of universal behavior, "I have been a Brother."
"Now why would a good-looking young fellow like you want to join a Brotherhood?" his shelf companion wanted to know. "Trouble over a female?"
Michael shook his head, smiling. "No, I have been a member of the Angeleno Brotherhood since I was an infant. My father brought me when he entered."
The other man clucked sympathetically. "No doubt he was grieved over the death of your mother."
Michael closed his eyes to shut out the sight of a baby protruding its fat face at him three-dimensionally, but he could not shut out its lisping voice: "Does your child refuse its food, grow wizened like a monkey? It will grow plump with oh-so-good Mealy Mush from Nunki."
"No, sir," Michael replied. "Father said that was one of the few blessings that brightened an otherwise benighted life."
Horror contorted his fellow traveller's plump features. "Be careful, young man!" he warned. "Lucky for you that you are talking to someone as broad-minded as I, but others aren't. You might be reported for violating a tabu. An Earth tabu, moreover."
"An Earth tabu?"
"Certainly. Motherhood is sacred here on Earth and so, of course, in the entire United Universe. You should have known that."
Michael blushed. He should indeed. For a year prior to his leaving the Lodge, he had carefully studied the customs and tabus of the Universe so that he should be able to enter the new life he planned for himself, with confidence and ease. Under the system of universal kinship, all the customs and all the tabus of all the planets were the law on all the other planets. For the Wise Ones had decided many years before that wars arose from not understanding one's fellows, not sympathizing with them. If every nation, every planet, every solar system had the same laws, customs, and habits, they reasoned, there would be no differences, and hence no wars.
Future events had proved them to be correct. For five hundred years there had been no war in the United Universe, and there was peace and plenty for all. Only one crime was recognized throughout the solar systems—injuring a fellow-creature by word or deed (and the telepaths of Aldebaran were still trying to add thought to the statute).
Why, then, Michael had questioned the Father Superior, was there any reason for the Lodge's existence, any reason for a group of humans to retire from the world and live in the simple ways of their primitive forefathers? When there had been war, injustice, tyranny, there had, perhaps, been an understandable emotional reason for fleeing the world. But now why refuse to face a desirable reality? Why turn one's face upon the present and deliberately go back to the life of the past—the high collars, vests and trousers, the inefficient coal furnaces, the rude gasoline tractors of medieval days?
The Father Superior had smiled. "You are not yet a fully fledged Brother, Michael. You cannot enter your novitiate until you've achieved your majority, and you won't be thirty for another five years. Why don't you spend some time outside and see how you like it?"
Michael had agreed, but before leaving he had spent months studying the ways of the United Universe. He had skimmed over Earth, because he had been so sure he'd know its ways instinctively. Remembering his preparations, he was astonished by his smug self-confidence.
A large scarlet pencil jumped merrily across the advideo screen. The face on the eraser opened its mouth and sang: "Our pencils are finest from point up to rubber, for the lead is from Yed, while the wood comes from Dschubba."
"Is there any way of turning that thing off?" Michael wanted to know.
The other man smiled. "If there were, my boy, do you think anybody would watch it? Furthermore, turning it off would violate the spirit of free enterprise. We wouldn't want that, would we?"
"Oh, no!" Michael agreed hastily. "Certainly not."
"And it might hurt the advertiser's feelings, cause him ego injury."
"How could I ever have had such a ridiculous idea?" Michael murmured, abashed.
"Allow me to introduce myself," said his companion. "My name is Pierce B. Carpenter. Aphrodisiacs are my line. Here's my card." He handed Michael a transparent tab with the photograph of Mr. Carpenter suspended inside, together with his registration number, his name, his address, and the Universal seal of approval. Clearly he was a character of the utmost respectability.
"My name's Michael Frey," the young man responded, smiling awkwardly.
"I'm afraid I don't have any cards."
"Well, you wouldn't have had any use for them where you were. Now, look here, son," Carpenter went on in a lowered voice, "I know you've just come from the Lodge and the mistakes you'll make will be through ignorance rather than deliberate malice. But the police wouldn't understand. You know what the sacred writings say: 'Ignorance of The Law is no excuse.' I'd be glad to give you any little tips I can. For instance, your hands...."
Michael spread his hands out in front of him. They were perfectly good hands, he thought. "Is there something wrong with them?"
Carpenter blushed and looked away. "Didn't you know that on Electra it is forbidden for anyone to appear in public with his hands bare?"
"Of course I know that," Michael said impatiently. "But what's that got to do with me?"
The salesman was wide-eyed. "But if it is forbidden on Electra, it becomes automatically prohibited here."
"But Electrans have eight fingers on each hand," Michael protested,
"with two fingernails on each—all covered with green scales."
Carpenter drew himself up as far as it was possible to do so while lying down. "Do eight fingers make one a lesser Universal?"
"Of course not, but—"
"Is he inferior to you then because he has sixteen fingernails?"
"Certainly not, but—"
"Would you like to be called guilty of—" Carpenter paused before the dreaded word—" intolerance ?"
"No, no, no !" Michael almost shrieked. It would be horrible for him to be arrested before he even had time to view Portyork. "I have lots of gloves in my pack," he babbled. "Lots and lots. I'll put some on right away."
With nervous haste, he pressed the lever which dropped his pack down from the storage compartment. It landed on his stomach. The device had been invented by one of the Dschubbans who are, as everyone knows, hoop-shaped.
Michael pushed the button marked Gloves A , and a pair of yellow gauntlets slid out.
Carpenter pressed his hands to his eyes. "Yellow is the color of death on Saturn, and you know how morbid the Saturnians are about passing away! No one ever wears yellow!"
"Sorry," Michael said humbly. The button marked Gloves B yielded a pair of rose-colored gloves which harmonized ill with his scarlet tunic and turquoise breeches, but he was past caring for esthetic effects.
"The quality's high," sang a quartet of beautiful female humanoids,
"but the price is meager. You know when you buy Plummy Fruitcake from Vega."
The salesman patted Michael's shoulder. "You staying a while in Portyork?" Michael nodded. "Then you'd better stick close to me for a while until you learn our ways. You can't run around loose by yourself until you've acquired civilized behavior patterns, or you'll get into trouble."
"Thank you, sir," Michael said gratefully. "It's very kind of you."
He twisted himself around—it was boiling hot inside the jet bus and his damp clothes were clinging uncomfortably—and struck his head against the bottom of the shelf above. "Awfully inconvenient arrangement here," he commented. "Wonder why they don't have seats."
"Because this arrangement," Carpenter said stiffly, "is the one that has proved suitable for the greatest number of intelligent life-forms."
"Oh, I see," Michael murmured. "I didn't get a look at the other passengers. Are there many extraterrestrials on the bus?"
"Dozens of them. Haven't you heard the Sirians singing?"
A low moaning noise had been pervading the bus, but Michael had thought it arose from defective jets.
"Oh, yes!" he agreed. "And very beautiful it is, too! But so sad."
"Sirians are always sad," the salesman told him. "Listen."
Michael strained his ears past the racket of the advideo. Sure enough, he could make out words: "Our wings were unfurled in a far distant world, our bodies are pain-racked, delirious. And never, it seems, will we see, save in dreams, the bright purple swamps of our Sirius...."
Carpenter brushed away a tear. "Poignant, isn't it?"
"Very, very touching," Michael agreed. "Are they sick or something?"
"Oh, no; they wouldn't have been permitted on the bus if they were. They're just homesick. Sirians love being homesick. That's why they leave Sirius in such great numbers."
"Fasten your suction disks, please," the stewardess, a pretty two-headed Denebian, ordered as she walked up and down the gangway.
"We're coming into Portyork. I have an announcement to make to all passengers on behalf of the United Universe. Zosma was admitted into the Union early this morning."
All the passengers cheered.
"Since it is considered immodest on Zosma," she continued, "ever to appear with the heads bare, henceforward it will be tabu to be seen in public without some sort of head-covering."
Wild scrabbling sounds indicated that all the passengers were searching their packs for headgear. Michael unearthed a violet cap.
The salesmen unfolded what looked like a medieval opera hat in piercingly bright green.
"Always got to keep on your toes," he whispered to the younger man.
"The Universe is expanding every minute."
The bus settled softly on the landing field and the passengers flew, floated, crawled, undulated, or walked out. Michael looked around him curiously. The Lodge had contained no extraterrestrials, for such of those as sought seclusion had Brotherhoods on their own planets.
Of course, even in Angeles he had seen other-worlders—humanoids from Vega, scaly Electrans, the wispy ubiquitous Sirians—but nothing to compare with the crowds that surged here. Scarlet Meropians rubbed tentacles with bulging-eyed Talithans; lumpish gray Jovians plodded alongside graceful, spidery Nunkians. And there were countless others whom he had seen pictured in books, but never before in reality.
The gaily colored costumes and bodies of these beings rendered kaleidoscopic a field already brilliant with red-and-green lights and banners. The effect was enhanced by Mr. Carpenter, whose emerald-green cloak was drawn back to reveal a chartreuse tunic and olive-green breeches which had apparently been designed for a taller and somewhat less pudgy man.
Carpenter rubbed modestly gloved hands together. "I have no immediate business, so supposing I start showing you the sights. What would you like to see first, Mr. Frey? Or would you prefer a nice, restful movid?"
"Frankly," Michael admitted, "the first thing I'd like to do is get myself something to eat. I didn't have any breakfast and I'm famished." Two small creatures standing close to him giggled nervously and scuttled off on six legs apiece.
"Shh, not so loud! There are females present." Carpenter drew the youth to a secluded corner. "Don't you know that on Theemim it's frightfully vulgar to as much as speak of eating in public?"
"But why?" Michael demanded in too loud a voice. "What's wrong with eating in public here on Earth?"
Carpenter clapped a hand over the young man's mouth. "Hush," he cautioned. "After all, on Earth there are things we don't do or even mention in public, aren't there?"
"Well, yes. But those are different."
"Not at all. Those rules might seem just as ridiculous to a Theemimian. But the Theemimians have accepted our customs just as we have accepted the Theemimians'. How would you like it if a Theemimian violated one of our tabus in public? You must consider the feelings of the Theemimians as equal to your own. Observe the golden rule: 'Do unto extraterrestrials as you would be done by.'"
"But I'm still hungry," Michael persisted, modulating his voice, however, to a decent whisper. "Do the proprieties demand that I starve to death, or can I get something to eat somewhere?"
"Naturally," the salesman whispered back. "Portyork provides for all bodily needs. Numerous feeding stations are conveniently located throughout the port, and there must be some on the field."
After gazing furtively over his shoulder to see that no females were watching, Carpenter approached a large map of the landing field and pressed a button. A tiny red light winked demurely for an instant.
"That's the nearest one," Carpenter explained.
Inside a small, white, functional-looking building unobtrusively marked "Feeding Station," Carpenter showed Michael where to insert a two-credit piece in a slot. A door slid back and admitted Michael into a tiny, austere room, furnished only with a table, a chair, a food compartment, and an advideo. The food consisted of tabloid synthetics and was tasteless. Michael knew that only primitive creatures waste time and energy in growing and preparing natural foods. It was all a matter of getting used to this stuff, he thought glumly, as he tried to chew food that was meant to be gulped.
A ferret-eyed Yeddan appeared on the advideo. "Do you suffer from gastric disorders? Does your viscera get in your hair? A horrid condition, but swift abolition is yours with Al-Brom from Altair."
Michael finished his meal in fifteen minutes and left the compartment to find Carpenter awaiting him in the lobby, impatiently glancing at the luminous time dial embedded in his wrist.
"Let's go to the Old Town," he suggested to Michael. "It will be of great interest to a student and a newcomer like yourself."
A few yards away from the feeding station, the travel agents were lined up in rows, each outside his spaceship, each shouting the advantages of the tour he offered:
"Better than a mustard plaster is a weekend spent on Castor."
"If you want to show you like her, take her for a week to Spica."
"Movid stars go to Mars."
Carpenter smiled politely at them. "No space trips for us today, gentlemen. We're staying on Terra." He guided the bewildered young man through the crowds and to the gates of the field. Outside, a number of surface vehicles were lined up, with the drivers loudly competing for business.
"Come, take a ride in my rocket car, suited to both gent and lady, lined with luxury hukka fur brought from afar, and perfumed with rare scents from Algedi."
"Whichever movid film you choose to view will be yours in my fine cab from Mizar. Just press a button—it won't cost you nuttin'—see a passionate drama of long-vanished Mu or the bloodhounds pursuing Eliza."
"All honor be laid at the feet of free trade, but, whatever your race or your birth, each passenger curls up with two dancing girls who rides in the taxi from Earth."
"Couldn't we—couldn't we walk? At least part of the way?" Michael faltered.
Carpenter stared. "Walk! Don't you know it's forbidden to walk more than two hundred yards in any one direction? Fomalhautians never walk."
"But they have no feet."
"That has nothing whatsoever to do with it."
Carpenter gently urged the young man into the Algedian cab ... which reeked. Michael held his nose, but his mentor shook his head. "No, no! Tpiu Number Five is the most esteemed aroma on Algedi. It would break the driver's heart if he thought you didn't like it. You wouldn't want to be had up for ego injury, would you?"
"Of course not," Michael whispered weakly.
"Brunettes are darker and blondes are fairer," the advideo informed him, "when they wash out their hair with shampoos made on Chara."
After a time, Michael got more or less used to Tpiu Number Five and was able to take some interest in the passing landscape. Portyork, the biggest spaceport in the United Universe, was, of course, the most cosmopolitan city—cosmopolitan in its architecture as well as its inhabitants. Silver domes of Earth were crowded next to the tall helical edifices of the Venusians.
"You'll notice that the current medieval revival has even reached architecture," Carpenter pointed out. "See those period houses in the Frank Lloyd Wright and Inigo Jones manner?"
"Very quaint," Michael commented.
Great floating red and green balls lit the streets, even though it was still daylight, and long scarlet-and-emerald streamers whipped out from the most unlikely places. As Michael opened his mouth to inquire about this, "We now interrupt the commercials," the advideo said, "to bring you a brand new version of one of the medieval ballads that are becoming so popular...."
"I shall scream," stated Carpenter, "if they play Beautiful Blue Deneb just once more.... No, thank the Wise Ones, I've never heard this before."
"Thuban, Thuban, I've been thinking," sang a buxom Betelgeusian, "what a Cosmos this could be, if land masses were transported to replace the wasteful sea."
"I guess the first thing for me to do," Michael began in a businesslike manner, "is to get myself a room at a hotel.... What have I said now?"
"The word hotel ," Carpenter explained through pursed lips, "is not used in polite society any more. It has come to have unpleasant connotations. It means—a place of dancing girls. I hardly think...."
"Certainly not," Michael agreed austerely. "I merely want a lodging."
"That word is also—well, you see," Carpenter told him, "on Zaniah it is unthinkable to go anywhere without one's family."
"They're a sort of ant, aren't they? The Zaniahans, I mean."
"More like bees. So those creatures who travel—" Carpenter lowered his voice modestly "— alone hire a family for the duration of their stay. There are a number of families available, but the better types come rather high. There has been talk of reviving the old-fashioned price controls, but the Wise Ones say this would limit free enterprise as much as—if you'll excuse my use of the expression—tariffs would."
The taxi let them off at a square meadow which was filled with transparent plastic domes housing clocks of all varieties, most of the antique type based on the old twenty-four hour day instead of the standard thirty hours. There were few extraterrestrial clocks because most non-humans had time sense, Michael knew, and needed no mechanical devices.
"This," said Carpenter, "is Times Square. Once it wasn't really square, but it is contrary to Nekkarian custom to do, say, imply, or permit the existence of anything that isn't true, so when Nekkar entered the Union, we had to square off the place. And, of course, install the clocks. Finest clock museum in the Union, I understand."
"The pictures in my history books—" Michael began.
"Did I hear you correctly, sir?" The capes of a bright blue cloak trembled with the indignation of a scarlet, many-tentacled being. "Did you use the word history ?" He pronounced it in terms of loathing. "I have been grossly insulted and I shall be forced to report you to the police, sir."
"Please don't!" Carpenter begged. "This youth has just come from one of the Brotherhoods and is not yet accustomed to the ways of our universe. I know that, because of the great sophistication for which your race is noted, you will overlook this little gaucherie on his part."
"Well," the red one conceded, "let it not be said that Meropians are not tolerant. But, be careful, young man," he warned Michael. "There are other beings less sophisticated than we. Guard your tongue, or you might find yourself in trouble."
He indicated the stalwart constable who, splendid in gold helmet and gold-spangled pink tights, surveyed the terrain haughtily from his floating platform in the air.
"I should have told you," Carpenter reproached himself as the Meropian swirled off. "Never mention the word 'history' in front of a Meropian. They rose from barbarism in one generation, and so they haven't any history at all. Naturally, they're sensitive in the extreme about it."
"Naturally," Michael said. "Tell me, Mr. Carpenter, is there some special reason for everything being decorated in red and green? I noticed it along the way and it's all over here, too."
"Why, Christmas is coming, my boy," Carpenter answered, surprised.
"It's July already—about time they got started fixing things up. Some places are so slack, they haven't even got their Mother's Week shrines cleared away."
A bevy of tiny golden-haired, winged creatures circled slowly over Times Square.
"Izarians," Carpenter explained "They're much in demand for Christmas displays."
The small mouths opened and clear soprano voices filled the air: "It came upon the midnight clear, that glorious song of old, from angels bending near the Earth to tune their harps of gold. Peace on Earth, good will to men, from Heaven's All-Celestial. Peace to the Universe as well and every extraterrestrial.... Beat the drum and clash the cymbals; buy your Christmas gifts at Nimble's."
"This beautiful walk you see before you," Carpenter said, waving an expository arm, "shaded by boogil trees from Dschubba, is called Broadway. To your left you will be delighted to see—"
"Listen, could we—" Michael began.
"—Forty-second Street, which is now actually the forty-second—"
"By the way—"
"It is extremely rude and hence illegal," Carpenter glared, "to interrupt anyone who is speaking."
"But I would like," Michael whispered very earnestly, "to get washed. If I might."
The other man frowned. "Let me see. I believe one of the old landmarks was converted into a lavatory. Only thing of suitable dimensions. Anyhow, it was absolutely useless for any other purpose. We have to take a taxi there; it's more than two hundred yards. Custom, you know."
"A taxi? Isn't there one closer?"
"Ah, impatient youth! There aren't too many altogether. The installations are extremely expensive."
They hailed the nearest taxi, which happened to be one of the variety equipped with dancing girls. Fortunately the ride was brief.
Michael gazed at the Empire State Building with interest. It was in a remarkable state of preservation and looked just like the pictures in his history—in his books, except that none of them showed the huge golden sign "Public-Washport" riding on its spire.
Attendants directed traffic from a large circular desk in the lobby.
"Mercurians, seventy-eighth floor. A group Vegans, fourteenth floor right. B group, fourteenth floor left. C group, fifteenth floor right. D group, fifteenth floor left. Sirians, forty-ninth floor. Female humans fiftieth floor right, males, fiftieth floor left. Uranians, basement...."
Carpenter and Michael shared an elevator with a group of sad-eyed, translucent Sirians, who were singing as usual and accompanying themselves on wemps , a cross between a harp and a flute. "Foreign planets are strange and we're subject to mange. Foreign atmospheres prove deleterious. Only with our mind's eye can we sail through the sky to the bright purple swamps of our Sirius."
The cost of the compartment was half that of the feeding station; one credit in the slot unlocked the door. There was an advideo here, too:
"Friend, do you clean yourself each day? Now, let's not be evasive, for each one has his favored way. Some use an abrasive and some use oil. Some shed their skins, in a brand-new hide emerging. Some rub with grease put up in tins. For others there's deterging. Some lick themselves to take off grime. Some beat it off with rope. Some cook it away in boiling lime. Old-fashioned ones use soap. More ways there are than I recall, and each of these will differ, but the only one that works for all is Omniclene from Kiffa."
"And now," smiled Carpenter as the two humans left the building, "we must see you registered for a nice family. Nothing too ostentatious, but, on the other hand, you mustn't count credits and ally yourself beneath your station."
Michael gazed pensively at two slender, snakelike Difdans writhing
"Only 99 Shopping Days Till Christmas" across an aquamarine sky.
"They won't be permanent?" he asked. "The family, I mean?"
"Certainly not. You merely hire them for whatever length of time you choose. But why are you so anxious?"
The young man blushed. "Well, I'm thinking of having a family of my own some day. Pretty soon, as a matter of fact."
Carpenter beamed. "That's nice; you're being adopted! I do hope it's an Earth family that's chosen you—it's so awkward being adopted by extraterrestrials."
"Oh, no! I'm planning to have my own. That is, I've got a—a girl, you see, and I thought after I had secured employment of some kind in Portyork, I'd send for her and we'd get married and...."
" Married! " Carpenter was now completely shocked. "You mustn't use that word! Don't you know marriage was outlawed years ago? Exclusive possession of a member of the opposite sex is slavery on Talitha. Furthermore, supposing somebody else saw your—er—friend and wanted her also; you wouldn't wish him to endure the frustration of not having her, would you?"
Michael squared his jaw. "You bet I would."
Carpenter drew himself away slightly, as if to avoid contamination.
"This is un-Universal. Young man, if I didn't have a kind heart, I would report you."
Michael was too preoccupied to be disturbed by this threat. "You mean if I bring my girl here, I'd have to share her?"
"Certainly. And she'd have to share you. If somebody wanted you, that is."
"Then I'm not staying here," Michael declared firmly, ashamed to admit even to himself how much relief his decision was bringing him. "I don't think I like it, anyhow. I'm going back to the Brotherhood."
There was a short cold silence.
"You know, son," Carpenter finally said, "I think you might be right. I don't want to hurt your feelings—you promise I won't hurt your feelings?" he asked anxiously, afraid, Michael realized, that he might call a policeman for ego injury.
"You won't hurt my feelings, Mr. Carpenter."
"Well, I believe that there are certain individuals who just cannot adapt themselves to civilized behavior patterns. It's much better for them to belong to a Brotherhood such as yours than to be placed in one of the government incarceratoriums, comfortable and commodious though they are."
"Much better," Michael agreed.
"By the way," Carpenter went on, "I realize this is just vulgar curiosity on my part and you have a right to refuse an answer without fear of hurting my feelings, but how do you happen to have a—er—girl when you belong to a Brotherhood?"
Michael laughed. "Oh, 'Brotherhood' is merely a generic term. Both sexes are represented in our society."
"On Talitha—" Carpenter began.
"I know," Michael interrupted him, like the crude primitive he was and always would be. "But our females don't mind being generic."
A group of Sirians was traveling on the shelf above him on the slow, very slow jet bus that was flying Michael back to Angeles, back to the Lodge, back to the Brotherhood, back to her. Their melancholy howling was getting on his nerves, but in a little while, he told himself, it would be all over. He would be back home, safe with his own kind.
"When our minds have grown tired, when our lives have expired, when our sorrows no longer can weary us, let our ashes return, neatly packed in an urn, to the bright purple swamps of our Sirius."
The advideo crackled: "The gown her fairy godmother once gave to Cinderella was created by the haute couture of fashion-wise Capella."
The ancient taxi was there, the one that Michael had taken from the Lodge, early that morning, to the little Angeleno landing field, as if it had been waiting for his return.
"I see you're back, son," the driver said without surprise. He set the noisy old rockets blasting. "I been to Portyork once. It's not a bad place to live in, but I hate to visit it."
"I'm back!" Michael sank into the motheaten sable cushions and gazed with pleasure at the familiar landmarks half seen in the darkness. "I'm back! And a loud sneer to civilization!"
"Better be careful, son," the driver warned. "I know this is a rural area, but civilization is spreading. There are secret police all over. How do you know I ain't a government spy? I could pull you in for insulting civilization."
The elderly black and white advideo flickered, broke into purring sound: "Do you find life continues to daze you? Do you find for a quick death you hanker? Why not try the new style euthanasia, performed by skilled workmen from Ancha?"
Not any more, Michael thought contentedly. He was going home.
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Describe the setting of the story.
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Saboteur of Space by Robert Abernathy.
Relevant chunks:
Saboteur of Space
By ROBERT ABERNATHY
Fresh power was coming to Earth, energy which would bring life to a dying planet. Only two men stood in its way, one a cowardly rat, the other a murderous martyr; both pawns in a cosmic game where death moved his chessmen of fate—and even the winner would lose.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Ryd Randl stood, slouching a little, in the darkened footway, and watched the sky over Dynamopolis come alive with searchlights. The shuttered glow of Burshis' Stumble Inn was only a few yards off to his right, but even that lodestone failed before the novel interest of a ship about to ground in the one-time Port of Ten Thousand Ships.
Now he made out the flicker of the braking drive a mile or so overhead, and presently soft motor thunder came down to blanket the almost lightless city with sound. A beam swayed through the throbbing darkness, caught the descending ship and held it, a small gleaming minnow slipping through the dark heavens. A faint glow rose from Pi Mesa, where the spaceport lay above the city, as a runway lighted up—draining the last reserves of the city's stored power, but draining them gladly now that, in those autumn days of the historic year 819, relief was in sight.
Ryd shrugged limply; the play was meaningless to him. He turned to shuffle down the inviting ramp into the glowing interior of Burshis' dive.
The place was crowded with men and smoke. Perhaps half the former were asleep, on tables or on the floor; but for the few places like Burshis' which were still open under the power shortage, many would have frozen, these days, in the chilly nights at fourteen thousand feet. For Dynamopolis sprawled atop the world, now as in the old days when it had been built to be the power center of North America.
The rocket blasts crescendoed and died up on Pi Mesa as Ryd wedged himself with difficulty into the group along the bar. If anyone recognized him, they showed it only by looking fixedly at something else. Only Burshis Yuns kept his static smile and nodded with surprising friendliness at Ryd's pinched, old-young face.
Ryd was startled by the nod. Burshis finished serving another customer and maneuvered down the stained chrome-and-synthyl bar. Ryd was heartened.
"Say, Burshis," he started nervously, as the bulky man halted with his back to him. But Burshis turned, still smiling, shaking his head so that his jowls quivered.
"No loans," he said flatly. "But just one on the house, Ryd."
The drink almost spilled itself in Ryd's hand. Clutching it convulsively, he made his eyes narrow and said suspiciously, "What you setting 'em up for, Burshis? It's the first time since—"
Burshis' smile stayed put. He said affably, "Didn't you hear that ship that just came down on the Mesa? That was the ship from Mars—the escort they were sending with the power cylinder. The power's coming in again." He turned to greet a coin-tapping newcomer, added over his shoulder: "You know what that means, Ryd. Some life around here again. Jobs for all the bums in this town—even for you."
He left Ryd frowning, thinking fuzzily. A warming gulp seemed to clear his head. Jobs. So they thought they could put that over on him again, huh? Well, he'd show them. He was smart; he was a damn good helio man—no, that had been ten years ago. But now he was out of the habit of working, anyway. No job for Ryd Randl. They gave him one once and then took it away. He drank still more deeply.
The man on Ryd's immediate right leaned toward him. He laid a hand on his arm, gripping it hard, and said quietly: "So you're Ryd Randl."
Ryd had a bad moment before he saw that the face wasn't that of any plain-clothes man he knew. For that matter, it didn't belong to anybody he had ever known—an odd, big-boned face, strikingly ugly, with a beak-nose that was yet not too large for the hard jaw or too bleak for the thin mouth below it. An expensive transparent hat slanted over the face, and from its iridescent shadows gleamed eyes that were alert and almost frighteningly black. Ryd noted that the man wore a dark-gray cellotex of a sort rarely seen in joints like Burshis'.
"Suppose we step outside, Ryd. I'd like to talk to you."
"What's the idea?" demanded Ryd, his small store of natural courage floated to the top by alcohol.
The other seemed to realize that he was getting ahead of himself. He leaned back slightly, drew a deep breath, and said slowly and distinctly. "Would you care to make some money, my friend?"
" Huh? Why, yeh—I guess so—"
"Then come with me." The hand still on his arm was insistent. In his daze, Ryd let himself be drawn away from the bar into the sluggish crowd; then he suddenly remembered his unfinished drink, and made frantic gestures. Deliberately misunderstanding, the tall stranger fumbled briefly, tossed a coin on the counter-top, and hustled Ryd out, past the blue-and-gold-lit meloderge that was softly pouring out its endlessly changing music, through the swinging doors into the dark.
Outside, between lightless buildings, the still cold closed in on them. They kept walking—so fast that Ryd began to lose his breath, long-accustomed though his lungs were to the high, thin air.
"So you're Ryd Randl," repeated the stranger after a moment's silence.
"I might have known you. But I'd almost given up finding you tonight."
Ryd tried feebly to wrench free, stumbled. "Look," he gasped. "If you're a cop, say so!"
The other laughed shortly. "No. I'm just a man about to offer you a chance. For a come-back, Ryd—a chance to live again.... My name—you can call me Mury."
Ryd was voiceless. Something seemed increasingly ominous about the tall, spare man at his side. He wished himself back in Burshis' with his first free drink in a month. The thought of it brought tears to his eyes.
"How long have you been out of a job, Ryd?"
"Nine ... ten years. Say, what's it to you?"
"And why, Ryd?"
"Why...? Look, mister, I was a helio operator." He hunched his narrow shoulders and spread his hands in an habitual gesture of defeat. "Damn good one, too—I was a foreman ten years ago. But I don't have the physique for Mars—I might just have made it then , but I thought the plant was going to open again and—"
And that was it. The almost airless Martian sky, with its burning actinic rays, is so favorable for the use of the helio-dynamic engine. And after the middle of the eighth century, robot labor gave Mars its full economic independence—and domination. For power is—power; and there is the Restriction Act to keep men on Earth even if more than two in ten could live healthily on the outer world.
"Ten years ago," Mury nodded as if satisfied. "That must have been the Power Company of North America—the main plant by Dynamopolis itself, that shut down in December, 809. They were the last to close down outside the military bases in the Kun Lun."
Ryd was pacing beside him now. He felt a queer upsurge of confidence in this strange man; for too long he had met no sympathy and all too few men who talked his language. He burst out: "They wouldn't take me, damn them! Said my record wasn't good enough for them. That is, I didn't have a drag with any of the Poligerents."
"I know all about your record," said Mury softly.
Ryd's suspicions came back abruptly, and he reverted to his old kicked-dog manner. "How do you know? And what's it to you?"
All at once, Mury came to a stop, and swung around to face him squarely, hard eyes compelling. They were on an overpass, not far from where the vast, almost wholly deserted offices of the Triplanet Freighting Company sprawled over a square mile of city. A half-smile twisted Mury's thin lips.
"Don't misunderstand me, Ryd—you mean nothing at all to me as an individual. But you're one of a vast mass of men for whom I am working—the billions caught in the net of a corrupt government and sold as an economic prey to the ruthless masters of Mars. This, after they've borne all the hardships of a year of embargo, have offered their hands willingly to the rebuilding of decadent Earth, only to be refused by the weak leaders who can neither defy the enemy nor capitulate frankly to him."
Ryd was dazed. His mind had never been constructed to cope with such ideas and the past few years had not improved its capabilities. "Are you talking about the power cylinder?" he demanded blurrily.
Mury cast a glance toward the Milky Way as if to descry the Martian cargo projectile somewhere up among its countless lights. He said simply, "Yes."
"I don't get it," mumbled Ryd, frowning. He found words that he had heard somewhere a day or so before, in some bar or flophouse: "The power cylinder is going to be the salvation of Earth. It's a shot in the arm—no, right in the heart of Earth industry, here in Dynamopolis. It will turn the wheels and light the cities and—"
"To hell with that!" snapped Mury, suddenly savage. His hands came up slightly, the fingers flexing; then dropped back to his sides. "Don't you know you're repeating damnable lies?"
Ryd could only stare, cringing and bewildered. Mury went on with a passion shocking after his smooth calm:
"The power shell is aid, yes—but with what a price! It's the thirty pieces of silver for which the venal fools who rule our nations have sold the whole planet to Mars. Because they lack the courage and vision to retool Earth's plants and factories for the inescapable conflict, they're selling us out—making Earth, the first home of man, a colony of the Red Planet. Do you know what Earth is to the great Martian land-owners? Do you? " He paused out of breath; then finished venomously, "Earth is a great pool of labor ready to be tapped, cheaper than robots—cheap as slaves !"
"What about it?" gulped Ryd, drawing away from the fanatic. "What you want me to do about it?"
Mury took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. His face was once more bleakly impassive; only the mouth was an ugly line. "We're going to do something about it, you and I. Tonight. Now."
Ryd was nearly sober. And wholly terrified. He got out chokingly,
"What's that mean?"
"The power shell—isn't coming in as planned."
"You can't do that."
" We can," said Mury with a heavy accent on the first word. "And there are fifty thousand credits in it for you, Ryd. Are you with us?"
Suspicion was chill reality now in Ryd's mind. And he knew one thing certainly—if he refused now to accompany Mury, he would be killed, by this man or another of his kind. For the secret power known only as We never took chances. Whispered-of, terrible, and world-embracing, desperate upshot of the times in its principles of dynamitism, war, and panclasm—that was We .
The question hung in the air for a long moment. Then Ryd, with an effort, said, "Sure." A moment later it struck him that the monosyllabic assent was suspicious; he added quickly, "I got nothing to lose, see?" It was, he realized, the cold truth.
"You won't lose," said Mury. He seemed to relax. But the menace with which he had clothed himself clung, as he turned back on the way they had come.
Ryd followed dog-like, his feet in their worn shoes moving without his volition. He was frightened. Out of his very fright came a longing to placate Mury, assure him that he, Ryd, was on the same side whatever happened....
After some steps he stole a sidelong glance at his tall companion, and whined, "Where ... where we going now?"
Mury paused in his long stride, removed a hand from a pocket of the gray topcoat that wrapped him as in somber thoughts. Wordlessly, he pointed as Ryd had known he would—toward where a pale man-made dawn seemed breaking over Pi Mesa.
II
"One blow for freedom!" said Mury with caught breath. His voice fell upon air scarcely stilled since the sodden thump of the blow that had killed the guard.
The body lay between them, face down on the graveled way in the inky moon-shadow. On one side Pi Mesa stretched away two hundred yards to drop sharply into the night; on the other was the unlighted mass of the long, continuous, low buildings that housed now unused fuel pumps and servicing equipment. Looking down at the dead huddle at his feet, a little stunned by the reality of this, Ryd knew that he was in it now. He was caught in the machinery.
Mury hefted the length of steel in his hand once more, as if testing the weight that had crushed a man's skull so easily. Then, with a short wrist-flip, he sent it flying into the dried weeds which had over-grown the aero field on the mesa's rim during the summer months after State order had grounded all fliers in America.
"All right, Ryd," he said coolly. "Trade clothes with this fellow. I've brought you this far—you're taking me the rest of the way."
The rest of the way.
Ryd was still panting, and his side was paining from the strenuous exertion of the long climb up the side of the mountain, far from the guarded highway. His fingers, numbed by the cold of the high, thin air, shook as he knelt and fumbled with the zippers of the dead guard's uniform. The belted gun, however, was heavy and oddly comforting as he clumsily buckled it about his hips. He knew enough of weapons to recognize this as, not the usual paralyzer, but a flame pistol, powerful and deadly. He let his hand linger on its butt; then strong fingers tightened on his bony wrist, and he looked up with a start into the sardonic black eyes of the Panclast.
"No use now for firearms," said Mury. "All the guns we could carry wouldn't help us if we were caught out there. That gun is just a stage property for the little play we're going to give in about three minutes—when you'll act a guardsman escorting me, a Poligerent of Dynamopolis, aboard the towship Shahrazad ."
For a moment Ryd felt relief—he had hazily imagined that Mury's hatred of Mars and all things Martian might have led him to try to sabotage the Martian warship which lay somewhere on the runways beyond the long, low buildings, and which would be closely guarded. But the towship would also be guarded ... he shivered in the cold, dry night air.
Mury had melted into the shadow a few yards away. There was a light scraping, then a green flame sputtered, briefly lighting up his hands and face, and narrowing at once to a thin, singing needle of light. He had turned a pocket electron torch against the lock-mechanism of a small, disused metal door.
Ryd watched in painful suspense. There was no sound in his ears save for the hard, dry shrilling of the ray as it bit into the steel. It seemed to be crying: run, run —but he remembered the power that knew how to punish better than the law, and stood still, shivering.
The lock gave way and the door slipped aside. A light went on inside, and Ryd's heart stopped, backfired, and started again, raggedly. The same automatic mechanism that had turned the lights on had started the air-fresher, which picked up speed with a soft whine, sweeping out the long-stale atmosphere. Mury motioned to Ryd to follow him in.
It was still musty in the narrow passage, between the closely-pressing walls, beneath the great tubes and cable sheathings that fluted the ceiling overhead. A stairway spiraled up on the right to the control cupola somewhere overhead; even in the airtight gallery a thin film of dust lay on every step. Up there were the meters and switches of the disused terminal facilities of the spaceport; beyond the metal door marked CAUTION, just beyond the stairwell, lay the long runway down which the ships of space had glided to be serviced, refueled, and launched into the sky once more by now dormant machines.
"Wait," said Mury succinctly; he vanished up the spiral stair, his long legs taking two steps at a time. After an aching minute's silence, he was back. All was clear as seen from the turret-windows overhead.
They emerged in shadow, hugging the wall. Almost a quarter of a mile to the right the megalith of the Communications Tower, crowned with many lights where the signal-men sat godlike in its summit. Its floodlights shed a vast oval of light out over the mesa, where the mile-long runways—no longer polished mirror-like as in the days of Dynamopolis' glory—stretched away into the darkness of the table land. A handful of odd ships—mere remnant of the hundreds that Pi Mesa port had berthed—huddled under the solenoid wickets, as if driven together by the chill of the thin, knife-like wind that blew across the mesa.
As the two paced slowly across the runways, Ryd had a sense of protective isolation in the vast impersonality of the spaceport. Surely, in this Titanic desolation of metal slabs and flat-roofed buildings, dominated by the one great tower, total insignificance must mean safety for them.
And indeed no guard challenged them. There were armed men watching for all intruders out on the desert beyond the runways, but once inside, Ryd's borrowed blue seemed to serve as passport enough. Nonetheless, the passport's knees were shaking when they stood at last, inconspicuous still, at the shadowed base of the Communications Tower.
Not far off, a half-dozen dignitaries, huddled close together in the midst of these Cyclopean man-made things that dwarfed their policies, their principles and ambitions, stood talking rather nervously with two officers, aristocratically gaudy in the scarlet of the Martian Fleet. Blue-clad guardsmen of Earth watched from a distance—watched boredly enough.
And out on the steel-stripped tarmac, under the solenoid of Number Two Runway, lay a towship, backed like a stegosaur with its massive magnets—the Shahrazad , panting like a dragon amid rolling clouds of steam. She was plainly ready to go into space. The bottom dropped out of Ryd's stomach before he realized that a warning at least must be sounded before the ship could lift. But that might come any moment now.
"Relax," said Mury in a low voice. "Nothing's gone wrong. We'll be aboard the Shahrazad when she lifts." For a moment his black eyes shifted, hardening, toward Runway Four. The Martian warship lay there beyond the solenoid, a spiteful hundred-foot swordfish of steel, with blind gunvalves, row on row, along its sleek sides and turret-blisters. It had not yet been tugged onto the turntable; it could not be leaving again very soon, though Earth weight was undoubtedly incommoding its crew. About it a few figures stood that were stiffly erect and immobile, as tall as tall men. From head to toe they were scarlet.
"Robots!" gasped Ryd, clutching his companion's arm convulsively.
"Martian soldier robots!"
"They're unarmed, harmless. They aren't your police with built-in weapons. Only the humans are dangerous. But we've got to move. For God's sake, take it easy."
Ryd licked dry lips. "Are we going—out into space?"
"Where else?" said Mury.
The official-looking individual in the expensive topcoat and sport hat had reached the starboard airlock of the towship before anyone thought to question his authorization, escorted as he was by a blue-uniformed guardsman. When another sentry, pacing between runways a hundred yards from the squat space vessel, paused to wonder, it was—as it came about—just a little too late.
The guard turned and swung briskly off to intercept the oddly-behaving pair, hand crowding the butt of his pistol, for he was growing uneasy. His alarm mounted rapidly, till he nearly sprained an ankle in sprinting across the last of the two intervening runways, between the solenoid wickets. Those metal arches, crowding one on the other in perspective, formed a tunnel that effectively shielded the Shahrazad's airlocks from more distant view; the gang of notables attracted by the occasion was already being shepherded back to safety by the Communications guards, whose attention was thus well taken up.
The slight man in guardsman's blue glanced over his shoulder and vanished abruptly into the circular lock. His companion wheeled on the topmost step, looking down with some irritation on his unhandsome face, but with no apparent doubt of his command of the situation.
"Yes?" he inquired frostily.
"What goes on here?" snapped the guard, frowning at the tall figure silhouetted against the glow in the airlock. "The crew's signaled all aboard and the ship lifts in two minutes. You ought to be—"
"I am Semul Mury, Poligerent for the City of Dynamopolis," interrupted the tall man with asperity. "The City is naturally interested in the delivery of the power which will revivify our industries." He paused, sighed, shifting his weight to the next lower step of the gangway. "I suppose you'll want to re-check my credentials?"
The guard was somewhat confused; a Poligerent, in ninth-century bureaucracy, was a force to be reckoned with. But he contrived to nod with an appearance of brusqueness.
Fully expecting official papers, signed and garnished with all the pompous seals of a chartered metropolis, the guard was dazed to receive instead a terrific left-handed foul to the pit of the stomach, and as he reeled dizzily, retching and clawing for his gun, to find that gun no longer holstered but in the hand of the self-styled Poligerent, pointing at its licensed owner.
"I think," Mury said quietly, flexing his left wrist with care the while his right held the gun steady, "that you'd better come aboard with us."
The guard was not more cowardly than the run of politically-appointed civic guardsmen. But a flame gun kills more frightfully than the ancient electric chair. He complied, grasping the railing with both hands as he stumbled before Mury up the gangway—for he was still very sick indeed, wholly apart from his bewilderment, which was enormous.
Above, Ryd Randl waited in the lock, flattened against the curved wall, white and jittering. The inner door was shut, an impenetrable countersunk mirror of metal.
"Cover him, Ryd," ordered Mury flatly. In obedience Ryd lugged out the heavy flame pistol and pointed it; his finger was dangerously tremulous on the firing lever. He moistened his lips to voice his fears; but Mury, pocketing the other gun, threw the three-way switch on the side panel, the switch that should have controlled the inner lock.
Nothing happened.
"Oh, God. We're caught. We're trapped!" The outer gangway had slid up, the lock wheezed shut, forming an impenetrable crypt of niosteel.
Mury smiled with supernal calm. "We won't be here long," he said. Then, to quiet Ryd's fears, he went on: "The central control panel and the three local switches inside, between, and outside the locks are on the circuit in that order. Unless the locks were closed from the switch just beyond the inner lock, that lock will open when the central control panel is cut out in preparation for lifting."
Almost as he paused and drew breath, a light sprang out over the switch he had closed and the inner lock swung silently free of its gaskets. Ryd felt a trembling relief; but Mury's voice lashed out like a whip as he slipped cat-like into the passage.
"Keep him covered. Back out of the lock."
Ryd backed—the white, tense face of the prisoner holding his own nervous gaze—and, almost out of the lock, stumbled over the metal pressure rings. And the gun was out of his unsure grip, clattering somewhere near his slithering feet, as he started to fall.
He saw the guardsman hurl himself forward; then he was flung spinning, back against the engine-room door. In a flash, even as he struggled to keep on his feet, he saw the man in the airlock coming up from a crouch, shifting the pistol in his right hand to reach its firing lever; he saw Mury sidestep swiftly and throw the master control switch outside.
The inner lock whooshed shut, barely missing Ryd. At the same instant, the flame gun lighted locks and passage with one terrific flash, and a scorched, discolored spot appeared on the beveled metal of the opposite lock a foot from Mury's right shoulder.
"You damned clumsy little fool—" said Mury with soft intensity. Then, while the air around the metal walls still buzzed and snapped with blue sparks, he whirled and went up the control-room gangway in two quick bounds. Even as he went the flame gun thundered again in the starboard airlock.
Mury was just in time, for the pilot had been about to flash "Ready" to the Communications Tower when the explosions had given him pause. But the latter and his two companions were neither ready nor armed; clamped in their seats at the controls, already marked, they were helpless in an instant before the leveled menace of the gun. And the imprisoned guardsman, having wasted most of his charges, was helpless, too, in his little cell of steel.
"It's been tried before," said one of the masked men. He had a blond, youthful thatch and a smooth healthy face below the mask, together with an astrogator's triangled stars which made him ex officio the brains of the vessel. "Stealing a ship—it can't be done any more."
"It's been done again," said Mury grimly. "And you don't know the half of it. But—you will. I'll need you. As for your friends—" The gun muzzle shifted slightly to indicate the pilot and the engineer. "Out of those clamps. You're going to ride this out in the portside airlock."
He had to repeat the command, in tones that snapped with menace, before they started with fumbling, rebellious hands to strip their armor from themselves. The burly engineer was muttering phrases of obscene fervor; the weedy young pilot was wild-eyed. The blond astrogator, sitting still masked and apparently unmoved, demanded:
"What do you think you're trying to do?"
"What do you think?" demanded Mury in return. "I'm taking the ship into space. On schedule and on course—to meet the power shell." The flame gun moved with a jerk. "And as for you—what's your name?"
"Yet Arliess."
"You want to make the trip alive, don't you, Yet Arliess?"
The young astrogator stared at him and at the gun through masking goggles; then he sank into his seat with a slow shudder. "Why, yes," he said as if in wonder, "I do."
III
Shahrazad drove steadily forward into deep space, vibrating slightly to the tremendous thrust of her powerful engines. The small, cramped cabin was stiflingly hot to the three armored men who sat before its banked dials, watching their steady needles.
Ryd had blacked out, darkness washing into his eyes and consciousness draining from his head, as the space ship had pitched out into emptiness over the end of the runway on Pi Mesa and Mury had cut in the maindrive. Pressure greater than anything he had ever felt had crushed him; his voice had been snatched from his lips by those terrible forces and lost beneath the opening thunder of the three-inch tubes. Up and up, while the acceleration climbed to seven gravities—and Ryd had lost every sensation, not to regain them until Earth was dropping away under the towship's keel.
A single gravity held them back and down in the tilted seats, and the control panels seemed to curve half above them, their banks of lights confused with the stars coldly through the great nose window. In the control room all sounds impinged on a background made up of the insect hum of air-purifiers, the almost supersonic whine of the fast-spinning gyroscopes somewhere behind them, the deep continuous growl of the engines.
Mury's voice broke through that steady murmur, coming from Ryd's right.
"You can unfasten your anticlamps, Ryd," he said dryly. "That doesn't mean you," to the young navigator, on his other hand as he sat in the pilot's seat with his pressure-clamps thrown back and his gloved hands free to caress the multiplex controls before him. Clipped to the sloping dash at his left elbow was a loaded flame gun.
Ryd emerged, with much bungling, from his padded clamps, and shook his head groggily as he ran a hand through his slightly thinning hair. He ventured shakily, "Where are we?"
Mury smiled slightly. "Only our astrogator," he indicated Arliess, still masked and fettered, "can tell you that with precision. I understand only enough of astrogational practice to make sure that he is holding to the course outlined on the log. For that matter ... he is an intelligent young man and if he were not blinded by notions of duty to an outworn system.... We are now somewhere near the orbit of the Moon. Isn't that right, Arliess?"
The other did not seem to hear; he sat staring blindly before him through his goggles at the slowly-changing chart, where cryptic lights burned, some moving like glowing paramecia along fine-traced luminous tracks.
Mury too sat silent and immobile for a minute or more. Then, abruptly, he inclined his universal chair far to the right, and his long frame seemed to tense oddly. His finger stabbed out one of the sparks of light.
"What's that, Arliess?"
The astrogator broke his silence. "A ship."
"I know that well enough. What ship?"
"I supposed you had examined the log. It would have told you that that's the liner Alborak , out of Aeropolis with a diplomatic mission for Mars."
Mury shook his head regretfully. "That won't wash, Arliess. Even if you suppose her off course, no liner aspace ever carried a tenth of that drive."
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Arliess. But his voice was raw and unsteady.
"I'm talking about this. That ship is a warship, and it's looking for us—will intercept us inside of twenty minutes at the most!"
Question:
Describe the setting of the story.
Answer:
|
[
"The story takes place in Dynamopolis, a city in North America, in the year 819. The city is flooded with searchlights, although there is very little power to go around. The Terrestrials must gather at the local bar, Stumble Inn, if they do not want to freeze to death. At one point, Dynamopolis was a wealthy city, known as the Port of Ten Thousand Ships. About ten years ago, the Power Company of North America and the Triplanet Freighting Company were shut down, and the majority of the Terrestrials lost their jobs. The only people with political power are the Poligerents, and unless a Terrestrial knows one of them, he or she is likely left without a way to make ends meet. The Terrestrials were recently told that the power will be restored once the power shell is put on Earth. The air is thin, but the Terrestrials have become accustomed to it.\n\nPi Mesa is the spaceport that hovers over the city. There are still unused ships hovering there from the days where it was an important port with lots of action. Just outside of Pi Mesa there are hundreds of low buildings that are abandoned because they are no longer useful. They contain fuel pumps and servicing equipment, and they serve as a constant reminder of the life the Terrestrials once lived. \n\nWhen Ryd and Mury break into the land patrolled by the guards in blue in the spaceport, they find narrow passages, spiral staircases, and cool metal walls covered in dust. The Communications Tower is nearby, and it is guarded by signal-men. The soldier robots that are on patrol are about as tall as the average Terrestrial, and they are scarlet colored. They are unarmed and are mostly there to scare intruders away. \n\nMury and Ryd aim to get on a ship called Shahrazad, which rests on the Number Two Runway, waiting for takeoff. When they enter the ship, they find that the cabin is very hot and full of dials and needles. There is a curved control panel in front, and the ship makes a humming sound because of all of the air-purifiers onboard. \n\nMars is an important setting in the story, although the characters do not actually travel there. Mars is almost airless, so it is very easy to run a helio-dynamic engine. On Mars, they use robots for labor, and due to a law that has been passed, Terrestrials are forced to stay on Earth. \n",
"The story is set in the city of Dynamopolis on Earth in the historic year 819. Dynamopolis was built to be the power center of North America. Earth is in a deep recession with many men out of work for almost a decade because Earth can no longer produce power for the whole planet. Ryd Randl sees a spaceship landing at the unused airstrip just as he enters Burshis’ Stumble Inn. This bar is one of the few businesses with power and is filled with men trying to keep from freezing to death outside because it is freezing at an elevation of 14,000 feet. The bar owner expresses optimism for Earth’s economy with the power cylinder from Mars allowing Earth to turn the power back on for many people. The people on Earth have endured years of unemployment and have lost hope after so many years. ",
"In the future, Earth is a desolate planet reliant on aid from Mars to continue existing. The atmosphere seems to be controlled by technology, as there is reference to a “man-made dawn” rising over the desert. \n\nThe main settings of the story are:\n\nA dark, smoky bar at the Stumble Inn owned by Burshis, located in the city of Dynamopolis which was once the power center of North America.\n\nPi Mesa, a busy spaceport in the desert on Earth that has many runways and a Control Tower. It serves as a place for supply ships to land with aid from Mars. \n\nAboard the martian space towship called Shahrazad that blasts off from Pi Mesa and enters outer space. It has a small crew and is suggested to be a small ship used for towing other cargo.\n\n",
"Saboteur of Space by Robert Abernathy takes place in Dynamopolis in the year 819. Dynamopolis was built to act as the largest power center in North America. But the real question was where they would put it. Humanity had already conquered and filled much of Earth’s territory. So, they built Dynamopolis in the sky, specifically at an altitude of 14,000 feet. \nAround the early 800s, Dynamopolis took a turn for the worse. Despite being the largest power center in North America, Dynamopolis lost its power. Businesses, companies, and factories started shutting down and resources dwindled. Dynamopolis is now desolate and freezing, due to the high altitude and lack of power. The street lamps don’t work and only a few businesses--including Burshis’ Stumble Inn--are allowed to keep the lights and heat on.\n"
] |
62997
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Saboteur of Space
By ROBERT ABERNATHY
Fresh power was coming to Earth, energy which would bring life to a dying planet. Only two men stood in its way, one a cowardly rat, the other a murderous martyr; both pawns in a cosmic game where death moved his chessmen of fate—and even the winner would lose.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Ryd Randl stood, slouching a little, in the darkened footway, and watched the sky over Dynamopolis come alive with searchlights. The shuttered glow of Burshis' Stumble Inn was only a few yards off to his right, but even that lodestone failed before the novel interest of a ship about to ground in the one-time Port of Ten Thousand Ships.
Now he made out the flicker of the braking drive a mile or so overhead, and presently soft motor thunder came down to blanket the almost lightless city with sound. A beam swayed through the throbbing darkness, caught the descending ship and held it, a small gleaming minnow slipping through the dark heavens. A faint glow rose from Pi Mesa, where the spaceport lay above the city, as a runway lighted up—draining the last reserves of the city's stored power, but draining them gladly now that, in those autumn days of the historic year 819, relief was in sight.
Ryd shrugged limply; the play was meaningless to him. He turned to shuffle down the inviting ramp into the glowing interior of Burshis' dive.
The place was crowded with men and smoke. Perhaps half the former were asleep, on tables or on the floor; but for the few places like Burshis' which were still open under the power shortage, many would have frozen, these days, in the chilly nights at fourteen thousand feet. For Dynamopolis sprawled atop the world, now as in the old days when it had been built to be the power center of North America.
The rocket blasts crescendoed and died up on Pi Mesa as Ryd wedged himself with difficulty into the group along the bar. If anyone recognized him, they showed it only by looking fixedly at something else. Only Burshis Yuns kept his static smile and nodded with surprising friendliness at Ryd's pinched, old-young face.
Ryd was startled by the nod. Burshis finished serving another customer and maneuvered down the stained chrome-and-synthyl bar. Ryd was heartened.
"Say, Burshis," he started nervously, as the bulky man halted with his back to him. But Burshis turned, still smiling, shaking his head so that his jowls quivered.
"No loans," he said flatly. "But just one on the house, Ryd."
The drink almost spilled itself in Ryd's hand. Clutching it convulsively, he made his eyes narrow and said suspiciously, "What you setting 'em up for, Burshis? It's the first time since—"
Burshis' smile stayed put. He said affably, "Didn't you hear that ship that just came down on the Mesa? That was the ship from Mars—the escort they were sending with the power cylinder. The power's coming in again." He turned to greet a coin-tapping newcomer, added over his shoulder: "You know what that means, Ryd. Some life around here again. Jobs for all the bums in this town—even for you."
He left Ryd frowning, thinking fuzzily. A warming gulp seemed to clear his head. Jobs. So they thought they could put that over on him again, huh? Well, he'd show them. He was smart; he was a damn good helio man—no, that had been ten years ago. But now he was out of the habit of working, anyway. No job for Ryd Randl. They gave him one once and then took it away. He drank still more deeply.
The man on Ryd's immediate right leaned toward him. He laid a hand on his arm, gripping it hard, and said quietly: "So you're Ryd Randl."
Ryd had a bad moment before he saw that the face wasn't that of any plain-clothes man he knew. For that matter, it didn't belong to anybody he had ever known—an odd, big-boned face, strikingly ugly, with a beak-nose that was yet not too large for the hard jaw or too bleak for the thin mouth below it. An expensive transparent hat slanted over the face, and from its iridescent shadows gleamed eyes that were alert and almost frighteningly black. Ryd noted that the man wore a dark-gray cellotex of a sort rarely seen in joints like Burshis'.
"Suppose we step outside, Ryd. I'd like to talk to you."
"What's the idea?" demanded Ryd, his small store of natural courage floated to the top by alcohol.
The other seemed to realize that he was getting ahead of himself. He leaned back slightly, drew a deep breath, and said slowly and distinctly. "Would you care to make some money, my friend?"
" Huh? Why, yeh—I guess so—"
"Then come with me." The hand still on his arm was insistent. In his daze, Ryd let himself be drawn away from the bar into the sluggish crowd; then he suddenly remembered his unfinished drink, and made frantic gestures. Deliberately misunderstanding, the tall stranger fumbled briefly, tossed a coin on the counter-top, and hustled Ryd out, past the blue-and-gold-lit meloderge that was softly pouring out its endlessly changing music, through the swinging doors into the dark.
Outside, between lightless buildings, the still cold closed in on them. They kept walking—so fast that Ryd began to lose his breath, long-accustomed though his lungs were to the high, thin air.
"So you're Ryd Randl," repeated the stranger after a moment's silence.
"I might have known you. But I'd almost given up finding you tonight."
Ryd tried feebly to wrench free, stumbled. "Look," he gasped. "If you're a cop, say so!"
The other laughed shortly. "No. I'm just a man about to offer you a chance. For a come-back, Ryd—a chance to live again.... My name—you can call me Mury."
Ryd was voiceless. Something seemed increasingly ominous about the tall, spare man at his side. He wished himself back in Burshis' with his first free drink in a month. The thought of it brought tears to his eyes.
"How long have you been out of a job, Ryd?"
"Nine ... ten years. Say, what's it to you?"
"And why, Ryd?"
"Why...? Look, mister, I was a helio operator." He hunched his narrow shoulders and spread his hands in an habitual gesture of defeat. "Damn good one, too—I was a foreman ten years ago. But I don't have the physique for Mars—I might just have made it then , but I thought the plant was going to open again and—"
And that was it. The almost airless Martian sky, with its burning actinic rays, is so favorable for the use of the helio-dynamic engine. And after the middle of the eighth century, robot labor gave Mars its full economic independence—and domination. For power is—power; and there is the Restriction Act to keep men on Earth even if more than two in ten could live healthily on the outer world.
"Ten years ago," Mury nodded as if satisfied. "That must have been the Power Company of North America—the main plant by Dynamopolis itself, that shut down in December, 809. They were the last to close down outside the military bases in the Kun Lun."
Ryd was pacing beside him now. He felt a queer upsurge of confidence in this strange man; for too long he had met no sympathy and all too few men who talked his language. He burst out: "They wouldn't take me, damn them! Said my record wasn't good enough for them. That is, I didn't have a drag with any of the Poligerents."
"I know all about your record," said Mury softly.
Ryd's suspicions came back abruptly, and he reverted to his old kicked-dog manner. "How do you know? And what's it to you?"
All at once, Mury came to a stop, and swung around to face him squarely, hard eyes compelling. They were on an overpass, not far from where the vast, almost wholly deserted offices of the Triplanet Freighting Company sprawled over a square mile of city. A half-smile twisted Mury's thin lips.
"Don't misunderstand me, Ryd—you mean nothing at all to me as an individual. But you're one of a vast mass of men for whom I am working—the billions caught in the net of a corrupt government and sold as an economic prey to the ruthless masters of Mars. This, after they've borne all the hardships of a year of embargo, have offered their hands willingly to the rebuilding of decadent Earth, only to be refused by the weak leaders who can neither defy the enemy nor capitulate frankly to him."
Ryd was dazed. His mind had never been constructed to cope with such ideas and the past few years had not improved its capabilities. "Are you talking about the power cylinder?" he demanded blurrily.
Mury cast a glance toward the Milky Way as if to descry the Martian cargo projectile somewhere up among its countless lights. He said simply, "Yes."
"I don't get it," mumbled Ryd, frowning. He found words that he had heard somewhere a day or so before, in some bar or flophouse: "The power cylinder is going to be the salvation of Earth. It's a shot in the arm—no, right in the heart of Earth industry, here in Dynamopolis. It will turn the wheels and light the cities and—"
"To hell with that!" snapped Mury, suddenly savage. His hands came up slightly, the fingers flexing; then dropped back to his sides. "Don't you know you're repeating damnable lies?"
Ryd could only stare, cringing and bewildered. Mury went on with a passion shocking after his smooth calm:
"The power shell is aid, yes—but with what a price! It's the thirty pieces of silver for which the venal fools who rule our nations have sold the whole planet to Mars. Because they lack the courage and vision to retool Earth's plants and factories for the inescapable conflict, they're selling us out—making Earth, the first home of man, a colony of the Red Planet. Do you know what Earth is to the great Martian land-owners? Do you? " He paused out of breath; then finished venomously, "Earth is a great pool of labor ready to be tapped, cheaper than robots—cheap as slaves !"
"What about it?" gulped Ryd, drawing away from the fanatic. "What you want me to do about it?"
Mury took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. His face was once more bleakly impassive; only the mouth was an ugly line. "We're going to do something about it, you and I. Tonight. Now."
Ryd was nearly sober. And wholly terrified. He got out chokingly,
"What's that mean?"
"The power shell—isn't coming in as planned."
"You can't do that."
" We can," said Mury with a heavy accent on the first word. "And there are fifty thousand credits in it for you, Ryd. Are you with us?"
Suspicion was chill reality now in Ryd's mind. And he knew one thing certainly—if he refused now to accompany Mury, he would be killed, by this man or another of his kind. For the secret power known only as We never took chances. Whispered-of, terrible, and world-embracing, desperate upshot of the times in its principles of dynamitism, war, and panclasm—that was We .
The question hung in the air for a long moment. Then Ryd, with an effort, said, "Sure." A moment later it struck him that the monosyllabic assent was suspicious; he added quickly, "I got nothing to lose, see?" It was, he realized, the cold truth.
"You won't lose," said Mury. He seemed to relax. But the menace with which he had clothed himself clung, as he turned back on the way they had come.
Ryd followed dog-like, his feet in their worn shoes moving without his volition. He was frightened. Out of his very fright came a longing to placate Mury, assure him that he, Ryd, was on the same side whatever happened....
After some steps he stole a sidelong glance at his tall companion, and whined, "Where ... where we going now?"
Mury paused in his long stride, removed a hand from a pocket of the gray topcoat that wrapped him as in somber thoughts. Wordlessly, he pointed as Ryd had known he would—toward where a pale man-made dawn seemed breaking over Pi Mesa.
II
"One blow for freedom!" said Mury with caught breath. His voice fell upon air scarcely stilled since the sodden thump of the blow that had killed the guard.
The body lay between them, face down on the graveled way in the inky moon-shadow. On one side Pi Mesa stretched away two hundred yards to drop sharply into the night; on the other was the unlighted mass of the long, continuous, low buildings that housed now unused fuel pumps and servicing equipment. Looking down at the dead huddle at his feet, a little stunned by the reality of this, Ryd knew that he was in it now. He was caught in the machinery.
Mury hefted the length of steel in his hand once more, as if testing the weight that had crushed a man's skull so easily. Then, with a short wrist-flip, he sent it flying into the dried weeds which had over-grown the aero field on the mesa's rim during the summer months after State order had grounded all fliers in America.
"All right, Ryd," he said coolly. "Trade clothes with this fellow. I've brought you this far—you're taking me the rest of the way."
The rest of the way.
Ryd was still panting, and his side was paining from the strenuous exertion of the long climb up the side of the mountain, far from the guarded highway. His fingers, numbed by the cold of the high, thin air, shook as he knelt and fumbled with the zippers of the dead guard's uniform. The belted gun, however, was heavy and oddly comforting as he clumsily buckled it about his hips. He knew enough of weapons to recognize this as, not the usual paralyzer, but a flame pistol, powerful and deadly. He let his hand linger on its butt; then strong fingers tightened on his bony wrist, and he looked up with a start into the sardonic black eyes of the Panclast.
"No use now for firearms," said Mury. "All the guns we could carry wouldn't help us if we were caught out there. That gun is just a stage property for the little play we're going to give in about three minutes—when you'll act a guardsman escorting me, a Poligerent of Dynamopolis, aboard the towship Shahrazad ."
For a moment Ryd felt relief—he had hazily imagined that Mury's hatred of Mars and all things Martian might have led him to try to sabotage the Martian warship which lay somewhere on the runways beyond the long, low buildings, and which would be closely guarded. But the towship would also be guarded ... he shivered in the cold, dry night air.
Mury had melted into the shadow a few yards away. There was a light scraping, then a green flame sputtered, briefly lighting up his hands and face, and narrowing at once to a thin, singing needle of light. He had turned a pocket electron torch against the lock-mechanism of a small, disused metal door.
Ryd watched in painful suspense. There was no sound in his ears save for the hard, dry shrilling of the ray as it bit into the steel. It seemed to be crying: run, run —but he remembered the power that knew how to punish better than the law, and stood still, shivering.
The lock gave way and the door slipped aside. A light went on inside, and Ryd's heart stopped, backfired, and started again, raggedly. The same automatic mechanism that had turned the lights on had started the air-fresher, which picked up speed with a soft whine, sweeping out the long-stale atmosphere. Mury motioned to Ryd to follow him in.
It was still musty in the narrow passage, between the closely-pressing walls, beneath the great tubes and cable sheathings that fluted the ceiling overhead. A stairway spiraled up on the right to the control cupola somewhere overhead; even in the airtight gallery a thin film of dust lay on every step. Up there were the meters and switches of the disused terminal facilities of the spaceport; beyond the metal door marked CAUTION, just beyond the stairwell, lay the long runway down which the ships of space had glided to be serviced, refueled, and launched into the sky once more by now dormant machines.
"Wait," said Mury succinctly; he vanished up the spiral stair, his long legs taking two steps at a time. After an aching minute's silence, he was back. All was clear as seen from the turret-windows overhead.
They emerged in shadow, hugging the wall. Almost a quarter of a mile to the right the megalith of the Communications Tower, crowned with many lights where the signal-men sat godlike in its summit. Its floodlights shed a vast oval of light out over the mesa, where the mile-long runways—no longer polished mirror-like as in the days of Dynamopolis' glory—stretched away into the darkness of the table land. A handful of odd ships—mere remnant of the hundreds that Pi Mesa port had berthed—huddled under the solenoid wickets, as if driven together by the chill of the thin, knife-like wind that blew across the mesa.
As the two paced slowly across the runways, Ryd had a sense of protective isolation in the vast impersonality of the spaceport. Surely, in this Titanic desolation of metal slabs and flat-roofed buildings, dominated by the one great tower, total insignificance must mean safety for them.
And indeed no guard challenged them. There were armed men watching for all intruders out on the desert beyond the runways, but once inside, Ryd's borrowed blue seemed to serve as passport enough. Nonetheless, the passport's knees were shaking when they stood at last, inconspicuous still, at the shadowed base of the Communications Tower.
Not far off, a half-dozen dignitaries, huddled close together in the midst of these Cyclopean man-made things that dwarfed their policies, their principles and ambitions, stood talking rather nervously with two officers, aristocratically gaudy in the scarlet of the Martian Fleet. Blue-clad guardsmen of Earth watched from a distance—watched boredly enough.
And out on the steel-stripped tarmac, under the solenoid of Number Two Runway, lay a towship, backed like a stegosaur with its massive magnets—the Shahrazad , panting like a dragon amid rolling clouds of steam. She was plainly ready to go into space. The bottom dropped out of Ryd's stomach before he realized that a warning at least must be sounded before the ship could lift. But that might come any moment now.
"Relax," said Mury in a low voice. "Nothing's gone wrong. We'll be aboard the Shahrazad when she lifts." For a moment his black eyes shifted, hardening, toward Runway Four. The Martian warship lay there beyond the solenoid, a spiteful hundred-foot swordfish of steel, with blind gunvalves, row on row, along its sleek sides and turret-blisters. It had not yet been tugged onto the turntable; it could not be leaving again very soon, though Earth weight was undoubtedly incommoding its crew. About it a few figures stood that were stiffly erect and immobile, as tall as tall men. From head to toe they were scarlet.
"Robots!" gasped Ryd, clutching his companion's arm convulsively.
"Martian soldier robots!"
"They're unarmed, harmless. They aren't your police with built-in weapons. Only the humans are dangerous. But we've got to move. For God's sake, take it easy."
Ryd licked dry lips. "Are we going—out into space?"
"Where else?" said Mury.
The official-looking individual in the expensive topcoat and sport hat had reached the starboard airlock of the towship before anyone thought to question his authorization, escorted as he was by a blue-uniformed guardsman. When another sentry, pacing between runways a hundred yards from the squat space vessel, paused to wonder, it was—as it came about—just a little too late.
The guard turned and swung briskly off to intercept the oddly-behaving pair, hand crowding the butt of his pistol, for he was growing uneasy. His alarm mounted rapidly, till he nearly sprained an ankle in sprinting across the last of the two intervening runways, between the solenoid wickets. Those metal arches, crowding one on the other in perspective, formed a tunnel that effectively shielded the Shahrazad's airlocks from more distant view; the gang of notables attracted by the occasion was already being shepherded back to safety by the Communications guards, whose attention was thus well taken up.
The slight man in guardsman's blue glanced over his shoulder and vanished abruptly into the circular lock. His companion wheeled on the topmost step, looking down with some irritation on his unhandsome face, but with no apparent doubt of his command of the situation.
"Yes?" he inquired frostily.
"What goes on here?" snapped the guard, frowning at the tall figure silhouetted against the glow in the airlock. "The crew's signaled all aboard and the ship lifts in two minutes. You ought to be—"
"I am Semul Mury, Poligerent for the City of Dynamopolis," interrupted the tall man with asperity. "The City is naturally interested in the delivery of the power which will revivify our industries." He paused, sighed, shifting his weight to the next lower step of the gangway. "I suppose you'll want to re-check my credentials?"
The guard was somewhat confused; a Poligerent, in ninth-century bureaucracy, was a force to be reckoned with. But he contrived to nod with an appearance of brusqueness.
Fully expecting official papers, signed and garnished with all the pompous seals of a chartered metropolis, the guard was dazed to receive instead a terrific left-handed foul to the pit of the stomach, and as he reeled dizzily, retching and clawing for his gun, to find that gun no longer holstered but in the hand of the self-styled Poligerent, pointing at its licensed owner.
"I think," Mury said quietly, flexing his left wrist with care the while his right held the gun steady, "that you'd better come aboard with us."
The guard was not more cowardly than the run of politically-appointed civic guardsmen. But a flame gun kills more frightfully than the ancient electric chair. He complied, grasping the railing with both hands as he stumbled before Mury up the gangway—for he was still very sick indeed, wholly apart from his bewilderment, which was enormous.
Above, Ryd Randl waited in the lock, flattened against the curved wall, white and jittering. The inner door was shut, an impenetrable countersunk mirror of metal.
"Cover him, Ryd," ordered Mury flatly. In obedience Ryd lugged out the heavy flame pistol and pointed it; his finger was dangerously tremulous on the firing lever. He moistened his lips to voice his fears; but Mury, pocketing the other gun, threw the three-way switch on the side panel, the switch that should have controlled the inner lock.
Nothing happened.
"Oh, God. We're caught. We're trapped!" The outer gangway had slid up, the lock wheezed shut, forming an impenetrable crypt of niosteel.
Mury smiled with supernal calm. "We won't be here long," he said. Then, to quiet Ryd's fears, he went on: "The central control panel and the three local switches inside, between, and outside the locks are on the circuit in that order. Unless the locks were closed from the switch just beyond the inner lock, that lock will open when the central control panel is cut out in preparation for lifting."
Almost as he paused and drew breath, a light sprang out over the switch he had closed and the inner lock swung silently free of its gaskets. Ryd felt a trembling relief; but Mury's voice lashed out like a whip as he slipped cat-like into the passage.
"Keep him covered. Back out of the lock."
Ryd backed—the white, tense face of the prisoner holding his own nervous gaze—and, almost out of the lock, stumbled over the metal pressure rings. And the gun was out of his unsure grip, clattering somewhere near his slithering feet, as he started to fall.
He saw the guardsman hurl himself forward; then he was flung spinning, back against the engine-room door. In a flash, even as he struggled to keep on his feet, he saw the man in the airlock coming up from a crouch, shifting the pistol in his right hand to reach its firing lever; he saw Mury sidestep swiftly and throw the master control switch outside.
The inner lock whooshed shut, barely missing Ryd. At the same instant, the flame gun lighted locks and passage with one terrific flash, and a scorched, discolored spot appeared on the beveled metal of the opposite lock a foot from Mury's right shoulder.
"You damned clumsy little fool—" said Mury with soft intensity. Then, while the air around the metal walls still buzzed and snapped with blue sparks, he whirled and went up the control-room gangway in two quick bounds. Even as he went the flame gun thundered again in the starboard airlock.
Mury was just in time, for the pilot had been about to flash "Ready" to the Communications Tower when the explosions had given him pause. But the latter and his two companions were neither ready nor armed; clamped in their seats at the controls, already marked, they were helpless in an instant before the leveled menace of the gun. And the imprisoned guardsman, having wasted most of his charges, was helpless, too, in his little cell of steel.
"It's been tried before," said one of the masked men. He had a blond, youthful thatch and a smooth healthy face below the mask, together with an astrogator's triangled stars which made him ex officio the brains of the vessel. "Stealing a ship—it can't be done any more."
"It's been done again," said Mury grimly. "And you don't know the half of it. But—you will. I'll need you. As for your friends—" The gun muzzle shifted slightly to indicate the pilot and the engineer. "Out of those clamps. You're going to ride this out in the portside airlock."
He had to repeat the command, in tones that snapped with menace, before they started with fumbling, rebellious hands to strip their armor from themselves. The burly engineer was muttering phrases of obscene fervor; the weedy young pilot was wild-eyed. The blond astrogator, sitting still masked and apparently unmoved, demanded:
"What do you think you're trying to do?"
"What do you think?" demanded Mury in return. "I'm taking the ship into space. On schedule and on course—to meet the power shell." The flame gun moved with a jerk. "And as for you—what's your name?"
"Yet Arliess."
"You want to make the trip alive, don't you, Yet Arliess?"
The young astrogator stared at him and at the gun through masking goggles; then he sank into his seat with a slow shudder. "Why, yes," he said as if in wonder, "I do."
III
Shahrazad drove steadily forward into deep space, vibrating slightly to the tremendous thrust of her powerful engines. The small, cramped cabin was stiflingly hot to the three armored men who sat before its banked dials, watching their steady needles.
Ryd had blacked out, darkness washing into his eyes and consciousness draining from his head, as the space ship had pitched out into emptiness over the end of the runway on Pi Mesa and Mury had cut in the maindrive. Pressure greater than anything he had ever felt had crushed him; his voice had been snatched from his lips by those terrible forces and lost beneath the opening thunder of the three-inch tubes. Up and up, while the acceleration climbed to seven gravities—and Ryd had lost every sensation, not to regain them until Earth was dropping away under the towship's keel.
A single gravity held them back and down in the tilted seats, and the control panels seemed to curve half above them, their banks of lights confused with the stars coldly through the great nose window. In the control room all sounds impinged on a background made up of the insect hum of air-purifiers, the almost supersonic whine of the fast-spinning gyroscopes somewhere behind them, the deep continuous growl of the engines.
Mury's voice broke through that steady murmur, coming from Ryd's right.
"You can unfasten your anticlamps, Ryd," he said dryly. "That doesn't mean you," to the young navigator, on his other hand as he sat in the pilot's seat with his pressure-clamps thrown back and his gloved hands free to caress the multiplex controls before him. Clipped to the sloping dash at his left elbow was a loaded flame gun.
Ryd emerged, with much bungling, from his padded clamps, and shook his head groggily as he ran a hand through his slightly thinning hair. He ventured shakily, "Where are we?"
Mury smiled slightly. "Only our astrogator," he indicated Arliess, still masked and fettered, "can tell you that with precision. I understand only enough of astrogational practice to make sure that he is holding to the course outlined on the log. For that matter ... he is an intelligent young man and if he were not blinded by notions of duty to an outworn system.... We are now somewhere near the orbit of the Moon. Isn't that right, Arliess?"
The other did not seem to hear; he sat staring blindly before him through his goggles at the slowly-changing chart, where cryptic lights burned, some moving like glowing paramecia along fine-traced luminous tracks.
Mury too sat silent and immobile for a minute or more. Then, abruptly, he inclined his universal chair far to the right, and his long frame seemed to tense oddly. His finger stabbed out one of the sparks of light.
"What's that, Arliess?"
The astrogator broke his silence. "A ship."
"I know that well enough. What ship?"
"I supposed you had examined the log. It would have told you that that's the liner Alborak , out of Aeropolis with a diplomatic mission for Mars."
Mury shook his head regretfully. "That won't wash, Arliess. Even if you suppose her off course, no liner aspace ever carried a tenth of that drive."
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Arliess. But his voice was raw and unsteady.
"I'm talking about this. That ship is a warship, and it's looking for us—will intercept us inside of twenty minutes at the most!"
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Describe the mission that Michael and Mary were sent on
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Valley by Richard Stockham.
Relevant chunks:
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science Fiction June 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
THE VALLEY
By Richard Stockham
Illustrated by Ed Emsh
If you can't find it countless millions of miles in space, come back to Earth. You might find it just on the other side of the fence—where the grass is always greener.
The Ship dove into Earth's sea of atmosphere like a great, silver fish.
Inside the ship, a man and woman stood looking down at the expanse of land that curved away to a growing horizon. They saw the yellow ground cracked like a dried skin; and the polished stone of the mountains and the seas that were shrunken away in the dust. And they saw how the city circled the sea, as a circle of men surround a water hole in a desert under a blazing sun.
The ship's radio cried out. "You've made it! Thank God! You've made it!"
Another voice, shaking, said, "President—Davis is—overwhelmed. He can't go on. On his behalf and on behalf of all the people—with our hope that was almost dead, we greet you." A pause. "Please come in!"
The voice was silent. The air screamed against the hull of the ship.
"I can't tell them," said the man.
"Please come in!" said the radio. "Do you hear me?"
The woman looked up at the man. "You've got to Michael!"
"Two thousand years. From one end of the galaxy to the other. Not one grain of dust we can live on. Just Earth. And it's burned to a cinder."
A note of hysteria stabbed into the radio voice. "Are you all right? Stand by! We're sending a rescue ship."
"They've got a right to know what we've found," said the woman. "They sent us out. They've waited so long—."
He stared into space. "It's hopeless. If we'd found another planet they could live on, they'd do the same as they've done here."
He touched the tiny golden locket that hung around his neck. "Right now, I could press this and scratch myself and the whole farce would be over."
"No. A thousand of us died. You've got to think of them."
"We'll go back out into space," he said. "It's clean out there. I'm tired. Two thousand years of reincarnation."
She spoke softly. "We've been together for a long time. I've loved you. I've asked very little. But I need to stay on Earth. Please, Michael."
He looked at her for a moment. Then he flipped a switch. "Milky Way to Earth. Never mind the rescue ship. We're all right. We're coming in."
The great, white ship settled to Earth that was like a plain after flood waters have drained away.
The man and woman came out into the blazing sunlight.
A shout, like the crashing of a thousand surfs, rose and broke over them. The man and woman descended the gang-plank toward the officials gathered on the platform. They glanced around at the massed field of white faces beneath them; saw those same faces that had been turned toward them two thousand years past; remembered the cheers and the cries that had crashed around them then, as they and the thousand had stood before the towering spires of the ships, before the takeoff.
And, as then, there were no children among the milling, grasping throng. Only the same clutching hands and voices and arms, asking for an answer, a salvation, a happy end.
Now the officials gathered around the man and the woman, and spoke to them in voices of reverence.
A microphone was thrust into Michael's hand with the whispered admonition to tell the people of the great new life waiting for them, open and green and moist, on a virgin planet.
The cries of the people were slipping away and a stillness growing like an ocean calm and, within it, the sound of the pumps, throbbing, sucking the water from the seas.
And then Michael's voice, "The thousand who left with us are dead. For some time we've known the other planets in our solar system were uninhabitable. Now we've been from one end of the galaxy to the other. And this is what we've found.... We were given Earth. There's no place else for us. The rest of the planets in the galaxy were given to others. There's no place else for them. We've all had a chance to make the best of Earth. Instead we've made the worst of it. So we're here to stay—and die." He handed the microphone back.
The silence did not change.
The President grasped Michael's arm. "What're you saying?"
A buzzing rose up from the people like that of a swarm of frightened bees. The sea of white faces swayed and their voices began to cry. The din and motion held, long and drawn out, with a wail now and a fluttering beneath it.
Michael and the woman stood above them in the center of the pale, hovering faces of the officials.
"Good God," said the President. "You've got to tell them what you said isn't true!"
"We've been searching two thousand years for a truth," said Michael.
"A thousand of us have died finding it. I've told it. That's the way it's got to be."
The President swayed, took the microphone in his hands.
"There's been some mistake!" he cried. "Go back to the pumps and the distilleries! Go back to the water vats and the gardens and the flocks! Go back! Work and wait! We'll get the full truth to you. Everything's going to be all right !"
Obediently the mass of faces separated, as though they were being spun away on a whirling disk. Michael and the woman were swallowed up, like pebbles inside a closing hand, and carried away from the great, white ship.
They ushered the man and woman into the beamed and paneled council chambers and sat them in thick chairs before the wall of polished wood desks across which stared the line of faces, silent and waiting. And on a far wall, facing them all, hung a silver screen, fifty feet square.
The President stood. "Members of the council." He paused. "As you heard, they report—complete failure." He turned to Michael. "And now, the proof."
Michael stood beside the motion picture projector, close to his chair. The lights dimmed. There was only the sound of the pumps throbbing in the darkness close and far away, above and beneath and all around. Suddenly on the screen appeared an endless depth of blackness filled with a mass of glowing white, which extended into the room around the watching people, seeming to touch them and then spreading, like an ocean, farther away and out and out into an endless distance.
Now streaks of yellow fire shot into the picture, like a swarm of lightning bugs, the thin sharp nosed shadows of space ships, hurtling, like comets, toward the clustered star smear. And then silent thoughts flashed from the screen into the minds of the spectators; of time passing in months, years and centuries, passing and passing until they themselves seemed to be rushing and rushing into the blackness toward blinding balls of white light, the size of moons.
The dark shapes of smaller spheres circling the blinding ones moved forward into the picture; red, blue, green, yellow, purple and many mixtures of all these, and then one planet filled the screen, seeming to be inflated, like a balloon, into a shining red ball. There was a razor edge of horizon then and pink sky and an expanse of crimson. Flat, yellow creatures lay all around, expanding and contracting. A roaring rose and fell like the roaring of a million winds. Then fear flowed out of the picture into the minds of the watchers so that they gasped and cringed, and a silent voice told them that the atmosphere of this planet would disintegrate a human being.
Now the red ball seemed to pull away from them into the blackness and the blinding balls of light, and all around could be seen the streaks of rocket flame shooting away in all directions.
Suddenly a flash cut the blackness, like the flare of a match, and died, and the watchers caught from the screen the awareness of the death of a ship.
They were also aware of the rushing of time through centuries and they saw the streaking rocket flames and planets rushing at them; saw creatures in squares and circles, in threads wriggling, in lumps and blobs, rolling jumping and crawling; saw them in cloud forms whisking about, changing their shapes, and in flowing wavelets of water. They saw creatures hopping about on one leg and others crawling at incredible speeds on a thousand; saw some with all the numbers of legs and arms in between; and were aware of creatures that were there but invisible.
And those watching the screen on which time and distance were a compressed and distilled kaleidoscope, saw planet after planet and thousands at a time; heard strange noises; rasping and roaring, clinks and whistles, screams and crying, sighing and moaning. And they were aware through all this of atmosphere and ground inimical to man, some that would evaporate at the touch of a human body, or would burst into flame, or swallow, or turn from liquid to solid or solid to liquid. They saw and heard chemical analyses, were aware of this ocean of blackness and clouds of white through which man might move, and must ever move, because he could live only upon this floating dust speck that was Earth.
The picture faded in, close to one of the long, needle nosed crafts, showing inside, a man and a woman. Time was telescoped again while the man cut a tiny piece of scar tissue from his arm and that of the woman, put them in bottles and set them into compartments where solutions dripped rhythmically into the bottles, the temperature was held at that of the human body, and synthetic sunlight focused upon them from many pencil like tubes.
The watchers in the council chamber saw the bits of tissue swell into human embryos in a few seconds, and grow arms and legs and faces and extend themselves into babies. Saw them taken from the bottles and cared for, and become replicas of the man and woman controlling the ship, who, all this time were aging, until life went out of their bodies. Then the ones who had been the scar tissue disintegrated them in the coffin-like tubes and let their dust be sucked out into space—all this through millions of miles and a hundred years, compressed for the watchers into sixty seconds and a few feet of space.
Instantly there was black space on the screen again, with the fingers of flame pointing out behind the dark bodies of the ships.
And then the spectators saw one ship shudder and swerve into a blazing, bluish white star, like a gnat flying into a white hot poker; saw another drop away and away, out and out into the blackness past the swirling white rim of the galaxy, and sink into a dark nothingness.
Great balls of rock showered like hail onto other ships, smashing them into grotesque tin cans. The stream of fire at the tail of another ship suddenly died and the ship floated into an orbit around a great, yellow planet, ten times the size of Jupiter, then was sucked into it. Another burst like a bomb, flinging a man and woman out into the darkness, where they hung suspended, frozen into statues, like bodies drowned in the depths of an Arctic sea.
At this instant from the watching council, there were screams of horror and voices crying out, "Shut it off! Shut it off!" There was a moving about in the darkness. Murmurs and harsh cries of disapproval grew in volume.
Another ship in the picture was split down the side by a meteor and the bodies inside were impaled on jagged blades of steel, the contorted, bloody faces lighted by bursts of flame. And the screams and cries of the spectators rose higher, "Shut it off.... Oh Lord...."
Lights flashed through the room and the picture died.
Michael and Mary, both staring, saw, along the line of desks, the agonized faces, some staring like white stones, others hidden in clutching fingers, as though they had been confronted by a Medusa. There was the sound of heavy breathing that mixed with the throbbing of the pumps. The President held tightly to the edges of his desk to quiet his trembling.
"There—there've been changes," he said, "since you've been out in space. There isn't a person on Earth who's seen a violent death for hundreds of years."
Michael faced him, frowning. "I don't follow you."
"Dying violently happened so seldom on Earth that, after a long time, the sight of it began to drive some people mad. And then one day a man was struck by one of the ground cars and everyone who saw it went insane. Since then we've eliminated accidents, even the idea. Now, no one is aware that death by violence is even a possibility."
"I'm sorry," said Michael, "we've been so close to violent death for so long.... What you've seen is part of the proof you asked for."
"What you showed us was a picture," said the President. "If it had been real, we'd all be insane by now. If it were shown to the people there'd be mass hysteria."
"But even if we'd found another habitable planet, getting to it would involve just what we've shown you. Maybe only a tenth of the people who left Earth, or a hundredth, would ever reach a destination out in space."
"We couldn't tolerate such a possibility," said the President gravely. "We'd have to find a way around it."
The pumps throbbed like giant hearts all through the stillness in the council chambers. The faces along the line of desks were smoothing out; the terror in them was fading away.
"And yet the Earth is almost dead," said Michael quietly, "and you can't bring it back to life."
"The sins of our past, Mr. Nelson," said the President. "The Atomic wars five thousand years ago. And the greed. It was too late a long time ago. That, of course, is why the expedition was sent out. And now you've come back to us with this terrible news." He looked around, slowly, then back to Michael. "Can you give us any hope at all?"
"None."
"Another expedition? To Andromeda perhaps? With you the leader?"
Michael shook his head. "We're finished with expeditions, Mr. President."
There were mutterings in the council, and hastily whispered consultations. Now they were watching the man and woman again.
"We feel," said the President, "it would be dangerous to allow you to go out among the people. They've been informed that your statement wasn't entirely true. This was necessary, to avoid a panic. The people simply must not know the whole truth." He paused. "Now we ask you to keep in mind that whatever we decide about the two of you will be for the good of the people."
Michael and Mary were silent.
"You'll wait outside the council chambers," the President went on,
"until we have reached our decision."
As the man and woman were led away, the pumps beat in the stillness, and at the edge of the shrinking seas the salt thick waters were being pulled into the distilleries, and from them into the tier upon tier of artificial gardens that sat like giant bee hives all around the shoreline; and the mounds of salt glistening in the sunlight behind the gardens were growing into mountains.
In their rooms, Michael and Mary were talking through the hours, and waiting. All around them were fragile, form-fitting chairs and translucent walls and a ceiling that, holding the light of the sun when they had first seen it, was now filled with moonlight.
Standing at a circular window, ten feet in diameter, Michael saw, far below, the lights of the city extending into the darkness along the shoreline of the sea.
"We should have delivered our message by radio," he said, "and gone back into space."
"You could probably still go," she said quietly.
He came and stood beside her. "I couldn't stand being out in space, or anywhere, without you."
She looked up at him. "We could go out into the wilderness, Michael, outside the force walls. We could go far away."
He turned from her. "It's all dead. What would be the use?"
"I came from the Earth," she said quietly. "And I've got to go back to it. Space is so cold and frightening. Steel walls and blackness and the rockets and the little pinpoints of light. It's a prison."
"But to die out there in the desert, in that dust." Then he paused and looked away from her. "We're crazy—talking as though we had a choice."
"Maybe they'll have to give us a choice."
"What're you talking about?"
"They went into hysterics at the sight of those bodies in the picture. Those young bodies that didn't die of old age."
He waited.
"They can't stand the sight of people dying violently."
Her hand went to her throat and touched the tiny locket.
"These lockets were given to us so we'd have a choice between suffering or quick painless death.... We still have a choice."
He touched the locket at his own throat and was very still for a long moment. "So we threaten to kill ourselves, before their eyes. What would it do to them?"
He was still for a long time. "Sometimes, Mary, I think I don't know you at all." A pause. "And so now you and I are back where we started. Which'll it be, space or Earth?"
"Michael." Her voice trembled. "I—I don't know how to say this."
He waited, frowning, watching her intently.
"I'm—going to have a child."
His face went blank.
Then he stepped forward and took her by the shoulders. He saw the softness there in her face; saw her eyes bright as though the sun were shining in them; saw a flush in her cheeks, as though she had been running. And suddenly his throat was full.
"No," he said thickly. "I can't believe it."
"It's true."
He held her for a long time, then he turned his eyes aside.
"Yes, I can see it is."
"I—I can't put into words why I let it happen, Michael."
He shook his head. "I don't know—what to—to say. It's so incredible."
"Maybe—I got so—tired—just seeing the two of us over and over again and the culturing of the scar tissue, for twenty centuries. Maybe that was it. It was just—something I felt I had to do. Some— real life again. Something new. I felt a need to produce something out of myself. It all started way out in space, while we were getting close to the solar system. I began to wonder if we'd ever get out of the ship alive or if we'd ever see a sunset again or a dawn or the night or morning like we'd seen on Earth—so—so long ago. And then I had to let it happen. It was a vague and strange thing. There was something forcing me. But at the same time I wanted it, too. I seemed to be willing it, seemed to be feeling it was a necessary thing." She paused, frowning. "I didn't stop to think—it would be like this."
"Such a thing," he said, smiling grimly, "hasn't happened on Earth for three thousand years. I can remember in school, reading in the history books, how the whole Earth was overcrowded and how the food and water had to be rationed and then how the laws were passed forbidding birth and after that how the people died and there weren't any more babies born, until at last there was plenty of what the Earth had to give, for everyone. And then the news was broken to everyone about the culturing of the scar tissue, and there were a few dissenters but they were soon conditioned out of their dissension and the population was stabilized." He paused. "After all this past history, I don't think the council could endure what you've done."
"No," she said quietly. "I don't think they could."
"And so this will be just for us ." He took her in his arms. "If I remember rightly, this is a traditional action." A pause. "Now I'll go with you out onto the Earth—if we can swing it. When we get outside the city, or if we do—Well, we'll see."
They were very still together and then he turned and stood by the window and looked down upon the city and she came and stood beside him.
They both saw it at the same time. And they watched, without speaking, both knowing what was in the other's mind and heart. They watched the giant four dimensional screens all through the city. A green, lush planet showed bright and clear on them and there were ships standing among the trees and men walking through the grass, that moved gently like the swells on a calm ocean, while into their minds came the thoughts projected from the screen:
"This will be your new home. It was found and then lost. But another expedition will be sent out to find it again. Be of good hope. Everything will be all right."
Michael turned from the window. "So there's our evidence. Two thousand years. All the others killed getting it. And with a simple twist, it becomes a lie."
Mary sat down and buried her face in her hands.
"What a terrible failure there's been here," said Michael. "The neglect and destruction of a whole planet. It's like a family letting their home decay all around them, and living in smaller and smaller rooms of it, until at last the rooms are all gone, and since they can't find another home, they all die in the ruins of the last room."
"I can't face dying," Mary said quietly, "squeezed in with all these people, in this tomb they've made around the seas. I want to have the open sky and the quiet away from those awful pounding pumps when I die. I want the spread of the Earth all around and the clean air. I want to be a real part of the Earth again."
Michael barely nodded in agreement. He was standing very still now.
And then there was the sound of the door opening.
They both rose, like mourners at a funeral, and went into the council chambers.
Again they sat in the thick chairs before the wall of desks with the faces of the council looking across it like defenders.
The pumps were beating, beating all through the room and the quiet.
The President was standing. He faced Michael and Mary, and seemed to set himself as though to deliver a blow, or to receive one.
"Michael and Mary," he said, his voice struggling against a tightness,
"we've considered a long time concerning what is to be done with you and the report you brought back to us from the galaxy." He took another swallow of water. "To protect the sanity of the people, we've changed your report. We've also decided that the people must be protected from the possibility of your spreading the truth, as you did at the landing field. So, for the good of the people, you'll be isolated. All comforts will be given you. After all, in a sense, you are heroes and martyrs. Your scar tissue will be cultured as it has been in the past, and you will stay in solitary confinement until the time when, perhaps, we can migrate to another planet. We feel that hope must not be destroyed. And so another expedition is being sent out. It may be that, in time, on another planet, you'll be able to take your place in our society."
He paused. "Is there anything you wish to say?"
"Yes, there is."
"Proceed."
Michael stared straight at the President. After a long moment, he raised his hand to the tiny locket at his throat.
"Perhaps you remember," he said, "the lockets given to every member of the expedition the night before we left. I still have mine." He raised it. "So does my wife. They were designed to kill the wearer instantly and painlessly if he were ever faced with pain or a terror he couldn't endure."
The President was standing again. A stir ran along the barricade of desks.
"We can't endure the city," went on Michael, "or its life and the ways of the people." He glanced along the line of staring faces.
"If what I think you're about to say is true," said the President in a shaking voice, "it would have been better if you'd never been born."
"Let's face facts, Mr. President. We were born and haven't died—yet." A pause. "And we can kill ourselves right here before your eyes. It'd be painless to us. We'd be unconscious. But there would be horrible convulsions and grimaces. Our bodies would be twisted and torn. They'd thresh about. The deaths you saw in the picture happened a long time ago, in outer space. You all went into hysterics at the sight of them. Our deaths now would be close and terrible to see."
The President staggered as though about to faint. There was a stirring and muttering and a jumping up along the desks. Voices cried out, in anger and fear. Arms waved and fists pounded. Hands clasped and unclasped and clawed at collars, and there was a pell mell rushing around the President. They yelled at each other and clasped each other by the shoulders, turned away and back again, and then suddenly became very still.
Now they began to step down from the raised line of desks, the President leading them, and came close to the man and woman, gathering around them in a wide half circle.
Michael and Mary were holding the lockets close to their throats. The half circle of people, with the President at its center was moving closer and closer. They were sweaty faces and red ones and dry white ones and hands were raised to seize them.
Michael put his arm around Mary's waist. He felt the trembling in her body and the waiting for death.
"Stop!" he said quietly.
They halted, in slight confusion, barely drawing back.
"If you want to see us die—just come a step closer.... And remember what'll happen to you."
The faces began turning to each other and there was an undertone of muttering and whispering. "A ghastly thing.... Instant.... Nothing to do.... Space's broken their minds.... They'll do it.... Eyes're mad.... What can we do?... What?..." The sweaty faces, the cold white ones, the flushed hot ones: all began to turn to the President, who was staring at the two before him like a man watching himself die in a mirror.
"I command you," he suddenly said, in a choked voice, "to—to give me those—lockets! It's your—duty!"
"We've only one duty, Mr. President," said Michael sharply. "To ourselves."
"You're sick. Give yourselves over to us. We'll help you."
"We've made our choice. We want an answer. Quickly! Now!"
The President's body sagged. "What—what is it you want?"
Michael threw the words. "To go beyond the force fields of the city. To go far out onto the Earth and live as long as we can, and then to die a natural death."
The half circle of faces turned to each other and muttered and whispered again. "In the name of God.... Let them go.... Contaminate us.... Like animals.... Get them out of here.... Let them be finished.... Best for us all.... And them...."
There was a turning to the President again and hands thrusting him forward to within one step of Michael and Mary, who were standing there close together, as though attached.
Haltingly he said, "Go. Please go. Out onto the Earth—to die. You will die. The Earth is dead out there. You'll never see the city or your people again."
"We want a ground car," said Michael. "And supplies."
"A ground car," repeated the President. "And—supplies.... Yes."
"You can give us an escort, if you want to, out beyond the first range of mountains."
"There will be no escort," said the President firmly. "No one has been allowed to go out upon the Earth or to fly above it for many hundreds of years. We know it's there. That's enough. We couldn't bear the sight of it." He took a step back. "And we can't bear the sight of you any longer. Go now. Quickly!"
Michael and Mary did not let go of the lockets as they watched the half circle of faces move backward, staring, as though at corpses that should sink to the floor.
It was night. The city had been lost beyond the dead mounds of Earth that rolled away behind them, like a thousand ancient tombs. The ground car sat still on a crumbling road.
Looking up through the car's driving blister, they saw the stars sunk into the blue black ocean of space; saw the path of the Milky Way along which they had rushed, while they had been searching frantically for the place of salvation.
"If any one of the other couples had made it back," said Mary, "do you think they'd be with us?"
"I think they'd either be with us," he said, "or out in space again—or in prison."
She stared ahead along the beam of headlight that stabbed out into the night over the decaying road.
"How sorry are you," she said quietly, "coming with me?"
"All I know is, if I were out in space for long without you, I'd kill myself."
"Are we going to die out here, Michael?" she said, gesturing toward the wall of night that stood at the end of the headlight, "with the land?"
He turned from her, frowning, and drove the ground car forward, watching the headlights push back the darkness.
They followed the crumbling highway all night until light crept across the bald and cracked hills. The morning sun looked down upon the desolation ten feet above the horizon when the car stopped. They sat for a long time then, looking out upon the Earth's parched and inflamed skin. In the distance a wall of mountains rose like a great pile of bleached bones. Close ahead the rolling plains were motionless waves of dead Earth with a slight breeze stirring up little swirls of dust.
"I'm getting out," she said.
"I haven't the slightest idea how much farther to go, or why," said Michael shrugging. "It's all the same. Dirt and hills and mountains and sun and dust. It's really not much different from being out in space. We live in the car just like in a space ship. We've enough concentrated supplies to last for a year. How far do we go? Why? When?"
They stepped upon the Earth and felt the warmth of the sun and strolled toward the top of the hill.
"The air smells clean," he said.
"The ground feels good. I think I'll take off my shoes." She did.
"Take off your boots, Michael. Try it."
Wearily he pulled off his boots, stood in his bare feet. "It takes me back."
"Yes," she said and began walking toward the hilltop.
He followed, his boots slung around his neck. "There was a road somewhere, with the dust between my toes. Or was it a dream?"
"I guess when the past is old enough," she said, "it becomes a dream."
He watched her footprints in the dust. "God, listen to the quiet."
"I can't seem to remember so much quiet around me. There's always been the sound of a space ship, or the pumps back in the cities."
He did not answer but continued to watch her footsteps and to feel the dust squishing up between his toes. Then suddenly:
"Mary!"
She stopped, whirling around.
He was staring down at her feet.
She followed his gaze.
"It's grass!" He bent down. "Three blades."
She knelt beside him. They touched the green blades.
"They're new," he said.
They stared, like religious devotees concentrating upon some sacred object.
He rose, pulling her up with him. They hurried to the top of the hill and stood very still, looking down into a valley. There were tiny patches of green and little trees sprouting, and here and there, a pale flower. The green was in a cluster, in the center of the valley and there was a tiny glint of sunlight in its center.
"Oh!"
Her hand found his.
They ran down the gentle slope, feeling the patches of green touch their feet, smelling a new freshness in the air. And coming to the little spring, they stood beside it and watched the crystal water that trickled along the valley floor and lost itself around a bend. They saw a furry, little animal scurry away and heard the twitter of a bird and saw it resting on a slim, bending branch. They heard the buzz of a bee, saw it light on a pale flower at their feet and work at the sweetness inside.
Mary knelt down and drank from the spring.
"It's so cool. It must come from deep down."
"It does," he said. There were tears in his eyes and a tightness in his throat. "From deep down."
"We can live here, Michael!"
Slowly he looked all around until his sight stopped at the bottom of a hill. "We'll build our house just beyond those rocks. We'll dig and plant and you'll have the child."
"Yes!" she said. "Oh yes!"
"And the ones back in the city will know the Earth again. Sometime we'll lead them back here and show them the Earth is coming alive." He paused. "By following what we had to do for ourselves, we've found a way to save them."
They remained kneeling in the silence beside the pool for a long time. They felt the sun on their backs and looked into the clean depth of the water deeply aware of the new life breathing all around them and of themselves absorbing it, and at the same time giving back to it the life that was their own.
There was only this quiet and breathing and warmth until Michael stood and picked up a rock and walked toward the base of the hill where he had decided to build the house.
... THE END
Question:
Describe the mission that Michael and Mary were sent on
Answer:
|
[
"Michael and Mary were on a mission to find a habitable planet after the Atomic Wars decimated Earth, making it barely habitable. It was a long journey, and the two have been gone from Earth for a long time--they had undergone reincarnation for two thousand years. However, nobody else on the expedition made it--all of the children who were created through the culturing of scar tissue died in various ways, including ships suffering violent explosions and being struck by rocks in space. This meant that a thousand other people died, and Mary wanted to keep living for the sake of these people that perished on the mission. They returned to Earth on their ship called the Milky Way with the bad news that none of the planets they encountered would have been able to sustain human life, and even if they had found one, the journey there would have been so dangerous that a vast majority of the people who attempted to travel there would never have made it alive.",
"Two thousand years before The Valley by Richard Stockham begins, Michael, Mary, and a thousand other couples were sent out into space to locate a new home for the humans. The Atomic Wars and several thousand years of greed, gluttony, and selfishness destroyed the Earth, leaving behind only a barren wasteland. Presumably, the President created new laws to protect humans as is, curbing population growth and finding new ways to grow food and exist on this barren planet. All humans are crowded in one city and exist through reincarnation, so no babies can be born. \nSince the Earth was truly no longer able to support any sort of life (be it flora or fauna), a grand expedition was sent out to see if a mass exodus could occur. However, after two thousand years of searching, Michael and Mary conclude that humans were given one planet and one planet only. \n",
"Michael and Mary were sent on an exploratory space mission from Earth with one thousand other humans to discover other planets in the Milky Way that were suitable for human colonization. The purpose of the mission was to move humanity to a new planet after the destruction of Earth from atomic wars and greed. During their two thousand year exploration, the thousand others sent with them had all died. They had seen many life forms on different planets and a variety of alien creatures. The thousand others with them had died violent deaths in the dangers of space, sometimes hurtling into alien planets or exploding by meteor collisions.\nWhat they discovered is that Earth is the only planet habitable for humans and there is no other place in the galaxy that they can go. This is shocking news to the rest of the people of Earth, who have been waiting for those two thousand years to have news of hope that there is somewhere else they can move. The resources on Earth have been exploited to an extreme, where the only humans remaining are living in a tightly clustered city around a salty body of water they must pump and distill to sustain themselves, surrounded by dusty desert.\n",
"Due to the ravages of atomic war and the insatiable greed of humankind, Earth has been left in a desolate state. The last remaining humans live in a city next to a shrinking sea, from which they gather water through loud, throbbing pumps. Mary describes the situation as a family living in a home that they do not take of; instead, they move from room to room as the house slowly falls to pieces around them. Michael and Mary join a cohort of one thousand other humans who make their way into space in order to discover a new planet suitable for human habitation. Over the course of their 2,000-year journey, they come upon a number of planets, none of which can support human life: Some of the planets have toxic atmospheres, others dangerous winds and animals. Along the way, the rest of their cohort is violently decimated while Michael and Mary remain alive thanks to the process of reincarnation. "
] |
32744
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Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science Fiction June 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
THE VALLEY
By Richard Stockham
Illustrated by Ed Emsh
If you can't find it countless millions of miles in space, come back to Earth. You might find it just on the other side of the fence—where the grass is always greener.
The Ship dove into Earth's sea of atmosphere like a great, silver fish.
Inside the ship, a man and woman stood looking down at the expanse of land that curved away to a growing horizon. They saw the yellow ground cracked like a dried skin; and the polished stone of the mountains and the seas that were shrunken away in the dust. And they saw how the city circled the sea, as a circle of men surround a water hole in a desert under a blazing sun.
The ship's radio cried out. "You've made it! Thank God! You've made it!"
Another voice, shaking, said, "President—Davis is—overwhelmed. He can't go on. On his behalf and on behalf of all the people—with our hope that was almost dead, we greet you." A pause. "Please come in!"
The voice was silent. The air screamed against the hull of the ship.
"I can't tell them," said the man.
"Please come in!" said the radio. "Do you hear me?"
The woman looked up at the man. "You've got to Michael!"
"Two thousand years. From one end of the galaxy to the other. Not one grain of dust we can live on. Just Earth. And it's burned to a cinder."
A note of hysteria stabbed into the radio voice. "Are you all right? Stand by! We're sending a rescue ship."
"They've got a right to know what we've found," said the woman. "They sent us out. They've waited so long—."
He stared into space. "It's hopeless. If we'd found another planet they could live on, they'd do the same as they've done here."
He touched the tiny golden locket that hung around his neck. "Right now, I could press this and scratch myself and the whole farce would be over."
"No. A thousand of us died. You've got to think of them."
"We'll go back out into space," he said. "It's clean out there. I'm tired. Two thousand years of reincarnation."
She spoke softly. "We've been together for a long time. I've loved you. I've asked very little. But I need to stay on Earth. Please, Michael."
He looked at her for a moment. Then he flipped a switch. "Milky Way to Earth. Never mind the rescue ship. We're all right. We're coming in."
The great, white ship settled to Earth that was like a plain after flood waters have drained away.
The man and woman came out into the blazing sunlight.
A shout, like the crashing of a thousand surfs, rose and broke over them. The man and woman descended the gang-plank toward the officials gathered on the platform. They glanced around at the massed field of white faces beneath them; saw those same faces that had been turned toward them two thousand years past; remembered the cheers and the cries that had crashed around them then, as they and the thousand had stood before the towering spires of the ships, before the takeoff.
And, as then, there were no children among the milling, grasping throng. Only the same clutching hands and voices and arms, asking for an answer, a salvation, a happy end.
Now the officials gathered around the man and the woman, and spoke to them in voices of reverence.
A microphone was thrust into Michael's hand with the whispered admonition to tell the people of the great new life waiting for them, open and green and moist, on a virgin planet.
The cries of the people were slipping away and a stillness growing like an ocean calm and, within it, the sound of the pumps, throbbing, sucking the water from the seas.
And then Michael's voice, "The thousand who left with us are dead. For some time we've known the other planets in our solar system were uninhabitable. Now we've been from one end of the galaxy to the other. And this is what we've found.... We were given Earth. There's no place else for us. The rest of the planets in the galaxy were given to others. There's no place else for them. We've all had a chance to make the best of Earth. Instead we've made the worst of it. So we're here to stay—and die." He handed the microphone back.
The silence did not change.
The President grasped Michael's arm. "What're you saying?"
A buzzing rose up from the people like that of a swarm of frightened bees. The sea of white faces swayed and their voices began to cry. The din and motion held, long and drawn out, with a wail now and a fluttering beneath it.
Michael and the woman stood above them in the center of the pale, hovering faces of the officials.
"Good God," said the President. "You've got to tell them what you said isn't true!"
"We've been searching two thousand years for a truth," said Michael.
"A thousand of us have died finding it. I've told it. That's the way it's got to be."
The President swayed, took the microphone in his hands.
"There's been some mistake!" he cried. "Go back to the pumps and the distilleries! Go back to the water vats and the gardens and the flocks! Go back! Work and wait! We'll get the full truth to you. Everything's going to be all right !"
Obediently the mass of faces separated, as though they were being spun away on a whirling disk. Michael and the woman were swallowed up, like pebbles inside a closing hand, and carried away from the great, white ship.
They ushered the man and woman into the beamed and paneled council chambers and sat them in thick chairs before the wall of polished wood desks across which stared the line of faces, silent and waiting. And on a far wall, facing them all, hung a silver screen, fifty feet square.
The President stood. "Members of the council." He paused. "As you heard, they report—complete failure." He turned to Michael. "And now, the proof."
Michael stood beside the motion picture projector, close to his chair. The lights dimmed. There was only the sound of the pumps throbbing in the darkness close and far away, above and beneath and all around. Suddenly on the screen appeared an endless depth of blackness filled with a mass of glowing white, which extended into the room around the watching people, seeming to touch them and then spreading, like an ocean, farther away and out and out into an endless distance.
Now streaks of yellow fire shot into the picture, like a swarm of lightning bugs, the thin sharp nosed shadows of space ships, hurtling, like comets, toward the clustered star smear. And then silent thoughts flashed from the screen into the minds of the spectators; of time passing in months, years and centuries, passing and passing until they themselves seemed to be rushing and rushing into the blackness toward blinding balls of white light, the size of moons.
The dark shapes of smaller spheres circling the blinding ones moved forward into the picture; red, blue, green, yellow, purple and many mixtures of all these, and then one planet filled the screen, seeming to be inflated, like a balloon, into a shining red ball. There was a razor edge of horizon then and pink sky and an expanse of crimson. Flat, yellow creatures lay all around, expanding and contracting. A roaring rose and fell like the roaring of a million winds. Then fear flowed out of the picture into the minds of the watchers so that they gasped and cringed, and a silent voice told them that the atmosphere of this planet would disintegrate a human being.
Now the red ball seemed to pull away from them into the blackness and the blinding balls of light, and all around could be seen the streaks of rocket flame shooting away in all directions.
Suddenly a flash cut the blackness, like the flare of a match, and died, and the watchers caught from the screen the awareness of the death of a ship.
They were also aware of the rushing of time through centuries and they saw the streaking rocket flames and planets rushing at them; saw creatures in squares and circles, in threads wriggling, in lumps and blobs, rolling jumping and crawling; saw them in cloud forms whisking about, changing their shapes, and in flowing wavelets of water. They saw creatures hopping about on one leg and others crawling at incredible speeds on a thousand; saw some with all the numbers of legs and arms in between; and were aware of creatures that were there but invisible.
And those watching the screen on which time and distance were a compressed and distilled kaleidoscope, saw planet after planet and thousands at a time; heard strange noises; rasping and roaring, clinks and whistles, screams and crying, sighing and moaning. And they were aware through all this of atmosphere and ground inimical to man, some that would evaporate at the touch of a human body, or would burst into flame, or swallow, or turn from liquid to solid or solid to liquid. They saw and heard chemical analyses, were aware of this ocean of blackness and clouds of white through which man might move, and must ever move, because he could live only upon this floating dust speck that was Earth.
The picture faded in, close to one of the long, needle nosed crafts, showing inside, a man and a woman. Time was telescoped again while the man cut a tiny piece of scar tissue from his arm and that of the woman, put them in bottles and set them into compartments where solutions dripped rhythmically into the bottles, the temperature was held at that of the human body, and synthetic sunlight focused upon them from many pencil like tubes.
The watchers in the council chamber saw the bits of tissue swell into human embryos in a few seconds, and grow arms and legs and faces and extend themselves into babies. Saw them taken from the bottles and cared for, and become replicas of the man and woman controlling the ship, who, all this time were aging, until life went out of their bodies. Then the ones who had been the scar tissue disintegrated them in the coffin-like tubes and let their dust be sucked out into space—all this through millions of miles and a hundred years, compressed for the watchers into sixty seconds and a few feet of space.
Instantly there was black space on the screen again, with the fingers of flame pointing out behind the dark bodies of the ships.
And then the spectators saw one ship shudder and swerve into a blazing, bluish white star, like a gnat flying into a white hot poker; saw another drop away and away, out and out into the blackness past the swirling white rim of the galaxy, and sink into a dark nothingness.
Great balls of rock showered like hail onto other ships, smashing them into grotesque tin cans. The stream of fire at the tail of another ship suddenly died and the ship floated into an orbit around a great, yellow planet, ten times the size of Jupiter, then was sucked into it. Another burst like a bomb, flinging a man and woman out into the darkness, where they hung suspended, frozen into statues, like bodies drowned in the depths of an Arctic sea.
At this instant from the watching council, there were screams of horror and voices crying out, "Shut it off! Shut it off!" There was a moving about in the darkness. Murmurs and harsh cries of disapproval grew in volume.
Another ship in the picture was split down the side by a meteor and the bodies inside were impaled on jagged blades of steel, the contorted, bloody faces lighted by bursts of flame. And the screams and cries of the spectators rose higher, "Shut it off.... Oh Lord...."
Lights flashed through the room and the picture died.
Michael and Mary, both staring, saw, along the line of desks, the agonized faces, some staring like white stones, others hidden in clutching fingers, as though they had been confronted by a Medusa. There was the sound of heavy breathing that mixed with the throbbing of the pumps. The President held tightly to the edges of his desk to quiet his trembling.
"There—there've been changes," he said, "since you've been out in space. There isn't a person on Earth who's seen a violent death for hundreds of years."
Michael faced him, frowning. "I don't follow you."
"Dying violently happened so seldom on Earth that, after a long time, the sight of it began to drive some people mad. And then one day a man was struck by one of the ground cars and everyone who saw it went insane. Since then we've eliminated accidents, even the idea. Now, no one is aware that death by violence is even a possibility."
"I'm sorry," said Michael, "we've been so close to violent death for so long.... What you've seen is part of the proof you asked for."
"What you showed us was a picture," said the President. "If it had been real, we'd all be insane by now. If it were shown to the people there'd be mass hysteria."
"But even if we'd found another habitable planet, getting to it would involve just what we've shown you. Maybe only a tenth of the people who left Earth, or a hundredth, would ever reach a destination out in space."
"We couldn't tolerate such a possibility," said the President gravely. "We'd have to find a way around it."
The pumps throbbed like giant hearts all through the stillness in the council chambers. The faces along the line of desks were smoothing out; the terror in them was fading away.
"And yet the Earth is almost dead," said Michael quietly, "and you can't bring it back to life."
"The sins of our past, Mr. Nelson," said the President. "The Atomic wars five thousand years ago. And the greed. It was too late a long time ago. That, of course, is why the expedition was sent out. And now you've come back to us with this terrible news." He looked around, slowly, then back to Michael. "Can you give us any hope at all?"
"None."
"Another expedition? To Andromeda perhaps? With you the leader?"
Michael shook his head. "We're finished with expeditions, Mr. President."
There were mutterings in the council, and hastily whispered consultations. Now they were watching the man and woman again.
"We feel," said the President, "it would be dangerous to allow you to go out among the people. They've been informed that your statement wasn't entirely true. This was necessary, to avoid a panic. The people simply must not know the whole truth." He paused. "Now we ask you to keep in mind that whatever we decide about the two of you will be for the good of the people."
Michael and Mary were silent.
"You'll wait outside the council chambers," the President went on,
"until we have reached our decision."
As the man and woman were led away, the pumps beat in the stillness, and at the edge of the shrinking seas the salt thick waters were being pulled into the distilleries, and from them into the tier upon tier of artificial gardens that sat like giant bee hives all around the shoreline; and the mounds of salt glistening in the sunlight behind the gardens were growing into mountains.
In their rooms, Michael and Mary were talking through the hours, and waiting. All around them were fragile, form-fitting chairs and translucent walls and a ceiling that, holding the light of the sun when they had first seen it, was now filled with moonlight.
Standing at a circular window, ten feet in diameter, Michael saw, far below, the lights of the city extending into the darkness along the shoreline of the sea.
"We should have delivered our message by radio," he said, "and gone back into space."
"You could probably still go," she said quietly.
He came and stood beside her. "I couldn't stand being out in space, or anywhere, without you."
She looked up at him. "We could go out into the wilderness, Michael, outside the force walls. We could go far away."
He turned from her. "It's all dead. What would be the use?"
"I came from the Earth," she said quietly. "And I've got to go back to it. Space is so cold and frightening. Steel walls and blackness and the rockets and the little pinpoints of light. It's a prison."
"But to die out there in the desert, in that dust." Then he paused and looked away from her. "We're crazy—talking as though we had a choice."
"Maybe they'll have to give us a choice."
"What're you talking about?"
"They went into hysterics at the sight of those bodies in the picture. Those young bodies that didn't die of old age."
He waited.
"They can't stand the sight of people dying violently."
Her hand went to her throat and touched the tiny locket.
"These lockets were given to us so we'd have a choice between suffering or quick painless death.... We still have a choice."
He touched the locket at his own throat and was very still for a long moment. "So we threaten to kill ourselves, before their eyes. What would it do to them?"
He was still for a long time. "Sometimes, Mary, I think I don't know you at all." A pause. "And so now you and I are back where we started. Which'll it be, space or Earth?"
"Michael." Her voice trembled. "I—I don't know how to say this."
He waited, frowning, watching her intently.
"I'm—going to have a child."
His face went blank.
Then he stepped forward and took her by the shoulders. He saw the softness there in her face; saw her eyes bright as though the sun were shining in them; saw a flush in her cheeks, as though she had been running. And suddenly his throat was full.
"No," he said thickly. "I can't believe it."
"It's true."
He held her for a long time, then he turned his eyes aside.
"Yes, I can see it is."
"I—I can't put into words why I let it happen, Michael."
He shook his head. "I don't know—what to—to say. It's so incredible."
"Maybe—I got so—tired—just seeing the two of us over and over again and the culturing of the scar tissue, for twenty centuries. Maybe that was it. It was just—something I felt I had to do. Some— real life again. Something new. I felt a need to produce something out of myself. It all started way out in space, while we were getting close to the solar system. I began to wonder if we'd ever get out of the ship alive or if we'd ever see a sunset again or a dawn or the night or morning like we'd seen on Earth—so—so long ago. And then I had to let it happen. It was a vague and strange thing. There was something forcing me. But at the same time I wanted it, too. I seemed to be willing it, seemed to be feeling it was a necessary thing." She paused, frowning. "I didn't stop to think—it would be like this."
"Such a thing," he said, smiling grimly, "hasn't happened on Earth for three thousand years. I can remember in school, reading in the history books, how the whole Earth was overcrowded and how the food and water had to be rationed and then how the laws were passed forbidding birth and after that how the people died and there weren't any more babies born, until at last there was plenty of what the Earth had to give, for everyone. And then the news was broken to everyone about the culturing of the scar tissue, and there were a few dissenters but they were soon conditioned out of their dissension and the population was stabilized." He paused. "After all this past history, I don't think the council could endure what you've done."
"No," she said quietly. "I don't think they could."
"And so this will be just for us ." He took her in his arms. "If I remember rightly, this is a traditional action." A pause. "Now I'll go with you out onto the Earth—if we can swing it. When we get outside the city, or if we do—Well, we'll see."
They were very still together and then he turned and stood by the window and looked down upon the city and she came and stood beside him.
They both saw it at the same time. And they watched, without speaking, both knowing what was in the other's mind and heart. They watched the giant four dimensional screens all through the city. A green, lush planet showed bright and clear on them and there were ships standing among the trees and men walking through the grass, that moved gently like the swells on a calm ocean, while into their minds came the thoughts projected from the screen:
"This will be your new home. It was found and then lost. But another expedition will be sent out to find it again. Be of good hope. Everything will be all right."
Michael turned from the window. "So there's our evidence. Two thousand years. All the others killed getting it. And with a simple twist, it becomes a lie."
Mary sat down and buried her face in her hands.
"What a terrible failure there's been here," said Michael. "The neglect and destruction of a whole planet. It's like a family letting their home decay all around them, and living in smaller and smaller rooms of it, until at last the rooms are all gone, and since they can't find another home, they all die in the ruins of the last room."
"I can't face dying," Mary said quietly, "squeezed in with all these people, in this tomb they've made around the seas. I want to have the open sky and the quiet away from those awful pounding pumps when I die. I want the spread of the Earth all around and the clean air. I want to be a real part of the Earth again."
Michael barely nodded in agreement. He was standing very still now.
And then there was the sound of the door opening.
They both rose, like mourners at a funeral, and went into the council chambers.
Again they sat in the thick chairs before the wall of desks with the faces of the council looking across it like defenders.
The pumps were beating, beating all through the room and the quiet.
The President was standing. He faced Michael and Mary, and seemed to set himself as though to deliver a blow, or to receive one.
"Michael and Mary," he said, his voice struggling against a tightness,
"we've considered a long time concerning what is to be done with you and the report you brought back to us from the galaxy." He took another swallow of water. "To protect the sanity of the people, we've changed your report. We've also decided that the people must be protected from the possibility of your spreading the truth, as you did at the landing field. So, for the good of the people, you'll be isolated. All comforts will be given you. After all, in a sense, you are heroes and martyrs. Your scar tissue will be cultured as it has been in the past, and you will stay in solitary confinement until the time when, perhaps, we can migrate to another planet. We feel that hope must not be destroyed. And so another expedition is being sent out. It may be that, in time, on another planet, you'll be able to take your place in our society."
He paused. "Is there anything you wish to say?"
"Yes, there is."
"Proceed."
Michael stared straight at the President. After a long moment, he raised his hand to the tiny locket at his throat.
"Perhaps you remember," he said, "the lockets given to every member of the expedition the night before we left. I still have mine." He raised it. "So does my wife. They were designed to kill the wearer instantly and painlessly if he were ever faced with pain or a terror he couldn't endure."
The President was standing again. A stir ran along the barricade of desks.
"We can't endure the city," went on Michael, "or its life and the ways of the people." He glanced along the line of staring faces.
"If what I think you're about to say is true," said the President in a shaking voice, "it would have been better if you'd never been born."
"Let's face facts, Mr. President. We were born and haven't died—yet." A pause. "And we can kill ourselves right here before your eyes. It'd be painless to us. We'd be unconscious. But there would be horrible convulsions and grimaces. Our bodies would be twisted and torn. They'd thresh about. The deaths you saw in the picture happened a long time ago, in outer space. You all went into hysterics at the sight of them. Our deaths now would be close and terrible to see."
The President staggered as though about to faint. There was a stirring and muttering and a jumping up along the desks. Voices cried out, in anger and fear. Arms waved and fists pounded. Hands clasped and unclasped and clawed at collars, and there was a pell mell rushing around the President. They yelled at each other and clasped each other by the shoulders, turned away and back again, and then suddenly became very still.
Now they began to step down from the raised line of desks, the President leading them, and came close to the man and woman, gathering around them in a wide half circle.
Michael and Mary were holding the lockets close to their throats. The half circle of people, with the President at its center was moving closer and closer. They were sweaty faces and red ones and dry white ones and hands were raised to seize them.
Michael put his arm around Mary's waist. He felt the trembling in her body and the waiting for death.
"Stop!" he said quietly.
They halted, in slight confusion, barely drawing back.
"If you want to see us die—just come a step closer.... And remember what'll happen to you."
The faces began turning to each other and there was an undertone of muttering and whispering. "A ghastly thing.... Instant.... Nothing to do.... Space's broken their minds.... They'll do it.... Eyes're mad.... What can we do?... What?..." The sweaty faces, the cold white ones, the flushed hot ones: all began to turn to the President, who was staring at the two before him like a man watching himself die in a mirror.
"I command you," he suddenly said, in a choked voice, "to—to give me those—lockets! It's your—duty!"
"We've only one duty, Mr. President," said Michael sharply. "To ourselves."
"You're sick. Give yourselves over to us. We'll help you."
"We've made our choice. We want an answer. Quickly! Now!"
The President's body sagged. "What—what is it you want?"
Michael threw the words. "To go beyond the force fields of the city. To go far out onto the Earth and live as long as we can, and then to die a natural death."
The half circle of faces turned to each other and muttered and whispered again. "In the name of God.... Let them go.... Contaminate us.... Like animals.... Get them out of here.... Let them be finished.... Best for us all.... And them...."
There was a turning to the President again and hands thrusting him forward to within one step of Michael and Mary, who were standing there close together, as though attached.
Haltingly he said, "Go. Please go. Out onto the Earth—to die. You will die. The Earth is dead out there. You'll never see the city or your people again."
"We want a ground car," said Michael. "And supplies."
"A ground car," repeated the President. "And—supplies.... Yes."
"You can give us an escort, if you want to, out beyond the first range of mountains."
"There will be no escort," said the President firmly. "No one has been allowed to go out upon the Earth or to fly above it for many hundreds of years. We know it's there. That's enough. We couldn't bear the sight of it." He took a step back. "And we can't bear the sight of you any longer. Go now. Quickly!"
Michael and Mary did not let go of the lockets as they watched the half circle of faces move backward, staring, as though at corpses that should sink to the floor.
It was night. The city had been lost beyond the dead mounds of Earth that rolled away behind them, like a thousand ancient tombs. The ground car sat still on a crumbling road.
Looking up through the car's driving blister, they saw the stars sunk into the blue black ocean of space; saw the path of the Milky Way along which they had rushed, while they had been searching frantically for the place of salvation.
"If any one of the other couples had made it back," said Mary, "do you think they'd be with us?"
"I think they'd either be with us," he said, "or out in space again—or in prison."
She stared ahead along the beam of headlight that stabbed out into the night over the decaying road.
"How sorry are you," she said quietly, "coming with me?"
"All I know is, if I were out in space for long without you, I'd kill myself."
"Are we going to die out here, Michael?" she said, gesturing toward the wall of night that stood at the end of the headlight, "with the land?"
He turned from her, frowning, and drove the ground car forward, watching the headlights push back the darkness.
They followed the crumbling highway all night until light crept across the bald and cracked hills. The morning sun looked down upon the desolation ten feet above the horizon when the car stopped. They sat for a long time then, looking out upon the Earth's parched and inflamed skin. In the distance a wall of mountains rose like a great pile of bleached bones. Close ahead the rolling plains were motionless waves of dead Earth with a slight breeze stirring up little swirls of dust.
"I'm getting out," she said.
"I haven't the slightest idea how much farther to go, or why," said Michael shrugging. "It's all the same. Dirt and hills and mountains and sun and dust. It's really not much different from being out in space. We live in the car just like in a space ship. We've enough concentrated supplies to last for a year. How far do we go? Why? When?"
They stepped upon the Earth and felt the warmth of the sun and strolled toward the top of the hill.
"The air smells clean," he said.
"The ground feels good. I think I'll take off my shoes." She did.
"Take off your boots, Michael. Try it."
Wearily he pulled off his boots, stood in his bare feet. "It takes me back."
"Yes," she said and began walking toward the hilltop.
He followed, his boots slung around his neck. "There was a road somewhere, with the dust between my toes. Or was it a dream?"
"I guess when the past is old enough," she said, "it becomes a dream."
He watched her footprints in the dust. "God, listen to the quiet."
"I can't seem to remember so much quiet around me. There's always been the sound of a space ship, or the pumps back in the cities."
He did not answer but continued to watch her footsteps and to feel the dust squishing up between his toes. Then suddenly:
"Mary!"
She stopped, whirling around.
He was staring down at her feet.
She followed his gaze.
"It's grass!" He bent down. "Three blades."
She knelt beside him. They touched the green blades.
"They're new," he said.
They stared, like religious devotees concentrating upon some sacred object.
He rose, pulling her up with him. They hurried to the top of the hill and stood very still, looking down into a valley. There were tiny patches of green and little trees sprouting, and here and there, a pale flower. The green was in a cluster, in the center of the valley and there was a tiny glint of sunlight in its center.
"Oh!"
Her hand found his.
They ran down the gentle slope, feeling the patches of green touch their feet, smelling a new freshness in the air. And coming to the little spring, they stood beside it and watched the crystal water that trickled along the valley floor and lost itself around a bend. They saw a furry, little animal scurry away and heard the twitter of a bird and saw it resting on a slim, bending branch. They heard the buzz of a bee, saw it light on a pale flower at their feet and work at the sweetness inside.
Mary knelt down and drank from the spring.
"It's so cool. It must come from deep down."
"It does," he said. There were tears in his eyes and a tightness in his throat. "From deep down."
"We can live here, Michael!"
Slowly he looked all around until his sight stopped at the bottom of a hill. "We'll build our house just beyond those rocks. We'll dig and plant and you'll have the child."
"Yes!" she said. "Oh yes!"
"And the ones back in the city will know the Earth again. Sometime we'll lead them back here and show them the Earth is coming alive." He paused. "By following what we had to do for ourselves, we've found a way to save them."
They remained kneeling in the silence beside the pool for a long time. They felt the sun on their backs and looked into the clean depth of the water deeply aware of the new life breathing all around them and of themselves absorbing it, and at the same time giving back to it the life that was their own.
There was only this quiet and breathing and warmth until Michael stood and picked up a rock and walked toward the base of the hill where he had decided to build the house.
... THE END
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Who is Captain Dylan, and what happens to him?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Soldier Boy by Michael Shaara.
Relevant chunks:
SOLDIER BOY
By MICHAEL SHAARA
Illustrated by EMSH
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It's one thing to laugh at a man because his job is useless and outdated—another to depend on him when it suddenly isn't.
In the northland, deep, and in a great cave, by an everburning fire the Warrior sleeps. For this is the resting time, the time of peace, and so shall it be for a thousand years. And yet we shall summon him again, my children, when we are sore in need, and out of the north he will come, and again and again, each time we call, out of the dark and the cold, with the fire in his hands, he will come.
— Scandinavian legend
Throughout the night, thick clouds had been piling in the north; in the morning, it was misty and cold. By eight o'clock a wet, heavy, snow-smelling breeze had begun to set in, and because the crops were all down and the winter planting done, the colonists brewed hot coffee and remained inside. The wind blew steadily, icily from the north. It was well below freezing when, some time after nine, an army ship landed in a field near the settlement.
There was still time. There were some last brief moments in which the colonists could act and feel as they had always done. They therefore grumbled in annoyance. They wanted no soldiers here. The few who had convenient windows stared out with distaste and a mild curiosity, but no one went out to greet them.
After a while a rather tall, frail-looking man came out of the ship and stood upon the hard ground looking toward the village. He remained there, waiting stiffly, his face turned from the wind. It was a silly thing to do. He was obviously not coming in, either out of pride or just plain orneriness.
"Well, I never," a nice lady said.
"What's he just standing there for?" another lady said.
And all of them thought: well, God knows what's in the mind of a soldier, and right away many people concluded that he must be drunk. The seed of peace was deeply planted in these people, in the children and the women, very, very deep. And because they had been taught, oh so carefully, to hate war they had also been taught, quite incidentally, to despise soldiers.
The lone man kept standing in the freezing wind.
Eventually, because even a soldier can look small and cold and pathetic, Bob Rossel had to get up out of a nice, warm bed and go out in that miserable cold to meet him.
The soldier saluted. Like most soldiers, he was not too neat and not too clean and the salute was sloppy. Although he was bigger than Rossel he did not seem bigger. And, because of the cold, there were tears gathering in the ends of his eyes.
"Captain Dylan, sir." His voice was low and did not carry. "I have a message from Fleet Headquarters. Are you in charge here?"
Rossel, a small sober man, grunted. "Nobody's in charge here. If you want a spokesman I guess I'll do. What's up?"
The captain regarded him briefly out of pale blue, expressionless eyes. Then he pulled an envelope from an inside pocket, handed it to Rossel. It was a thick, official-looking thing and Rossel hefted it idly. He was about to ask again what was it all about when the airlock of the hovering ship swung open creakily. A beefy, black-haired young man appeared unsteadily in the doorway, called to Dylan.
"C'n I go now, Jim?"
Dylan turned and nodded.
"Be back for you tonight," the young man called, and then, grinning, he yelled "Catch" and tossed down a bottle. The captain caught it and put it unconcernedly into his pocket while Rossel stared in disgust. A moment later the airlock closed and the ship prepared to lift.
"Was he drunk ?" Rossel began angrily. "Was that a bottle of liquor ?"
The soldier was looking at him calmly, coldly. He indicated the envelope in Rossel's hand. "You'd better read that and get moving. We haven't much time."
He turned and walked toward the buildings and Rossel had to follow. As Rossel drew near the walls the watchers could see his lips moving but could not hear him. Just then the ship lifted and they turned to watch that, and followed it upward, red spark-tailed, into the gray spongy clouds and the cold.
After a while the ship went out of sight, and nobody ever saw it again.
The first contact Man had ever had with an intelligent alien race occurred out on the perimeter in a small quiet place a long way from home. Late in the year 2360—the exact date remains unknown—an alien force attacked and destroyed the colony at Lupus V. The wreckage and the dead were found by a mailship which flashed off screaming for the army.
When the army came it found this: Of the seventy registered colonists, thirty-one were dead. The rest, including some women and children, were missing. All technical equipment, all radios, guns, machines, even books, were also missing. The buildings had been burned, so were the bodies. Apparently the aliens had a heat ray. What else they had, nobody knew. After a few days of walking around in the ash, one soldier finally stumbled on something.
For security reasons, there was a detonator in one of the main buildings. In case of enemy attack, Security had provided a bomb to be buried in the center of each colony, because it was important to blow a whole village to hell and gone rather than let a hostile alien learn vital facts about human technology and body chemistry. There was a bomb at Lupus V too, and though it had been detonated it had not blown. The detonating wire had been cut.
In the heart of the camp, hidden from view under twelve inches of earth, the wire had been dug up and cut.
The army could not understand it and had no time to try. After five hundred years of peace and anti-war conditioning the army was small, weak and without respect. Therefore, the army did nothing but spread the news, and Man began to fall back.
In a thickening, hastening stream he came back from the hard-won stars, blowing up his homes behind him, stunned and cursing. Most of the colonists got out in time. A few, the farthest and loneliest, died in fire before the army ships could reach them. And the men in those ships, drinkers and gamblers and veterans of nothing, the dregs of a society which had grown beyond them, were for a long while the only defense Earth had.
This was the message Captain Dylan had brought, come out from Earth with a bottle on his hip.
An obscenely cheerful expression upon his gaunt, not too well shaven face, Captain Dylan perched himself upon the edge of a table and listened, one long booted leg swinging idly. One by one the colonists were beginning to understand. War is huge and comes with great suddenness and always without reason, and there is inevitably a wait, between acts, between the news and the motion, the fear and the rage.
Dylan waited. These people were taking it well, much better than those in the cities had taken it. But then, these were pioneers. Dylan grinned. Pioneers. Before you settle a planet you boil it and bake it and purge it of all possible disease. Then you step down gingerly and inflate your plastic houses, which harden and become warm and impregnable; and send your machines out to plant and harvest; and set up automatic factories to transmute dirt into coffee; and, without ever having lifted a finger, you have braved the wilderness, hewed a home out of the living rock and become a pioneer. Dylan grinned again. But at least this was better than the wailing of the cities.
This Dylan thought, although he was himself no fighter, no man at all by any standards. This he thought because he was a soldier and an outcast; to every drunken man the fall of the sober is a happy thing. He stirred restlessly.
By this time the colonists had begun to realize that there wasn't much to say, and a tall, handsome woman was murmuring distractedly: "Lupus, Lupus—doesn't that mean wolves or something?"
Dylan began to wish they would get moving, these pioneers. It was very possible that the aliens would be here soon, and there was no need for discussion. There was only one thing to do and that was to clear the hell out, quickly and without argument. They began to see it.
But, when the fear had died down, the resentment came. A number of women began to cluster around Dylan and complain, working up their anger. Dylan said nothing. Then the man Rossel pushed forward and confronted him, speaking with a vast annoyance.
"See here, soldier, this is our planet. I mean to say, this is our home . We demand some protection from the fleet. By God, we've been paying the freight for you boys all these years and it's high time you earned your keep. We demand...."
It went on and on while Dylan looked at the clock and waited. He hoped that he could end this quickly. A big gloomy man was in front of him now and giving him that name of ancient contempt, "soldier boy." The gloomy man wanted to know where the fleet was.
"There is no fleet. There are a few hundred half-shot old tubs that were obsolete before you were born. There are four or five new jobs for the brass and the government. That's all the fleet there is."
Dylan wanted to go on about that, to remind them that nobody had wanted the army, that the fleet had grown smaller and smaller ... but this was not the time. It was ten-thirty already and the damned aliens might be coming in right now for all he knew, and all they did was talk. He had realized a long time ago that no peace-loving nation in the history of Earth had ever kept itself strong, and although peace was a noble dream, it was ended now and it was time to move.
"We'd better get going," he finally said, and there was quiet.
"Lieutenant Bossio has gone on to your sister colony at Planet Three of this system. He'll return to pick me up by nightfall and I'm instructed to have you gone by then."
For a long moment they waited, and then one man abruptly walked off and the rest followed quickly; in a moment they were all gone. One or two stopped long enough to complain about the fleet, and the big gloomy man said he wanted guns, that's all, and there wouldn't nobody get him off his planet. When he left, Dylan breathed with relief and went out to check the bomb, grateful for the action.
Most of it had to be done in the open. He found a metal bar in the radio shack and began chopping at the frozen ground, following the wire. It was the first thing he had done with his hands in weeks, and it felt fine.
Dylan had been called up out of a bar—he and Bossio—and told what had happened, and in three weeks now they had cleared four colonies. This would be the last, and the tension here was beginning to get to him. After thirty years of hanging around and playing like the town drunk, a man could not be expected to rush out and plug the breach, just like that. It would take time.
He rested, sweating, took a pull from the bottle on his hip.
Before they sent him out on this trip they had made him a captain. Well, that was nice. After thirty years he was a captain. For thirty years he had bummed all over the west end of space, had scraped his way along the outer edges of Mankind, had waited and dozed and patrolled and got drunk, waiting always for something to happen. There were a lot of ways to pass the time while you waited for something to happen, and he had done them all.
Once he had even studied military tactics.
He could not help smiling at that, even now. Damn it, he'd been green. But he'd been only nineteen when his father died—of a hernia, of a crazy fool thing like a hernia that killed him just because he'd worked too long on a heavy planet—and in those days the anti-war conditioning out on the Rim was not very strong. They talked a lot about guardians of the frontier, and they got him and some other kids and a broken-down doctor. And ... now he was a captain.
He bent his back savagely, digging at the ground. You wait and you wait and the edge goes off. This thing he had waited for all those damn days was upon him now and there was nothing he could do but say the hell with it and go home. Somewhere along the line, in some dark corner of the bars or the jails, in one of the million soul-murdering insults which are reserved especially for peacetime soldiers, he had lost the core of himself, and it didn't particularly matter. That was the point: it made no particular difference if he never got it back. He owed nobody. He was tugging at the wire and trying to think of something pleasant from the old days, when the wire came loose in his hands.
Although he had been, in his cynical way, expecting it, for a moment it threw him and he just stared. The end was clean and bright. The wire had just been cut.
Dylan sat for a long while by the radio shack, holding the ends in his hands. He reached almost automatically for the bottle on his hip and then, for the first time he could remember, let it go. This was real, there was no time for that.
When Rossel came up, Dylan was still sitting. Rossel was so excited he did not notice the wire.
"Listen, soldier, how many people can your ship take?"
Dylan looked at him vaguely. "She sleeps two and won't take off with more'n ten. Why?"
His eyes bright and worried, Rossel leaned heavily against the shack.
"We're overloaded. There are sixty of us and our ship will only take forty. We came out in groups, we never thought...."
Dylan dropped his eyes, swearing silently. "You're sure? No baggage, no iron rations; you couldn't get ten more on?"
"Not a chance. She's only a little ship with one deck—she's all we could afford."
Dylan whistled. He had begun to feel light-headed. "It 'pears that somebody's gonna find out first hand what them aliens look like."
It was the wrong thing to say and he knew it. "All right," he said quickly, still staring at the clear-sliced wire, "we'll do what we can. Maybe the colony on Three has room. I'll call Bossio and ask."
The colonist had begun to look quite pitifully at the buildings around him and the scurrying people.
"Aren't there any fleet ships within radio distance?"
Dylan shook his head. "The fleet's spread out kind of thin nowadays." Because the other was leaning on him he felt a great irritation, but he said, as kindly as he could, "We'll get 'em all out. One way or another, we won't leave anybody."
It was then that Rossel saw the wire. Thickly, he asked what had happened.
Dylan showed him the two clean ends. "Somebody dug it up, cut it, then buried it again and packed it down real nice."
"The damn fool!" Rossel exploded.
"Who?"
"Why, one of ... of us, of course. I know nobody ever liked sitting on a live bomb like this, but I never...."
"You think one of your people did it?"
Rossel stared at him. "Isn't that obvious?"
"Why?"
"Well, they probably thought it was too dangerous, and silly too, like most government rules. Or maybe one of the kids...."
It was then that Dylan told him about the wire on Lupus V. Rossel was silent. Involuntarily, he glanced at the sky, then he said shakily,
"Maybe an animal?"
Dylan shook his head. "No animal did that. Wouldn't have buried it, or found it in the first place. Heck of a coincidence, don't you think? The wire at Lupus was cut just before an alien attack, and now this one is cut too—newly cut."
The colonist put one hand to his mouth, his eyes wide and white.
"So something," said Dylan, "knew enough about this camp to know that a bomb was buried here and also to know why it was here. And that something didn't want the camp destroyed and so came right into the center of the camp, traced the wire, dug it up and cut it. And then walked right out again."
"Listen," said Rossel, "I'd better go ask."
He started away but Dylan caught his arm.
"Tell them to arm," he said, "and try not to scare hell out of them. I'll be with you as soon as I've spliced this wire."
Rossel nodded and went off, running. Dylan knelt with the metal in his hands.
He began to feel that, by God, he was getting cold. He realized that he'd better go inside soon, but the wire had to be spliced. That was perhaps the most important thing he could do now, splice the wire.
All right, he asked himself for the thousandth time, who cut it? How? Telepathy? Could they somehow control one of us?
No. If they controlled one, then they could control all, and then there would be no need for an attack. But you don't know, you don't really know.
Were they small? Little animals?
Unlikely. Biology said that really intelligent life required a sizable brain and you would have to expect an alien to be at least as large as a dog. And every form of life on this planet had been screened long before a colony had been allowed in. If any new animals had suddenly shown up, Rossel would certainly know about it.
He would ask Rossel. He would damn sure have to ask Rossel.
He finished splicing the wire and tucked it into the ground. Then he straightened up and, before he went into the radio shack, he pulled out his pistol. He checked it, primed it, and tried to remember the last time he had fired it. He never had—he never had fired a gun.
The snow began falling near noon. There was nothing anybody could do but stand in the silence and watch it come down in a white rushing wall, and watch the trees and the hills drown in the whiteness, until there was nothing on the planet but the buildings and a few warm lights and the snow.
By one o'clock the visibility was down to zero and Dylan decided to try to contact Bossio again and tell him to hurry. But Bossio still didn't answer. Dylan stared long and thoughtfully out the window through the snow at the gray shrouded shapes of bushes and trees which were beginning to become horrifying. It must be that Bossio was still drunk—maybe sleeping it off before making planetfall on Three. Dylan held no grudge. Bossio was a kid and alone. It took a special kind of guts to take a ship out into space alone, when Things could be waiting....
A young girl, pink and lovely in a thick fur jacket, came into the shack and told him breathlessly that her father, Mr. Rush, would like to know if he wanted sentries posted. Dylan hadn't thought about it but he said yes right away, beginning to feel both pleased and irritated at the same time, because now they were coming to him.
He pushed out into the cold and went to find Rossel. With the snow it was bad enough, but if they were still here when the sun went down they wouldn't have a chance. Most of the men were out stripping down their ship and that would take a while. He wondered why Rossel hadn't yet put a call through to Three, asking about room on the ship there. The only answer he could find was that Rossel knew that there was no room, and he wanted to put off the answer as long as possible. And, in a way, you could not blame him.
Rossel was in his cabin with the big, gloomy man—who turned out to be Rush, the one who had asked about sentries. Rush was methodically cleaning an old hunting rifle. Rossel was surprisingly full of hope.
"Listen, there's a mail ship due in, been due since yesterday. We might get the rest of the folks out on that."
Dylan shrugged. "Don't count on it."
"But they have a contract!"
The soldier grinned.
The big man, Rush, was paying no attention. Quite suddenly he said:
"Who cut that wire, Cap?"
Dylan swung slowly to look at him. "As far as I can figure, an alien cut it."
Rush shook his head. "No. Ain't been no aliens near this camp, and no peculiar animals either. We got a planet-wide radar, and ain't no unidentified ships come near, not since we first landed more'n a year ago." He lifted the rifle and peered through the bore. "Uh-uh. One of us did it."
The man had been thinking. And he knew the planet.
"Telepathy?" asked Dylan.
"Might be."
"Can't see it. You people live too close, you'd notice right away if one of you wasn't ... himself. And, if they've got one, why not all?"
Rush calmly—at least outwardly calmly—lit his pipe. There was a strength in this man that Dylan had missed before.
"Don't know," he said gruffly. "But these are aliens, mister. And until I know different I'm keepin' an eye on my neighbor."
He gave Rossel a sour look and Rossel stared back, uncomprehending.
Then Rossel jumped. "My God!"
Dylan moved to quiet him. "Look, is there any animal at all that ever comes near here that's as large as a dog?"
After a pause, Rush answered. "Yep, there's one. The viggle. It's like a reg'lar monkey but with four legs. Biology cleared 'em before we landed. We shoot one now and then when they get pesky." He rose slowly, the rifle held under his arm. "I b'lieve we might just as well go post them sentries."
Dylan wanted to go on with this but there was nothing much else to say. Rossel went with them as far as the radio shack, with a strained expression on his face, to put through that call to Three.
When he was gone Rush asked Dylan, "Where you want them sentries? I got Walt Halloran and Web Eggers and six others lined up."
Dylan stopped and looked around grimly at the circling wall of snow.
"You know the site better than I do. Post 'em in a ring, on rises, within calling distance. Have 'em check with each other every five minutes. I'll go help your people at the ship."
The gloomy man nodded and fluffed up his collar. "Nice day for huntin'," he said, and then he was gone with the snow quickly covering his footprints.
The Alien lay wrapped in a thick electric cocoon, buried in a wide warm room beneath the base of a tree. The tree served him as antennae; curiously he gazed into a small view-screen and watched the humans come. He saw them fan out, eight of them, and sink down in the snow. He saw that they were armed.
He pulsed thoughtfully, extending a part of himself to absorb a spiced lizard. Since the morning, when the new ship had come, he had been watching steadily, and now it was apparent that the humans were aware of their danger. Undoubtedly they were preparing to leave.
That was unfortunate. The attack was not scheduled until late that night and he could not, of course, press the assault by day. But flexibility , he reminded himself sternly, is the first principle of absorption , and therefore he moved to alter his plans. A projection reached out to dial several knobs on a large box before him, and the hour of assault was moved forward to dusk. A glance at the chronometer told him that it was already well into the night on Planet Three, and that the attack there had probably begun.
The Alien felt the first tenuous pulsing of anticipation. He lay quietly, watching the small square lights of windows against the snow, thanking the Unexplainable that matters had been so devised that he would not have to venture out into that miserable cold.
Presently an alarming thought struck him. These humans moved with uncommon speed for intelligent creatures. Even without devices, it was distinctly possible that they could be gone before nightfall. He could take no chance, of course. He spun more dials and pressed a single button, and lay back again comfortably, warmly, to watch the disabling of the colonists' ship.
When Three did not answer, Rossel was nervously gazing at the snow, thinking of other things, and he called again. Several moments later the realization of what was happening struck him like a blow. Three had never once failed to answer. All they had to do when they heard the signal buzz was go into the radio shack and say hello. That was all they had to do. He called again and again, but nobody answered. There was no static and no interference and he didn't hear a thing. He checked frenziedly through his own apparatus and tried again, but the air was as dead as deep space. He raced out to tell Dylan.
Dylan accepted it. He had known none of the people on Three and what he felt now was a much greater urgency to be out of here. He said hopeful things to Rossel, and then went out to the ship and joined the men in lightening her. About the ship at least, he knew something and he was able to tell them what partitions and frames could go and what would have to stay or the ship would never get off the planet. But even stripped down, it couldn't take them all. When he knew that, he realized that he himself would have to stay here, for it was only then that he thought of Bossio.
Three was dead. Bossio had gone down there some time ago and, if Three was dead and Bossio had not called, then the fact was that Bossio was gone too. For a long, long moment Dylan stood rooted in the snow. More than the fact that he would have to stay here was the unspoken, unalterable, heart-numbing knowledge that Bossio was dead—the one thing that Dylan could not accept. Bossio was the only friend he had. In all this dog-eared, aimless, ape-run Universe Bossio was all his friendship and his trust.
He left the ship blindly and went back to the settlement. Now the people were quiet and really frightened, and some of the women were beginning to cry. He noticed now that they had begun to look at him with hope as he passed, and in his own grief, humanly, he swore.
Bossio—a big-grinning kid with no parents, no enemies, no grudges—Bossio was already dead because he had come out here and tried to help these people. People who had kicked or ignored him all the days of his life. And, in a short while, Dylan would also stay behind and die to save the life of somebody he never knew and who, twenty-four hours earlier, would have been ashamed to be found in his company. Now, when it was far, far too late, they were coming to the army for help.
But in the end, damn it, he could not hate these people. All they had ever wanted was peace, and even though they had never understood that the Universe is unknowable and that you must always have big shoulders, still they had always sought only for peace. If peace leads to no conflict at all and then decay, well, that was something that had to be learned. So he could not hate these people.
But he could not help them either. He turned from their eyes and went into the radio shack. It had begun to dawn on the women that they might be leaving without their husbands or sons, and he did not want to see the fierce struggle that he was sure would take place. He sat alone and tried, for the last time, to call Bossio.
After a while, an old woman found him and offered him coffee. It was a very decent thing to do, to think of him at a time like this, and he was so suddenly grateful he could only nod. The woman said that he must be cold in that thin army thing and that she had brought along a mackinaw for him. She poured the coffee and left him alone.
They were thinking of him now, he knew, because they were thinking of everyone who had to stay. Throw the dog a bone. Dammit, don't be like that, he told himself. He had not had anything to eat all day and the coffee was warm and strong. He decided he might be of some help at the ship.
It was stripped down now and they were loading. He was startled to see a great group of them standing in the snow, removing their clothes. Then he understood. The clothes of forty people would change the weight by enough to get a few more aboard. There was no fighting. Some of the women were almost hysterical and a few had refused to go and were still in their cabins, but the process was orderly. Children went automatically, as did the youngest husbands and all the women. The elders were shuffling around in the snow, waving their arms to keep themselves warm. Some of them were laughing to keep their spirits up.
In the end, the ship took forty-six people.
Rossel was one of the ones that would not be going. Dylan saw him standing by the airlock holding his wife in his arms, his face buried in her soft brown hair. A sense of great sympathy, totally unexpected, rose up in Dylan, and a little of the lostness of thirty years went slipping away. These were his people. It was a thing he had never understood before, because he had never once been among men in great trouble. He waited and watched, learning, trying to digest this while there was still time. Then the semi-naked colonists were inside and the airlock closed. But when the ship tried to lift, there was a sharp burning smell—she couldn't get off the ground.
Question:
Who is Captain Dylan, and what happens to him?
Answer:
|
[
"Captain Dylan is in the Fleet army and travels with Lieutenant Bossio to colonies on different planets with the message that an alien attack is imminent and the colonists must evacuate. He has become a drunk, which is not uncommon in the army because soldiers were outcasts. For the past three weeks, he and Bossio have been evacuating colonies—the current one is their fifth and last. Prior to this mission, he has spent the last 30 years hanging around, getting drunk, and waiting for something to happen. He was made a captain just before this mission. Looking back, he finds it humorous that he used to study military tactics as if he would need to know them. After his father died of a hernia that he developed from working too long on a heavy planet, he joined the army. Dylan was lured by the army’s recruiting advertisements calling itself guardians of the frontier. When he enlisted, anti-war conditioning wasn’t as strong as it is now, so people weren’t as resentful and disrespectful of soldiers then. Dylan feels that along the way, after all the time he spent in bars and jails, he lost his core. He also believes it doesn’t matter whether he makes it back home: he has no connections and doesn’t owe anybody anything. Drinking has become a way of life, and while he digs for the wire to the bomb, he takes a drink, but after he finds the wire has been cut, he reaches for his bottle but for the first time in a long time, stops before taking a drink. \nWhen the colonists start looking to him for help and answers, Dylan is somewhat pleased because now they are showing him respect, but he is annoyed, too, since it is only because they are scared and need help. When Dylan learns that Planet Three hasn’t answered any radio calls, he connects that to the fact he hasn’t been able to reach Bossio and concludes that the colonists and Bossio are dead. He knows this means he will have to stay behind on the planet when the colonists leave, but that doesn’t bother him. What does bother him is that Bossio is dead only because they had come to help these people—people who wanted nothing to do with them until their lives were threatened. Bossio was his best friend, and Dylan mourns his loss. Even though Dylan resents the people for their disregard for him and the army, he has sympathy for them. He doesn’t want to watch their pain when the women have to leave their men behind, and he is touched when an old woman offers him coffee and a mackinaw to help him stay warm. As he watches Rossel and other men saying goodbye to their wives and children, Dylan begins losing the shell the last 30 years had created around him and begins to feel that these people are his people.\n",
"Captain Dylan is a member of the Earth’s army, presumably reporting back to Fleet Headquarters. His father died of a hernia when he was only 19 years old after years of hard work and grueling labor. This sudden absence left Dylan feeling alone in the world, so he happily signed on when the army came to town, speaking of frontiers to discover and great adventures to be had. However, with an anti-war sentiment spreading across the colonies, there was no real army to join. Their fleets were small and fairly untrained or, at least ill-prepared for war. When Captain Dylan finally got word of an alien attack, he feared that the anti-war thinking would hinder their ability to fight back. \nHe arrives on this cold planet to inform the colonists that they need to evacuate. Since Lupus V, he’s been to several cities and colonies over a few weeks and evacuated them all. Lietenant Bossio, his best friend, dropped him off before flying to Planet Three to evacuate the colony there too. He is dependent on alcohol both for warmth and to get him through. He is met with contempt and hostility, but he perseveres and convinces them of the danger. \nHe drinks to fight off the cold and digs beneath the ground to check the bomb. He discovers that the wire has been cut, like on Lupus V. He ponders telepathy, but is interrupted by Rossel who reveals that they don’t have enough room on their ship for all 60 inhabitants. \nDylan is a little cranky, but tries his best to problemsolve. Slowly they reach a compromise and Dylan buzzes Bossio to see when he’s coming back from Planet Three. He doesn’t hear back. Dylan eventually realizes that Bossio is not coming back, so he will be stuck on this planet while the aliens attack. \nThe story ends with Dylan watching as 46 members of the colony squeeze onto the spaceship, while he resigns himself to his doom. The rocket doesn’t start, and all are left behind. \n",
"Captain Dylan spent 30 years in the West end of space on the “outer edges of Mankind” doing patrols as a peacetime officer before finally being made a Captain. He has never fired a gun. He developed a habit of drinking alcohol, and often in the story drinks from a bottle on his hip to cope with hard news.\nHe and his Lieutenant, Bossio, were summoned out of a bar with the news of the alien attack on Lupus V and charged with clearing the colonies in danger. They cleared four colonies in three weeks, and this planet was due to be the last. \nAfter landing on the planet, he is initially met with some skepticism by the colonists, who then quickly shift into high gear to follow his instructions to evacuate. He goes about digging up the wire to the safety detonation system in the colony to check it is functioning, but it has recently been cut. He thinks it was an alien, and he turns out to be right. There is a nearby alien hiding under a tree orchestrating the attack that is never discovered by the humans.\nThe Captain sees through helping the colonists to load their ship with 46 people to escape, but on take off it is not able to lift off the ground.\n",
"Captain Jim Dylan is a tall, frail-looking army man with pale blue eyes whose appearance is not too neat. He salutes Rossel sloppily when they first meet and delivers an envelope with a message from Fleet Headquarters. After delivering the message, his ship leaves, and Rossel accompanies Dylan back to the village. When Dylan was 19, his father died of a hernia, and he joined the army; those were the days prior to the anti-war conditioning, and people viewed soldiers as \"guardians of the frontier.\" In the ensuing years of boozing, being imprisoned, receiving anti-army insults, and endlessly waiting for something to happen, Dylan had lost the thrill of action and had lost touch with himself. Prior to his deployment with Bossio to clear the colonies, the army had finally made him a captain; even that achievement feels empty to him. Dylan has mostly been drinking for the past thirty years thanks to the army's inaction and the fact that they were universally disrespected and hated by most colonists. However, he had also spent some of that time studying military tactics. Still, he realizes he has never fired a gun. Dylan halfheartedly engages with the colonists when he first arrives to warn them of the impending alien attack. But he slowly warms up to them as he realizes that they actually need his help, and he can offer them that help. He theorizes that the cut wire is the result of telepathic interference by the aliens as they preempt their attack. He works with Rossel to devise an evacuation plan, and Rush provides Dylan with sentries. Dylan is devastated when he learns of Bossio's death. Bossio had been his only friend. In spite of the fact that Bossio had died for people who hated him, Dylan finds he cannot hate the colonists. They simply don't understand that no conflict leads to decay. At the same time, he realizes he cannot truly help them either, so he retreats back to the radio shack. After an old woman brings him a mackinaw and coffee, Dylan realizes he should help after all. When he sees people removing their clothes to allow more people on board, and he witnesses Rossel tearily saying goodbye to his wife, Dylan feels a human connection he had lost in those thirty years of aimlessness."
] |
50848
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SOLDIER BOY
By MICHAEL SHAARA
Illustrated by EMSH
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It's one thing to laugh at a man because his job is useless and outdated—another to depend on him when it suddenly isn't.
In the northland, deep, and in a great cave, by an everburning fire the Warrior sleeps. For this is the resting time, the time of peace, and so shall it be for a thousand years. And yet we shall summon him again, my children, when we are sore in need, and out of the north he will come, and again and again, each time we call, out of the dark and the cold, with the fire in his hands, he will come.
— Scandinavian legend
Throughout the night, thick clouds had been piling in the north; in the morning, it was misty and cold. By eight o'clock a wet, heavy, snow-smelling breeze had begun to set in, and because the crops were all down and the winter planting done, the colonists brewed hot coffee and remained inside. The wind blew steadily, icily from the north. It was well below freezing when, some time after nine, an army ship landed in a field near the settlement.
There was still time. There were some last brief moments in which the colonists could act and feel as they had always done. They therefore grumbled in annoyance. They wanted no soldiers here. The few who had convenient windows stared out with distaste and a mild curiosity, but no one went out to greet them.
After a while a rather tall, frail-looking man came out of the ship and stood upon the hard ground looking toward the village. He remained there, waiting stiffly, his face turned from the wind. It was a silly thing to do. He was obviously not coming in, either out of pride or just plain orneriness.
"Well, I never," a nice lady said.
"What's he just standing there for?" another lady said.
And all of them thought: well, God knows what's in the mind of a soldier, and right away many people concluded that he must be drunk. The seed of peace was deeply planted in these people, in the children and the women, very, very deep. And because they had been taught, oh so carefully, to hate war they had also been taught, quite incidentally, to despise soldiers.
The lone man kept standing in the freezing wind.
Eventually, because even a soldier can look small and cold and pathetic, Bob Rossel had to get up out of a nice, warm bed and go out in that miserable cold to meet him.
The soldier saluted. Like most soldiers, he was not too neat and not too clean and the salute was sloppy. Although he was bigger than Rossel he did not seem bigger. And, because of the cold, there were tears gathering in the ends of his eyes.
"Captain Dylan, sir." His voice was low and did not carry. "I have a message from Fleet Headquarters. Are you in charge here?"
Rossel, a small sober man, grunted. "Nobody's in charge here. If you want a spokesman I guess I'll do. What's up?"
The captain regarded him briefly out of pale blue, expressionless eyes. Then he pulled an envelope from an inside pocket, handed it to Rossel. It was a thick, official-looking thing and Rossel hefted it idly. He was about to ask again what was it all about when the airlock of the hovering ship swung open creakily. A beefy, black-haired young man appeared unsteadily in the doorway, called to Dylan.
"C'n I go now, Jim?"
Dylan turned and nodded.
"Be back for you tonight," the young man called, and then, grinning, he yelled "Catch" and tossed down a bottle. The captain caught it and put it unconcernedly into his pocket while Rossel stared in disgust. A moment later the airlock closed and the ship prepared to lift.
"Was he drunk ?" Rossel began angrily. "Was that a bottle of liquor ?"
The soldier was looking at him calmly, coldly. He indicated the envelope in Rossel's hand. "You'd better read that and get moving. We haven't much time."
He turned and walked toward the buildings and Rossel had to follow. As Rossel drew near the walls the watchers could see his lips moving but could not hear him. Just then the ship lifted and they turned to watch that, and followed it upward, red spark-tailed, into the gray spongy clouds and the cold.
After a while the ship went out of sight, and nobody ever saw it again.
The first contact Man had ever had with an intelligent alien race occurred out on the perimeter in a small quiet place a long way from home. Late in the year 2360—the exact date remains unknown—an alien force attacked and destroyed the colony at Lupus V. The wreckage and the dead were found by a mailship which flashed off screaming for the army.
When the army came it found this: Of the seventy registered colonists, thirty-one were dead. The rest, including some women and children, were missing. All technical equipment, all radios, guns, machines, even books, were also missing. The buildings had been burned, so were the bodies. Apparently the aliens had a heat ray. What else they had, nobody knew. After a few days of walking around in the ash, one soldier finally stumbled on something.
For security reasons, there was a detonator in one of the main buildings. In case of enemy attack, Security had provided a bomb to be buried in the center of each colony, because it was important to blow a whole village to hell and gone rather than let a hostile alien learn vital facts about human technology and body chemistry. There was a bomb at Lupus V too, and though it had been detonated it had not blown. The detonating wire had been cut.
In the heart of the camp, hidden from view under twelve inches of earth, the wire had been dug up and cut.
The army could not understand it and had no time to try. After five hundred years of peace and anti-war conditioning the army was small, weak and without respect. Therefore, the army did nothing but spread the news, and Man began to fall back.
In a thickening, hastening stream he came back from the hard-won stars, blowing up his homes behind him, stunned and cursing. Most of the colonists got out in time. A few, the farthest and loneliest, died in fire before the army ships could reach them. And the men in those ships, drinkers and gamblers and veterans of nothing, the dregs of a society which had grown beyond them, were for a long while the only defense Earth had.
This was the message Captain Dylan had brought, come out from Earth with a bottle on his hip.
An obscenely cheerful expression upon his gaunt, not too well shaven face, Captain Dylan perched himself upon the edge of a table and listened, one long booted leg swinging idly. One by one the colonists were beginning to understand. War is huge and comes with great suddenness and always without reason, and there is inevitably a wait, between acts, between the news and the motion, the fear and the rage.
Dylan waited. These people were taking it well, much better than those in the cities had taken it. But then, these were pioneers. Dylan grinned. Pioneers. Before you settle a planet you boil it and bake it and purge it of all possible disease. Then you step down gingerly and inflate your plastic houses, which harden and become warm and impregnable; and send your machines out to plant and harvest; and set up automatic factories to transmute dirt into coffee; and, without ever having lifted a finger, you have braved the wilderness, hewed a home out of the living rock and become a pioneer. Dylan grinned again. But at least this was better than the wailing of the cities.
This Dylan thought, although he was himself no fighter, no man at all by any standards. This he thought because he was a soldier and an outcast; to every drunken man the fall of the sober is a happy thing. He stirred restlessly.
By this time the colonists had begun to realize that there wasn't much to say, and a tall, handsome woman was murmuring distractedly: "Lupus, Lupus—doesn't that mean wolves or something?"
Dylan began to wish they would get moving, these pioneers. It was very possible that the aliens would be here soon, and there was no need for discussion. There was only one thing to do and that was to clear the hell out, quickly and without argument. They began to see it.
But, when the fear had died down, the resentment came. A number of women began to cluster around Dylan and complain, working up their anger. Dylan said nothing. Then the man Rossel pushed forward and confronted him, speaking with a vast annoyance.
"See here, soldier, this is our planet. I mean to say, this is our home . We demand some protection from the fleet. By God, we've been paying the freight for you boys all these years and it's high time you earned your keep. We demand...."
It went on and on while Dylan looked at the clock and waited. He hoped that he could end this quickly. A big gloomy man was in front of him now and giving him that name of ancient contempt, "soldier boy." The gloomy man wanted to know where the fleet was.
"There is no fleet. There are a few hundred half-shot old tubs that were obsolete before you were born. There are four or five new jobs for the brass and the government. That's all the fleet there is."
Dylan wanted to go on about that, to remind them that nobody had wanted the army, that the fleet had grown smaller and smaller ... but this was not the time. It was ten-thirty already and the damned aliens might be coming in right now for all he knew, and all they did was talk. He had realized a long time ago that no peace-loving nation in the history of Earth had ever kept itself strong, and although peace was a noble dream, it was ended now and it was time to move.
"We'd better get going," he finally said, and there was quiet.
"Lieutenant Bossio has gone on to your sister colony at Planet Three of this system. He'll return to pick me up by nightfall and I'm instructed to have you gone by then."
For a long moment they waited, and then one man abruptly walked off and the rest followed quickly; in a moment they were all gone. One or two stopped long enough to complain about the fleet, and the big gloomy man said he wanted guns, that's all, and there wouldn't nobody get him off his planet. When he left, Dylan breathed with relief and went out to check the bomb, grateful for the action.
Most of it had to be done in the open. He found a metal bar in the radio shack and began chopping at the frozen ground, following the wire. It was the first thing he had done with his hands in weeks, and it felt fine.
Dylan had been called up out of a bar—he and Bossio—and told what had happened, and in three weeks now they had cleared four colonies. This would be the last, and the tension here was beginning to get to him. After thirty years of hanging around and playing like the town drunk, a man could not be expected to rush out and plug the breach, just like that. It would take time.
He rested, sweating, took a pull from the bottle on his hip.
Before they sent him out on this trip they had made him a captain. Well, that was nice. After thirty years he was a captain. For thirty years he had bummed all over the west end of space, had scraped his way along the outer edges of Mankind, had waited and dozed and patrolled and got drunk, waiting always for something to happen. There were a lot of ways to pass the time while you waited for something to happen, and he had done them all.
Once he had even studied military tactics.
He could not help smiling at that, even now. Damn it, he'd been green. But he'd been only nineteen when his father died—of a hernia, of a crazy fool thing like a hernia that killed him just because he'd worked too long on a heavy planet—and in those days the anti-war conditioning out on the Rim was not very strong. They talked a lot about guardians of the frontier, and they got him and some other kids and a broken-down doctor. And ... now he was a captain.
He bent his back savagely, digging at the ground. You wait and you wait and the edge goes off. This thing he had waited for all those damn days was upon him now and there was nothing he could do but say the hell with it and go home. Somewhere along the line, in some dark corner of the bars or the jails, in one of the million soul-murdering insults which are reserved especially for peacetime soldiers, he had lost the core of himself, and it didn't particularly matter. That was the point: it made no particular difference if he never got it back. He owed nobody. He was tugging at the wire and trying to think of something pleasant from the old days, when the wire came loose in his hands.
Although he had been, in his cynical way, expecting it, for a moment it threw him and he just stared. The end was clean and bright. The wire had just been cut.
Dylan sat for a long while by the radio shack, holding the ends in his hands. He reached almost automatically for the bottle on his hip and then, for the first time he could remember, let it go. This was real, there was no time for that.
When Rossel came up, Dylan was still sitting. Rossel was so excited he did not notice the wire.
"Listen, soldier, how many people can your ship take?"
Dylan looked at him vaguely. "She sleeps two and won't take off with more'n ten. Why?"
His eyes bright and worried, Rossel leaned heavily against the shack.
"We're overloaded. There are sixty of us and our ship will only take forty. We came out in groups, we never thought...."
Dylan dropped his eyes, swearing silently. "You're sure? No baggage, no iron rations; you couldn't get ten more on?"
"Not a chance. She's only a little ship with one deck—she's all we could afford."
Dylan whistled. He had begun to feel light-headed. "It 'pears that somebody's gonna find out first hand what them aliens look like."
It was the wrong thing to say and he knew it. "All right," he said quickly, still staring at the clear-sliced wire, "we'll do what we can. Maybe the colony on Three has room. I'll call Bossio and ask."
The colonist had begun to look quite pitifully at the buildings around him and the scurrying people.
"Aren't there any fleet ships within radio distance?"
Dylan shook his head. "The fleet's spread out kind of thin nowadays." Because the other was leaning on him he felt a great irritation, but he said, as kindly as he could, "We'll get 'em all out. One way or another, we won't leave anybody."
It was then that Rossel saw the wire. Thickly, he asked what had happened.
Dylan showed him the two clean ends. "Somebody dug it up, cut it, then buried it again and packed it down real nice."
"The damn fool!" Rossel exploded.
"Who?"
"Why, one of ... of us, of course. I know nobody ever liked sitting on a live bomb like this, but I never...."
"You think one of your people did it?"
Rossel stared at him. "Isn't that obvious?"
"Why?"
"Well, they probably thought it was too dangerous, and silly too, like most government rules. Or maybe one of the kids...."
It was then that Dylan told him about the wire on Lupus V. Rossel was silent. Involuntarily, he glanced at the sky, then he said shakily,
"Maybe an animal?"
Dylan shook his head. "No animal did that. Wouldn't have buried it, or found it in the first place. Heck of a coincidence, don't you think? The wire at Lupus was cut just before an alien attack, and now this one is cut too—newly cut."
The colonist put one hand to his mouth, his eyes wide and white.
"So something," said Dylan, "knew enough about this camp to know that a bomb was buried here and also to know why it was here. And that something didn't want the camp destroyed and so came right into the center of the camp, traced the wire, dug it up and cut it. And then walked right out again."
"Listen," said Rossel, "I'd better go ask."
He started away but Dylan caught his arm.
"Tell them to arm," he said, "and try not to scare hell out of them. I'll be with you as soon as I've spliced this wire."
Rossel nodded and went off, running. Dylan knelt with the metal in his hands.
He began to feel that, by God, he was getting cold. He realized that he'd better go inside soon, but the wire had to be spliced. That was perhaps the most important thing he could do now, splice the wire.
All right, he asked himself for the thousandth time, who cut it? How? Telepathy? Could they somehow control one of us?
No. If they controlled one, then they could control all, and then there would be no need for an attack. But you don't know, you don't really know.
Were they small? Little animals?
Unlikely. Biology said that really intelligent life required a sizable brain and you would have to expect an alien to be at least as large as a dog. And every form of life on this planet had been screened long before a colony had been allowed in. If any new animals had suddenly shown up, Rossel would certainly know about it.
He would ask Rossel. He would damn sure have to ask Rossel.
He finished splicing the wire and tucked it into the ground. Then he straightened up and, before he went into the radio shack, he pulled out his pistol. He checked it, primed it, and tried to remember the last time he had fired it. He never had—he never had fired a gun.
The snow began falling near noon. There was nothing anybody could do but stand in the silence and watch it come down in a white rushing wall, and watch the trees and the hills drown in the whiteness, until there was nothing on the planet but the buildings and a few warm lights and the snow.
By one o'clock the visibility was down to zero and Dylan decided to try to contact Bossio again and tell him to hurry. But Bossio still didn't answer. Dylan stared long and thoughtfully out the window through the snow at the gray shrouded shapes of bushes and trees which were beginning to become horrifying. It must be that Bossio was still drunk—maybe sleeping it off before making planetfall on Three. Dylan held no grudge. Bossio was a kid and alone. It took a special kind of guts to take a ship out into space alone, when Things could be waiting....
A young girl, pink and lovely in a thick fur jacket, came into the shack and told him breathlessly that her father, Mr. Rush, would like to know if he wanted sentries posted. Dylan hadn't thought about it but he said yes right away, beginning to feel both pleased and irritated at the same time, because now they were coming to him.
He pushed out into the cold and went to find Rossel. With the snow it was bad enough, but if they were still here when the sun went down they wouldn't have a chance. Most of the men were out stripping down their ship and that would take a while. He wondered why Rossel hadn't yet put a call through to Three, asking about room on the ship there. The only answer he could find was that Rossel knew that there was no room, and he wanted to put off the answer as long as possible. And, in a way, you could not blame him.
Rossel was in his cabin with the big, gloomy man—who turned out to be Rush, the one who had asked about sentries. Rush was methodically cleaning an old hunting rifle. Rossel was surprisingly full of hope.
"Listen, there's a mail ship due in, been due since yesterday. We might get the rest of the folks out on that."
Dylan shrugged. "Don't count on it."
"But they have a contract!"
The soldier grinned.
The big man, Rush, was paying no attention. Quite suddenly he said:
"Who cut that wire, Cap?"
Dylan swung slowly to look at him. "As far as I can figure, an alien cut it."
Rush shook his head. "No. Ain't been no aliens near this camp, and no peculiar animals either. We got a planet-wide radar, and ain't no unidentified ships come near, not since we first landed more'n a year ago." He lifted the rifle and peered through the bore. "Uh-uh. One of us did it."
The man had been thinking. And he knew the planet.
"Telepathy?" asked Dylan.
"Might be."
"Can't see it. You people live too close, you'd notice right away if one of you wasn't ... himself. And, if they've got one, why not all?"
Rush calmly—at least outwardly calmly—lit his pipe. There was a strength in this man that Dylan had missed before.
"Don't know," he said gruffly. "But these are aliens, mister. And until I know different I'm keepin' an eye on my neighbor."
He gave Rossel a sour look and Rossel stared back, uncomprehending.
Then Rossel jumped. "My God!"
Dylan moved to quiet him. "Look, is there any animal at all that ever comes near here that's as large as a dog?"
After a pause, Rush answered. "Yep, there's one. The viggle. It's like a reg'lar monkey but with four legs. Biology cleared 'em before we landed. We shoot one now and then when they get pesky." He rose slowly, the rifle held under his arm. "I b'lieve we might just as well go post them sentries."
Dylan wanted to go on with this but there was nothing much else to say. Rossel went with them as far as the radio shack, with a strained expression on his face, to put through that call to Three.
When he was gone Rush asked Dylan, "Where you want them sentries? I got Walt Halloran and Web Eggers and six others lined up."
Dylan stopped and looked around grimly at the circling wall of snow.
"You know the site better than I do. Post 'em in a ring, on rises, within calling distance. Have 'em check with each other every five minutes. I'll go help your people at the ship."
The gloomy man nodded and fluffed up his collar. "Nice day for huntin'," he said, and then he was gone with the snow quickly covering his footprints.
The Alien lay wrapped in a thick electric cocoon, buried in a wide warm room beneath the base of a tree. The tree served him as antennae; curiously he gazed into a small view-screen and watched the humans come. He saw them fan out, eight of them, and sink down in the snow. He saw that they were armed.
He pulsed thoughtfully, extending a part of himself to absorb a spiced lizard. Since the morning, when the new ship had come, he had been watching steadily, and now it was apparent that the humans were aware of their danger. Undoubtedly they were preparing to leave.
That was unfortunate. The attack was not scheduled until late that night and he could not, of course, press the assault by day. But flexibility , he reminded himself sternly, is the first principle of absorption , and therefore he moved to alter his plans. A projection reached out to dial several knobs on a large box before him, and the hour of assault was moved forward to dusk. A glance at the chronometer told him that it was already well into the night on Planet Three, and that the attack there had probably begun.
The Alien felt the first tenuous pulsing of anticipation. He lay quietly, watching the small square lights of windows against the snow, thanking the Unexplainable that matters had been so devised that he would not have to venture out into that miserable cold.
Presently an alarming thought struck him. These humans moved with uncommon speed for intelligent creatures. Even without devices, it was distinctly possible that they could be gone before nightfall. He could take no chance, of course. He spun more dials and pressed a single button, and lay back again comfortably, warmly, to watch the disabling of the colonists' ship.
When Three did not answer, Rossel was nervously gazing at the snow, thinking of other things, and he called again. Several moments later the realization of what was happening struck him like a blow. Three had never once failed to answer. All they had to do when they heard the signal buzz was go into the radio shack and say hello. That was all they had to do. He called again and again, but nobody answered. There was no static and no interference and he didn't hear a thing. He checked frenziedly through his own apparatus and tried again, but the air was as dead as deep space. He raced out to tell Dylan.
Dylan accepted it. He had known none of the people on Three and what he felt now was a much greater urgency to be out of here. He said hopeful things to Rossel, and then went out to the ship and joined the men in lightening her. About the ship at least, he knew something and he was able to tell them what partitions and frames could go and what would have to stay or the ship would never get off the planet. But even stripped down, it couldn't take them all. When he knew that, he realized that he himself would have to stay here, for it was only then that he thought of Bossio.
Three was dead. Bossio had gone down there some time ago and, if Three was dead and Bossio had not called, then the fact was that Bossio was gone too. For a long, long moment Dylan stood rooted in the snow. More than the fact that he would have to stay here was the unspoken, unalterable, heart-numbing knowledge that Bossio was dead—the one thing that Dylan could not accept. Bossio was the only friend he had. In all this dog-eared, aimless, ape-run Universe Bossio was all his friendship and his trust.
He left the ship blindly and went back to the settlement. Now the people were quiet and really frightened, and some of the women were beginning to cry. He noticed now that they had begun to look at him with hope as he passed, and in his own grief, humanly, he swore.
Bossio—a big-grinning kid with no parents, no enemies, no grudges—Bossio was already dead because he had come out here and tried to help these people. People who had kicked or ignored him all the days of his life. And, in a short while, Dylan would also stay behind and die to save the life of somebody he never knew and who, twenty-four hours earlier, would have been ashamed to be found in his company. Now, when it was far, far too late, they were coming to the army for help.
But in the end, damn it, he could not hate these people. All they had ever wanted was peace, and even though they had never understood that the Universe is unknowable and that you must always have big shoulders, still they had always sought only for peace. If peace leads to no conflict at all and then decay, well, that was something that had to be learned. So he could not hate these people.
But he could not help them either. He turned from their eyes and went into the radio shack. It had begun to dawn on the women that they might be leaving without their husbands or sons, and he did not want to see the fierce struggle that he was sure would take place. He sat alone and tried, for the last time, to call Bossio.
After a while, an old woman found him and offered him coffee. It was a very decent thing to do, to think of him at a time like this, and he was so suddenly grateful he could only nod. The woman said that he must be cold in that thin army thing and that she had brought along a mackinaw for him. She poured the coffee and left him alone.
They were thinking of him now, he knew, because they were thinking of everyone who had to stay. Throw the dog a bone. Dammit, don't be like that, he told himself. He had not had anything to eat all day and the coffee was warm and strong. He decided he might be of some help at the ship.
It was stripped down now and they were loading. He was startled to see a great group of them standing in the snow, removing their clothes. Then he understood. The clothes of forty people would change the weight by enough to get a few more aboard. There was no fighting. Some of the women were almost hysterical and a few had refused to go and were still in their cabins, but the process was orderly. Children went automatically, as did the youngest husbands and all the women. The elders were shuffling around in the snow, waving their arms to keep themselves warm. Some of them were laughing to keep their spirits up.
In the end, the ship took forty-six people.
Rossel was one of the ones that would not be going. Dylan saw him standing by the airlock holding his wife in his arms, his face buried in her soft brown hair. A sense of great sympathy, totally unexpected, rose up in Dylan, and a little of the lostness of thirty years went slipping away. These were his people. It was a thing he had never understood before, because he had never once been among men in great trouble. He waited and watched, learning, trying to digest this while there was still time. Then the semi-naked colonists were inside and the airlock closed. But when the ship tried to lift, there was a sharp burning smell—she couldn't get off the ground.
|
Who is Willie Dawes, and what are his characteristics?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Dream Town by Henry Slesar.
Relevant chunks:
Henry Slesar, young New York advertising executive and by now no
longer a new-comer to either this magazine or to this field, describes
a strange little town that you, yourself, may blunder into one of these
evenings. But, if you do, beware—beware of the Knights!
dream town
by ... HENRY SLESAR
The woman in the doorway looked so harmless. Who
was to tell she had some rather startling interests?
The
woman in the
doorway looked like Mom in
the homier political cartoons.
She was plump, apple-cheeked,
white-haired. She
wore a fussy, old-fashioned
nightgown, and was busily
clutching a worn house-robe
around her expansive middle.
She blinked at Sol Becker's
rain-flattened hair and hang-dog
expression, and said:
"What is it? What do you
want?"
"I'm sorry—" Sol's voice
was pained. "The man in the
diner said you might put me
up. I had my car stolen: a
hitchhiker; going to Salinas ..."
He was puffing.
"Hitchhiker? I don't understand."
She clucked at the
sight of the pool of water he
was creating in her foyer.
"Well, come inside, for heaven's
sake. You're soaking!"
"Thanks," Sol said gratefully.
With the door firmly shut
behind him, the warm interior
of the little house covered
him like a blanket. He
shivered, and let the warmth
seep over him. "I'm terribly
sorry. I know how late it is."
He looked at his watch, but
the face was too misty to
make out the hour.
"Must be nearly three," the
woman sniffed. "You couldn't
have come at a worse time. I
was just on my way to
court—"
The words slid by him. "If
I could just stay overnight.
Until the morning. I could
call some friends in San Fernando.
I'm very susceptible to
head colds," he added inanely.
"Well, take those shoes off,
first," the woman grumbled.
"You can undress in the parlor,
if you'll keep off the rug.
You won't mind using the
sofa?"
"No, of course not. I'd be
happy to pay—"
"Oh, tush, nobody's asking
you to pay. This isn't a hotel.
You mind if I go back upstairs?
They're gonna miss
me at the palace."
"No, of course not," Sol
said. He followed her into
the darkened parlor, and
watched as she turned the
screw on a hurricane-style
lamp, shedding a yellow pool
of light over half a flowery
sofa and a doily-covered wing
chair. "You go on up. I'll be
perfectly fine."
"Guess you can use a towel,
though. I'll get you one,
then I'm going up. We wake
pretty early in this house.
Breakfast's at seven; you'll
have to be up if you want
any."
"I really can't thank you
enough—"
"Tush," the woman said.
She scurried out, and returned
a moment later with a
thick bath towel. "Sorry I
can't give you any bedding.
But you'll find it nice and
warm in here." She squinted
at the dim face of a ship's-wheel
clock on the mantle,
and made a noise with her
tongue. "Three-thirty!" she
exclaimed. "I'll miss the
whole execution ..."
"The what?"
"Goodnight, young man,"
Mom said firmly.
She padded off, leaving Sol
holding the towel. He patted
his face, and then scrubbed
the wet tangle of brown hair.
Carefully, he stepped off the
carpet and onto the stone
floor in front of the fireplace.
He removed his
drenched coat and suit jacket,
and squeezed water out
over the ashes.
He stripped down to his
underwear, wondering about
next morning's possible embarrassment,
and decided to
use the damp bath towel as a
blanket. The sofa was downy
and comfortable. He curled
up under the towel, shivered
once, and closed his eyes.
He
was tired and very
sleepy, and his customary
nightly review was limited to
a few detached thoughts
about the wedding he was
supposed to attend in Salinas
that weekend ... the hoodlum
who had responded to his
good-nature by dumping him
out of his own car ... the slogging
walk to the village ...
the little round woman who
was hurrying off, like the
White Rabbit, to some mysterious
appointment on the
upper floor ...
Then he went to sleep.
A voice awoke him, shrill
and questioning.
"Are you nakkid ?"
His eyes flew open, and he
pulled the towel protectively
around his body and glared
at the little girl with the rust-red
pigtails.
"Huh, mister?" she said,
pushing a finger against her
freckled nose. "Are you?"
"No," he said angrily. "I'm
not naked. Will you please
go away?"
"Sally!" It was Mom, appearing
in the doorway of the
parlor. "You leave the gentleman
alone." She went off
again.
"Yes," Sol said. "Please let
me get dressed. If you don't
mind." The girl didn't move.
"What time is it?"
"Dunno," Sally shrugged.
"I like poached eggs. They're
my favorite eggs in the whole
world."
"That's good," Sol said desperately.
"Now why don't you
be a good girl and eat your
poached eggs. In the kitchen."
"Ain't ready yet. You going
to stay for breakfast?"
"I'm not going to do anything
until you get out of
here."
She put the end of a pigtail
in her mouth and sat down on
the chair opposite. "I went to
the palace last night. They
had an exelution."
"Please," Sol groaned. "Be
a good girl, Sally. If you let
me get dressed, I'll show you
how to take your thumb off."
"Oh, that's an old trick. Did
you ever see an exelution?"
"No. Did you ever see a little
girl with her hide
tanned?"
"Huh?"
" Sally! " Mom again, sterner.
"You get out of there, or
you-know-what ..."
"Okay," the girl said
blithely. "I'm goin' to the palace
again. If I brush my
teeth. Aren't you ever gonna
get up?" She skipped out of
the room, and Sol hastily sat
up and reached for his
trousers.
When he had dressed, the
clothes still damp and unpleasant
against his skin, he
went out of the parlor and
found the kitchen. Mom was
busy at the stove. He said:
"Good morning."
"Breakfast in ten minutes,"
she said cheerfully. "You like
poached eggs?"
"Sure. Do you have a telephone?"
"In the hallway. Party line,
so you may have to wait."
He tried for fifteen minutes
to get through, but there
was a woman on the line who
was terribly upset about a
cotton dress she had ordered
from Sears, and was telling
the world about it.
Finally, he got his call
through to Salinas, and a
sleepy-voiced Fred, his old
Army buddy, listened somewhat
indifferently to his tale
of woe. "I might miss the
wedding," Sol said unhappily.
"I'm awfully sorry." Fred
didn't seem to be half as sorry
as he was. When Sol hung
up, he was feeling more despondent
than ever.
A man, tall and rangy, with
a bobbing Adam's apple and
a lined face, came into the
hallway. "Hullo?" he said inquiringly.
"You the fella had
the car stolen?"
"Yes."
The man scratched his ear.
"Take you over to Sheriff
Coogan after breakfast. He'll
let the Stateys know about it.
My name's Dawes."
Sol accepted a careful
handshake.
"Don't get many people
comin' into town," Dawes
said, looking at him curiously.
"Ain't seen a stranger in
years. But you look like the
rest of us." He chuckled.
Mom called out: "Breakfast!"
At
the table, Dawes
asked his destination.
"Wedding in Salinas," he
explained. "Old Army friend
of mine. I picked this hitchhiker
up about two miles from
here. He seemed okay."
"Never can tell," Dawes
said placidly, munching egg.
"Hey, Ma. That why you
were so late comin' to court
last night?"
"That's right, Pa." She
poured the blackest coffee
Sol had ever seen. "Didn't
miss much, though."
"What court is that?" Sol
asked politely, his mouth full.
"Umagum," Sally said, a
piece of toast sticking out
from the side of her mouth.
"Don't you know nothin' ?"
" Arma gon," Dawes corrected.
He looked sheepishly at
the stranger. "Don't expect
Mister—" He cocked an eyebrow.
"What's the name?"
"Becker."
"Don't expect Mr. Becker
knows anything about Armagon.
It's just a dream, you
know." He smiled apologetically.
"Dream? You mean this—Armagon
is a place you dream
about?"
"Yep," Dawes said. He lifted
cup to lip. "Great coffee,
Ma." He leaned back with a
contented sigh. "Dream about
it every night. Got so used to
the place, I get all confused
in the daytime."
Mom said: "I get muddle-headed
too, sometimes."
"You mean—" Sol put his
napkin in his lap. "You mean you dream about the same
place?"
"Sure," Sally piped. "We
all go there at night. I'm goin'
to the palace again, too."
"If you brush your teeth,"
Mom said primly.
"If I brush my teeth. Boy,
you shoulda seen the exelution!"
"Execution," her father
said.
"Oh, my goodness!" Mom
got up hastily. "That reminds
me. I gotta call poor Mrs.
Brundage. It's the least I
could do."
"Good idea," Dawes nodded.
"And I'll have to round
up some folks and get old
Brundage out of there."
Sol was staring. He opened
his mouth, but couldn't think
of the right question to ask.
Then he blurted out: "What
execution?"
"None of your business,"
the man said coldly. "You eat
up, young man. If you want
me to get Sheriff Coogan
lookin' for your car."
The rest of the meal went
silently, except for Sally's insistence
upon singing her
school song between mouthfuls.
When Dawes was
through, he pushed back his
plate and ordered Sol to get
ready.
Sol grabbed his topcoat and
followed the man out the
door.
"Have to stop someplace
first," Dawes said. "But we'll
be pickin' up the Sheriff on
the way. Okay with you?"
"Fine," Sol said uneasily.
The rain had stopped, but
the heavy clouds seemed reluctant
to leave the skies over
the small town. There was a
skittish breeze blowing, and
Sol Becker tightened the collar
of his coat around his
neck as he tried to keep up
with the fast-stepping Dawes.
They
crossed the
street diagonally, and entered
a two-story wooden building.
Dawes took the stairs at a
brisk pace, and pushed open
the door on the second floor.
A fat man looked up from
behind a desk.
"Hi, Charlie. Thought I'd
see if you wanted to help
move Brundage."
The man batted his eyes.
"Oh, Brundage!" he said.
"You know, I clean forgot
about him?" He laughed.
"Imagine me forgetting
that?"
"Yeah." Dawes wasn't
amused. "And you Prince Regent."
"Aw, Willie—"
"Well, come on. Stir that
fat carcass. Gotta pick up
Sheriff Coogan, too. This
here gentleman has to see him
about somethin' else."
The man regarded Sol suspiciously.
"Never seen you
before. Night or day. Stranger?"
"Come on !" Dawes said.
The fat man grunted and
hoisted himself out of the
swivel chair. He followed
lamely behind the two men
as they went out into the
street again.
A woman, with an empty
market basket, nodded casually
to them. "Mornin', folks.
Enjoyed it last night.
Thought you made a right
nice speech, Mr. Dawes."
"Thanks," Dawes answered
gruffly, but obviously flattered.
"We were just goin'
over to Brundage's to pick up
the body. Ma's gonna pay a
call on Mrs. Brundage around
ten o'clock. You care to visit?"
"Why, I think that's very
nice," the woman said. "I'll
be sure and do that." She
smiled at the fat man. "Mornin',
Prince."
Sol's head was spinning. As
they left the woman and continued
their determined
march down the quiet street,
he tried to find answers.
"Look, Mr. Dawes." He was
panting; the pace was fast.
"Does she dream about this—Armagon,
too? That woman
back there?"
"Yep."
Charlie chuckled. "He's a
stranger, all right."
"And you, Mr.—" Sol
turned to the fat man. "You
also know about this palace
and everything?"
"I told you," Dawes said
testily. "Charlie here's Prince
Regent. But don't let the fancy
title fool you. He got no
more power than any Knight
of the Realm. He's just too
dern fat to do much more'n
sit on a throne and eat grapes.
That right, Charlie?"
The fat man giggled.
"Here's the Sheriff," Dawes
said.
The Sheriff, a sleepy-eyed
citizen with a long, sad face,
was rocking on a porch as
they approached his house,
trying to puff a half-lit pipe.
He lifted one hand wearily
when he saw them.
"Hi, Cookie," Dawes
grinned. "Thought you, me,
and Charlie would get Brundage's
body outa the house.
This here's Mr. Becker; he
got another problem. Mr.
Becker, meet Cookie Coogan."
The Sheriff joined the procession,
pausing only once to
inquire into Sol's predicament.
He described the hitchhiker
incident, but Coogan
listened stoically. He murmured
something about the
Troopers, and shuffled alongside
the puffing fat man.
Sol soon realized that their
destination was a barber shop.
Dawes cupped his hands
over the plate glass and
peered inside. Gold letters on
the glass advertised: HAIRCUT
SHAVE & MASSAGE
PARLOR. He reported: "Nobody
in the shop. Must be
upstairs."
The
fat man rang the
bell. It was a while before an
answer came.
It was a reedy woman in a
housecoat, her hair in curlers,
her eyes red and swollen.
"Now, now," Dawes said
gently. "Don't you take on
like that, Mrs. Brundage. You
heard the charges. It hadda
be this way."
"My poor Vincent," she
sobbed.
"Better let us up," the
Sheriff said kindly. "No use
just lettin' him lay there,
Mrs. Brundage."
"He didn't mean no harm,"
the woman snuffled. "He was
just purely ornery, Vincent
was. Just plain mean stubborn."
"The law's the law," the
fat man sighed.
Sol couldn't hold himself
in.
"What law? Who's dead?
How did it happen?"
Dawes looked at him disgustedly.
"Now is it any of your business? I mean, is it?"
"I don't know," Sol said
miserably.
"You better stay out of
this," the Sheriff warned.
"This is a local matter, young
man. You better stay in the
shop while we go up."
They filed past him and the
crying Mrs. Brundage.
When they were out of
sight, Sol pleaded with her.
"What happened? How did
your husband die?"
"Please ..."
"You must tell me! Was it
something to do with Armagon?
Do you dream about the
place, too?"
She was shocked at the
question. "Of course!"
"And your husband? Did
he have the same dream?"
Fresh tears resulted. "Can't
you leave me alone?" She
turned her back. "I got things
to do. You can make yourself
comfortable—" She indicated
the barber chairs, and left
through the back door.
Sol looked after her, and
then ambled over to the first
chair and slipped into the
high seat. His reflection in
the mirror, strangely gray in
the dim light, made him
groan. His clothes were a
mess, and he needed a shave.
If only Brundage had been
alive ...
He leaped out of the chair
as voices sounded behind the
door. Dawes was kicking it
open with his foot, his arms
laden with two rather large
feet, still encased in bedroom
slippers. Charlie was at the
other end of the burden,
which appeared to be a middle-aged
man in pajamas. The
Sheriff followed the trio up
with a sad, undertaker expression.
Behind him came Mrs.
Brundage, properly weeping.
"We'll take him to the funeral
parlor," Dawes said,
breathing hard. "Weighs a
ton, don't he?"
"What killed him?" Sol
said.
"Heart attack."
The fat man chuckled.
The tableau was grisly. Sol
looked away, towards the
comfortingly mundane atmosphere
of the barber shop. But
even the sight of the thick-padded
chairs, the shaving
mugs on the wall, the neat
rows of cutting instruments,
seemed grotesque and morbid.
"Listen," Sol said, as they
went through the doorway.
"About my car—"
The Sheriff turned and regarded
him lugubriously.
"Your car ? Young man, ain't
you got no respect ?"
Sol swallowed hard and fell
silent. He went outside with
them, the woman slamming
the barber-shop door behind
him. He waited in front of
the building while the men
toted away the corpse to some
new destination.
He
took a walk.
The town was just coming
to life. People were strolling
out of their houses, commenting
on the weather, chuckling
amiably about local affairs.
Kids on bicycles were beginning
to appear, jangling the
little bells and hooting to
each other. A woman, hanging
wash in the back yard,
called out to him, thinking
he was somebody else.
He found a little park, no
more than twenty yards in
circumference, centered
around a weatherbeaten monument
of some unrecognizable
military figure. Three
old men took their places on
the bench that circled the
General, and leaned on their
canes.
Sol was a civil engineer.
But he made like a reporter.
"Pardon me, sir." The old
man, leathery-faced, with a
fine yellow moustache, looked
at him dumbly. "Have you
ever heard of Armagon?"
"You a stranger?"
"Yes."
"Thought so."
Sol repeated the question.
"Course I did. Been goin'
there ever since I was a kid.
Night-times, that is."
"How—I mean, what kind
of place is it?"
"Said you're a stranger?"
"Yes."
"Then 'tain't your business."
That was that.
He left the park, and wandered
into a thriving luncheonette.
He tried questioning
the man behind the counter,
who merely snickered and
said: "You stayin' with the
Dawes, ain't you? Better ask
Willie, then. He knows the
place better than anybody."
He asked about the execution,
and the man stiffened.
"Don't think I can talk
about that. Fella broke one of
the Laws; that's about it.
Don't see where you come
into it."
At eleven o'clock, he returned
to the Dawes residence,
and found Mom in the
kitchen, surrounded by the
warm nostalgic odor of home-baked
bread. She told him
that her husband had left a
message for the stranger, informing
him that the State
Police would be around to get
his story.
He waited in the house,
gloomily turning the pages of
the local newspaper, searching
for references to Armagon.
He found nothing.
At eleven-thirty, a brown-faced
State Trooper came to
call, and Sol told his story.
He was promised nothing,
and told to stay in town until
he was contacted again by
the authorities.
Mom fixed him a light
lunch, the greatest feature of
which was some hot biscuits
she plucked out of the oven.
It made him feel almost normal.
He wandered around the
town some more after lunch,
trying to spark conversation
with the residents.
He learned little.
At
five-thirty, he returned
to the Dawes house, and was
promptly leaped upon by
little Sally.
"Hi! Hi! Hi!" she said,
clutching his right leg and
almost toppling him over.
"We had a party in school. I
had chocolate cake. You goin'
to stay with us?"
"Just another night," Sol
told her, trying to shake the
girl off. "If it's okay with
your folks. They haven't
found my car yet."
"Sally!" Mom was peering
out of the screen door. "You
let Mr. Becker alone and go
wash. Your Pa will be home
soon."
"Oh, pooh," the girl said,
her pigtails swinging. "Do
you got a girlfriend, mister?"
"No." Sol struggled towards
the house with her
dead weight on his leg.
"Would you mind? I can't
walk."
"Would you be my boyfriend?"
"Well, we'll talk about it.
If you let go my leg."
Inside the house, she said:
"We're having pot roast. You
stayin'?"
"Of course Mr. Becker's
stayin'," Mom said. "He's our
guest."
"That's very kind of you,"
Sol said. "I really wish you'd
let me pay something—"
"Don't want to hear another
word about pay."
Mr. Dawes
came home an
hour later, looking tired.
Mom pecked him lightly on
the forehead. He glanced at
the evening paper, and then
spoke to Sol.
"Hear you been asking
questions, Mr. Becker."
Sol nodded, embarrassed.
"Guess I have. I'm awfully
curious about this Armagon
place. Never heard of anything
like it before."
Dawes grunted. "You ain't
a reporter?"
"Oh, no. I'm an engineer. I
was just satisfying my own
curiosity."
"Uh-huh." Dawes looked
reflective. "You wouldn't be
thinkin' about writing us up
or anything. I mean, this is a
pretty private affair."
"Writing it up?" Sol
blinked. "I hadn't thought of
it. But you'll have to admit—it's
sure interesting."
"Yeah," Dawes said narrowly.
"I guess it would be."
"Supper!" Mom called.
After the meal, they spent
a quiet evening at home. Sally
went to bed, screaming her
reluctance, at eight-thirty.
Mom, dozing in the big chair
near the fireplace, padded upstairs
at nine. Then Dawes
yawned widely, stood up, and
said goodnight at quarter-of-ten.
He paused in the doorway
before leaving.
"I'd think about that," he
said. "Writing it up, I mean.
A lot of folks would think
you were just plum crazy."
Sol laughed feebly. "I
guess they would at that."
"Goodnight," Dawes said.
"Goodnight."
He read Sally's copy of Treasure Island for about
half an hour. Then he undressed,
made himself comfortable
on the sofa, snuggled
under the soft blanket
that Mom had provided, and
shut his eyes.
He reviewed the events of
the day before dropping off
to sleep. The troublesome
Sally. The strange dream
world of Armagon. The visit
to the barber shop. The removal
of Brundage's body.
The conversations with the
townspeople. Dawes' suspicious
attitude ...
Then sleep came.
He
was flanked by marble
pillars, thrusting towards
a high-domed ceiling.
The room stretched long
and wide before him, the
walls bedecked in stunning
purple draperies.
He whirled at the sound of
footsteps, echoing stridently
on the stone floor. Someone
was running towards him.
It was Sally, pigtails
streaming out behind her, the
small body wearing a flowing
white toga. She was shrieking,
laughing as she skittered
past him, clutching a gleaming
gold helmet.
He called out to her, but
she was too busy outdistancing
her pursuer. It was Sheriff
Coogan, puffing and huffing,
the metal-and-gold cloth
uniform ludicrous on his
lanky frame.
"Consarn kid!" he wheezed.
"Gimme my hat!"
Mom was following him,
her stout body regal in scarlet
robes. "Sally! You give
Sir Coogan his helmet! You
hear?"
"Mrs. Dawes!" Sol said.
"Why, Mr. Becker! How
nice to see you again! Pa! Pa! Look who's here!"
Willie Dawes appeared. No! Sol thought. This was King Dawes; nothing else
could explain the magnificence
of his attire.
"Yes," Dawes said craftily.
"So I see. Welcome to Armagon,
Mr. Becker."
"Armagon?" Sol gaped.
"Then this is the place
you've been dreaming about?"
"Yep," the King said. "And
now you're in it, too."
"Then I'm only dreaming!"
Charlie, the fat man,
clumsy as ever in his robes of
State, said: "So that's the
snooper, eh?"
"Yep," Dawes chuckled.
"Think you better round up
the Knights."
Sol said: "The Knights?"
"Exelution! Exelution!"
Sally shrieked.
"Now wait a minute—"
Charlie shouted.
Running feet, clanking of
armor. Sol backed up against
a pillar. "Now look here.
You've gone far enough—"
"Not quite," said the King.
The Knights stepped forward.
"Wait!" Sol screamed.
Familiar faces, under shining
helmets, moved towards
him; the tips of sharp-pointed
spears gleaming wickedly.
And Sol Becker wondered—would
he ever awake?
Question:
Who is Willie Dawes, and what are his characteristics?
Answer:
|
[
"Willie is the head of the family that hosts and helps Sol after his car was stolen. He seems to have a lot of influence in the town, as he helps the sheriff in his day to day tasks and everyone in the town knows him. He is described as a tall and skinny man. He is also married to Mom, which is the woman that first received Sol after his car was stolen. Together she and Willie have a child called Sally. At the end, it is revealed that Willie is actually the king of the Armagon, which is why he has so much influence in the town. ",
"Willie Dawes is the husband of Mom and the father of Sally. He is a tall and rangy man, with a bobbing Adam’s apple and a lined face. When he first meets Sol, he is sympathetic to the man’s situation and tells him that they can go see the sheriff after breakfast. He is also very caring towards his family as well, always eating with Mom and Sally at home. He is very quick to correct Sally’s mistakes as well, when she mispronounces Armagon and execution. However, although Dawes seems friendly, he can turn cold when provoked. Whenever Sol asks about Armagon, Dawes responds coldly and changes the subject. He is also cautious around Sol too, believing that the other man is a reporter who is here to expose the secret of the town. However, Dawes later shows an authoritative side too, donning magnificent attire and living up to his title as a King. ",
"Willie Dawes is the head of the Dawes household, Mom’s husband, Sally’s father, and, apparently, a king of Armagon. He seems relatively friendly and approachable when he first meets Sol and promises to take him over to the sheriff. Dawes is rather outgoing - a lot of citizens know him. Still, he is very protective of their town’s dream of Armagon. So whenever Sol asks about this place or the execution, Dawes becomes cold, stern, and uneasy. He plainly refuses to answer the first questions about it and then later makes sure Sol is not a prying journalist who wants to write about Armagon. Dawes also seems rational and emotionless when it comes to Armagon’s laws and those who breach them. For example, he pragmatically approaches the death of Vincent Brundage, who got executed for breaking a rule, and considers his punishment necessary. ",
"Willie Dawes is the owner of the house where Sol Becker, an engineer who loses his car on his way to a friend’s wedding, borrows for a stay. He is called “Pa” by his wife, and he often calls her “Ma.” Mr. Dawes is tall and rangy. He is short-tempered, and whenever Sol asks about the dream place, he tells Sol to mind his own business coldly. He gets annoyed by Sol’s questions often. Mr. Dawes walks so fast that Sol has to try hard to catch up with him when walking in the town. Mr. Dawes seems to make a speech in the dream place the first night that Sol stays in their house. He goes to the barbershop with the other two men, carrying Mr. Brundage’s corpse, who seems to die of a heart attack. He seems to be the king in the dream place, where he wears magnificent attire."
] |
29193
|
Henry Slesar, young New York advertising executive and by now no
longer a new-comer to either this magazine or to this field, describes
a strange little town that you, yourself, may blunder into one of these
evenings. But, if you do, beware—beware of the Knights!
dream town
by ... HENRY SLESAR
The woman in the doorway looked so harmless. Who
was to tell she had some rather startling interests?
The
woman in the
doorway looked like Mom in
the homier political cartoons.
She was plump, apple-cheeked,
white-haired. She
wore a fussy, old-fashioned
nightgown, and was busily
clutching a worn house-robe
around her expansive middle.
She blinked at Sol Becker's
rain-flattened hair and hang-dog
expression, and said:
"What is it? What do you
want?"
"I'm sorry—" Sol's voice
was pained. "The man in the
diner said you might put me
up. I had my car stolen: a
hitchhiker; going to Salinas ..."
He was puffing.
"Hitchhiker? I don't understand."
She clucked at the
sight of the pool of water he
was creating in her foyer.
"Well, come inside, for heaven's
sake. You're soaking!"
"Thanks," Sol said gratefully.
With the door firmly shut
behind him, the warm interior
of the little house covered
him like a blanket. He
shivered, and let the warmth
seep over him. "I'm terribly
sorry. I know how late it is."
He looked at his watch, but
the face was too misty to
make out the hour.
"Must be nearly three," the
woman sniffed. "You couldn't
have come at a worse time. I
was just on my way to
court—"
The words slid by him. "If
I could just stay overnight.
Until the morning. I could
call some friends in San Fernando.
I'm very susceptible to
head colds," he added inanely.
"Well, take those shoes off,
first," the woman grumbled.
"You can undress in the parlor,
if you'll keep off the rug.
You won't mind using the
sofa?"
"No, of course not. I'd be
happy to pay—"
"Oh, tush, nobody's asking
you to pay. This isn't a hotel.
You mind if I go back upstairs?
They're gonna miss
me at the palace."
"No, of course not," Sol
said. He followed her into
the darkened parlor, and
watched as she turned the
screw on a hurricane-style
lamp, shedding a yellow pool
of light over half a flowery
sofa and a doily-covered wing
chair. "You go on up. I'll be
perfectly fine."
"Guess you can use a towel,
though. I'll get you one,
then I'm going up. We wake
pretty early in this house.
Breakfast's at seven; you'll
have to be up if you want
any."
"I really can't thank you
enough—"
"Tush," the woman said.
She scurried out, and returned
a moment later with a
thick bath towel. "Sorry I
can't give you any bedding.
But you'll find it nice and
warm in here." She squinted
at the dim face of a ship's-wheel
clock on the mantle,
and made a noise with her
tongue. "Three-thirty!" she
exclaimed. "I'll miss the
whole execution ..."
"The what?"
"Goodnight, young man,"
Mom said firmly.
She padded off, leaving Sol
holding the towel. He patted
his face, and then scrubbed
the wet tangle of brown hair.
Carefully, he stepped off the
carpet and onto the stone
floor in front of the fireplace.
He removed his
drenched coat and suit jacket,
and squeezed water out
over the ashes.
He stripped down to his
underwear, wondering about
next morning's possible embarrassment,
and decided to
use the damp bath towel as a
blanket. The sofa was downy
and comfortable. He curled
up under the towel, shivered
once, and closed his eyes.
He
was tired and very
sleepy, and his customary
nightly review was limited to
a few detached thoughts
about the wedding he was
supposed to attend in Salinas
that weekend ... the hoodlum
who had responded to his
good-nature by dumping him
out of his own car ... the slogging
walk to the village ...
the little round woman who
was hurrying off, like the
White Rabbit, to some mysterious
appointment on the
upper floor ...
Then he went to sleep.
A voice awoke him, shrill
and questioning.
"Are you nakkid ?"
His eyes flew open, and he
pulled the towel protectively
around his body and glared
at the little girl with the rust-red
pigtails.
"Huh, mister?" she said,
pushing a finger against her
freckled nose. "Are you?"
"No," he said angrily. "I'm
not naked. Will you please
go away?"
"Sally!" It was Mom, appearing
in the doorway of the
parlor. "You leave the gentleman
alone." She went off
again.
"Yes," Sol said. "Please let
me get dressed. If you don't
mind." The girl didn't move.
"What time is it?"
"Dunno," Sally shrugged.
"I like poached eggs. They're
my favorite eggs in the whole
world."
"That's good," Sol said desperately.
"Now why don't you
be a good girl and eat your
poached eggs. In the kitchen."
"Ain't ready yet. You going
to stay for breakfast?"
"I'm not going to do anything
until you get out of
here."
She put the end of a pigtail
in her mouth and sat down on
the chair opposite. "I went to
the palace last night. They
had an exelution."
"Please," Sol groaned. "Be
a good girl, Sally. If you let
me get dressed, I'll show you
how to take your thumb off."
"Oh, that's an old trick. Did
you ever see an exelution?"
"No. Did you ever see a little
girl with her hide
tanned?"
"Huh?"
" Sally! " Mom again, sterner.
"You get out of there, or
you-know-what ..."
"Okay," the girl said
blithely. "I'm goin' to the palace
again. If I brush my
teeth. Aren't you ever gonna
get up?" She skipped out of
the room, and Sol hastily sat
up and reached for his
trousers.
When he had dressed, the
clothes still damp and unpleasant
against his skin, he
went out of the parlor and
found the kitchen. Mom was
busy at the stove. He said:
"Good morning."
"Breakfast in ten minutes,"
she said cheerfully. "You like
poached eggs?"
"Sure. Do you have a telephone?"
"In the hallway. Party line,
so you may have to wait."
He tried for fifteen minutes
to get through, but there
was a woman on the line who
was terribly upset about a
cotton dress she had ordered
from Sears, and was telling
the world about it.
Finally, he got his call
through to Salinas, and a
sleepy-voiced Fred, his old
Army buddy, listened somewhat
indifferently to his tale
of woe. "I might miss the
wedding," Sol said unhappily.
"I'm awfully sorry." Fred
didn't seem to be half as sorry
as he was. When Sol hung
up, he was feeling more despondent
than ever.
A man, tall and rangy, with
a bobbing Adam's apple and
a lined face, came into the
hallway. "Hullo?" he said inquiringly.
"You the fella had
the car stolen?"
"Yes."
The man scratched his ear.
"Take you over to Sheriff
Coogan after breakfast. He'll
let the Stateys know about it.
My name's Dawes."
Sol accepted a careful
handshake.
"Don't get many people
comin' into town," Dawes
said, looking at him curiously.
"Ain't seen a stranger in
years. But you look like the
rest of us." He chuckled.
Mom called out: "Breakfast!"
At
the table, Dawes
asked his destination.
"Wedding in Salinas," he
explained. "Old Army friend
of mine. I picked this hitchhiker
up about two miles from
here. He seemed okay."
"Never can tell," Dawes
said placidly, munching egg.
"Hey, Ma. That why you
were so late comin' to court
last night?"
"That's right, Pa." She
poured the blackest coffee
Sol had ever seen. "Didn't
miss much, though."
"What court is that?" Sol
asked politely, his mouth full.
"Umagum," Sally said, a
piece of toast sticking out
from the side of her mouth.
"Don't you know nothin' ?"
" Arma gon," Dawes corrected.
He looked sheepishly at
the stranger. "Don't expect
Mister—" He cocked an eyebrow.
"What's the name?"
"Becker."
"Don't expect Mr. Becker
knows anything about Armagon.
It's just a dream, you
know." He smiled apologetically.
"Dream? You mean this—Armagon
is a place you dream
about?"
"Yep," Dawes said. He lifted
cup to lip. "Great coffee,
Ma." He leaned back with a
contented sigh. "Dream about
it every night. Got so used to
the place, I get all confused
in the daytime."
Mom said: "I get muddle-headed
too, sometimes."
"You mean—" Sol put his
napkin in his lap. "You mean you dream about the same
place?"
"Sure," Sally piped. "We
all go there at night. I'm goin'
to the palace again, too."
"If you brush your teeth,"
Mom said primly.
"If I brush my teeth. Boy,
you shoulda seen the exelution!"
"Execution," her father
said.
"Oh, my goodness!" Mom
got up hastily. "That reminds
me. I gotta call poor Mrs.
Brundage. It's the least I
could do."
"Good idea," Dawes nodded.
"And I'll have to round
up some folks and get old
Brundage out of there."
Sol was staring. He opened
his mouth, but couldn't think
of the right question to ask.
Then he blurted out: "What
execution?"
"None of your business,"
the man said coldly. "You eat
up, young man. If you want
me to get Sheriff Coogan
lookin' for your car."
The rest of the meal went
silently, except for Sally's insistence
upon singing her
school song between mouthfuls.
When Dawes was
through, he pushed back his
plate and ordered Sol to get
ready.
Sol grabbed his topcoat and
followed the man out the
door.
"Have to stop someplace
first," Dawes said. "But we'll
be pickin' up the Sheriff on
the way. Okay with you?"
"Fine," Sol said uneasily.
The rain had stopped, but
the heavy clouds seemed reluctant
to leave the skies over
the small town. There was a
skittish breeze blowing, and
Sol Becker tightened the collar
of his coat around his
neck as he tried to keep up
with the fast-stepping Dawes.
They
crossed the
street diagonally, and entered
a two-story wooden building.
Dawes took the stairs at a
brisk pace, and pushed open
the door on the second floor.
A fat man looked up from
behind a desk.
"Hi, Charlie. Thought I'd
see if you wanted to help
move Brundage."
The man batted his eyes.
"Oh, Brundage!" he said.
"You know, I clean forgot
about him?" He laughed.
"Imagine me forgetting
that?"
"Yeah." Dawes wasn't
amused. "And you Prince Regent."
"Aw, Willie—"
"Well, come on. Stir that
fat carcass. Gotta pick up
Sheriff Coogan, too. This
here gentleman has to see him
about somethin' else."
The man regarded Sol suspiciously.
"Never seen you
before. Night or day. Stranger?"
"Come on !" Dawes said.
The fat man grunted and
hoisted himself out of the
swivel chair. He followed
lamely behind the two men
as they went out into the
street again.
A woman, with an empty
market basket, nodded casually
to them. "Mornin', folks.
Enjoyed it last night.
Thought you made a right
nice speech, Mr. Dawes."
"Thanks," Dawes answered
gruffly, but obviously flattered.
"We were just goin'
over to Brundage's to pick up
the body. Ma's gonna pay a
call on Mrs. Brundage around
ten o'clock. You care to visit?"
"Why, I think that's very
nice," the woman said. "I'll
be sure and do that." She
smiled at the fat man. "Mornin',
Prince."
Sol's head was spinning. As
they left the woman and continued
their determined
march down the quiet street,
he tried to find answers.
"Look, Mr. Dawes." He was
panting; the pace was fast.
"Does she dream about this—Armagon,
too? That woman
back there?"
"Yep."
Charlie chuckled. "He's a
stranger, all right."
"And you, Mr.—" Sol
turned to the fat man. "You
also know about this palace
and everything?"
"I told you," Dawes said
testily. "Charlie here's Prince
Regent. But don't let the fancy
title fool you. He got no
more power than any Knight
of the Realm. He's just too
dern fat to do much more'n
sit on a throne and eat grapes.
That right, Charlie?"
The fat man giggled.
"Here's the Sheriff," Dawes
said.
The Sheriff, a sleepy-eyed
citizen with a long, sad face,
was rocking on a porch as
they approached his house,
trying to puff a half-lit pipe.
He lifted one hand wearily
when he saw them.
"Hi, Cookie," Dawes
grinned. "Thought you, me,
and Charlie would get Brundage's
body outa the house.
This here's Mr. Becker; he
got another problem. Mr.
Becker, meet Cookie Coogan."
The Sheriff joined the procession,
pausing only once to
inquire into Sol's predicament.
He described the hitchhiker
incident, but Coogan
listened stoically. He murmured
something about the
Troopers, and shuffled alongside
the puffing fat man.
Sol soon realized that their
destination was a barber shop.
Dawes cupped his hands
over the plate glass and
peered inside. Gold letters on
the glass advertised: HAIRCUT
SHAVE & MASSAGE
PARLOR. He reported: "Nobody
in the shop. Must be
upstairs."
The
fat man rang the
bell. It was a while before an
answer came.
It was a reedy woman in a
housecoat, her hair in curlers,
her eyes red and swollen.
"Now, now," Dawes said
gently. "Don't you take on
like that, Mrs. Brundage. You
heard the charges. It hadda
be this way."
"My poor Vincent," she
sobbed.
"Better let us up," the
Sheriff said kindly. "No use
just lettin' him lay there,
Mrs. Brundage."
"He didn't mean no harm,"
the woman snuffled. "He was
just purely ornery, Vincent
was. Just plain mean stubborn."
"The law's the law," the
fat man sighed.
Sol couldn't hold himself
in.
"What law? Who's dead?
How did it happen?"
Dawes looked at him disgustedly.
"Now is it any of your business? I mean, is it?"
"I don't know," Sol said
miserably.
"You better stay out of
this," the Sheriff warned.
"This is a local matter, young
man. You better stay in the
shop while we go up."
They filed past him and the
crying Mrs. Brundage.
When they were out of
sight, Sol pleaded with her.
"What happened? How did
your husband die?"
"Please ..."
"You must tell me! Was it
something to do with Armagon?
Do you dream about the
place, too?"
She was shocked at the
question. "Of course!"
"And your husband? Did
he have the same dream?"
Fresh tears resulted. "Can't
you leave me alone?" She
turned her back. "I got things
to do. You can make yourself
comfortable—" She indicated
the barber chairs, and left
through the back door.
Sol looked after her, and
then ambled over to the first
chair and slipped into the
high seat. His reflection in
the mirror, strangely gray in
the dim light, made him
groan. His clothes were a
mess, and he needed a shave.
If only Brundage had been
alive ...
He leaped out of the chair
as voices sounded behind the
door. Dawes was kicking it
open with his foot, his arms
laden with two rather large
feet, still encased in bedroom
slippers. Charlie was at the
other end of the burden,
which appeared to be a middle-aged
man in pajamas. The
Sheriff followed the trio up
with a sad, undertaker expression.
Behind him came Mrs.
Brundage, properly weeping.
"We'll take him to the funeral
parlor," Dawes said,
breathing hard. "Weighs a
ton, don't he?"
"What killed him?" Sol
said.
"Heart attack."
The fat man chuckled.
The tableau was grisly. Sol
looked away, towards the
comfortingly mundane atmosphere
of the barber shop. But
even the sight of the thick-padded
chairs, the shaving
mugs on the wall, the neat
rows of cutting instruments,
seemed grotesque and morbid.
"Listen," Sol said, as they
went through the doorway.
"About my car—"
The Sheriff turned and regarded
him lugubriously.
"Your car ? Young man, ain't
you got no respect ?"
Sol swallowed hard and fell
silent. He went outside with
them, the woman slamming
the barber-shop door behind
him. He waited in front of
the building while the men
toted away the corpse to some
new destination.
He
took a walk.
The town was just coming
to life. People were strolling
out of their houses, commenting
on the weather, chuckling
amiably about local affairs.
Kids on bicycles were beginning
to appear, jangling the
little bells and hooting to
each other. A woman, hanging
wash in the back yard,
called out to him, thinking
he was somebody else.
He found a little park, no
more than twenty yards in
circumference, centered
around a weatherbeaten monument
of some unrecognizable
military figure. Three
old men took their places on
the bench that circled the
General, and leaned on their
canes.
Sol was a civil engineer.
But he made like a reporter.
"Pardon me, sir." The old
man, leathery-faced, with a
fine yellow moustache, looked
at him dumbly. "Have you
ever heard of Armagon?"
"You a stranger?"
"Yes."
"Thought so."
Sol repeated the question.
"Course I did. Been goin'
there ever since I was a kid.
Night-times, that is."
"How—I mean, what kind
of place is it?"
"Said you're a stranger?"
"Yes."
"Then 'tain't your business."
That was that.
He left the park, and wandered
into a thriving luncheonette.
He tried questioning
the man behind the counter,
who merely snickered and
said: "You stayin' with the
Dawes, ain't you? Better ask
Willie, then. He knows the
place better than anybody."
He asked about the execution,
and the man stiffened.
"Don't think I can talk
about that. Fella broke one of
the Laws; that's about it.
Don't see where you come
into it."
At eleven o'clock, he returned
to the Dawes residence,
and found Mom in the
kitchen, surrounded by the
warm nostalgic odor of home-baked
bread. She told him
that her husband had left a
message for the stranger, informing
him that the State
Police would be around to get
his story.
He waited in the house,
gloomily turning the pages of
the local newspaper, searching
for references to Armagon.
He found nothing.
At eleven-thirty, a brown-faced
State Trooper came to
call, and Sol told his story.
He was promised nothing,
and told to stay in town until
he was contacted again by
the authorities.
Mom fixed him a light
lunch, the greatest feature of
which was some hot biscuits
she plucked out of the oven.
It made him feel almost normal.
He wandered around the
town some more after lunch,
trying to spark conversation
with the residents.
He learned little.
At
five-thirty, he returned
to the Dawes house, and was
promptly leaped upon by
little Sally.
"Hi! Hi! Hi!" she said,
clutching his right leg and
almost toppling him over.
"We had a party in school. I
had chocolate cake. You goin'
to stay with us?"
"Just another night," Sol
told her, trying to shake the
girl off. "If it's okay with
your folks. They haven't
found my car yet."
"Sally!" Mom was peering
out of the screen door. "You
let Mr. Becker alone and go
wash. Your Pa will be home
soon."
"Oh, pooh," the girl said,
her pigtails swinging. "Do
you got a girlfriend, mister?"
"No." Sol struggled towards
the house with her
dead weight on his leg.
"Would you mind? I can't
walk."
"Would you be my boyfriend?"
"Well, we'll talk about it.
If you let go my leg."
Inside the house, she said:
"We're having pot roast. You
stayin'?"
"Of course Mr. Becker's
stayin'," Mom said. "He's our
guest."
"That's very kind of you,"
Sol said. "I really wish you'd
let me pay something—"
"Don't want to hear another
word about pay."
Mr. Dawes
came home an
hour later, looking tired.
Mom pecked him lightly on
the forehead. He glanced at
the evening paper, and then
spoke to Sol.
"Hear you been asking
questions, Mr. Becker."
Sol nodded, embarrassed.
"Guess I have. I'm awfully
curious about this Armagon
place. Never heard of anything
like it before."
Dawes grunted. "You ain't
a reporter?"
"Oh, no. I'm an engineer. I
was just satisfying my own
curiosity."
"Uh-huh." Dawes looked
reflective. "You wouldn't be
thinkin' about writing us up
or anything. I mean, this is a
pretty private affair."
"Writing it up?" Sol
blinked. "I hadn't thought of
it. But you'll have to admit—it's
sure interesting."
"Yeah," Dawes said narrowly.
"I guess it would be."
"Supper!" Mom called.
After the meal, they spent
a quiet evening at home. Sally
went to bed, screaming her
reluctance, at eight-thirty.
Mom, dozing in the big chair
near the fireplace, padded upstairs
at nine. Then Dawes
yawned widely, stood up, and
said goodnight at quarter-of-ten.
He paused in the doorway
before leaving.
"I'd think about that," he
said. "Writing it up, I mean.
A lot of folks would think
you were just plum crazy."
Sol laughed feebly. "I
guess they would at that."
"Goodnight," Dawes said.
"Goodnight."
He read Sally's copy of Treasure Island for about
half an hour. Then he undressed,
made himself comfortable
on the sofa, snuggled
under the soft blanket
that Mom had provided, and
shut his eyes.
He reviewed the events of
the day before dropping off
to sleep. The troublesome
Sally. The strange dream
world of Armagon. The visit
to the barber shop. The removal
of Brundage's body.
The conversations with the
townspeople. Dawes' suspicious
attitude ...
Then sleep came.
He
was flanked by marble
pillars, thrusting towards
a high-domed ceiling.
The room stretched long
and wide before him, the
walls bedecked in stunning
purple draperies.
He whirled at the sound of
footsteps, echoing stridently
on the stone floor. Someone
was running towards him.
It was Sally, pigtails
streaming out behind her, the
small body wearing a flowing
white toga. She was shrieking,
laughing as she skittered
past him, clutching a gleaming
gold helmet.
He called out to her, but
she was too busy outdistancing
her pursuer. It was Sheriff
Coogan, puffing and huffing,
the metal-and-gold cloth
uniform ludicrous on his
lanky frame.
"Consarn kid!" he wheezed.
"Gimme my hat!"
Mom was following him,
her stout body regal in scarlet
robes. "Sally! You give
Sir Coogan his helmet! You
hear?"
"Mrs. Dawes!" Sol said.
"Why, Mr. Becker! How
nice to see you again! Pa! Pa! Look who's here!"
Willie Dawes appeared. No! Sol thought. This was King Dawes; nothing else
could explain the magnificence
of his attire.
"Yes," Dawes said craftily.
"So I see. Welcome to Armagon,
Mr. Becker."
"Armagon?" Sol gaped.
"Then this is the place
you've been dreaming about?"
"Yep," the King said. "And
now you're in it, too."
"Then I'm only dreaming!"
Charlie, the fat man,
clumsy as ever in his robes of
State, said: "So that's the
snooper, eh?"
"Yep," Dawes chuckled.
"Think you better round up
the Knights."
Sol said: "The Knights?"
"Exelution! Exelution!"
Sally shrieked.
"Now wait a minute—"
Charlie shouted.
Running feet, clanking of
armor. Sol backed up against
a pillar. "Now look here.
You've gone far enough—"
"Not quite," said the King.
The Knights stepped forward.
"Wait!" Sol screamed.
Familiar faces, under shining
helmets, moved towards
him; the tips of sharp-pointed
spears gleaming wickedly.
And Sol Becker wondered—would
he ever awake?
|
Summarize the Fustian life cycle and culture.
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Aide Memoire by Keith Laumer.
Relevant chunks:
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
AIDE MEMOIRE
BY KEITH LAUMER
The Fustians looked like turtles—but
they could move fast when they chose!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1962.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Across the table from Retief, Ambassador Magnan rustled a stiff sheet
of parchment and looked grave.
"This aide memoire," he said, "was just handed to me by the Cultural
Attache. It's the third on the subject this week. It refers to the
matter of sponsorship of Youth groups—"
"Some youths," Retief said. "Average age, seventy-five."
"The Fustians are a long-lived people," Magnan snapped. "These matters
are relative. At seventy-five, a male Fustian is at a trying age—"
"That's right. He'll try anything—in the hope it will maim somebody."
"Precisely the problem," Magnan said. "But the Youth Movement is
the important news in today's political situation here on Fust. And
sponsorship of Youth groups is a shrewd stroke on the part of the
Terrestrial Embassy. At my suggestion, well nigh every member of the
mission has leaped at the opportunity to score a few p—that is, cement
relations with this emergent power group—the leaders of the future.
You, Retief, as Councillor, are the outstanding exception."
"I'm not convinced these hoodlums need my help in organizing their
rumbles," Retief said. "Now, if you have a proposal for a pest control
group—"
"To the Fustians this is no jesting matter," Magnan cut in. "This
group—" he glanced at the paper—"known as the Sexual, Cultural, and
Athletic Recreational Society, or SCARS for short, has been awaiting
sponsorship for a matter of weeks now."
"Meaning they want someone to buy them a clubhouse, uniforms, equipment
and anything else they need to complete their sexual, cultural and
athletic development," Retief said.
"If we don't act promptly," Magnan said, "the Groaci Embassy may well
anticipate us. They're very active here."
"That's an idea," said Retief. "Let 'em. After awhile they'll go broke
instead of us."
"Nonsense. The group requires a sponsor. I can't actually order you to
step forward. However...." Magnan let the sentence hang in the air.
Retief raised one eyebrow.
"For a minute there," he said, "I thought you were going to make a
positive statement."
Magnan leaned back, lacing his fingers over his stomach. "I don't think
you'll find a diplomat of my experience doing anything so naive," he
said.
"I like the adult Fustians," said Retief. "Too bad they have to lug
half a ton of horn around on their backs. I wonder if surgery would
help."
"Great heavens, Retief," Magnan sputtered. "I'm amazed that even you
would bring up a matter of such delicacy. A race's unfortunate physical
characteristics are hardly a fit matter for Terrestrial curiosity."
"Well, of course your experience of the Fustian mentality is greater
than mine. I've only been here a month. But it's been my experience,
Mr. Ambassador, that few races are above improving on nature. Otherwise
you, for example, would be tripping over your beard."
Magnan shuddered. "Please—never mention the idea to a Fustian."
Retief stood. "My own program for the day includes going over to the
dockyards. There are some features of this new passenger liner the
Fustians are putting together that I want to look into. With your
permission, Mr. Ambassador...?"
Magnan snorted. "Your pre-occupation with the trivial disturbs me,
Retief. More interest in substantive matters—such as working with
Youth groups—would create a far better impression."
"Before getting too involved with these groups, it might be a good idea
to find out a little more about them," said Retief. "Who organizes
them? There are three strong political parties here on Fust. What's the
alignment of this SCARS organization?"
"You forget, these are merely teenagers, so to speak," Magnan said.
"Politics mean nothing to them ... yet."
"Then there are the Groaci. Why their passionate interest in a
two-horse world like Fust? Normally they're concerned with nothing but
business. But what has Fust got that they could use?"
"You may rule out the commercial aspect in this instance," said Magnan.
"Fust possesses a vigorous steel-age manufacturing economy. The Groaci
are barely ahead of them."
"Barely," said Retief. "Just over the line into crude atomics ... like
fission bombs."
Magnan shook his head, turned back to his papers. "What market exists
for such devices on a world at peace? I suggest you address your
attention to the less spectacular but more rewarding work of studying
the social patterns of the local youth."
"I've studied them," said Retief. "And before I meet any of the local
youth socially I want to get myself a good blackjack."
II
Retief left the sprawling bungalow-type building that housed the
chancery of the Terrestrial Embassy, swung aboard a passing flat-car
and leaned back against the wooden guard rail as the heavy vehicle
trundled through the city toward the looming gantries of the shipyards.
It was a cool morning. A light breeze carried the fishy odor of Fusty
dwellings across the broad cobbled avenue. A few mature Fustians
lumbered heavily along in the shade of the low buildings, audibly
wheezing under the burden of their immense carapaces. Among them,
shell-less youths trotted briskly on scaly stub legs. The driver of the
flat-car, a labor-caste Fustian with his guild colors emblazoned on his
back, heaved at the tiller, swung the unwieldy conveyance through the
shipyard gates, creaked to a halt.
"Thus I come to the shipyard with frightful speed," he said in Fustian.
"Well I know the way of the naked-backs, who move always in haste."
Retief climbed down, handed him a coin. "You should take up
professional racing," he said. "Daredevil."
He crossed the littered yard and tapped at the door of a rambling shed.
Boards creaked inside. Then the door swung back.
A gnarled ancient with tarnished facial scales and a weathered carapace
peered out at Retief.
"Long-may-you-sleep," said Retief. "I'd like to take a look around, if
you don't mind. I understand you're laying the bedplate for your new
liner today."
"May-you-dream-of-the-deeps," the old fellow mumbled. He waved a stumpy
arm toward a group of shell-less Fustians standing by a massive hoist.
"The youths know more of bedplates than do I, who but tend the place of
papers."
"I know how you feel, old-timer," said Retief. "That sounds like the
story of my life. Among your papers do you have a set of plans for the
vessel? I understand it's to be a passenger liner."
The oldster nodded. He shuffled to a drawing file, rummaged, pulled out
a sheaf of curled prints and spread them on the table. Retief stood
silently, running a finger over the uppermost drawing, tracing lines....
"What does the naked-back here?" barked a deep voice behind Retief. He
turned. A heavy-faced Fustian youth, wrapped in a mantle, stood at the
open door. Beady yellow eyes set among fine scales bored into Retief.
"I came to take a look at your new liner," said Retief.
"We need no prying foreigners here," the youth snapped. His eye fell on
the drawings. He hissed in sudden anger.
"Doddering hulk!" he snapped at the ancient. "May you toss in
nightmares! Put by the plans!"
"My mistake," Retief said. "I didn't know this was a secret project."
The youth hesitated. "It is not a secret project," he muttered. "Why
should it be secret?"
"You tell me."
The youth worked his jaws and rocked his head from side to side in the
Fusty gesture of uncertainty. "There is nothing to conceal," he said.
"We merely construct a passenger liner."
"Then you don't mind if I look over the drawings," said Retief. "Who
knows? Maybe some day I'll want to reserve a suite for the trip out."
The youth turned and disappeared. Retief grinned at the oldster. "Went
for his big brother, I guess," he said. "I have a feeling I won't get
to study these in peace here. Mind if I copy them?"
"Willingly, light-footed one," said the old Fustian. "And mine is the
shame for the discourtesy of youth."
Retief took out a tiny camera, flipped a copying lens in place, leafed
through the drawings, clicking the shutter.
"A plague on these youths," said the oldster, "who grow more virulent
day by day."
"Why don't you elders clamp down?"
"Agile are they and we are slow of foot. And this unrest is new.
Unknown in my youth was such insolence."
"The police—"
"Bah!" the ancient rumbled. "None have we worthy of the name, nor have
we needed ought ere now."
"What's behind it?"
"They have found leaders. The spiv, Slock, is one. And I fear they plot
mischief." He pointed to the window. "They come, and a Soft One with
them."
Retief pocketed the camera, glanced out the window. A pale-featured
Groaci with an ornately decorated crest stood with the youths, who eyed
the hut, then started toward it.
"That's the military attache of the Groaci Embassy," Retief said. "I
wonder what he and the boys are cooking up together?"
"Naught that augurs well for the dignity of Fust," the oldster rumbled.
"Flee, agile one, while I engage their attentions."
"I was just leaving," Retief said. "Which way out?"
"The rear door," the Fustian gestured with a stubby member. "Rest well,
stranger on these shores." He moved to the entrance.
"Same to you, pop," said Retief. "And thanks."
He eased through the narrow back entrance, waited until voices were
raised at the front of the shed, then strolled off toward the gate.
The second dark of the third cycle was lightening when Retief left the
Embassy technical library and crossed the corridor to his office. He
flipped on a light. A note was tucked under a paperweight:
"Retief—I shall expect your attendance at the IAS dinner at first
dark of the fourth cycle. There will be a brief but, I hope, impressive
Sponsorship ceremony for the SCARS group, with full press coverage,
arrangements for which I have managed to complete in spite of your
intransigence."
Retief snorted and glanced at his watch. Less than three hours. Just
time to creep home by flat-car, dress in ceremonial uniform and creep
back.
Outside he flagged a lumbering bus. He stationed himself in a corner
and watched the yellow sun, Beta, rise rapidly above the low skyline.
The nearby sea was at high tide now, under the pull of the major sun
and the three moons, and the stiff breeze carried a mist of salt spray.
Retief turned up his collar against the dampness. In half an hour he
would be perspiring under the vertical rays of a third-noon sun, but
the thought failed to keep the chill off.
Two Youths clambered up on the platform, moving purposefully toward
Retief. He moved off the rail, watching them, weight balanced.
"That's close enough, kids," he said. "Plenty of room on this scow. No
need to crowd up."
"There are certain films," the lead Fustian muttered. His voice was
unusually deep for a Youth. He was wrapped in a heavy cloak and moved
awkwardly. His adolescence was nearly at an end, Retief guessed.
"I told you once," said Retief. "Don't crowd me."
The two stepped close, slit mouths snapping in anger. Retief put out a
foot, hooked it behind the scaly leg of the overaged juvenile and threw
his weight against the cloaked chest. The clumsy Fustian tottered, fell
heavily. Retief was past him and off the flat-car before the other
Youth had completed his vain lunge toward the spot Retief had occupied.
The Terrestrial waved cheerfully at the pair, hopped aboard another
vehicle, watched his would-be assailants lumber down from their car,
tiny heads twisted to follow his retreating figure.
So they wanted the film? Retief reflected, thumbing a cigar alight.
They were a little late. He had already filed it in the Embassy vault,
after running a copy for the reference files.
And a comparison of the drawings with those of the obsolete Mark XXXV
battle cruiser used two hundred years earlier by the Concordiat Naval
Arm showed them to be almost identical, gun emplacements and all. The
term "obsolete" was a relative one. A ship which had been outmoded in
the armories of the Galactic Powers could still be king of the walk in
the Eastern Arm.
But how had these two known of the film? There had been no one present
but himself and the old-timer—and he was willing to bet the elderly
Fustian hadn't told them anything.
At least not willingly....
Retief frowned, dropped the cigar over the side, waited until the
flat-car negotiated a mud-wallow, then swung down and headed for the
shipyard.
The door, hinges torn loose, had been propped loosely back in position.
Retief looked around at the battered interior of the shed. The old
fellow had put up a struggle.
There were deep drag-marks in the dust behind the building. Retief
followed them across the yard. They disappeared under the steel door of
a warehouse.
Retief glanced around. Now, at the mid-hour of the fourth cycle, the
workmen were heaped along the edge of the refreshment pond, deep in
their siesta. He took a multi-bladed tool from a pocket, tried various
fittings in the lock. It snicked open.
He eased the door aside far enough to enter.
Heaped bales loomed before him. Snapping on the tiny lamp in the handle
of the combination tool, Retief looked over the pile. One stack seemed
out of alignment ... and the dust had been scraped from the floor
before it. He pocketed the light, climbed up on the bales, looked over
into a nest made by stacking the bundles around a clear spot. The aged
Fustian lay in it, on his back, a heavy sack tied over his head.
Retief dropped down inside the ring of bales, sawed at the tough twine
and pulled the sack free.
"It's me, old fellow," Retief said. "The nosy stranger. Sorry I got you
into this."
The oldster threshed his gnarled legs. He rocked slightly and fell
back. "A curse on the cradle that rocked their infant slumbers," he
rumbled. "But place me back on my feet and I hunt down the youth,
Slock, though he flee to the bottommost muck of the Sea of Torments."
"How am I going to get you out of here? Maybe I'd better get some help."
"Nay. The perfidious Youths abound here," said the old Fustian. "It
would be your life."
"I doubt if they'd go that far."
"Would they not?" The Fustian stretched his neck. "Cast your light
here. But for the toughness of my hide...."
Retief put the beam of the light on the leathery neck. A great smear of
thick purplish blood welled from a ragged cut. The oldster chuckled, a
sound like a seal coughing.
"Traitor, they called me. For long they sawed at me—in vain. Then
they trussed me and dumped me here. They think to return with weapons
to complete the task."
"Weapons? I thought it was illegal!"
"Their evil genius, the Soft One," said the Fustian. "He would provide
fuel to the Devil himself."
"The Groaci again," said Retief. "I wonder what their angle is."
"And I must confess, I told them of you, ere I knew their full
intentions. Much can I tell you of their doings. But first, I pray, the
block and tackle."
Retief found the hoist where the Fustian directed him, maneuvered it
into position, hooked onto the edge of the carapace and hauled away.
The immense Fustian rose slowly, teetered ... then flopped on his chest.
Slowly he got to his feet.
"My name is Whonk, fleet one," he said. "My cows are yours."
"Thanks. I'm Retief. I'd like to meet the girls some time. But right
now, let's get out of here."
Whonk leaned his bulk against the ponderous stacks of baled kelp,
bulldozed them aside. "Slow am I to anger," he said, "but implacable in
my wrath. Slock, beware!"
"Hold it," said Retief suddenly. He sniffed. "What's that odor?" He
flashed the light around, played it over a dry stain on the floor. He
knelt, sniffed at the spot.
"What kind of cargo was stacked here, Whonk? And where is it now?"
Whonk considered. "There were drums," he said. "Four of them, quite
small, painted an evil green, the property of the Soft Ones, the
Groaci. They lay here a day and a night. At full dark of the first
period they came with stevedores and loaded them aboard the barge
Moss
Rock
."
"The VIP boat. Who's scheduled to use it?"
"I know not. But what matters this? Let us discuss cargo movements
after I have settled a score with certain Youths."
"We'd better follow this up first, Whonk. There's only one substance I
know of that's transported in drums and smells like that blot on the
floor. That's titanite: the hottest explosive this side of a uranium
pile."
III
Beta was setting as Retief, Whonk puffing at his heels, came up to the
sentry box beside the gangway leading to the plush interior of the
official luxury space barge
Moss Rock
.
"A sign of the times," said Whonk, glancing inside the empty shelter.
"A guard should stand here, but I see him not. Doubtless he crept away
to sleep."
"Let's go aboard and take a look around."
They entered the ship. Soft lights glowed in utter silence. A rough box
stood on the floor, rollers and pry-bars beside it—a discordant note
in the muted luxury of the setting. Whonk rummaged in it.
"Curious," he said. "What means this?" He held up a stained cloak of
orange and green, a metal bracelet, papers.
"Orange and green," mused Relief. "Whose colors are those?"
"I know not." Whonk glanced at the arm-band. "But this is lettered." He
passed the metal band to Retief.
"SCARS," Retief read. He looked at Whonk. "It seems to me I've heard
the name before," he murmured. "Let's get back to the Embassy—fast."
Back on the ramp Retief heard a sound ... and turned in time to duck
the charge of a hulking Fustian youth who thundered past him and
fetched up against the broad chest of Whonk, who locked him in a warm
embrace.
"Nice catch, Whonk. Where'd he sneak out of?"
"The lout hid there by the storage bin," rumbled Whonk. The captive
youth thumped fists and toes fruitlessly against the oldster's carapace.
"Hang onto him," said Retief. "He looks like the biting kind."
"No fear. Clumsy I am, yet not without strength."
"Ask him where the titanite is tucked away."
"Speak, witless grub," growled Whonk, "lest I tweak you in twain."
The youth gurgled.
"Better let up before you make a mess of him," said Retief. Whonk
lifted the Youth clear of the floor, then flung him down with a thump
that made the ground quiver. The younger Fustian glared up at the
elder, mouth snapping.
"This one was among those who trussed me and hid me away for the
killing," said Whonk. "In his repentance he will tell all to his elder."
"That's the same young squirt that tried to strike up an acquaintance
with me on the bus," Retief said. "He gets around."
The youth scrambled to hands and knees, scuttled for freedom. Retief
planted a foot on his dragging cloak; it ripped free. He stared at the
bare back of the Fustian—
"By the Great Egg!" Whonk exclaimed, tripping the refugee as he tried
to rise. "This is no Youth! His carapace has been taken from him!"
Retief looked at the scarred back. "I thought he looked a little old.
But I thought—"
"This is not possible," Whonk said wonderingly. "The great nerve trunks
are deeply involved. Not even the cleverest surgeon could excise the
carapace and leave the patient living."
"It looks like somebody did the trick. But let's take this boy with us
and get out of here. His folks may come home."
"Too late," said Whonk. Retief turned.
Three youths came from behind the sheds.
"Well," Retief said. "It looks like the SCARS are out in force tonight.
Where's your pal?" he said to the advancing trio. "The sticky little
bird with the eye-stalks? Back at his Embassy, leaving you suckers
holding the bag, I'll bet."
"Shelter behind me, Retief," said Whonk.
"Go get 'em, old-timer." Retief stooped, picked up one of the pry-bars.
"I'll jump around and distract them."
Whonk let out a whistling roar and charged for the immature Fustians.
They fanned out ... and one tripped, sprawled on his face. Retief
whirled the metal bar he had thrust between the Fustian's legs, slammed
it against the skull of another, who shook his head, turned on
Retief ... and bounced off the steel hull of the
Moss Rock
as Whonk
took him in full charge.
Retief used the bar on another head. His third blow laid the Fustian
on the pavement, oozing purple. The other two club members departed
hastily, seriously dented but still mobile.
Retief leaned on his club, breathing hard. "Tough heads these kids
have got. I'm tempted to chase those two lads down, but I've got
another errand to run. I don't know who the Groaci intended to blast,
but I have a sneaking suspicion somebody of importance was scheduled
for a boat ride in the next few hours. And three drums of titanite is
enough to vaporize this tub and everyone aboard her."
"The plot is foiled," said Whonk. "But what reason did they have?"
"The Groaci are behind it. I have an idea the SCARS didn't know about
this gambit."
"Which of these is the leader?" asked Whonk. He prodded a fallen Youth
with a horny toe. "Arise, dreaming one."
"Never mind him, Whonk. We'll tie these two up and leave them here. I
know where to find the boss."
A stolid crowd filled the low-ceilinged banquet hall. Retief scanned
the tables for the pale blobs of Terrestrial faces, dwarfed by the
giant armored bodies of the Fustians. Across the room Magnan fluttered
a hand. Retief headed toward him. A low-pitched vibration filled the
air: the rumble of subsonic Fustian music.
Retief slid into his place beside Magnan. "Sorry to be late, Mr.
Ambassador."
"I'm honored that you chose to appear at all," said Magnan coldly. He
turned back to the Fustian on his left.
"Ah, yes, Mr. Minister," he said. "Charming, most charming. So joyous."
The Fustian looked at him, beady-eyed. "It is the
Lament of
Hatching
," he said; "our National Dirge."
"Oh," said Magnan. "How interesting. Such a pleasing balance of
instruments—"
"It is a droon solo," said the Fustian, eyeing the Terrestrial
Ambassador suspiciously.
"Why don't you just admit you can't hear it," Retief whispered loudly.
"And if I may interrupt a moment—"
Magnan cleared his throat. "Now that our Mr. Retief has arrived,
perhaps we could rush right along to the Sponsorship ceremonies."
"This group," said Retief, leaning across Magnan, "the SCARS. How much
do you know about them, Mr. Minister?"
"Nothing at all," the huge Fustian elder rumbled. "For my taste, all
Youths should be kept penned with the livestock until they grow a
carapace to tame their irresponsibility."
"We mustn't lose sight of the importance of channeling youthful
energies," said Magnan.
"Labor gangs," said the minister. "In my youth we were indentured to
the dredge-masters. I myself drew a muck sledge."
"But in these modern times," put in Magnan, "surely it's incumbent on
us to make happy these golden hours."
The minister snorted. "Last week I had a golden hour. They set upon me
and pelted me with overripe stench-fruit."
"But this was merely a manifestation of normal youthful frustrations,"
cried Magnan. "Their essential tenderness—"
"You'd not find a tender spot on that lout yonder," the minister
said, pointing with a fork at a newly arrived Youth, "if you drilled
boreholes and blasted."
"Why, that's our guest of honor," said Magnan, "a fine young fellow!
Slop I believe his name is."
"Slock," said Retief. "Eight feet of armor-plated orneriness. And—"
Magnan rose and tapped on his glass. The Fustians winced at the, to
them, supersonic vibrations. They looked at each other muttering.
Magnan tapped louder. The Minister drew in his head, eyes closed. Some
of the Fustians rose, tottered for the doors; the noise level rose.
Magnan redoubled his efforts. The glass broke with a clatter and green
wine gushed on the tablecloth.
"What in the name of the Great Egg!" the Minister muttered. He blinked,
breathing deeply.
"Oh, forgive me," blurted Magnan, dabbing at the wine.
"Too bad the glass gave out," said Retief. "In another minute you'd
have cleared the hall. And then maybe I could have gotten a word in
sideways. There's a matter you should know about—"
"Your attention, please," Magnan said, rising. "I see that our fine
young guest has arrived, and I hope that the remainder of his committee
will be along in a moment. It is my pleasure to announce that our Mr.
Retief has had the good fortune to win out in the keen bidding for the
pleasure of sponsoring this lovely group."
Retief tugged at Magnan's sleeve. "Don't introduce me yet," he said. "I
want to appear suddenly. More dramatic, you know."
"Well," murmured Magnan, glancing down at Retief, "I'm gratified to
see you entering into the spirit of the event at last." He turned his
attention back to the assembled guests. "If our honored guest will join
me on the rostrum...?" he said. "The gentlemen of the press may want to
catch a few shots of the presentation."
Magnan stepped up on the low platform at the center of the wide room,
took his place beside the robed Fustian youth and beamed at the cameras.
"How gratifying it is to take this opportunity to express once more the
great pleasure we have in sponsoring SCARS," he said, talking slowly
for the benefit of the scribbling reporters. "We'd like to think that
in our modest way we're to be a part of all that the SCARS achieve
during the years ahead."
Magnan paused as a huge Fustian elder heaved his bulk up the two low
steps to the rostrum, approached the guest of honor. He watched as the
newcomer paused behind Slock, who did not see the new arrival.
Retief pushed through the crowd, stepped up to face the Fustian youth.
Slock stared at him, drew back.
"You know me, Slock," said Retief loudly. "An old fellow named Whonk
told you about me, just before you tried to saw his head off, remember?
It was when I came out to take a look at that battle cruiser you're
building."
IV
With a bellow Slock reached for Retief—and choked off in mid-cry as
the Fustian elder, Whonk, pinioned him from behind, lifting him clear
of the floor.
"Glad you reporters happened along," said Retief to the gaping newsmen.
"Slock here had a deal with a sharp operator from the Groaci Embassy.
The Groaci were to supply the necessary hardware and Slock, as foreman
at the shipyards, was to see that everything was properly installed.
The next step, I assume, would have been a local take-over, followed
by a little interplanetary war on Flamenco or one of the other nearby
worlds ... for which the Groaci would be glad to supply plenty of ammo."
Magnan found his tongue. "Are you mad, Retief?" he screeched. "This
group was vouched for by the Ministry of Youth!"
"The Ministry's overdue for a purge," snapped Retief. He turned back
to Slock. "I wonder if you were in on the little diversion that was
planned for today. When the
Moss Rock
blew, a variety of clues were
to be planted where they'd be easy to find ... with SCARS written all
over them. The Groaci would thus have neatly laid the whole affair
squarely at the door of the Terrestrial Embassy ... whose sponsorship
of the SCARS had received plenty of publicity."
"The
Moss Rock
?" said Magnan. "But that was—Retief! This is idiotic.
Slock himself was scheduled to go on a cruise tomorrow!"
Slock roared suddenly, twisting violently. Whonk teetered, his grip
loosened ... and Slock pulled free and was off the platform, butting
his way through the milling oldsters on the dining room floor. Magnan
watched, open-mouthed.
"The Groaci were playing a double game, as usual," Retief said. "They
intended to dispose of this fellow Slock, once he'd served their
purpose."
"Well, don't stand there," yelped Magnan over the uproar. "If Slock is
the ring-leader of a delinquent gang...!" He moved to give chase.
Retief grabbed his arm. "Don't jump down there! You'd have as much
chance of getting through as a jack-rabbit through a threshing contest."
Ten minutes later the crowd had thinned slightly. "We can get through
now," Whonk called. "This way." He lowered himself to the floor, bulled
through to the exit. Flashbulbs popped. Retief and Magnan followed in
Whonk's wake.
In the lounge Retief grabbed the phone, waited for the operator, gave a
code letter. No reply. He tried another.
"No good," he said after a full minute had passed. "Wonder what's
loose?" He slammed the phone back in its niche. "Let's grab a cab."
In the street the blue sun, Alpha, peered like an arc light under a low
cloud layer, casting flat shadows across the mud of the avenue. The
three mounted a passing flat-car. Whonk squatted, resting the weight of
his immense shell on the heavy plank flooring.
"Would that I too could lose this burden, as has the false youth we
bludgeoned aboard the
Moss Rock
," he sighed. "Soon will I be forced
into retirement. Then a mere keeper of a place of papers such as I
will rate no more than a slab on the public strand, with once-daily
feedings. And even for a man of high position, retirement is no
pleasure. A slab in the Park of Monuments is little better. A dismal
outlook for one's next thousand years!"
"You two carry on to the police station," said Retief. "I want to play
a hunch. But don't take too long. I may be painfully right."
"What—?" Magnan started.
"As you wish, Retief," said Whonk.
The flat-car trundled past the gate to the shipyard and Retief jumped
down, headed at a run for the VIP boat. The guard post still stood
vacant. The two Youths whom he and Whonk had left trussed were gone.
"That's the trouble with a peaceful world," Retief muttered. "No police
protection." He stepped down from the lighted entry and took up a
position behind the sentry box. Alpha rose higher, shedding a glaring
blue-white light without heat. Retief shivered. Maybe he'd guessed
wrong....
There was a sound in the near distance, like two elephants colliding.
Retief looked toward the gate. His giant acquaintance, Whonk, had
reappeared and was grappling with a hardly less massive opponent. A
small figure became visible in the melee, scuttled for the gate. Headed
off by the battling titans, he turned and made for the opposite side
of the shipyard. Retief waited, jumped out and gathered in the fleeing
Groaci.
"Well, Yith," he said, "how's tricks? You should pardon the expression."
"Release me, Retief!" the pale-featured alien lisped, his throat
bladder pulsating in agitation. "The behemoths vie for the privilege of
dismembering me out of hand!"
"I know how they feel. I'll see what I can do ... for a price."
"I appeal to you," Yith whispered hoarsely. "As a fellow diplomat, a
fellow alien, a fellow soft-back—"
"Why don't you appeal to Slock, as a fellow skunk?" said Retief. "Now
keep quiet ... and you may get out of this alive."
The heavier of the two struggling Fustians threw the other to the
ground. There was another brief flurry, and then the smaller figure was
on its back, helpless.
"That's Whonk, still on his feet," said Retief. "I wonder who he's
caught—and why."
Whonk came toward the
Moss Rock
dragging the supine Fustian, who
kicked vainly. Retief thrust Yith down well out of sight behind the
sentry box. "Better sit tight, Yith. Don't try to sneak off; I can
outrun you. Stay here and I'll see what I can do." He stepped out and
hailed Whonk.
Puffing like a steam engine Whonk pulled up before him. "Sleep,
Retief!" He panted. "You followed a hunch; I did the same. I saw
something strange in this one when we passed him on the avenue. I
watched, followed him here. Look! It is Slock, strapped into a dead
carapace! Now many things become clear."
Retief whistled. "So the Youths aren't all as young as they look.
Somebody's been holding out on the rest of you Fustians!"
"The Soft One," Whonk said. "You laid him by the heels, Retief. I saw.
Produce him now."
"Hold on a minute, Whonk. It won't do you any good—"
Whonk winked broadly. "I must take my revenge!" he roared. "I shall
test the texture of the Soft One! His pulped remains will be scoured up
by the ramp-washers and mailed home in bottles!"
Retief whirled at a sound, caught up with the scuttling Yith fifty feet
away, hauled him back to Whonk.
"It's up to you, Whonk," he said. "I know how important ceremonial
revenge is to you Fustians. I will not interfere."
"Mercy!" Yith hissed, eye-stalks whipping in distress. "I claim
diplomatic immunity!"
"No diplomat am I," rumbled Whonk. "Let me see; suppose I start with
one of those obscenely active eyes—" He reached....
"I have an idea," said Retief brightly. "Do you suppose—just this
once—you could forego the ceremonial revenge if Yith promised to
arrange for a Groaci Surgical Mission to de-carapace you elders?"
"But," Whonk protested, "those eyes! What a pleasure to pluck them, one
by one!"
"Yess," hissed Yith, "I swear it! Our most expert surgeons ... platoons
of them, with the finest of equipment."
"I have dreamed of how it would be to sit on this one, to feel him
squash beneath my bulk...."
"Light as a whissle feather shall you dance," Yith whispered.
"Shell-less shall you spring in the joy of renewed youth—"
"Maybe just one eye," said Whonk grudgingly. "That would leave him
four."
"Be a sport," said Retief.
"Well."
"It's a deal then," said Retief. "Yith, on your word as a diplomat,
an alien, a soft-back and a skunk, you'll set up the mission. Groaci
surgical skill is an export that will net you more than armaments.
It will be a whissle feather in your cap—if you bring it off. And
in return, Whonk won't sit on you. And I won't prefer charges of
interference in the internal affairs of a free world."
Behind Whonk there was a movement. Slock, wriggling free of the
borrowed carapace, struggled to his feet ... in time for Whonk to seize
him, lift him high and head for the entry to the
Moss Rock
.
"Hey," Retief called. "Where are you going?"
"I would not deny this one his reward," called Whonk. "He hoped to
cruise in luxury. So be it."
"Hold on," said Retief. "That tub is loaded with titanite!"
"Stand not in my way, Retief. For this one in truth owes me a
vengeance."
Retief watched as the immense Fustian bore his giant burden up the ramp
and disappeared within the ship.
"I guess Whonk means business," he said to Yith, who hung in his grasp,
all five eyes goggling. "And he's a little too big for me to stop."
Whonk reappeared, alone, climbed down.
"What did you do with him?" said Retief. "Tell him you were going to—"
"We had best withdraw," said Whonk. "The killing radius of the drive is
fifty yards."
"You mean—"
"The controls are set for Groaci. Long-may-he-sleep."
"It was quite a bang," said Retief. "But I guess you saw it, too."
"No, confound it," Magnan said. "When I remonstrated with Hulk, or
Whelk—"
"Whonk."
"—the ruffian thrust me into an alley bound in my own cloak. I'll most
certainly complain to the Minister."
"How about the surgical mission?"
"A most generous offer," said Magnan. "Frankly, I was astonished. I
think perhaps we've judged the Groaci too harshly."
"I hear the Ministry of Youth has had a rough morning of it," said
Retief. "And a lot of rumors are flying to the effect that Youth Groups
are on the way out."
Magnan cleared his throat, shuffled papers. "I—ah—have explained to
the press that last night's—ah—"
"Fiasco."
"—affair was necessary in order to place the culprits in an untenable
position. Of course, as to the destruction of the VIP vessel and the
presumed death of, uh, Slop."
"The Fustians understand," said Retief. "Whonk wasn't kidding about
ceremonial vengeance."
"The Groaci had been guilty of gross misuse of diplomatic privilege,"
said Magnan. "I think that a note—or perhaps an Aide Memoire: less
formal...."
"The
Moss Rock
was bound for Groaci," said Retief. "She was already
in her transit orbit when she blew. The major fragments will arrive on
schedule in a month or so. It should provide quite a meteorite display.
I think that should be all the
aide
the Groaci's
memoires
will need
to keep their tentacles off Fust."
"But diplomatic usage—"
"Then, too, the less that's put in writing, the less they can blame you
for, if anything goes wrong."
"That's true," said Magnan, lips pursed. "Now you're thinking
constructively, Retief. We may make a diplomat of you yet." He smiled
expansively.
"Maybe. But I refuse to let it depress me." Retief stood up. "I'm
taking a few weeks off ... if you have no objection, Mr. Ambassador. My
pal Whonk wants to show me an island down south where the fishing is
good."
"But there are some extremely important matters coming up," said
Magnan. "We're planning to sponsor Senior Citizen Groups—"
"Count me out. All groups give me an itch."
"Why, what an astonishing remark, Retief! After all, we diplomats are
ourselves a group."
"Uh-huh," Retief said.
Magnan sat quietly, mouth open, and watched as Retief stepped into the
hall and closed the door gently behind him.
Question:
Summarize the Fustian life cycle and culture.
Answer:
|
[
"Fustians somewhat resemble gigantic, intelligent snapping turtles, and like turtles, start life as eggs. During their youth and adolescence, they are relatively agile and have no shells (unlike turtles). It is notable how many Fustian elders take a dim view of adolescents, with the Minister of Fust himself saying that the Youth should be “kept penned with the livestock until they grow a carapace to tame their irresponsibility.”\nWhen Fustians mature, they develop an enormous, horny carapace which they are obliged to carry around on their backs for the rest of their lives, which last over a thousand years. The carapaces cause the adult Fustians to be slow-moving, and they take up a lot of space – hence their public transportation consists of flat-cars instead of buses with seats. Unfortunately, not much is known by off-worlders of Fustian females.\nLike most intelligent races, Fustians enjoy music. The frequencies at which their music is played are subsonic, and therefore not audible to the human ear. Likewise, their ears are quite sensitive to high frequencies, such as those produced by tapping on a crystal glass with a spoon. This is not just unpleasant, but painful to Fustian ears.\n",
"Fustians are similar to tortoises in build, with yellow eyes, scales, and very thick hides that leak purple blood when cut. They have a much longer life-cycle than humans, as those that are 75 years of age are still considered to be teenagers or even youths. \n\nAs Faustians age, they grow larger, their voices get deeper, and they eventually acquire very heavy shells. It is past their current medical knowledge to safely remove the shells, though we find out at the end of the story that the Groaci have discovered a technique that allows them to do this. This is important because the shells slow the older Fustians down and are often considered a nuisance. When they are young, they are very secretive, and wary of strangers from other groups and species. The older Fustians do not seem to mind the humans (and aliens in general) as much, and sometimes apologize for the behavior of the younger ones. It seems that they wish they could do more to control their behavior, but the younger ones are physically much faster and can escape attempts at control. It also seems to be the case that this difference in behavior is more acute now than it has been in the past, perhaps due to social pressures from other groups. \n\nSleep is very important to them, and regular greetings in day-to-day life include well wishes for a long rest, as well as specific types of dreams. When they are angry or want to insult someone, they wish nightmares upon them. They have regular siesta times during the work day. Sleep is so important to them that they have a National Dirge called the Lament of Hatching. Ceremonial revenge is also important to them: although the older Fustians are not necessarily quick to anger, they follow through once they have been wronged. ",
"Fustians are a species turtle-like in their appearance. They have very long lives; in fact, the average age of a Fustian youth is seventy-five years old. As they age, they develop a hard-shell on their backs, which is quite heavy and hard. This causes them to move slower as they get older. The younger Fustians can move quite fast in comparison. However, the older Fustians appear to be a great deal stronger and can hold their own in combat, as demonstrated by Whonk when he defends himself against Slock’s cronies and eventually captures Slock. The elderly Fustians also grow thicker skin, which is what ultimately prevents Whonk from being decapitated when he is first attacked. Fustians have turtle-like mouths that snap when they are angry. Steel manufacturing fuels their economy. While older Fustians are generally hospitable and patient, the younger Fustians have become frustrated with the ways of the elderly Fustian leadership, and their drive to change things blinds them to being manipulated by the Groaci. Although weapons are illegal on Fust, the younger Fustians seem willing to break this rule by accepting weapons from the Groaci in exchange for their knowledge of the ships.",
"The Fustians look like turtles and have extremely long lifespans. Younger Fustians do not have a carapace, but older ones do, which can be quite heavy. Seventy-five-year-olds are considered youths, like teenagers, because they can live for about two thousand years. The 75-year-olds have a reputation as being at a trying age. As Whonk explains to Retief, the youth have a reputation for “shame” and “discourtesy.” The Elders feel that there is little they can do about the youths' misbehavior since the Elders are so much slower with their carapaces. They have no police and have never needed them until the youth became so unruly. They have a youth group, the Sexual, Cultural, and Athletic Recreational Society (SCARS), that needs a sponsor and wants someone to provide them a clubhouse, uniforms, equipment, and so forth. The Fustians’ dwellings have a fishy odor and are found along a broad cobbled street. They have a caste system; the driver of a flat car is a member of the labor caste. Their greetings relate to peaceful sleep: “Long-may-you-sleep” and “May-you-dream-of-the-deeps.” Likewise, their insults related to unpleasant sleep: “May you toss in nightmares!” The oldest Fustians are forced into retirement and given once-daily feedings; Whonk says this is nothing to look forward to for his next thousand years. They have a strong sense of right and wrong and carry out ceremonial revenge when wronged."
] |
61198
|
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
AIDE MEMOIRE
BY KEITH LAUMER
The Fustians looked like turtles—but
they could move fast when they chose!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1962.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Across the table from Retief, Ambassador Magnan rustled a stiff sheet
of parchment and looked grave.
"This aide memoire," he said, "was just handed to me by the Cultural
Attache. It's the third on the subject this week. It refers to the
matter of sponsorship of Youth groups—"
"Some youths," Retief said. "Average age, seventy-five."
"The Fustians are a long-lived people," Magnan snapped. "These matters
are relative. At seventy-five, a male Fustian is at a trying age—"
"That's right. He'll try anything—in the hope it will maim somebody."
"Precisely the problem," Magnan said. "But the Youth Movement is
the important news in today's political situation here on Fust. And
sponsorship of Youth groups is a shrewd stroke on the part of the
Terrestrial Embassy. At my suggestion, well nigh every member of the
mission has leaped at the opportunity to score a few p—that is, cement
relations with this emergent power group—the leaders of the future.
You, Retief, as Councillor, are the outstanding exception."
"I'm not convinced these hoodlums need my help in organizing their
rumbles," Retief said. "Now, if you have a proposal for a pest control
group—"
"To the Fustians this is no jesting matter," Magnan cut in. "This
group—" he glanced at the paper—"known as the Sexual, Cultural, and
Athletic Recreational Society, or SCARS for short, has been awaiting
sponsorship for a matter of weeks now."
"Meaning they want someone to buy them a clubhouse, uniforms, equipment
and anything else they need to complete their sexual, cultural and
athletic development," Retief said.
"If we don't act promptly," Magnan said, "the Groaci Embassy may well
anticipate us. They're very active here."
"That's an idea," said Retief. "Let 'em. After awhile they'll go broke
instead of us."
"Nonsense. The group requires a sponsor. I can't actually order you to
step forward. However...." Magnan let the sentence hang in the air.
Retief raised one eyebrow.
"For a minute there," he said, "I thought you were going to make a
positive statement."
Magnan leaned back, lacing his fingers over his stomach. "I don't think
you'll find a diplomat of my experience doing anything so naive," he
said.
"I like the adult Fustians," said Retief. "Too bad they have to lug
half a ton of horn around on their backs. I wonder if surgery would
help."
"Great heavens, Retief," Magnan sputtered. "I'm amazed that even you
would bring up a matter of such delicacy. A race's unfortunate physical
characteristics are hardly a fit matter for Terrestrial curiosity."
"Well, of course your experience of the Fustian mentality is greater
than mine. I've only been here a month. But it's been my experience,
Mr. Ambassador, that few races are above improving on nature. Otherwise
you, for example, would be tripping over your beard."
Magnan shuddered. "Please—never mention the idea to a Fustian."
Retief stood. "My own program for the day includes going over to the
dockyards. There are some features of this new passenger liner the
Fustians are putting together that I want to look into. With your
permission, Mr. Ambassador...?"
Magnan snorted. "Your pre-occupation with the trivial disturbs me,
Retief. More interest in substantive matters—such as working with
Youth groups—would create a far better impression."
"Before getting too involved with these groups, it might be a good idea
to find out a little more about them," said Retief. "Who organizes
them? There are three strong political parties here on Fust. What's the
alignment of this SCARS organization?"
"You forget, these are merely teenagers, so to speak," Magnan said.
"Politics mean nothing to them ... yet."
"Then there are the Groaci. Why their passionate interest in a
two-horse world like Fust? Normally they're concerned with nothing but
business. But what has Fust got that they could use?"
"You may rule out the commercial aspect in this instance," said Magnan.
"Fust possesses a vigorous steel-age manufacturing economy. The Groaci
are barely ahead of them."
"Barely," said Retief. "Just over the line into crude atomics ... like
fission bombs."
Magnan shook his head, turned back to his papers. "What market exists
for such devices on a world at peace? I suggest you address your
attention to the less spectacular but more rewarding work of studying
the social patterns of the local youth."
"I've studied them," said Retief. "And before I meet any of the local
youth socially I want to get myself a good blackjack."
II
Retief left the sprawling bungalow-type building that housed the
chancery of the Terrestrial Embassy, swung aboard a passing flat-car
and leaned back against the wooden guard rail as the heavy vehicle
trundled through the city toward the looming gantries of the shipyards.
It was a cool morning. A light breeze carried the fishy odor of Fusty
dwellings across the broad cobbled avenue. A few mature Fustians
lumbered heavily along in the shade of the low buildings, audibly
wheezing under the burden of their immense carapaces. Among them,
shell-less youths trotted briskly on scaly stub legs. The driver of the
flat-car, a labor-caste Fustian with his guild colors emblazoned on his
back, heaved at the tiller, swung the unwieldy conveyance through the
shipyard gates, creaked to a halt.
"Thus I come to the shipyard with frightful speed," he said in Fustian.
"Well I know the way of the naked-backs, who move always in haste."
Retief climbed down, handed him a coin. "You should take up
professional racing," he said. "Daredevil."
He crossed the littered yard and tapped at the door of a rambling shed.
Boards creaked inside. Then the door swung back.
A gnarled ancient with tarnished facial scales and a weathered carapace
peered out at Retief.
"Long-may-you-sleep," said Retief. "I'd like to take a look around, if
you don't mind. I understand you're laying the bedplate for your new
liner today."
"May-you-dream-of-the-deeps," the old fellow mumbled. He waved a stumpy
arm toward a group of shell-less Fustians standing by a massive hoist.
"The youths know more of bedplates than do I, who but tend the place of
papers."
"I know how you feel, old-timer," said Retief. "That sounds like the
story of my life. Among your papers do you have a set of plans for the
vessel? I understand it's to be a passenger liner."
The oldster nodded. He shuffled to a drawing file, rummaged, pulled out
a sheaf of curled prints and spread them on the table. Retief stood
silently, running a finger over the uppermost drawing, tracing lines....
"What does the naked-back here?" barked a deep voice behind Retief. He
turned. A heavy-faced Fustian youth, wrapped in a mantle, stood at the
open door. Beady yellow eyes set among fine scales bored into Retief.
"I came to take a look at your new liner," said Retief.
"We need no prying foreigners here," the youth snapped. His eye fell on
the drawings. He hissed in sudden anger.
"Doddering hulk!" he snapped at the ancient. "May you toss in
nightmares! Put by the plans!"
"My mistake," Retief said. "I didn't know this was a secret project."
The youth hesitated. "It is not a secret project," he muttered. "Why
should it be secret?"
"You tell me."
The youth worked his jaws and rocked his head from side to side in the
Fusty gesture of uncertainty. "There is nothing to conceal," he said.
"We merely construct a passenger liner."
"Then you don't mind if I look over the drawings," said Retief. "Who
knows? Maybe some day I'll want to reserve a suite for the trip out."
The youth turned and disappeared. Retief grinned at the oldster. "Went
for his big brother, I guess," he said. "I have a feeling I won't get
to study these in peace here. Mind if I copy them?"
"Willingly, light-footed one," said the old Fustian. "And mine is the
shame for the discourtesy of youth."
Retief took out a tiny camera, flipped a copying lens in place, leafed
through the drawings, clicking the shutter.
"A plague on these youths," said the oldster, "who grow more virulent
day by day."
"Why don't you elders clamp down?"
"Agile are they and we are slow of foot. And this unrest is new.
Unknown in my youth was such insolence."
"The police—"
"Bah!" the ancient rumbled. "None have we worthy of the name, nor have
we needed ought ere now."
"What's behind it?"
"They have found leaders. The spiv, Slock, is one. And I fear they plot
mischief." He pointed to the window. "They come, and a Soft One with
them."
Retief pocketed the camera, glanced out the window. A pale-featured
Groaci with an ornately decorated crest stood with the youths, who eyed
the hut, then started toward it.
"That's the military attache of the Groaci Embassy," Retief said. "I
wonder what he and the boys are cooking up together?"
"Naught that augurs well for the dignity of Fust," the oldster rumbled.
"Flee, agile one, while I engage their attentions."
"I was just leaving," Retief said. "Which way out?"
"The rear door," the Fustian gestured with a stubby member. "Rest well,
stranger on these shores." He moved to the entrance.
"Same to you, pop," said Retief. "And thanks."
He eased through the narrow back entrance, waited until voices were
raised at the front of the shed, then strolled off toward the gate.
The second dark of the third cycle was lightening when Retief left the
Embassy technical library and crossed the corridor to his office. He
flipped on a light. A note was tucked under a paperweight:
"Retief—I shall expect your attendance at the IAS dinner at first
dark of the fourth cycle. There will be a brief but, I hope, impressive
Sponsorship ceremony for the SCARS group, with full press coverage,
arrangements for which I have managed to complete in spite of your
intransigence."
Retief snorted and glanced at his watch. Less than three hours. Just
time to creep home by flat-car, dress in ceremonial uniform and creep
back.
Outside he flagged a lumbering bus. He stationed himself in a corner
and watched the yellow sun, Beta, rise rapidly above the low skyline.
The nearby sea was at high tide now, under the pull of the major sun
and the three moons, and the stiff breeze carried a mist of salt spray.
Retief turned up his collar against the dampness. In half an hour he
would be perspiring under the vertical rays of a third-noon sun, but
the thought failed to keep the chill off.
Two Youths clambered up on the platform, moving purposefully toward
Retief. He moved off the rail, watching them, weight balanced.
"That's close enough, kids," he said. "Plenty of room on this scow. No
need to crowd up."
"There are certain films," the lead Fustian muttered. His voice was
unusually deep for a Youth. He was wrapped in a heavy cloak and moved
awkwardly. His adolescence was nearly at an end, Retief guessed.
"I told you once," said Retief. "Don't crowd me."
The two stepped close, slit mouths snapping in anger. Retief put out a
foot, hooked it behind the scaly leg of the overaged juvenile and threw
his weight against the cloaked chest. The clumsy Fustian tottered, fell
heavily. Retief was past him and off the flat-car before the other
Youth had completed his vain lunge toward the spot Retief had occupied.
The Terrestrial waved cheerfully at the pair, hopped aboard another
vehicle, watched his would-be assailants lumber down from their car,
tiny heads twisted to follow his retreating figure.
So they wanted the film? Retief reflected, thumbing a cigar alight.
They were a little late. He had already filed it in the Embassy vault,
after running a copy for the reference files.
And a comparison of the drawings with those of the obsolete Mark XXXV
battle cruiser used two hundred years earlier by the Concordiat Naval
Arm showed them to be almost identical, gun emplacements and all. The
term "obsolete" was a relative one. A ship which had been outmoded in
the armories of the Galactic Powers could still be king of the walk in
the Eastern Arm.
But how had these two known of the film? There had been no one present
but himself and the old-timer—and he was willing to bet the elderly
Fustian hadn't told them anything.
At least not willingly....
Retief frowned, dropped the cigar over the side, waited until the
flat-car negotiated a mud-wallow, then swung down and headed for the
shipyard.
The door, hinges torn loose, had been propped loosely back in position.
Retief looked around at the battered interior of the shed. The old
fellow had put up a struggle.
There were deep drag-marks in the dust behind the building. Retief
followed them across the yard. They disappeared under the steel door of
a warehouse.
Retief glanced around. Now, at the mid-hour of the fourth cycle, the
workmen were heaped along the edge of the refreshment pond, deep in
their siesta. He took a multi-bladed tool from a pocket, tried various
fittings in the lock. It snicked open.
He eased the door aside far enough to enter.
Heaped bales loomed before him. Snapping on the tiny lamp in the handle
of the combination tool, Retief looked over the pile. One stack seemed
out of alignment ... and the dust had been scraped from the floor
before it. He pocketed the light, climbed up on the bales, looked over
into a nest made by stacking the bundles around a clear spot. The aged
Fustian lay in it, on his back, a heavy sack tied over his head.
Retief dropped down inside the ring of bales, sawed at the tough twine
and pulled the sack free.
"It's me, old fellow," Retief said. "The nosy stranger. Sorry I got you
into this."
The oldster threshed his gnarled legs. He rocked slightly and fell
back. "A curse on the cradle that rocked their infant slumbers," he
rumbled. "But place me back on my feet and I hunt down the youth,
Slock, though he flee to the bottommost muck of the Sea of Torments."
"How am I going to get you out of here? Maybe I'd better get some help."
"Nay. The perfidious Youths abound here," said the old Fustian. "It
would be your life."
"I doubt if they'd go that far."
"Would they not?" The Fustian stretched his neck. "Cast your light
here. But for the toughness of my hide...."
Retief put the beam of the light on the leathery neck. A great smear of
thick purplish blood welled from a ragged cut. The oldster chuckled, a
sound like a seal coughing.
"Traitor, they called me. For long they sawed at me—in vain. Then
they trussed me and dumped me here. They think to return with weapons
to complete the task."
"Weapons? I thought it was illegal!"
"Their evil genius, the Soft One," said the Fustian. "He would provide
fuel to the Devil himself."
"The Groaci again," said Retief. "I wonder what their angle is."
"And I must confess, I told them of you, ere I knew their full
intentions. Much can I tell you of their doings. But first, I pray, the
block and tackle."
Retief found the hoist where the Fustian directed him, maneuvered it
into position, hooked onto the edge of the carapace and hauled away.
The immense Fustian rose slowly, teetered ... then flopped on his chest.
Slowly he got to his feet.
"My name is Whonk, fleet one," he said. "My cows are yours."
"Thanks. I'm Retief. I'd like to meet the girls some time. But right
now, let's get out of here."
Whonk leaned his bulk against the ponderous stacks of baled kelp,
bulldozed them aside. "Slow am I to anger," he said, "but implacable in
my wrath. Slock, beware!"
"Hold it," said Retief suddenly. He sniffed. "What's that odor?" He
flashed the light around, played it over a dry stain on the floor. He
knelt, sniffed at the spot.
"What kind of cargo was stacked here, Whonk? And where is it now?"
Whonk considered. "There were drums," he said. "Four of them, quite
small, painted an evil green, the property of the Soft Ones, the
Groaci. They lay here a day and a night. At full dark of the first
period they came with stevedores and loaded them aboard the barge
Moss
Rock
."
"The VIP boat. Who's scheduled to use it?"
"I know not. But what matters this? Let us discuss cargo movements
after I have settled a score with certain Youths."
"We'd better follow this up first, Whonk. There's only one substance I
know of that's transported in drums and smells like that blot on the
floor. That's titanite: the hottest explosive this side of a uranium
pile."
III
Beta was setting as Retief, Whonk puffing at his heels, came up to the
sentry box beside the gangway leading to the plush interior of the
official luxury space barge
Moss Rock
.
"A sign of the times," said Whonk, glancing inside the empty shelter.
"A guard should stand here, but I see him not. Doubtless he crept away
to sleep."
"Let's go aboard and take a look around."
They entered the ship. Soft lights glowed in utter silence. A rough box
stood on the floor, rollers and pry-bars beside it—a discordant note
in the muted luxury of the setting. Whonk rummaged in it.
"Curious," he said. "What means this?" He held up a stained cloak of
orange and green, a metal bracelet, papers.
"Orange and green," mused Relief. "Whose colors are those?"
"I know not." Whonk glanced at the arm-band. "But this is lettered." He
passed the metal band to Retief.
"SCARS," Retief read. He looked at Whonk. "It seems to me I've heard
the name before," he murmured. "Let's get back to the Embassy—fast."
Back on the ramp Retief heard a sound ... and turned in time to duck
the charge of a hulking Fustian youth who thundered past him and
fetched up against the broad chest of Whonk, who locked him in a warm
embrace.
"Nice catch, Whonk. Where'd he sneak out of?"
"The lout hid there by the storage bin," rumbled Whonk. The captive
youth thumped fists and toes fruitlessly against the oldster's carapace.
"Hang onto him," said Retief. "He looks like the biting kind."
"No fear. Clumsy I am, yet not without strength."
"Ask him where the titanite is tucked away."
"Speak, witless grub," growled Whonk, "lest I tweak you in twain."
The youth gurgled.
"Better let up before you make a mess of him," said Retief. Whonk
lifted the Youth clear of the floor, then flung him down with a thump
that made the ground quiver. The younger Fustian glared up at the
elder, mouth snapping.
"This one was among those who trussed me and hid me away for the
killing," said Whonk. "In his repentance he will tell all to his elder."
"That's the same young squirt that tried to strike up an acquaintance
with me on the bus," Retief said. "He gets around."
The youth scrambled to hands and knees, scuttled for freedom. Retief
planted a foot on his dragging cloak; it ripped free. He stared at the
bare back of the Fustian—
"By the Great Egg!" Whonk exclaimed, tripping the refugee as he tried
to rise. "This is no Youth! His carapace has been taken from him!"
Retief looked at the scarred back. "I thought he looked a little old.
But I thought—"
"This is not possible," Whonk said wonderingly. "The great nerve trunks
are deeply involved. Not even the cleverest surgeon could excise the
carapace and leave the patient living."
"It looks like somebody did the trick. But let's take this boy with us
and get out of here. His folks may come home."
"Too late," said Whonk. Retief turned.
Three youths came from behind the sheds.
"Well," Retief said. "It looks like the SCARS are out in force tonight.
Where's your pal?" he said to the advancing trio. "The sticky little
bird with the eye-stalks? Back at his Embassy, leaving you suckers
holding the bag, I'll bet."
"Shelter behind me, Retief," said Whonk.
"Go get 'em, old-timer." Retief stooped, picked up one of the pry-bars.
"I'll jump around and distract them."
Whonk let out a whistling roar and charged for the immature Fustians.
They fanned out ... and one tripped, sprawled on his face. Retief
whirled the metal bar he had thrust between the Fustian's legs, slammed
it against the skull of another, who shook his head, turned on
Retief ... and bounced off the steel hull of the
Moss Rock
as Whonk
took him in full charge.
Retief used the bar on another head. His third blow laid the Fustian
on the pavement, oozing purple. The other two club members departed
hastily, seriously dented but still mobile.
Retief leaned on his club, breathing hard. "Tough heads these kids
have got. I'm tempted to chase those two lads down, but I've got
another errand to run. I don't know who the Groaci intended to blast,
but I have a sneaking suspicion somebody of importance was scheduled
for a boat ride in the next few hours. And three drums of titanite is
enough to vaporize this tub and everyone aboard her."
"The plot is foiled," said Whonk. "But what reason did they have?"
"The Groaci are behind it. I have an idea the SCARS didn't know about
this gambit."
"Which of these is the leader?" asked Whonk. He prodded a fallen Youth
with a horny toe. "Arise, dreaming one."
"Never mind him, Whonk. We'll tie these two up and leave them here. I
know where to find the boss."
A stolid crowd filled the low-ceilinged banquet hall. Retief scanned
the tables for the pale blobs of Terrestrial faces, dwarfed by the
giant armored bodies of the Fustians. Across the room Magnan fluttered
a hand. Retief headed toward him. A low-pitched vibration filled the
air: the rumble of subsonic Fustian music.
Retief slid into his place beside Magnan. "Sorry to be late, Mr.
Ambassador."
"I'm honored that you chose to appear at all," said Magnan coldly. He
turned back to the Fustian on his left.
"Ah, yes, Mr. Minister," he said. "Charming, most charming. So joyous."
The Fustian looked at him, beady-eyed. "It is the
Lament of
Hatching
," he said; "our National Dirge."
"Oh," said Magnan. "How interesting. Such a pleasing balance of
instruments—"
"It is a droon solo," said the Fustian, eyeing the Terrestrial
Ambassador suspiciously.
"Why don't you just admit you can't hear it," Retief whispered loudly.
"And if I may interrupt a moment—"
Magnan cleared his throat. "Now that our Mr. Retief has arrived,
perhaps we could rush right along to the Sponsorship ceremonies."
"This group," said Retief, leaning across Magnan, "the SCARS. How much
do you know about them, Mr. Minister?"
"Nothing at all," the huge Fustian elder rumbled. "For my taste, all
Youths should be kept penned with the livestock until they grow a
carapace to tame their irresponsibility."
"We mustn't lose sight of the importance of channeling youthful
energies," said Magnan.
"Labor gangs," said the minister. "In my youth we were indentured to
the dredge-masters. I myself drew a muck sledge."
"But in these modern times," put in Magnan, "surely it's incumbent on
us to make happy these golden hours."
The minister snorted. "Last week I had a golden hour. They set upon me
and pelted me with overripe stench-fruit."
"But this was merely a manifestation of normal youthful frustrations,"
cried Magnan. "Their essential tenderness—"
"You'd not find a tender spot on that lout yonder," the minister
said, pointing with a fork at a newly arrived Youth, "if you drilled
boreholes and blasted."
"Why, that's our guest of honor," said Magnan, "a fine young fellow!
Slop I believe his name is."
"Slock," said Retief. "Eight feet of armor-plated orneriness. And—"
Magnan rose and tapped on his glass. The Fustians winced at the, to
them, supersonic vibrations. They looked at each other muttering.
Magnan tapped louder. The Minister drew in his head, eyes closed. Some
of the Fustians rose, tottered for the doors; the noise level rose.
Magnan redoubled his efforts. The glass broke with a clatter and green
wine gushed on the tablecloth.
"What in the name of the Great Egg!" the Minister muttered. He blinked,
breathing deeply.
"Oh, forgive me," blurted Magnan, dabbing at the wine.
"Too bad the glass gave out," said Retief. "In another minute you'd
have cleared the hall. And then maybe I could have gotten a word in
sideways. There's a matter you should know about—"
"Your attention, please," Magnan said, rising. "I see that our fine
young guest has arrived, and I hope that the remainder of his committee
will be along in a moment. It is my pleasure to announce that our Mr.
Retief has had the good fortune to win out in the keen bidding for the
pleasure of sponsoring this lovely group."
Retief tugged at Magnan's sleeve. "Don't introduce me yet," he said. "I
want to appear suddenly. More dramatic, you know."
"Well," murmured Magnan, glancing down at Retief, "I'm gratified to
see you entering into the spirit of the event at last." He turned his
attention back to the assembled guests. "If our honored guest will join
me on the rostrum...?" he said. "The gentlemen of the press may want to
catch a few shots of the presentation."
Magnan stepped up on the low platform at the center of the wide room,
took his place beside the robed Fustian youth and beamed at the cameras.
"How gratifying it is to take this opportunity to express once more the
great pleasure we have in sponsoring SCARS," he said, talking slowly
for the benefit of the scribbling reporters. "We'd like to think that
in our modest way we're to be a part of all that the SCARS achieve
during the years ahead."
Magnan paused as a huge Fustian elder heaved his bulk up the two low
steps to the rostrum, approached the guest of honor. He watched as the
newcomer paused behind Slock, who did not see the new arrival.
Retief pushed through the crowd, stepped up to face the Fustian youth.
Slock stared at him, drew back.
"You know me, Slock," said Retief loudly. "An old fellow named Whonk
told you about me, just before you tried to saw his head off, remember?
It was when I came out to take a look at that battle cruiser you're
building."
IV
With a bellow Slock reached for Retief—and choked off in mid-cry as
the Fustian elder, Whonk, pinioned him from behind, lifting him clear
of the floor.
"Glad you reporters happened along," said Retief to the gaping newsmen.
"Slock here had a deal with a sharp operator from the Groaci Embassy.
The Groaci were to supply the necessary hardware and Slock, as foreman
at the shipyards, was to see that everything was properly installed.
The next step, I assume, would have been a local take-over, followed
by a little interplanetary war on Flamenco or one of the other nearby
worlds ... for which the Groaci would be glad to supply plenty of ammo."
Magnan found his tongue. "Are you mad, Retief?" he screeched. "This
group was vouched for by the Ministry of Youth!"
"The Ministry's overdue for a purge," snapped Retief. He turned back
to Slock. "I wonder if you were in on the little diversion that was
planned for today. When the
Moss Rock
blew, a variety of clues were
to be planted where they'd be easy to find ... with SCARS written all
over them. The Groaci would thus have neatly laid the whole affair
squarely at the door of the Terrestrial Embassy ... whose sponsorship
of the SCARS had received plenty of publicity."
"The
Moss Rock
?" said Magnan. "But that was—Retief! This is idiotic.
Slock himself was scheduled to go on a cruise tomorrow!"
Slock roared suddenly, twisting violently. Whonk teetered, his grip
loosened ... and Slock pulled free and was off the platform, butting
his way through the milling oldsters on the dining room floor. Magnan
watched, open-mouthed.
"The Groaci were playing a double game, as usual," Retief said. "They
intended to dispose of this fellow Slock, once he'd served their
purpose."
"Well, don't stand there," yelped Magnan over the uproar. "If Slock is
the ring-leader of a delinquent gang...!" He moved to give chase.
Retief grabbed his arm. "Don't jump down there! You'd have as much
chance of getting through as a jack-rabbit through a threshing contest."
Ten minutes later the crowd had thinned slightly. "We can get through
now," Whonk called. "This way." He lowered himself to the floor, bulled
through to the exit. Flashbulbs popped. Retief and Magnan followed in
Whonk's wake.
In the lounge Retief grabbed the phone, waited for the operator, gave a
code letter. No reply. He tried another.
"No good," he said after a full minute had passed. "Wonder what's
loose?" He slammed the phone back in its niche. "Let's grab a cab."
In the street the blue sun, Alpha, peered like an arc light under a low
cloud layer, casting flat shadows across the mud of the avenue. The
three mounted a passing flat-car. Whonk squatted, resting the weight of
his immense shell on the heavy plank flooring.
"Would that I too could lose this burden, as has the false youth we
bludgeoned aboard the
Moss Rock
," he sighed. "Soon will I be forced
into retirement. Then a mere keeper of a place of papers such as I
will rate no more than a slab on the public strand, with once-daily
feedings. And even for a man of high position, retirement is no
pleasure. A slab in the Park of Monuments is little better. A dismal
outlook for one's next thousand years!"
"You two carry on to the police station," said Retief. "I want to play
a hunch. But don't take too long. I may be painfully right."
"What—?" Magnan started.
"As you wish, Retief," said Whonk.
The flat-car trundled past the gate to the shipyard and Retief jumped
down, headed at a run for the VIP boat. The guard post still stood
vacant. The two Youths whom he and Whonk had left trussed were gone.
"That's the trouble with a peaceful world," Retief muttered. "No police
protection." He stepped down from the lighted entry and took up a
position behind the sentry box. Alpha rose higher, shedding a glaring
blue-white light without heat. Retief shivered. Maybe he'd guessed
wrong....
There was a sound in the near distance, like two elephants colliding.
Retief looked toward the gate. His giant acquaintance, Whonk, had
reappeared and was grappling with a hardly less massive opponent. A
small figure became visible in the melee, scuttled for the gate. Headed
off by the battling titans, he turned and made for the opposite side
of the shipyard. Retief waited, jumped out and gathered in the fleeing
Groaci.
"Well, Yith," he said, "how's tricks? You should pardon the expression."
"Release me, Retief!" the pale-featured alien lisped, his throat
bladder pulsating in agitation. "The behemoths vie for the privilege of
dismembering me out of hand!"
"I know how they feel. I'll see what I can do ... for a price."
"I appeal to you," Yith whispered hoarsely. "As a fellow diplomat, a
fellow alien, a fellow soft-back—"
"Why don't you appeal to Slock, as a fellow skunk?" said Retief. "Now
keep quiet ... and you may get out of this alive."
The heavier of the two struggling Fustians threw the other to the
ground. There was another brief flurry, and then the smaller figure was
on its back, helpless.
"That's Whonk, still on his feet," said Retief. "I wonder who he's
caught—and why."
Whonk came toward the
Moss Rock
dragging the supine Fustian, who
kicked vainly. Retief thrust Yith down well out of sight behind the
sentry box. "Better sit tight, Yith. Don't try to sneak off; I can
outrun you. Stay here and I'll see what I can do." He stepped out and
hailed Whonk.
Puffing like a steam engine Whonk pulled up before him. "Sleep,
Retief!" He panted. "You followed a hunch; I did the same. I saw
something strange in this one when we passed him on the avenue. I
watched, followed him here. Look! It is Slock, strapped into a dead
carapace! Now many things become clear."
Retief whistled. "So the Youths aren't all as young as they look.
Somebody's been holding out on the rest of you Fustians!"
"The Soft One," Whonk said. "You laid him by the heels, Retief. I saw.
Produce him now."
"Hold on a minute, Whonk. It won't do you any good—"
Whonk winked broadly. "I must take my revenge!" he roared. "I shall
test the texture of the Soft One! His pulped remains will be scoured up
by the ramp-washers and mailed home in bottles!"
Retief whirled at a sound, caught up with the scuttling Yith fifty feet
away, hauled him back to Whonk.
"It's up to you, Whonk," he said. "I know how important ceremonial
revenge is to you Fustians. I will not interfere."
"Mercy!" Yith hissed, eye-stalks whipping in distress. "I claim
diplomatic immunity!"
"No diplomat am I," rumbled Whonk. "Let me see; suppose I start with
one of those obscenely active eyes—" He reached....
"I have an idea," said Retief brightly. "Do you suppose—just this
once—you could forego the ceremonial revenge if Yith promised to
arrange for a Groaci Surgical Mission to de-carapace you elders?"
"But," Whonk protested, "those eyes! What a pleasure to pluck them, one
by one!"
"Yess," hissed Yith, "I swear it! Our most expert surgeons ... platoons
of them, with the finest of equipment."
"I have dreamed of how it would be to sit on this one, to feel him
squash beneath my bulk...."
"Light as a whissle feather shall you dance," Yith whispered.
"Shell-less shall you spring in the joy of renewed youth—"
"Maybe just one eye," said Whonk grudgingly. "That would leave him
four."
"Be a sport," said Retief.
"Well."
"It's a deal then," said Retief. "Yith, on your word as a diplomat,
an alien, a soft-back and a skunk, you'll set up the mission. Groaci
surgical skill is an export that will net you more than armaments.
It will be a whissle feather in your cap—if you bring it off. And
in return, Whonk won't sit on you. And I won't prefer charges of
interference in the internal affairs of a free world."
Behind Whonk there was a movement. Slock, wriggling free of the
borrowed carapace, struggled to his feet ... in time for Whonk to seize
him, lift him high and head for the entry to the
Moss Rock
.
"Hey," Retief called. "Where are you going?"
"I would not deny this one his reward," called Whonk. "He hoped to
cruise in luxury. So be it."
"Hold on," said Retief. "That tub is loaded with titanite!"
"Stand not in my way, Retief. For this one in truth owes me a
vengeance."
Retief watched as the immense Fustian bore his giant burden up the ramp
and disappeared within the ship.
"I guess Whonk means business," he said to Yith, who hung in his grasp,
all five eyes goggling. "And he's a little too big for me to stop."
Whonk reappeared, alone, climbed down.
"What did you do with him?" said Retief. "Tell him you were going to—"
"We had best withdraw," said Whonk. "The killing radius of the drive is
fifty yards."
"You mean—"
"The controls are set for Groaci. Long-may-he-sleep."
"It was quite a bang," said Retief. "But I guess you saw it, too."
"No, confound it," Magnan said. "When I remonstrated with Hulk, or
Whelk—"
"Whonk."
"—the ruffian thrust me into an alley bound in my own cloak. I'll most
certainly complain to the Minister."
"How about the surgical mission?"
"A most generous offer," said Magnan. "Frankly, I was astonished. I
think perhaps we've judged the Groaci too harshly."
"I hear the Ministry of Youth has had a rough morning of it," said
Retief. "And a lot of rumors are flying to the effect that Youth Groups
are on the way out."
Magnan cleared his throat, shuffled papers. "I—ah—have explained to
the press that last night's—ah—"
"Fiasco."
"—affair was necessary in order to place the culprits in an untenable
position. Of course, as to the destruction of the VIP vessel and the
presumed death of, uh, Slop."
"The Fustians understand," said Retief. "Whonk wasn't kidding about
ceremonial vengeance."
"The Groaci had been guilty of gross misuse of diplomatic privilege,"
said Magnan. "I think that a note—or perhaps an Aide Memoire: less
formal...."
"The
Moss Rock
was bound for Groaci," said Retief. "She was already
in her transit orbit when she blew. The major fragments will arrive on
schedule in a month or so. It should provide quite a meteorite display.
I think that should be all the
aide
the Groaci's
memoires
will need
to keep their tentacles off Fust."
"But diplomatic usage—"
"Then, too, the less that's put in writing, the less they can blame you
for, if anything goes wrong."
"That's true," said Magnan, lips pursed. "Now you're thinking
constructively, Retief. We may make a diplomat of you yet." He smiled
expansively.
"Maybe. But I refuse to let it depress me." Retief stood up. "I'm
taking a few weeks off ... if you have no objection, Mr. Ambassador. My
pal Whonk wants to show me an island down south where the fishing is
good."
"But there are some extremely important matters coming up," said
Magnan. "We're planning to sponsor Senior Citizen Groups—"
"Count me out. All groups give me an itch."
"Why, what an astonishing remark, Retief! After all, we diplomats are
ourselves a group."
"Uh-huh," Retief said.
Magnan sat quietly, mouth open, and watched as Retief stepped into the
hall and closed the door gently behind him.
|
What is the relationship between Ravenhurst and Daniel Oak?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about His Master's Voice by Randall Garrett.
Relevant chunks:
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Analog March 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
ILLUSTRATED BY KRENKEL
HIS MASTER'S VOICE ANALOG SCIENCE FACT · SCIENCE FICTION
Spaceship McGuire had lots of knowledge—but no wisdom. He was smart—but incredibly foolish. And, as a natural consequence, tended to ask questions too profound for any philosopher—questions like "Who are you?"
By RANDALL GARRETT
I'd been in Ravenhurst's office on the mountain-sized planetoid called Raven's Rest only twice before. The third time was no better; Shalimar Ravenhurst was one of the smartest operators in the Belt, but when it came to personal relationships, he was utterly incompetent. He could make anyone dislike him without trying.
When I entered the office, he was
[3]
sitting behind his mahogany desk, his eyes focused on the operation he was going through with a wineglass and a decanter. He didn't look up at me as he said:
"Sit down, Mr. Oak. Will you have some Madeira?"
I decided I might as well observe the pleasantries. There was no point in my getting nasty until he did. "Thank you, Mr. Ravenhurst, I will."
He kept his eyes focused on his work: It isn't easy to pour wine on a planetoid where the gee-pull is measured in fractions of a centimeter per second squared. It moves slowly, like ropy molasses, but you have to be careful not to be fooled by that. The viscosity is just as low as ever, and if you pour it from any great height, it will go scooting right out of the glass
[4]
again. The momentum it builds up is enough to make it splash right out again in a slow-motion gush which gets it all over the place.
Besides which, even if it didn't splash, it would take it so long to fall a few inches that you'd die of thirst waiting for it.
Ravenhurst had evolved a technique from long years of practice. He tilted the glass and the bottle toward each other, their edges touching, like you do when you're trying to pour beer without putting a head on it. As soon as the wine wet the glass, the adhesive forces at work would pull more wine into the wine glass. To get capillary action on a low-gee asteroid, you don't need a capillary, by any means. The negative meniscus on the wine was something to see; the first time you see it, you get the eerie feeling that the glass is spinning and throwing the wine up against the walls by centrifugal force.
I took the glass he offered me (Careful! Don't slosh!) and sipped at it. Using squirt tubes would have been a hell of a lot easier and neater, but Ravenhurst liked to do things his way.
He put the stopper back in the decanter, picked up his own glass and sipped appreciatively. Not until he put it back down on the desk again did he raise his eyes and look at me for the first time since I'd come in.
"Mr. Oak, you have caused me considerable trouble."
"I thought we'd hashed all that out, Mr. Ravenhurst," I said, keeping my voice level.
[5]
"So had I. But it appears that there were more ramifications to your action than we had at first supposed." His voice had the texture of heavy linseed oil.
He waited, as if he expected me to make some reply to that. When I didn't, he sighed slightly and went on. "I fear that you have inadvertently sabotaged McGuire. You were commissioned to prevent sabotage, Mr. Oak, and I'm afraid that you abrogated your contract."
I just continued to keep my voice calm. "If you are trying to get back the fee you gave me, we can always take it to court. I don't think you'd win."
"Mr. Oak," he said heavily, "I am not a fool, regardless of what your own impression may be. If I were trying to get back that fee, I would hardly offer to pay you another one."
I didn't think he was a fool. You don't get into the managerial business and climb to the top and stay there unless you have brains. Ravenhurst was smart, all right; it was just that, when it came to personal relationships, he wasn't very wise.
"Then stop all this yak about an abrogated contract and get to the point," I told him.
"I shall. I was merely trying to point out to you that it is through your own actions that I find myself in a very trying position, and that your sense of honor and ethics should induce you to rectify the damage."
"My honor and ethics are in fine shape," I said, "but my interpretation of the concepts might not be quite
[6]
the same as yours. Get to the point."
He took another sip of Madeira. "The robotocists at Viking tell me that, in order to prevent any further ... ah ... sabotage by unauthorized persons, the MGYR-7 was constructed so that, after activation, the first man who addressed orders to it would thenceforth be considered its ... ah ... master.
"As I understand it, the problem of defining the term 'human being' unambiguously to a robot is still unsolved. The robotocists felt that it would be much easier to define a single individual. That would prevent the issuing of conflicting orders to a robot, provided the single individual were careful in giving orders himself.
"Now, it appears that you , Mr. Oak, were the first man to speak to McGuire after he had been activated. Is that correct?"
"Is that question purely rhetorical," I asked him, putting on my best expression of innocent interest. "Or are you losing your memory?" I had explained all that to him two weeks before, when I'd brought McGuire and the girl here, so that Ravenhurst would have a chance to cover up what had really happened.
My sarcasm didn't faze him in the least. "Rhetorical. It follows that you are the only man whose orders McGuire will obey."
"Your robotocists can change that," I said. This time, I was giving him my version of "genuine" innocence.
[7]
A man has to be a good actor to be a competent double agent, and I didn't want Ravenhurst to know that I knew a great deal more about the problem than he did.
He shook his head, making his jowls wobble. "No, they cannot. They realize now that there should be some way of making that change, but they failed to see that it would be necessary. Only by completely draining McGuire's memory banks and refilling them with new data can this bias be eliminated."
"Then why don't they do that?"
"There are two very good reasons," he said. And there was a shade of anger in his tone. "In the first place, that sort of operation takes time, and it costs money. If we do that, we might as well go ahead and make the slight changes in structure necessary to incorporate some of the improvements that the robotocists now feel are necessary. In other words, they might as well go ahead and build the MGYR-8, which is precisely the thing I hired you to prevent."
"It seems you have a point there, Mr. Ravenhurst." He'd hired me because things were shaky at Viking. If he lost too much more money on the McGuire experiment, he stood a good chance of losing his position as manager. If that happened some of his other managerial contracts might be canceled, too. Things like that can begin to snowball, and Ravenhurst might find himself out of the managerial business entirely.
"But," I went on, "hasn't the additional wasted time already cost you
[8]
money?"
"It has. I was reluctant to call you in again—understandably enough, I think."
"Perfectly. It's mutual."
He ignored me. "I even considered going through with the rebuilding work, now that we have traced down the source of failure of the first six models. Unfortunately, that isn't feasible, either." He scowled at me.
"It seems," he went on, "that McGuire refuses to allow his brain to be tampered with. The self-preservation 'instinct' has come to the fore. He has refused to let the technicians and robotocists enter his hull, and he has threatened to take off and leave Ceres if any further attempts are made to ... ah ... disrupt his thinking processes."
"I can't say that I blame him," I said. "What do you want me to do? Go to Ceres and tell him to submit like a good boy?"
"It is too late for that, Mr. Oak. Viking cannot stand any more of that kind of drain on its financial resources. I have been banking on the McGuire-type ships to put Viking Spacecraft ahead of every other spacecraft company in the System." He looked suddenly very grim and very determined. "Mr. Oak, I am certain that the robot ship is the answer to the transportation problems in the Solar System. For the sake of every human being in the Solar System, we must get the bugs out of McGuire!"
What's good for General Bull-moose is good for everybody , I quoted to myself. I'd have said it out loud,
[9]
but I was fairly certain that Shalimar Ravenhurst was not a student of the classics.
"Mr. Oak, I would like you to go to Ceres and co-operate with the robotocists at Viking. When the MGYR-8 is finally built, I want it to be the prototype for a fast, safe, functional robot spaceship that can be turned out commercially. You can be of great service, Mr. Oak."
"In other words, I've got you over a barrel."
"I don't deny it."
"You know what my fees are, Mr. Ravenhurst. That's what you'll be charged. I'll expect to be paid weekly; if Viking goes broke, I don't want to lose more than a week's pay. On the other hand, if the MGYR-8 is successful, I will expect a substantial bonus."
"How much?"
"Exactly half of the cost of rebuilding. Half what it would take to build a Model 8 right now, and taking a chance on there being no bugs in it."
He considered that, looking grimmer than ever. Then he said: "I will do it on the condition that the bonus be paid off in installments, one each six months for three years after the first successful commercial ship is built by Viking."
"My lawyer will nail you down on that wording," I said, "but it's a deal. Is there anything else?"
"No."
"Then I think I'll leave for Ceres before you break a blood vessel."
"You continue to amaze me, Mr. Oak," he said. And the soft oiliness
[10]
of his voice was the oil of vitriol. "Your compassion for your fellowman is a facet of your personality that I had not seen before. I shall welcome the opportunity to relax and allow my blood pressure to subside."
I could almost see Shalimar Ravenhurst suddenly exploding and adding his own touch of color to the room.
And, on that gladsome thought, I left. I let him have his small verbal triumph; if he'd known that I'd have taken on the job for almost nothing, he'd really have blown up.
Ten minutes later, I was in my vacuum suit, walking across the glaring, rough-polished rectangle of metal that was the landing field of Raven's Rest. The sun was near the zenith in the black, diamond-dusted sky, and the shadow of my flitterboat stood out like an inkblot on a bridal gown. I climbed in, started the engine, and released the magnetic anchor that held the little boat to the surface of the nickel-iron planetoid. I lifted her gently, worked her around until I was stationary in relation to the spinning planetoid, oriented myself against the stellar background, and headed toward the first blinker beacon on my way to Ceres.
For obvious economical reasons, it it impracticable to use full-sized spaceships in the Belt. A flitterboat, with a single gravitoinertial engine and the few necessities of life—air, some water, and a very little food—still costs more than a Rolls-Royce
[11]
automobile does on Earth, but there has to be some sort of individual transportation in the Belt.
They can't be used for any great distances because a man can't stay in a vac suit very long without getting uncomfortable. You have to hop from beacon to beacon, which means that your average velocity doesn't amount to much, since you spend too much time accelerating and decelerating. But a flitterboat is enough to get around the neighborhood in, and that's all that's needed.
I got the GM-187 blinker in my sights, eased the acceleration up to one gee, relaxed to watch the radar screen while I thought over my coming ordeal with McGuire.
Testing spaceships, robotic or any other kind, is strictly not my business. The sign on the door of my office in New York says: DANIEL OAK, Confidential Expediter ; I'm hired to help other people Get Things Done. Usually, if someone came to me with the problem of getting a spaceship test-piloted, I'd simply dig up the best test pilot in the business, hire him for my client, and forget about everything but collecting my fee. But I couldn't have refused this case if I'd wanted to. I'd already been assigned to it by someone a lot more important than Shalimar Ravenhurst.
Every schoolchild who has taken a course in Government Organization and Function can tell you that the Political Survey Division is a branch of the System Census Bureau of the UN Government, and that its job is to evaluate the political activities of
[12]
various sub-governments all over the System.
And every one of those poor tykes would be dead wrong.
The Political Survey Division does evaluate political activity, all right, but it is the Secret Service of the UN Government. The vast majority of
[13]
the System's citizens don't even know the Government has a Secret Service. I happen to know only because I'm an agent of the Political Survey Division.
The PSD was vitally interested in the whole McGuire project. Robots of McGuire's complexity had been built before; the robot that runs the traffic patterns of the American Eastern Seaboard is just as capable as McGuire when it comes to handling a tremendous number of variables and making decisions on them. But that robot didn't have to be given orders except in extreme emergencies. Keeping a few million cars moving and safe at the same time is actually pretty routine stuff for a robot. And a traffic robot isn't given orders verbally; it is given any orders that may be necessary via teletype by a trained programming technician. Those orders are usually in reference to a change of routing due to repair work on the highways or the like. The robot itself can take care of such emergencies as bad weather or even an accident caused by the malfunctioning of an individual automobile.
McGuire was different. In the first place, he was mobile. He was in command of a spacecraft. In a sense, he was the spacecraft, since it served him in a way that was analogous to the way a human body serves the human mind. And he wasn't in charge of millions of objects with a top velocity of a hundred and fifty miles an hour; he was in charge of a single object that moved at velocities of thousands of miles per second. Nor
[14]
did he have a set, unmoving highway as his path; his paths were variable and led through the emptiness of space.
Unforeseen emergencies can happen at any time in space, most of them having to do with the lives of passengers. A cargo ship would be somewhat less susceptible to such emergencies if there were no humans aboard; it doesn't matter much to a robot if he has no air in his hull.
But with passengers aboard, there may be times when it would be necessary to give orders— fast ! And that means verbal orders, orders that can be given anywhere in the ship and relayed immediately by microphone to the robot's brain. A man doesn't have time to run to a teletyper and type out orders when there's an emergency in space.
That meant that McGuire had to understand English, and, since there has to be feedback in communication, he had to be able to speak it as well.
And that made McGuire more than somewhat difficult to deal with.
For more than a century, robotocists have been trying to build Asimov's famous Three Laws of Robotics into a robot brain.
First Law: A robot shall not, either through action or inaction, allow harm to come to a human being.
Second Law: A robot shall obey the orders of a human being, except when such orders conflict with the First Law .
[15]
Third Law: A robot shall strive to protect its own existence, except when this conflicts with the First or Second Law.
Nobody has succeeded yet, because nobody has yet succeeded in defining the term "human being" in such a way that the logical mind of a robot can encompass the concept.
A traffic robot is useful only because the definition has been rigidly narrowed down. As far as a traffic robot is concerned, "human beings" are the automobiles on its highways. Woe betide any poor sap who tries, illegally, to cross a robot-controlled highway on foot. The robot's only concern would be with the safety of the automobiles, and if the only way to avoid destruction of an automobile were to be by nudging the pedestrian aside with a fender, that's what would happen.
And, since its orders only come from one place, I suppose that a traffic robot thinks that the guy who uses that typer is an automobile.
With the first six models of the McGuire ships, the robotocists attempted to build in the Three Laws exactly as stated. And the first six went insane.
If one human being says "jump left," and another says "jump right," the robot is unable to evaluate which human being has given the more valid order. Feed enough confusing and conflicting data into a robot brain, and it can begin behaving in ways that, in a human being, would be called paranoia or schizophrenia or catatonia or what-have-you, depending
[16]
on the symptoms. And an insane robot is fully as dangerous as an insane human being controlling the same mechanical equipment, if not more so.
So the seventh model had been modified. The present McGuire's brain was impressed with slight modifications of the First and Second Laws.
If it is difficult to define a human being, it is much more difficult to define a responsible human being. One, in other words, who can be relied upon to give wise and proper orders to a robot, who can be relied upon not to drive the robot insane.
The robotocists at Viking Spacecraft had decided to take another tack. "Very well," they'd said, "if we can't define all the members of a group, we can certainly define an individual. We'll pick one responsible person and build McGuire so that he will take orders only from that person."
As it turned out, I was that person. Just substitute "Daniel Oak" for "human being" in the First and Second Laws, and you'll see how important I was to a certain spaceship named McGuire.
When I finally caught the beam from Ceres and set my flitterboat down on the huge landing field that had been carved from the nickel-iron of the asteroid with a focused sun beam, I was itchy with my own perspiration and groggy tired. I don't like riding in flitterboats, sitting on a
[17]
bucket seat, astride the drive tube, like a witch on a broomstick, with nothing but a near-invisible transite hull between me and the stars, all cooped up in a vac suit. Unlike driving a car, you can't pull a flitterboat over and take a nap; you have to wait until you hit the next beacon station.
Ceres, the biggest rock in the Belt, is a lot more than just a beacon station. Like Eros and a few others, it's a city in its own right. And except for the Government Reservation, Viking Spacecraft owned Ceres, lock, stock, and mining rights.
Part of the reason for Viking's troubles was envy of that ownership. There were other companies in the Belt that would like to get their hands on that plum, and there were those who were doing everything short of cutting throats to get it. The PSD was afraid it might come to that, too, before very long.
Ceres is fifty-eight million cubic miles of nickel-iron, but nobody would cut her up for that. Nickel-iron is almost exactly as cheap as dirt on Earth, and, considering shipping costs, Earth soil costs a great deal more than nickel-iron in the Belt.
But, as an operations base, Ceres is second to none. Its surface gravity averages .0294 Standard Gee, as compared with Earth's .981, and that's enough to give a slight feeling of weight without unduly hampering the body with too much load. I weigh just under six pounds on Ceres, and after I've been there a while, going back to Earth is a strain that takes a
[18]
week to get used to. Kids that are brought up in the Belt are forced to exercise in a room with a one-gee spin on it at least an hour a day. They don't like it at first, but it keeps them from growing up with the strength of mice. And an adult with any sense takes a spin now and then, too. Traveling in a flitterboat will give you a one-gee pull, all right, but you don't get much exercise.
I parked my flitterboat in the space that had been assigned to me by Landing Control, and went over to the nearest air-lock dome.
After I'd cycled through and had shucked my vac suit, I went into the inner room to find Colonel Brock waiting for me.
"Have a good trip, Oak?" he asked, trying to put a smile on his scarred, battered face.
"I got here alive, if that makes it a good flitterboat trip," I said, shaking his extended hand.
"That's the definition of a good trip," he told me.
"Then the question was superfluous. Seriously, what I need is a bath and some sleep."
"You'll get that, but first let's go somewhere where we can talk. Want a drink?"
"I could use one, I guess. Your treat?"
"My treat," he said. "Come on."
I followed him out and down a ladder to a corridor that led north. By definition, any asteroid spins toward the east, and all directions follow from that, regardless of which way the axis may point.
[19]
Colonel Harrington Brock was dressed in the black-and-gold "union suit" that was the uniform of Ravenhurst's Security Guard. My own was a tasteful green, but some of the other people in the public corridor seemed to go for more flashiness; besides silver and gold, there were shocking pinks and violent mauves, with stripes and blazes of other colors.
A crowd wearing skin-tight cover-alls might shock the gentle people of Midwich-on-the-Moor, England, but they are normal dress in the Belt. You can't climb into a vac suit with bulky clothing on, and, if you did, you'd hate yourself within an hour, with a curse for every wrinkle that chafed your skin. And, in the Belt, you never know when you might have to get into a vac suit fast. In a "safe" area like the tunnels inside Ceres, there isn't much chance of losing air, but there are places where no one but a fool would ever be more than ten seconds away from his vac suit.
I read an article by a psychologist a few months back, in which he claimed that the taste for loud colors in union suits was actually due to modesty. He claimed that the bright patterns drew attention to the colors themselves, and away from the base the colors were laid over. The observer, he said, tends to see the color and pattern of the suit, rather than the body it clings to so closely. Maybe he's right; I wouldn't know, not being a psychologist. I have spent summers in nudist resorts, though, and I never noticed anyone painting themselves with lavender
[20]
and chartreuse checks. On the other hand, the people who go to nudist resorts are a self-screened group. So are the people who go to the Belt, for that matter, but the type of screening is different.
I'll just leave that problem in the hands of the psychologists, and go on wearing my immodestly quiet solid-color union suits.
Brock pushed open the inch-thick metal door beneath a sign that said
"O'Banion's Bar," and I followed him in. We sat down at a table and ordered drinks when the waiter bustled over. A cop in uniform isn't supposed to drink, but Brock figures that the head of the Security Guard ought to be able to get away with a breach of his own rules.
We had our drinks in front of us and our cigarettes lit before Brock opened up with his troubles.
"Oak," he said, "I wanted to intercept you before you went to the plant because I want you to know that there may be trouble."
"Yeah? What kind?" Sometimes it's a pain to play ignorant.
"Thurston's outfit is trying to oust Ravenhurst from the managership of Viking and take over the job. Baedecker Metals & Mining Corporation, which is managed by Baedecker himself, wants to force Viking out of business so that BM&M can take over Ceres for large-scale processing of precious metals.
"Between the two of 'em, they're raising all sorts of minor hell around
[21]
here, and it's liable to become major hell at any time. And we can't stand any hell—or sabotage—around this planetoid just now!"
"Now wait a minute," I said, still playing ignorant, "I thought we'd pretty well established that the 'sabotage' of the McGuire series was Jack Ravenhurst's fault. She was the one who was driving them nuts, not Thurston's agents."
"Perfectly true," he said agreeably. "We managed to block any attempts of sabotage by other company agents, even though it looked as though we hadn't for a while." He chuckled wryly. "We went all out to keep the McGuires safe, and all the time the boss' daughter was giving them the works." Then he looked sharply at me. "I covered that, of course. No one in the Security Guard but me knows that Jack was responsible."
"Good. But what about the Thurston and Baedecker agents, then?"
He took a hefty slug of his drink. "They're around, all right. We have our eyes on the ones we know, but those outfits are as sharp as we are, and they may have a few agents here on Ceres that we know nothing about."
"So? What does this have to do with me?"
He put his drink on the table. "Oak, I want you to help me." His onyx-brown eyes, only a shade darker than his skin, looked directly into my own. "I know it isn't part of your assignment, and you know I can't afford to pay you anything near what you're worth. It will have to come out of my
[22]
pocket because I couldn't possibly justify it from operating funds. Ravenhurst specifically told me that he doesn't want you messing around with the espionage and sabotage problem because he doesn't like your methods of operation."
"And you're going to go against his orders?"
"I am. Ravenhurst is sore at you personally because you showed him that Jack was responsible for the McGuire sabotage. It's an irrational dislike, and I am not going to let it interfere with my job. I'm going to protect Ravenhurst's interests to the best of my ability, and that means that I'll use the best of other people's abilities if I can."
I grinned at him. "The last I heard, you were sore at me for blatting it all over Ceres that Jaqueline Ravenhurst was missing, when she sneaked aboard McGuire."
He nodded perfunctorily. "I was. I still think you should have told me what you were up to. But you did it, and you got results that I'd been unable to get. I'm not going to let a momentary pique hang on as an irrational dislike. I like to think I have more sense than that."
"Thanks." There wasn't much else I could say.
"Now, I've got a little dough put away; it's not much, but I could offer you—"
I shook my head, cutting him off. "Nope. Sorry, Brock. For two reasons. In the first place, there would be a conflict of interest. I'm working for Ravenhurst, and if he doesn't want
[23]
me to work for you, then it would be unethical for me to take the job.
"In the second place, my fees are standardized. Oh, I can allow a certain amount of fluctuation, but I'm not a physician or a lawyer; my services are
[24]
not necessary to the survival of the individual, except in very rare cases, and those cases are generally arranged through a lawyer when it's a charity case.
"No, colonel, I'm afraid I couldn't
[25]
possibly work for you."
He thought that over for a long time. Finally, he nodded his head very slowly. "I see. Yeah, I get your point." He scowled down at his drink.
" But ," I said, "it would be a pleasure
[26]
to work with you."
He looked up quickly. "How's that?"
"Well, let's look at it this way: You can't hire me because I'm already working for Ravenhurst; I can't hire
[27]
you because you're working for Ravenhurst. But since we may need each other, and since we're both working for Ravenhurst, there would be no conflict of interest if we co-operate.
"Or, to put it another way, I can't take money for any service I may render you, but you can pay off in services. Am I coming through?"
His broad smile made the scars on his face fold in and deepen. "Loud and clear. It's a deal."
I held up a hand, palm toward him. "Ah, ah, ah! There's no 'deal' involved. We're just old buddies helping each other. This is for friendship, not business. I scratch your back; you scratch mine. Fair?"
"Fair. Come on down to my office; I want to give you a headful of facts and figures."
"Will do. Let me finish my guzzle."
Question:
What is the relationship between Ravenhurst and Daniel Oak?
Answer:
|
[
"Ravenhurst and Oak do not have a friendly relationship with each other. Occasionally, Ravenhurst occasionally hires Daniel to complete certain jobs for him. Ravenhurst is a high executive at a company that makes robots. He has recently hired Daniel to fix a problem with a robot and has to rehire him to fix a problem that Daniel caused on the previous job. \n\nDaniel is not loyal to Ravenhurst because he has acknowledged that he is a double agent working for the UN government and not just Ravenhurst. In addition, Daniel decides to team up with Colonel Harrington Brock to tackle the problem at hand. The Colonel says that he is doing it in Ravenhurst’s best interests. \n",
"Daniel Oak has previously been hired by Shalimar Ravenhurst, presumably to expedite the completion of the seventh iteration of the McGuire, the MGYR-7, and to resolve the sabotage of the earlier models caused by Ravenhurst’s daughter. Though Daniel regards Ravenhurst as an intelligent man, one at the top of the managerial field, he finds Ravenhurst utterly unlikeable. \n\tIn their interaction on Raven’s Rest, the asteroid occupied by Ravenhurst’s office, Ravenhurst describes his reluctance to hire Daniel to assist in the completion of the MGYR-8 because of his part in making the development of the eighth model necessary. However, Ravenhurst nonetheless acknowledges Daniel’s skill at his job, and hires him. \n",
"Ravenhurst is Daniel Oak's employer. Daniel admires Ravenhurst professionally; he sees him as smart, savvy, and practical. However, he believes that Ravenhurst is unpleasant on an interpersonal level. When meeting Ravenhurst in his office, Daniel knows he is being reprimanded and is in an inferior position professionally. Despite this, Daniel's wit gives in and the two have a conversation with snarky remarks and sarcastic comments. Though there is a power dynamic between Ravenhurst and Daniel, Daniel is determined to appear on the same level as Ravenhurst, and throughout conversations with him tries to be one step ahead of his thought process, which irritates Ravenhurst.",
"Ravenhurst hired Daniel Oak to make sure that the robots will not be sabotaged. However, we learn in the beginning of the story that he accidentally sabotaged the robot, McGuire. Ravenhurst tells Oak that because of what he did, now Ravenhurst’s own position is threatened. Oak was hired because Ravenhurst has spent too much money on the McGuire project where things became shaky at Viking, their company. Oak was supposed to fix it, but instead his chance of losing his position as a manger seems to have increased. Then Ravenhurst tells Oak that the MGYR-7 was built with a different meaning on the term “human being” than before. Whoever what the first person that speaks to the robot after activation, that person becomes the only individual that the robot takes order from. And apparently McGuire’s first order came from Oak. So now he is the only individual that can order McGuire. Ravenhurst also tells Oak that they simply cannot change McGuire’s memory. So later, Ravenhurst asks Oak to go to Ceres to help them with building MGYR-8. And after arriving, the readers see that Brock and Oak decide to work with each other. "
] |
48513
|
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Analog March 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
ILLUSTRATED BY KRENKEL
HIS MASTER'S VOICE ANALOG SCIENCE FACT · SCIENCE FICTION
Spaceship McGuire had lots of knowledge—but no wisdom. He was smart—but incredibly foolish. And, as a natural consequence, tended to ask questions too profound for any philosopher—questions like "Who are you?"
By RANDALL GARRETT
I'd been in Ravenhurst's office on the mountain-sized planetoid called Raven's Rest only twice before. The third time was no better; Shalimar Ravenhurst was one of the smartest operators in the Belt, but when it came to personal relationships, he was utterly incompetent. He could make anyone dislike him without trying.
When I entered the office, he was
[3]
sitting behind his mahogany desk, his eyes focused on the operation he was going through with a wineglass and a decanter. He didn't look up at me as he said:
"Sit down, Mr. Oak. Will you have some Madeira?"
I decided I might as well observe the pleasantries. There was no point in my getting nasty until he did. "Thank you, Mr. Ravenhurst, I will."
He kept his eyes focused on his work: It isn't easy to pour wine on a planetoid where the gee-pull is measured in fractions of a centimeter per second squared. It moves slowly, like ropy molasses, but you have to be careful not to be fooled by that. The viscosity is just as low as ever, and if you pour it from any great height, it will go scooting right out of the glass
[4]
again. The momentum it builds up is enough to make it splash right out again in a slow-motion gush which gets it all over the place.
Besides which, even if it didn't splash, it would take it so long to fall a few inches that you'd die of thirst waiting for it.
Ravenhurst had evolved a technique from long years of practice. He tilted the glass and the bottle toward each other, their edges touching, like you do when you're trying to pour beer without putting a head on it. As soon as the wine wet the glass, the adhesive forces at work would pull more wine into the wine glass. To get capillary action on a low-gee asteroid, you don't need a capillary, by any means. The negative meniscus on the wine was something to see; the first time you see it, you get the eerie feeling that the glass is spinning and throwing the wine up against the walls by centrifugal force.
I took the glass he offered me (Careful! Don't slosh!) and sipped at it. Using squirt tubes would have been a hell of a lot easier and neater, but Ravenhurst liked to do things his way.
He put the stopper back in the decanter, picked up his own glass and sipped appreciatively. Not until he put it back down on the desk again did he raise his eyes and look at me for the first time since I'd come in.
"Mr. Oak, you have caused me considerable trouble."
"I thought we'd hashed all that out, Mr. Ravenhurst," I said, keeping my voice level.
[5]
"So had I. But it appears that there were more ramifications to your action than we had at first supposed." His voice had the texture of heavy linseed oil.
He waited, as if he expected me to make some reply to that. When I didn't, he sighed slightly and went on. "I fear that you have inadvertently sabotaged McGuire. You were commissioned to prevent sabotage, Mr. Oak, and I'm afraid that you abrogated your contract."
I just continued to keep my voice calm. "If you are trying to get back the fee you gave me, we can always take it to court. I don't think you'd win."
"Mr. Oak," he said heavily, "I am not a fool, regardless of what your own impression may be. If I were trying to get back that fee, I would hardly offer to pay you another one."
I didn't think he was a fool. You don't get into the managerial business and climb to the top and stay there unless you have brains. Ravenhurst was smart, all right; it was just that, when it came to personal relationships, he wasn't very wise.
"Then stop all this yak about an abrogated contract and get to the point," I told him.
"I shall. I was merely trying to point out to you that it is through your own actions that I find myself in a very trying position, and that your sense of honor and ethics should induce you to rectify the damage."
"My honor and ethics are in fine shape," I said, "but my interpretation of the concepts might not be quite
[6]
the same as yours. Get to the point."
He took another sip of Madeira. "The robotocists at Viking tell me that, in order to prevent any further ... ah ... sabotage by unauthorized persons, the MGYR-7 was constructed so that, after activation, the first man who addressed orders to it would thenceforth be considered its ... ah ... master.
"As I understand it, the problem of defining the term 'human being' unambiguously to a robot is still unsolved. The robotocists felt that it would be much easier to define a single individual. That would prevent the issuing of conflicting orders to a robot, provided the single individual were careful in giving orders himself.
"Now, it appears that you , Mr. Oak, were the first man to speak to McGuire after he had been activated. Is that correct?"
"Is that question purely rhetorical," I asked him, putting on my best expression of innocent interest. "Or are you losing your memory?" I had explained all that to him two weeks before, when I'd brought McGuire and the girl here, so that Ravenhurst would have a chance to cover up what had really happened.
My sarcasm didn't faze him in the least. "Rhetorical. It follows that you are the only man whose orders McGuire will obey."
"Your robotocists can change that," I said. This time, I was giving him my version of "genuine" innocence.
[7]
A man has to be a good actor to be a competent double agent, and I didn't want Ravenhurst to know that I knew a great deal more about the problem than he did.
He shook his head, making his jowls wobble. "No, they cannot. They realize now that there should be some way of making that change, but they failed to see that it would be necessary. Only by completely draining McGuire's memory banks and refilling them with new data can this bias be eliminated."
"Then why don't they do that?"
"There are two very good reasons," he said. And there was a shade of anger in his tone. "In the first place, that sort of operation takes time, and it costs money. If we do that, we might as well go ahead and make the slight changes in structure necessary to incorporate some of the improvements that the robotocists now feel are necessary. In other words, they might as well go ahead and build the MGYR-8, which is precisely the thing I hired you to prevent."
"It seems you have a point there, Mr. Ravenhurst." He'd hired me because things were shaky at Viking. If he lost too much more money on the McGuire experiment, he stood a good chance of losing his position as manager. If that happened some of his other managerial contracts might be canceled, too. Things like that can begin to snowball, and Ravenhurst might find himself out of the managerial business entirely.
"But," I went on, "hasn't the additional wasted time already cost you
[8]
money?"
"It has. I was reluctant to call you in again—understandably enough, I think."
"Perfectly. It's mutual."
He ignored me. "I even considered going through with the rebuilding work, now that we have traced down the source of failure of the first six models. Unfortunately, that isn't feasible, either." He scowled at me.
"It seems," he went on, "that McGuire refuses to allow his brain to be tampered with. The self-preservation 'instinct' has come to the fore. He has refused to let the technicians and robotocists enter his hull, and he has threatened to take off and leave Ceres if any further attempts are made to ... ah ... disrupt his thinking processes."
"I can't say that I blame him," I said. "What do you want me to do? Go to Ceres and tell him to submit like a good boy?"
"It is too late for that, Mr. Oak. Viking cannot stand any more of that kind of drain on its financial resources. I have been banking on the McGuire-type ships to put Viking Spacecraft ahead of every other spacecraft company in the System." He looked suddenly very grim and very determined. "Mr. Oak, I am certain that the robot ship is the answer to the transportation problems in the Solar System. For the sake of every human being in the Solar System, we must get the bugs out of McGuire!"
What's good for General Bull-moose is good for everybody , I quoted to myself. I'd have said it out loud,
[9]
but I was fairly certain that Shalimar Ravenhurst was not a student of the classics.
"Mr. Oak, I would like you to go to Ceres and co-operate with the robotocists at Viking. When the MGYR-8 is finally built, I want it to be the prototype for a fast, safe, functional robot spaceship that can be turned out commercially. You can be of great service, Mr. Oak."
"In other words, I've got you over a barrel."
"I don't deny it."
"You know what my fees are, Mr. Ravenhurst. That's what you'll be charged. I'll expect to be paid weekly; if Viking goes broke, I don't want to lose more than a week's pay. On the other hand, if the MGYR-8 is successful, I will expect a substantial bonus."
"How much?"
"Exactly half of the cost of rebuilding. Half what it would take to build a Model 8 right now, and taking a chance on there being no bugs in it."
He considered that, looking grimmer than ever. Then he said: "I will do it on the condition that the bonus be paid off in installments, one each six months for three years after the first successful commercial ship is built by Viking."
"My lawyer will nail you down on that wording," I said, "but it's a deal. Is there anything else?"
"No."
"Then I think I'll leave for Ceres before you break a blood vessel."
"You continue to amaze me, Mr. Oak," he said. And the soft oiliness
[10]
of his voice was the oil of vitriol. "Your compassion for your fellowman is a facet of your personality that I had not seen before. I shall welcome the opportunity to relax and allow my blood pressure to subside."
I could almost see Shalimar Ravenhurst suddenly exploding and adding his own touch of color to the room.
And, on that gladsome thought, I left. I let him have his small verbal triumph; if he'd known that I'd have taken on the job for almost nothing, he'd really have blown up.
Ten minutes later, I was in my vacuum suit, walking across the glaring, rough-polished rectangle of metal that was the landing field of Raven's Rest. The sun was near the zenith in the black, diamond-dusted sky, and the shadow of my flitterboat stood out like an inkblot on a bridal gown. I climbed in, started the engine, and released the magnetic anchor that held the little boat to the surface of the nickel-iron planetoid. I lifted her gently, worked her around until I was stationary in relation to the spinning planetoid, oriented myself against the stellar background, and headed toward the first blinker beacon on my way to Ceres.
For obvious economical reasons, it it impracticable to use full-sized spaceships in the Belt. A flitterboat, with a single gravitoinertial engine and the few necessities of life—air, some water, and a very little food—still costs more than a Rolls-Royce
[11]
automobile does on Earth, but there has to be some sort of individual transportation in the Belt.
They can't be used for any great distances because a man can't stay in a vac suit very long without getting uncomfortable. You have to hop from beacon to beacon, which means that your average velocity doesn't amount to much, since you spend too much time accelerating and decelerating. But a flitterboat is enough to get around the neighborhood in, and that's all that's needed.
I got the GM-187 blinker in my sights, eased the acceleration up to one gee, relaxed to watch the radar screen while I thought over my coming ordeal with McGuire.
Testing spaceships, robotic or any other kind, is strictly not my business. The sign on the door of my office in New York says: DANIEL OAK, Confidential Expediter ; I'm hired to help other people Get Things Done. Usually, if someone came to me with the problem of getting a spaceship test-piloted, I'd simply dig up the best test pilot in the business, hire him for my client, and forget about everything but collecting my fee. But I couldn't have refused this case if I'd wanted to. I'd already been assigned to it by someone a lot more important than Shalimar Ravenhurst.
Every schoolchild who has taken a course in Government Organization and Function can tell you that the Political Survey Division is a branch of the System Census Bureau of the UN Government, and that its job is to evaluate the political activities of
[12]
various sub-governments all over the System.
And every one of those poor tykes would be dead wrong.
The Political Survey Division does evaluate political activity, all right, but it is the Secret Service of the UN Government. The vast majority of
[13]
the System's citizens don't even know the Government has a Secret Service. I happen to know only because I'm an agent of the Political Survey Division.
The PSD was vitally interested in the whole McGuire project. Robots of McGuire's complexity had been built before; the robot that runs the traffic patterns of the American Eastern Seaboard is just as capable as McGuire when it comes to handling a tremendous number of variables and making decisions on them. But that robot didn't have to be given orders except in extreme emergencies. Keeping a few million cars moving and safe at the same time is actually pretty routine stuff for a robot. And a traffic robot isn't given orders verbally; it is given any orders that may be necessary via teletype by a trained programming technician. Those orders are usually in reference to a change of routing due to repair work on the highways or the like. The robot itself can take care of such emergencies as bad weather or even an accident caused by the malfunctioning of an individual automobile.
McGuire was different. In the first place, he was mobile. He was in command of a spacecraft. In a sense, he was the spacecraft, since it served him in a way that was analogous to the way a human body serves the human mind. And he wasn't in charge of millions of objects with a top velocity of a hundred and fifty miles an hour; he was in charge of a single object that moved at velocities of thousands of miles per second. Nor
[14]
did he have a set, unmoving highway as his path; his paths were variable and led through the emptiness of space.
Unforeseen emergencies can happen at any time in space, most of them having to do with the lives of passengers. A cargo ship would be somewhat less susceptible to such emergencies if there were no humans aboard; it doesn't matter much to a robot if he has no air in his hull.
But with passengers aboard, there may be times when it would be necessary to give orders— fast ! And that means verbal orders, orders that can be given anywhere in the ship and relayed immediately by microphone to the robot's brain. A man doesn't have time to run to a teletyper and type out orders when there's an emergency in space.
That meant that McGuire had to understand English, and, since there has to be feedback in communication, he had to be able to speak it as well.
And that made McGuire more than somewhat difficult to deal with.
For more than a century, robotocists have been trying to build Asimov's famous Three Laws of Robotics into a robot brain.
First Law: A robot shall not, either through action or inaction, allow harm to come to a human being.
Second Law: A robot shall obey the orders of a human being, except when such orders conflict with the First Law .
[15]
Third Law: A robot shall strive to protect its own existence, except when this conflicts with the First or Second Law.
Nobody has succeeded yet, because nobody has yet succeeded in defining the term "human being" in such a way that the logical mind of a robot can encompass the concept.
A traffic robot is useful only because the definition has been rigidly narrowed down. As far as a traffic robot is concerned, "human beings" are the automobiles on its highways. Woe betide any poor sap who tries, illegally, to cross a robot-controlled highway on foot. The robot's only concern would be with the safety of the automobiles, and if the only way to avoid destruction of an automobile were to be by nudging the pedestrian aside with a fender, that's what would happen.
And, since its orders only come from one place, I suppose that a traffic robot thinks that the guy who uses that typer is an automobile.
With the first six models of the McGuire ships, the robotocists attempted to build in the Three Laws exactly as stated. And the first six went insane.
If one human being says "jump left," and another says "jump right," the robot is unable to evaluate which human being has given the more valid order. Feed enough confusing and conflicting data into a robot brain, and it can begin behaving in ways that, in a human being, would be called paranoia or schizophrenia or catatonia or what-have-you, depending
[16]
on the symptoms. And an insane robot is fully as dangerous as an insane human being controlling the same mechanical equipment, if not more so.
So the seventh model had been modified. The present McGuire's brain was impressed with slight modifications of the First and Second Laws.
If it is difficult to define a human being, it is much more difficult to define a responsible human being. One, in other words, who can be relied upon to give wise and proper orders to a robot, who can be relied upon not to drive the robot insane.
The robotocists at Viking Spacecraft had decided to take another tack. "Very well," they'd said, "if we can't define all the members of a group, we can certainly define an individual. We'll pick one responsible person and build McGuire so that he will take orders only from that person."
As it turned out, I was that person. Just substitute "Daniel Oak" for "human being" in the First and Second Laws, and you'll see how important I was to a certain spaceship named McGuire.
When I finally caught the beam from Ceres and set my flitterboat down on the huge landing field that had been carved from the nickel-iron of the asteroid with a focused sun beam, I was itchy with my own perspiration and groggy tired. I don't like riding in flitterboats, sitting on a
[17]
bucket seat, astride the drive tube, like a witch on a broomstick, with nothing but a near-invisible transite hull between me and the stars, all cooped up in a vac suit. Unlike driving a car, you can't pull a flitterboat over and take a nap; you have to wait until you hit the next beacon station.
Ceres, the biggest rock in the Belt, is a lot more than just a beacon station. Like Eros and a few others, it's a city in its own right. And except for the Government Reservation, Viking Spacecraft owned Ceres, lock, stock, and mining rights.
Part of the reason for Viking's troubles was envy of that ownership. There were other companies in the Belt that would like to get their hands on that plum, and there were those who were doing everything short of cutting throats to get it. The PSD was afraid it might come to that, too, before very long.
Ceres is fifty-eight million cubic miles of nickel-iron, but nobody would cut her up for that. Nickel-iron is almost exactly as cheap as dirt on Earth, and, considering shipping costs, Earth soil costs a great deal more than nickel-iron in the Belt.
But, as an operations base, Ceres is second to none. Its surface gravity averages .0294 Standard Gee, as compared with Earth's .981, and that's enough to give a slight feeling of weight without unduly hampering the body with too much load. I weigh just under six pounds on Ceres, and after I've been there a while, going back to Earth is a strain that takes a
[18]
week to get used to. Kids that are brought up in the Belt are forced to exercise in a room with a one-gee spin on it at least an hour a day. They don't like it at first, but it keeps them from growing up with the strength of mice. And an adult with any sense takes a spin now and then, too. Traveling in a flitterboat will give you a one-gee pull, all right, but you don't get much exercise.
I parked my flitterboat in the space that had been assigned to me by Landing Control, and went over to the nearest air-lock dome.
After I'd cycled through and had shucked my vac suit, I went into the inner room to find Colonel Brock waiting for me.
"Have a good trip, Oak?" he asked, trying to put a smile on his scarred, battered face.
"I got here alive, if that makes it a good flitterboat trip," I said, shaking his extended hand.
"That's the definition of a good trip," he told me.
"Then the question was superfluous. Seriously, what I need is a bath and some sleep."
"You'll get that, but first let's go somewhere where we can talk. Want a drink?"
"I could use one, I guess. Your treat?"
"My treat," he said. "Come on."
I followed him out and down a ladder to a corridor that led north. By definition, any asteroid spins toward the east, and all directions follow from that, regardless of which way the axis may point.
[19]
Colonel Harrington Brock was dressed in the black-and-gold "union suit" that was the uniform of Ravenhurst's Security Guard. My own was a tasteful green, but some of the other people in the public corridor seemed to go for more flashiness; besides silver and gold, there were shocking pinks and violent mauves, with stripes and blazes of other colors.
A crowd wearing skin-tight cover-alls might shock the gentle people of Midwich-on-the-Moor, England, but they are normal dress in the Belt. You can't climb into a vac suit with bulky clothing on, and, if you did, you'd hate yourself within an hour, with a curse for every wrinkle that chafed your skin. And, in the Belt, you never know when you might have to get into a vac suit fast. In a "safe" area like the tunnels inside Ceres, there isn't much chance of losing air, but there are places where no one but a fool would ever be more than ten seconds away from his vac suit.
I read an article by a psychologist a few months back, in which he claimed that the taste for loud colors in union suits was actually due to modesty. He claimed that the bright patterns drew attention to the colors themselves, and away from the base the colors were laid over. The observer, he said, tends to see the color and pattern of the suit, rather than the body it clings to so closely. Maybe he's right; I wouldn't know, not being a psychologist. I have spent summers in nudist resorts, though, and I never noticed anyone painting themselves with lavender
[20]
and chartreuse checks. On the other hand, the people who go to nudist resorts are a self-screened group. So are the people who go to the Belt, for that matter, but the type of screening is different.
I'll just leave that problem in the hands of the psychologists, and go on wearing my immodestly quiet solid-color union suits.
Brock pushed open the inch-thick metal door beneath a sign that said
"O'Banion's Bar," and I followed him in. We sat down at a table and ordered drinks when the waiter bustled over. A cop in uniform isn't supposed to drink, but Brock figures that the head of the Security Guard ought to be able to get away with a breach of his own rules.
We had our drinks in front of us and our cigarettes lit before Brock opened up with his troubles.
"Oak," he said, "I wanted to intercept you before you went to the plant because I want you to know that there may be trouble."
"Yeah? What kind?" Sometimes it's a pain to play ignorant.
"Thurston's outfit is trying to oust Ravenhurst from the managership of Viking and take over the job. Baedecker Metals & Mining Corporation, which is managed by Baedecker himself, wants to force Viking out of business so that BM&M can take over Ceres for large-scale processing of precious metals.
"Between the two of 'em, they're raising all sorts of minor hell around
[21]
here, and it's liable to become major hell at any time. And we can't stand any hell—or sabotage—around this planetoid just now!"
"Now wait a minute," I said, still playing ignorant, "I thought we'd pretty well established that the 'sabotage' of the McGuire series was Jack Ravenhurst's fault. She was the one who was driving them nuts, not Thurston's agents."
"Perfectly true," he said agreeably. "We managed to block any attempts of sabotage by other company agents, even though it looked as though we hadn't for a while." He chuckled wryly. "We went all out to keep the McGuires safe, and all the time the boss' daughter was giving them the works." Then he looked sharply at me. "I covered that, of course. No one in the Security Guard but me knows that Jack was responsible."
"Good. But what about the Thurston and Baedecker agents, then?"
He took a hefty slug of his drink. "They're around, all right. We have our eyes on the ones we know, but those outfits are as sharp as we are, and they may have a few agents here on Ceres that we know nothing about."
"So? What does this have to do with me?"
He put his drink on the table. "Oak, I want you to help me." His onyx-brown eyes, only a shade darker than his skin, looked directly into my own. "I know it isn't part of your assignment, and you know I can't afford to pay you anything near what you're worth. It will have to come out of my
[22]
pocket because I couldn't possibly justify it from operating funds. Ravenhurst specifically told me that he doesn't want you messing around with the espionage and sabotage problem because he doesn't like your methods of operation."
"And you're going to go against his orders?"
"I am. Ravenhurst is sore at you personally because you showed him that Jack was responsible for the McGuire sabotage. It's an irrational dislike, and I am not going to let it interfere with my job. I'm going to protect Ravenhurst's interests to the best of my ability, and that means that I'll use the best of other people's abilities if I can."
I grinned at him. "The last I heard, you were sore at me for blatting it all over Ceres that Jaqueline Ravenhurst was missing, when she sneaked aboard McGuire."
He nodded perfunctorily. "I was. I still think you should have told me what you were up to. But you did it, and you got results that I'd been unable to get. I'm not going to let a momentary pique hang on as an irrational dislike. I like to think I have more sense than that."
"Thanks." There wasn't much else I could say.
"Now, I've got a little dough put away; it's not much, but I could offer you—"
I shook my head, cutting him off. "Nope. Sorry, Brock. For two reasons. In the first place, there would be a conflict of interest. I'm working for Ravenhurst, and if he doesn't want
[23]
me to work for you, then it would be unethical for me to take the job.
"In the second place, my fees are standardized. Oh, I can allow a certain amount of fluctuation, but I'm not a physician or a lawyer; my services are
[24]
not necessary to the survival of the individual, except in very rare cases, and those cases are generally arranged through a lawyer when it's a charity case.
"No, colonel, I'm afraid I couldn't
[25]
possibly work for you."
He thought that over for a long time. Finally, he nodded his head very slowly. "I see. Yeah, I get your point." He scowled down at his drink.
" But ," I said, "it would be a pleasure
[26]
to work with you."
He looked up quickly. "How's that?"
"Well, let's look at it this way: You can't hire me because I'm already working for Ravenhurst; I can't hire
[27]
you because you're working for Ravenhurst. But since we may need each other, and since we're both working for Ravenhurst, there would be no conflict of interest if we co-operate.
"Or, to put it another way, I can't take money for any service I may render you, but you can pay off in services. Am I coming through?"
His broad smile made the scars on his face fold in and deepen. "Loud and clear. It's a deal."
I held up a hand, palm toward him. "Ah, ah, ah! There's no 'deal' involved. We're just old buddies helping each other. This is for friendship, not business. I scratch your back; you scratch mine. Fair?"
"Fair. Come on down to my office; I want to give you a headful of facts and figures."
"Will do. Let me finish my guzzle."
|
How does Roddie use his tools (screwdriver and hammer) throughout the story?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Bridge Crossing by Dave Dryfoos.
Relevant chunks:
Bridge Crossing
BY DAVE DRYFOOS
Illustrated by HARRISON
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction May 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
He knew the city was organized for his individual defense, for it had been that way since he was born. But who was his enemy?
In 1849, the mist that sometimes rolled through the Golden Gate was known as fog. In 2149, it had become far more frequent, and was known as smog. By 2349, it was fog again.
But tonight there was smoke mixed with the fog. Roddie could smell it. Somewhere in the forested ruins, fire was burning.
He wasn't worried. The small blaze that smoldered behind him on the cracked concrete floor had consumed everything burnable within blocks; what remained of the gutted concrete office building from which he peered was fire-proof.
But Roddie was himself aflame with anger. As always when Invaders broke in from the north, he'd been left behind with his nurse, Molly, while the soldiers went out to fight.
And nowadays Molly's presence wasn't the comfort it used to be. He felt almost ready to jump out of his skin, the way she rocked and knitted in that grating ruined chair, saying over and over again, "The soldiers don't want little boys. The soldiers don't want little boys. The soldiers don't—"
"I'm not a little boy!" Roddie suddenly shouted. "I'm full-grown and I've never even seen an Invader. Why won't you let me go and fight?"
Fiercely he crossed the bare, gritty floor and shook Molly's shoulder. She rattled under his jarring hand, and abruptly changed the subject.
"A is for Atom, B is for Bomb, C is for Corpse—" she chanted.
Roddie reached into her shapeless dress and pinched. Lately that had helped her over these spells. But this time, though it stopped the kindergarten song, the treatment only started something worse.
"Wuzzums hungry?" Molly cooed, still rocking.
Utterly disgusted, Roddie ripped her head off her neck.
It was a completely futile gesture. The complicated mind that had cared for him and taught him speech and the alphabet hadn't made him a mechanic, and his only tool was a broken-handled screwdriver.
He was still tinkering when the soldiers came in. While they lined up along the wall, he put Molly's head back on her neck.
She gaped coyly at the new arrivals. "Hello, boys," she simpered.
"Looking for a good time?"
Roddie slapped her to silence, reflecting briefly that there were many things he didn't know about Molly. But there was work to be done. Carefully he framed the ritual words she'd taught him: "Soldiers, come to attention and report!"
There were eleven of them, six feet tall, with four limbs and eight extremities. They stood uniformly, the thumbs on each pair of hands touching along the center line of the legs, front feet turned out at an angle of forty-five degrees, rear feet turned inward at thirty degrees.
"Sir," they chorused, "we have met the enemy and he is ours."
He inspected them. All were scratched and dented, but one in particular seemed badly damaged. His left arm was almost severed at the shoulder.
"Come here, fellow," Roddie said. "Let's see if I can fix that."
The soldier took a step forward, lurched suddenly, stopped, and whipped out a bayonet.
"Death to Invaders!" he yelled, and charged crazily.
Molly stepped in front of him.
"You aren't being very nice to my baby," she murmured, and thrust her knitting needles into his eyes.
Roddie jumped behind him, knocked off his helmet, and pressed a soft spot on his conical skull. The soldier collapsed to the floor.
Roddie salvaged and returned Molly's needles. Then he examined the patient, tearing him apart as a boy dismembers an alarm clock.
It was lucky he did. The left arm's pair of hands suddenly writhed off the floor in an effort to choke him. But because the arm was detached at the shoulder and therefore blind, he escaped the clutching onslaught and could goad the reflexing hands into assaulting one another harmlessly.
Meanwhile, the other soldiers left, except for one, apparently another casualty, who stumbled on his way out and fell into the fire. By the time Roddie had hauled him clear, damage was beyond repair. Roddie swore, then decided to try combining parts of this casualty with pieces of the other to make a whole one.
To get more light for the operation, he poked up the fire. Roddie was new at his work, and took it seriously. It alarmed him to watch the soldiers melt away, gradually succumbing to battle damage, shamed him to see the empty ruins burn section by section as the Invaders repeatedly broke through and had to be burned out.
Soon there would be nothing left of the Private Property Keep Out that, according to Molly's bedtime story, the Owners had entrusted to them when driven away by radioactivity. Soon the soldiers themselves would be gone. None would remain to guard the city but a few strayed servants like Molly, and an occasional Civil Defender.
And himself, Roddie reflected, spitting savagely into the fire. He might remain. But how he fitted into the picture, he didn't know. And Molly, who claimed to have found him in the ruins after a fight with Invaders twenty years before, couldn't or wouldn't say.
Well, for as long as possible, Roddie decided, he'd do his duty as the others did theirs—single-mindedly. Eventually the soldiers might accept him as one of themselves; meanwhile, this newly attempted first aid was useful to them.
He gave the fire a final poke and then paused, wondering if, when heated, his screwdriver could make an unfastened end of wire stick on the grayish spot where it seemed to belong.
Stretching prone to blow the embers hot so he could try out his new idea, Roddie got too close to the flames. Instantly the room filled with the stench of singed hair. Roddie drew angrily back, beating out the sparks in his uncut blond mane.
As he stood slapping his head and muttering, a deranged Civil Defense firefighter popped into the doorway and covered him with carbon dioxide foam.
Roddie fled. His life-long friends were not merely wearing out, they were unbearably wearing.
In the street, even before he'd wiped off the foam, he regretted his flight. The fire was back home. And here in the cold of this fog-shrouded canyon, a mere trail between heaped-up walls of rubble, the diaper he wore felt inadequate against the pre-dawn cold. His cherished weapon, a magnetic tack-hammer, was chill beneath the diaper's top, and the broken, radium-dialed wristwatch suspended from a string around his neck hung clammy against his chest. He stood irresolute on numbing bare feet, and considered returning to the more familiar bedlam.
But colder than cold was his shame at being cold. Molly never was, though she knew how to keep him warm, nor were the others. Hunger, thirst, pain and coldness were sensations never experienced by his friends. Like the growth he'd been undergoing till recently, these were things of ignominy, to be hidden as far as possible from inquiring eyes. Cold as it was, he'd have to hide.
Temporarily, the darkness concealed him, though it was not quite complete. From above the fog, the moon played vaguely deceptive light on the splinters of architecture looming toward it. Some distance off, an owl hooted, but here nocturnal rodents felt free to squeak and rustle as they scampered.
The world seemed ghostly. Yet it wasn't dead; it merely lurked. And as an irrepressible yawn reminded Roddie of his absurd need for sleep even in the midst of danger, he concluded for the thousandth time that the One who'd built him must have been an apprentice.
For just such reasons he'd developed the hideout toward which he now walked. It had been the haven of his adolescence, when the discovery of how much he differed from his friends had been a shock, and the shock itself a difference to be hidden.
His hiding place was a manhole, dead center in the dead street. A weathered bronze bar, carefully placed in the cover's slotted rim, was the levering key that opened its door.
Everything was wrong tonight! He couldn't even find the bar. Of course that spoiled things, because the bar was a roller on which to move the heavy cover from below, and a support that held it ajar for ventilation.
But the example of his friends had taught him above all else to carry out every purpose. Molly was a nurse; she had raised him despite all obstacles. The soldiers were guards; they protected the ruins against everything larger than a rat. The firefighter had put even him out when he was aflame....
Anyhow, the manhole cover had been loosened by his frequent handling. He lifted it aside by main strength, then flattened himself to the street, and felt with his feet for the top rung.
Halfway down the iron ladder, something made him pause. He looked, but saw only blackness. He listened, sniffed, found nothing. What could have entered through the iron cover?
He sneered at his own timidity and jumped to the bottom.
It was warm! The dry bottom of the hole had the temperature of body heat, as if a large animal had recently rested there!
Quickly, Roddie drew the hammer from his waist. Then, with weapon ready for an instantaneous blow, he stretched his left hand through the darkness. He touched something warm, softish. Gingerly he felt over that curving surface for identifying features.
While Roddie investigated by touch, his long fingers were suddenly seized and bitten. At the same time, his right shin received a savage kick. And his own retaliatory blow was checked in mid-swing by an unexpected voice.
"Get your filthy hands off me!" it whispered angrily. "Who do you think you are?"
Startled, he dropped his hammer. "I'm Roddie," he said, squatting to fumble for it. "Who do you think you are?"
"I'm Ida, naturally! Just how many girls are there in this raiding party?"
His first Invader—and he had dropped his weapon!
Scrabbling fearfully in the dust for his hammer, Roddie paused suddenly. This girl—whatever that was—seemed to think him one of her own kind. There was a chance, not much, but worth taking, to turn delay to advantage. Maybe he could learn something of value before he killed her. That would make the soldiers accept him!
He stalled, seeking a gambit. "How would I know how many girls there are?"
Half expecting a blow, he got instead an apology. "I'm sorry," the girl said. "I should have known. Never even heard your name before, either. Roddie.... Whose boat did you come in, Roddie?"
Boat? What was a boat? "How would I know?" he repeated, voice tight with fear of discovery.
If she noticed the tension, she didn't show it. Certainly her whisper was friendly enough. "Oh, you're one of the fellows from Bodega, then. They shoved a boy into our boat at the last minute, too. Tough, wasn't it, getting separated in the fog and tide like that? If only we didn't have to use boats.... But, say, how are we going to get away from here?"
"I wouldn't know," Roddie said, closing his fingers on the hammer, and rising. "How did you get in?"
"Followed your footprints. It was sundown and I saw human tracks in the dust and they led me here. Where were you?"
"Scouting around," Roddie said vaguely. "How did you know I was a man when I came back?"
"Because you couldn't see me, silly! You know perfectly well these androids are heat-sensitive and can locate us in the dark!"
Indeed he did know! Many times he'd felt ashamed that Molly could find him whenever she wanted to, even here in the manhole. But perhaps the manhole would help him now to redeem himself....
"I'd like to get a look at you," he said.
The girl laughed self-consciously. "It's getting gray out. You'll see me soon enough."
But she'd see him , Roddie realized. He had to talk fast.
"What'll we do when it's light?" he asked.
"Well, I guess the boats have gone," Ida said. "You could swim the Gate, I guess—you seem tall and strong enough. But I couldn't. You'll think it's crazy, but I've given this some thought, and even looked it over from the other side. I expect to try the Golden Gate Bridge!"
Now he was getting somewhere! The bridge was ruined, impassable. Even her own people had crossed the Strait by other means. But if there were a way over the bridge....
"It's broken," he said. "How in the world can we cross it?"
"Oh, you'll find out, if you take me up there. I—I don't want to be alone, Roddie. Will you go with me? Now?"
Well, she could be made to point out the route before he killed her— if nothing happened when she saw him.
Uneasy, Roddie hefted the hammer in his hand.
A giggle broke the pause. "It's nice of you to wait and let me go first up the ladder," the girl said. "But where the heck is the rusty old thing?"
"I'll go first," said Roddie. He might need the advantage. "The ladder's right behind me."
He climbed with hammer in teeth, and stretched his left hand from street level to grasp and neutralize the girl's right. Then, nervously fingering his weapon, he stared at her in the thin gray dawn.
She was short and lean, except for roundnesses here and there. From her shapeless doeskin dress stretched slender legs that tapered to feet that were bare, tiny, and, like her hands, only two in number.
Roddie was pleased. They were evenly matched as to members, and that would make things easy when the time came.
He looked into her face. It smiled at him, tanned and ruddy, with a full mouth and bright dark eyes that hid under long lashes when he looked too long.
Startling, those wary eyes. Concealing. For a moment he felt a rush of fear, but she gave his hand a squeeze before twisting loose, and burst into sudden laughter.
"Diapers!" she chortled, struggling to keep her voice low. "My big, strong, blond and blue-eyed hero goes into battle wearing diapers, and carrying only a hammer to fight with! You're the most unforgettable character I have ever known!"
He'd passed inspection, then—so far. He expelled his withheld breath, and said, "I think you'll find me a little odd, in some ways."
"Oh, not at all," Ida replied quickly. "Different, yes, but I wouldn't say odd."
When they started down the street, she was nervous despite Roddie's assertion that he knew where the soldiers were posted. He wondered if she felt some of the doubt he'd tried to conceal, shared his visions of what the soldiers might do if they found him brazenly strolling with an Invader. They might not believe he was only questioning a prisoner.
Every day, his friends were becoming more unpredictable.
For that very reason, because he didn't know what precautions would do any good, he took a chance and walked openly to the bridge by the most direct route. In time this apparent assurance stilled Ida's fears, and she began to talk.
Many of the things she said were beyond his experience and meaningless to him, but he did note with interest how effective the soldiers had been.
"It's awful," Ida said. "So few young men are left, so many casualties....
"But why do you—we—keep up the fight?" Roddie asked. "I mean, the soldiers will never leave the city; their purpose is to guard it and they can't leave, so they won't attack. Let them alone, and there'll be plenty of young men."
"Well!" said Ida, sharply. "You need indoctrination! Didn't they ever tell you that the city is our home, even if the stupid androids do keep us out? Don't you know how dependent we are on these raids for all our tools and things?"
She sounded suspicious. Roddie shot her a furtive, startled glance. But she wasn't standing off to fight him. On the contrary, she was too close for both comfort and combat. She bumped him hip and shoulder every few steps, and if he edged away, she followed.
He went on with his questioning. "Why are you here? I mean, sure, the others are after tools and things, but what's your purpose?"
Ida shrugged. "I'll admit no girl has ever done it before," she said,
"but I thought I could help with the wounded. That's why I have no weapon."
She hesitated, glanced covertly up at him, and went on with a rush of words. "It's the lack of men, I guess. All the girls are kind of bored and hopeless, so I got this bright idea and stowed away on one of the boats when it was dark and the fog had settled down. Do you think I was being silly?"
"No, but you do seem a little purposeless."
In silence they trudged through a vast area of charred wood and concrete foundations on the northern end of the city. Thick fog over the water hid Alcatraz, but in-shore visibility was better, and they could see the beginning of the bridge approach.
A stone rattled nearby. There was a clink of metal. Ida gasped, and clung to Roddie's arm.
"Behind me!" he whispered urgently. "Get behind me and hold on!"
He felt Ida's arms encircling his waist, her chin digging into his back below the left shoulder. Facing them, a hundred feet away, stood a soldier. He looked contemptuous, hostile.
"It's all right," Roddie said, his voice breaking.
There was a long, sullen, heart-stopping stare. Then the soldier turned and walked away.
Ida's grip loosened, and he could feel her sag behind him. Roddie turned and held her. With eyes closed, she pressed cold blue lips to his. He grimaced and turned away his head.
Ida's response was quick. "Forgive me," she breathed, and slipped from his arms, but she held herself erect. "I was so scared. And then we've had no sleep, no food or water."
Roddie was familiar with these signs of weakness, proud of appearing to deny his own humiliating needs.
"I guess you're not as strong as me," he said smugly. "I'll take care of you. Of course we can't sleep now, but I'll get food and water."
Leaving her to follow, he turned left to the ruins of a supermarket he had previously visited, demonstrating his superior strength by setting a pace Ida couldn't match. By the time she caught up with him, he had grubbed out a few cans of the special size that Molly always chose. Picking two that were neither dented, swollen, nor rusted, he smashed an end of each with his hammer, and gave Ida her choice of strained spinach or squash.
"Baby food!" she muttered. "Maybe it's just what we need, but to eat baby food with a man wearing a diaper.... Tell me, Roddie, how did you happen to know where to find it?"
"Well, this is the northern end of the city," he answered, shrugging.
"I've been here before."
"Why did the soldier let us go?"
"This watch," he said, touching the radium dial. "It's a talisman."
But Ida's eyes had widened, and the color was gone from her face. She was silent, too, except when asking him to fill his fast-emptied can with rain-water. She didn't finish her own portion, but lay back in the rubble with feet higher than her head, obviously trying to renew her strength.
And when they resumed their walk, her sullen, fear-clouded face showed plainly that he'd given himself away.
But to kill her now, before learning how she planned to cross the supposedly impassable bridge, seemed as purposeless and impulsive as Ida herself. Roddie didn't think, in any case, that her death would satisfy the soldiers. With new and useful information to offer, he might join them as an equal at last. But if his dalliance with this enemy seemed pointless, not even Molly's knitting needles could protect him.
He was sure the soldiers must be tracking the mysterious emanations of his watch dial, and had trouble to keep from glancing over his shoulder at every step. But arrival at the bridge approach ended the need for this self-restraint. Here, difficult going demanded full attention.
He'd never gone as far as the bridge before, not having wanted to look as if he might be leaving the city. The approach was a jungle of concrete with an underbrush of reinforcing-steel that reached for the unwary with rusted spines. Frequently they had to balance on cracked girders, and inch over roadless spots high off the ground.
Here Ida took the lead. When they got to where three approach roads made a clover-leaf, she led him down a side road and into a forest.
Roddie stopped, and seized her arm.
"What are you trying to do?" he demanded.
"I'm taking you with me," Ida said firmly. "Taking you where you belong!"
"No!" he blurted, drawing his hammer. "I can't go, nor let you go. I belong here!"
Ida gasped, twisted loose, and ran. Roddie ran after her.
She wasn't so easily caught. Like a frightened doe, she dashed in and out among the trees, leaped to the bridge's underpinnings where they thrust rustedly from a cliff, and scrambled up the ramp.
Roddie sighed and slowed down. The pavement ended just beyond the cable anchors. From there to the south tower, only an occasional dangling support wire showed where the actual bridge had been suspended. Ida was trapped.
He could take his time. Let the soldiers come up, as they undoubtedly would, to finish the job....
But Ida didn't seem to realize she was trapped. Without hesitation she dashed up the main left-hand suspension cable and ran along its curved steel surface.
For a moment, Roddie thought of letting her go, letting her run up the ever-steepening catenary until—because there were no guard-ropes or handgrips—she simply fell. That would solve his problem.
Except it wouldn't be his solution. Her death wouldn't prove him to his friends.
He set out quickly, before Ida was lost to sight in the thick fog that billowed in straight from the ocean. At first he ran erect along the top of the yard-wide cylinder of twisted metal, but soon the curve steepened. He had to go on all fours, clinging palm and sole.
Blood was on the cable where she'd passed. More blood stained it when he'd followed.
But because his friends knew neither pain nor fatigue, Roddie would admit none either. Nor would he give in to the fear that dizzied him at every downward look. He scrambled on like an automaton, watching only his holds, till he rammed Ida's rear with his head.
She had stopped, trembling and gasping. Roddie clung just below her and looked dazedly around. There was nothing in sight but fog, pierced by the rapier of rusted wire supporting them. Neither end of it was in sight.
Upward lay success, if death were not nearer on the cable. No soldier had ever come even this far, for soldiers, as he'd told Ida, never left the city, were not built to do so. But he was here; with luck, he could capitalize on the differences that had plagued him so long.
"Go on!" he ordered hoarsely. "Move!"
There was neither answer nor result. He broke off an end of loosened wire and jabbed her rear. Ida gasped and crawled on.
Up and up they went, chilled, wet, bleeding, pain-racked, exhausted. Never had Roddie felt so thoroughly the defects of his peculiar non-mechanical construction.
Without realizing it, he acquired a new purpose, a duty as compelling as that of any soldier or fire-watcher. He had to keep that trembling body of his alive, mount to the tall rust tower overhead.
He climbed and he made Ida climb, till, at nightmare's end, the fog thinned and they came into clear, windswept air and clawed up the last hundred feet to sanctuary.
They were completely spent. Without word or thought they crept within the tower, huddled together for warmth on its dank steel deck, and slept for several hours.
Roddie awoke as Ida finished struggling free of his unconscious grip. Limping, he joined her painful walk around the tower. From its openings they looked out on a strange and isolated world.
To the north, where Ida seemed drawn as though by instinct, Mount Tamalpais reared its brushy head, a looming island above a billowy white sea of fog. To the south were the Twin Peaks, a pair of buttons on a cotton sheet. Eastward lay Mount Diablo, bald and brooding, tallest of the peaks and most forbidding.
But westward over the ocean lay the land of gold—of all the kinds of gold there are, from brightest yellow to deepest orange. Only a small portion of the setting sun glared above the fog-bank; the rest seemed to have been broken off and smeared around by a child in love with its color.
Fascinated, Roddie stared for minutes, but turned when Ida showed no interest. She was intent on the tower itself. Following her eyes, Roddie saw his duty made suddenly clear.
Easy to make out even in the fading light was the route by which Invaders could cross to the foot of this tower on the remaining ruins of the road, climb to where he now stood, and then descend the cable over the bridge's gap and catch the city unaware. Easy to estimate was the advantage of even this perilous route over things that scattered on the water and prevented a landing in strength. Easy to see was the need to kill Ida before she carried home this knowledge.
Roddie took the hammer from his waist.
"Don't! Oh, don't!" Ida screamed. She burst into tears and covered her face with scratched and bloodied hands.
Surprised, Roddie withheld the blow. He had wept, as a child, and, weeping, had for the first time learned he differed from his friends. Ida's tears disturbed him, bringing unhappy memories.
"Why should you cry?" he asked comfortingly. "You know your people will come back to avenge you and will destroy my friends."
"But—but my people are your people, too," Ida wailed. "It's so senseless, now, after all our struggle to escape. Don't you see? Your friends are only machines, built by our ancestors. We are Men—and the city is ours, not theirs!"
"It can't be," Roddie objected. "The city surely belongs to those who are superior, and my friends are superior to your people, even to me. Each of us has a purpose, though, while you Invaders seem to be aimless. Each of us helps preserve the city; you only try to rob and end it by destroying it. My people must be the true Men, because they're so much more rational than yours.... And it isn't rational to let you escape."
Ida had turned up her tear-streaked face to stare at him.
"Rational! What's rational about murdering a defenseless girl in cold blood? Don't you realize we're the same sort of being, we two? Don't—don't you remember how we've been with each other all day?"
She paused. Roddie noticed that her eyes were dark and frightened, yet somehow soft, over scarlet cheeks. He had to look away. But he said nothing.
"Never mind!" Ida said viciously. "You can't make me beg. Go ahead and kill—see if it proves you're superior. My people will take over the city regardless of you and me, and regardless of your jumping-jack friends, too! Men can accomplish anything!"
Scornfully she turned and looked toward the western twilight. It was Roddie's turn to stand and stare.
"Purpose!" Ida flung at him over her shoulder. "Logic! Women hear so much of that from men! You're a man, all right! Men always call it logic when they want to destroy! Loyalty to your own sort, kindness, affection—all emotional, aren't they? Not a bit logical. Emotion is for creating, and it's so much more logical to destroy, isn't it?"
She whirled back toward him, advancing as if she wanted to sink her teeth into his throat. "Go ahead. Get it over with—if you have the courage."
It was hard for Roddie to look away from that wrath-crimsoned face, but it was even harder to keep staring into the blaze of her eyes. He compromised by gazing out an opening at the gathering dusk. He thought for a long time before he decided to tuck his hammer away.
"It isn't reasonable to kill you now," he said. "Too dark. You can't possibly get down that half-ruined manway tonight, so let's see how I feel in the morning."
Ida began to weep again, and Roddie found it necessary to comfort her.
And by morning he knew he was a Man.
Question:
How does Roddie use his tools (screwdriver and hammer) throughout the story?
Answer:
|
[
"The first tool that Roddie uses is a screwdriver with a broken handle. He uses it to tinker with and screw Molly’s head back onto her robot body, after tearing it off himself. He also used it when he was considering heating it over a fire to mold it into a different tool, but ended up not completing it. \n\nHis hammer is his weapon. Roddie keeps his hammer on his body, which he was able to reach for conveniently when he initially found a warm body hiding in the manhole. All throughout this initial encounter with Ida, Roddie has his hammer close to him, either clutching it or holding it in his mouth while climbing the ladder. He also uses it as a tool to break open cans. Finally, at the end of the story, he is prepared to use the hammer to kill Ida - even going as far as raising it threateningly - before deciding not to. \n",
"Roddie uses the screwdriver to repair the androids when the soldier ones come back with damages. After ripping her head off her neck, he also uses it to repair Molly, a nursing android. Roddie uses the hammer as a weapon to protect himself whenever he feels there is danger nearby. During his conversation with Ida, he holds the hammer in hand all the time so that he can attack at any time needed. He also uses the hammer to open the canned baby food that he finds in the ruined supermarket. He tries to use the hammer to kill Ida after they arrive at the tower across the bridge, but he doesn’t.",
"Throughout the story, Roddie has to use his tools in different ways. At the beginning, he has to use his screwdriver in order to fix Molly and the other robots that reached his building. When Molly malfunctions, Roddie tries to fix her using the screwdriver. He also uses the screwdriver to fix some robots that were badly damaged after fighting with some invaders. Roddie also uses the hammer, but he uses it as a weapon. When he encounters Ida, he wants to kill her using the hammer, and the same thing happens on the bridge.",
"Roddie uses his screwdriver when dealing with the mechanical parts of the robots. When one of the soldiers collapses, Roddie combines his metal limbs with the other ones he has, using the screwdriver. A hammer is a fighting tool for Roddie. He has it in his hand when he senses someone else’s presence in his hideout. Roddie tries to attack Ida near the bridge and kill her near the tower at the very end with his hammer but changes his mind. He also uses it to get baby food at the supermarket. "
] |
51241
|
Bridge Crossing
BY DAVE DRYFOOS
Illustrated by HARRISON
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction May 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
He knew the city was organized for his individual defense, for it had been that way since he was born. But who was his enemy?
In 1849, the mist that sometimes rolled through the Golden Gate was known as fog. In 2149, it had become far more frequent, and was known as smog. By 2349, it was fog again.
But tonight there was smoke mixed with the fog. Roddie could smell it. Somewhere in the forested ruins, fire was burning.
He wasn't worried. The small blaze that smoldered behind him on the cracked concrete floor had consumed everything burnable within blocks; what remained of the gutted concrete office building from which he peered was fire-proof.
But Roddie was himself aflame with anger. As always when Invaders broke in from the north, he'd been left behind with his nurse, Molly, while the soldiers went out to fight.
And nowadays Molly's presence wasn't the comfort it used to be. He felt almost ready to jump out of his skin, the way she rocked and knitted in that grating ruined chair, saying over and over again, "The soldiers don't want little boys. The soldiers don't want little boys. The soldiers don't—"
"I'm not a little boy!" Roddie suddenly shouted. "I'm full-grown and I've never even seen an Invader. Why won't you let me go and fight?"
Fiercely he crossed the bare, gritty floor and shook Molly's shoulder. She rattled under his jarring hand, and abruptly changed the subject.
"A is for Atom, B is for Bomb, C is for Corpse—" she chanted.
Roddie reached into her shapeless dress and pinched. Lately that had helped her over these spells. But this time, though it stopped the kindergarten song, the treatment only started something worse.
"Wuzzums hungry?" Molly cooed, still rocking.
Utterly disgusted, Roddie ripped her head off her neck.
It was a completely futile gesture. The complicated mind that had cared for him and taught him speech and the alphabet hadn't made him a mechanic, and his only tool was a broken-handled screwdriver.
He was still tinkering when the soldiers came in. While they lined up along the wall, he put Molly's head back on her neck.
She gaped coyly at the new arrivals. "Hello, boys," she simpered.
"Looking for a good time?"
Roddie slapped her to silence, reflecting briefly that there were many things he didn't know about Molly. But there was work to be done. Carefully he framed the ritual words she'd taught him: "Soldiers, come to attention and report!"
There were eleven of them, six feet tall, with four limbs and eight extremities. They stood uniformly, the thumbs on each pair of hands touching along the center line of the legs, front feet turned out at an angle of forty-five degrees, rear feet turned inward at thirty degrees.
"Sir," they chorused, "we have met the enemy and he is ours."
He inspected them. All were scratched and dented, but one in particular seemed badly damaged. His left arm was almost severed at the shoulder.
"Come here, fellow," Roddie said. "Let's see if I can fix that."
The soldier took a step forward, lurched suddenly, stopped, and whipped out a bayonet.
"Death to Invaders!" he yelled, and charged crazily.
Molly stepped in front of him.
"You aren't being very nice to my baby," she murmured, and thrust her knitting needles into his eyes.
Roddie jumped behind him, knocked off his helmet, and pressed a soft spot on his conical skull. The soldier collapsed to the floor.
Roddie salvaged and returned Molly's needles. Then he examined the patient, tearing him apart as a boy dismembers an alarm clock.
It was lucky he did. The left arm's pair of hands suddenly writhed off the floor in an effort to choke him. But because the arm was detached at the shoulder and therefore blind, he escaped the clutching onslaught and could goad the reflexing hands into assaulting one another harmlessly.
Meanwhile, the other soldiers left, except for one, apparently another casualty, who stumbled on his way out and fell into the fire. By the time Roddie had hauled him clear, damage was beyond repair. Roddie swore, then decided to try combining parts of this casualty with pieces of the other to make a whole one.
To get more light for the operation, he poked up the fire. Roddie was new at his work, and took it seriously. It alarmed him to watch the soldiers melt away, gradually succumbing to battle damage, shamed him to see the empty ruins burn section by section as the Invaders repeatedly broke through and had to be burned out.
Soon there would be nothing left of the Private Property Keep Out that, according to Molly's bedtime story, the Owners had entrusted to them when driven away by radioactivity. Soon the soldiers themselves would be gone. None would remain to guard the city but a few strayed servants like Molly, and an occasional Civil Defender.
And himself, Roddie reflected, spitting savagely into the fire. He might remain. But how he fitted into the picture, he didn't know. And Molly, who claimed to have found him in the ruins after a fight with Invaders twenty years before, couldn't or wouldn't say.
Well, for as long as possible, Roddie decided, he'd do his duty as the others did theirs—single-mindedly. Eventually the soldiers might accept him as one of themselves; meanwhile, this newly attempted first aid was useful to them.
He gave the fire a final poke and then paused, wondering if, when heated, his screwdriver could make an unfastened end of wire stick on the grayish spot where it seemed to belong.
Stretching prone to blow the embers hot so he could try out his new idea, Roddie got too close to the flames. Instantly the room filled with the stench of singed hair. Roddie drew angrily back, beating out the sparks in his uncut blond mane.
As he stood slapping his head and muttering, a deranged Civil Defense firefighter popped into the doorway and covered him with carbon dioxide foam.
Roddie fled. His life-long friends were not merely wearing out, they were unbearably wearing.
In the street, even before he'd wiped off the foam, he regretted his flight. The fire was back home. And here in the cold of this fog-shrouded canyon, a mere trail between heaped-up walls of rubble, the diaper he wore felt inadequate against the pre-dawn cold. His cherished weapon, a magnetic tack-hammer, was chill beneath the diaper's top, and the broken, radium-dialed wristwatch suspended from a string around his neck hung clammy against his chest. He stood irresolute on numbing bare feet, and considered returning to the more familiar bedlam.
But colder than cold was his shame at being cold. Molly never was, though she knew how to keep him warm, nor were the others. Hunger, thirst, pain and coldness were sensations never experienced by his friends. Like the growth he'd been undergoing till recently, these were things of ignominy, to be hidden as far as possible from inquiring eyes. Cold as it was, he'd have to hide.
Temporarily, the darkness concealed him, though it was not quite complete. From above the fog, the moon played vaguely deceptive light on the splinters of architecture looming toward it. Some distance off, an owl hooted, but here nocturnal rodents felt free to squeak and rustle as they scampered.
The world seemed ghostly. Yet it wasn't dead; it merely lurked. And as an irrepressible yawn reminded Roddie of his absurd need for sleep even in the midst of danger, he concluded for the thousandth time that the One who'd built him must have been an apprentice.
For just such reasons he'd developed the hideout toward which he now walked. It had been the haven of his adolescence, when the discovery of how much he differed from his friends had been a shock, and the shock itself a difference to be hidden.
His hiding place was a manhole, dead center in the dead street. A weathered bronze bar, carefully placed in the cover's slotted rim, was the levering key that opened its door.
Everything was wrong tonight! He couldn't even find the bar. Of course that spoiled things, because the bar was a roller on which to move the heavy cover from below, and a support that held it ajar for ventilation.
But the example of his friends had taught him above all else to carry out every purpose. Molly was a nurse; she had raised him despite all obstacles. The soldiers were guards; they protected the ruins against everything larger than a rat. The firefighter had put even him out when he was aflame....
Anyhow, the manhole cover had been loosened by his frequent handling. He lifted it aside by main strength, then flattened himself to the street, and felt with his feet for the top rung.
Halfway down the iron ladder, something made him pause. He looked, but saw only blackness. He listened, sniffed, found nothing. What could have entered through the iron cover?
He sneered at his own timidity and jumped to the bottom.
It was warm! The dry bottom of the hole had the temperature of body heat, as if a large animal had recently rested there!
Quickly, Roddie drew the hammer from his waist. Then, with weapon ready for an instantaneous blow, he stretched his left hand through the darkness. He touched something warm, softish. Gingerly he felt over that curving surface for identifying features.
While Roddie investigated by touch, his long fingers were suddenly seized and bitten. At the same time, his right shin received a savage kick. And his own retaliatory blow was checked in mid-swing by an unexpected voice.
"Get your filthy hands off me!" it whispered angrily. "Who do you think you are?"
Startled, he dropped his hammer. "I'm Roddie," he said, squatting to fumble for it. "Who do you think you are?"
"I'm Ida, naturally! Just how many girls are there in this raiding party?"
His first Invader—and he had dropped his weapon!
Scrabbling fearfully in the dust for his hammer, Roddie paused suddenly. This girl—whatever that was—seemed to think him one of her own kind. There was a chance, not much, but worth taking, to turn delay to advantage. Maybe he could learn something of value before he killed her. That would make the soldiers accept him!
He stalled, seeking a gambit. "How would I know how many girls there are?"
Half expecting a blow, he got instead an apology. "I'm sorry," the girl said. "I should have known. Never even heard your name before, either. Roddie.... Whose boat did you come in, Roddie?"
Boat? What was a boat? "How would I know?" he repeated, voice tight with fear of discovery.
If she noticed the tension, she didn't show it. Certainly her whisper was friendly enough. "Oh, you're one of the fellows from Bodega, then. They shoved a boy into our boat at the last minute, too. Tough, wasn't it, getting separated in the fog and tide like that? If only we didn't have to use boats.... But, say, how are we going to get away from here?"
"I wouldn't know," Roddie said, closing his fingers on the hammer, and rising. "How did you get in?"
"Followed your footprints. It was sundown and I saw human tracks in the dust and they led me here. Where were you?"
"Scouting around," Roddie said vaguely. "How did you know I was a man when I came back?"
"Because you couldn't see me, silly! You know perfectly well these androids are heat-sensitive and can locate us in the dark!"
Indeed he did know! Many times he'd felt ashamed that Molly could find him whenever she wanted to, even here in the manhole. But perhaps the manhole would help him now to redeem himself....
"I'd like to get a look at you," he said.
The girl laughed self-consciously. "It's getting gray out. You'll see me soon enough."
But she'd see him , Roddie realized. He had to talk fast.
"What'll we do when it's light?" he asked.
"Well, I guess the boats have gone," Ida said. "You could swim the Gate, I guess—you seem tall and strong enough. But I couldn't. You'll think it's crazy, but I've given this some thought, and even looked it over from the other side. I expect to try the Golden Gate Bridge!"
Now he was getting somewhere! The bridge was ruined, impassable. Even her own people had crossed the Strait by other means. But if there were a way over the bridge....
"It's broken," he said. "How in the world can we cross it?"
"Oh, you'll find out, if you take me up there. I—I don't want to be alone, Roddie. Will you go with me? Now?"
Well, she could be made to point out the route before he killed her— if nothing happened when she saw him.
Uneasy, Roddie hefted the hammer in his hand.
A giggle broke the pause. "It's nice of you to wait and let me go first up the ladder," the girl said. "But where the heck is the rusty old thing?"
"I'll go first," said Roddie. He might need the advantage. "The ladder's right behind me."
He climbed with hammer in teeth, and stretched his left hand from street level to grasp and neutralize the girl's right. Then, nervously fingering his weapon, he stared at her in the thin gray dawn.
She was short and lean, except for roundnesses here and there. From her shapeless doeskin dress stretched slender legs that tapered to feet that were bare, tiny, and, like her hands, only two in number.
Roddie was pleased. They were evenly matched as to members, and that would make things easy when the time came.
He looked into her face. It smiled at him, tanned and ruddy, with a full mouth and bright dark eyes that hid under long lashes when he looked too long.
Startling, those wary eyes. Concealing. For a moment he felt a rush of fear, but she gave his hand a squeeze before twisting loose, and burst into sudden laughter.
"Diapers!" she chortled, struggling to keep her voice low. "My big, strong, blond and blue-eyed hero goes into battle wearing diapers, and carrying only a hammer to fight with! You're the most unforgettable character I have ever known!"
He'd passed inspection, then—so far. He expelled his withheld breath, and said, "I think you'll find me a little odd, in some ways."
"Oh, not at all," Ida replied quickly. "Different, yes, but I wouldn't say odd."
When they started down the street, she was nervous despite Roddie's assertion that he knew where the soldiers were posted. He wondered if she felt some of the doubt he'd tried to conceal, shared his visions of what the soldiers might do if they found him brazenly strolling with an Invader. They might not believe he was only questioning a prisoner.
Every day, his friends were becoming more unpredictable.
For that very reason, because he didn't know what precautions would do any good, he took a chance and walked openly to the bridge by the most direct route. In time this apparent assurance stilled Ida's fears, and she began to talk.
Many of the things she said were beyond his experience and meaningless to him, but he did note with interest how effective the soldiers had been.
"It's awful," Ida said. "So few young men are left, so many casualties....
"But why do you—we—keep up the fight?" Roddie asked. "I mean, the soldiers will never leave the city; their purpose is to guard it and they can't leave, so they won't attack. Let them alone, and there'll be plenty of young men."
"Well!" said Ida, sharply. "You need indoctrination! Didn't they ever tell you that the city is our home, even if the stupid androids do keep us out? Don't you know how dependent we are on these raids for all our tools and things?"
She sounded suspicious. Roddie shot her a furtive, startled glance. But she wasn't standing off to fight him. On the contrary, she was too close for both comfort and combat. She bumped him hip and shoulder every few steps, and if he edged away, she followed.
He went on with his questioning. "Why are you here? I mean, sure, the others are after tools and things, but what's your purpose?"
Ida shrugged. "I'll admit no girl has ever done it before," she said,
"but I thought I could help with the wounded. That's why I have no weapon."
She hesitated, glanced covertly up at him, and went on with a rush of words. "It's the lack of men, I guess. All the girls are kind of bored and hopeless, so I got this bright idea and stowed away on one of the boats when it was dark and the fog had settled down. Do you think I was being silly?"
"No, but you do seem a little purposeless."
In silence they trudged through a vast area of charred wood and concrete foundations on the northern end of the city. Thick fog over the water hid Alcatraz, but in-shore visibility was better, and they could see the beginning of the bridge approach.
A stone rattled nearby. There was a clink of metal. Ida gasped, and clung to Roddie's arm.
"Behind me!" he whispered urgently. "Get behind me and hold on!"
He felt Ida's arms encircling his waist, her chin digging into his back below the left shoulder. Facing them, a hundred feet away, stood a soldier. He looked contemptuous, hostile.
"It's all right," Roddie said, his voice breaking.
There was a long, sullen, heart-stopping stare. Then the soldier turned and walked away.
Ida's grip loosened, and he could feel her sag behind him. Roddie turned and held her. With eyes closed, she pressed cold blue lips to his. He grimaced and turned away his head.
Ida's response was quick. "Forgive me," she breathed, and slipped from his arms, but she held herself erect. "I was so scared. And then we've had no sleep, no food or water."
Roddie was familiar with these signs of weakness, proud of appearing to deny his own humiliating needs.
"I guess you're not as strong as me," he said smugly. "I'll take care of you. Of course we can't sleep now, but I'll get food and water."
Leaving her to follow, he turned left to the ruins of a supermarket he had previously visited, demonstrating his superior strength by setting a pace Ida couldn't match. By the time she caught up with him, he had grubbed out a few cans of the special size that Molly always chose. Picking two that were neither dented, swollen, nor rusted, he smashed an end of each with his hammer, and gave Ida her choice of strained spinach or squash.
"Baby food!" she muttered. "Maybe it's just what we need, but to eat baby food with a man wearing a diaper.... Tell me, Roddie, how did you happen to know where to find it?"
"Well, this is the northern end of the city," he answered, shrugging.
"I've been here before."
"Why did the soldier let us go?"
"This watch," he said, touching the radium dial. "It's a talisman."
But Ida's eyes had widened, and the color was gone from her face. She was silent, too, except when asking him to fill his fast-emptied can with rain-water. She didn't finish her own portion, but lay back in the rubble with feet higher than her head, obviously trying to renew her strength.
And when they resumed their walk, her sullen, fear-clouded face showed plainly that he'd given himself away.
But to kill her now, before learning how she planned to cross the supposedly impassable bridge, seemed as purposeless and impulsive as Ida herself. Roddie didn't think, in any case, that her death would satisfy the soldiers. With new and useful information to offer, he might join them as an equal at last. But if his dalliance with this enemy seemed pointless, not even Molly's knitting needles could protect him.
He was sure the soldiers must be tracking the mysterious emanations of his watch dial, and had trouble to keep from glancing over his shoulder at every step. But arrival at the bridge approach ended the need for this self-restraint. Here, difficult going demanded full attention.
He'd never gone as far as the bridge before, not having wanted to look as if he might be leaving the city. The approach was a jungle of concrete with an underbrush of reinforcing-steel that reached for the unwary with rusted spines. Frequently they had to balance on cracked girders, and inch over roadless spots high off the ground.
Here Ida took the lead. When they got to where three approach roads made a clover-leaf, she led him down a side road and into a forest.
Roddie stopped, and seized her arm.
"What are you trying to do?" he demanded.
"I'm taking you with me," Ida said firmly. "Taking you where you belong!"
"No!" he blurted, drawing his hammer. "I can't go, nor let you go. I belong here!"
Ida gasped, twisted loose, and ran. Roddie ran after her.
She wasn't so easily caught. Like a frightened doe, she dashed in and out among the trees, leaped to the bridge's underpinnings where they thrust rustedly from a cliff, and scrambled up the ramp.
Roddie sighed and slowed down. The pavement ended just beyond the cable anchors. From there to the south tower, only an occasional dangling support wire showed where the actual bridge had been suspended. Ida was trapped.
He could take his time. Let the soldiers come up, as they undoubtedly would, to finish the job....
But Ida didn't seem to realize she was trapped. Without hesitation she dashed up the main left-hand suspension cable and ran along its curved steel surface.
For a moment, Roddie thought of letting her go, letting her run up the ever-steepening catenary until—because there were no guard-ropes or handgrips—she simply fell. That would solve his problem.
Except it wouldn't be his solution. Her death wouldn't prove him to his friends.
He set out quickly, before Ida was lost to sight in the thick fog that billowed in straight from the ocean. At first he ran erect along the top of the yard-wide cylinder of twisted metal, but soon the curve steepened. He had to go on all fours, clinging palm and sole.
Blood was on the cable where she'd passed. More blood stained it when he'd followed.
But because his friends knew neither pain nor fatigue, Roddie would admit none either. Nor would he give in to the fear that dizzied him at every downward look. He scrambled on like an automaton, watching only his holds, till he rammed Ida's rear with his head.
She had stopped, trembling and gasping. Roddie clung just below her and looked dazedly around. There was nothing in sight but fog, pierced by the rapier of rusted wire supporting them. Neither end of it was in sight.
Upward lay success, if death were not nearer on the cable. No soldier had ever come even this far, for soldiers, as he'd told Ida, never left the city, were not built to do so. But he was here; with luck, he could capitalize on the differences that had plagued him so long.
"Go on!" he ordered hoarsely. "Move!"
There was neither answer nor result. He broke off an end of loosened wire and jabbed her rear. Ida gasped and crawled on.
Up and up they went, chilled, wet, bleeding, pain-racked, exhausted. Never had Roddie felt so thoroughly the defects of his peculiar non-mechanical construction.
Without realizing it, he acquired a new purpose, a duty as compelling as that of any soldier or fire-watcher. He had to keep that trembling body of his alive, mount to the tall rust tower overhead.
He climbed and he made Ida climb, till, at nightmare's end, the fog thinned and they came into clear, windswept air and clawed up the last hundred feet to sanctuary.
They were completely spent. Without word or thought they crept within the tower, huddled together for warmth on its dank steel deck, and slept for several hours.
Roddie awoke as Ida finished struggling free of his unconscious grip. Limping, he joined her painful walk around the tower. From its openings they looked out on a strange and isolated world.
To the north, where Ida seemed drawn as though by instinct, Mount Tamalpais reared its brushy head, a looming island above a billowy white sea of fog. To the south were the Twin Peaks, a pair of buttons on a cotton sheet. Eastward lay Mount Diablo, bald and brooding, tallest of the peaks and most forbidding.
But westward over the ocean lay the land of gold—of all the kinds of gold there are, from brightest yellow to deepest orange. Only a small portion of the setting sun glared above the fog-bank; the rest seemed to have been broken off and smeared around by a child in love with its color.
Fascinated, Roddie stared for minutes, but turned when Ida showed no interest. She was intent on the tower itself. Following her eyes, Roddie saw his duty made suddenly clear.
Easy to make out even in the fading light was the route by which Invaders could cross to the foot of this tower on the remaining ruins of the road, climb to where he now stood, and then descend the cable over the bridge's gap and catch the city unaware. Easy to estimate was the advantage of even this perilous route over things that scattered on the water and prevented a landing in strength. Easy to see was the need to kill Ida before she carried home this knowledge.
Roddie took the hammer from his waist.
"Don't! Oh, don't!" Ida screamed. She burst into tears and covered her face with scratched and bloodied hands.
Surprised, Roddie withheld the blow. He had wept, as a child, and, weeping, had for the first time learned he differed from his friends. Ida's tears disturbed him, bringing unhappy memories.
"Why should you cry?" he asked comfortingly. "You know your people will come back to avenge you and will destroy my friends."
"But—but my people are your people, too," Ida wailed. "It's so senseless, now, after all our struggle to escape. Don't you see? Your friends are only machines, built by our ancestors. We are Men—and the city is ours, not theirs!"
"It can't be," Roddie objected. "The city surely belongs to those who are superior, and my friends are superior to your people, even to me. Each of us has a purpose, though, while you Invaders seem to be aimless. Each of us helps preserve the city; you only try to rob and end it by destroying it. My people must be the true Men, because they're so much more rational than yours.... And it isn't rational to let you escape."
Ida had turned up her tear-streaked face to stare at him.
"Rational! What's rational about murdering a defenseless girl in cold blood? Don't you realize we're the same sort of being, we two? Don't—don't you remember how we've been with each other all day?"
She paused. Roddie noticed that her eyes were dark and frightened, yet somehow soft, over scarlet cheeks. He had to look away. But he said nothing.
"Never mind!" Ida said viciously. "You can't make me beg. Go ahead and kill—see if it proves you're superior. My people will take over the city regardless of you and me, and regardless of your jumping-jack friends, too! Men can accomplish anything!"
Scornfully she turned and looked toward the western twilight. It was Roddie's turn to stand and stare.
"Purpose!" Ida flung at him over her shoulder. "Logic! Women hear so much of that from men! You're a man, all right! Men always call it logic when they want to destroy! Loyalty to your own sort, kindness, affection—all emotional, aren't they? Not a bit logical. Emotion is for creating, and it's so much more logical to destroy, isn't it?"
She whirled back toward him, advancing as if she wanted to sink her teeth into his throat. "Go ahead. Get it over with—if you have the courage."
It was hard for Roddie to look away from that wrath-crimsoned face, but it was even harder to keep staring into the blaze of her eyes. He compromised by gazing out an opening at the gathering dusk. He thought for a long time before he decided to tuck his hammer away.
"It isn't reasonable to kill you now," he said. "Too dark. You can't possibly get down that half-ruined manway tonight, so let's see how I feel in the morning."
Ida began to weep again, and Roddie found it necessary to comfort her.
And by morning he knew he was a Man.
|
What is the setting of the story?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The First Man in Space by Heather Feldman.
Relevant chunks:
THE FIRST MAN INTO SPACE
Cadet Marshall Farnsworth woke from a nightmare of exploding novae and fouling rockets. After recovering from his fright, he laughed contemptuously at himself. “Here I was picked as the most stable of a group of two hundred cadets,” he thought, “and chosen to make man’s first trip into space, yet I’m shaking like a leaf.”
He got out of bed and went over to the window. From his father’s temporary apartment, he could see distant Skyharbor, the scene of the plunge into space tomorrow night. He had been awarded the frightening honor of making that trip.
10
As he watched teardrop cars whip along Phoenix, Arizona’s, double-decked streets, elevated over one another to avoid dangerous intersections and delaying stop lights, he thought back over the years; to the 1950’s, when mice and monkeys were sent up in Vikings to launch mankind’s first probing of the mysterious space beyond Earth, and the first satellites were launched; to the 1960’s, when huger, multiple-stage rockets finally conquered the problem of escape velocity; to 1975—today—when man was finally ready to send one of his own kind into the uninhabited deeps.
Marsh climbed back into bed, but sleep would not come.
In the adjoining room, he could hear the footsteps of mother and father. By their sound he knew they were the footsteps of worried people. This hurt Marsh more than his own uneasiness.
The anxiety had begun for them, he knew, when he had first signed up for space-cadet training. They had known there was an extremely high percentage of washouts, and after each test he passed, they had pretended to be glad. But Marsh knew that inwardly they had hoped he would fail, for they were aware of the ultimate goal that the space scientists were working for—the goal that had just now been reached.
Marsh finally fell into a troubled sleep that lasted until morning.
He woke early, before the alarm rang. He got up, showered, pulled on his blue-corded cadet uniform, and tugged on the polished gray boots. He took one final look around his room as though in farewell, then went out to the kitchen.
11
His folks were up ahead of time too, trying to act as though it were just another day. Dad was pretending to enjoy his morning paper, nodding only casually to Marsh as he came in. Mom was stirring scrambled eggs in the skillet, but she wasn’t a very good actor, Marsh noticed, for she furtively wiped her eyes with her free hand.
The eggs were cooked too hard and the toast had to be scraped, but no one seemed to care. The three of them sat down at the table, still speaking in monosyllables and of unimportant things. They made a pretense of eating.
“Well, Mom,” Dad suddenly said with a forced jollity that was intended to break the tension, “the Farnsworth family has finally got a celebrity in it.”
“I don’t see why they don’t send an older man!” Mom burst out, as though she had been holding it in as long as she could. “Sending a boy who isn’t even twenty-two—”
“Things are different nowadays, Mom,” Dad explained, still with the assumed calmness that masked his real feelings. “These days, men grow up faster and mature quicker. They’re stronger and more alert than older men—” His voice trailed off as if he were unable to convince himself.
“ Some body has to go,” Marsh said. “Why not a younger man without family and responsibility? That’s why they’re giving younger men more opportunities today than they used to.”
“It’s not younger men I’m talking about!” Mom blurted. “It’s you, Marsh!”
12
Dad leaned over and patted Mom on the shoulder.
“Now, Ruth, we promised not to get excited this morning.”
“I’m sorry,” Mom said weakly. “But Marsh is too young to—” She caught herself and put her hand over her mouth.
“Stop talking like that!” Dad said. “Marsh is coming back. There’ve been thousands of rockets sent aloft. The space engineers have made sure that every bug has been ironed out before risking a man’s life. Why, that rocket which Marsh is going up in is as safe as our auto in the garage, isn’t it, Marsh?”
“I hope so, Dad,” Marsh murmured.
Later, as Dad drove Marsh to the field, each brooded silently. Every scene along the way seemed to take on a new look for Marsh. He saw things that he had never noticed before. It was an uncomfortable feeling, almost as if he were seeing these things for the last as well as the first time.
Finally the airport came into view. The guards at the gate recognized Marsh and ushered the Farnsworth car through ahead of scores of others that crowded the entrance. Some eager news photographers slipped up close and shot off flash bulbs in Marsh’s eyes.
Skyharbor, once a small commercial field, had been taken over by the Air Force in recent years and converted into the largest rocket experimental center in the United States.
13
Dad drove up to the building that would be the scene of Marsh’s first exhaustive tests and briefings. He stopped the car, and Marsh jumped out. Their good-by was brief. Marsh saw his father’s mouth quiver. There was a tightness in his own throat. He had gone through any number of grueling tests to prove that he could take the rigors of space, but not one of them had prepared him for the hardest moments of parting.
When Dad had driven off, Marsh reported first to the psychiatrist who checked his condition.
“Pulse fast, a rise in blood pressure,” he said.
“You’re excited, aren’t you, son?”
“Yes, sir,” Marsh admitted. “Maybe they’ve got the wrong man, sir. I might fail them.”
The doctor grinned. “They don’t have the wrong man,” he said. “They might have, with a so-called iron-nerved fellow. He could contain his tension and fears until later, until maybe the moment of blast-off. Then he’d let go, and when he needed his calmest judgment he wouldn’t have it. No, Marshall, there isn’t a man alive who could make this history-making flight without some anxiety. Forget it. You’ll feel better as the day goes on. I’ll see you once more before the blast-off.”
Marsh felt more at ease already. He went on to the space surgeon, was given a complete physical examination, and was pronounced in perfect condition. Then began his review briefing on everything he would encounter during the flight.
14
Blast-off time was for 2230, an hour and a half before midnight. Since at night, in the Western Hemisphere, Earth was masking the sun, the complications of excessive temperatures in the outer reaches were avoided during the time Marsh would be outside the ship. Marsh would occupy the small upper third section of a three-stage rocket. The first two parts would be jettisoned after reaching their peak velocities. Top speed of the third stage would carry Marsh into a perpetual-flight orbit around Earth, along the route that a permanent space station was to be built after the results of the flight were studied. After spending a little while in this orbit, Marsh would begin the precarious journey back to Earth, in gliding flight.
He got a few hours of sleep after sunset. When an officer shook him, he rose from the cot he had been lying on in a private room of General Forsythe, Chief of Space Operations.
“It’s almost time, son,” the officer said. “Your CO wants to see you in the outside office.”
Marsh went into the adjoining room and found his cadet chief awaiting him. The youth detected an unusual warmth about the severe gentleman who previously had shown only a firm, uncompromising attitude. Colonel Tregasker was past middle age, and his white, sparse hair was smoothed down close to his head in regulation neatness.
15
“Well, this is it, Marshall,” the colonel said.
“How I envy you this honor of being the first human to enter space. However, I do feel that a part of me is going along too, since I had a small share in preparing you for the trip. If the training was harsh at times, I believe that shortly you will understand the reason for it.”
“I didn’t feel that the Colonel was either too soft or strict, sir,” Marsh said diplomatically.
A speaker out on the brilliantly lit field blared loudly in the cool desert night: “X minus forty minutes.”
“We can’t talk all night, Marshall,” the colonel said briskly. “You’ve got a job to do. But first, a few of your friends want to wish you luck.” He called into the anteroom, “You may come in, gentlemen!”
There filed smartly into the room ten youths who had survived the hard prespace course with Marsh and would be his successors in case he failed tonight. They formed a line and shook hands with Marsh. The first was Armen Norton who had gotten sick in the rugged centrifuge at a force of 9 G’s, then had rallied to pass the test.
“Good luck, Marsh,” he said.
Next was lanky Lawrence Egan who had been certain he would wash out during navigation phase in the planetarium. “All the luck in the world, Marsh,” he added.
Each cadet brought back a special memory of his training as they passed before him, wishing him success.
16
When they had gone and the speaker outside had announced: “X minus thirty minutes,” the colonel said that he and Marsh had better be leaving. Colonel Tregasker was to be Marsh’s escort to the ship.
Photographers and newspapermen swarmed about them as they climbed into the jeep that was to take them to the launching site farther out on the field. Questions were flung at the two from all sides, but the colonel deftly maneuvered the jeep through the mob and sped off over the asphalt.
At the blast-off site, Marsh could see that the police had their hands full keeping out thousands of spectators who were trying to get into the closed-off area. The field was choked with a tide of humanity milling about in wild confusion. Giant searchlights, both at the airport and in other parts of Phoenix, directed spears of light on the towering rocket that held the interest of all the world tonight. There was one light, far larger than the rest, with powerful condensing lenses and connected to a giant radar screen, which would guide Marsh home from his trip among the stars.
A high wire fence surrounded the launching ramp and blockhouses. International scientists and dignitaries with priorities formed a ring around the fence, but even they were not allowed inside the small circle of important activity. The guards waved the colonel and Marsh through the gate.
17
Marsh had spent many weeks in a mock-up of the tiny third stage in which he was to spend his time aloft, but he had never been close to the completely assembled ship until this moment. The three stages had been nicknamed, “Tom,” “Dick,” and “Harry.” Marsh swallowed as his eyes roved up the side of the great vessel, part of a project that had cost millions to perfect and was as high as a four-story building.
The gigantic base, “Big Tom,” was the section that would have the hardest job to do, that of thrusting the rocket through the densest part of the atmosphere, and this was a great deal larger than the other sections. Marsh knew that most of the ship’s bulk was made up of the propellant fuel of hydrazine hydrate and its oxidizer, nitric acid.
“We’re going into that blockhouse over there,” Colonel Tregasker said. “You’ll don your space gear in there.”
First a multitude of gadgets with wires were fastened to the cadet’s wrists, ankles, nose, and head. Marsh knew this to be one of the most important phases of the flight—to find out a man’s reaction to space flight under actual rocketing conditions. Each wire would telemeter certain information by radio back to the airport. After a tight inner G suit had been put on to prevent blackout, the plastic and rubber outer garment was zipped up around Marsh, and then he was ready except for his helmet, which would not be donned until later.
18
Marsh and the colonel went back outside. The open-cage elevator was lowered from the top of the big latticed platform that surrounded the rocket. The two got into the cage, and it rose with them. Marsh had lost most of his anxiety and tension during the activities of the day, but his knees felt rubbery in these final moments as the elevator carried him high above the noisy confusion of the airport. This was it.
As they stepped from the cage onto the platform of the third stage, Marsh heard the speaker below call out: “X minus twenty minutes.”
There were eleven engineers and workmen on the platform readying the compartment that Marsh would occupy. Marsh suddenly felt helpless and alone as he faced the small chamber that might very well be his death cell. Its intricate dials and wires were staggering in their complexity.
Marsh turned and shook hands with Colonel Tregasker.
“Good-by, sir,” he said in a quavering voice.
“I hope I remember everything the Corps taught me.” He tried to smile, but his facial muscles twitched uncontrollably.
“Good luck, son—lots of it,” the officer said huskily. Suddenly he leaned forward and embraced the youth with a firm, fatherly hug. “This is not regulations,” he mumbled gruffly, “but hang regulations!” He turned quickly and asked to be carried down to the ground.
A man brought Marsh’s helmet and placed it over his head, then clamped it to the suit. Knobs on the suit were twisted, and Marsh felt a warm, pressurized helium-oxygen mixture fill his suit and headpiece.
19
Marsh stepped through the hatch into the small compartment. He reclined in the soft contour chair, and the straps were fastened by one of the engineers over his chest, waist, and legs. The wires connected to various parts of his body had been brought together into a single unit in the helmet. A wire cable leading from the panel was plugged into the outside of the helmet to complete the circuit.
Final tests were run off to make sure everything was in proper working order, including the two-way short-wave radio that would have to penetrate the electrical ocean of the ionosphere. Then the double-hatch air lock was closed. Through his helmet receiver, Marsh could hear the final minutes and seconds being called off from inside the blockhouse.
“Everything O.K.?” Marsh was asked by someone on the platform.
“Yes, sir,” Marsh replied.
“Then you’re on your own,” were the final ominous words.
“X minus five minutes,” called the speaker.
20
It was the longest five minutes that Marsh could remember. He was painfully aware of his cramped quarters. He thought of the tons of explosive beneath him that presently would literally blow him sky-high. And he thought of the millions of people the world over who, at this moment, were hovering at radios and TV’s anxiously awaiting the dawn of the space age. Finally he thought of Dad and Mom, lost in that multitude of night watchers, and among the few who were not primarily concerned with the scientific aspect of the experiment. He wondered if he would ever see them again.
“X minus sixty seconds!”
Marsh knew that a warning flare was being sent up, to be followed by a whistle and a cloud of smoke from one of the blockhouses. As he felt fear trying to master him, he began reviewing all the things he must remember and, above all, what to do in an emergency.
“X minus ten seconds—five—four—three—two—one—FIRE!”
There was a mighty explosion at Skyharbor.
The initial jolt which Marsh felt was much fiercer than the gradually built up speed of the whirling centrifuge in training. He was crushed deeply into his contour chair. It felt as though someone were pressing on his eyeballs; indeed, as if every organ in his body were clinging to his backbone. But these first moments would be the worst. A gauge showed a force of 7 G’s on him—equal to half a ton.
He watched the Mach numbers rise on the dial in front of his eyes on an overhead panel. Each Mach number represented that much times the speed of sound, 1,090 feet per second, 740 miles an hour.
Marsh knew “Big Tom” would blast for about a minute and a half under control of the automatic pilot, at which time it would drop free at an altitude of twenty-five miles and sink Earthward in a metal mesh ’chute.
21
Marsh’s hurting eyes flicked to the outside temperature gauge. It was on a steady 67 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, and would be until he reached twenty miles. A reflecting prism gave him a square of view of the sky outside. The clear deep blue of the cloud-free stratosphere met his eyes.
Mach 5, Mach 6, Mach 7 passed very quickly. He heard a rumble and felt a jerk. “Big Tom” was breaking free. The first hurdle had been successfully overcome, and the ship had already begun tilting into its trajectory.
There was a new surge of agony on his body as the second stage picked up the acceleration at a force of 7 G’s again. Marsh clamped his jaws as the force pulled his lips back from his teeth and dragged his cheek muscles down. The Mach numbers continued to rise—11, 12, 13—to altitude 200 miles, the outer fringe of the earth’s atmosphere. There was a slight lifting of the pressure on his body. The rocket was still in the stratosphere, but the sky was getting purple.
Mach 14—10,000 miles an hour.
“Dick” would jettison any moment. Marsh had been aloft only about four minutes, but it had seemed an age, every tortured second of it.
22
There was another rumble as the second stage broke free. Marsh felt a new surge directly beneath him as his own occupied section, “Harry,” began blasting. It was comforting to realize he had successfully weathered those tons of exploding hydrazine and acid that could have reduced him to nothing if something had gone wrong. Although his speed was still building up, the weight on him began to ease steadily as his body’s inertia finally yielded to the sickeningly swift acceleration.
The speedometer needle climbed to Mach 21, the peak velocity of the rocket, 16,000 miles per hour. His altitude was 350 miles—man’s highest ascent. Slowly then, the speedometer began to drop back. Marsh heard the turbo pumps and jets go silent as the “lift” fuel was spent and rocket “Harry” began its free-flight orbit around Earth.
The ship had reached a speed which exactly counterbalanced the pull of gravity, and it could, theoretically, travel this way forever, provided no other outside force acted upon it. The effect on Marsh now was as if he had stopped moving. Relieved of the viselike pressure, his stomach and chest for a few seconds felt like inflated balloons.
“Cadet Farnsworth,” the voice of General Forsythe spoke into his helmet receiver, “are you all right?”
“Yes, sir,” Marsh replied. “That is, I think so.”
It was good to hear a human voice again, something to hold onto in this crazy unreal world into which he had been hurtled.
“We’re getting the electronic readings from your gauges O.K.,” the voice went on. “The doctor says your pulse is satisfactory under the circumstances.”
It was queer having your pulse read from 350 miles up in the air.
23
Marsh realized, of course, that he was not truly in the “air.” A glance at his air-pressure gauge confirmed this. He was virtually in a vacuum. The temperature and wind velocity outside might have astounded him if he were not prepared for the readings. The heat was over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, and the wind velocity was of hurricane force! But these figures meant nothing because of the sparseness of air molecules. Temperature and wind applied only to the individual particles, which were thousands of feet apart.
“How is your cosmic-ray count?” asked the general.
Marsh checked the C-ray counter on the panel from which clicking sounds were coming. “It’s low, sir. Nothing to worry about.”
Cosmic rays, the most powerful emanations known, were the only radiation in space that could not be protected against. But in small doses they had been found not to be dangerous.
“As soon as our recorders get more of the figures your telemeter is giving us,” the operations chief said, “you can leave the rocket.”
When Marsh got the O.K. a few minutes later, he eagerly unstrapped the belts around his body. He could hardly contain his excitement at being the first person to view the globe of Earth from space. As he struggled to his feet, the lightness of zero gravity made him momentarily giddy, and it took some minutes for him to adjust to the terribly strange sensation.
24
He had disconnected the cable leading from his helmet to the ship’s transmitter and switched on the ship’s fast-lens movie camera that would photograph the area covered by “Harry.” Then he was ready to go outside. He pressed a button on the wall, and the first air-lock hatch opened. He floated into the narrow alcove and closed the door in the cramped chamber behind him. He watched a gauge, and when it showed normal pressure and temperature again, he opened the outside hatch, closing it behind him. Had Marsh permitted the vacuum of space to contact the interior of the ship’s quarters, delicate instruments would have been ruined by the sudden decompression and loss of heat. Marsh fastened his safety line to the ship so that there was no chance of his becoming separated from it.
Then he looked “downward,” to experience the thrill of his life. Like a gigantic relief map, the panorama of Earth stretched across his vision. A downy blanket of gray atmosphere spread over the whole of it, and patches of clouds were seen floating like phantom shapes beneath the clear vastness of the stratosphere. It was a stunning sight for Marsh, seeing the pinpoint lights of the night cities extending from horizon to horizon. It gave him an exhilarating feeling of being a king over it all.
25
Earth appeared to be rotating, but Marsh knew it was largely his own and the rocket’s fast speed that was responsible for the illusion. As he hung in this region of the exosphere, he was thankful for his cadet training in zero gravity. A special machine, developed only in recent years, simulated the weightlessness of space and trained the cadets for endurance in such artificial conditions.
“Describe some of the things you see, Marshall,” General Forsythe said over Marsh’s helmet receiver.
“I’ve just cut in a recorder.”
“It’s a scene almost beyond description, sir,” Marsh said into the helmet mike. “The sky is thickly powdered with stars. The Milky Way is very distinct, and I can make out lots of fuzzy spots that must be star clusters and nebulae and comets. Mars is like an extremely bright taillight, and the moon is so strong it hurts my eyes as much as the direct sun does on earth.”
Marsh saw a faintly luminous blur pass beyond the ship. It had been almost too sudden to catch. He believed it to be a meteor diving Earthward at a speed around forty-five miles a second. He reported this to the general.
As he brought his eyes down from the more distant fixtures of space to those closer by on Earth, a strange thing happened. He was suddenly seized with a fear of falling, although his zero-gravity training had been intended to prepare him against this very thing. A cold sweat come out over his body, and an uncontrollable panic threatened to take hold of him.
26
He made a sudden movement as though to catch himself. Forgetting the magnification of motion in frictionless space and his own weightlessness, he was shot quickly to the end of his safety line like a cracked whip. His body jerked at the taut end and then sped swiftly back in reaction toward the ship, head foremost. A collision could crack his helmet, exposing his body to decompression, causing him to swell like a balloon and finally explode.
In the grip of numbing fear, only at the last moment did he have the presence of mind to flip his body in a half-cartwheel and bring his boots up in front of him for protection. His feet bumped against the rocket’s side, and the motion sent him hurtling back out to the end of the safety line again. This back-and-forth action occurred several times before he could stop completely.
“I’ve got to be careful,” he panted to himself, as he thought of how close his space career had come to being ended scarcely before it had begun.
General Forsythe cut in with great concern, wondering what had happened. When Marsh had explained and the general seemed satisfied that Marsh had recovered himself, he had Marsh go on with his description.
His senseless fear having gone now, Marsh looked down calmly, entranced as the features of the United States passed below his gaze. He named the cities he could identify, also the mountain ranges, lakes, and rivers, explaining just how they looked from 350 miles up. In only a fraction of an hour’s time, the rocket had traversed the entire country and was approaching the twinkling phosphorescence of the Atlantic.
27
Marsh asked if “Tom” and “Dick” had landed safely.
“‘Tom’ landed near Roswell, New Mexico,” General Forsythe told him, “and the ’chute of the second section has been reported seen north of Dallas. I think you’d better start back now, Marshall. It’ll take us many months to analyze all the information we’ve gotten. We can’t contact you very well on the other side of the world either, and thirdly, I don’t want you exposed to the sun’s rays outside the atmosphere in the Eastern Hemisphere any longer than can be helped.”
Marsh tugged carefully on his safety line and floated slowly back toward the ship. He entered the air lock. Then, inside, he raised the angle of his contour chair to upright position, facing the console of the ship’s manual controls for the glide Earthward. He plugged in his telemeter helmet cable and buckled one of the straps across his waist.
Since he was still moving at many thousands of miles an hour, it would be suicide to plunge straight downward. He and the glider would be turned into a meteoric torch. Rather, he would have to spend considerable time soaring in and out of the atmosphere in braking ellipses until he reached much lower speed. Then the Earth’s gravitational pull would do the rest.
28
This was going to be the trickiest part of the operation, and the most dangerous. Where before, Marsh had depended on automatic controls to guide him, now much of the responsibility was on his own judgment. He remembered the many hours he had sweated through to log his flying time. Now he could look back on that period in his training and thank his lucky stars for it.
He took the manual controls and angled into the atmosphere. He carefully watched the AHF dial—the atmospheric heat friction gauge. When he had neared the dangerous incendiary point, with the ship having literally become red-hot, he soared into the frictionless vacuum again. He had to keep this up a long time in order to reduce his devastating speed.
It was something of a shock to him to leave the black midnight of Earth’s slumbering side for the brilliant hemisphere where the people of Europe and Asia were going about their daytime tasks. He would have liked to study this other half of the world which he had glimpsed only a few times before in his supersonic test flights, but he knew this would have to wait for future flights.
Finally, after a long time, his velocity was slowed enough so that the tug of gravity was stronger than the rocket’s ability to pull up out of the atmosphere. At this point, Marsh cut in “Harry’s” forward braking jets to check his falling speed.
“There’s something else to worry about,” he thought to himself. “Will old Harry hold together or will he fly apart in the crushing atmosphere?”
29
The directional radio signals from the powerful Skyharbor transmitter were growing stronger as Marsh neared the shores of California. He could see the winking lights of San Diego and Los Angeles, and farther inland the swinging thread that was the beacon at Skyharbor. All planes in his path of flight had been grounded for the past few hours because of the space flight. The only ground light scanning the skies was the gigantic space beacon in Phoenix.
When Marsh reached Arizona, he began spiraling downward over the state to kill the rest of his altitude and air speed. Even now the plane was a hurtling supersonic metal sliver streaking through the night skies like a comet. He topped the snow-capped summits of the towering San Francisco Peaks on the drive southward, and he recognized the sprawling serpent of the Grand Canyon. Then he was in the lower desert regions of moon-splashed sand and cactus. Although the fire-hot temperature of the outer skin had subsided, there had been damage done to the walls and instruments, and possibly to other parts, too. Marsh was worried lest his outside controls might be too warped to give him a good touchdown, if indeed he could get down safely at all.
A few thousand feet up, Marsh lowered his landing gear. Now the only problem left was to land himself and the valuable ship safely inside the narrow parallels of the airstrip. He circled the airport several times as his altitude continued to plummet.
30
The meter fell rapidly. His braking rocket fuel was gone now. From here on in, he would be on gliding power alone.
“Easy does it, Marshall,” the general said quietly into his ear. “You’re lining up fine. Level it out a little and keep straight with the approach lights. That’s fine. You’re just about in.”
The lights of the airport seeming to rush up at him, Marsh felt a jolt as the wheels touched ground on the west end of the runway. He kept the ship steady as it scurried along the smooth asphalt, losing the last of its once tremendous velocity. The plane hit the restraining wire across the strip and came to a sudden stop, shoving Marsh hard against the single safety belt he wore. Finally, incredibly, the ship was still and he was safe.
He unfastened his strap and removed his space helmet. The heat of the compartment brought the sweat out on his face. He rose on wobbly legs and pressed the buttons to the hatches. The last door flew open to admit the cool, bracing air of Earth which he had wondered if he would ever inhale again.
His aloneness was over then, suddenly and boisterously, as men swarmed over him with congratulations, eager questions, and looks of respect. Reporters’ flash bulbs popped, and he felt like a new Lindbergh as he was pulled down to the ground and mobbed. Finally the police came to his rescue and pushed back the curiosity seekers and newspapermen. Then only three men were allowed through the cordon.
Question:
What is the setting of the story?
Answer:
|
[
"The night before the flight Marsh is in his father's temporary apartment with the view of distant Skyharbor. Next morning he leaves the house in his dad's car and gets to the airport. There he visits the doctors and goes to take a nap. Then he enters a room where he says goodbye to his friends. Then he goes to put on all the devices and takes an elevator to the platform. From there he enters the cabin of his spaceship and sets off to space. He moves through the Hemisphere to the Earth orbit. There he stops and exits, finding himself in space. He looks at the globe from there. Marsh heads back then, making circles around the United States and gets back to Sky Harbor. There he exits the ship and goes out.\n",
"The beginning of the story is set at his father’s temporary apartment. He can see the Skyharbor from his bedroom window. There is also a room next door for his parents. The apartment also has a kitchen, where his father reads the morning paper and his mother grills eggs in the skillet. \n\nWhen they drive to the airport, some guards surround the premises. Skyharbor is the biggest rocket experimental center in the United States, and there are many amenities dedicated to the preparation of space travel. There is a building for exhaustive checks and briefings, and there is a private room with a cot for General Forsythe. There is also an outside office connecting to the room. Apart from the center itself, a launch site is located further out in the field. Giant searchlights are set up to direct attention to the rocket. There is also a high wire fence that surrounds the launching ramp and blockhouses. The colonel and Marsh go through an open-cage elevator that takes them to a platform on one of the upper stages. \n\nThe rocket has a small compartment for him to sit in, with a contour chair, straps, wires, and cables connecting to a complete circuit. There is also a double hatch and a radio to ensure that Marsh can remain in communication with the authorities on Earth. Once Marsh is in space, he sees a panorama of Earth below him with patches of clouds, a gray atmosphere, and pinpoint lights of night cities. He can also see the stars, the Milky Way, and even Mars.",
"\nThe setting changes as the story progresses. The story begins in Marsh's home, in his bedroom. He then moves into the kitchen. Marsh and his father drive to the small airport known as skyharbour, where the rocket waits. In the airport there are various stations where Marsh is examined. In the general's office at the station is a cot. Marsh and the Colonel then move to the blockhouse. From there, they go into a mesh elevator that takes them to the top of the rocket. The rocket is broken into three parts: Tom, Dick and Harry. The first two break off at different points in Marsh's journey, to allow for maximum propulsion. The cabin that Marsh sits in on his journey is small and cramped. There is a comfy lounging chair which he sits at, and a radio system which allows him to communicate with mission control. Below the rocket, one half of the Earth can be seen in darkness. Marsh notices different American cities and mountain ranges. The rocket then moves to the other side of the planet, where it is daytime. He sees Europe and Asia. On his final descent, Marsh notices different parts of California: the grand canyon, the mountains in san francisco and deserts. He finally touches down in a vast desert in Arizona. ",
"The story takes place on Earth, and it is their first trip to the space. It starts in Marsh’s room where there is a window and he can see his father’s temporary apartment as well as the Skyharbor. Then later at Skyharbor, he was first checked with a doctor and then went to outside of the office which has an adjoining room. There is a lift next to the platform of the surrounding of the rocket. The rocket has a small compartment in Harry; Dick and Tom are two parts of the rocket that will fall. There is a soft contour chair and straps to be fastened. The Mach shows the speed of the rocket, and the speedometer shows the force pressing on him, as well as an atmospheric heat friction gauge; there is also a temperature gauge on the rocket, and a reflecting prism to see the outside. The rocket has a cramped chamber which can lead him to the outside of the rocket. "
] |
55801
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THE FIRST MAN INTO SPACE
Cadet Marshall Farnsworth woke from a nightmare of exploding novae and fouling rockets. After recovering from his fright, he laughed contemptuously at himself. “Here I was picked as the most stable of a group of two hundred cadets,” he thought, “and chosen to make man’s first trip into space, yet I’m shaking like a leaf.”
He got out of bed and went over to the window. From his father’s temporary apartment, he could see distant Skyharbor, the scene of the plunge into space tomorrow night. He had been awarded the frightening honor of making that trip.
10
As he watched teardrop cars whip along Phoenix, Arizona’s, double-decked streets, elevated over one another to avoid dangerous intersections and delaying stop lights, he thought back over the years; to the 1950’s, when mice and monkeys were sent up in Vikings to launch mankind’s first probing of the mysterious space beyond Earth, and the first satellites were launched; to the 1960’s, when huger, multiple-stage rockets finally conquered the problem of escape velocity; to 1975—today—when man was finally ready to send one of his own kind into the uninhabited deeps.
Marsh climbed back into bed, but sleep would not come.
In the adjoining room, he could hear the footsteps of mother and father. By their sound he knew they were the footsteps of worried people. This hurt Marsh more than his own uneasiness.
The anxiety had begun for them, he knew, when he had first signed up for space-cadet training. They had known there was an extremely high percentage of washouts, and after each test he passed, they had pretended to be glad. But Marsh knew that inwardly they had hoped he would fail, for they were aware of the ultimate goal that the space scientists were working for—the goal that had just now been reached.
Marsh finally fell into a troubled sleep that lasted until morning.
He woke early, before the alarm rang. He got up, showered, pulled on his blue-corded cadet uniform, and tugged on the polished gray boots. He took one final look around his room as though in farewell, then went out to the kitchen.
11
His folks were up ahead of time too, trying to act as though it were just another day. Dad was pretending to enjoy his morning paper, nodding only casually to Marsh as he came in. Mom was stirring scrambled eggs in the skillet, but she wasn’t a very good actor, Marsh noticed, for she furtively wiped her eyes with her free hand.
The eggs were cooked too hard and the toast had to be scraped, but no one seemed to care. The three of them sat down at the table, still speaking in monosyllables and of unimportant things. They made a pretense of eating.
“Well, Mom,” Dad suddenly said with a forced jollity that was intended to break the tension, “the Farnsworth family has finally got a celebrity in it.”
“I don’t see why they don’t send an older man!” Mom burst out, as though she had been holding it in as long as she could. “Sending a boy who isn’t even twenty-two—”
“Things are different nowadays, Mom,” Dad explained, still with the assumed calmness that masked his real feelings. “These days, men grow up faster and mature quicker. They’re stronger and more alert than older men—” His voice trailed off as if he were unable to convince himself.
“ Some body has to go,” Marsh said. “Why not a younger man without family and responsibility? That’s why they’re giving younger men more opportunities today than they used to.”
“It’s not younger men I’m talking about!” Mom blurted. “It’s you, Marsh!”
12
Dad leaned over and patted Mom on the shoulder.
“Now, Ruth, we promised not to get excited this morning.”
“I’m sorry,” Mom said weakly. “But Marsh is too young to—” She caught herself and put her hand over her mouth.
“Stop talking like that!” Dad said. “Marsh is coming back. There’ve been thousands of rockets sent aloft. The space engineers have made sure that every bug has been ironed out before risking a man’s life. Why, that rocket which Marsh is going up in is as safe as our auto in the garage, isn’t it, Marsh?”
“I hope so, Dad,” Marsh murmured.
Later, as Dad drove Marsh to the field, each brooded silently. Every scene along the way seemed to take on a new look for Marsh. He saw things that he had never noticed before. It was an uncomfortable feeling, almost as if he were seeing these things for the last as well as the first time.
Finally the airport came into view. The guards at the gate recognized Marsh and ushered the Farnsworth car through ahead of scores of others that crowded the entrance. Some eager news photographers slipped up close and shot off flash bulbs in Marsh’s eyes.
Skyharbor, once a small commercial field, had been taken over by the Air Force in recent years and converted into the largest rocket experimental center in the United States.
13
Dad drove up to the building that would be the scene of Marsh’s first exhaustive tests and briefings. He stopped the car, and Marsh jumped out. Their good-by was brief. Marsh saw his father’s mouth quiver. There was a tightness in his own throat. He had gone through any number of grueling tests to prove that he could take the rigors of space, but not one of them had prepared him for the hardest moments of parting.
When Dad had driven off, Marsh reported first to the psychiatrist who checked his condition.
“Pulse fast, a rise in blood pressure,” he said.
“You’re excited, aren’t you, son?”
“Yes, sir,” Marsh admitted. “Maybe they’ve got the wrong man, sir. I might fail them.”
The doctor grinned. “They don’t have the wrong man,” he said. “They might have, with a so-called iron-nerved fellow. He could contain his tension and fears until later, until maybe the moment of blast-off. Then he’d let go, and when he needed his calmest judgment he wouldn’t have it. No, Marshall, there isn’t a man alive who could make this history-making flight without some anxiety. Forget it. You’ll feel better as the day goes on. I’ll see you once more before the blast-off.”
Marsh felt more at ease already. He went on to the space surgeon, was given a complete physical examination, and was pronounced in perfect condition. Then began his review briefing on everything he would encounter during the flight.
14
Blast-off time was for 2230, an hour and a half before midnight. Since at night, in the Western Hemisphere, Earth was masking the sun, the complications of excessive temperatures in the outer reaches were avoided during the time Marsh would be outside the ship. Marsh would occupy the small upper third section of a three-stage rocket. The first two parts would be jettisoned after reaching their peak velocities. Top speed of the third stage would carry Marsh into a perpetual-flight orbit around Earth, along the route that a permanent space station was to be built after the results of the flight were studied. After spending a little while in this orbit, Marsh would begin the precarious journey back to Earth, in gliding flight.
He got a few hours of sleep after sunset. When an officer shook him, he rose from the cot he had been lying on in a private room of General Forsythe, Chief of Space Operations.
“It’s almost time, son,” the officer said. “Your CO wants to see you in the outside office.”
Marsh went into the adjoining room and found his cadet chief awaiting him. The youth detected an unusual warmth about the severe gentleman who previously had shown only a firm, uncompromising attitude. Colonel Tregasker was past middle age, and his white, sparse hair was smoothed down close to his head in regulation neatness.
15
“Well, this is it, Marshall,” the colonel said.
“How I envy you this honor of being the first human to enter space. However, I do feel that a part of me is going along too, since I had a small share in preparing you for the trip. If the training was harsh at times, I believe that shortly you will understand the reason for it.”
“I didn’t feel that the Colonel was either too soft or strict, sir,” Marsh said diplomatically.
A speaker out on the brilliantly lit field blared loudly in the cool desert night: “X minus forty minutes.”
“We can’t talk all night, Marshall,” the colonel said briskly. “You’ve got a job to do. But first, a few of your friends want to wish you luck.” He called into the anteroom, “You may come in, gentlemen!”
There filed smartly into the room ten youths who had survived the hard prespace course with Marsh and would be his successors in case he failed tonight. They formed a line and shook hands with Marsh. The first was Armen Norton who had gotten sick in the rugged centrifuge at a force of 9 G’s, then had rallied to pass the test.
“Good luck, Marsh,” he said.
Next was lanky Lawrence Egan who had been certain he would wash out during navigation phase in the planetarium. “All the luck in the world, Marsh,” he added.
Each cadet brought back a special memory of his training as they passed before him, wishing him success.
16
When they had gone and the speaker outside had announced: “X minus thirty minutes,” the colonel said that he and Marsh had better be leaving. Colonel Tregasker was to be Marsh’s escort to the ship.
Photographers and newspapermen swarmed about them as they climbed into the jeep that was to take them to the launching site farther out on the field. Questions were flung at the two from all sides, but the colonel deftly maneuvered the jeep through the mob and sped off over the asphalt.
At the blast-off site, Marsh could see that the police had their hands full keeping out thousands of spectators who were trying to get into the closed-off area. The field was choked with a tide of humanity milling about in wild confusion. Giant searchlights, both at the airport and in other parts of Phoenix, directed spears of light on the towering rocket that held the interest of all the world tonight. There was one light, far larger than the rest, with powerful condensing lenses and connected to a giant radar screen, which would guide Marsh home from his trip among the stars.
A high wire fence surrounded the launching ramp and blockhouses. International scientists and dignitaries with priorities formed a ring around the fence, but even they were not allowed inside the small circle of important activity. The guards waved the colonel and Marsh through the gate.
17
Marsh had spent many weeks in a mock-up of the tiny third stage in which he was to spend his time aloft, but he had never been close to the completely assembled ship until this moment. The three stages had been nicknamed, “Tom,” “Dick,” and “Harry.” Marsh swallowed as his eyes roved up the side of the great vessel, part of a project that had cost millions to perfect and was as high as a four-story building.
The gigantic base, “Big Tom,” was the section that would have the hardest job to do, that of thrusting the rocket through the densest part of the atmosphere, and this was a great deal larger than the other sections. Marsh knew that most of the ship’s bulk was made up of the propellant fuel of hydrazine hydrate and its oxidizer, nitric acid.
“We’re going into that blockhouse over there,” Colonel Tregasker said. “You’ll don your space gear in there.”
First a multitude of gadgets with wires were fastened to the cadet’s wrists, ankles, nose, and head. Marsh knew this to be one of the most important phases of the flight—to find out a man’s reaction to space flight under actual rocketing conditions. Each wire would telemeter certain information by radio back to the airport. After a tight inner G suit had been put on to prevent blackout, the plastic and rubber outer garment was zipped up around Marsh, and then he was ready except for his helmet, which would not be donned until later.
18
Marsh and the colonel went back outside. The open-cage elevator was lowered from the top of the big latticed platform that surrounded the rocket. The two got into the cage, and it rose with them. Marsh had lost most of his anxiety and tension during the activities of the day, but his knees felt rubbery in these final moments as the elevator carried him high above the noisy confusion of the airport. This was it.
As they stepped from the cage onto the platform of the third stage, Marsh heard the speaker below call out: “X minus twenty minutes.”
There were eleven engineers and workmen on the platform readying the compartment that Marsh would occupy. Marsh suddenly felt helpless and alone as he faced the small chamber that might very well be his death cell. Its intricate dials and wires were staggering in their complexity.
Marsh turned and shook hands with Colonel Tregasker.
“Good-by, sir,” he said in a quavering voice.
“I hope I remember everything the Corps taught me.” He tried to smile, but his facial muscles twitched uncontrollably.
“Good luck, son—lots of it,” the officer said huskily. Suddenly he leaned forward and embraced the youth with a firm, fatherly hug. “This is not regulations,” he mumbled gruffly, “but hang regulations!” He turned quickly and asked to be carried down to the ground.
A man brought Marsh’s helmet and placed it over his head, then clamped it to the suit. Knobs on the suit were twisted, and Marsh felt a warm, pressurized helium-oxygen mixture fill his suit and headpiece.
19
Marsh stepped through the hatch into the small compartment. He reclined in the soft contour chair, and the straps were fastened by one of the engineers over his chest, waist, and legs. The wires connected to various parts of his body had been brought together into a single unit in the helmet. A wire cable leading from the panel was plugged into the outside of the helmet to complete the circuit.
Final tests were run off to make sure everything was in proper working order, including the two-way short-wave radio that would have to penetrate the electrical ocean of the ionosphere. Then the double-hatch air lock was closed. Through his helmet receiver, Marsh could hear the final minutes and seconds being called off from inside the blockhouse.
“Everything O.K.?” Marsh was asked by someone on the platform.
“Yes, sir,” Marsh replied.
“Then you’re on your own,” were the final ominous words.
“X minus five minutes,” called the speaker.
20
It was the longest five minutes that Marsh could remember. He was painfully aware of his cramped quarters. He thought of the tons of explosive beneath him that presently would literally blow him sky-high. And he thought of the millions of people the world over who, at this moment, were hovering at radios and TV’s anxiously awaiting the dawn of the space age. Finally he thought of Dad and Mom, lost in that multitude of night watchers, and among the few who were not primarily concerned with the scientific aspect of the experiment. He wondered if he would ever see them again.
“X minus sixty seconds!”
Marsh knew that a warning flare was being sent up, to be followed by a whistle and a cloud of smoke from one of the blockhouses. As he felt fear trying to master him, he began reviewing all the things he must remember and, above all, what to do in an emergency.
“X minus ten seconds—five—four—three—two—one—FIRE!”
There was a mighty explosion at Skyharbor.
The initial jolt which Marsh felt was much fiercer than the gradually built up speed of the whirling centrifuge in training. He was crushed deeply into his contour chair. It felt as though someone were pressing on his eyeballs; indeed, as if every organ in his body were clinging to his backbone. But these first moments would be the worst. A gauge showed a force of 7 G’s on him—equal to half a ton.
He watched the Mach numbers rise on the dial in front of his eyes on an overhead panel. Each Mach number represented that much times the speed of sound, 1,090 feet per second, 740 miles an hour.
Marsh knew “Big Tom” would blast for about a minute and a half under control of the automatic pilot, at which time it would drop free at an altitude of twenty-five miles and sink Earthward in a metal mesh ’chute.
21
Marsh’s hurting eyes flicked to the outside temperature gauge. It was on a steady 67 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, and would be until he reached twenty miles. A reflecting prism gave him a square of view of the sky outside. The clear deep blue of the cloud-free stratosphere met his eyes.
Mach 5, Mach 6, Mach 7 passed very quickly. He heard a rumble and felt a jerk. “Big Tom” was breaking free. The first hurdle had been successfully overcome, and the ship had already begun tilting into its trajectory.
There was a new surge of agony on his body as the second stage picked up the acceleration at a force of 7 G’s again. Marsh clamped his jaws as the force pulled his lips back from his teeth and dragged his cheek muscles down. The Mach numbers continued to rise—11, 12, 13—to altitude 200 miles, the outer fringe of the earth’s atmosphere. There was a slight lifting of the pressure on his body. The rocket was still in the stratosphere, but the sky was getting purple.
Mach 14—10,000 miles an hour.
“Dick” would jettison any moment. Marsh had been aloft only about four minutes, but it had seemed an age, every tortured second of it.
22
There was another rumble as the second stage broke free. Marsh felt a new surge directly beneath him as his own occupied section, “Harry,” began blasting. It was comforting to realize he had successfully weathered those tons of exploding hydrazine and acid that could have reduced him to nothing if something had gone wrong. Although his speed was still building up, the weight on him began to ease steadily as his body’s inertia finally yielded to the sickeningly swift acceleration.
The speedometer needle climbed to Mach 21, the peak velocity of the rocket, 16,000 miles per hour. His altitude was 350 miles—man’s highest ascent. Slowly then, the speedometer began to drop back. Marsh heard the turbo pumps and jets go silent as the “lift” fuel was spent and rocket “Harry” began its free-flight orbit around Earth.
The ship had reached a speed which exactly counterbalanced the pull of gravity, and it could, theoretically, travel this way forever, provided no other outside force acted upon it. The effect on Marsh now was as if he had stopped moving. Relieved of the viselike pressure, his stomach and chest for a few seconds felt like inflated balloons.
“Cadet Farnsworth,” the voice of General Forsythe spoke into his helmet receiver, “are you all right?”
“Yes, sir,” Marsh replied. “That is, I think so.”
It was good to hear a human voice again, something to hold onto in this crazy unreal world into which he had been hurtled.
“We’re getting the electronic readings from your gauges O.K.,” the voice went on. “The doctor says your pulse is satisfactory under the circumstances.”
It was queer having your pulse read from 350 miles up in the air.
23
Marsh realized, of course, that he was not truly in the “air.” A glance at his air-pressure gauge confirmed this. He was virtually in a vacuum. The temperature and wind velocity outside might have astounded him if he were not prepared for the readings. The heat was over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, and the wind velocity was of hurricane force! But these figures meant nothing because of the sparseness of air molecules. Temperature and wind applied only to the individual particles, which were thousands of feet apart.
“How is your cosmic-ray count?” asked the general.
Marsh checked the C-ray counter on the panel from which clicking sounds were coming. “It’s low, sir. Nothing to worry about.”
Cosmic rays, the most powerful emanations known, were the only radiation in space that could not be protected against. But in small doses they had been found not to be dangerous.
“As soon as our recorders get more of the figures your telemeter is giving us,” the operations chief said, “you can leave the rocket.”
When Marsh got the O.K. a few minutes later, he eagerly unstrapped the belts around his body. He could hardly contain his excitement at being the first person to view the globe of Earth from space. As he struggled to his feet, the lightness of zero gravity made him momentarily giddy, and it took some minutes for him to adjust to the terribly strange sensation.
24
He had disconnected the cable leading from his helmet to the ship’s transmitter and switched on the ship’s fast-lens movie camera that would photograph the area covered by “Harry.” Then he was ready to go outside. He pressed a button on the wall, and the first air-lock hatch opened. He floated into the narrow alcove and closed the door in the cramped chamber behind him. He watched a gauge, and when it showed normal pressure and temperature again, he opened the outside hatch, closing it behind him. Had Marsh permitted the vacuum of space to contact the interior of the ship’s quarters, delicate instruments would have been ruined by the sudden decompression and loss of heat. Marsh fastened his safety line to the ship so that there was no chance of his becoming separated from it.
Then he looked “downward,” to experience the thrill of his life. Like a gigantic relief map, the panorama of Earth stretched across his vision. A downy blanket of gray atmosphere spread over the whole of it, and patches of clouds were seen floating like phantom shapes beneath the clear vastness of the stratosphere. It was a stunning sight for Marsh, seeing the pinpoint lights of the night cities extending from horizon to horizon. It gave him an exhilarating feeling of being a king over it all.
25
Earth appeared to be rotating, but Marsh knew it was largely his own and the rocket’s fast speed that was responsible for the illusion. As he hung in this region of the exosphere, he was thankful for his cadet training in zero gravity. A special machine, developed only in recent years, simulated the weightlessness of space and trained the cadets for endurance in such artificial conditions.
“Describe some of the things you see, Marshall,” General Forsythe said over Marsh’s helmet receiver.
“I’ve just cut in a recorder.”
“It’s a scene almost beyond description, sir,” Marsh said into the helmet mike. “The sky is thickly powdered with stars. The Milky Way is very distinct, and I can make out lots of fuzzy spots that must be star clusters and nebulae and comets. Mars is like an extremely bright taillight, and the moon is so strong it hurts my eyes as much as the direct sun does on earth.”
Marsh saw a faintly luminous blur pass beyond the ship. It had been almost too sudden to catch. He believed it to be a meteor diving Earthward at a speed around forty-five miles a second. He reported this to the general.
As he brought his eyes down from the more distant fixtures of space to those closer by on Earth, a strange thing happened. He was suddenly seized with a fear of falling, although his zero-gravity training had been intended to prepare him against this very thing. A cold sweat come out over his body, and an uncontrollable panic threatened to take hold of him.
26
He made a sudden movement as though to catch himself. Forgetting the magnification of motion in frictionless space and his own weightlessness, he was shot quickly to the end of his safety line like a cracked whip. His body jerked at the taut end and then sped swiftly back in reaction toward the ship, head foremost. A collision could crack his helmet, exposing his body to decompression, causing him to swell like a balloon and finally explode.
In the grip of numbing fear, only at the last moment did he have the presence of mind to flip his body in a half-cartwheel and bring his boots up in front of him for protection. His feet bumped against the rocket’s side, and the motion sent him hurtling back out to the end of the safety line again. This back-and-forth action occurred several times before he could stop completely.
“I’ve got to be careful,” he panted to himself, as he thought of how close his space career had come to being ended scarcely before it had begun.
General Forsythe cut in with great concern, wondering what had happened. When Marsh had explained and the general seemed satisfied that Marsh had recovered himself, he had Marsh go on with his description.
His senseless fear having gone now, Marsh looked down calmly, entranced as the features of the United States passed below his gaze. He named the cities he could identify, also the mountain ranges, lakes, and rivers, explaining just how they looked from 350 miles up. In only a fraction of an hour’s time, the rocket had traversed the entire country and was approaching the twinkling phosphorescence of the Atlantic.
27
Marsh asked if “Tom” and “Dick” had landed safely.
“‘Tom’ landed near Roswell, New Mexico,” General Forsythe told him, “and the ’chute of the second section has been reported seen north of Dallas. I think you’d better start back now, Marshall. It’ll take us many months to analyze all the information we’ve gotten. We can’t contact you very well on the other side of the world either, and thirdly, I don’t want you exposed to the sun’s rays outside the atmosphere in the Eastern Hemisphere any longer than can be helped.”
Marsh tugged carefully on his safety line and floated slowly back toward the ship. He entered the air lock. Then, inside, he raised the angle of his contour chair to upright position, facing the console of the ship’s manual controls for the glide Earthward. He plugged in his telemeter helmet cable and buckled one of the straps across his waist.
Since he was still moving at many thousands of miles an hour, it would be suicide to plunge straight downward. He and the glider would be turned into a meteoric torch. Rather, he would have to spend considerable time soaring in and out of the atmosphere in braking ellipses until he reached much lower speed. Then the Earth’s gravitational pull would do the rest.
28
This was going to be the trickiest part of the operation, and the most dangerous. Where before, Marsh had depended on automatic controls to guide him, now much of the responsibility was on his own judgment. He remembered the many hours he had sweated through to log his flying time. Now he could look back on that period in his training and thank his lucky stars for it.
He took the manual controls and angled into the atmosphere. He carefully watched the AHF dial—the atmospheric heat friction gauge. When he had neared the dangerous incendiary point, with the ship having literally become red-hot, he soared into the frictionless vacuum again. He had to keep this up a long time in order to reduce his devastating speed.
It was something of a shock to him to leave the black midnight of Earth’s slumbering side for the brilliant hemisphere where the people of Europe and Asia were going about their daytime tasks. He would have liked to study this other half of the world which he had glimpsed only a few times before in his supersonic test flights, but he knew this would have to wait for future flights.
Finally, after a long time, his velocity was slowed enough so that the tug of gravity was stronger than the rocket’s ability to pull up out of the atmosphere. At this point, Marsh cut in “Harry’s” forward braking jets to check his falling speed.
“There’s something else to worry about,” he thought to himself. “Will old Harry hold together or will he fly apart in the crushing atmosphere?”
29
The directional radio signals from the powerful Skyharbor transmitter were growing stronger as Marsh neared the shores of California. He could see the winking lights of San Diego and Los Angeles, and farther inland the swinging thread that was the beacon at Skyharbor. All planes in his path of flight had been grounded for the past few hours because of the space flight. The only ground light scanning the skies was the gigantic space beacon in Phoenix.
When Marsh reached Arizona, he began spiraling downward over the state to kill the rest of his altitude and air speed. Even now the plane was a hurtling supersonic metal sliver streaking through the night skies like a comet. He topped the snow-capped summits of the towering San Francisco Peaks on the drive southward, and he recognized the sprawling serpent of the Grand Canyon. Then he was in the lower desert regions of moon-splashed sand and cactus. Although the fire-hot temperature of the outer skin had subsided, there had been damage done to the walls and instruments, and possibly to other parts, too. Marsh was worried lest his outside controls might be too warped to give him a good touchdown, if indeed he could get down safely at all.
A few thousand feet up, Marsh lowered his landing gear. Now the only problem left was to land himself and the valuable ship safely inside the narrow parallels of the airstrip. He circled the airport several times as his altitude continued to plummet.
30
The meter fell rapidly. His braking rocket fuel was gone now. From here on in, he would be on gliding power alone.
“Easy does it, Marshall,” the general said quietly into his ear. “You’re lining up fine. Level it out a little and keep straight with the approach lights. That’s fine. You’re just about in.”
The lights of the airport seeming to rush up at him, Marsh felt a jolt as the wheels touched ground on the west end of the runway. He kept the ship steady as it scurried along the smooth asphalt, losing the last of its once tremendous velocity. The plane hit the restraining wire across the strip and came to a sudden stop, shoving Marsh hard against the single safety belt he wore. Finally, incredibly, the ship was still and he was safe.
He unfastened his strap and removed his space helmet. The heat of the compartment brought the sweat out on his face. He rose on wobbly legs and pressed the buttons to the hatches. The last door flew open to admit the cool, bracing air of Earth which he had wondered if he would ever inhale again.
His aloneness was over then, suddenly and boisterously, as men swarmed over him with congratulations, eager questions, and looks of respect. Reporters’ flash bulbs popped, and he felt like a new Lindbergh as he was pulled down to the ground and mobbed. Finally the police came to his rescue and pushed back the curiosity seekers and newspapermen. Then only three men were allowed through the cordon.
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Describe the setting of the story
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Yesterday House by Fritz Leiber.
Relevant chunks:
Yesterday House
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by ASHMAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Meeting someone who's been dead for twenty years is shocking enough for anyone with a belief in ghosts—worse for one with none!
I
The narrow cove was quiet as the face of an expectant child, yet so near the ruffled Atlantic that the last push of wind carried the Annie O. its full length. The man in gray flannels and sweatshirt let the sail come crumpling down and hurried past its white folds at a gait made comically awkward by his cramped muscles. Slowly the rocky ledge came nearer. Slowly the blue V inscribed on the cove's surface by the sloop's prow died. Sloop and ledge kissed so gently that he hardly had to reach out his hand.
He scrambled ashore, dipping a sneaker in the icy water, and threw the line around a boulder. Unkinking himself, he looked back through the cove's high and rocky mouth at the gray-green scattering of islands and the faint dark line that was the coast of Maine. He almost laughed in satisfaction at having disregarded vague warnings and done the thing every man yearns to do once in his lifetime—gone to the farthest island out.
He must have looked longer than he realized, because by the time he dropped his gaze the cove was again as glassy as if the Annie O. had always been there. And the splotches made by his sneaker on the rock had faded in the hot sun. There was something very unusual about the quietness of this place. As if time, elsewhere hurrying frantically, paused here to rest. As if all changes were erased on this one bit of Earth.
The man's lean, melancholy face crinkled into a grin at the banal fancy. He turned his back on his new friend, the little green sloop, without one thought for his nets and specimen bottles, and set out to explore. The ground rose steeply at first and the oaks were close, but after a little way things went downhill and the leaves thinned and he came out on more rocks—and realized that he hadn't quite gone to the farthest one out.
Joined to this island by a rocky spine, which at the present low tide would have been dry but for the spray, was another green, high island that the first had masked from him all the while he had been sailing. He felt a thrill of discovery, just as he'd wondered back in the woods whether his might not be the first human feet to kick through the underbrush. After all, there were thousands of these islands.
Then he was dropping down the rocks, his lanky limbs now moving smoothly enough.
To the landward side of the spine, the water was fairly still. It even began with another deep cove, in which he glimpsed the spiny spheres of sea urchins. But from seaward the waves chopped in, sprinkling his trousers to the knees and making him wince pleasurably at the thought of what vast wings of spray and towers of solid water must crash up from here in a storm.
He crossed the rocks at a trot, ran up a short grassy slope, raced through a fringe of trees—and came straight up against an eight-foot fence of heavy mesh topped with barbed wire and backed at a short distance with high, heavy shrubbery.
Without pausing for surprise—in fact, in his holiday mood, using surprise as a goad—he jumped for the branch of an oak whose trunk touched the fence, scorning the easier lower branch on the other side of the tree. Then he drew himself up, worked his way to some higher branches that crossed the fence, and dropped down inside.
Suddenly cautious, he gently parted the shrubbery and, before the first surprise could really sink in, had another.
A closely mown lawn dotted with more shrubbery ran up to a snug white Cape Cod cottage. The single strand of a radio aerial stretched the length of the roof. Parked on a neat gravel driveway that crossed just in front of the cottage was a short, square-lined touring car that he recognized from remembered pictures as an ancient Essex. The whole scene had about it the same odd quietness as the cove.
Then, with the air of a clock-work toy coming to life, the white door opened and an elderly woman came out, dressed in a long, lace-edged dress and wide, lacy hat. She climbed into the driver's seat of the Essex, sitting there very stiff and tall. The motor began to chug bravely, gravel skittered, and the car rolled off between the trees.
The door of the house opened again and a slim girl emerged. She wore a white silk dress that fell straight from square neck-line to hip-height waistline, making the skirt seem very short. Her dark hair was bound with a white bandeau so that it curved close to her cheeks. A dark necklace dangled against the white of the dress. A newspaper was tucked under her arm.
She crossed the driveway and tossed the paper down on a rattan table between three rattan chairs and stood watching a squirrel zigzag across the lawn.
The man stepped through the wall of shrubbery, called, "hello!" and walked toward her.
She whirled around and stared at him as still as if her heart had stopped beating. Then she darted behind the table and waited for him there. Granting the surprise of his appearance, her alarm seemed not so much excessive as eerie. As if, the man thought, he were not an ordinary stranger, but a visitor from another planet.
Approaching closer, he saw that she was trembling and that her breath was coming in rapid, irregular gasps. Yet the slim, sweet, patrician face that stared into his had an underlying expression of expectancy that reminded him of the cove. She couldn't have been more than eighteen.
He stopped short of the table. Before he could speak, she stammered out, "Are you he?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, smiling puzzledly.
"The one who sends me the little boxes."
"I was out sailing and I happened to land in the far cove. I didn't dream that anyone lived on this island, or even came here."
"No one ever does come here," she replied. Her manner had changed, becoming at once more wary and less agitated, though still eerily curious.
"It startled me tremendously to find this place," he blundered on.
"Especially the road and the car. Why, this island can't be more than a quarter of a mile wide."
"The road goes down to the wharf," she explained, "and up to the top of the island, where my aunts have a tree-house."
He tore his mind away from the picture of a woman dressed like Queen Mary clambering up a tree. "Was that your aunt I saw driving off?"
"One of them. The other's taken the motorboat in for supplies." She looked at him doubtfully. "I'm not sure they'll like it if they find someone here."
"There are just the three of you?" he cut in quickly, looking down the empty road that vanished among the oaks.
She nodded.
"I suppose you go in to the mainland with your aunts quite often?"
She shook her head.
"It must get pretty dull for you."
"Not very," she said, smiling. "My aunts bring me the papers and other things. Even movies. We've got a projector. My favorite stars are Antonio Morino and Alice Terry. I like her better even than Clara Bow."
He looked at her hard for a moment. "I suppose you read a lot?"
She nodded. "Fitzgerald's my favorite author." She started around the table, hesitated, suddenly grew shy. "Would you like some lemonade?"
He'd noticed the dewed silver pitcher, but only now realized his thirst. Yet when she handed him a glass, he held it untasted and said awkwardly, "I haven't introduced myself. I'm Jack Barry."
She stared at his outstretched right hand, slowly extended her own toward it, shook it up and down exactly once, then quickly dropped it.
He chuckled and gulped some lemonade. "I'm a biology student. Been working at Wood's Hole the first part of the summer. But now I'm here to do research in marine ecology—that's sort of sea-life patterns—of the in-shore islands. Under the direction of Professor Kesserich. You know about him, of course?"
She shook her head.
"Probably the greatest living biologist," he was proud to inform her. "Human physiology as well. Tremendous geneticist. In a class with Carlson and Jacques Loeb. Martin Kesserich—he lives over there at town. I'm staying with him. You ought to have heard of him." He grinned. "Matter of fact, I'd never have met you if it hadn't been for Mrs. Kesserich."
The girl looked puzzled.
Jack explained, "The old boy's been off to Europe on some conferences, won't be back for a couple days more. But I was to get started anyhow. When I went out this morning Mrs. Kesserich—she's a drab sort of person—said to me, 'Don't try to sail to the farther islands.' So, of course, I had to. By the way, you still haven't told me your name."
"Mary Alice Pope," she said, speaking slowly and with an odd wonder, as if she were saying it for the first time.
"You're pretty shy, aren't you?"
"How would I know?"
The question stopped Jack. He couldn't think of anything to say to this strangely attractive girl dressed almost like a "flapper."
"Will you sit down?" she asked him gravely.
The rattan chair sighed under his weight. He made another effort to talk. "I'll bet you'll be glad when summer's over."
"Why?"
"So you'll be able to go back to the mainland."
"But I never go to the mainland."
"You mean you stay out here all winter?" he asked incredulously, his mind filled with a vision of snow and frozen spray and great gray waves.
"Oh, yes. We get all our supplies on hand before winter. My aunts are very capable. They don't always wear long lace dresses. And now I help them."
"But that's impossible!" he said with sudden sympathetic anger. "You can't be shut off this way from people your own age!"
"You're the first one I ever met." She hesitated. "I never saw a boy or a man before, except in movies."
"You're joking!"
"No, it's true."
"But why are they doing it to you?" he demanded, leaning forward. "Why are they inflicting this loneliness on you, Mary?"
She seemed to have gained poise from his loss of it. "I don't know why. I'm to find out soon. But actually I'm not lonely. May I tell you a secret?" She touched his hand, this time with only the faintest trembling. "Every night the loneliness gathers in around me—you're right about that. But then every morning new life comes to me in a little box."
"What's that?" he said sharply.
"Sometimes there's a poem in the box, sometimes a book, or pictures, or flowers, or a ring, but always a note. Next to the notes I like the poems best. My favorite is the one by Matthew Arnold that ends,
'Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude—'"
"Wait a minute," he interrupted. "Who sends you these boxes?"
"I don't know."
"But how are the notes signed?"
"They're wonderful notes," she said. "So wise, so gay, so tender, you'd imagine them being written by John Barrymore or Lindbergh."
"Yes, but how are they signed?"
She hesitated. "Never anything but 'Your Lover.'"
"And so when you first saw me, you thought—" He began, then stopped because she was blushing.
"How long have you been getting them?"
"Ever since I can remember. I have two closets of the boxes. The new ones are either by my bed when I wake or at my place at breakfast."
"But how does this—person get these boxes to you out here? Does he give them to your aunts and do they put them there?"
"I'm not sure."
"But how can they get them in winter?"
"I don't know."
"Look here," he said, pouring himself more lemonade, "how long is it since you've been to the mainland?"
"Almost eighteen years. My aunts tell me I was born there in the middle of the war."
"What war?" he asked startledly, spilling some lemonade.
"The World War, of course. What's the matter?"
Jack Barr was staring down at the spilled lemonade and feeling a kind of terror he'd never experienced in his waking life. Nothing around him had changed. He could still feel the same hot sun on his shoulders, the same icy glass in his hand, scent the same lemon-acid odor in his nostrils. He could still hear the faint chop-chop of the waves.
And yet everything had changed, gone dark and dizzy as a landscape glimpsed just before a faint. All the little false notes had come to a sudden focus. For the lemonade had spilled on the headline of the newspaper the girl had tossed down, and the headline read:
HITLER IN NEW DEFIANCE
Under the big black banner of that head swam smaller ones:
Foes of Machado Riot in Havana
Big NRA Parade Planned
Balbo Speaks in New York
Suddenly he felt a surge of relief. He had noticed that the paper was yellow and brittle-edged.
"Why are you so interested in old newspapers?" he asked.
"I wouldn't call day-before-yesterday's paper old," the girl objected, pointing at the dateline: July 20, 1933.
"You're trying to joke," Jack told her.
"No, I'm not."
"But it's 1953."
"Now it's you who are joking."
"But the paper's yellow."
"The paper's always yellow."
He laughed uneasily. "Well, if you actually think it's 1933, perhaps you're to be envied," he said, with a sardonic humor he didn't quite feel. "Then you can't know anything about the Second World War, or television, or the V-2s, or Bikini bathing suits, or the atomic bomb, or—"
"Stop!" She had sprung up and retreated around her chair, white-faced.
"I don't like what you're saying."
"But—"
"No, please! Jokes that may be quite harmless on the mainland sound different here."
"I'm really not joking," he said after a moment.
She grew quite frantic at that. "I can show you all last week's papers! I can show you magazines and other things. I can prove it!"
She started toward the house. He followed. He felt his heart begin to pound.
At the white door she paused, looking worriedly down the road. Jack thought he could hear the faint chug of a motorboat. She pushed open the door and he followed her inside. The small-windowed room was dark after the sunlight. Jack got an impression of solid old furniture, a fireplace with brass andirons.
"Flash!" croaked a gritty voice. "After their disastrous break day before yesterday, stocks are recovering. Leading issues...."
Jack realized that he had started and had involuntarily put his arm around the girl's shoulders. At the same time he noticed that the voice was coming from the curved brown trumpet of an old-fashioned radio loudspeaker.
The girl didn't pull away from him. He turned toward her. Although her gray eyes were on him, her attention had gone elsewhere.
"I can hear the car. They're coming back. They won't like it that you're here."
"All right they won't like it."
Her agitation grew. "No, you must go."
"I'll come back tomorrow," he heard himself saying.
"Flash! It looks as if the World Economic Conference may soon adjourn, mouthing jeers at old Uncle Sam who is generally referred to as Uncle Shylock."
Jack felt a numbness on his neck. The room seemed to be darkening, the girl growing stranger still.
"You must go before they see you."
"Flash! Wiley Post has just completed his solo circuit of the Globe, after a record-breaking flight of 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes. Asked how he felt after the energy-draining feat, Post quipped...."
He was halfway across the lawn before he realized the terror into which the grating radio voice had thrown him.
He leaped for the branch over-hanging the fence, vaulted up with the risky help of a foot on the barbed top. A surprised squirrel, lacking time to make its escape up the trunk, sprang to the ground ahead of him. With terrible suddenness, two steel-jawed semicircles clanked together just over the squirrel's head. Jack landed with one foot to either side of the sprung trap, while the squirrel darted off with a squeak.
Jack plunged down the slope to the rocky spine and ran across it, spray from the rising waves spattering him to the waist. Panting now, he stumbled up into the oaks and undergrowth of the first island, fought his way through it, finally reached the silent cove. He loosed the line of the Annie O. , dragged it as near to the cove's mouth as he could, plunged knee-deep in freezing water to give it a final shove, scrambled aboard, snatched up the boathook and punched at the rocks.
As soon as the Annie O. was nosing out of the cove into the cross waves, he yanked up the sail. The freshening wind filled it and sent the sloop heeling over, with inches of white water over the lee rail, and plunging ahead.
For a long while, Jack was satisfied to think of nothing but the wind and the waves and the sail and speed and danger, to have all his attention taken up balancing one against the other, so that he wouldn't have to ask himself what year it was and whether time was an illusion, and wonder about flappers and hidden traps.
When he finally looked back at the island, he was amazed to see how tiny it had grown, as distant as the mainland.
Then he saw a gray motorboat astern. He watched it as it slowly overtook him. It was built like a lifeboat, with a sturdy low cabin in the bow and wheel amidship. Whoever was at the wheel had long gray hair that whipped in the wind. The longer he looked, the surer he was that it was a woman wearing a lace dress. Something that stuck up inches over the cabin flashed darkly beside her. Only when she lifted it to the roof of the cabin did it occur to him that it might be a rifle.
But just then the motorboat swung around in a turn that sent waves drenching over it, and headed back toward the island. He watched it for a minute in wonder, then his attention was jolted by an angry hail.
Three fishing smacks, also headed toward town, were about to cross his bow. He came around into the wind and waited with shaking sail, watching a man in a lumpy sweater shake a fist at him. Then he turned and gratefully followed the dark, wide, fanlike sterns and age-yellowed sails.
II
The exterior of Martin Kesserich's home—a weathered white cube with narrow, sharp-paned windows, topped by a cupola—was nothing like its lavish interior.
In much the same way, Mrs. Kesserich clashed with the darkly gleaming furniture, persian rugs and bronze vases around her. Her shapeless black form, poised awkwardly on the edge of a huge sofa, made Jack think of a cow that had strayed into the drawing room. He wondered again how a man like Kesserich had come to marry such a creature.
Yet when she lifted up her little eyes from the shadows, he had the uneasy feeling that she knew a great deal about him. The eyes were still those of a domestic animal, but of a wise one that has been watching the house a long, long while from the barnyard.
He asked abruptly, "Do you know anything of a girl around here named Mary Alice Pope?"
The silence lasted so long that he began to think she'd gone into some bovine trance. Then, without a word, she got up and went over to a tall cabinet. Feeling on a ledge behind it for a key, she opened a panel, opened a cardboard box inside it, took something from the box and handed him a photograph. He held it up to the failing light and sucked in his breath with surprise.
It was a picture of the girl he'd met that afternoon. Same flat-bosomed dress—flowered rather than white—no bandeau, same beads. Same proud, demure expression, perhaps a bit happier.
"That is Mary Alice Pope," Mrs. Kesserich said in a strangely flat voice. "She was Martin's fiancee. She was killed in a railway accident in 1933."
The small sound of the cabinet door closing brought Jack back to reality. He realized that he no longer had the photograph. Against the gloom by the cabinet, Mrs. Kesserich's white face looked at him with what seemed a malicious eagerness.
"Sit down," she said, "and I'll tell you about it."
Without a thought as to why she hadn't asked him a single question—he was much too dazed for that—he obeyed. Mrs. Kesserich resumed her position on the edge of the sofa.
"You must understand, Mr. Barr, that Mary Alice Pope was the one love of Martin's life. He is a man of very deep and strong feelings, yet as you probably know, anything but kindly or demonstrative. Even when he first came here from Hungary with his older sisters Hani and Hilda, there was a cloak of loneliness about him—or rather about the three of them.
"Hani and Hilda were athletic outdoor women, yet fiercely proud—I don't imagine they ever spoke to anyone in America except as to a servant—and with a seething distaste for all men except Martin. They showered all their devotion on him. So of course, though Martin didn't realize it, they were consumed with jealousy when he fell in love with Mary Alice Pope. They'd thought that since he'd reached forty without marrying, he was safe.
"Mary Alice came from a pure-bred, or as a biologist would say, inbred British stock. She was very young, but very sweet, and up to a point very wise. She sensed Hani and Hilda's feelings right away and did everything she could to win them over. For instance, though she was afraid of horses, she took up horseback riding, because that was Hani and Hilda's favorite pastime. Naturally, Martin knew nothing of her fear, and naturally his sisters knew about it from the first. But—and here is where Mary's wisdom fell short—her brave gesture did not pacify them: it only increased their hatred.
"Except for his research, Martin was blind to everything but his love. It was a beautiful and yet frightening passion, an insane cherishing as narrow and intense as his sisters hatred."
With a start, Jack remembered that it was Mrs. Kesserich telling him all this.
She went on, "Martin's love directed his every move. He was building a home for himself and Mary, and in his mind he was building a wonderful future for them as well—not vaguely, if you know Martin, but year by year, month by month. This winter, he'd plan, they would visit Buenos Aires, next summer they would sail down the inland passage and he would teach Mary Hungarian for their trip to Buda-Pesth the year after, where he would occupy a chair at the university for a few months ... and so on. Finally the time for their marriage drew near. Martin had been away. His research was keeping him very busy—"
Jack broke in with, "Wasn't that about the time he did his definitive work on growth and fertilization?"
Mrs. Kesserich nodded with solemn appreciation in the gathering darkness. "But now he was coming home, his work done. It was early evening, very chilly, but Hani and Hilda felt they had to ride down to the station to meet their brother. And although she dreaded it, Mary rode with them, for she knew how delighted he would be at her cantering to the puffing train and his running up to lift her down from the saddle to welcome him home.
"Of course there was Martin's luggage to be considered, so the station wagon had to be sent down for that." She looked defiantly at Jack. "I drove the station wagon. I was Martin's laboratory assistant."
She paused. "It was almost dark, but there was still a white cold line of sky to the west. Hani and Hilda, with Mary between them, were waiting on their horses at the top of the hill that led down to the station. The train had whistled and its headlight was graying the gravel of the crossing.
"Suddenly Mary's horse squealed and plunged down the hill. Hani and Hilda followed—to try to catch her, they said, but they didn't manage that, only kept her horse from veering off. Mary never screamed, but as her horse reared on the tracks, I saw her face in the headlight's glare.
"Martin must have guessed, or at least feared what had happened, for he was out of the train and running along the track before it stopped. In fact, he was the first to kneel down beside Mary—I mean, what had been Mary—and was holding her all bloody and shattered in his arms."
A door slammed. There were steps in the hall. Mrs. Kesserich stiffened and was silent. Jack turned.
The blur of a face hung in the doorway to the hall—a seemingly young, sensitive, suavely handsome face with aristocratic jaw. Then there was a click and the lights flared up and Jack saw the close-cropped gray hair and the lines around the eyes and nostrils, while the sensitive mouth grew sardonic. Yet the handsomeness stayed, and somehow the youth, too, or at least a tremendous inner vibrancy.
"Hello, Barr," Martin Kesserich said, ignoring his wife.
The great biologist had come home.
III
"Oh, yes, and Jamieson had a feeble paper on what he called individualization in marine worms. Barr, have you ever thought much about the larger aspects of the problem of individuality?"
Jack jumped slightly. He had let his thoughts wander very far.
"Not especially, sir," he mumbled.
The house was still. A few minutes after the professor's arrival, Mrs. Kesserich had gone off with an anxious glance at Jack. He knew why and wished he could reassure her that he would not mention their conversation to the professor.
Kesserich had spent perhaps a half hour briefing him on the more important papers delivered at the conferences. Then, almost as if it were a teacher's trick to show up a pupil's inattention, he had suddenly posed this question about individuality.
"You know what I mean, of course," Kesserich pressed. "The factors that make you you, and me me."
"Heredity and environment," Jack parroted like a freshman.
Kesserich nodded. "Suppose—this is just speculation—that we could control heredity and environment. Then we could re-create the same individual at will."
Jack felt a shiver go through him. "To get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits. That'd be far beyond us."
"What about identical twins?" Kesserich pointed out. "And then there's parthenogenesis to be considered. One might produce a duplicate of the mother without the intervention of the male." Although his voice had grown more idly speculative, Kesserich seemed to Jack to be smiling secretly. "There are many examples in the lower animal forms, to say nothing of the technique by which Loeb caused a sea urchin to reproduce with no more stimulus than a salt solution."
Jack felt the hair rising on his neck. "Even then you wouldn't get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits."
"Not if the parent were of very pure stock? Not if there were some special technique for selecting ova that would reproduce all the mother's traits?"
"But environment would change things," Jack objected. "The duplicate would be bound to develop differently."
"Is environment so important? Newman tells about a pair of identical twins separated from birth, unaware of each other's existence. They met by accident when they were twenty-one. Each was a telephone repairman. Each had a wife the same age. Each had a baby son. And each had a fox terrier called 'Trixie.' That's without trying to make environments similar. But suppose you did try. Suppose you saw to it that each of them had exactly the same experiences at the same times...."
For a moment it seemed to Jack that the room was dimming and wavering, becoming a dark pool in which the only motionless thing was Kesserich's sphinx-like face.
"Well, we've escaped quite far enough from Jamieson's marine worms," the biologist said, all brisk again. He said it as if Jack were the one who had led the conversation down wild and unprofitable channels.
"Let's get on to your project. I want to talk it over now, because I won't have any time for it tomorrow."
Jack looked at him blankly.
"Tomorrow I must attend to a very important matter," the biologist explained.
IV
Morning sunlight brightened the colors of the wax flowers under glass on the high bureau that always seemed to emit the faint odor of old hair combings. Jack pulled back the diamond-patterned quilt and blinked the sleep from his eyes. He expected his mind to be busy wondering about Kesserich and his wife—things said and half said last night—but found instead that his thoughts swung instantly to Mary Alice Pope, as if to a farthest island in a world of people.
Downstairs, the house was empty. After a long look at the cabinet—he felt behind it, but the key was gone—he hurried down to the waterfront. He stopped only for a bowl of chowder and, as an afterthought, to buy half a dozen newspapers.
The sea was bright, the brisk wind just right for the Annie O. There was eagerness in the way it smacked the sail and in the creak of the mast. And when he reached the cove, it was no longer still, but nervous with faint ripples, as if time had finally begun to stir.
After the same struggle with the underbrush, he came out on the rocky spine and passed the cove of the sea urchins. The spiny creatures struck an uncomfortable chord in his memory.
This time he climbed the second island cautiously, scraping the innocent-seeming ground ahead of him intently with a boathook he'd brought along for the purpose. He was only a few yards from the fence when he saw Mary Alice Pope standing behind it.
He hadn't realized that his heart would begin to pound or that, at the same time, a shiver of almost supernatural dread would go through him.
The girl eyed him with an uneasy hostility and immediately began to speak in a hushed, hurried voice. "You must go away at once and never come back. You're a wicked man, but I don't want you to be hurt. I've been watching for you all morning."
He tossed the newspapers over the fence. "You don't have to read them now," he told her. "Just look at the datelines and a few of the headlines."
When she finally lifted her eyes to his again, she was trembling. She tried unsuccessfully to speak.
"Listen to me," he said. "You've been the victim of a scheme to make you believe you were born around 1916 instead of 1933, and that it's
1933 now instead of 1951. I'm not sure why it's been done, though I think I know who you really are."
"But," the girl faltered, "my aunts tell me it's 1933."
"They would."
"And there are the papers ... the magazines ... the radio."
"The papers are old ones. The radio's faked—some sort of recording. I could show you if I could get at it."
" These papers might be faked," she said, pointing to where she'd let them drop on the ground.
"They're new," he said. "Only old papers get yellow."
"But why would they do it to me? Why? "
"Come with me to the mainland, Mary. That'll set you straight quicker than anything."
"I couldn't," she said, drawing back. "He's coming tonight."
"He?"
"The man who sends me the boxes ... and my life."
Jack shivered. When he spoke, his voice was rough and quick. "A life that's completely a lie, that's cut you off from the world. Come with me, Mary."
Question:
Describe the setting of the story
Answer:
|
[
"One day, Jack Barry goes to explore the little islands off the coast of Maine. He docks his boat on the first island inside the cove, looking back through its high walls at thousands of tiny islands, dotting the blue sea, and the thin line that is Maine in the distance. Another island is revealed. It is connected to the first by a spine of rocks. At the near side of the second island is a short slope, covered in grass and trees. Beyond the trees is a huge chicken wire fence, topped with barbed wire. Beside the fence is an oak tree, with a low hanging branch. Beyond the fence is a quaint little cottage. There is a neatly mowed lawn in front of it, with a gravel driveway reaching out into the distance. There is another house on the summit of the island, a treehouse, and a chug boat moored in the bay. Jack then returns to the stark, square home of the Kesseriches. There is a solemn, cold air to the place, one that is reflected in Mrs Kesserich. The story then flashes back to the setting in which Mary Alice and Martin Kesserich lived. It is a nondescript place, but one that is open enough to ride horses in, hills sloping down onto train tracks. ",
"The beginning of the story takes place on an island far from Wood's Hole off the coast of Maine, with a quiet, narrow cove that opens into a rocky and green shore. There is another island connected to the first by a spine of rocks, and through the trees and past a fence of barbed wire there is a quaint cottage. The cottage is white with a gravel driveway, and it is decorated with dainty vintage furniture. The inside of the cottage is also decorated with old furniture, dark and brassy. The story also takes place at the Kesserich's residence, a large, lavish house.",
"The story is initially set on an island that Jack sails to with his boat. The island has rocky ledges by the water and a little green sloop with more rocks and oaks. As he goes further, he notices another higher island that is joined by a rocky spine. The landward part of the spine houses another cove, and he even sees the spheres of sea urchins. There are also many branches of oak and a barbed mesh fence surrounding a white Cape Cod cottage. The cottage itself has a radio aerial stretched along the length of the roof. There is also a short, square-lined ancient Essex parked near the cottage too. Inside the cottage, there is solid old furniture, a small-windowed room, a fireplace, and brass andirons. When he visits Martin Kesserich’s house, it is white and weathered on the outside, with sharp-paned windows. However, the inside of the house has dark, gleaming furniture, Persian rugs, and bronze vases.",
"The story begins on an island in a narrow quiet cove near the bustling Atlantic with rocks all around and a boat carried away by wind. The place is unusually quiet compared to others on Earth, surrounded with steepness at first, and going downhill further. The island is surrounded by other islands. Further into the trees there is a huge fence with barbed wire and a mown lawn, a cottage and an ancient car are inside. A woman enters the car and drives away. A girl emerges soon with a newspaper, puts it on the table and watches a squirrel on the lawn. After sitting at the table outside with glasses of lemonade, the girl and the stranger enter the house. The room is dark and small-windowed with old furniture and a fireplace. From there, Jack runs through the lawn, jumps over the fence, runs through the oaks and rocky banks towards his boat and sails to the cross waves. From the middle of the waves and the wind the island seems small. The story moves to Kesserich's house which is a simple white cube with a cupola from the outside but luxurious and dark inside. Jack talks to Mrs. Kesserich in the drawing room and then they move to the gloomy cabinet. Next day Jack wakes up in an empty house and he goes to the same island to visit Mary. The setting changes - it is no longer still, conveying the eerie mood. "
] |
50905
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Yesterday House
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by ASHMAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Meeting someone who's been dead for twenty years is shocking enough for anyone with a belief in ghosts—worse for one with none!
I
The narrow cove was quiet as the face of an expectant child, yet so near the ruffled Atlantic that the last push of wind carried the Annie O. its full length. The man in gray flannels and sweatshirt let the sail come crumpling down and hurried past its white folds at a gait made comically awkward by his cramped muscles. Slowly the rocky ledge came nearer. Slowly the blue V inscribed on the cove's surface by the sloop's prow died. Sloop and ledge kissed so gently that he hardly had to reach out his hand.
He scrambled ashore, dipping a sneaker in the icy water, and threw the line around a boulder. Unkinking himself, he looked back through the cove's high and rocky mouth at the gray-green scattering of islands and the faint dark line that was the coast of Maine. He almost laughed in satisfaction at having disregarded vague warnings and done the thing every man yearns to do once in his lifetime—gone to the farthest island out.
He must have looked longer than he realized, because by the time he dropped his gaze the cove was again as glassy as if the Annie O. had always been there. And the splotches made by his sneaker on the rock had faded in the hot sun. There was something very unusual about the quietness of this place. As if time, elsewhere hurrying frantically, paused here to rest. As if all changes were erased on this one bit of Earth.
The man's lean, melancholy face crinkled into a grin at the banal fancy. He turned his back on his new friend, the little green sloop, without one thought for his nets and specimen bottles, and set out to explore. The ground rose steeply at first and the oaks were close, but after a little way things went downhill and the leaves thinned and he came out on more rocks—and realized that he hadn't quite gone to the farthest one out.
Joined to this island by a rocky spine, which at the present low tide would have been dry but for the spray, was another green, high island that the first had masked from him all the while he had been sailing. He felt a thrill of discovery, just as he'd wondered back in the woods whether his might not be the first human feet to kick through the underbrush. After all, there were thousands of these islands.
Then he was dropping down the rocks, his lanky limbs now moving smoothly enough.
To the landward side of the spine, the water was fairly still. It even began with another deep cove, in which he glimpsed the spiny spheres of sea urchins. But from seaward the waves chopped in, sprinkling his trousers to the knees and making him wince pleasurably at the thought of what vast wings of spray and towers of solid water must crash up from here in a storm.
He crossed the rocks at a trot, ran up a short grassy slope, raced through a fringe of trees—and came straight up against an eight-foot fence of heavy mesh topped with barbed wire and backed at a short distance with high, heavy shrubbery.
Without pausing for surprise—in fact, in his holiday mood, using surprise as a goad—he jumped for the branch of an oak whose trunk touched the fence, scorning the easier lower branch on the other side of the tree. Then he drew himself up, worked his way to some higher branches that crossed the fence, and dropped down inside.
Suddenly cautious, he gently parted the shrubbery and, before the first surprise could really sink in, had another.
A closely mown lawn dotted with more shrubbery ran up to a snug white Cape Cod cottage. The single strand of a radio aerial stretched the length of the roof. Parked on a neat gravel driveway that crossed just in front of the cottage was a short, square-lined touring car that he recognized from remembered pictures as an ancient Essex. The whole scene had about it the same odd quietness as the cove.
Then, with the air of a clock-work toy coming to life, the white door opened and an elderly woman came out, dressed in a long, lace-edged dress and wide, lacy hat. She climbed into the driver's seat of the Essex, sitting there very stiff and tall. The motor began to chug bravely, gravel skittered, and the car rolled off between the trees.
The door of the house opened again and a slim girl emerged. She wore a white silk dress that fell straight from square neck-line to hip-height waistline, making the skirt seem very short. Her dark hair was bound with a white bandeau so that it curved close to her cheeks. A dark necklace dangled against the white of the dress. A newspaper was tucked under her arm.
She crossed the driveway and tossed the paper down on a rattan table between three rattan chairs and stood watching a squirrel zigzag across the lawn.
The man stepped through the wall of shrubbery, called, "hello!" and walked toward her.
She whirled around and stared at him as still as if her heart had stopped beating. Then she darted behind the table and waited for him there. Granting the surprise of his appearance, her alarm seemed not so much excessive as eerie. As if, the man thought, he were not an ordinary stranger, but a visitor from another planet.
Approaching closer, he saw that she was trembling and that her breath was coming in rapid, irregular gasps. Yet the slim, sweet, patrician face that stared into his had an underlying expression of expectancy that reminded him of the cove. She couldn't have been more than eighteen.
He stopped short of the table. Before he could speak, she stammered out, "Are you he?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, smiling puzzledly.
"The one who sends me the little boxes."
"I was out sailing and I happened to land in the far cove. I didn't dream that anyone lived on this island, or even came here."
"No one ever does come here," she replied. Her manner had changed, becoming at once more wary and less agitated, though still eerily curious.
"It startled me tremendously to find this place," he blundered on.
"Especially the road and the car. Why, this island can't be more than a quarter of a mile wide."
"The road goes down to the wharf," she explained, "and up to the top of the island, where my aunts have a tree-house."
He tore his mind away from the picture of a woman dressed like Queen Mary clambering up a tree. "Was that your aunt I saw driving off?"
"One of them. The other's taken the motorboat in for supplies." She looked at him doubtfully. "I'm not sure they'll like it if they find someone here."
"There are just the three of you?" he cut in quickly, looking down the empty road that vanished among the oaks.
She nodded.
"I suppose you go in to the mainland with your aunts quite often?"
She shook her head.
"It must get pretty dull for you."
"Not very," she said, smiling. "My aunts bring me the papers and other things. Even movies. We've got a projector. My favorite stars are Antonio Morino and Alice Terry. I like her better even than Clara Bow."
He looked at her hard for a moment. "I suppose you read a lot?"
She nodded. "Fitzgerald's my favorite author." She started around the table, hesitated, suddenly grew shy. "Would you like some lemonade?"
He'd noticed the dewed silver pitcher, but only now realized his thirst. Yet when she handed him a glass, he held it untasted and said awkwardly, "I haven't introduced myself. I'm Jack Barry."
She stared at his outstretched right hand, slowly extended her own toward it, shook it up and down exactly once, then quickly dropped it.
He chuckled and gulped some lemonade. "I'm a biology student. Been working at Wood's Hole the first part of the summer. But now I'm here to do research in marine ecology—that's sort of sea-life patterns—of the in-shore islands. Under the direction of Professor Kesserich. You know about him, of course?"
She shook her head.
"Probably the greatest living biologist," he was proud to inform her. "Human physiology as well. Tremendous geneticist. In a class with Carlson and Jacques Loeb. Martin Kesserich—he lives over there at town. I'm staying with him. You ought to have heard of him." He grinned. "Matter of fact, I'd never have met you if it hadn't been for Mrs. Kesserich."
The girl looked puzzled.
Jack explained, "The old boy's been off to Europe on some conferences, won't be back for a couple days more. But I was to get started anyhow. When I went out this morning Mrs. Kesserich—she's a drab sort of person—said to me, 'Don't try to sail to the farther islands.' So, of course, I had to. By the way, you still haven't told me your name."
"Mary Alice Pope," she said, speaking slowly and with an odd wonder, as if she were saying it for the first time.
"You're pretty shy, aren't you?"
"How would I know?"
The question stopped Jack. He couldn't think of anything to say to this strangely attractive girl dressed almost like a "flapper."
"Will you sit down?" she asked him gravely.
The rattan chair sighed under his weight. He made another effort to talk. "I'll bet you'll be glad when summer's over."
"Why?"
"So you'll be able to go back to the mainland."
"But I never go to the mainland."
"You mean you stay out here all winter?" he asked incredulously, his mind filled with a vision of snow and frozen spray and great gray waves.
"Oh, yes. We get all our supplies on hand before winter. My aunts are very capable. They don't always wear long lace dresses. And now I help them."
"But that's impossible!" he said with sudden sympathetic anger. "You can't be shut off this way from people your own age!"
"You're the first one I ever met." She hesitated. "I never saw a boy or a man before, except in movies."
"You're joking!"
"No, it's true."
"But why are they doing it to you?" he demanded, leaning forward. "Why are they inflicting this loneliness on you, Mary?"
She seemed to have gained poise from his loss of it. "I don't know why. I'm to find out soon. But actually I'm not lonely. May I tell you a secret?" She touched his hand, this time with only the faintest trembling. "Every night the loneliness gathers in around me—you're right about that. But then every morning new life comes to me in a little box."
"What's that?" he said sharply.
"Sometimes there's a poem in the box, sometimes a book, or pictures, or flowers, or a ring, but always a note. Next to the notes I like the poems best. My favorite is the one by Matthew Arnold that ends,
'Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude—'"
"Wait a minute," he interrupted. "Who sends you these boxes?"
"I don't know."
"But how are the notes signed?"
"They're wonderful notes," she said. "So wise, so gay, so tender, you'd imagine them being written by John Barrymore or Lindbergh."
"Yes, but how are they signed?"
She hesitated. "Never anything but 'Your Lover.'"
"And so when you first saw me, you thought—" He began, then stopped because she was blushing.
"How long have you been getting them?"
"Ever since I can remember. I have two closets of the boxes. The new ones are either by my bed when I wake or at my place at breakfast."
"But how does this—person get these boxes to you out here? Does he give them to your aunts and do they put them there?"
"I'm not sure."
"But how can they get them in winter?"
"I don't know."
"Look here," he said, pouring himself more lemonade, "how long is it since you've been to the mainland?"
"Almost eighteen years. My aunts tell me I was born there in the middle of the war."
"What war?" he asked startledly, spilling some lemonade.
"The World War, of course. What's the matter?"
Jack Barr was staring down at the spilled lemonade and feeling a kind of terror he'd never experienced in his waking life. Nothing around him had changed. He could still feel the same hot sun on his shoulders, the same icy glass in his hand, scent the same lemon-acid odor in his nostrils. He could still hear the faint chop-chop of the waves.
And yet everything had changed, gone dark and dizzy as a landscape glimpsed just before a faint. All the little false notes had come to a sudden focus. For the lemonade had spilled on the headline of the newspaper the girl had tossed down, and the headline read:
HITLER IN NEW DEFIANCE
Under the big black banner of that head swam smaller ones:
Foes of Machado Riot in Havana
Big NRA Parade Planned
Balbo Speaks in New York
Suddenly he felt a surge of relief. He had noticed that the paper was yellow and brittle-edged.
"Why are you so interested in old newspapers?" he asked.
"I wouldn't call day-before-yesterday's paper old," the girl objected, pointing at the dateline: July 20, 1933.
"You're trying to joke," Jack told her.
"No, I'm not."
"But it's 1953."
"Now it's you who are joking."
"But the paper's yellow."
"The paper's always yellow."
He laughed uneasily. "Well, if you actually think it's 1933, perhaps you're to be envied," he said, with a sardonic humor he didn't quite feel. "Then you can't know anything about the Second World War, or television, or the V-2s, or Bikini bathing suits, or the atomic bomb, or—"
"Stop!" She had sprung up and retreated around her chair, white-faced.
"I don't like what you're saying."
"But—"
"No, please! Jokes that may be quite harmless on the mainland sound different here."
"I'm really not joking," he said after a moment.
She grew quite frantic at that. "I can show you all last week's papers! I can show you magazines and other things. I can prove it!"
She started toward the house. He followed. He felt his heart begin to pound.
At the white door she paused, looking worriedly down the road. Jack thought he could hear the faint chug of a motorboat. She pushed open the door and he followed her inside. The small-windowed room was dark after the sunlight. Jack got an impression of solid old furniture, a fireplace with brass andirons.
"Flash!" croaked a gritty voice. "After their disastrous break day before yesterday, stocks are recovering. Leading issues...."
Jack realized that he had started and had involuntarily put his arm around the girl's shoulders. At the same time he noticed that the voice was coming from the curved brown trumpet of an old-fashioned radio loudspeaker.
The girl didn't pull away from him. He turned toward her. Although her gray eyes were on him, her attention had gone elsewhere.
"I can hear the car. They're coming back. They won't like it that you're here."
"All right they won't like it."
Her agitation grew. "No, you must go."
"I'll come back tomorrow," he heard himself saying.
"Flash! It looks as if the World Economic Conference may soon adjourn, mouthing jeers at old Uncle Sam who is generally referred to as Uncle Shylock."
Jack felt a numbness on his neck. The room seemed to be darkening, the girl growing stranger still.
"You must go before they see you."
"Flash! Wiley Post has just completed his solo circuit of the Globe, after a record-breaking flight of 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes. Asked how he felt after the energy-draining feat, Post quipped...."
He was halfway across the lawn before he realized the terror into which the grating radio voice had thrown him.
He leaped for the branch over-hanging the fence, vaulted up with the risky help of a foot on the barbed top. A surprised squirrel, lacking time to make its escape up the trunk, sprang to the ground ahead of him. With terrible suddenness, two steel-jawed semicircles clanked together just over the squirrel's head. Jack landed with one foot to either side of the sprung trap, while the squirrel darted off with a squeak.
Jack plunged down the slope to the rocky spine and ran across it, spray from the rising waves spattering him to the waist. Panting now, he stumbled up into the oaks and undergrowth of the first island, fought his way through it, finally reached the silent cove. He loosed the line of the Annie O. , dragged it as near to the cove's mouth as he could, plunged knee-deep in freezing water to give it a final shove, scrambled aboard, snatched up the boathook and punched at the rocks.
As soon as the Annie O. was nosing out of the cove into the cross waves, he yanked up the sail. The freshening wind filled it and sent the sloop heeling over, with inches of white water over the lee rail, and plunging ahead.
For a long while, Jack was satisfied to think of nothing but the wind and the waves and the sail and speed and danger, to have all his attention taken up balancing one against the other, so that he wouldn't have to ask himself what year it was and whether time was an illusion, and wonder about flappers and hidden traps.
When he finally looked back at the island, he was amazed to see how tiny it had grown, as distant as the mainland.
Then he saw a gray motorboat astern. He watched it as it slowly overtook him. It was built like a lifeboat, with a sturdy low cabin in the bow and wheel amidship. Whoever was at the wheel had long gray hair that whipped in the wind. The longer he looked, the surer he was that it was a woman wearing a lace dress. Something that stuck up inches over the cabin flashed darkly beside her. Only when she lifted it to the roof of the cabin did it occur to him that it might be a rifle.
But just then the motorboat swung around in a turn that sent waves drenching over it, and headed back toward the island. He watched it for a minute in wonder, then his attention was jolted by an angry hail.
Three fishing smacks, also headed toward town, were about to cross his bow. He came around into the wind and waited with shaking sail, watching a man in a lumpy sweater shake a fist at him. Then he turned and gratefully followed the dark, wide, fanlike sterns and age-yellowed sails.
II
The exterior of Martin Kesserich's home—a weathered white cube with narrow, sharp-paned windows, topped by a cupola—was nothing like its lavish interior.
In much the same way, Mrs. Kesserich clashed with the darkly gleaming furniture, persian rugs and bronze vases around her. Her shapeless black form, poised awkwardly on the edge of a huge sofa, made Jack think of a cow that had strayed into the drawing room. He wondered again how a man like Kesserich had come to marry such a creature.
Yet when she lifted up her little eyes from the shadows, he had the uneasy feeling that she knew a great deal about him. The eyes were still those of a domestic animal, but of a wise one that has been watching the house a long, long while from the barnyard.
He asked abruptly, "Do you know anything of a girl around here named Mary Alice Pope?"
The silence lasted so long that he began to think she'd gone into some bovine trance. Then, without a word, she got up and went over to a tall cabinet. Feeling on a ledge behind it for a key, she opened a panel, opened a cardboard box inside it, took something from the box and handed him a photograph. He held it up to the failing light and sucked in his breath with surprise.
It was a picture of the girl he'd met that afternoon. Same flat-bosomed dress—flowered rather than white—no bandeau, same beads. Same proud, demure expression, perhaps a bit happier.
"That is Mary Alice Pope," Mrs. Kesserich said in a strangely flat voice. "She was Martin's fiancee. She was killed in a railway accident in 1933."
The small sound of the cabinet door closing brought Jack back to reality. He realized that he no longer had the photograph. Against the gloom by the cabinet, Mrs. Kesserich's white face looked at him with what seemed a malicious eagerness.
"Sit down," she said, "and I'll tell you about it."
Without a thought as to why she hadn't asked him a single question—he was much too dazed for that—he obeyed. Mrs. Kesserich resumed her position on the edge of the sofa.
"You must understand, Mr. Barr, that Mary Alice Pope was the one love of Martin's life. He is a man of very deep and strong feelings, yet as you probably know, anything but kindly or demonstrative. Even when he first came here from Hungary with his older sisters Hani and Hilda, there was a cloak of loneliness about him—or rather about the three of them.
"Hani and Hilda were athletic outdoor women, yet fiercely proud—I don't imagine they ever spoke to anyone in America except as to a servant—and with a seething distaste for all men except Martin. They showered all their devotion on him. So of course, though Martin didn't realize it, they were consumed with jealousy when he fell in love with Mary Alice Pope. They'd thought that since he'd reached forty without marrying, he was safe.
"Mary Alice came from a pure-bred, or as a biologist would say, inbred British stock. She was very young, but very sweet, and up to a point very wise. She sensed Hani and Hilda's feelings right away and did everything she could to win them over. For instance, though she was afraid of horses, she took up horseback riding, because that was Hani and Hilda's favorite pastime. Naturally, Martin knew nothing of her fear, and naturally his sisters knew about it from the first. But—and here is where Mary's wisdom fell short—her brave gesture did not pacify them: it only increased their hatred.
"Except for his research, Martin was blind to everything but his love. It was a beautiful and yet frightening passion, an insane cherishing as narrow and intense as his sisters hatred."
With a start, Jack remembered that it was Mrs. Kesserich telling him all this.
She went on, "Martin's love directed his every move. He was building a home for himself and Mary, and in his mind he was building a wonderful future for them as well—not vaguely, if you know Martin, but year by year, month by month. This winter, he'd plan, they would visit Buenos Aires, next summer they would sail down the inland passage and he would teach Mary Hungarian for their trip to Buda-Pesth the year after, where he would occupy a chair at the university for a few months ... and so on. Finally the time for their marriage drew near. Martin had been away. His research was keeping him very busy—"
Jack broke in with, "Wasn't that about the time he did his definitive work on growth and fertilization?"
Mrs. Kesserich nodded with solemn appreciation in the gathering darkness. "But now he was coming home, his work done. It was early evening, very chilly, but Hani and Hilda felt they had to ride down to the station to meet their brother. And although she dreaded it, Mary rode with them, for she knew how delighted he would be at her cantering to the puffing train and his running up to lift her down from the saddle to welcome him home.
"Of course there was Martin's luggage to be considered, so the station wagon had to be sent down for that." She looked defiantly at Jack. "I drove the station wagon. I was Martin's laboratory assistant."
She paused. "It was almost dark, but there was still a white cold line of sky to the west. Hani and Hilda, with Mary between them, were waiting on their horses at the top of the hill that led down to the station. The train had whistled and its headlight was graying the gravel of the crossing.
"Suddenly Mary's horse squealed and plunged down the hill. Hani and Hilda followed—to try to catch her, they said, but they didn't manage that, only kept her horse from veering off. Mary never screamed, but as her horse reared on the tracks, I saw her face in the headlight's glare.
"Martin must have guessed, or at least feared what had happened, for he was out of the train and running along the track before it stopped. In fact, he was the first to kneel down beside Mary—I mean, what had been Mary—and was holding her all bloody and shattered in his arms."
A door slammed. There were steps in the hall. Mrs. Kesserich stiffened and was silent. Jack turned.
The blur of a face hung in the doorway to the hall—a seemingly young, sensitive, suavely handsome face with aristocratic jaw. Then there was a click and the lights flared up and Jack saw the close-cropped gray hair and the lines around the eyes and nostrils, while the sensitive mouth grew sardonic. Yet the handsomeness stayed, and somehow the youth, too, or at least a tremendous inner vibrancy.
"Hello, Barr," Martin Kesserich said, ignoring his wife.
The great biologist had come home.
III
"Oh, yes, and Jamieson had a feeble paper on what he called individualization in marine worms. Barr, have you ever thought much about the larger aspects of the problem of individuality?"
Jack jumped slightly. He had let his thoughts wander very far.
"Not especially, sir," he mumbled.
The house was still. A few minutes after the professor's arrival, Mrs. Kesserich had gone off with an anxious glance at Jack. He knew why and wished he could reassure her that he would not mention their conversation to the professor.
Kesserich had spent perhaps a half hour briefing him on the more important papers delivered at the conferences. Then, almost as if it were a teacher's trick to show up a pupil's inattention, he had suddenly posed this question about individuality.
"You know what I mean, of course," Kesserich pressed. "The factors that make you you, and me me."
"Heredity and environment," Jack parroted like a freshman.
Kesserich nodded. "Suppose—this is just speculation—that we could control heredity and environment. Then we could re-create the same individual at will."
Jack felt a shiver go through him. "To get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits. That'd be far beyond us."
"What about identical twins?" Kesserich pointed out. "And then there's parthenogenesis to be considered. One might produce a duplicate of the mother without the intervention of the male." Although his voice had grown more idly speculative, Kesserich seemed to Jack to be smiling secretly. "There are many examples in the lower animal forms, to say nothing of the technique by which Loeb caused a sea urchin to reproduce with no more stimulus than a salt solution."
Jack felt the hair rising on his neck. "Even then you wouldn't get exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits."
"Not if the parent were of very pure stock? Not if there were some special technique for selecting ova that would reproduce all the mother's traits?"
"But environment would change things," Jack objected. "The duplicate would be bound to develop differently."
"Is environment so important? Newman tells about a pair of identical twins separated from birth, unaware of each other's existence. They met by accident when they were twenty-one. Each was a telephone repairman. Each had a wife the same age. Each had a baby son. And each had a fox terrier called 'Trixie.' That's without trying to make environments similar. But suppose you did try. Suppose you saw to it that each of them had exactly the same experiences at the same times...."
For a moment it seemed to Jack that the room was dimming and wavering, becoming a dark pool in which the only motionless thing was Kesserich's sphinx-like face.
"Well, we've escaped quite far enough from Jamieson's marine worms," the biologist said, all brisk again. He said it as if Jack were the one who had led the conversation down wild and unprofitable channels.
"Let's get on to your project. I want to talk it over now, because I won't have any time for it tomorrow."
Jack looked at him blankly.
"Tomorrow I must attend to a very important matter," the biologist explained.
IV
Morning sunlight brightened the colors of the wax flowers under glass on the high bureau that always seemed to emit the faint odor of old hair combings. Jack pulled back the diamond-patterned quilt and blinked the sleep from his eyes. He expected his mind to be busy wondering about Kesserich and his wife—things said and half said last night—but found instead that his thoughts swung instantly to Mary Alice Pope, as if to a farthest island in a world of people.
Downstairs, the house was empty. After a long look at the cabinet—he felt behind it, but the key was gone—he hurried down to the waterfront. He stopped only for a bowl of chowder and, as an afterthought, to buy half a dozen newspapers.
The sea was bright, the brisk wind just right for the Annie O. There was eagerness in the way it smacked the sail and in the creak of the mast. And when he reached the cove, it was no longer still, but nervous with faint ripples, as if time had finally begun to stir.
After the same struggle with the underbrush, he came out on the rocky spine and passed the cove of the sea urchins. The spiny creatures struck an uncomfortable chord in his memory.
This time he climbed the second island cautiously, scraping the innocent-seeming ground ahead of him intently with a boathook he'd brought along for the purpose. He was only a few yards from the fence when he saw Mary Alice Pope standing behind it.
He hadn't realized that his heart would begin to pound or that, at the same time, a shiver of almost supernatural dread would go through him.
The girl eyed him with an uneasy hostility and immediately began to speak in a hushed, hurried voice. "You must go away at once and never come back. You're a wicked man, but I don't want you to be hurt. I've been watching for you all morning."
He tossed the newspapers over the fence. "You don't have to read them now," he told her. "Just look at the datelines and a few of the headlines."
When she finally lifted her eyes to his again, she was trembling. She tried unsuccessfully to speak.
"Listen to me," he said. "You've been the victim of a scheme to make you believe you were born around 1916 instead of 1933, and that it's
1933 now instead of 1951. I'm not sure why it's been done, though I think I know who you really are."
"But," the girl faltered, "my aunts tell me it's 1933."
"They would."
"And there are the papers ... the magazines ... the radio."
"The papers are old ones. The radio's faked—some sort of recording. I could show you if I could get at it."
" These papers might be faked," she said, pointing to where she'd let them drop on the ground.
"They're new," he said. "Only old papers get yellow."
"But why would they do it to me? Why? "
"Come with me to the mainland, Mary. That'll set you straight quicker than anything."
"I couldn't," she said, drawing back. "He's coming tonight."
"He?"
"The man who sends me the boxes ... and my life."
Jack shivered. When he spoke, his voice was rough and quick. "A life that's completely a lie, that's cut you off from the world. Come with me, Mary."
|
Describe the significance of the Riverside Club in the society in general and the story in particular.
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about A BOTTLE OF Old Wine by Richard O. Lewis.
Relevant chunks:
A grim tale of a future in which everyone is desperate to escape reality, and a hero who wants to have his wine and drink it, too.
A BOTTLE OF
Old Wine
By Richard O. Lewis
Illustrated by KELLY FREAS
Herbert Hyrel
settled himself more comfortably in his easy chair, extended his short legs further toward the fireplace, and let his eyes travel cautiously in the general direction of his wife.
She was in her chair as usual, her long legs curled up beneath her, the upper half of her face hidden in the bulk of her personalized, three-dimensional telovis. The telovis, of a stereoscopic nature, seemingly brought the performers with all their tinsel and color directly into the room of the watcher.
Hyrel had no way of seeing into the plastic affair she wore, but he guessed from the expression on the lower half of her face that she was watching one of the newer black-market sex-operas. In any event, there would be no sound, movement, or sign of life from her for the next three hours. To break the thread of the play for even a moment would ruin all the previous emotional build-up.
There had been a time when he hated her for those long and silent evenings, lonely hours during which he was completely ignored. It was different now, however, for those hours furnished him with time for an escape of his own.
His lips curled into a tight smile and his right hand fondled the unobtrusive switch beneath his trouser leg. He did not press the switch. He would wait a few minutes longer. But it was comforting to know that it was there, exhilarating to know that he could escape for a few hours by a mere flick of his finger.
He let his eyes stray to the dim light of the artificial flames in the fireplace. His hate for her was not bounded merely by those lonely hours she had forced upon him. No, it was far more encompassing.
He hated her with a deep, burning savagery that was deadly in its passion. He hated her for her money, the money she kept securely from him. He hated her for the paltry allowance she doled out to him, as if he were an irresponsible child. It was as if she were constantly reminding him in every glance and gesture, "I made a bad bargain when I married you. You wanted me, my money, everything, and had nothing to give in return except your own doltish self. You set a trap for me, baited with lies and a false front. Now you are caught in your own trap and will remain there like a mouse to eat from my hand whatever crumbs I stoop to give you."
But some day his hate would be appeased. Yes, some day soon he would kill her!
He shot a sideways glance at her, wondering if by chance she suspected.... She hadn't moved. Her lips were pouted into a half smile; the sex-opera had probably reached one of its more pleasurable moments.
Hyrel let his eyes shift back to the fireplace again. Yes, he would kill her. Then he would claim a rightful share of her money, be rid of her debasing dominance.
He let the
thought run around through his head, savoring it with mental taste buds. He would not kill her tonight. No, nor the next night. He would wait, wait until he had sucked the last measure of pleasure from the thought.
It was like having a bottle of rare old wine on a shelf where it could be viewed daily. It was like being able to pause again and again before the bottle, hold it up to the light, and say to it, "Some day, when my desire for you has reached the ultimate, I shall unstopper you quietly and sip you slowly to the last soul-satisfying drop." As long as the bottle remained there upon the shelf it was symbolic of that pleasurable moment....
He snapped out of his reverie and realized he had been wasting precious moments. There would be time enough tomorrow for gloating. Tonight, there were other things to do. Pleasurable things. He remembered the girl he had met the night before, and smiled smugly. Perhaps she would be awaiting him even now. If not, there would be another one....
He settled himself deeper into the chair, glanced once more at his wife, then let his head lean comfortably back against the chair's headrest. His hand upon his thigh felt the thin mesh that cloaked his body beneath his clothing like a sheer stocking. His fingers went again to the tiny switch. Again he hesitated.
Herbert Hyrel knew no more about the telporter suit he wore than he did about the radio in the corner, the TV set against the wall, or the personalized telovis his wife was wearing. You pressed one of the buttons on the radio; music came out. You pressed a button and clicked a dial on the TV; music and pictures came out. You pressed a button and made an adjustment on the telovis; three-dimensional, emotion-colored pictures leaped into the room. You pressed a tiny switch on the telporter suit; you were whisked away to a receiving set you had previously set up in secret.
He knew that the music and the images of the performers on the TV and telovis were brought to his room by some form of electrical impulse or wave while the actual musicians and performers remained in the studio. He knew that when he pressed the switch on his thigh something within him—his ectoplasm, higher self, the thing spirits use for materialization, whatever its real name—streamed out of him along an invisible channel, leaving his body behind in the chair in a conscious but dream-like state. His other self materialized in a small cabin in a hidden nook between a highway and a river where he had installed the receiving set a month ago.
He thought once more of the girl who might be waiting for him, smiled, and pressed the switch.
The dank air
of the cabin was chill to Herbert Hyrel's naked flesh. He fumbled through the darkness for the clothing he kept there, found his shorts and trousers, got hurriedly into them, then flicked on a pocket lighter and ignited a stub of candle upon the table. By the wavering light, he finished dressing in the black satin clothing, the white shirt, the flowing necktie and tam. He invoiced the contents of his billfold. Not much. And his monthly pittance was still two weeks away....
He had skimped for six months to salvage enough money from his allowance to make a down payment on the telporter suit. Since then, his expenses—monthly payments for the suit, cabin rent, costly liquor—had forced him to place his nights of escape on strict ration. He could not go on this way, he realized. Not now. Not since he had met the girl. He had to have more money. Perhaps he could not afford the luxury of leaving the wine bottle longer upon the shelf....
Riverside Club, where Hyrel arrived by bus and a hundred yards of walking, was exclusive. It catered to a clientele that had but three things in common: money, a desire for utter self-abandonment, and a sales slip indicating ownership of a telporter suit. The club was of necessity expensive, for self-telportation was strictly illegal, and police protection came high.
Herbert Hyrel adjusted his white, silken mask carefully at the door and shoved his sales slip through a small aperture where it was thoroughly scanned by unseen eyes. A buzzer sounded an instant later, the lock on the door clicked, and Hyrel pushed through into the exhilarating warmth of music and laughter.
The main room was large. Hidden lights along the walls sent slow beams of red, blue, vermillion, green, yellow and pink trailing across the domed ceiling in a heterogeneous pattern. The colored beams mingled, diffused, spread, were caught up by mirrors of various tints which diffused and mingled the lights once more until the whole effect was an ever-changing panorama of softly-melting shades.
The gay and bizarre costumes of the masked revelers on the dance floor and at the tables, unearthly in themselves, were made even more so by the altering light. Music flooded the room from unseen sources. Laughter—hysterical, drunken, filled with utter abandonment—came from the dance floor, the tables, and the private booths and rooms hidden cleverly within the walls.
Hyrel pushed himself to an unoccupied table, sat down and ordered a bottle of cheap whiskey. He would have preferred champagne, but his depleted finances forbade the more discriminate taste.
When his order arrived, he poured a glass tumbler half full and consumed it eagerly while his eyes scanned the room in search of the girl. He couldn't see her in the dim swirl of color. Had she arrived? Perhaps she was wearing a different costume than she had the night before. If so, recognition might prove difficult.
He poured himself another drink, promising himself he would go in search of her when the liquor began to take effect.
A woman clad in the revealing garb of a Persian dancer threw an arm about him from behind and kissed him on the cheek through the veil which covered the lower part of her face.
"Hi, honey," she giggled into his ear. "Havin' a time?"
He reached for the white arm to pull her to him, but she eluded his grasp and reeled away into the waiting arms of a tall toreador. Hyrel gulped his whiskey and watched her nestle into the arms of her partner and begin with him a sinuous, suggestive dance. The whiskey had begun its warming effect, and he laughed.
This was the land of the lotus eaters, the sanctuary of the escapists, the haven of all who wished to cast off their shell of inhibition and become the thing they dreamed themselves to be. Here one could be among his own kind, an actor upon a gay stage, a gaudy butterfly metamorphosed from the slug, a knight of old.
The Persian dancing girl was probably the wife of a boorish oaf whose idea of romance was spending an evening telling his wife how he came to be a successful bank president. But she had found her means of escape. Perhaps she had pleaded a sick headache and had retired to her room. And there upon the bed now reposed her shell of reality while her inner self, the shadowy one, completely materialized, became an exotic thing from the East in this never-never land.
The man, the toreador, had probably closeted himself within his library with a set of account books and had left strict orders not to be disturbed until he had finished with them.
Both would have terrific hangovers in the morning. But that, of course, would be fully compensated for by the memories of the evening.
Hyrel chuckled. The situation struck him as being funny: the shadowy self got drunk and had a good time, and the outer husk suffered the hangover in the morning. Strange. Strange how a device such as the telporter suit could cause the shadow of each bodily cell to leave the body, materialize, and become a reality in its own right. And yet ...
He looked
at the heel of his left hand. There was a long, irregular scar there. It was the result of a cut he had received nearly three weeks ago when he had fallen over this very table and had rammed his hand into a sliver of broken champagne glass. Later that evening, upon re-telporting back home, the pain of the cut had remained in his hand, but there was no sign of the cut itself on the hand of his outer self. The scar was peculiar to the shadowy body only. There was something about the shadowy body that carried the hurts to the outer body, but not the scars....
Sudden laughter broke out near him, and he turned quickly in that direction. A group of gaily costumed revelers was standing in a semi-circle about a small mound of clothing upon the floor. It was the costume of the toreador.
Hyrel laughed, too. It had happened many times before—a costume suddenly left empty as its owner, due to a threat of discovery at home, had had to press the switch in haste to bring his shadowy self—and complete consciousness—back to his outer self in a hurry.
A waiter picked up the clothing. He would put it safely away so that the owner could claim it upon his next visit to the club. Another waiter placed a fresh bottle of whiskey on the table before Hyrel, and Hyrel paid him for it.
The whiskey, reaching his head now in surges of warm cheerfulness, was filling him with abandonment, courage, and a desire for merriment. He pushed himself up from the table, joined the merry throng, threw his arm about the Persian dancer, drew her close.
They began dancing slowly to the throbbing rhythm, dancing and holding on to each other tightly. Hyrel could feel her hot breath through her veil upon his neck, adding to the headiness of the liquor. His feeling of depression and inferiority flowed suddenly from him. Once again he was the all-conquering male.
His arm trembled as it drew her still closer to him and he began dancing directly and purposefully toward the shadows of a clump of artificial palms near one corner of the room. There was an exit to the garden behind the palms.
Half way there they passed a secluded booth from which protruded a long leg clad in black mesh stocking. Hyrel paused as he recognized that part of the costume. It was she! The girl! The one he had met so briefly the night before!
His arm slid away from the Persian dancer, took hold of the mesh-clad leg, and pulled. A female form followed the leg from the booth and fell into his arms. He held her tightly, kissed her white neck, let her perfume send his thoughts reeling.
"Been looking for me, honey?" she whispered, her voice deep and throaty.
"You know it!"
He began whisking her away toward the palms. The Persian girl was pulled into the booth.
Yes, she was wearing the same costume she had worn the night before, that of a can-can dancer of the 90's. The mesh hose that encased her shapely legs were held up by flowered supporters in such a manner as to leave four inches of white leg exposed between hose top and lacy panties. Her skirt, frilled to suggest innumerable petticoats, fell away at each hip, leaving the front open to expose the full length of legs. She wore a wig of platinum hair encrusted with jewels that sparkled in the lights. Her jewel-studded mask was as white as her hair and covered the upper half of her face, except for the large almond slits for her eyes. A white purse, jewel crusted, dangled from one arm.
He stopped once before reaching the palms, drew her closer, kissed her long and ardently. Then he began pulling her on again.
She drew back when they reached the shelter of the fronds.
"Champagne, first," she whispered huskily into his ear.
His heart sank. He had very little money left. Well, it might buy a cheap brand....
She sipped
her champagne slowly and provocatively across the table from him. Her eyes sparkled behind the almond slits of her mask, caught the color changes and cast them back. She was wearing contact lenses of a garish green.
He wished she would hurry with her drink. He had horrible visions of his wife at home taking off her telovis and coming to his chair. He would then have to press the switch that would jerk his shadowy self back along its invisible connecting cord, jerk him back and leave but a small mound of clothes upon the chair at the table.
Deep depression laid hold of him. He would not be able to see her after tonight until he received his monthly dole two weeks hence. She wouldn't wait that long. Someone else would have her.
Unless ...
Yes, he knew now that he was going to kill his wife as soon as the opportunity presented itself. It would be a simple matter. With the aid of the telporter suit, he could establish an iron-clad alibi.
He took a long drink of whiskey and looked at the dancers about him. Sight of their gay costumes heightened his depression. He was wearing a cheap suit of satin, all he could afford. But some day soon he would show them! Some time soon he would be dressed as gaily....
"Something troubling you, honey?"
His gaze shot back to her and she blurred slightly before his eyes.
"No. Nothing at all!" He summoned a sickly smile and clutched her hand in his. "Come on. Let's dance."
He drew her from the chair and into his arms. She melted toward him as if desiring to become a part of him. A tremor of excitement surged through him and threatened to turn his knees into quivering jelly. He could not make his feet conform to the flooding rhythm of the music. He half stumbled, half pushed her along past the booths.
In the shelter of the palms he drew her savagely to him. "Let's—let's go outside." His voice was little more than a croak.
"But, honey!" She pushed herself away, her low voice maddening him. "Don't you have a private room? A girl doesn't like to be taken outside...."
Her words bit into his brain like the blade of a hot knife.
No, he didn't have a private room at the club like the others. A private room for his telporter receiver, a private room where he could take a willing guest. No! He couldn't afford it! No! No! NO! His lot was a cheap suit of satin! Cheap whiskey! Cheap champagne! A cheap shack by the river....
An inarticulate cry escaped his twisted lips. He clutched her roughly to him and dragged her through the door and into the moonlight, whiskey and anger lending him brutal strength.
He pulled her through the deserted garden. All the others had private rooms! He pulled her to the far end, behind a clump of squatty firs. His hands clawed at her. He tried to smother her mouth with kisses.
She eluded him deftly. "But, honey !" Her voice had gone deeper into her throat. "I just want to be sure about things. If you can't afford one of the private rooms—if you can't afford to show me a good time—if you can't come here real often ..."
The whiskey pounded and throbbed at his brain like blows from an unseen club. His ego curled and twisted within him like a headless serpent.
"I'll have money!" he shouted, struggling to hold her. "I'll have plenty of money! After tonight!"
"Then we'll wait," she said.
"We'll wait until tomorrow night."
"No!" he screamed. "You don't believe me! You're like the others! You think I'm no good! But I'll show you! I'll show all of you!"
She had gone
coldly rigid in his arms, unyielding.
Madness added to the pounding in his brain. Tears welled into his eyes.
"I'll show you! I'll kill her! Then I'll have money!" The hands clutching her shoulders shook her drunkenly. "You wait here! I'll go home and kill her now! Then I'll be back!"
"Silly boy!" Her low laughter rang hollowly in his ears. "And just who is it you are going to kill?"
"My wife!" he cried. "My wife! I'll ..."
A sudden sobering thought struck him. He was talking too much. And he wasn't making sense. He shouldn't be telling her this. Anyway, he couldn't get the money tonight even if he did kill his wife.
"And so you are going to kill your wife...."
He blinked the tears from his eyes. His chest was heaving, his heart pounding. He looked at her shimmering form. "Y-yes," he whispered.
Her eyes glinted strangely in the light of the moon. Her handbag glinted as she opened it, and something she took from it glittered coldly in her hand.
"Fool!"
The first shot tore squarely through his heart. And while he stood staring at her, mouth agape, a second shot burned its way through his bewildered brain.
Mrs. Herbert Hyrel
removed the telovis from her head and laid it carefully aside. She uncoiled her long legs from beneath her, walked to her husband's chair, and stood for a long moment looking down at him, her lips drawn back in contempt. Then she bent over him and reached down his thigh until her fingers contacted the small switch.
Seconds later, a slight tremor shook Hyrel's body. His eyes snapped open, air escaped his lungs, his lower jaw sagged inanely, and his head lolled to one side.
She stood a moment longer, watching his eyes become glazed and sightless. Then she walked to the telephone.
"Police?" she said. "This is Mrs. Herbert Hyrel. Something horrible has happened to my husband. Please come over immediately. Bring a doctor."
She hung up, went to her bathroom, stripped off her clothing, and slid carefully out of her telporter suit. This she folded neatly and tucked away into the false back of the medicine cabinet. She found a fresh pair of blue, plastifur pajamas and got into them.
She was just arriving back into the living room, tying the cord of her dressing gown about her slim waist, when she heard the sound of the police siren out front.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science Fiction July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Question:
Describe the significance of the Riverside Club in the society in general and the story in particular.
Answer:
|
[
"The Riverside Club is a place that only the wealthy can escape to: all of the clientele have a lot of money, but they also needed a lot of money to gain access, as they have to prove that they own a teleporter suit to get in. Everyone who goes there is looking to escape themselves, but ironically Herbert escapes his wife to end up right back in front of her. Besides being a point of interest because it offered the clearest path of escape for Herbert, the club is also important because it shows glimpses into how the suits work: when someone has to leave suddenly, their clothes are left behind because it is just the copy of the body that moves. The club also was significant to the story because it provided a place for Herbert's wife to play out her plan to catch Herbert in his own plot.",
"The Riverside Club represents the most hedonistic, wealthy, and illusion-filled group of people. It caters to the wealthy, giving them a place to escape the troubles and rules of the corporeal world and loosen up with ample drinks and scantily-clad people. The Riverside Club creates a fantasy for people to run away to, a dreamworld where cheating isn’t bad, where over-drinking is normal, and where people can be whoever they want to be. \nIn the case of Mr. Herbert Hyrel, he travels to the Riverside Club to make himself feel like more of the man he wants to be. He goes there to pick up women, prove to them that he’s worth something, as well as prove that same sentiment to himself. His rich wife no longer shares her money nor her time with him, which only further emasculates him. He travels to the Riverside Club in search of fantasy and other women. However, he had to use her money in order to buy the teleporter suit that could take him there. The Riverside Club eventually becomes the scene of Hyrel’s reunion with his wife and subsequent murder. \n",
"The Riverside Club is a social club where revelers can self-telport in order to escape their outer lives and dress in lavish costumes, drink champagne, and dance and sleep together in private rooms. The club has a large main room softly lit by intermingling, colored lights. People dance on the dance floor in this room and dine and drink together at tables surrounding it. There are also private rooms and booths hidden within the walls surrounding the main room. Near the exit stands a clump of artificial palm trees which leads outside to a garden where Herbert attempts to drag the mysterious woman when they are dancing together, presumably for a sexual encounter. Herbert wants to go outside because he cannot afford a private room, and when the mysterious woman insists they wait until he can afford one, Herbert explodes in a rage and reveals his plot to kill his wife. The club is quite expensive for practical purposes--since self-telportation is illegal, they need to charge enough to cover the cost of paying off the police. The Riverside Club represents Herbert's physical and mental retreat from his miserable life and is also the environment that ultimately leads to his death.",
"The Riverside Club is an exclusive club for people with money who want to live out their fantasies without other people knowing who they are or what they are doing. The club requires its members to have money, a desire for self-abandonment, and a teleporter suit; it encourages people to act without society’s limitations on its citizens. It offers alcoholic beverages, private booths and rooms, and places outdoors where couples can engage in any activity they want. The club’s atmosphere is happy, fun, and exotic with altering lights, music, drinks, and dancing. It offers people the opportunity to remain physically present in their acceptable roles while escaping those roles in private. Because their real identities are hidden, people can act in ways that are uncharacteristic to them, with unpopular people becoming popular, depressed people becoming cheerful, and inferior-feeling men becoming “all-conquering males.” \n\tIn the story, the Riverside Club is significant because it is the escape that Herbert and his wife both turn to, enabling them to act out their fantasies away from each other. However, it is ironic that the girl Herbert meets and can’t wait to see again is his wife. She, however, knows who Herbert is since she is prepared and has a gun and kills him when he says he is going to murder his wife. Mrs. Hryel seems to have been going to the club to ultimately get rid of Herbert and enjoy herself since she is in a private booth with someone else when he finds her. It also seems that she has had “entertainment” with other men because she tells him, “A girl doesn’t like to be taken outside,” and Herbert interprets this as meaning she has had assignations with other men, but those men all had private rooms. \n"
] |
30004
|
A grim tale of a future in which everyone is desperate to escape reality, and a hero who wants to have his wine and drink it, too.
A BOTTLE OF
Old Wine
By Richard O. Lewis
Illustrated by KELLY FREAS
Herbert Hyrel
settled himself more comfortably in his easy chair, extended his short legs further toward the fireplace, and let his eyes travel cautiously in the general direction of his wife.
She was in her chair as usual, her long legs curled up beneath her, the upper half of her face hidden in the bulk of her personalized, three-dimensional telovis. The telovis, of a stereoscopic nature, seemingly brought the performers with all their tinsel and color directly into the room of the watcher.
Hyrel had no way of seeing into the plastic affair she wore, but he guessed from the expression on the lower half of her face that she was watching one of the newer black-market sex-operas. In any event, there would be no sound, movement, or sign of life from her for the next three hours. To break the thread of the play for even a moment would ruin all the previous emotional build-up.
There had been a time when he hated her for those long and silent evenings, lonely hours during which he was completely ignored. It was different now, however, for those hours furnished him with time for an escape of his own.
His lips curled into a tight smile and his right hand fondled the unobtrusive switch beneath his trouser leg. He did not press the switch. He would wait a few minutes longer. But it was comforting to know that it was there, exhilarating to know that he could escape for a few hours by a mere flick of his finger.
He let his eyes stray to the dim light of the artificial flames in the fireplace. His hate for her was not bounded merely by those lonely hours she had forced upon him. No, it was far more encompassing.
He hated her with a deep, burning savagery that was deadly in its passion. He hated her for her money, the money she kept securely from him. He hated her for the paltry allowance she doled out to him, as if he were an irresponsible child. It was as if she were constantly reminding him in every glance and gesture, "I made a bad bargain when I married you. You wanted me, my money, everything, and had nothing to give in return except your own doltish self. You set a trap for me, baited with lies and a false front. Now you are caught in your own trap and will remain there like a mouse to eat from my hand whatever crumbs I stoop to give you."
But some day his hate would be appeased. Yes, some day soon he would kill her!
He shot a sideways glance at her, wondering if by chance she suspected.... She hadn't moved. Her lips were pouted into a half smile; the sex-opera had probably reached one of its more pleasurable moments.
Hyrel let his eyes shift back to the fireplace again. Yes, he would kill her. Then he would claim a rightful share of her money, be rid of her debasing dominance.
He let the
thought run around through his head, savoring it with mental taste buds. He would not kill her tonight. No, nor the next night. He would wait, wait until he had sucked the last measure of pleasure from the thought.
It was like having a bottle of rare old wine on a shelf where it could be viewed daily. It was like being able to pause again and again before the bottle, hold it up to the light, and say to it, "Some day, when my desire for you has reached the ultimate, I shall unstopper you quietly and sip you slowly to the last soul-satisfying drop." As long as the bottle remained there upon the shelf it was symbolic of that pleasurable moment....
He snapped out of his reverie and realized he had been wasting precious moments. There would be time enough tomorrow for gloating. Tonight, there were other things to do. Pleasurable things. He remembered the girl he had met the night before, and smiled smugly. Perhaps she would be awaiting him even now. If not, there would be another one....
He settled himself deeper into the chair, glanced once more at his wife, then let his head lean comfortably back against the chair's headrest. His hand upon his thigh felt the thin mesh that cloaked his body beneath his clothing like a sheer stocking. His fingers went again to the tiny switch. Again he hesitated.
Herbert Hyrel knew no more about the telporter suit he wore than he did about the radio in the corner, the TV set against the wall, or the personalized telovis his wife was wearing. You pressed one of the buttons on the radio; music came out. You pressed a button and clicked a dial on the TV; music and pictures came out. You pressed a button and made an adjustment on the telovis; three-dimensional, emotion-colored pictures leaped into the room. You pressed a tiny switch on the telporter suit; you were whisked away to a receiving set you had previously set up in secret.
He knew that the music and the images of the performers on the TV and telovis were brought to his room by some form of electrical impulse or wave while the actual musicians and performers remained in the studio. He knew that when he pressed the switch on his thigh something within him—his ectoplasm, higher self, the thing spirits use for materialization, whatever its real name—streamed out of him along an invisible channel, leaving his body behind in the chair in a conscious but dream-like state. His other self materialized in a small cabin in a hidden nook between a highway and a river where he had installed the receiving set a month ago.
He thought once more of the girl who might be waiting for him, smiled, and pressed the switch.
The dank air
of the cabin was chill to Herbert Hyrel's naked flesh. He fumbled through the darkness for the clothing he kept there, found his shorts and trousers, got hurriedly into them, then flicked on a pocket lighter and ignited a stub of candle upon the table. By the wavering light, he finished dressing in the black satin clothing, the white shirt, the flowing necktie and tam. He invoiced the contents of his billfold. Not much. And his monthly pittance was still two weeks away....
He had skimped for six months to salvage enough money from his allowance to make a down payment on the telporter suit. Since then, his expenses—monthly payments for the suit, cabin rent, costly liquor—had forced him to place his nights of escape on strict ration. He could not go on this way, he realized. Not now. Not since he had met the girl. He had to have more money. Perhaps he could not afford the luxury of leaving the wine bottle longer upon the shelf....
Riverside Club, where Hyrel arrived by bus and a hundred yards of walking, was exclusive. It catered to a clientele that had but three things in common: money, a desire for utter self-abandonment, and a sales slip indicating ownership of a telporter suit. The club was of necessity expensive, for self-telportation was strictly illegal, and police protection came high.
Herbert Hyrel adjusted his white, silken mask carefully at the door and shoved his sales slip through a small aperture where it was thoroughly scanned by unseen eyes. A buzzer sounded an instant later, the lock on the door clicked, and Hyrel pushed through into the exhilarating warmth of music and laughter.
The main room was large. Hidden lights along the walls sent slow beams of red, blue, vermillion, green, yellow and pink trailing across the domed ceiling in a heterogeneous pattern. The colored beams mingled, diffused, spread, were caught up by mirrors of various tints which diffused and mingled the lights once more until the whole effect was an ever-changing panorama of softly-melting shades.
The gay and bizarre costumes of the masked revelers on the dance floor and at the tables, unearthly in themselves, were made even more so by the altering light. Music flooded the room from unseen sources. Laughter—hysterical, drunken, filled with utter abandonment—came from the dance floor, the tables, and the private booths and rooms hidden cleverly within the walls.
Hyrel pushed himself to an unoccupied table, sat down and ordered a bottle of cheap whiskey. He would have preferred champagne, but his depleted finances forbade the more discriminate taste.
When his order arrived, he poured a glass tumbler half full and consumed it eagerly while his eyes scanned the room in search of the girl. He couldn't see her in the dim swirl of color. Had she arrived? Perhaps she was wearing a different costume than she had the night before. If so, recognition might prove difficult.
He poured himself another drink, promising himself he would go in search of her when the liquor began to take effect.
A woman clad in the revealing garb of a Persian dancer threw an arm about him from behind and kissed him on the cheek through the veil which covered the lower part of her face.
"Hi, honey," she giggled into his ear. "Havin' a time?"
He reached for the white arm to pull her to him, but she eluded his grasp and reeled away into the waiting arms of a tall toreador. Hyrel gulped his whiskey and watched her nestle into the arms of her partner and begin with him a sinuous, suggestive dance. The whiskey had begun its warming effect, and he laughed.
This was the land of the lotus eaters, the sanctuary of the escapists, the haven of all who wished to cast off their shell of inhibition and become the thing they dreamed themselves to be. Here one could be among his own kind, an actor upon a gay stage, a gaudy butterfly metamorphosed from the slug, a knight of old.
The Persian dancing girl was probably the wife of a boorish oaf whose idea of romance was spending an evening telling his wife how he came to be a successful bank president. But she had found her means of escape. Perhaps she had pleaded a sick headache and had retired to her room. And there upon the bed now reposed her shell of reality while her inner self, the shadowy one, completely materialized, became an exotic thing from the East in this never-never land.
The man, the toreador, had probably closeted himself within his library with a set of account books and had left strict orders not to be disturbed until he had finished with them.
Both would have terrific hangovers in the morning. But that, of course, would be fully compensated for by the memories of the evening.
Hyrel chuckled. The situation struck him as being funny: the shadowy self got drunk and had a good time, and the outer husk suffered the hangover in the morning. Strange. Strange how a device such as the telporter suit could cause the shadow of each bodily cell to leave the body, materialize, and become a reality in its own right. And yet ...
He looked
at the heel of his left hand. There was a long, irregular scar there. It was the result of a cut he had received nearly three weeks ago when he had fallen over this very table and had rammed his hand into a sliver of broken champagne glass. Later that evening, upon re-telporting back home, the pain of the cut had remained in his hand, but there was no sign of the cut itself on the hand of his outer self. The scar was peculiar to the shadowy body only. There was something about the shadowy body that carried the hurts to the outer body, but not the scars....
Sudden laughter broke out near him, and he turned quickly in that direction. A group of gaily costumed revelers was standing in a semi-circle about a small mound of clothing upon the floor. It was the costume of the toreador.
Hyrel laughed, too. It had happened many times before—a costume suddenly left empty as its owner, due to a threat of discovery at home, had had to press the switch in haste to bring his shadowy self—and complete consciousness—back to his outer self in a hurry.
A waiter picked up the clothing. He would put it safely away so that the owner could claim it upon his next visit to the club. Another waiter placed a fresh bottle of whiskey on the table before Hyrel, and Hyrel paid him for it.
The whiskey, reaching his head now in surges of warm cheerfulness, was filling him with abandonment, courage, and a desire for merriment. He pushed himself up from the table, joined the merry throng, threw his arm about the Persian dancer, drew her close.
They began dancing slowly to the throbbing rhythm, dancing and holding on to each other tightly. Hyrel could feel her hot breath through her veil upon his neck, adding to the headiness of the liquor. His feeling of depression and inferiority flowed suddenly from him. Once again he was the all-conquering male.
His arm trembled as it drew her still closer to him and he began dancing directly and purposefully toward the shadows of a clump of artificial palms near one corner of the room. There was an exit to the garden behind the palms.
Half way there they passed a secluded booth from which protruded a long leg clad in black mesh stocking. Hyrel paused as he recognized that part of the costume. It was she! The girl! The one he had met so briefly the night before!
His arm slid away from the Persian dancer, took hold of the mesh-clad leg, and pulled. A female form followed the leg from the booth and fell into his arms. He held her tightly, kissed her white neck, let her perfume send his thoughts reeling.
"Been looking for me, honey?" she whispered, her voice deep and throaty.
"You know it!"
He began whisking her away toward the palms. The Persian girl was pulled into the booth.
Yes, she was wearing the same costume she had worn the night before, that of a can-can dancer of the 90's. The mesh hose that encased her shapely legs were held up by flowered supporters in such a manner as to leave four inches of white leg exposed between hose top and lacy panties. Her skirt, frilled to suggest innumerable petticoats, fell away at each hip, leaving the front open to expose the full length of legs. She wore a wig of platinum hair encrusted with jewels that sparkled in the lights. Her jewel-studded mask was as white as her hair and covered the upper half of her face, except for the large almond slits for her eyes. A white purse, jewel crusted, dangled from one arm.
He stopped once before reaching the palms, drew her closer, kissed her long and ardently. Then he began pulling her on again.
She drew back when they reached the shelter of the fronds.
"Champagne, first," she whispered huskily into his ear.
His heart sank. He had very little money left. Well, it might buy a cheap brand....
She sipped
her champagne slowly and provocatively across the table from him. Her eyes sparkled behind the almond slits of her mask, caught the color changes and cast them back. She was wearing contact lenses of a garish green.
He wished she would hurry with her drink. He had horrible visions of his wife at home taking off her telovis and coming to his chair. He would then have to press the switch that would jerk his shadowy self back along its invisible connecting cord, jerk him back and leave but a small mound of clothes upon the chair at the table.
Deep depression laid hold of him. He would not be able to see her after tonight until he received his monthly dole two weeks hence. She wouldn't wait that long. Someone else would have her.
Unless ...
Yes, he knew now that he was going to kill his wife as soon as the opportunity presented itself. It would be a simple matter. With the aid of the telporter suit, he could establish an iron-clad alibi.
He took a long drink of whiskey and looked at the dancers about him. Sight of their gay costumes heightened his depression. He was wearing a cheap suit of satin, all he could afford. But some day soon he would show them! Some time soon he would be dressed as gaily....
"Something troubling you, honey?"
His gaze shot back to her and she blurred slightly before his eyes.
"No. Nothing at all!" He summoned a sickly smile and clutched her hand in his. "Come on. Let's dance."
He drew her from the chair and into his arms. She melted toward him as if desiring to become a part of him. A tremor of excitement surged through him and threatened to turn his knees into quivering jelly. He could not make his feet conform to the flooding rhythm of the music. He half stumbled, half pushed her along past the booths.
In the shelter of the palms he drew her savagely to him. "Let's—let's go outside." His voice was little more than a croak.
"But, honey!" She pushed herself away, her low voice maddening him. "Don't you have a private room? A girl doesn't like to be taken outside...."
Her words bit into his brain like the blade of a hot knife.
No, he didn't have a private room at the club like the others. A private room for his telporter receiver, a private room where he could take a willing guest. No! He couldn't afford it! No! No! NO! His lot was a cheap suit of satin! Cheap whiskey! Cheap champagne! A cheap shack by the river....
An inarticulate cry escaped his twisted lips. He clutched her roughly to him and dragged her through the door and into the moonlight, whiskey and anger lending him brutal strength.
He pulled her through the deserted garden. All the others had private rooms! He pulled her to the far end, behind a clump of squatty firs. His hands clawed at her. He tried to smother her mouth with kisses.
She eluded him deftly. "But, honey !" Her voice had gone deeper into her throat. "I just want to be sure about things. If you can't afford one of the private rooms—if you can't afford to show me a good time—if you can't come here real often ..."
The whiskey pounded and throbbed at his brain like blows from an unseen club. His ego curled and twisted within him like a headless serpent.
"I'll have money!" he shouted, struggling to hold her. "I'll have plenty of money! After tonight!"
"Then we'll wait," she said.
"We'll wait until tomorrow night."
"No!" he screamed. "You don't believe me! You're like the others! You think I'm no good! But I'll show you! I'll show all of you!"
She had gone
coldly rigid in his arms, unyielding.
Madness added to the pounding in his brain. Tears welled into his eyes.
"I'll show you! I'll kill her! Then I'll have money!" The hands clutching her shoulders shook her drunkenly. "You wait here! I'll go home and kill her now! Then I'll be back!"
"Silly boy!" Her low laughter rang hollowly in his ears. "And just who is it you are going to kill?"
"My wife!" he cried. "My wife! I'll ..."
A sudden sobering thought struck him. He was talking too much. And he wasn't making sense. He shouldn't be telling her this. Anyway, he couldn't get the money tonight even if he did kill his wife.
"And so you are going to kill your wife...."
He blinked the tears from his eyes. His chest was heaving, his heart pounding. He looked at her shimmering form. "Y-yes," he whispered.
Her eyes glinted strangely in the light of the moon. Her handbag glinted as she opened it, and something she took from it glittered coldly in her hand.
"Fool!"
The first shot tore squarely through his heart. And while he stood staring at her, mouth agape, a second shot burned its way through his bewildered brain.
Mrs. Herbert Hyrel
removed the telovis from her head and laid it carefully aside. She uncoiled her long legs from beneath her, walked to her husband's chair, and stood for a long moment looking down at him, her lips drawn back in contempt. Then she bent over him and reached down his thigh until her fingers contacted the small switch.
Seconds later, a slight tremor shook Hyrel's body. His eyes snapped open, air escaped his lungs, his lower jaw sagged inanely, and his head lolled to one side.
She stood a moment longer, watching his eyes become glazed and sightless. Then she walked to the telephone.
"Police?" she said. "This is Mrs. Herbert Hyrel. Something horrible has happened to my husband. Please come over immediately. Bring a doctor."
She hung up, went to her bathroom, stripped off her clothing, and slid carefully out of her telporter suit. This she folded neatly and tucked away into the false back of the medicine cabinet. She found a fresh pair of blue, plastifur pajamas and got into them.
She was just arriving back into the living room, tying the cord of her dressing gown about her slim waist, when she heard the sound of the police siren out front.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science Fiction July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
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What is the setting of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Tea Tray in the Sky by Evelyn E. Smith.
Relevant chunks:
Tea Tray in the Sky
By EVELYN E. SMITH
Illustrated by ASHMAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Visiting a society is tougher than being born into it. A 40 credit tour is no substitute!
The picture changed on the illuminated panel that filled the forward end of the shelf on which Michael lay. A haggard blonde woman sprawled apathetically in a chair.
"Rundown, nervous, hypertensive?" inquired a mellifluous voice. "In need of mental therapy? Buy Grugis juice; it's not expensive. And they swear by it on Meropé."
A disembodied pair of hands administered a spoonful of Grugis juice to the woman, whereupon her hair turned bright yellow, makeup bloomed on her face, her clothes grew briefer, and she burst into a fast Callistan clog.
"I see from your hair that you have been a member of one of the Brotherhoods," the passenger lying next to Michael on the shelf remarked inquisitively. He was a middle-aged man, his dust-brown hair thinning on top, his small blue eyes glittering preternaturally from the lenses fitted over his eyeballs.
Michael rubbed his fingers ruefully over the blond stubble on his scalp and wished he had waited until his tonsure were fully grown before he had ventured out into the world. But he had been so impatient to leave the Lodge, so impatient to exchange the flowing robes of the Brotherhood for the close-fitting breeches and tunic of the outer world that had seemed so glamorous and now proved so itchy.
"Yes," he replied courteously, for he knew the first rule of universal behavior, "I have been a Brother."
"Now why would a good-looking young fellow like you want to join a Brotherhood?" his shelf companion wanted to know. "Trouble over a female?"
Michael shook his head, smiling. "No, I have been a member of the Angeleno Brotherhood since I was an infant. My father brought me when he entered."
The other man clucked sympathetically. "No doubt he was grieved over the death of your mother."
Michael closed his eyes to shut out the sight of a baby protruding its fat face at him three-dimensionally, but he could not shut out its lisping voice: "Does your child refuse its food, grow wizened like a monkey? It will grow plump with oh-so-good Mealy Mush from Nunki."
"No, sir," Michael replied. "Father said that was one of the few blessings that brightened an otherwise benighted life."
Horror contorted his fellow traveller's plump features. "Be careful, young man!" he warned. "Lucky for you that you are talking to someone as broad-minded as I, but others aren't. You might be reported for violating a tabu. An Earth tabu, moreover."
"An Earth tabu?"
"Certainly. Motherhood is sacred here on Earth and so, of course, in the entire United Universe. You should have known that."
Michael blushed. He should indeed. For a year prior to his leaving the Lodge, he had carefully studied the customs and tabus of the Universe so that he should be able to enter the new life he planned for himself, with confidence and ease. Under the system of universal kinship, all the customs and all the tabus of all the planets were the law on all the other planets. For the Wise Ones had decided many years before that wars arose from not understanding one's fellows, not sympathizing with them. If every nation, every planet, every solar system had the same laws, customs, and habits, they reasoned, there would be no differences, and hence no wars.
Future events had proved them to be correct. For five hundred years there had been no war in the United Universe, and there was peace and plenty for all. Only one crime was recognized throughout the solar systems—injuring a fellow-creature by word or deed (and the telepaths of Aldebaran were still trying to add thought to the statute).
Why, then, Michael had questioned the Father Superior, was there any reason for the Lodge's existence, any reason for a group of humans to retire from the world and live in the simple ways of their primitive forefathers? When there had been war, injustice, tyranny, there had, perhaps, been an understandable emotional reason for fleeing the world. But now why refuse to face a desirable reality? Why turn one's face upon the present and deliberately go back to the life of the past—the high collars, vests and trousers, the inefficient coal furnaces, the rude gasoline tractors of medieval days?
The Father Superior had smiled. "You are not yet a fully fledged Brother, Michael. You cannot enter your novitiate until you've achieved your majority, and you won't be thirty for another five years. Why don't you spend some time outside and see how you like it?"
Michael had agreed, but before leaving he had spent months studying the ways of the United Universe. He had skimmed over Earth, because he had been so sure he'd know its ways instinctively. Remembering his preparations, he was astonished by his smug self-confidence.
A large scarlet pencil jumped merrily across the advideo screen. The face on the eraser opened its mouth and sang: "Our pencils are finest from point up to rubber, for the lead is from Yed, while the wood comes from Dschubba."
"Is there any way of turning that thing off?" Michael wanted to know.
The other man smiled. "If there were, my boy, do you think anybody would watch it? Furthermore, turning it off would violate the spirit of free enterprise. We wouldn't want that, would we?"
"Oh, no!" Michael agreed hastily. "Certainly not."
"And it might hurt the advertiser's feelings, cause him ego injury."
"How could I ever have had such a ridiculous idea?" Michael murmured, abashed.
"Allow me to introduce myself," said his companion. "My name is Pierce B. Carpenter. Aphrodisiacs are my line. Here's my card." He handed Michael a transparent tab with the photograph of Mr. Carpenter suspended inside, together with his registration number, his name, his address, and the Universal seal of approval. Clearly he was a character of the utmost respectability.
"My name's Michael Frey," the young man responded, smiling awkwardly.
"I'm afraid I don't have any cards."
"Well, you wouldn't have had any use for them where you were. Now, look here, son," Carpenter went on in a lowered voice, "I know you've just come from the Lodge and the mistakes you'll make will be through ignorance rather than deliberate malice. But the police wouldn't understand. You know what the sacred writings say: 'Ignorance of The Law is no excuse.' I'd be glad to give you any little tips I can. For instance, your hands...."
Michael spread his hands out in front of him. They were perfectly good hands, he thought. "Is there something wrong with them?"
Carpenter blushed and looked away. "Didn't you know that on Electra it is forbidden for anyone to appear in public with his hands bare?"
"Of course I know that," Michael said impatiently. "But what's that got to do with me?"
The salesman was wide-eyed. "But if it is forbidden on Electra, it becomes automatically prohibited here."
"But Electrans have eight fingers on each hand," Michael protested,
"with two fingernails on each—all covered with green scales."
Carpenter drew himself up as far as it was possible to do so while lying down. "Do eight fingers make one a lesser Universal?"
"Of course not, but—"
"Is he inferior to you then because he has sixteen fingernails?"
"Certainly not, but—"
"Would you like to be called guilty of—" Carpenter paused before the dreaded word—" intolerance ?"
"No, no, no !" Michael almost shrieked. It would be horrible for him to be arrested before he even had time to view Portyork. "I have lots of gloves in my pack," he babbled. "Lots and lots. I'll put some on right away."
With nervous haste, he pressed the lever which dropped his pack down from the storage compartment. It landed on his stomach. The device had been invented by one of the Dschubbans who are, as everyone knows, hoop-shaped.
Michael pushed the button marked Gloves A , and a pair of yellow gauntlets slid out.
Carpenter pressed his hands to his eyes. "Yellow is the color of death on Saturn, and you know how morbid the Saturnians are about passing away! No one ever wears yellow!"
"Sorry," Michael said humbly. The button marked Gloves B yielded a pair of rose-colored gloves which harmonized ill with his scarlet tunic and turquoise breeches, but he was past caring for esthetic effects.
"The quality's high," sang a quartet of beautiful female humanoids,
"but the price is meager. You know when you buy Plummy Fruitcake from Vega."
The salesman patted Michael's shoulder. "You staying a while in Portyork?" Michael nodded. "Then you'd better stick close to me for a while until you learn our ways. You can't run around loose by yourself until you've acquired civilized behavior patterns, or you'll get into trouble."
"Thank you, sir," Michael said gratefully. "It's very kind of you."
He twisted himself around—it was boiling hot inside the jet bus and his damp clothes were clinging uncomfortably—and struck his head against the bottom of the shelf above. "Awfully inconvenient arrangement here," he commented. "Wonder why they don't have seats."
"Because this arrangement," Carpenter said stiffly, "is the one that has proved suitable for the greatest number of intelligent life-forms."
"Oh, I see," Michael murmured. "I didn't get a look at the other passengers. Are there many extraterrestrials on the bus?"
"Dozens of them. Haven't you heard the Sirians singing?"
A low moaning noise had been pervading the bus, but Michael had thought it arose from defective jets.
"Oh, yes!" he agreed. "And very beautiful it is, too! But so sad."
"Sirians are always sad," the salesman told him. "Listen."
Michael strained his ears past the racket of the advideo. Sure enough, he could make out words: "Our wings were unfurled in a far distant world, our bodies are pain-racked, delirious. And never, it seems, will we see, save in dreams, the bright purple swamps of our Sirius...."
Carpenter brushed away a tear. "Poignant, isn't it?"
"Very, very touching," Michael agreed. "Are they sick or something?"
"Oh, no; they wouldn't have been permitted on the bus if they were. They're just homesick. Sirians love being homesick. That's why they leave Sirius in such great numbers."
"Fasten your suction disks, please," the stewardess, a pretty two-headed Denebian, ordered as she walked up and down the gangway.
"We're coming into Portyork. I have an announcement to make to all passengers on behalf of the United Universe. Zosma was admitted into the Union early this morning."
All the passengers cheered.
"Since it is considered immodest on Zosma," she continued, "ever to appear with the heads bare, henceforward it will be tabu to be seen in public without some sort of head-covering."
Wild scrabbling sounds indicated that all the passengers were searching their packs for headgear. Michael unearthed a violet cap.
The salesmen unfolded what looked like a medieval opera hat in piercingly bright green.
"Always got to keep on your toes," he whispered to the younger man.
"The Universe is expanding every minute."
The bus settled softly on the landing field and the passengers flew, floated, crawled, undulated, or walked out. Michael looked around him curiously. The Lodge had contained no extraterrestrials, for such of those as sought seclusion had Brotherhoods on their own planets.
Of course, even in Angeles he had seen other-worlders—humanoids from Vega, scaly Electrans, the wispy ubiquitous Sirians—but nothing to compare with the crowds that surged here. Scarlet Meropians rubbed tentacles with bulging-eyed Talithans; lumpish gray Jovians plodded alongside graceful, spidery Nunkians. And there were countless others whom he had seen pictured in books, but never before in reality.
The gaily colored costumes and bodies of these beings rendered kaleidoscopic a field already brilliant with red-and-green lights and banners. The effect was enhanced by Mr. Carpenter, whose emerald-green cloak was drawn back to reveal a chartreuse tunic and olive-green breeches which had apparently been designed for a taller and somewhat less pudgy man.
Carpenter rubbed modestly gloved hands together. "I have no immediate business, so supposing I start showing you the sights. What would you like to see first, Mr. Frey? Or would you prefer a nice, restful movid?"
"Frankly," Michael admitted, "the first thing I'd like to do is get myself something to eat. I didn't have any breakfast and I'm famished." Two small creatures standing close to him giggled nervously and scuttled off on six legs apiece.
"Shh, not so loud! There are females present." Carpenter drew the youth to a secluded corner. "Don't you know that on Theemim it's frightfully vulgar to as much as speak of eating in public?"
"But why?" Michael demanded in too loud a voice. "What's wrong with eating in public here on Earth?"
Carpenter clapped a hand over the young man's mouth. "Hush," he cautioned. "After all, on Earth there are things we don't do or even mention in public, aren't there?"
"Well, yes. But those are different."
"Not at all. Those rules might seem just as ridiculous to a Theemimian. But the Theemimians have accepted our customs just as we have accepted the Theemimians'. How would you like it if a Theemimian violated one of our tabus in public? You must consider the feelings of the Theemimians as equal to your own. Observe the golden rule: 'Do unto extraterrestrials as you would be done by.'"
"But I'm still hungry," Michael persisted, modulating his voice, however, to a decent whisper. "Do the proprieties demand that I starve to death, or can I get something to eat somewhere?"
"Naturally," the salesman whispered back. "Portyork provides for all bodily needs. Numerous feeding stations are conveniently located throughout the port, and there must be some on the field."
After gazing furtively over his shoulder to see that no females were watching, Carpenter approached a large map of the landing field and pressed a button. A tiny red light winked demurely for an instant.
"That's the nearest one," Carpenter explained.
Inside a small, white, functional-looking building unobtrusively marked "Feeding Station," Carpenter showed Michael where to insert a two-credit piece in a slot. A door slid back and admitted Michael into a tiny, austere room, furnished only with a table, a chair, a food compartment, and an advideo. The food consisted of tabloid synthetics and was tasteless. Michael knew that only primitive creatures waste time and energy in growing and preparing natural foods. It was all a matter of getting used to this stuff, he thought glumly, as he tried to chew food that was meant to be gulped.
A ferret-eyed Yeddan appeared on the advideo. "Do you suffer from gastric disorders? Does your viscera get in your hair? A horrid condition, but swift abolition is yours with Al-Brom from Altair."
Michael finished his meal in fifteen minutes and left the compartment to find Carpenter awaiting him in the lobby, impatiently glancing at the luminous time dial embedded in his wrist.
"Let's go to the Old Town," he suggested to Michael. "It will be of great interest to a student and a newcomer like yourself."
A few yards away from the feeding station, the travel agents were lined up in rows, each outside his spaceship, each shouting the advantages of the tour he offered:
"Better than a mustard plaster is a weekend spent on Castor."
"If you want to show you like her, take her for a week to Spica."
"Movid stars go to Mars."
Carpenter smiled politely at them. "No space trips for us today, gentlemen. We're staying on Terra." He guided the bewildered young man through the crowds and to the gates of the field. Outside, a number of surface vehicles were lined up, with the drivers loudly competing for business.
"Come, take a ride in my rocket car, suited to both gent and lady, lined with luxury hukka fur brought from afar, and perfumed with rare scents from Algedi."
"Whichever movid film you choose to view will be yours in my fine cab from Mizar. Just press a button—it won't cost you nuttin'—see a passionate drama of long-vanished Mu or the bloodhounds pursuing Eliza."
"All honor be laid at the feet of free trade, but, whatever your race or your birth, each passenger curls up with two dancing girls who rides in the taxi from Earth."
"Couldn't we—couldn't we walk? At least part of the way?" Michael faltered.
Carpenter stared. "Walk! Don't you know it's forbidden to walk more than two hundred yards in any one direction? Fomalhautians never walk."
"But they have no feet."
"That has nothing whatsoever to do with it."
Carpenter gently urged the young man into the Algedian cab ... which reeked. Michael held his nose, but his mentor shook his head. "No, no! Tpiu Number Five is the most esteemed aroma on Algedi. It would break the driver's heart if he thought you didn't like it. You wouldn't want to be had up for ego injury, would you?"
"Of course not," Michael whispered weakly.
"Brunettes are darker and blondes are fairer," the advideo informed him, "when they wash out their hair with shampoos made on Chara."
After a time, Michael got more or less used to Tpiu Number Five and was able to take some interest in the passing landscape. Portyork, the biggest spaceport in the United Universe, was, of course, the most cosmopolitan city—cosmopolitan in its architecture as well as its inhabitants. Silver domes of Earth were crowded next to the tall helical edifices of the Venusians.
"You'll notice that the current medieval revival has even reached architecture," Carpenter pointed out. "See those period houses in the Frank Lloyd Wright and Inigo Jones manner?"
"Very quaint," Michael commented.
Great floating red and green balls lit the streets, even though it was still daylight, and long scarlet-and-emerald streamers whipped out from the most unlikely places. As Michael opened his mouth to inquire about this, "We now interrupt the commercials," the advideo said, "to bring you a brand new version of one of the medieval ballads that are becoming so popular...."
"I shall scream," stated Carpenter, "if they play Beautiful Blue Deneb just once more.... No, thank the Wise Ones, I've never heard this before."
"Thuban, Thuban, I've been thinking," sang a buxom Betelgeusian, "what a Cosmos this could be, if land masses were transported to replace the wasteful sea."
"I guess the first thing for me to do," Michael began in a businesslike manner, "is to get myself a room at a hotel.... What have I said now?"
"The word hotel ," Carpenter explained through pursed lips, "is not used in polite society any more. It has come to have unpleasant connotations. It means—a place of dancing girls. I hardly think...."
"Certainly not," Michael agreed austerely. "I merely want a lodging."
"That word is also—well, you see," Carpenter told him, "on Zaniah it is unthinkable to go anywhere without one's family."
"They're a sort of ant, aren't they? The Zaniahans, I mean."
"More like bees. So those creatures who travel—" Carpenter lowered his voice modestly "— alone hire a family for the duration of their stay. There are a number of families available, but the better types come rather high. There has been talk of reviving the old-fashioned price controls, but the Wise Ones say this would limit free enterprise as much as—if you'll excuse my use of the expression—tariffs would."
The taxi let them off at a square meadow which was filled with transparent plastic domes housing clocks of all varieties, most of the antique type based on the old twenty-four hour day instead of the standard thirty hours. There were few extraterrestrial clocks because most non-humans had time sense, Michael knew, and needed no mechanical devices.
"This," said Carpenter, "is Times Square. Once it wasn't really square, but it is contrary to Nekkarian custom to do, say, imply, or permit the existence of anything that isn't true, so when Nekkar entered the Union, we had to square off the place. And, of course, install the clocks. Finest clock museum in the Union, I understand."
"The pictures in my history books—" Michael began.
"Did I hear you correctly, sir?" The capes of a bright blue cloak trembled with the indignation of a scarlet, many-tentacled being. "Did you use the word history ?" He pronounced it in terms of loathing. "I have been grossly insulted and I shall be forced to report you to the police, sir."
"Please don't!" Carpenter begged. "This youth has just come from one of the Brotherhoods and is not yet accustomed to the ways of our universe. I know that, because of the great sophistication for which your race is noted, you will overlook this little gaucherie on his part."
"Well," the red one conceded, "let it not be said that Meropians are not tolerant. But, be careful, young man," he warned Michael. "There are other beings less sophisticated than we. Guard your tongue, or you might find yourself in trouble."
He indicated the stalwart constable who, splendid in gold helmet and gold-spangled pink tights, surveyed the terrain haughtily from his floating platform in the air.
"I should have told you," Carpenter reproached himself as the Meropian swirled off. "Never mention the word 'history' in front of a Meropian. They rose from barbarism in one generation, and so they haven't any history at all. Naturally, they're sensitive in the extreme about it."
"Naturally," Michael said. "Tell me, Mr. Carpenter, is there some special reason for everything being decorated in red and green? I noticed it along the way and it's all over here, too."
"Why, Christmas is coming, my boy," Carpenter answered, surprised.
"It's July already—about time they got started fixing things up. Some places are so slack, they haven't even got their Mother's Week shrines cleared away."
A bevy of tiny golden-haired, winged creatures circled slowly over Times Square.
"Izarians," Carpenter explained "They're much in demand for Christmas displays."
The small mouths opened and clear soprano voices filled the air: "It came upon the midnight clear, that glorious song of old, from angels bending near the Earth to tune their harps of gold. Peace on Earth, good will to men, from Heaven's All-Celestial. Peace to the Universe as well and every extraterrestrial.... Beat the drum and clash the cymbals; buy your Christmas gifts at Nimble's."
"This beautiful walk you see before you," Carpenter said, waving an expository arm, "shaded by boogil trees from Dschubba, is called Broadway. To your left you will be delighted to see—"
"Listen, could we—" Michael began.
"—Forty-second Street, which is now actually the forty-second—"
"By the way—"
"It is extremely rude and hence illegal," Carpenter glared, "to interrupt anyone who is speaking."
"But I would like," Michael whispered very earnestly, "to get washed. If I might."
The other man frowned. "Let me see. I believe one of the old landmarks was converted into a lavatory. Only thing of suitable dimensions. Anyhow, it was absolutely useless for any other purpose. We have to take a taxi there; it's more than two hundred yards. Custom, you know."
"A taxi? Isn't there one closer?"
"Ah, impatient youth! There aren't too many altogether. The installations are extremely expensive."
They hailed the nearest taxi, which happened to be one of the variety equipped with dancing girls. Fortunately the ride was brief.
Michael gazed at the Empire State Building with interest. It was in a remarkable state of preservation and looked just like the pictures in his history—in his books, except that none of them showed the huge golden sign "Public-Washport" riding on its spire.
Attendants directed traffic from a large circular desk in the lobby.
"Mercurians, seventy-eighth floor. A group Vegans, fourteenth floor right. B group, fourteenth floor left. C group, fifteenth floor right. D group, fifteenth floor left. Sirians, forty-ninth floor. Female humans fiftieth floor right, males, fiftieth floor left. Uranians, basement...."
Carpenter and Michael shared an elevator with a group of sad-eyed, translucent Sirians, who were singing as usual and accompanying themselves on wemps , a cross between a harp and a flute. "Foreign planets are strange and we're subject to mange. Foreign atmospheres prove deleterious. Only with our mind's eye can we sail through the sky to the bright purple swamps of our Sirius."
The cost of the compartment was half that of the feeding station; one credit in the slot unlocked the door. There was an advideo here, too:
"Friend, do you clean yourself each day? Now, let's not be evasive, for each one has his favored way. Some use an abrasive and some use oil. Some shed their skins, in a brand-new hide emerging. Some rub with grease put up in tins. For others there's deterging. Some lick themselves to take off grime. Some beat it off with rope. Some cook it away in boiling lime. Old-fashioned ones use soap. More ways there are than I recall, and each of these will differ, but the only one that works for all is Omniclene from Kiffa."
"And now," smiled Carpenter as the two humans left the building, "we must see you registered for a nice family. Nothing too ostentatious, but, on the other hand, you mustn't count credits and ally yourself beneath your station."
Michael gazed pensively at two slender, snakelike Difdans writhing
"Only 99 Shopping Days Till Christmas" across an aquamarine sky.
"They won't be permanent?" he asked. "The family, I mean?"
"Certainly not. You merely hire them for whatever length of time you choose. But why are you so anxious?"
The young man blushed. "Well, I'm thinking of having a family of my own some day. Pretty soon, as a matter of fact."
Carpenter beamed. "That's nice; you're being adopted! I do hope it's an Earth family that's chosen you—it's so awkward being adopted by extraterrestrials."
"Oh, no! I'm planning to have my own. That is, I've got a—a girl, you see, and I thought after I had secured employment of some kind in Portyork, I'd send for her and we'd get married and...."
" Married! " Carpenter was now completely shocked. "You mustn't use that word! Don't you know marriage was outlawed years ago? Exclusive possession of a member of the opposite sex is slavery on Talitha. Furthermore, supposing somebody else saw your—er—friend and wanted her also; you wouldn't wish him to endure the frustration of not having her, would you?"
Michael squared his jaw. "You bet I would."
Carpenter drew himself away slightly, as if to avoid contamination.
"This is un-Universal. Young man, if I didn't have a kind heart, I would report you."
Michael was too preoccupied to be disturbed by this threat. "You mean if I bring my girl here, I'd have to share her?"
"Certainly. And she'd have to share you. If somebody wanted you, that is."
"Then I'm not staying here," Michael declared firmly, ashamed to admit even to himself how much relief his decision was bringing him. "I don't think I like it, anyhow. I'm going back to the Brotherhood."
There was a short cold silence.
"You know, son," Carpenter finally said, "I think you might be right. I don't want to hurt your feelings—you promise I won't hurt your feelings?" he asked anxiously, afraid, Michael realized, that he might call a policeman for ego injury.
"You won't hurt my feelings, Mr. Carpenter."
"Well, I believe that there are certain individuals who just cannot adapt themselves to civilized behavior patterns. It's much better for them to belong to a Brotherhood such as yours than to be placed in one of the government incarceratoriums, comfortable and commodious though they are."
"Much better," Michael agreed.
"By the way," Carpenter went on, "I realize this is just vulgar curiosity on my part and you have a right to refuse an answer without fear of hurting my feelings, but how do you happen to have a—er—girl when you belong to a Brotherhood?"
Michael laughed. "Oh, 'Brotherhood' is merely a generic term. Both sexes are represented in our society."
"On Talitha—" Carpenter began.
"I know," Michael interrupted him, like the crude primitive he was and always would be. "But our females don't mind being generic."
A group of Sirians was traveling on the shelf above him on the slow, very slow jet bus that was flying Michael back to Angeles, back to the Lodge, back to the Brotherhood, back to her. Their melancholy howling was getting on his nerves, but in a little while, he told himself, it would be all over. He would be back home, safe with his own kind.
"When our minds have grown tired, when our lives have expired, when our sorrows no longer can weary us, let our ashes return, neatly packed in an urn, to the bright purple swamps of our Sirius."
The advideo crackled: "The gown her fairy godmother once gave to Cinderella was created by the haute couture of fashion-wise Capella."
The ancient taxi was there, the one that Michael had taken from the Lodge, early that morning, to the little Angeleno landing field, as if it had been waiting for his return.
"I see you're back, son," the driver said without surprise. He set the noisy old rockets blasting. "I been to Portyork once. It's not a bad place to live in, but I hate to visit it."
"I'm back!" Michael sank into the motheaten sable cushions and gazed with pleasure at the familiar landmarks half seen in the darkness. "I'm back! And a loud sneer to civilization!"
"Better be careful, son," the driver warned. "I know this is a rural area, but civilization is spreading. There are secret police all over. How do you know I ain't a government spy? I could pull you in for insulting civilization."
The elderly black and white advideo flickered, broke into purring sound: "Do you find life continues to daze you? Do you find for a quick death you hanker? Why not try the new style euthanasia, performed by skilled workmen from Ancha?"
Not any more, Michael thought contentedly. He was going home.
Question:
What is the setting of the story?
Answer:
|
[
"The narration begins on a bus shelf where the main character lies. Then he arrives at Portyork, a huge spaceport on Earth, where Michael and Mr. Carpenter head to the nearest feeding station following the map. There Michael alone is admitted into a tiny room to eat. When he finishes, the two take a trip to the Old Town by taxi. In the cab they crossed Portyork, looking at the cosmopolitan architecture and people. They exit the taxi at Times Square which is indeed in the shape of a square and is decorated for the New Year in green and red though it's July. The two walk a little to Broadway and then. take another can to a public lavatory. There, in the elevator, Michael sees many foreigners again. When they leave the lavatory, the two have an argument and go different ways. In the next scene Michaels appears on a shelf on his way back to Angeles, to the Lodge and the Brotherhood. Upon arrival, he takes the same taxi back home. \n",
"The story is set on Earth. Michael and Carpenter initially travel to Portyork via a jet bus. There is a level on the bus that drops his pack from the storage compartment. There are also no seats on the jet bus to accommodate the numerous types of life forms. Portyork is a cosmopolitan city filled with many different forms of architecture. There are silver dome buildings belonging to Earth origins and tall, helical Venusian buildings. Many different extraterrestrials inhabit the city too. The feeding station room Carpenter brings Michael has a slot for a two-credit piece. The tiny room itself has only a chair, table, food compartment, and advideo. Times Square is a square meadow with transparent domes, housing many antique clocks that run by twenty-four hours instead of the standard thirty. There are also many green and red decorations put out to prepare for Christmas. Broadway has boogil trees from Dschubba, and the Empire State Building still looks the same as in the pictures, except there is a huge “Public Washport” sign. There is a circular desk to direct traffic from and many different floors for each extraterrestrial species. ",
"The story takes place when Christmas is almost here, it’s July. It begins with the jet bus heading towards Portyork. The jet bus don’t have any seats since it was proven to be the most suitable way for different life-forms. The bus has an illuminated panel on a shelf, where Michael and Carpenter lie; and there is a storage compartment on the bus, and it can drop the bags that is stored within it using a lever. \n\nThe landing field has a large map that shows the location of the “Feeding Station” to Carpenter. Walking into the small and austere room that has a sliding door at the station, Michael sees that there is only a table, a chair, a food compartment and an advideo, and nothing else. \nPortyork is the largest spaceport in the United Universe and the city with the most cosmopolitan architectures and diverse group of inhabitants. Eventually, Michael gets a better view of the city of Portyork on the taxi, after he gets used to the Tpiu Number Five aroma. He sees the Silver domes of Earth as well as the tall helical buildings of the Venusians, standing right next to the domes. There are houses in Frank Lloyd Wright and Inigo Jones style due to the medieval architecture revival that is taking place there. Michael also notes the streamers and red and green balls on the street, which are lit even when there’s daylight. Getting off of the taxi, Michael and Carpenter arrive at the Time Square, which is actually a square now. It is filled with clocks inside transparent plastic domes, where most of those clocks are 24-hr clock; a few have 30-hr, which is the standard nowadays. Broadway is filled with shades from the boogil trees. The Empire State Building looks just like the pictures in his history book, but a “Public-Washport” sign was there. There is a large circular desk in the lobby, where the attendants directed the guests to the elevators. ",
"The setting of the story is earth. When we first meet Micheal, he is on a bus, travelling to Portyork. It is a city that has clearly evolved from New York. The bus is uncomfortable to Micheal, as everyone on it has to lie down. The bus finally stops on the landing field. They depart from the bus into the outer edges of the city. Micheal goes into a small, white plain building which is marked as a feeding station to nourish himself. In the building is a table and chair, a food compartment and an advideo. The heart of the city is described as \"Old Town\". Portyork is the biggest spaceport in the United Universe. There are silver domes of earth, clustered by towing edifices of the Venusians. There are red and green balls that glow, lighting the streets. There are long red and green streamers lining the streets. They are transported to a square meadow, with plastic domes containing different types of clocks dotted throughout. It is Times square. There is a lovely walkway that is lined by \"boogil trees\". It is broadway. The empire state building has been converted into a washing station and lavatory, with different floors for different species. "
] |
50847
|
Tea Tray in the Sky
By EVELYN E. SMITH
Illustrated by ASHMAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Visiting a society is tougher than being born into it. A 40 credit tour is no substitute!
The picture changed on the illuminated panel that filled the forward end of the shelf on which Michael lay. A haggard blonde woman sprawled apathetically in a chair.
"Rundown, nervous, hypertensive?" inquired a mellifluous voice. "In need of mental therapy? Buy Grugis juice; it's not expensive. And they swear by it on Meropé."
A disembodied pair of hands administered a spoonful of Grugis juice to the woman, whereupon her hair turned bright yellow, makeup bloomed on her face, her clothes grew briefer, and she burst into a fast Callistan clog.
"I see from your hair that you have been a member of one of the Brotherhoods," the passenger lying next to Michael on the shelf remarked inquisitively. He was a middle-aged man, his dust-brown hair thinning on top, his small blue eyes glittering preternaturally from the lenses fitted over his eyeballs.
Michael rubbed his fingers ruefully over the blond stubble on his scalp and wished he had waited until his tonsure were fully grown before he had ventured out into the world. But he had been so impatient to leave the Lodge, so impatient to exchange the flowing robes of the Brotherhood for the close-fitting breeches and tunic of the outer world that had seemed so glamorous and now proved so itchy.
"Yes," he replied courteously, for he knew the first rule of universal behavior, "I have been a Brother."
"Now why would a good-looking young fellow like you want to join a Brotherhood?" his shelf companion wanted to know. "Trouble over a female?"
Michael shook his head, smiling. "No, I have been a member of the Angeleno Brotherhood since I was an infant. My father brought me when he entered."
The other man clucked sympathetically. "No doubt he was grieved over the death of your mother."
Michael closed his eyes to shut out the sight of a baby protruding its fat face at him three-dimensionally, but he could not shut out its lisping voice: "Does your child refuse its food, grow wizened like a monkey? It will grow plump with oh-so-good Mealy Mush from Nunki."
"No, sir," Michael replied. "Father said that was one of the few blessings that brightened an otherwise benighted life."
Horror contorted his fellow traveller's plump features. "Be careful, young man!" he warned. "Lucky for you that you are talking to someone as broad-minded as I, but others aren't. You might be reported for violating a tabu. An Earth tabu, moreover."
"An Earth tabu?"
"Certainly. Motherhood is sacred here on Earth and so, of course, in the entire United Universe. You should have known that."
Michael blushed. He should indeed. For a year prior to his leaving the Lodge, he had carefully studied the customs and tabus of the Universe so that he should be able to enter the new life he planned for himself, with confidence and ease. Under the system of universal kinship, all the customs and all the tabus of all the planets were the law on all the other planets. For the Wise Ones had decided many years before that wars arose from not understanding one's fellows, not sympathizing with them. If every nation, every planet, every solar system had the same laws, customs, and habits, they reasoned, there would be no differences, and hence no wars.
Future events had proved them to be correct. For five hundred years there had been no war in the United Universe, and there was peace and plenty for all. Only one crime was recognized throughout the solar systems—injuring a fellow-creature by word or deed (and the telepaths of Aldebaran were still trying to add thought to the statute).
Why, then, Michael had questioned the Father Superior, was there any reason for the Lodge's existence, any reason for a group of humans to retire from the world and live in the simple ways of their primitive forefathers? When there had been war, injustice, tyranny, there had, perhaps, been an understandable emotional reason for fleeing the world. But now why refuse to face a desirable reality? Why turn one's face upon the present and deliberately go back to the life of the past—the high collars, vests and trousers, the inefficient coal furnaces, the rude gasoline tractors of medieval days?
The Father Superior had smiled. "You are not yet a fully fledged Brother, Michael. You cannot enter your novitiate until you've achieved your majority, and you won't be thirty for another five years. Why don't you spend some time outside and see how you like it?"
Michael had agreed, but before leaving he had spent months studying the ways of the United Universe. He had skimmed over Earth, because he had been so sure he'd know its ways instinctively. Remembering his preparations, he was astonished by his smug self-confidence.
A large scarlet pencil jumped merrily across the advideo screen. The face on the eraser opened its mouth and sang: "Our pencils are finest from point up to rubber, for the lead is from Yed, while the wood comes from Dschubba."
"Is there any way of turning that thing off?" Michael wanted to know.
The other man smiled. "If there were, my boy, do you think anybody would watch it? Furthermore, turning it off would violate the spirit of free enterprise. We wouldn't want that, would we?"
"Oh, no!" Michael agreed hastily. "Certainly not."
"And it might hurt the advertiser's feelings, cause him ego injury."
"How could I ever have had such a ridiculous idea?" Michael murmured, abashed.
"Allow me to introduce myself," said his companion. "My name is Pierce B. Carpenter. Aphrodisiacs are my line. Here's my card." He handed Michael a transparent tab with the photograph of Mr. Carpenter suspended inside, together with his registration number, his name, his address, and the Universal seal of approval. Clearly he was a character of the utmost respectability.
"My name's Michael Frey," the young man responded, smiling awkwardly.
"I'm afraid I don't have any cards."
"Well, you wouldn't have had any use for them where you were. Now, look here, son," Carpenter went on in a lowered voice, "I know you've just come from the Lodge and the mistakes you'll make will be through ignorance rather than deliberate malice. But the police wouldn't understand. You know what the sacred writings say: 'Ignorance of The Law is no excuse.' I'd be glad to give you any little tips I can. For instance, your hands...."
Michael spread his hands out in front of him. They were perfectly good hands, he thought. "Is there something wrong with them?"
Carpenter blushed and looked away. "Didn't you know that on Electra it is forbidden for anyone to appear in public with his hands bare?"
"Of course I know that," Michael said impatiently. "But what's that got to do with me?"
The salesman was wide-eyed. "But if it is forbidden on Electra, it becomes automatically prohibited here."
"But Electrans have eight fingers on each hand," Michael protested,
"with two fingernails on each—all covered with green scales."
Carpenter drew himself up as far as it was possible to do so while lying down. "Do eight fingers make one a lesser Universal?"
"Of course not, but—"
"Is he inferior to you then because he has sixteen fingernails?"
"Certainly not, but—"
"Would you like to be called guilty of—" Carpenter paused before the dreaded word—" intolerance ?"
"No, no, no !" Michael almost shrieked. It would be horrible for him to be arrested before he even had time to view Portyork. "I have lots of gloves in my pack," he babbled. "Lots and lots. I'll put some on right away."
With nervous haste, he pressed the lever which dropped his pack down from the storage compartment. It landed on his stomach. The device had been invented by one of the Dschubbans who are, as everyone knows, hoop-shaped.
Michael pushed the button marked Gloves A , and a pair of yellow gauntlets slid out.
Carpenter pressed his hands to his eyes. "Yellow is the color of death on Saturn, and you know how morbid the Saturnians are about passing away! No one ever wears yellow!"
"Sorry," Michael said humbly. The button marked Gloves B yielded a pair of rose-colored gloves which harmonized ill with his scarlet tunic and turquoise breeches, but he was past caring for esthetic effects.
"The quality's high," sang a quartet of beautiful female humanoids,
"but the price is meager. You know when you buy Plummy Fruitcake from Vega."
The salesman patted Michael's shoulder. "You staying a while in Portyork?" Michael nodded. "Then you'd better stick close to me for a while until you learn our ways. You can't run around loose by yourself until you've acquired civilized behavior patterns, or you'll get into trouble."
"Thank you, sir," Michael said gratefully. "It's very kind of you."
He twisted himself around—it was boiling hot inside the jet bus and his damp clothes were clinging uncomfortably—and struck his head against the bottom of the shelf above. "Awfully inconvenient arrangement here," he commented. "Wonder why they don't have seats."
"Because this arrangement," Carpenter said stiffly, "is the one that has proved suitable for the greatest number of intelligent life-forms."
"Oh, I see," Michael murmured. "I didn't get a look at the other passengers. Are there many extraterrestrials on the bus?"
"Dozens of them. Haven't you heard the Sirians singing?"
A low moaning noise had been pervading the bus, but Michael had thought it arose from defective jets.
"Oh, yes!" he agreed. "And very beautiful it is, too! But so sad."
"Sirians are always sad," the salesman told him. "Listen."
Michael strained his ears past the racket of the advideo. Sure enough, he could make out words: "Our wings were unfurled in a far distant world, our bodies are pain-racked, delirious. And never, it seems, will we see, save in dreams, the bright purple swamps of our Sirius...."
Carpenter brushed away a tear. "Poignant, isn't it?"
"Very, very touching," Michael agreed. "Are they sick or something?"
"Oh, no; they wouldn't have been permitted on the bus if they were. They're just homesick. Sirians love being homesick. That's why they leave Sirius in such great numbers."
"Fasten your suction disks, please," the stewardess, a pretty two-headed Denebian, ordered as she walked up and down the gangway.
"We're coming into Portyork. I have an announcement to make to all passengers on behalf of the United Universe. Zosma was admitted into the Union early this morning."
All the passengers cheered.
"Since it is considered immodest on Zosma," she continued, "ever to appear with the heads bare, henceforward it will be tabu to be seen in public without some sort of head-covering."
Wild scrabbling sounds indicated that all the passengers were searching their packs for headgear. Michael unearthed a violet cap.
The salesmen unfolded what looked like a medieval opera hat in piercingly bright green.
"Always got to keep on your toes," he whispered to the younger man.
"The Universe is expanding every minute."
The bus settled softly on the landing field and the passengers flew, floated, crawled, undulated, or walked out. Michael looked around him curiously. The Lodge had contained no extraterrestrials, for such of those as sought seclusion had Brotherhoods on their own planets.
Of course, even in Angeles he had seen other-worlders—humanoids from Vega, scaly Electrans, the wispy ubiquitous Sirians—but nothing to compare with the crowds that surged here. Scarlet Meropians rubbed tentacles with bulging-eyed Talithans; lumpish gray Jovians plodded alongside graceful, spidery Nunkians. And there were countless others whom he had seen pictured in books, but never before in reality.
The gaily colored costumes and bodies of these beings rendered kaleidoscopic a field already brilliant with red-and-green lights and banners. The effect was enhanced by Mr. Carpenter, whose emerald-green cloak was drawn back to reveal a chartreuse tunic and olive-green breeches which had apparently been designed for a taller and somewhat less pudgy man.
Carpenter rubbed modestly gloved hands together. "I have no immediate business, so supposing I start showing you the sights. What would you like to see first, Mr. Frey? Or would you prefer a nice, restful movid?"
"Frankly," Michael admitted, "the first thing I'd like to do is get myself something to eat. I didn't have any breakfast and I'm famished." Two small creatures standing close to him giggled nervously and scuttled off on six legs apiece.
"Shh, not so loud! There are females present." Carpenter drew the youth to a secluded corner. "Don't you know that on Theemim it's frightfully vulgar to as much as speak of eating in public?"
"But why?" Michael demanded in too loud a voice. "What's wrong with eating in public here on Earth?"
Carpenter clapped a hand over the young man's mouth. "Hush," he cautioned. "After all, on Earth there are things we don't do or even mention in public, aren't there?"
"Well, yes. But those are different."
"Not at all. Those rules might seem just as ridiculous to a Theemimian. But the Theemimians have accepted our customs just as we have accepted the Theemimians'. How would you like it if a Theemimian violated one of our tabus in public? You must consider the feelings of the Theemimians as equal to your own. Observe the golden rule: 'Do unto extraterrestrials as you would be done by.'"
"But I'm still hungry," Michael persisted, modulating his voice, however, to a decent whisper. "Do the proprieties demand that I starve to death, or can I get something to eat somewhere?"
"Naturally," the salesman whispered back. "Portyork provides for all bodily needs. Numerous feeding stations are conveniently located throughout the port, and there must be some on the field."
After gazing furtively over his shoulder to see that no females were watching, Carpenter approached a large map of the landing field and pressed a button. A tiny red light winked demurely for an instant.
"That's the nearest one," Carpenter explained.
Inside a small, white, functional-looking building unobtrusively marked "Feeding Station," Carpenter showed Michael where to insert a two-credit piece in a slot. A door slid back and admitted Michael into a tiny, austere room, furnished only with a table, a chair, a food compartment, and an advideo. The food consisted of tabloid synthetics and was tasteless. Michael knew that only primitive creatures waste time and energy in growing and preparing natural foods. It was all a matter of getting used to this stuff, he thought glumly, as he tried to chew food that was meant to be gulped.
A ferret-eyed Yeddan appeared on the advideo. "Do you suffer from gastric disorders? Does your viscera get in your hair? A horrid condition, but swift abolition is yours with Al-Brom from Altair."
Michael finished his meal in fifteen minutes and left the compartment to find Carpenter awaiting him in the lobby, impatiently glancing at the luminous time dial embedded in his wrist.
"Let's go to the Old Town," he suggested to Michael. "It will be of great interest to a student and a newcomer like yourself."
A few yards away from the feeding station, the travel agents were lined up in rows, each outside his spaceship, each shouting the advantages of the tour he offered:
"Better than a mustard plaster is a weekend spent on Castor."
"If you want to show you like her, take her for a week to Spica."
"Movid stars go to Mars."
Carpenter smiled politely at them. "No space trips for us today, gentlemen. We're staying on Terra." He guided the bewildered young man through the crowds and to the gates of the field. Outside, a number of surface vehicles were lined up, with the drivers loudly competing for business.
"Come, take a ride in my rocket car, suited to both gent and lady, lined with luxury hukka fur brought from afar, and perfumed with rare scents from Algedi."
"Whichever movid film you choose to view will be yours in my fine cab from Mizar. Just press a button—it won't cost you nuttin'—see a passionate drama of long-vanished Mu or the bloodhounds pursuing Eliza."
"All honor be laid at the feet of free trade, but, whatever your race or your birth, each passenger curls up with two dancing girls who rides in the taxi from Earth."
"Couldn't we—couldn't we walk? At least part of the way?" Michael faltered.
Carpenter stared. "Walk! Don't you know it's forbidden to walk more than two hundred yards in any one direction? Fomalhautians never walk."
"But they have no feet."
"That has nothing whatsoever to do with it."
Carpenter gently urged the young man into the Algedian cab ... which reeked. Michael held his nose, but his mentor shook his head. "No, no! Tpiu Number Five is the most esteemed aroma on Algedi. It would break the driver's heart if he thought you didn't like it. You wouldn't want to be had up for ego injury, would you?"
"Of course not," Michael whispered weakly.
"Brunettes are darker and blondes are fairer," the advideo informed him, "when they wash out their hair with shampoos made on Chara."
After a time, Michael got more or less used to Tpiu Number Five and was able to take some interest in the passing landscape. Portyork, the biggest spaceport in the United Universe, was, of course, the most cosmopolitan city—cosmopolitan in its architecture as well as its inhabitants. Silver domes of Earth were crowded next to the tall helical edifices of the Venusians.
"You'll notice that the current medieval revival has even reached architecture," Carpenter pointed out. "See those period houses in the Frank Lloyd Wright and Inigo Jones manner?"
"Very quaint," Michael commented.
Great floating red and green balls lit the streets, even though it was still daylight, and long scarlet-and-emerald streamers whipped out from the most unlikely places. As Michael opened his mouth to inquire about this, "We now interrupt the commercials," the advideo said, "to bring you a brand new version of one of the medieval ballads that are becoming so popular...."
"I shall scream," stated Carpenter, "if they play Beautiful Blue Deneb just once more.... No, thank the Wise Ones, I've never heard this before."
"Thuban, Thuban, I've been thinking," sang a buxom Betelgeusian, "what a Cosmos this could be, if land masses were transported to replace the wasteful sea."
"I guess the first thing for me to do," Michael began in a businesslike manner, "is to get myself a room at a hotel.... What have I said now?"
"The word hotel ," Carpenter explained through pursed lips, "is not used in polite society any more. It has come to have unpleasant connotations. It means—a place of dancing girls. I hardly think...."
"Certainly not," Michael agreed austerely. "I merely want a lodging."
"That word is also—well, you see," Carpenter told him, "on Zaniah it is unthinkable to go anywhere without one's family."
"They're a sort of ant, aren't they? The Zaniahans, I mean."
"More like bees. So those creatures who travel—" Carpenter lowered his voice modestly "— alone hire a family for the duration of their stay. There are a number of families available, but the better types come rather high. There has been talk of reviving the old-fashioned price controls, but the Wise Ones say this would limit free enterprise as much as—if you'll excuse my use of the expression—tariffs would."
The taxi let them off at a square meadow which was filled with transparent plastic domes housing clocks of all varieties, most of the antique type based on the old twenty-four hour day instead of the standard thirty hours. There were few extraterrestrial clocks because most non-humans had time sense, Michael knew, and needed no mechanical devices.
"This," said Carpenter, "is Times Square. Once it wasn't really square, but it is contrary to Nekkarian custom to do, say, imply, or permit the existence of anything that isn't true, so when Nekkar entered the Union, we had to square off the place. And, of course, install the clocks. Finest clock museum in the Union, I understand."
"The pictures in my history books—" Michael began.
"Did I hear you correctly, sir?" The capes of a bright blue cloak trembled with the indignation of a scarlet, many-tentacled being. "Did you use the word history ?" He pronounced it in terms of loathing. "I have been grossly insulted and I shall be forced to report you to the police, sir."
"Please don't!" Carpenter begged. "This youth has just come from one of the Brotherhoods and is not yet accustomed to the ways of our universe. I know that, because of the great sophistication for which your race is noted, you will overlook this little gaucherie on his part."
"Well," the red one conceded, "let it not be said that Meropians are not tolerant. But, be careful, young man," he warned Michael. "There are other beings less sophisticated than we. Guard your tongue, or you might find yourself in trouble."
He indicated the stalwart constable who, splendid in gold helmet and gold-spangled pink tights, surveyed the terrain haughtily from his floating platform in the air.
"I should have told you," Carpenter reproached himself as the Meropian swirled off. "Never mention the word 'history' in front of a Meropian. They rose from barbarism in one generation, and so they haven't any history at all. Naturally, they're sensitive in the extreme about it."
"Naturally," Michael said. "Tell me, Mr. Carpenter, is there some special reason for everything being decorated in red and green? I noticed it along the way and it's all over here, too."
"Why, Christmas is coming, my boy," Carpenter answered, surprised.
"It's July already—about time they got started fixing things up. Some places are so slack, they haven't even got their Mother's Week shrines cleared away."
A bevy of tiny golden-haired, winged creatures circled slowly over Times Square.
"Izarians," Carpenter explained "They're much in demand for Christmas displays."
The small mouths opened and clear soprano voices filled the air: "It came upon the midnight clear, that glorious song of old, from angels bending near the Earth to tune their harps of gold. Peace on Earth, good will to men, from Heaven's All-Celestial. Peace to the Universe as well and every extraterrestrial.... Beat the drum and clash the cymbals; buy your Christmas gifts at Nimble's."
"This beautiful walk you see before you," Carpenter said, waving an expository arm, "shaded by boogil trees from Dschubba, is called Broadway. To your left you will be delighted to see—"
"Listen, could we—" Michael began.
"—Forty-second Street, which is now actually the forty-second—"
"By the way—"
"It is extremely rude and hence illegal," Carpenter glared, "to interrupt anyone who is speaking."
"But I would like," Michael whispered very earnestly, "to get washed. If I might."
The other man frowned. "Let me see. I believe one of the old landmarks was converted into a lavatory. Only thing of suitable dimensions. Anyhow, it was absolutely useless for any other purpose. We have to take a taxi there; it's more than two hundred yards. Custom, you know."
"A taxi? Isn't there one closer?"
"Ah, impatient youth! There aren't too many altogether. The installations are extremely expensive."
They hailed the nearest taxi, which happened to be one of the variety equipped with dancing girls. Fortunately the ride was brief.
Michael gazed at the Empire State Building with interest. It was in a remarkable state of preservation and looked just like the pictures in his history—in his books, except that none of them showed the huge golden sign "Public-Washport" riding on its spire.
Attendants directed traffic from a large circular desk in the lobby.
"Mercurians, seventy-eighth floor. A group Vegans, fourteenth floor right. B group, fourteenth floor left. C group, fifteenth floor right. D group, fifteenth floor left. Sirians, forty-ninth floor. Female humans fiftieth floor right, males, fiftieth floor left. Uranians, basement...."
Carpenter and Michael shared an elevator with a group of sad-eyed, translucent Sirians, who were singing as usual and accompanying themselves on wemps , a cross between a harp and a flute. "Foreign planets are strange and we're subject to mange. Foreign atmospheres prove deleterious. Only with our mind's eye can we sail through the sky to the bright purple swamps of our Sirius."
The cost of the compartment was half that of the feeding station; one credit in the slot unlocked the door. There was an advideo here, too:
"Friend, do you clean yourself each day? Now, let's not be evasive, for each one has his favored way. Some use an abrasive and some use oil. Some shed their skins, in a brand-new hide emerging. Some rub with grease put up in tins. For others there's deterging. Some lick themselves to take off grime. Some beat it off with rope. Some cook it away in boiling lime. Old-fashioned ones use soap. More ways there are than I recall, and each of these will differ, but the only one that works for all is Omniclene from Kiffa."
"And now," smiled Carpenter as the two humans left the building, "we must see you registered for a nice family. Nothing too ostentatious, but, on the other hand, you mustn't count credits and ally yourself beneath your station."
Michael gazed pensively at two slender, snakelike Difdans writhing
"Only 99 Shopping Days Till Christmas" across an aquamarine sky.
"They won't be permanent?" he asked. "The family, I mean?"
"Certainly not. You merely hire them for whatever length of time you choose. But why are you so anxious?"
The young man blushed. "Well, I'm thinking of having a family of my own some day. Pretty soon, as a matter of fact."
Carpenter beamed. "That's nice; you're being adopted! I do hope it's an Earth family that's chosen you—it's so awkward being adopted by extraterrestrials."
"Oh, no! I'm planning to have my own. That is, I've got a—a girl, you see, and I thought after I had secured employment of some kind in Portyork, I'd send for her and we'd get married and...."
" Married! " Carpenter was now completely shocked. "You mustn't use that word! Don't you know marriage was outlawed years ago? Exclusive possession of a member of the opposite sex is slavery on Talitha. Furthermore, supposing somebody else saw your—er—friend and wanted her also; you wouldn't wish him to endure the frustration of not having her, would you?"
Michael squared his jaw. "You bet I would."
Carpenter drew himself away slightly, as if to avoid contamination.
"This is un-Universal. Young man, if I didn't have a kind heart, I would report you."
Michael was too preoccupied to be disturbed by this threat. "You mean if I bring my girl here, I'd have to share her?"
"Certainly. And she'd have to share you. If somebody wanted you, that is."
"Then I'm not staying here," Michael declared firmly, ashamed to admit even to himself how much relief his decision was bringing him. "I don't think I like it, anyhow. I'm going back to the Brotherhood."
There was a short cold silence.
"You know, son," Carpenter finally said, "I think you might be right. I don't want to hurt your feelings—you promise I won't hurt your feelings?" he asked anxiously, afraid, Michael realized, that he might call a policeman for ego injury.
"You won't hurt my feelings, Mr. Carpenter."
"Well, I believe that there are certain individuals who just cannot adapt themselves to civilized behavior patterns. It's much better for them to belong to a Brotherhood such as yours than to be placed in one of the government incarceratoriums, comfortable and commodious though they are."
"Much better," Michael agreed.
"By the way," Carpenter went on, "I realize this is just vulgar curiosity on my part and you have a right to refuse an answer without fear of hurting my feelings, but how do you happen to have a—er—girl when you belong to a Brotherhood?"
Michael laughed. "Oh, 'Brotherhood' is merely a generic term. Both sexes are represented in our society."
"On Talitha—" Carpenter began.
"I know," Michael interrupted him, like the crude primitive he was and always would be. "But our females don't mind being generic."
A group of Sirians was traveling on the shelf above him on the slow, very slow jet bus that was flying Michael back to Angeles, back to the Lodge, back to the Brotherhood, back to her. Their melancholy howling was getting on his nerves, but in a little while, he told himself, it would be all over. He would be back home, safe with his own kind.
"When our minds have grown tired, when our lives have expired, when our sorrows no longer can weary us, let our ashes return, neatly packed in an urn, to the bright purple swamps of our Sirius."
The advideo crackled: "The gown her fairy godmother once gave to Cinderella was created by the haute couture of fashion-wise Capella."
The ancient taxi was there, the one that Michael had taken from the Lodge, early that morning, to the little Angeleno landing field, as if it had been waiting for his return.
"I see you're back, son," the driver said without surprise. He set the noisy old rockets blasting. "I been to Portyork once. It's not a bad place to live in, but I hate to visit it."
"I'm back!" Michael sank into the motheaten sable cushions and gazed with pleasure at the familiar landmarks half seen in the darkness. "I'm back! And a loud sneer to civilization!"
"Better be careful, son," the driver warned. "I know this is a rural area, but civilization is spreading. There are secret police all over. How do you know I ain't a government spy? I could pull you in for insulting civilization."
The elderly black and white advideo flickered, broke into purring sound: "Do you find life continues to daze you? Do you find for a quick death you hanker? Why not try the new style euthanasia, performed by skilled workmen from Ancha?"
Not any more, Michael thought contentedly. He was going home.
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Who’s Rosalind and what happens to her throughout the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Dr. Kometevsky's Day by Fritz Leiber.
Relevant chunks:
DR. KOMETEVSKY'S DAY
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by DAVID STONE
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Before science, there was superstition. After science, there will be ... what? The biggest, most staggering , most final fact of them all!
"But it's all predicted here! It even names this century for the next reshuffling of the planets."
Celeste Wolver looked up unwillingly at the book her friend Madge Carnap held aloft like a torch. She made out the ill-stamped title, The Dance of the Planets . There was no mistaking the time of its origin; only paper from the Twentieth Century aged to that particularly nasty shade of brown. Indeed, the book seemed to Celeste a brown old witch resurrected from the Last Age of Madness to confound a world growing sane, and she couldn't help shrinking back a trifle toward her husband Theodor.
He tried to come to her rescue. "Only predicted in the vaguest way. As I understand it, Kometevsky claimed, on the basis of a lot of evidence drawn from folklore, that the planets and their moons trade positions every so often."
"As if they were playing Going to Jerusalem, or musical chairs," Celeste chimed in, but she couldn't make it sound funny.
"Jupiter was supposed to have started as the outermost planet, and is to end up in the orbit of Mercury," Theodor continued. "Well, nothing at all like that has happened."
"But it's begun," Madge said with conviction. "Phobos and Deimos have disappeared. You can't argue away that stubborn little fact."
That was the trouble; you couldn't. Mars' two tiny moons had simply vanished during a period when, as was generally the case, the eyes of astronomy weren't on them. Just some hundred-odd cubic miles of rock—the merest cosmic flyspecks—yet they had carried away with them the security of a whole world.
Looking at the lovely garden landscape around her, Celeste Wolver felt that in a moment the shrubby hills would begin to roll like waves, the charmingly aimless paths twist like snakes and sink in the green sea, the sparsely placed skyscrapers dissolve into the misty clouds they pierced.
People must have felt like this , she thought, when Aristarches first hinted and Copernicus told them that the solid Earth under their feet was falling dizzily through space. Only it's worse for us, because they couldn't see that anything had changed. We can.
"You need something to cling to," she heard Madge say. "Dr. Kometevsky was the only person who ever had an inkling that anything like this might happen. I was never a Kometevskyite before. Hadn't even heard of the man."
She said it almost apologetically. In fact, standing there so frank and anxious-eyed, Madge looked anything but a fanatic, which made it much worse.
"Of course, there are several more convincing alternate explanations...." Theodor began hesitantly, knowing very well that there weren't. If Phobos and Deimos had suddenly disintegrated, surely Mars Base would have noticed something. Of course there was the Disordered Space Hypothesis, even if it was little more than the chance phrase of a prominent physicist pounded upon by an eager journalist. And in any case, what sense of security were you left with if you admitted that moons and planets might explode, or drop through unseen holes in space? So he ended up by taking a different tack: "Besides, if Phobos and Deimos simply shot off somewhere, surely they'd have been picked up by now by 'scope or radar."
"Two balls of rock just a few miles in diameter?" Madge questioned.
"Aren't they smaller than many of the asteroids? I'm no astronomer, but I think' I'm right."
And of course she was.
She swung the book under her arm. "Whew, it's heavy," she observed, adding in slightly scandalized tones, "Never been microfilmed." She smiled nervously and looked them up and down. "Going to a party?" she asked.
Theodor's scarlet cloak and Celeste's green culottes and silver jacket justified the question, but they shook their heads.
"Just the normally flamboyant garb of the family," Celeste said, while Theodor explained, "As it happens, we're bound on business connected with the disappearance. We Wolvers practically constitute a sub-committee of the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes. And since a lot of varied material comes to our attention, we're going to see if any of it correlates with this bit of astronomical sleight-of-hand."
Madge nodded. "Give you something to do, at any rate. Well, I must be off. The Buddhist temple has lent us their place for a meeting." She gave them a woeful grin. "See you when the Earth jumps."
Theodor said to Celeste, "Come on, dear. We'll be late."
But Celeste didn't want to move too fast. "You know, Teddy," she said uncomfortably, "all this reminds me of those old myths where too much good fortune is a sure sign of coming disaster. It was just too much luck, our great-grandparents missing World III and getting the World Government started a thousand years ahead of schedule. Luck like that couldn't last, evidently. Maybe we've gone too fast with a lot of things, like space-flight and the Deep Shaft and—" she hesitated a bit—"complex marriages. I'm a woman. I want complete security. Where am I to find it?"
"In me," Theodor said promptly.
"In you?" Celeste questioned, walking slowly. "But you're just one-third of my husband. Perhaps I should look for it in Edmund or Ivan."
"You angry with me about something?"
"Of course not. But a woman wants her source of security whole. In a crisis like this, it's disturbing to have it divided."
"Well, we are a whole and, I believe, indivisible family," Theodor told her warmly. "You're not suggesting, are you, that we're going to be punished for our polygamous sins by a cosmic catastrophe? Fire from Heaven and all that?"
"Don't be silly. I just wanted to give you a picture of my feeling." Celeste smiled. "I guess none of us realized how much we've come to depend on the idea of unchanging scientific law. Knocks the props from under you."
Theodor nodded emphatically. "All the more reason to get a line on what's happening as quickly as possible. You know, it's fantastically far-fetched, but I think the experience of persons with Extra-Sensory Perception may give us a clue. During the past three or four days there's been a remarkable similarity in the dreams of ESPs all over the planet. I'm going to present the evidence at the meeting."
Celeste looked up at him. "So that's why Rosalind's bringing Frieda's daughter?"
"Dotty is your daughter, too, and Rosalind's," Theodor reminded her.
"No, just Frieda's," Celeste said bitterly. "Of course you may be the father. One-third of a chance."
Theodor looked at her sharply, but didn't comment. "Anyway, Dotty will be there," he said. "Probably asleep by now. All the ESPs have suddenly seemed to need more sleep."
As they talked, it had been growing darker, though the luminescence of the path kept it from being bothersome. And now the cloud rack parted to the east, showing a single red planet low on the horizon.
"Did you know," Theodor said suddenly, "that in Gulliver's Travels Dean Swift predicted that better telescopes would show Mars to have two moons? He got the sizes and distances and periods damned accurately, too. One of the few really startling coincidences of reality and literature."
"Stop being eerie," Celeste said sharply. But then she went on, "Those names Phobos and Deimos—they're Greek, aren't they? What do they mean?"
Theodor lost a step. "Fear and Terror," he said unwillingly. "Now don't go taking that for an omen. Most of the mythological names of major and minor ancient gods had been taken—the bodies in the Solar System are named that way, of course—and these were about all that were available."
It was true, but it didn't comfort him much.
I am a God , Dotty was dreaming, and I want to be by myself and think. I and my god-friends like to keep some of our thoughts secret, but the other gods have forbidden us to.
A little smile flickered across the lips of the sleeping girl, and the woman in gold tights and gold-spangled jacket leaned forward thoughtfully. In her dignity and simplicity and straight-spined grace, she was rather like a circus mother watching her sick child before she went out for the trapeze act.
I and my god-friends sail off in our great round silver boats , Dotty went on dreaming. The other gods are angry and scared. They are frightened of the thoughts we may think in secret. They follow us to hunt us down. There are many more of them than of us.
As Celeste and Theodor entered the committee room, Rosalind Wolver—a glitter of platinum against darkness—came in through the opposite door and softly shut it behind her. Frieda, a fair woman in blue robes, got up from the round table.
Celeste turned away with outward casualness as Theodor kissed his two other wives. She was pleased to note that Edmund seemed impatient too. A figure in close-fitting black, unrelieved except for two red arrows at the collar, he struck her as embodying very properly the serious, fateful temper of the moment.
He took two briefcases from his vest pocket and tossed them down on the table beside one of the microfilm projectors.
"I suggest we get started without waiting for Ivan," he said.
Frieda frowned anxiously. "It's ten minutes since he phoned from the Deep Space Bar to say he was starting right away. And that's hardly a two minutes walk."
Rosalind instantly started toward the outside door.
"I'll check," she explained. "Oh, Frieda, I've set the mike so you'll hear if Dotty calls."
Edmund threw up his hands. "Very well, then," he said and walked over, switched on the picture and stared out moodily.
Theodor and Frieda got out their briefcases, switched on projectors, and began silently checking through their material.
Celeste fiddled with the TV and got a newscast. But she found her eyes didn't want to absorb the blocks of print that rather swiftly succeeded each other, so, after a few moments, she shrugged impatiently and switched to audio.
At the noise, the others looked around at her with surprise and some irritation, but in a few moments they were also listening.
"The two rocket ships sent out from Mars Base to explore the orbital positions of Phobos and Deimos—that is, the volume of space they'd be occupying if their positions had remained normal—report finding masses of dust and larger debris. The two masses of fine debris are moving in the same orbits and at the same velocities as the two vanished moons, and occupy roughly the same volumes of space, though the mass of material is hardly a hundredth that of the moons. Physicists have ventured no statements as to whether this constitutes a confirmation of the Disintegration Hypothesis.
"However, we're mighty pleased at this news here. There's a marked lessening of tension. The finding of the debris—solid, tangible stuff—seems to lift the whole affair out of the supernatural miasma in which some of us have been tempted to plunge it. One-hundredth of the moons has been found.
"The rest will also be!"
Edmund had turned his back on the window. Frieda and Theodor had switched off their projectors.
"Meanwhile, Earthlings are going about their business with a minimum of commotion, meeting with considerable calm the strange threat to the fabric of their Solar System. Many, of course, are assembled in churches and humanist temples. Kometevskyites have staged helicopter processions at Washington, Peking, Pretoria, and Christiana, demanding that instant preparations be made for—and I quote—'Earth's coming leap through space.' They have also formally challenged all astronomers to produce an explanation other than the one contained in that strange book so recently conjured from oblivion, The Dance of the Planets .
"That about winds up the story for the present. There are no new reports from Interplanetary Radar, Astronomy, or the other rocket ships searching in the extended Mars volume. Nor have any statements been issued by the various groups working on the problem in Astrophysics, Cosmic Ecology, the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes, and so forth. Meanwhile, however, we can take courage from the words of a poem written even before Dr. Kometevsky's book:
"This Earth is not the steadfast place
We landsmen build upon;
From deep to deep she varies pace,
And while she comes is gone.
Beneath my feet I feel
Her smooth bulk heave and dip;
With velvet plunge and soft upreel
She swings and steadies to her keel
Like a gallant, gallant ship."
While the TV voice intoned the poem, growing richer as emotion caught it up, Celeste looked around her at the others. Frieda, with her touch of feminine helplessness showing more than ever through her business-like poise. Theodor leaning forward from his scarlet cloak thrown back, smiling the half-smile with which he seemed to face even the unknown. Black Edmund, masking a deep uncertainty with a strong show of decisiveness.
In short, her family. She knew their every quirk and foible. And yet now they seemed to her a million miles away, figures seen through the wrong end of a telescope.
Were they really a family? Strong sources of mutual strength and security to each other? Or had they merely been playing family, experimenting with their notions of complex marriage like a bunch of silly adolescents? Butterflies taking advantage of good weather to wing together in a glamorous, artificial dance—until outraged Nature decided to wipe them out?
As the poem was ending, Celeste saw the door open and Rosalind come slowly in. The Golden Woman's face was white as the paths she had been treading.
Just then the TV voice quickened with shock. "News! Lunar Observatory One reports that, although Jupiter is just about to pass behind the Sun, a good coronagraph of the planet has been obtained. Checked and rechecked, it admits of only one interpretation, which Lunar One feels duty-bound to release. Jupiter's fourteen moons are no longer visible! "
The chorus of remarks with which the Wolvers would otherwise have received this was checked by one thing: the fact that Rosalind seemed not to hear it. Whatever was on her mind prevented even that incredible statement from penetrating.
She walked shakily to the table and put down a briefcase, one end of which was smudged with dirt.
Without looking at them, she said, "Ivan left the Deep Space Bar twenty minutes ago, said he was coming straight here. On my way back I searched the path. Midway I found this half-buried in the dirt. I had to tug to get it out—almost as if it had been cemented into the ground. Do you feel how the dirt seems to be in the leather, as if it had lain for years in the grave?"
By now the others were fingering the small case of microfilms they had seen so many times in Ivan's competent hands. What Rosalind said was true. It had a gritty, unwholesome feel to it. Also, it felt strangely heavy.
"And see what's written on it," she added.
They turned it over. Scrawled with white pencil in big, hasty, frantic letters were two words:
"Going down!"
The other gods , Dotty dreamt, are combing the whole Universe for us. We have escaped them many times, but now our tricks are almost used up. There are no doors going out of the Universe and our boats are silver beacons to the hunters. So we decide to disguise them in the only way they can be disguised. It is our last chance.
Edmund rapped the table to gain the family's attention. "I'd say we've done everything we can for the moment to find Ivan. We've made a thorough local search. A wider one, which we can't conduct personally, is in progress. All helpful agencies have been alerted and descriptions are being broadcast. I suggest we get on with the business of the evening—which may very well be connected with Ivan's disappearance."
One by one the others nodded and took their places at the round table. Celeste made a great effort to throw off the feeling of unreality that had engulfed her and focus attention on her microfilms.
"I'll take over Ivan's notes," she heard Edmund say. "They're mainly about the Deep Shaft."
"How far have they got with that?" Frieda asked idly. "Twenty-five miles?"
"Nearer thirty, I believe," Edmund answered, "and still going down."
At those last two words they all looked up quickly. Then their eyes went toward Ivan's briefcase.
Our trick has succeeded , Dotty dreamt. The other gods have passed our hiding place a dozen times without noticing. They search the Universe for us many times in vain. They finally decide that we have found a door going out of the Universe. Yet they fear us all the more. They think of us as devils who will some day return through the door to destroy them. So they watch everywhere. We lie quietly smiling in our camouflaged boats, yet hardly daring to move or think, for fear that the faintest echoes of our doings will give them a clue. Hundreds of millions of years pass by. They seem to us no more than drugged hours in a prison.
Theodor rubbed his eyes and pushed his chair back from the table. "We need a break."
Frieda agreed wearily. "We've gone through everything."
"Good idea," Edmund said briskly. "I think we've hit on several crucial points along the way and half disentangled them from the great mass of inconsequential material. I'll finish up that part of the job right now and present my case when we're all a bit fresher. Say half an hour?"
Theodor nodded heavily, pushing up from his chair and hitching his cloak over a shoulder.
"I'm going out for a drink," he informed them.
After several hesitant seconds, Rosalind quietly followed him. Frieda stretched out on a couch and closed her eyes. Edmund scanned microfilms tirelessly, every now and then setting one aside.
Celeste watched him for a minute, then sprang up and started toward the room where Dotty was asleep. But midway she stopped.
Not my child , she thought bitterly. Frieda's her mother, Rosalind her nurse. I'm nothing at all. Just one of the husband's girl friends. A lady of uneasy virtue in a dissolving world.
But then she straightened her shoulders and went on.
Rosalind didn't catch up with Theodor. Her footsteps were silent and he never looked back along the path whose feeble white glow rose only knee-high, lighting a low strip of shrub and mossy tree trunk to either side, no more.
It was a little chilly. She drew on her gloves, but she didn't hurry. In fact, she fell farther and farther behind the dipping tail of his scarlet cloak and his plodding red shoes, which seemed to move disembodied, like those in the fairy tale.
When she reached the point where she had found Ivan's briefcase, she stopped altogether.
A breeze rustled the leaves, and, moistly brushing her cheek, brought forest scents of rot and mold. After a bit she began to hear the furtive scurryings and scuttlings of forest creatures.
She looked around her half-heartedly, suddenly realizing the futility of her quest. What clues could she hope to find in this knee-high twilight? And they'd thoroughly combed the place earlier in the night.
Without warning, an eerie tingling went through her and she was seized by a horror of the cold, grainy Earth underfoot—an ancestral terror from the days when men shivered at ghost stories about graves and tombs.
A tiny detail persisted in bulking larger and larger in her mind—the unnaturalness of the way the Earth had impregnated the corner of Ivan's briefcase, almost as if dirt and leather co-existed in the same space. She remembered the queer way the partly buried briefcase had resisted her first tug, like a rooted plant.
She felt cowed by the mysterious night about her, and literally dwarfed, as if she had grown several inches shorter. She roused herself and started forward.
Something held her feet.
They were ankle-deep in the path. While she looked in fright and horror, they began to sink still lower into the ground.
She plunged frantically, trying to jerk loose. She couldn't. She had the panicky feeling that the Earth had not only trapped but invaded her; that its molecules were creeping up between the molecules of her flesh; that the two were becoming one.
And she was sinking faster. Now knee-deep, thigh-deep, hip-deep, waist-deep. She beat at the powdery path with her hands and threw her body from side to side in agonized frenzy like some sinner frozen in the ice of the innermost circle of the ancients' hell. And always the sense of the dark, grainy tide rose inside as well as around her.
She thought, he'd just have had time to scribble that note on his briefcase and toss it away. She jerked off a glove, leaned out as far as she could, and made a frantic effort to drive its fingers into the powdery path. Then the Earth mounted to her chin, her nose, and covered her eyes.
She expected blackness, but it was as if the light of the path stayed with her, making a little glow all around. She saw roots, pebbles, black rot, worn tunnels, worms. Tier on tier of them, her vision penetrating the solid ground. And at the same time, the knowledge that these same sorts of things were coursing up through her.
And still she continued to sink at a speed that increased, as if the law of gravitation applied to her in a diminished way. She dropped from black soil through gray clay and into pale limestone.
Her tortured, rock-permeated lungs sucked at rock and drew in air. She wondered madly if a volume of air were falling with her through the stone.
A glitter of quartz. The momentary openness of a foot-high cavern with a trickle of water. And then she was sliding down a black basalt column, half inside it, half inside gold-flecked ore. Then just black basalt. And always faster.
It grew hot, then hotter, as if she were approaching the mythical eternal fires.
At first glance Theodor thought the Deep Space Bar was empty. Then he saw a figure hunched monkeylike on the last stool, almost lost in the blue shadows, while behind the bar, her crystal dress blending with the tiers of sparkling glasses, stood a grave-eyed young girl who could hardly have been fifteen.
The TV was saying, "... in addition, a number of mysterious disappearances of high-rating individuals have been reported. These are thought to be cases of misunderstanding, illusory apprehension, and impulse traveling—a result of the unusual stresses of the time. Finally, a few suggestible individuals in various parts of the globe, especially the Indian Peninsula, have declared themselves to be 'gods' and in some way responsible for current events.
"It is thought—"
The girl switched off the TV and took Theodor's order, explaining casually, "Joe wanted to go to a Kometevskyite meeting, so I took over for him." When she had prepared Theodor's highball, she announced,
"I'll have a drink with you gentlemen," and squeezed herself a glass of pomegranate juice.
The monkeylike figure muttered, "Scotch-and-soda," then turned toward Edmund and asked, "And what is your reaction to all this, sir?"
Theodor recognized the shrunken wrinkle-seamed face. It was Colonel Fortescue, a military antique long retired from the Peace Patrol and reputed to have seen actual fighting in the Last Age of Madness. Now, for some reason, the face sported a knowing smile.
Theodor shrugged. Just then the TV "big news" light blinked blue and the girl switched on audio. The Colonel winked at Theodor.
"... confirming the disappearance of Jupiter's moons. But two other utterly fantastic reports have just been received. First, Lunar Observatory One says that it is visually tracking fourteen small bodies which it believes may be the lost moons of Jupiter. They are moving outward from the Solar System at an incredible velocity and are already beyond the orbit of Saturn!"
The Colonel said, "Ah!"
"Second, Palomar reports a large number of dark bodies approaching the Solar System at an equally incredible velocity. They are at about twice the distance of Pluto, but closing in fast! We will be on the air with further details as soon as possible."
The Colonel said, "Ah-ha!"
Theodor stared at him. The old man's self-satisfied poise was almost amusing.
"Are you a Kometevskyite?" Theodor asked him.
The Colonel laughed. "Of course not, my boy. Those poor people are fumbling in the dark. Don't you see what's happened?"
"Frankly, no."
The Colonel leaned toward Theodor and whispered gruffly, "The Divine Plan. God is a military strategist, naturally."
Then he lifted the scotch-and-soda in his clawlike hand and took a satisfying swallow.
"I knew it all along, of course," he went on musingly, "but this last news makes it as plain as a rocket blast, at least to anyone who knows military strategy. Look here, my boy, suppose you were commanding a fleet and got wind of the enemy's approach—what would you do? Why, you'd send your scouts and destroyers fanning out toward them. Behind that screen you'd mass your heavy ships. Then—"
"You don't mean to imply—" Theodor interrupted.
The girl behind the bar looked at them both cryptically.
"Of course I do!" the Colonel cut in sharply. "It's a war between the forces of good and evil. The bright suns and planets are on one side, the dark on the other. The moons are the destroyers, Jupiter and Saturn are the big battleships, while we're on a heavy cruiser, I'm proud to say. We'll probably go into action soon. Be a corking fight, what? And all by divine strategy!"
He chuckled and took another big drink. Theodor looked at him sourly. The girl behind the bar polished a glass and said nothing.
Dotty suddenly began to turn and toss, and a look of terror came over her sleeping face. Celeste leaned forward apprehensively.
The child's lips worked and Celeste made out the sleepy-fuzzy words:
"They've found out where we're hiding. They're coming to get us. No! Please, no!"
Celeste's reactions were mixed. She felt worried about Dotty and at the same time almost in terror of her, as if the little girl were an agent of supernatural forces. She told herself that this fear was an expression of her own hostility, yet she didn't really believe it. She touched the child's hand.
Dotty's eyes opened without making Celeste feel she had quite come awake. After a bit she looked at Celeste and her little lips parted in a smile.
"Hello," she said sleepily. "I've been having such funny dreams." Then, after a pause, frowning, "I really am a god, you know. It feels very queer."
"Yes, dear?" Celeste prompted uneasily. "Shall I call Frieda?"
The smile left Dotty's lips. "Why do you act so nervous around me?" she asked. "Don't you love me, Mummy?"
Celeste started at the word. Her throat closed. Then, very slowly, her face broke into a radiant smile. "Of course I do, darling. I love you very much."
Dotty nodded happily, her eyes already closed again.
There was a sudden flurry of excited voices beyond the door. Celeste heard her name called. She stood up.
"I'm going to have to go out and talk with the others," she said. "If you want me, dear, just call."
"Yes, Mummy."
Edmund rapped for attention. Celeste, Frieda, and Theodor glanced around at him. He looked more frightfully strained, they realized, than even they felt. His expression was a study in suppressed excitement, but there were also signs of a knowledge that was almost too overpowering for a human being to bear.
His voice was clipped, rapid. "I think it's about time we stopped worrying about our own affairs and thought of those of the Solar System, partly because I think they have a direct bearing on the disappearances of Ivan end Rosalind. As I told you, I've been sorting out the crucial items from the material we've been presenting. There are roughly four of those items, as I see it. It's rather like a mystery story. I wonder if, hearing those four clues, you will come to the same conclusion I have."
The others nodded.
"First, there are the latest reports from Deep Shaft, which, as you know, has been sunk to investigate deep-Earth conditions. At approximately twenty-nine miles below the surface, the delvers have encountered a metallic obstruction which they have tentatively named the durasphere. It resists their hardest drills, their strongest corrosives. They have extended a side-tunnel at that level for a quarter of a mile. Delicate measurements, made possible by the mirror-smooth metal surface, show that the durasphere has a slight curvature that is almost exactly equal to the curvature of the Earth itself. The suggestion is that deep borings made anywhere in the world would encounter the durasphere at the same depth.
"Second, the movements of the moons of Mars and Jupiter, and particularly the debris left behind by the moons of Mars. Granting Phobos and Deimos had duraspheres proportional in size to that of Earth, then the debris would roughly equal in amount the material in those two duraspheres' rocky envelopes. The suggestion is that the two duraspheres suddenly burst from their envelopes with such titanic velocity as to leave those disrupted envelopes behind."
It was deadly quiet in the committee room.
"Thirdly, the disappearances of Ivan and Rosalind, and especially the baffling hint—from Ivan's message in one case and Rosalind's downward-pointing glove in the other—that they were both somehow drawn into the depths of the Earth.
"Finally, the dreams of the ESPs, which agree overwhelmingly in the following points: A group of beings separate themselves from a godlike and telepathic race because they insist on maintaining a degree of mental privacy. They flee in great boats or ships of some sort. They are pursued on such a scale that there is no hiding place for them anywhere in the universe. In some manner they successfully camouflage their ships. Eons pass and their still-fanatical pursuers do not penetrate their secret. Then, suddenly, they are detected."
Edmund waited. "Do you see what I'm driving at?" he asked hoarsely.
He could tell from their looks that the others did, but couldn't bring
themselves to put it into words.
"I suppose it's the time-scale and the value-scale that are so hard for
us to accept," he said softly. "Much more, even, than the size-scale.
The thought that there are creatures in the Universe to whom the whole
career of Man—in fact, the whole career of life—is no more than a few
thousand or hundred thousand years. And to whom Man is no more than a
minor stage property—a trifling part of a clever job of camouflage."
This time he went on, "Fantasy writers have at times hinted all sorts
of odd things about the Earth—that it might even be a kind of single
living creature, or honeycombed with inhabited caverns, and so on.
But I don't know that any of them have ever suggested that the Earth,
together with all the planets and moons of the Solar System, might
be...."
In a whisper, Frieda finished for him, "... a camouflaged fleet of
gigantic spherical spaceships."
" Your guess happens to be the precise truth. "
At that familiar, yet dreadly unfamiliar voice, all four of them swung
toward the inner door. Dotty was standing there, a sleep-stupefied
little girl with a blanket caught up around her and dragging behind.
Their own daughter. But in her eyes was a look from which they cringed.
She said, "I am a creature somewhat older than what your geologists
call the Archeozoic Era. I am speaking to you through a number of
telepathically sensitive individuals among your kind. In each case my
thoughts suit themselves to your level of comprehension. I inhabit the
disguised and jetless spaceship which is your Earth."
Celeste swayed a step forward. "Baby...." she implored.
Dotty went on, without giving her a glance, "It is true that we planted
the seeds of life on some of these planets simply as part of our
camouflage, just as we gave them a suitable environment for each. And
it is true that now we must let most of that life be destroyed. Our
hiding place has been discovered, our pursuers are upon us, and we must
make one last effort to escape or do battle, since we firmly believe
that the principle of mental privacy to which we have devoted our
existence is perhaps the greatest good in the whole Universe.
"But it is not true that we look with contempt upon you. Our whole race
is deeply devoted to life, wherever it may come into being, and it is
our rule never to interfere with its development. That was one of
the reasons we made life a part of our camouflage—it would make our
pursuers reluctant to examine these planets too closely.
"Yes, we have always cherished you and watched your evolution with
interest from our hidden lairs. We may even unconsciously have shaped
your development in certain ways, trying constantly to educate you away
from war and finally succeeding—which may have given the betraying
clue to our pursuers.
"Your planets must be burst asunder—this particular planet in the
area of the Pacific—so that we may have our last chance to escape.
Even if we did not move, our pursuers would destroy you with us. We
cannot invite you inside our ships—not for lack of space, but because
you could never survive the vast accelerations to which you would be
subjected. You would, you see, need very special accommodations, of
which we have enough only for a few.
"Those few we will take with us, as the seed from which a new human
race may—if we ourselves somehow survive—be born."
Rosalind and Ivan stared dumbly at each other across the egg-shaped
silver room, without apparent entrance or exit, in which they were
sprawled. But their thoughts were no longer of thirty-odd mile
journeys down through solid earth, or of how cool it was after the
heat of the passage, or of how grotesque it was to be trapped here,
the fragment of a marriage. They were both listening to the voice that
spoke inside their minds.
"In a few minutes your bodies will be separated into layers one atom
thick, capable of being shelved or stored in such a way as to endure
almost infinite accelerations. Single cells will cover acres of space.
But do not be alarmed. The process will be painless and each particle
will be catalogued for future assembly. Your consciousness will endure
throughout the process."
Rosalind looked at her gold-shod toes. She was wondering, will they go
first, or my head? Or will I be peeled like an apple?
She looked at Ivan and knew he was thinking the same thing.
Up in the committee room, the other Wolvers slumped around the table.
Only little Dotty sat straight and staring, speechless and unanswering,
quite beyond their reach, like a telephone off the hook and with the
connection open, but no voice from the other end.
They had just switched off the TV after listening to a confused
medley of denials, prayers, Kometevskyite chatterings, and a few
astonishingly realistic comments on the possibility of survival.
These last pointed out that, on the side of the Earth opposite the
Pacific, the convulsions would come slowly when the entombed spaceship
burst forth—provided, as seemed the case, that it moved without jets
or reaction.
It would be as if the Earth's vast core simply vanished. Gravity would
diminish abruptly to a fraction of its former value. The empty envelope
of rock and water and air would slowly fall together, though at the
same time the air would begin to escape from the debris because there
would no longer be the mass required to hold it.
However, there might be definite chances of temporary and even
prolonged survival for individuals in strong, hermetically sealed
structures, such as submarines and spaceships. The few spaceships on
Earth were reported to have blasted off, or be preparing to leave, with
as many passengers as could be carried.
But most persons, apparently, could not contemplate action of any sort.
They could only sit and think, like the Wolvers.
A faint smile relaxed Celeste's face. She was thinking, how beautiful!
It means the death of the Solar System, which is a horrifying
subjective concept. Objectively, though, it would be a more awesome
sight than any human being has ever seen or ever could see. It's an
absurd and even brutal thing to wish—but I wish I could see the whole
cataclysm from beginning to end. It would make death seem very small, a
tiny personal event.
Dotty's face was losing its blank expression, becoming intent and
alarmed.
"We are in contact with our pursuers," she said in the
familiar-unfamiliar voice. "Negotiations are now going on. There
seems to be—there is a change in them. Where they were harsh and
vindictive before, they now are gentle and conciliatory." She paused,
the alarm on her childish features pinching into anxious uncertainty.
"Our pursuers have always been shrewd. The change in them may be false,
intended merely to lull us into allowing them to come close enough to
destroy us. We must not fall into the trap by growing hopeful...."
They leaned forward, clutching hands, watching the little face as
though it were a television screen. Celeste had the wild feeling that
she was listening to a communique from a war so unthinkably vast and
violent, between opponents so astronomically huge and nearly immortal,
that she felt like no more than a reasoning ameba ... and then realized
with an explosive urge to laugh that that was exactly the situation.
"No!" said Dotty. Her eyes began to glow. "They have changed! During
the eons in which we lay sealed away and hidden from them, knowing
nothing of them, they have rebelled against the tyranny of a communal
mind to which no thoughts are private ... the tyranny that we ourselves
fled to escape. They come not to destroy us, but to welcome us back to
a society that we and they can make truly great!"
Frieda collapsed to a chair, trembling between laughter and hysterical
weeping. Theodor looked as blank as Dotty had while waiting for words
to speak. Edmund sprang to the picture window, Celeste toward the TV
set.
Climbing shakily out of the chair, Frieda stumbled to the picture
window and peered out beside Edmund. She saw lights bobbing along the
paths with a wild excitement.
On the TV screen, Celeste watched two brightly lit ships spinning in
the sky—whether human spaceships or Phobos and Deimos come to help
Earth rejoice, she couldn't tell.
Dotty spoke again, the joy in her strange voice forcing them to turn.
"And you, dear children, creatures of our camouflage, we welcome
you—whatever your future career on these planets or like ones—into
the society of enlightened worlds! You need not feel small and alone
and helpless ever again, for we shall always be with you!"
The outer door opened. Ivan and Rosalind reeled in, drunkenly smiling,
arm in arm.
"Like rockets," Rosalind blurted happily. "We came through the
durasphere and solid rock ... shot up right to the surface."
"They didn't have to take us along," Ivan added with a bleary grin.
"But you know that already, don't you? They're too good to let you live
in fear, so they must have told you by now."
"Yes, we know," said Theodor. "They must be almost godlike in their
goodness. I feel ... calm."
Edmund nodded soberly. "Calmer than I ever felt before. It's knowing, I
suppose, that—well, we're not alone."
Dotty blinked and looked around and smiled at them all with a wholly
little-girl smile.
"Oh, Mummy," she said, and it was impossible to tell whether she spoke
to Frieda or Rosalind or Celeste, "I've just had the funniest dream."
"No, darling," said Rosalind gently, "it's we who had the dream. We've
just awakened."
Question:
Who’s Rosalind and what happens to her throughout the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Rosalind is a member of the Wolves family, the wife of Theodor, Edmund, and Ivan. At the beginning of the story, she comes to the meeting of their family sub-committee. When Ivan doesn’t show up, Rosalind decides to go to the Deep Space Bar and try to find him. On her way back, she finds his briefcase half-buried in the dirt. It has a hastily written phrase “Going down” written on it. Shocked, she comes back and shows her findings to everybody. They alert the local agencies and create their family member’s description that is broadcast. They decide to take a small break, and Rosalind leaves right after Theodor. She doesn’t catch up with him and stops at the place where she found the briefcase. Suddenly, her feet get stuck, and her body starts sinking into the ground. She understands that the same thing happened to Ivan and decides to leave her glove to show what happened to her. Soon earth covers her head, and she keeps moving down through different soil levels. The temperature rises, and soon she ends up in a silver egg-shaped room where she meets Ivan. A voice inside their heads explains that their bodies will soon go through a painless process of separation into small atom-thick layers which will enable them to endure almost infinite accelerations, and their consciousness will be intact. They learn more about the Earth and its function. Soon, when the pursuers of the semi-god creatures tell them about the changes they made, Rosalind and Ivan are shot back to the surface. They walk back to their family.\n\n\n",
"Rosalind is one of the women who is a part of the Wolver family. She has 3 husbands and shares them with 3 other women. Rosalind is also the nurse of Dotty, the little girl who they all raise together. After they meet for a while, the group decides to have a break. During this break, Rosalind decides to search for more clues about the disappearance of their 6th member. Doing this, she gets sucked down into the Earth. She manages to leave her glove in the dirt facing down, which allows the group to understand what happened to her. At the end she and Ivan come back, and it is revealed that they went into the ship of the other species. ",
"Rosalind is the wife of Theodor, Ivan, and Edmund. She takes care of Dotty when Dotty is sleeping. She sets the mike so that Frieda, Dotty’s biological mother, can know when Dotty calls. Then, she checks when Ivan will come to the committee room when Edmund suggests starting the meeting without him. She comes back to the committee room with Ivan’s briefcase, finding it weirdly muddy with “Going Down”. When Theodor goes out to grab a drink, Rosalind follows him and ends up being dragged underground to the interior of Earth, leaving one of her gloves on the ground pointing downward. In the core of Earth, the godlike creatures’ battleship, she learns that she will be disintegrated into particles to store while staying alive. After the godlike creatures’ negotiation with their pursuers comes to a peaceful conclusion, Rosalind is sent to the house with her family.",
"Rosalind Wolver is one of the wives alongside Celeste and Frieda. Although she is not the mother of Dotty, she is noted to be the nurse of the little girl. She is described as a glitter of platinum against the darkness. When everyone is concerned as to why Ivan has not yet shown up to the meeting, Rosalind offers to go check on him. She later comes back, pale as a ghost, to show everybody what she has found from what remains of Ivan’s disappearance. After, Rosalind leaves with Theodor, but she goes back to the area where Ivan’s briefcase was. Although she tries to investigate further, something grabs at her feet and pulls her in. Rosalind feels the light of the path stay with her as she feels it grow hotter and hotter. Later, her and Ivan are sitting in an egg-shaped silver room that has no entrance or exit. A voice tells them that their bodies will be separated into layers one atom thick to be stored. However, this is a painless process and their consciousness will remain. Once the planets are no longer being destroyed, she comes back with Ivan through the outer door. Rosalind explains the experience as riding a rocket, and she is last telling Dotty that they have been dreaming instead of her. "
] |
51353
|
DR. KOMETEVSKY'S DAY
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by DAVID STONE
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Before science, there was superstition. After science, there will be ... what? The biggest, most staggering , most final fact of them all!
"But it's all predicted here! It even names this century for the next reshuffling of the planets."
Celeste Wolver looked up unwillingly at the book her friend Madge Carnap held aloft like a torch. She made out the ill-stamped title, The Dance of the Planets . There was no mistaking the time of its origin; only paper from the Twentieth Century aged to that particularly nasty shade of brown. Indeed, the book seemed to Celeste a brown old witch resurrected from the Last Age of Madness to confound a world growing sane, and she couldn't help shrinking back a trifle toward her husband Theodor.
He tried to come to her rescue. "Only predicted in the vaguest way. As I understand it, Kometevsky claimed, on the basis of a lot of evidence drawn from folklore, that the planets and their moons trade positions every so often."
"As if they were playing Going to Jerusalem, or musical chairs," Celeste chimed in, but she couldn't make it sound funny.
"Jupiter was supposed to have started as the outermost planet, and is to end up in the orbit of Mercury," Theodor continued. "Well, nothing at all like that has happened."
"But it's begun," Madge said with conviction. "Phobos and Deimos have disappeared. You can't argue away that stubborn little fact."
That was the trouble; you couldn't. Mars' two tiny moons had simply vanished during a period when, as was generally the case, the eyes of astronomy weren't on them. Just some hundred-odd cubic miles of rock—the merest cosmic flyspecks—yet they had carried away with them the security of a whole world.
Looking at the lovely garden landscape around her, Celeste Wolver felt that in a moment the shrubby hills would begin to roll like waves, the charmingly aimless paths twist like snakes and sink in the green sea, the sparsely placed skyscrapers dissolve into the misty clouds they pierced.
People must have felt like this , she thought, when Aristarches first hinted and Copernicus told them that the solid Earth under their feet was falling dizzily through space. Only it's worse for us, because they couldn't see that anything had changed. We can.
"You need something to cling to," she heard Madge say. "Dr. Kometevsky was the only person who ever had an inkling that anything like this might happen. I was never a Kometevskyite before. Hadn't even heard of the man."
She said it almost apologetically. In fact, standing there so frank and anxious-eyed, Madge looked anything but a fanatic, which made it much worse.
"Of course, there are several more convincing alternate explanations...." Theodor began hesitantly, knowing very well that there weren't. If Phobos and Deimos had suddenly disintegrated, surely Mars Base would have noticed something. Of course there was the Disordered Space Hypothesis, even if it was little more than the chance phrase of a prominent physicist pounded upon by an eager journalist. And in any case, what sense of security were you left with if you admitted that moons and planets might explode, or drop through unseen holes in space? So he ended up by taking a different tack: "Besides, if Phobos and Deimos simply shot off somewhere, surely they'd have been picked up by now by 'scope or radar."
"Two balls of rock just a few miles in diameter?" Madge questioned.
"Aren't they smaller than many of the asteroids? I'm no astronomer, but I think' I'm right."
And of course she was.
She swung the book under her arm. "Whew, it's heavy," she observed, adding in slightly scandalized tones, "Never been microfilmed." She smiled nervously and looked them up and down. "Going to a party?" she asked.
Theodor's scarlet cloak and Celeste's green culottes and silver jacket justified the question, but they shook their heads.
"Just the normally flamboyant garb of the family," Celeste said, while Theodor explained, "As it happens, we're bound on business connected with the disappearance. We Wolvers practically constitute a sub-committee of the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes. And since a lot of varied material comes to our attention, we're going to see if any of it correlates with this bit of astronomical sleight-of-hand."
Madge nodded. "Give you something to do, at any rate. Well, I must be off. The Buddhist temple has lent us their place for a meeting." She gave them a woeful grin. "See you when the Earth jumps."
Theodor said to Celeste, "Come on, dear. We'll be late."
But Celeste didn't want to move too fast. "You know, Teddy," she said uncomfortably, "all this reminds me of those old myths where too much good fortune is a sure sign of coming disaster. It was just too much luck, our great-grandparents missing World III and getting the World Government started a thousand years ahead of schedule. Luck like that couldn't last, evidently. Maybe we've gone too fast with a lot of things, like space-flight and the Deep Shaft and—" she hesitated a bit—"complex marriages. I'm a woman. I want complete security. Where am I to find it?"
"In me," Theodor said promptly.
"In you?" Celeste questioned, walking slowly. "But you're just one-third of my husband. Perhaps I should look for it in Edmund or Ivan."
"You angry with me about something?"
"Of course not. But a woman wants her source of security whole. In a crisis like this, it's disturbing to have it divided."
"Well, we are a whole and, I believe, indivisible family," Theodor told her warmly. "You're not suggesting, are you, that we're going to be punished for our polygamous sins by a cosmic catastrophe? Fire from Heaven and all that?"
"Don't be silly. I just wanted to give you a picture of my feeling." Celeste smiled. "I guess none of us realized how much we've come to depend on the idea of unchanging scientific law. Knocks the props from under you."
Theodor nodded emphatically. "All the more reason to get a line on what's happening as quickly as possible. You know, it's fantastically far-fetched, but I think the experience of persons with Extra-Sensory Perception may give us a clue. During the past three or four days there's been a remarkable similarity in the dreams of ESPs all over the planet. I'm going to present the evidence at the meeting."
Celeste looked up at him. "So that's why Rosalind's bringing Frieda's daughter?"
"Dotty is your daughter, too, and Rosalind's," Theodor reminded her.
"No, just Frieda's," Celeste said bitterly. "Of course you may be the father. One-third of a chance."
Theodor looked at her sharply, but didn't comment. "Anyway, Dotty will be there," he said. "Probably asleep by now. All the ESPs have suddenly seemed to need more sleep."
As they talked, it had been growing darker, though the luminescence of the path kept it from being bothersome. And now the cloud rack parted to the east, showing a single red planet low on the horizon.
"Did you know," Theodor said suddenly, "that in Gulliver's Travels Dean Swift predicted that better telescopes would show Mars to have two moons? He got the sizes and distances and periods damned accurately, too. One of the few really startling coincidences of reality and literature."
"Stop being eerie," Celeste said sharply. But then she went on, "Those names Phobos and Deimos—they're Greek, aren't they? What do they mean?"
Theodor lost a step. "Fear and Terror," he said unwillingly. "Now don't go taking that for an omen. Most of the mythological names of major and minor ancient gods had been taken—the bodies in the Solar System are named that way, of course—and these were about all that were available."
It was true, but it didn't comfort him much.
I am a God , Dotty was dreaming, and I want to be by myself and think. I and my god-friends like to keep some of our thoughts secret, but the other gods have forbidden us to.
A little smile flickered across the lips of the sleeping girl, and the woman in gold tights and gold-spangled jacket leaned forward thoughtfully. In her dignity and simplicity and straight-spined grace, she was rather like a circus mother watching her sick child before she went out for the trapeze act.
I and my god-friends sail off in our great round silver boats , Dotty went on dreaming. The other gods are angry and scared. They are frightened of the thoughts we may think in secret. They follow us to hunt us down. There are many more of them than of us.
As Celeste and Theodor entered the committee room, Rosalind Wolver—a glitter of platinum against darkness—came in through the opposite door and softly shut it behind her. Frieda, a fair woman in blue robes, got up from the round table.
Celeste turned away with outward casualness as Theodor kissed his two other wives. She was pleased to note that Edmund seemed impatient too. A figure in close-fitting black, unrelieved except for two red arrows at the collar, he struck her as embodying very properly the serious, fateful temper of the moment.
He took two briefcases from his vest pocket and tossed them down on the table beside one of the microfilm projectors.
"I suggest we get started without waiting for Ivan," he said.
Frieda frowned anxiously. "It's ten minutes since he phoned from the Deep Space Bar to say he was starting right away. And that's hardly a two minutes walk."
Rosalind instantly started toward the outside door.
"I'll check," she explained. "Oh, Frieda, I've set the mike so you'll hear if Dotty calls."
Edmund threw up his hands. "Very well, then," he said and walked over, switched on the picture and stared out moodily.
Theodor and Frieda got out their briefcases, switched on projectors, and began silently checking through their material.
Celeste fiddled with the TV and got a newscast. But she found her eyes didn't want to absorb the blocks of print that rather swiftly succeeded each other, so, after a few moments, she shrugged impatiently and switched to audio.
At the noise, the others looked around at her with surprise and some irritation, but in a few moments they were also listening.
"The two rocket ships sent out from Mars Base to explore the orbital positions of Phobos and Deimos—that is, the volume of space they'd be occupying if their positions had remained normal—report finding masses of dust and larger debris. The two masses of fine debris are moving in the same orbits and at the same velocities as the two vanished moons, and occupy roughly the same volumes of space, though the mass of material is hardly a hundredth that of the moons. Physicists have ventured no statements as to whether this constitutes a confirmation of the Disintegration Hypothesis.
"However, we're mighty pleased at this news here. There's a marked lessening of tension. The finding of the debris—solid, tangible stuff—seems to lift the whole affair out of the supernatural miasma in which some of us have been tempted to plunge it. One-hundredth of the moons has been found.
"The rest will also be!"
Edmund had turned his back on the window. Frieda and Theodor had switched off their projectors.
"Meanwhile, Earthlings are going about their business with a minimum of commotion, meeting with considerable calm the strange threat to the fabric of their Solar System. Many, of course, are assembled in churches and humanist temples. Kometevskyites have staged helicopter processions at Washington, Peking, Pretoria, and Christiana, demanding that instant preparations be made for—and I quote—'Earth's coming leap through space.' They have also formally challenged all astronomers to produce an explanation other than the one contained in that strange book so recently conjured from oblivion, The Dance of the Planets .
"That about winds up the story for the present. There are no new reports from Interplanetary Radar, Astronomy, or the other rocket ships searching in the extended Mars volume. Nor have any statements been issued by the various groups working on the problem in Astrophysics, Cosmic Ecology, the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes, and so forth. Meanwhile, however, we can take courage from the words of a poem written even before Dr. Kometevsky's book:
"This Earth is not the steadfast place
We landsmen build upon;
From deep to deep she varies pace,
And while she comes is gone.
Beneath my feet I feel
Her smooth bulk heave and dip;
With velvet plunge and soft upreel
She swings and steadies to her keel
Like a gallant, gallant ship."
While the TV voice intoned the poem, growing richer as emotion caught it up, Celeste looked around her at the others. Frieda, with her touch of feminine helplessness showing more than ever through her business-like poise. Theodor leaning forward from his scarlet cloak thrown back, smiling the half-smile with which he seemed to face even the unknown. Black Edmund, masking a deep uncertainty with a strong show of decisiveness.
In short, her family. She knew their every quirk and foible. And yet now they seemed to her a million miles away, figures seen through the wrong end of a telescope.
Were they really a family? Strong sources of mutual strength and security to each other? Or had they merely been playing family, experimenting with their notions of complex marriage like a bunch of silly adolescents? Butterflies taking advantage of good weather to wing together in a glamorous, artificial dance—until outraged Nature decided to wipe them out?
As the poem was ending, Celeste saw the door open and Rosalind come slowly in. The Golden Woman's face was white as the paths she had been treading.
Just then the TV voice quickened with shock. "News! Lunar Observatory One reports that, although Jupiter is just about to pass behind the Sun, a good coronagraph of the planet has been obtained. Checked and rechecked, it admits of only one interpretation, which Lunar One feels duty-bound to release. Jupiter's fourteen moons are no longer visible! "
The chorus of remarks with which the Wolvers would otherwise have received this was checked by one thing: the fact that Rosalind seemed not to hear it. Whatever was on her mind prevented even that incredible statement from penetrating.
She walked shakily to the table and put down a briefcase, one end of which was smudged with dirt.
Without looking at them, she said, "Ivan left the Deep Space Bar twenty minutes ago, said he was coming straight here. On my way back I searched the path. Midway I found this half-buried in the dirt. I had to tug to get it out—almost as if it had been cemented into the ground. Do you feel how the dirt seems to be in the leather, as if it had lain for years in the grave?"
By now the others were fingering the small case of microfilms they had seen so many times in Ivan's competent hands. What Rosalind said was true. It had a gritty, unwholesome feel to it. Also, it felt strangely heavy.
"And see what's written on it," she added.
They turned it over. Scrawled with white pencil in big, hasty, frantic letters were two words:
"Going down!"
The other gods , Dotty dreamt, are combing the whole Universe for us. We have escaped them many times, but now our tricks are almost used up. There are no doors going out of the Universe and our boats are silver beacons to the hunters. So we decide to disguise them in the only way they can be disguised. It is our last chance.
Edmund rapped the table to gain the family's attention. "I'd say we've done everything we can for the moment to find Ivan. We've made a thorough local search. A wider one, which we can't conduct personally, is in progress. All helpful agencies have been alerted and descriptions are being broadcast. I suggest we get on with the business of the evening—which may very well be connected with Ivan's disappearance."
One by one the others nodded and took their places at the round table. Celeste made a great effort to throw off the feeling of unreality that had engulfed her and focus attention on her microfilms.
"I'll take over Ivan's notes," she heard Edmund say. "They're mainly about the Deep Shaft."
"How far have they got with that?" Frieda asked idly. "Twenty-five miles?"
"Nearer thirty, I believe," Edmund answered, "and still going down."
At those last two words they all looked up quickly. Then their eyes went toward Ivan's briefcase.
Our trick has succeeded , Dotty dreamt. The other gods have passed our hiding place a dozen times without noticing. They search the Universe for us many times in vain. They finally decide that we have found a door going out of the Universe. Yet they fear us all the more. They think of us as devils who will some day return through the door to destroy them. So they watch everywhere. We lie quietly smiling in our camouflaged boats, yet hardly daring to move or think, for fear that the faintest echoes of our doings will give them a clue. Hundreds of millions of years pass by. They seem to us no more than drugged hours in a prison.
Theodor rubbed his eyes and pushed his chair back from the table. "We need a break."
Frieda agreed wearily. "We've gone through everything."
"Good idea," Edmund said briskly. "I think we've hit on several crucial points along the way and half disentangled them from the great mass of inconsequential material. I'll finish up that part of the job right now and present my case when we're all a bit fresher. Say half an hour?"
Theodor nodded heavily, pushing up from his chair and hitching his cloak over a shoulder.
"I'm going out for a drink," he informed them.
After several hesitant seconds, Rosalind quietly followed him. Frieda stretched out on a couch and closed her eyes. Edmund scanned microfilms tirelessly, every now and then setting one aside.
Celeste watched him for a minute, then sprang up and started toward the room where Dotty was asleep. But midway she stopped.
Not my child , she thought bitterly. Frieda's her mother, Rosalind her nurse. I'm nothing at all. Just one of the husband's girl friends. A lady of uneasy virtue in a dissolving world.
But then she straightened her shoulders and went on.
Rosalind didn't catch up with Theodor. Her footsteps were silent and he never looked back along the path whose feeble white glow rose only knee-high, lighting a low strip of shrub and mossy tree trunk to either side, no more.
It was a little chilly. She drew on her gloves, but she didn't hurry. In fact, she fell farther and farther behind the dipping tail of his scarlet cloak and his plodding red shoes, which seemed to move disembodied, like those in the fairy tale.
When she reached the point where she had found Ivan's briefcase, she stopped altogether.
A breeze rustled the leaves, and, moistly brushing her cheek, brought forest scents of rot and mold. After a bit she began to hear the furtive scurryings and scuttlings of forest creatures.
She looked around her half-heartedly, suddenly realizing the futility of her quest. What clues could she hope to find in this knee-high twilight? And they'd thoroughly combed the place earlier in the night.
Without warning, an eerie tingling went through her and she was seized by a horror of the cold, grainy Earth underfoot—an ancestral terror from the days when men shivered at ghost stories about graves and tombs.
A tiny detail persisted in bulking larger and larger in her mind—the unnaturalness of the way the Earth had impregnated the corner of Ivan's briefcase, almost as if dirt and leather co-existed in the same space. She remembered the queer way the partly buried briefcase had resisted her first tug, like a rooted plant.
She felt cowed by the mysterious night about her, and literally dwarfed, as if she had grown several inches shorter. She roused herself and started forward.
Something held her feet.
They were ankle-deep in the path. While she looked in fright and horror, they began to sink still lower into the ground.
She plunged frantically, trying to jerk loose. She couldn't. She had the panicky feeling that the Earth had not only trapped but invaded her; that its molecules were creeping up between the molecules of her flesh; that the two were becoming one.
And she was sinking faster. Now knee-deep, thigh-deep, hip-deep, waist-deep. She beat at the powdery path with her hands and threw her body from side to side in agonized frenzy like some sinner frozen in the ice of the innermost circle of the ancients' hell. And always the sense of the dark, grainy tide rose inside as well as around her.
She thought, he'd just have had time to scribble that note on his briefcase and toss it away. She jerked off a glove, leaned out as far as she could, and made a frantic effort to drive its fingers into the powdery path. Then the Earth mounted to her chin, her nose, and covered her eyes.
She expected blackness, but it was as if the light of the path stayed with her, making a little glow all around. She saw roots, pebbles, black rot, worn tunnels, worms. Tier on tier of them, her vision penetrating the solid ground. And at the same time, the knowledge that these same sorts of things were coursing up through her.
And still she continued to sink at a speed that increased, as if the law of gravitation applied to her in a diminished way. She dropped from black soil through gray clay and into pale limestone.
Her tortured, rock-permeated lungs sucked at rock and drew in air. She wondered madly if a volume of air were falling with her through the stone.
A glitter of quartz. The momentary openness of a foot-high cavern with a trickle of water. And then she was sliding down a black basalt column, half inside it, half inside gold-flecked ore. Then just black basalt. And always faster.
It grew hot, then hotter, as if she were approaching the mythical eternal fires.
At first glance Theodor thought the Deep Space Bar was empty. Then he saw a figure hunched monkeylike on the last stool, almost lost in the blue shadows, while behind the bar, her crystal dress blending with the tiers of sparkling glasses, stood a grave-eyed young girl who could hardly have been fifteen.
The TV was saying, "... in addition, a number of mysterious disappearances of high-rating individuals have been reported. These are thought to be cases of misunderstanding, illusory apprehension, and impulse traveling—a result of the unusual stresses of the time. Finally, a few suggestible individuals in various parts of the globe, especially the Indian Peninsula, have declared themselves to be 'gods' and in some way responsible for current events.
"It is thought—"
The girl switched off the TV and took Theodor's order, explaining casually, "Joe wanted to go to a Kometevskyite meeting, so I took over for him." When she had prepared Theodor's highball, she announced,
"I'll have a drink with you gentlemen," and squeezed herself a glass of pomegranate juice.
The monkeylike figure muttered, "Scotch-and-soda," then turned toward Edmund and asked, "And what is your reaction to all this, sir?"
Theodor recognized the shrunken wrinkle-seamed face. It was Colonel Fortescue, a military antique long retired from the Peace Patrol and reputed to have seen actual fighting in the Last Age of Madness. Now, for some reason, the face sported a knowing smile.
Theodor shrugged. Just then the TV "big news" light blinked blue and the girl switched on audio. The Colonel winked at Theodor.
"... confirming the disappearance of Jupiter's moons. But two other utterly fantastic reports have just been received. First, Lunar Observatory One says that it is visually tracking fourteen small bodies which it believes may be the lost moons of Jupiter. They are moving outward from the Solar System at an incredible velocity and are already beyond the orbit of Saturn!"
The Colonel said, "Ah!"
"Second, Palomar reports a large number of dark bodies approaching the Solar System at an equally incredible velocity. They are at about twice the distance of Pluto, but closing in fast! We will be on the air with further details as soon as possible."
The Colonel said, "Ah-ha!"
Theodor stared at him. The old man's self-satisfied poise was almost amusing.
"Are you a Kometevskyite?" Theodor asked him.
The Colonel laughed. "Of course not, my boy. Those poor people are fumbling in the dark. Don't you see what's happened?"
"Frankly, no."
The Colonel leaned toward Theodor and whispered gruffly, "The Divine Plan. God is a military strategist, naturally."
Then he lifted the scotch-and-soda in his clawlike hand and took a satisfying swallow.
"I knew it all along, of course," he went on musingly, "but this last news makes it as plain as a rocket blast, at least to anyone who knows military strategy. Look here, my boy, suppose you were commanding a fleet and got wind of the enemy's approach—what would you do? Why, you'd send your scouts and destroyers fanning out toward them. Behind that screen you'd mass your heavy ships. Then—"
"You don't mean to imply—" Theodor interrupted.
The girl behind the bar looked at them both cryptically.
"Of course I do!" the Colonel cut in sharply. "It's a war between the forces of good and evil. The bright suns and planets are on one side, the dark on the other. The moons are the destroyers, Jupiter and Saturn are the big battleships, while we're on a heavy cruiser, I'm proud to say. We'll probably go into action soon. Be a corking fight, what? And all by divine strategy!"
He chuckled and took another big drink. Theodor looked at him sourly. The girl behind the bar polished a glass and said nothing.
Dotty suddenly began to turn and toss, and a look of terror came over her sleeping face. Celeste leaned forward apprehensively.
The child's lips worked and Celeste made out the sleepy-fuzzy words:
"They've found out where we're hiding. They're coming to get us. No! Please, no!"
Celeste's reactions were mixed. She felt worried about Dotty and at the same time almost in terror of her, as if the little girl were an agent of supernatural forces. She told herself that this fear was an expression of her own hostility, yet she didn't really believe it. She touched the child's hand.
Dotty's eyes opened without making Celeste feel she had quite come awake. After a bit she looked at Celeste and her little lips parted in a smile.
"Hello," she said sleepily. "I've been having such funny dreams." Then, after a pause, frowning, "I really am a god, you know. It feels very queer."
"Yes, dear?" Celeste prompted uneasily. "Shall I call Frieda?"
The smile left Dotty's lips. "Why do you act so nervous around me?" she asked. "Don't you love me, Mummy?"
Celeste started at the word. Her throat closed. Then, very slowly, her face broke into a radiant smile. "Of course I do, darling. I love you very much."
Dotty nodded happily, her eyes already closed again.
There was a sudden flurry of excited voices beyond the door. Celeste heard her name called. She stood up.
"I'm going to have to go out and talk with the others," she said. "If you want me, dear, just call."
"Yes, Mummy."
Edmund rapped for attention. Celeste, Frieda, and Theodor glanced around at him. He looked more frightfully strained, they realized, than even they felt. His expression was a study in suppressed excitement, but there were also signs of a knowledge that was almost too overpowering for a human being to bear.
His voice was clipped, rapid. "I think it's about time we stopped worrying about our own affairs and thought of those of the Solar System, partly because I think they have a direct bearing on the disappearances of Ivan end Rosalind. As I told you, I've been sorting out the crucial items from the material we've been presenting. There are roughly four of those items, as I see it. It's rather like a mystery story. I wonder if, hearing those four clues, you will come to the same conclusion I have."
The others nodded.
"First, there are the latest reports from Deep Shaft, which, as you know, has been sunk to investigate deep-Earth conditions. At approximately twenty-nine miles below the surface, the delvers have encountered a metallic obstruction which they have tentatively named the durasphere. It resists their hardest drills, their strongest corrosives. They have extended a side-tunnel at that level for a quarter of a mile. Delicate measurements, made possible by the mirror-smooth metal surface, show that the durasphere has a slight curvature that is almost exactly equal to the curvature of the Earth itself. The suggestion is that deep borings made anywhere in the world would encounter the durasphere at the same depth.
"Second, the movements of the moons of Mars and Jupiter, and particularly the debris left behind by the moons of Mars. Granting Phobos and Deimos had duraspheres proportional in size to that of Earth, then the debris would roughly equal in amount the material in those two duraspheres' rocky envelopes. The suggestion is that the two duraspheres suddenly burst from their envelopes with such titanic velocity as to leave those disrupted envelopes behind."
It was deadly quiet in the committee room.
"Thirdly, the disappearances of Ivan and Rosalind, and especially the baffling hint—from Ivan's message in one case and Rosalind's downward-pointing glove in the other—that they were both somehow drawn into the depths of the Earth.
"Finally, the dreams of the ESPs, which agree overwhelmingly in the following points: A group of beings separate themselves from a godlike and telepathic race because they insist on maintaining a degree of mental privacy. They flee in great boats or ships of some sort. They are pursued on such a scale that there is no hiding place for them anywhere in the universe. In some manner they successfully camouflage their ships. Eons pass and their still-fanatical pursuers do not penetrate their secret. Then, suddenly, they are detected."
Edmund waited. "Do you see what I'm driving at?" he asked hoarsely.
He could tell from their looks that the others did, but couldn't bring
themselves to put it into words.
"I suppose it's the time-scale and the value-scale that are so hard for
us to accept," he said softly. "Much more, even, than the size-scale.
The thought that there are creatures in the Universe to whom the whole
career of Man—in fact, the whole career of life—is no more than a few
thousand or hundred thousand years. And to whom Man is no more than a
minor stage property—a trifling part of a clever job of camouflage."
This time he went on, "Fantasy writers have at times hinted all sorts
of odd things about the Earth—that it might even be a kind of single
living creature, or honeycombed with inhabited caverns, and so on.
But I don't know that any of them have ever suggested that the Earth,
together with all the planets and moons of the Solar System, might
be...."
In a whisper, Frieda finished for him, "... a camouflaged fleet of
gigantic spherical spaceships."
" Your guess happens to be the precise truth. "
At that familiar, yet dreadly unfamiliar voice, all four of them swung
toward the inner door. Dotty was standing there, a sleep-stupefied
little girl with a blanket caught up around her and dragging behind.
Their own daughter. But in her eyes was a look from which they cringed.
She said, "I am a creature somewhat older than what your geologists
call the Archeozoic Era. I am speaking to you through a number of
telepathically sensitive individuals among your kind. In each case my
thoughts suit themselves to your level of comprehension. I inhabit the
disguised and jetless spaceship which is your Earth."
Celeste swayed a step forward. "Baby...." she implored.
Dotty went on, without giving her a glance, "It is true that we planted
the seeds of life on some of these planets simply as part of our
camouflage, just as we gave them a suitable environment for each. And
it is true that now we must let most of that life be destroyed. Our
hiding place has been discovered, our pursuers are upon us, and we must
make one last effort to escape or do battle, since we firmly believe
that the principle of mental privacy to which we have devoted our
existence is perhaps the greatest good in the whole Universe.
"But it is not true that we look with contempt upon you. Our whole race
is deeply devoted to life, wherever it may come into being, and it is
our rule never to interfere with its development. That was one of
the reasons we made life a part of our camouflage—it would make our
pursuers reluctant to examine these planets too closely.
"Yes, we have always cherished you and watched your evolution with
interest from our hidden lairs. We may even unconsciously have shaped
your development in certain ways, trying constantly to educate you away
from war and finally succeeding—which may have given the betraying
clue to our pursuers.
"Your planets must be burst asunder—this particular planet in the
area of the Pacific—so that we may have our last chance to escape.
Even if we did not move, our pursuers would destroy you with us. We
cannot invite you inside our ships—not for lack of space, but because
you could never survive the vast accelerations to which you would be
subjected. You would, you see, need very special accommodations, of
which we have enough only for a few.
"Those few we will take with us, as the seed from which a new human
race may—if we ourselves somehow survive—be born."
Rosalind and Ivan stared dumbly at each other across the egg-shaped
silver room, without apparent entrance or exit, in which they were
sprawled. But their thoughts were no longer of thirty-odd mile
journeys down through solid earth, or of how cool it was after the
heat of the passage, or of how grotesque it was to be trapped here,
the fragment of a marriage. They were both listening to the voice that
spoke inside their minds.
"In a few minutes your bodies will be separated into layers one atom
thick, capable of being shelved or stored in such a way as to endure
almost infinite accelerations. Single cells will cover acres of space.
But do not be alarmed. The process will be painless and each particle
will be catalogued for future assembly. Your consciousness will endure
throughout the process."
Rosalind looked at her gold-shod toes. She was wondering, will they go
first, or my head? Or will I be peeled like an apple?
She looked at Ivan and knew he was thinking the same thing.
Up in the committee room, the other Wolvers slumped around the table.
Only little Dotty sat straight and staring, speechless and unanswering,
quite beyond their reach, like a telephone off the hook and with the
connection open, but no voice from the other end.
They had just switched off the TV after listening to a confused
medley of denials, prayers, Kometevskyite chatterings, and a few
astonishingly realistic comments on the possibility of survival.
These last pointed out that, on the side of the Earth opposite the
Pacific, the convulsions would come slowly when the entombed spaceship
burst forth—provided, as seemed the case, that it moved without jets
or reaction.
It would be as if the Earth's vast core simply vanished. Gravity would
diminish abruptly to a fraction of its former value. The empty envelope
of rock and water and air would slowly fall together, though at the
same time the air would begin to escape from the debris because there
would no longer be the mass required to hold it.
However, there might be definite chances of temporary and even
prolonged survival for individuals in strong, hermetically sealed
structures, such as submarines and spaceships. The few spaceships on
Earth were reported to have blasted off, or be preparing to leave, with
as many passengers as could be carried.
But most persons, apparently, could not contemplate action of any sort.
They could only sit and think, like the Wolvers.
A faint smile relaxed Celeste's face. She was thinking, how beautiful!
It means the death of the Solar System, which is a horrifying
subjective concept. Objectively, though, it would be a more awesome
sight than any human being has ever seen or ever could see. It's an
absurd and even brutal thing to wish—but I wish I could see the whole
cataclysm from beginning to end. It would make death seem very small, a
tiny personal event.
Dotty's face was losing its blank expression, becoming intent and
alarmed.
"We are in contact with our pursuers," she said in the
familiar-unfamiliar voice. "Negotiations are now going on. There
seems to be—there is a change in them. Where they were harsh and
vindictive before, they now are gentle and conciliatory." She paused,
the alarm on her childish features pinching into anxious uncertainty.
"Our pursuers have always been shrewd. The change in them may be false,
intended merely to lull us into allowing them to come close enough to
destroy us. We must not fall into the trap by growing hopeful...."
They leaned forward, clutching hands, watching the little face as
though it were a television screen. Celeste had the wild feeling that
she was listening to a communique from a war so unthinkably vast and
violent, between opponents so astronomically huge and nearly immortal,
that she felt like no more than a reasoning ameba ... and then realized
with an explosive urge to laugh that that was exactly the situation.
"No!" said Dotty. Her eyes began to glow. "They have changed! During
the eons in which we lay sealed away and hidden from them, knowing
nothing of them, they have rebelled against the tyranny of a communal
mind to which no thoughts are private ... the tyranny that we ourselves
fled to escape. They come not to destroy us, but to welcome us back to
a society that we and they can make truly great!"
Frieda collapsed to a chair, trembling between laughter and hysterical
weeping. Theodor looked as blank as Dotty had while waiting for words
to speak. Edmund sprang to the picture window, Celeste toward the TV
set.
Climbing shakily out of the chair, Frieda stumbled to the picture
window and peered out beside Edmund. She saw lights bobbing along the
paths with a wild excitement.
On the TV screen, Celeste watched two brightly lit ships spinning in
the sky—whether human spaceships or Phobos and Deimos come to help
Earth rejoice, she couldn't tell.
Dotty spoke again, the joy in her strange voice forcing them to turn.
"And you, dear children, creatures of our camouflage, we welcome
you—whatever your future career on these planets or like ones—into
the society of enlightened worlds! You need not feel small and alone
and helpless ever again, for we shall always be with you!"
The outer door opened. Ivan and Rosalind reeled in, drunkenly smiling,
arm in arm.
"Like rockets," Rosalind blurted happily. "We came through the
durasphere and solid rock ... shot up right to the surface."
"They didn't have to take us along," Ivan added with a bleary grin.
"But you know that already, don't you? They're too good to let you live
in fear, so they must have told you by now."
"Yes, we know," said Theodor. "They must be almost godlike in their
goodness. I feel ... calm."
Edmund nodded soberly. "Calmer than I ever felt before. It's knowing, I
suppose, that—well, we're not alone."
Dotty blinked and looked around and smiled at them all with a wholly
little-girl smile.
"Oh, Mummy," she said, and it was impossible to tell whether she spoke
to Frieda or Rosalind or Celeste, "I've just had the funniest dream."
"No, darling," said Rosalind gently, "it's we who had the dream. We've
just awakened."
|
Who is Herbert Quidley, and what are his characteristics?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Girls from Fieu Dayol by Robert F. Young.
Relevant chunks:
The Girls From Fieu Dayol
By ROBERT F. YOUNG
They were lovely and quick to learn—and their only faults were little ones!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Up until the moment when he first looked into Hippolyte Adolphe Taine's History of English Literature , Herbert Quidley's penchant for old books had netted him nothing in the way of romance and intrigue. Not that he was a stranger to either. Far from it. But hitherto the background for both had been bedrooms and bars, not libraries.
On page 21 of the Taine tome he happened upon a sheet of yellow copy paper folded in four. Unfolding it, he read:
asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj Cai: Sities towms copeis wotnid. Gind snoll doper nckli! Wilbe Fieu Dayol fot ig habe mot toseo knwo—te bijk weil en snoll doper—Klio, asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj
Since when, Quidley wondered, refolding the paper and putting it back in the book, had high-school typing students taken to reading Taine? Thoughtfully he replaced the book on the shelf and moved deeper into the literature section.
He had just taken down Xenophon's Anabasis when he saw the girl walk in the door.
Let it be said forthwith that old books were not the only item on Herbert Quidley's penchant-list. He liked old wood, too, and old paintings, not to mention old wine and old whiskey. But most of all he liked young girls. He especially liked them when they looked the way Helen of Troy must have looked when Paris took one gander at her and started building his ladder. This one was tall, with hyacinth hair and liquid blue eyes, and she had a Grecian symmetry of shape that would have made Paris' eyes pop had he been around to take notice. Paris wasn't, but Quidley's eyes, did the job.
After coming in the door, the girl deposited a book on the librarian's desk and headed for the literature section. Quickly Quidley lowered his eyes to the Anabasis and henceforth followed her progress out of their corners. When she came to the O's she paused, took down a book and glanced through it. Then she replaced it and moved on to the P's ... the Q's ... the R's. Barely three feet from him she paused again and took down Taine's History of English Literature .
He simply could not believe it. The odds against two persons taking an interest in so esoteric a volume on a single night in a single library were ten thousand to one. And yet there was no gainsaying that the volume was in the girl's hands, and that she was riffling through it with the air of a seasoned browser.
Presently she returned the book to the shelf, selected another—seemingly at random—and took it over to the librarian's desk. She waited statuesquely while the librarian processed it, then tucked it under her arm and whisked out the door into the misty April night. As soon as she disappeared, Quidley stepped over to the T's and took Taine down once more. Just as he had suspected. The makeshift bookmark was gone.
He remembered how the asdf-;lkj exercise had given way to several lines of gibberish and then reappeared again. A camouflaged message? Or was it merely what it appeared to be on the surface—the efforts of an impatient typing student to type before his time?
He returned Taine to the shelf. After learning from the librarian that the girl's name was Kay Smith, he went out and got in his hardtop. The name rang a bell. Halfway home he realized why. The typing exercise had contained the word "Cai", and if you pronounced it with hard c, you got
"Kai"—or "Kay". Obviously, then, the exercise had been a message, and had been deliberately inserted in a book no average person would dream of borrowing.
By whom—her boy friend?
Quidley winced. He was allergic to the term. Not that he ever let the presence of a boy friend deter him when he set out to conquer, but because the term itself brought to mind the word "fiance," and the word
"fiance" brought to mind still another word, one which repelled him violently. I.e., "marriage". Just the same, he decided to keep Taine's History under observation for a while.
Her boy friend turned out to be her girl friend, and her girl friend turned out to be a tall and lissome, lovely with a Helenesque air of her own. From the vantage point of a strategically located reading table, where he was keeping company with his favorite little magazine, The Zeitgeist , Quidley watched her take a seemingly haphazard route to the shelf where Taine's History reposed, take the volume down, surreptitiously slip a folded sheet of yellow paper between its pages and return it to the shelf.
After she left he wasted no time in acquainting himself with the second message. It was as unintelligible as the first:
asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj Cai: Habe wotnid ig ist ending ifedererer te. T'lide sid Fieu Dayol po jestig toseo knwo, bijk weil en snoll doper entling—Yoolna. asdf ;lkj asdf
;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj
Well, perhaps not quite as unintelligible. He knew, at least, who Cai was, and he knew—from the reappearance of the words wotnid , Fieu Dayol and snoll doper —that the two communications were in the same code. And certainly it was reasonable to assume that the last word— Yoolna —was the name of the girl he had just seen, and that she was a different person from the Klio whose name had appended the first message.
He refolded the paper, replaced it between the pages, returned the book to the shelf and went back to the reading table and The Zeitgeist .
Kay didn't show up till almost closing time, and he was beginning to think that perhaps she wouldn't come around for the pickup till tomorrow when she finally walked in the door. She employed the same tactics she had employed the previous night, arriving, as though by chance, at the T-section and transferring the message with the same undetectable legerdemain to her purse. This time, when she walked out the door, he was not far behind her.
She climbed into a sleek convertible and pulled into the street. It took him but a moment to gain his hardtop and start out after her. When, several blocks later, she pulled to the curb in front of an all-night coffee bar, he followed suit. After that, it was merely a matter of following her inside.
He decided on Operation Spill-the-sugar. It had stood him in good stead before, and he was rather fond of it. The procedure was quite simple. First you took note of the position of the sugar dispensers, then you situated yourself so that your intended victim was between you and the nearest one, then you ordered coffee without sugar in a low voice, and after the counterman or countergirl had served you, you waited till he/she was out of earshot and asked your i.v. to please pass the sugar. When she did so you let the dispenser slip from your fingers in such a way that some of its contents spilled on her lap—
"I'm terribly sorry," he said, righting it. "Here, let me brush it off."
"It's all right, it's only sugar," she said, laughing.
"I'm hopelessly clumsy," he continued smoothly, brushing the gleaming crystals from her pleated skirt, noting the clean sweep of her thighs.
"I beseech you to forgive me."
"You're forgiven," she said, and he noticed then that she spoke with a slight accent.
"If you like, you can send it to the cleaners and have them send the bill to me. My address is 61 Park Place." He pulled out his wallet, chose an appropriate card, and handed it to her—
Herbert Quidley: Profiliste
Her forehead crinkled. " Profiliste? "
"I paint profiles with words," he said. "You may have run across some of my pieces in the Better Magazines. I employ a variety of pseudonyms, of course."
"How interesting." She pronounced it "anteresting."
"Not famous profiles, you understand. Just profiles that strike my fancy." He paused. She had raised her cup to her lips and was taking a dainty sip. "You have a rather striking profile yourself, Miss—"
"Smith. Kay Smith." She set the cup back on the counter and turned and faced him. For a second her eyes seemed to expand till they preoccupied his entire vision, till he could see nothing but their disturbingly clear—and suddenly cold—blueness. Panic touched him, then vanished when she said, "Would you really consider word-painting my profile, Mr. Quidley?"
Would he! "When can I call?"
She hesitated for a moment. Then: "I think it will be better if I call on you. There are quite a number of people living in our—our house. I'm afraid the quarters would be much too cramped for an artist like yourself to concentrate."
Quidley glowed. Usually it required two or three days, and sometimes a week, to reach the apartment phase. "Fine," he said. "When can I expect you?"
She stood up and he got to his feet beside her. She was even taller than he had thought. In fact, if he hadn't been wearing Cuban heels, she'd have been taller than he was. "I'll be in town night after next," she said. "Will nine o'clock be convenient for you?"
"Perfectly."
"Good-by for now then, Mr. Quidley."
He was so elated that when he arrived at his apartment he actually did try to write a profile. His own, of course. He sat down at his custom-built chrome-trimmed desk, inserted a blank sheet of paper in his custom-built typewriter and tried to arrange his thoughts. But as usual his mind raced ahead of the moment, and he saw the title, Self Profile , nestling noticeably on the contents page of one of the Better Magazines, and presently he saw the piece itself in all its splendid array of colorful rhetoric, sparkling imagery and scintillating wit, occupying a two-page spread.
It was some time before he returned to reality, and when he did the first thing that met his eyes was the uncompromisingly blank sheet of paper. Hurriedly he typed out a letter to his father, requesting an advance on his allowance, then, after a tall glass of vintage wine, he went to bed.
In telling him that she would be in town two nights hence, Kay had unwittingly apprised him that there would be no exchange of messages until that time, so the next evening he skipped his vigil at the library. The following evening, however, after readying his apartment for the forthcoming assignation, he hied himself to his reading-table post and took up The Zeitgeist once again.
He had not thought it possible that there could be a third such woman.
And yet there she was, walking in the door, tall and blue-eyed and graceful; dark of hair and noble of mien; browsing in the philosophy section now, now the fiction section, now moving leisurely into the literature aisle and toward the T's....
The camouflage had varied, but the message was typical enough:
fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; Cai: Gind en snoll doper nckli! Wotnid antwaterer Fieu Dayol hid jestig snoll doper ifedererer te. Dep gogensplo snoll dopers ensing!—Gorka. fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl;
Judging from the repeated use of the words, snoll dopers were the topic of the day. Annoyed, Quidley replaced the message and put the book back on the shelf. Then he returned to his apartment to await Kay.
He wondered what her reaction would be if he asked her point-blank what a snoll doper was; whether she would reveal the nature of the amateur secret society to which she and Klio and Yoolna and Gorka belonged. It virtually had to be an amateur secret society. Unless, of course, they were foreigners. But what on earth foreign organization would be quixotic enough to employ Taine's History of English Literature as a communications medium when there was a telephone in every drugstore and a mailbox on every corner?
Somehow the words "what on earth foreign organization" got turned around in his mind and became "what foreign organization on earth" and before he could summon his common sense to succor him, he experienced a rather bad moment. By the time the door chimes sounded he was his normal self again.
He straightened his tie with nervous fingers, checked to see if his shirt cuffs protruded the proper length from his coat sleeves, and looked around the room to see if everything was in place. Everything was—the typewriter uncovered and centered on the chrome-trimmed desk, with the sheaf of crinkly first-sheets beside it; the reference books stacked imposingly nearby; Harper's , The Atlantic and The Saturday Review showing conspicuously in the magazine rack; the newly opened bottle of bourbon and the two snifter glasses on the sideboard; the small table set cozily for two—
The chimes sounded again. He opened the door.
She walked in with a demure, "Hello." He took her wrap. When he saw what she was wearing he had to tilt his head back so that his eyes wouldn't fall out of their sockets.
Skin, mostly, in the upper regions. White, glowing skin on which her long hair lay like forest pools. As for her dress, it was as though she had fallen forward into immaculate snow, half-burying her breasts before catching herself on her elbows, then turning into a sitting position, the snow clinging to her skin in a glistening veneer; arising finally to her feet, resplendently attired.
He went over to the sideboard, picked up the bottle of bourbon. She followed. He set the two snifter glasses side by side and tilted the bottle. "Say when." "When!" "I admire your dress—never saw anything quite like it." "Thank you. The material is something new. Feel it."
"It's—it's almost like foam rubber. Cigarette?" "Thanks.... Is something wrong, Mr. Quidley?" "No, of course not. Why?" "Your hands are trembling." "Oh. I'm—I'm afraid it's the present company, Miss Smith." "Call me Kay."
They touched glasses: "Your liquor is as exquisite as your living room, Herbert. I shall have to come here more often." "I hope you will, Kay."
"Though such conduct, I'm told, is morally reprehensible on the planet Earth." "Not in this particular circle. Your hair is lovely." "Thank you.... You haven't mentioned my perfume yet. Perhaps I'm standing too far away.... There!" "It's—it's as lovely as your hair, Kay." "Um, kiss me again." "I—I never figured—I mean, I engaged a caterer to serve us dinner at 9:30." "Call him up. Make it 10:30."
The following evening found Quidley on tenter-hooks. The snoll-doper mystery had acquired a new tang. He could hardly wait till the next message transfer took place.
He decided to spend the evening plotting the epic novel which he intended to write someday. He set to work immediately. He plotted mentally, of course—notes were for the hacks and the other commercial non-geniuses who infested the modern literary world. Closing his eyes, he saw the whole vivid panorama of epic action and grand adventure flowing like a mighty and majestic river before his literary vision: the authentic and awe-inspiring background; the hordes of colorful characters; the handsome virile hero, the compelling Helenesque heroine.... God, it was going to be great! The best thing he'd ever done! See, already there was a crowd of book lovers in front of the bookstore, staring into the window where the new Herbert Quidley was on display, trying to force its way into the jammed interior.... Cut to interior. FIRST EAGER CUSTOMER: Tell me quickly, are there any more copies of the new Herbert Quidley left? BOOK CLERK: A few. You don't know how lucky you are to get here before the first printing ran out. FIRST EAGER CUSTOMER: Give me a dozen. I want to make sure that my children and my children's children have a plentiful supply. BOOK CLERK: Sorry. Only one to a customer. Next? SECOND EAGER CUSTOMER: Tell me quickly, are ... there ... any ... more ... copies ... of—
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ....
Message no. 4, except for a slight variation in camouflage, ran true to form:
a;sldkfj a;sldkfj a;sldkfj a;sldkfj Cai: Habe te snoll dopers ensing? Wotnid ne Fieu Dayol ist ifederereret, hid jestig snoll doper. Gind ed, olro—Jilka. a;sldkfj a;sldkfj a;sldkfj a;sldkfj
Quidley sighed. What, he asked himself, standing in the library aisle and staring at the indecipherable words, was a normal girl like Kay doing in such a childish secret society? From the way she and her correspondents carried on you'd almost think they were Martian girl scouts on an interplanetary camping trip, trying for their merit badges in communications!
You could hardly call Kay a girl scout, though.
Nevertheless, she was the key figure in the snoll-doper enigma. The fact annoyed him, especially when he considered that a snoll doper , for all he knew, could be anything from a Chinese fortune cooky to an H-bomb.
He remembered Kay's odd accent. Was that the way a person would speak English if her own language ran something like " ist ifedereret, hid jestig snoll doper adwo ?"
He remembered the way she had looked at him in the coffee bar.
He remembered the material of her dress.
He remembered how she had come to his room.
"I didn't know you had a taste for Taine."
Her voice seemed to come from far away, but she was standing right beside him, tall and bewitching; Helenesque as ever. Her blue eyes became great wells into which he found himself falling. With an effort, he pulled himself back. "You're early tonight," he said lamely.
She appropriated the message, read it. "Put the book back," she said presently. Then, when he complied: "Come on."
"Where are we going?"
"I'm going to deliver a snoll doper to Jilka. After that I'm going to take you home to meet my folks."
The relieved sigh he heard was his own.
They climbed into her convertible and she nosed it into the moving line of cars. "How long have you been reading my mail?" she asked.
"Since the night before I met you."
"Was that the reason you spilled the sugar?"
"Part of the reason," he said. "What's a snoll doper ?"
She laughed. "I don't think I'd better tell you just yet."
He sighed again. "But if Jilka wanted a snoll doper ," he said after a while, "why in the world didn't she call you up and say so?"
"Regulations." She pulled over to the curb in front of a brick apartment building. "This is where Jilka lives. I'll explain when I get back."
He watched her get out, walk up the walk to the entrance and let herself in. He leaned his head back on the seat, lit a cigarette and exhaled a mixture of smoke and relief. On the way to meet her folks. So it was just an ordinary secret society after all. And here he'd been thinking that she was the key figure in a Martian plot to blow up Earth—
Her folks !
Abruptly the full implication of the words got through to him, and he sat bolt-up-right on the seat. He was starting to climb out of the car when he saw Kay coming down the walk. Anyway, running away wouldn't solve his problem. A complete disappearing act was in order, and a complete disappearing act would take time. Meanwhile he would play along with her.
A station wagon came up behind them, slowed, and matched its speed with theirs. "Someone's following us," Quidley said.
"Probably Jilka."
Five minutes later the station wagon turned down a side street and disappeared. "She's no longer with us," Quidley said.
"She's got to pick someone up. She'll meet us later."
"At your folks'?"
"At the ship."
The city was thinning out around them now, and a few stars were visible in the night sky. Quidley watched them thoughtfully for a while. Then:
"What ship?" he said.
"The one we're going to Fieu Dayol on."
" Fieu Dayol? "
"Persei 17 to you. I said I was going to take you home to meet my folks, didn't I?"
"In other words, you're kidnapping me."
She shook her head vehemently. "I most certainly am not! Neither according to interstellar law or your own. When you compromised me, you made yourself liable in the eyes of both."
"But why pick on me? There must be plenty of men on Fieu Dayol . Why don't you marry one of them?"
"For two reasons: one, you're the particular man who compromised me. Two, there are not plenty of men on Fieu Dayol . Our race is identical to yours in everything except population-balance between the sexes. At periodic intervals the women on Fieu Dayol so greatly outnumber the men that those of us who are temperamentally and emotionally unfitted to become spinsters have to look for wotnids —or mates—on other worlds. It's quite legal and quite respectable. As a matter of fact, we even have schools specializing in alien cultures to expedite our activities. Our biggest problem is the Interstellar statute forbidding us the use of local communications services and forbidding us to appear in public places. It was devised to facilitate the prosecution of interstellar black marketeers, but we're subject to it, too, and have to contrive communications systems of our own."
"But why were all the messages addressed to you?"
"They weren't messages. They were requisitions. I'm the ship's stock girl."
April fields stretched darkly away on either side of the highway. Presently she turned down a rutted road between two of them and they bounced and swayed back to a black blur of trees. "Here we are," she said.
Gradually he made out the sphere. It blended so flawlessly with its background that he wouldn't have been able to see it at all if he hadn't been informed of its existence. A gangplank sloped down from an open lock and came to rest just within the fringe of the trees.
Lights danced in the darkness behind them as another car jounced down the rutted road. "Jilka," Kay said. "I wonder if she got him."
Apparently she had. At least there was a man with her—a rather woebegone, wilted creature who didn't even look up as they passed. Quidley watched them ascend the gangplank, the man in the lead, and disappear into the ship.
"Next," Kay said.
Quidley shook his head. "You're not taking me to another planet!"
She opened her purse and pulled out a small metallic object "A little while ago you asked me what a snoll doper was," she said.
"Unfortunately interstellar law severely limits us in our choice of marriageable males, and we can take only those who refuse to conform to the sexual mores of their own societies." She did something to the object that caused it to extend itself into a long, tubular affair.
" This is a snoll doper ."
She prodded his ribs. "March," she said.
He marched. Halfway up the plank he glanced back over his shoulder for a better look at the object pressed against his back.
It bore a striking resemblance to a shotgun.
Question:
Who is Herbert Quidley, and what are his characteristics?
Answer:
|
[
"Herbert Quidley is a profiliste who often stays in the library. He has a variety of pseudonyms for his career, each of which has its own card in his wallet. He owns a hardtop. He lives at 61 Park Place. He often wears Cuban heels. His favorite little magazine is The Zeitgeist. He likes everything old, such as old books, old wines, old woods, and old paintings. But most of all, he likes young girls, which is why he starts his observations on Kay’s behavior, a girl who exchanges letters through the book in the library. Quidley is a very thoughtful and careful person because whenever he reads the mysterious letters in the book, he always puts the letters back in the book and replaces the book on the shelf. He always sits at the reading table to observe the girls. He knows very well about romantic stuff and how to have sexual relationships with girls as he has his own skill called Operation Spill-the-sugar to start a conversation with a stranger woman. However, Quidley has little moral on sexual relationships because whether the targeted girl has a boyfriend would not deter his intention to conquer her.",
"Herbert Quidley is a Profiliste who loves books. He is very intelligent, and he uses his smarts to pick up women. Being a profiliste entails writing profiles with words. He loves to meet different women, but he never likes to commit to one woman. He likes to spend a lot of his time at a library, which is where he met Kay. He is also very curious, as he wanted to figure out what the messages in the bookmarks meant. At the end, Herbert gets kidnapped by Kay because of his disagreement with marriage, because Kay could only take a man who didn’t fit his planet’s sexual mores. ",
"Herbert Quidley is a man who enjoys old books and always reads at the library. He is described as someone who does not only like old items but also young girls. Although Quidley tends to keep to himself, he is courageous enough to snoop through Kay’s messages in the Taine book. He also becomes more and more interested in solving the mystery behind the messages, even though he cannot understand what any of them say. Quidley is strategic as well, using Operation-Spill-the-sugar as a means to talk to Kay. He also does his best to get to know her, in hopes of trying to figure out more about the mystery behind the messages. When Kay tells him to come with her, he is a little nervous and even says that she is kidnapping him. He does, however, feel a little scared once Kay threatens him.",
"Herbert Quidley is a profiliste who likes young women, old books, and old whiskey. He is a dreamer and can indulge in fantasizing about his future novel and the success it could bring. He is a romantic and loves conventionally beautiful things. He doesn’t enjoy commitment - we understand that when he thinks about marriage as the most terrifying thing ever and almost runs away from Kay when he thinks that she’s taking him to meet her parents. He loves mysteries, like the coded messages he finds in the library. As Kay says, he doesn’t conform to the sexual mores of society - he likes relationships with no obligations. He also considers it normal to follow a woman without talking to her first and peer at her messages. "
] |
61048
|
The Girls From Fieu Dayol
By ROBERT F. YOUNG
They were lovely and quick to learn—and their only faults were little ones!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Up until the moment when he first looked into Hippolyte Adolphe Taine's History of English Literature , Herbert Quidley's penchant for old books had netted him nothing in the way of romance and intrigue. Not that he was a stranger to either. Far from it. But hitherto the background for both had been bedrooms and bars, not libraries.
On page 21 of the Taine tome he happened upon a sheet of yellow copy paper folded in four. Unfolding it, he read:
asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj Cai: Sities towms copeis wotnid. Gind snoll doper nckli! Wilbe Fieu Dayol fot ig habe mot toseo knwo—te bijk weil en snoll doper—Klio, asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj
Since when, Quidley wondered, refolding the paper and putting it back in the book, had high-school typing students taken to reading Taine? Thoughtfully he replaced the book on the shelf and moved deeper into the literature section.
He had just taken down Xenophon's Anabasis when he saw the girl walk in the door.
Let it be said forthwith that old books were not the only item on Herbert Quidley's penchant-list. He liked old wood, too, and old paintings, not to mention old wine and old whiskey. But most of all he liked young girls. He especially liked them when they looked the way Helen of Troy must have looked when Paris took one gander at her and started building his ladder. This one was tall, with hyacinth hair and liquid blue eyes, and she had a Grecian symmetry of shape that would have made Paris' eyes pop had he been around to take notice. Paris wasn't, but Quidley's eyes, did the job.
After coming in the door, the girl deposited a book on the librarian's desk and headed for the literature section. Quickly Quidley lowered his eyes to the Anabasis and henceforth followed her progress out of their corners. When she came to the O's she paused, took down a book and glanced through it. Then she replaced it and moved on to the P's ... the Q's ... the R's. Barely three feet from him she paused again and took down Taine's History of English Literature .
He simply could not believe it. The odds against two persons taking an interest in so esoteric a volume on a single night in a single library were ten thousand to one. And yet there was no gainsaying that the volume was in the girl's hands, and that she was riffling through it with the air of a seasoned browser.
Presently she returned the book to the shelf, selected another—seemingly at random—and took it over to the librarian's desk. She waited statuesquely while the librarian processed it, then tucked it under her arm and whisked out the door into the misty April night. As soon as she disappeared, Quidley stepped over to the T's and took Taine down once more. Just as he had suspected. The makeshift bookmark was gone.
He remembered how the asdf-;lkj exercise had given way to several lines of gibberish and then reappeared again. A camouflaged message? Or was it merely what it appeared to be on the surface—the efforts of an impatient typing student to type before his time?
He returned Taine to the shelf. After learning from the librarian that the girl's name was Kay Smith, he went out and got in his hardtop. The name rang a bell. Halfway home he realized why. The typing exercise had contained the word "Cai", and if you pronounced it with hard c, you got
"Kai"—or "Kay". Obviously, then, the exercise had been a message, and had been deliberately inserted in a book no average person would dream of borrowing.
By whom—her boy friend?
Quidley winced. He was allergic to the term. Not that he ever let the presence of a boy friend deter him when he set out to conquer, but because the term itself brought to mind the word "fiance," and the word
"fiance" brought to mind still another word, one which repelled him violently. I.e., "marriage". Just the same, he decided to keep Taine's History under observation for a while.
Her boy friend turned out to be her girl friend, and her girl friend turned out to be a tall and lissome, lovely with a Helenesque air of her own. From the vantage point of a strategically located reading table, where he was keeping company with his favorite little magazine, The Zeitgeist , Quidley watched her take a seemingly haphazard route to the shelf where Taine's History reposed, take the volume down, surreptitiously slip a folded sheet of yellow paper between its pages and return it to the shelf.
After she left he wasted no time in acquainting himself with the second message. It was as unintelligible as the first:
asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj Cai: Habe wotnid ig ist ending ifedererer te. T'lide sid Fieu Dayol po jestig toseo knwo, bijk weil en snoll doper entling—Yoolna. asdf ;lkj asdf
;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj
Well, perhaps not quite as unintelligible. He knew, at least, who Cai was, and he knew—from the reappearance of the words wotnid , Fieu Dayol and snoll doper —that the two communications were in the same code. And certainly it was reasonable to assume that the last word— Yoolna —was the name of the girl he had just seen, and that she was a different person from the Klio whose name had appended the first message.
He refolded the paper, replaced it between the pages, returned the book to the shelf and went back to the reading table and The Zeitgeist .
Kay didn't show up till almost closing time, and he was beginning to think that perhaps she wouldn't come around for the pickup till tomorrow when she finally walked in the door. She employed the same tactics she had employed the previous night, arriving, as though by chance, at the T-section and transferring the message with the same undetectable legerdemain to her purse. This time, when she walked out the door, he was not far behind her.
She climbed into a sleek convertible and pulled into the street. It took him but a moment to gain his hardtop and start out after her. When, several blocks later, she pulled to the curb in front of an all-night coffee bar, he followed suit. After that, it was merely a matter of following her inside.
He decided on Operation Spill-the-sugar. It had stood him in good stead before, and he was rather fond of it. The procedure was quite simple. First you took note of the position of the sugar dispensers, then you situated yourself so that your intended victim was between you and the nearest one, then you ordered coffee without sugar in a low voice, and after the counterman or countergirl had served you, you waited till he/she was out of earshot and asked your i.v. to please pass the sugar. When she did so you let the dispenser slip from your fingers in such a way that some of its contents spilled on her lap—
"I'm terribly sorry," he said, righting it. "Here, let me brush it off."
"It's all right, it's only sugar," she said, laughing.
"I'm hopelessly clumsy," he continued smoothly, brushing the gleaming crystals from her pleated skirt, noting the clean sweep of her thighs.
"I beseech you to forgive me."
"You're forgiven," she said, and he noticed then that she spoke with a slight accent.
"If you like, you can send it to the cleaners and have them send the bill to me. My address is 61 Park Place." He pulled out his wallet, chose an appropriate card, and handed it to her—
Herbert Quidley: Profiliste
Her forehead crinkled. " Profiliste? "
"I paint profiles with words," he said. "You may have run across some of my pieces in the Better Magazines. I employ a variety of pseudonyms, of course."
"How interesting." She pronounced it "anteresting."
"Not famous profiles, you understand. Just profiles that strike my fancy." He paused. She had raised her cup to her lips and was taking a dainty sip. "You have a rather striking profile yourself, Miss—"
"Smith. Kay Smith." She set the cup back on the counter and turned and faced him. For a second her eyes seemed to expand till they preoccupied his entire vision, till he could see nothing but their disturbingly clear—and suddenly cold—blueness. Panic touched him, then vanished when she said, "Would you really consider word-painting my profile, Mr. Quidley?"
Would he! "When can I call?"
She hesitated for a moment. Then: "I think it will be better if I call on you. There are quite a number of people living in our—our house. I'm afraid the quarters would be much too cramped for an artist like yourself to concentrate."
Quidley glowed. Usually it required two or three days, and sometimes a week, to reach the apartment phase. "Fine," he said. "When can I expect you?"
She stood up and he got to his feet beside her. She was even taller than he had thought. In fact, if he hadn't been wearing Cuban heels, she'd have been taller than he was. "I'll be in town night after next," she said. "Will nine o'clock be convenient for you?"
"Perfectly."
"Good-by for now then, Mr. Quidley."
He was so elated that when he arrived at his apartment he actually did try to write a profile. His own, of course. He sat down at his custom-built chrome-trimmed desk, inserted a blank sheet of paper in his custom-built typewriter and tried to arrange his thoughts. But as usual his mind raced ahead of the moment, and he saw the title, Self Profile , nestling noticeably on the contents page of one of the Better Magazines, and presently he saw the piece itself in all its splendid array of colorful rhetoric, sparkling imagery and scintillating wit, occupying a two-page spread.
It was some time before he returned to reality, and when he did the first thing that met his eyes was the uncompromisingly blank sheet of paper. Hurriedly he typed out a letter to his father, requesting an advance on his allowance, then, after a tall glass of vintage wine, he went to bed.
In telling him that she would be in town two nights hence, Kay had unwittingly apprised him that there would be no exchange of messages until that time, so the next evening he skipped his vigil at the library. The following evening, however, after readying his apartment for the forthcoming assignation, he hied himself to his reading-table post and took up The Zeitgeist once again.
He had not thought it possible that there could be a third such woman.
And yet there she was, walking in the door, tall and blue-eyed and graceful; dark of hair and noble of mien; browsing in the philosophy section now, now the fiction section, now moving leisurely into the literature aisle and toward the T's....
The camouflage had varied, but the message was typical enough:
fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; Cai: Gind en snoll doper nckli! Wotnid antwaterer Fieu Dayol hid jestig snoll doper ifedererer te. Dep gogensplo snoll dopers ensing!—Gorka. fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl; fdsa jkl;
Judging from the repeated use of the words, snoll dopers were the topic of the day. Annoyed, Quidley replaced the message and put the book back on the shelf. Then he returned to his apartment to await Kay.
He wondered what her reaction would be if he asked her point-blank what a snoll doper was; whether she would reveal the nature of the amateur secret society to which she and Klio and Yoolna and Gorka belonged. It virtually had to be an amateur secret society. Unless, of course, they were foreigners. But what on earth foreign organization would be quixotic enough to employ Taine's History of English Literature as a communications medium when there was a telephone in every drugstore and a mailbox on every corner?
Somehow the words "what on earth foreign organization" got turned around in his mind and became "what foreign organization on earth" and before he could summon his common sense to succor him, he experienced a rather bad moment. By the time the door chimes sounded he was his normal self again.
He straightened his tie with nervous fingers, checked to see if his shirt cuffs protruded the proper length from his coat sleeves, and looked around the room to see if everything was in place. Everything was—the typewriter uncovered and centered on the chrome-trimmed desk, with the sheaf of crinkly first-sheets beside it; the reference books stacked imposingly nearby; Harper's , The Atlantic and The Saturday Review showing conspicuously in the magazine rack; the newly opened bottle of bourbon and the two snifter glasses on the sideboard; the small table set cozily for two—
The chimes sounded again. He opened the door.
She walked in with a demure, "Hello." He took her wrap. When he saw what she was wearing he had to tilt his head back so that his eyes wouldn't fall out of their sockets.
Skin, mostly, in the upper regions. White, glowing skin on which her long hair lay like forest pools. As for her dress, it was as though she had fallen forward into immaculate snow, half-burying her breasts before catching herself on her elbows, then turning into a sitting position, the snow clinging to her skin in a glistening veneer; arising finally to her feet, resplendently attired.
He went over to the sideboard, picked up the bottle of bourbon. She followed. He set the two snifter glasses side by side and tilted the bottle. "Say when." "When!" "I admire your dress—never saw anything quite like it." "Thank you. The material is something new. Feel it."
"It's—it's almost like foam rubber. Cigarette?" "Thanks.... Is something wrong, Mr. Quidley?" "No, of course not. Why?" "Your hands are trembling." "Oh. I'm—I'm afraid it's the present company, Miss Smith." "Call me Kay."
They touched glasses: "Your liquor is as exquisite as your living room, Herbert. I shall have to come here more often." "I hope you will, Kay."
"Though such conduct, I'm told, is morally reprehensible on the planet Earth." "Not in this particular circle. Your hair is lovely." "Thank you.... You haven't mentioned my perfume yet. Perhaps I'm standing too far away.... There!" "It's—it's as lovely as your hair, Kay." "Um, kiss me again." "I—I never figured—I mean, I engaged a caterer to serve us dinner at 9:30." "Call him up. Make it 10:30."
The following evening found Quidley on tenter-hooks. The snoll-doper mystery had acquired a new tang. He could hardly wait till the next message transfer took place.
He decided to spend the evening plotting the epic novel which he intended to write someday. He set to work immediately. He plotted mentally, of course—notes were for the hacks and the other commercial non-geniuses who infested the modern literary world. Closing his eyes, he saw the whole vivid panorama of epic action and grand adventure flowing like a mighty and majestic river before his literary vision: the authentic and awe-inspiring background; the hordes of colorful characters; the handsome virile hero, the compelling Helenesque heroine.... God, it was going to be great! The best thing he'd ever done! See, already there was a crowd of book lovers in front of the bookstore, staring into the window where the new Herbert Quidley was on display, trying to force its way into the jammed interior.... Cut to interior. FIRST EAGER CUSTOMER: Tell me quickly, are there any more copies of the new Herbert Quidley left? BOOK CLERK: A few. You don't know how lucky you are to get here before the first printing ran out. FIRST EAGER CUSTOMER: Give me a dozen. I want to make sure that my children and my children's children have a plentiful supply. BOOK CLERK: Sorry. Only one to a customer. Next? SECOND EAGER CUSTOMER: Tell me quickly, are ... there ... any ... more ... copies ... of—
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ....
Message no. 4, except for a slight variation in camouflage, ran true to form:
a;sldkfj a;sldkfj a;sldkfj a;sldkfj Cai: Habe te snoll dopers ensing? Wotnid ne Fieu Dayol ist ifederereret, hid jestig snoll doper. Gind ed, olro—Jilka. a;sldkfj a;sldkfj a;sldkfj a;sldkfj
Quidley sighed. What, he asked himself, standing in the library aisle and staring at the indecipherable words, was a normal girl like Kay doing in such a childish secret society? From the way she and her correspondents carried on you'd almost think they were Martian girl scouts on an interplanetary camping trip, trying for their merit badges in communications!
You could hardly call Kay a girl scout, though.
Nevertheless, she was the key figure in the snoll-doper enigma. The fact annoyed him, especially when he considered that a snoll doper , for all he knew, could be anything from a Chinese fortune cooky to an H-bomb.
He remembered Kay's odd accent. Was that the way a person would speak English if her own language ran something like " ist ifedereret, hid jestig snoll doper adwo ?"
He remembered the way she had looked at him in the coffee bar.
He remembered the material of her dress.
He remembered how she had come to his room.
"I didn't know you had a taste for Taine."
Her voice seemed to come from far away, but she was standing right beside him, tall and bewitching; Helenesque as ever. Her blue eyes became great wells into which he found himself falling. With an effort, he pulled himself back. "You're early tonight," he said lamely.
She appropriated the message, read it. "Put the book back," she said presently. Then, when he complied: "Come on."
"Where are we going?"
"I'm going to deliver a snoll doper to Jilka. After that I'm going to take you home to meet my folks."
The relieved sigh he heard was his own.
They climbed into her convertible and she nosed it into the moving line of cars. "How long have you been reading my mail?" she asked.
"Since the night before I met you."
"Was that the reason you spilled the sugar?"
"Part of the reason," he said. "What's a snoll doper ?"
She laughed. "I don't think I'd better tell you just yet."
He sighed again. "But if Jilka wanted a snoll doper ," he said after a while, "why in the world didn't she call you up and say so?"
"Regulations." She pulled over to the curb in front of a brick apartment building. "This is where Jilka lives. I'll explain when I get back."
He watched her get out, walk up the walk to the entrance and let herself in. He leaned his head back on the seat, lit a cigarette and exhaled a mixture of smoke and relief. On the way to meet her folks. So it was just an ordinary secret society after all. And here he'd been thinking that she was the key figure in a Martian plot to blow up Earth—
Her folks !
Abruptly the full implication of the words got through to him, and he sat bolt-up-right on the seat. He was starting to climb out of the car when he saw Kay coming down the walk. Anyway, running away wouldn't solve his problem. A complete disappearing act was in order, and a complete disappearing act would take time. Meanwhile he would play along with her.
A station wagon came up behind them, slowed, and matched its speed with theirs. "Someone's following us," Quidley said.
"Probably Jilka."
Five minutes later the station wagon turned down a side street and disappeared. "She's no longer with us," Quidley said.
"She's got to pick someone up. She'll meet us later."
"At your folks'?"
"At the ship."
The city was thinning out around them now, and a few stars were visible in the night sky. Quidley watched them thoughtfully for a while. Then:
"What ship?" he said.
"The one we're going to Fieu Dayol on."
" Fieu Dayol? "
"Persei 17 to you. I said I was going to take you home to meet my folks, didn't I?"
"In other words, you're kidnapping me."
She shook her head vehemently. "I most certainly am not! Neither according to interstellar law or your own. When you compromised me, you made yourself liable in the eyes of both."
"But why pick on me? There must be plenty of men on Fieu Dayol . Why don't you marry one of them?"
"For two reasons: one, you're the particular man who compromised me. Two, there are not plenty of men on Fieu Dayol . Our race is identical to yours in everything except population-balance between the sexes. At periodic intervals the women on Fieu Dayol so greatly outnumber the men that those of us who are temperamentally and emotionally unfitted to become spinsters have to look for wotnids —or mates—on other worlds. It's quite legal and quite respectable. As a matter of fact, we even have schools specializing in alien cultures to expedite our activities. Our biggest problem is the Interstellar statute forbidding us the use of local communications services and forbidding us to appear in public places. It was devised to facilitate the prosecution of interstellar black marketeers, but we're subject to it, too, and have to contrive communications systems of our own."
"But why were all the messages addressed to you?"
"They weren't messages. They were requisitions. I'm the ship's stock girl."
April fields stretched darkly away on either side of the highway. Presently she turned down a rutted road between two of them and they bounced and swayed back to a black blur of trees. "Here we are," she said.
Gradually he made out the sphere. It blended so flawlessly with its background that he wouldn't have been able to see it at all if he hadn't been informed of its existence. A gangplank sloped down from an open lock and came to rest just within the fringe of the trees.
Lights danced in the darkness behind them as another car jounced down the rutted road. "Jilka," Kay said. "I wonder if she got him."
Apparently she had. At least there was a man with her—a rather woebegone, wilted creature who didn't even look up as they passed. Quidley watched them ascend the gangplank, the man in the lead, and disappear into the ship.
"Next," Kay said.
Quidley shook his head. "You're not taking me to another planet!"
She opened her purse and pulled out a small metallic object "A little while ago you asked me what a snoll doper was," she said.
"Unfortunately interstellar law severely limits us in our choice of marriageable males, and we can take only those who refuse to conform to the sexual mores of their own societies." She did something to the object that caused it to extend itself into a long, tubular affair.
" This is a snoll doper ."
She prodded his ribs. "March," she said.
He marched. Halfway up the plank he glanced back over his shoulder for a better look at the object pressed against his back.
It bore a striking resemblance to a shotgun.
|
How do Marsh's emotions change throughout the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The First Man in Space by Heather Feldman.
Relevant chunks:
THE FIRST MAN INTO SPACE
Cadet Marshall Farnsworth woke from a nightmare of exploding novae and fouling rockets. After recovering from his fright, he laughed contemptuously at himself. “Here I was picked as the most stable of a group of two hundred cadets,” he thought, “and chosen to make man’s first trip into space, yet I’m shaking like a leaf.”
He got out of bed and went over to the window. From his father’s temporary apartment, he could see distant Skyharbor, the scene of the plunge into space tomorrow night. He had been awarded the frightening honor of making that trip.
10
As he watched teardrop cars whip along Phoenix, Arizona’s, double-decked streets, elevated over one another to avoid dangerous intersections and delaying stop lights, he thought back over the years; to the 1950’s, when mice and monkeys were sent up in Vikings to launch mankind’s first probing of the mysterious space beyond Earth, and the first satellites were launched; to the 1960’s, when huger, multiple-stage rockets finally conquered the problem of escape velocity; to 1975—today—when man was finally ready to send one of his own kind into the uninhabited deeps.
Marsh climbed back into bed, but sleep would not come.
In the adjoining room, he could hear the footsteps of mother and father. By their sound he knew they were the footsteps of worried people. This hurt Marsh more than his own uneasiness.
The anxiety had begun for them, he knew, when he had first signed up for space-cadet training. They had known there was an extremely high percentage of washouts, and after each test he passed, they had pretended to be glad. But Marsh knew that inwardly they had hoped he would fail, for they were aware of the ultimate goal that the space scientists were working for—the goal that had just now been reached.
Marsh finally fell into a troubled sleep that lasted until morning.
He woke early, before the alarm rang. He got up, showered, pulled on his blue-corded cadet uniform, and tugged on the polished gray boots. He took one final look around his room as though in farewell, then went out to the kitchen.
11
His folks were up ahead of time too, trying to act as though it were just another day. Dad was pretending to enjoy his morning paper, nodding only casually to Marsh as he came in. Mom was stirring scrambled eggs in the skillet, but she wasn’t a very good actor, Marsh noticed, for she furtively wiped her eyes with her free hand.
The eggs were cooked too hard and the toast had to be scraped, but no one seemed to care. The three of them sat down at the table, still speaking in monosyllables and of unimportant things. They made a pretense of eating.
“Well, Mom,” Dad suddenly said with a forced jollity that was intended to break the tension, “the Farnsworth family has finally got a celebrity in it.”
“I don’t see why they don’t send an older man!” Mom burst out, as though she had been holding it in as long as she could. “Sending a boy who isn’t even twenty-two—”
“Things are different nowadays, Mom,” Dad explained, still with the assumed calmness that masked his real feelings. “These days, men grow up faster and mature quicker. They’re stronger and more alert than older men—” His voice trailed off as if he were unable to convince himself.
“ Some body has to go,” Marsh said. “Why not a younger man without family and responsibility? That’s why they’re giving younger men more opportunities today than they used to.”
“It’s not younger men I’m talking about!” Mom blurted. “It’s you, Marsh!”
12
Dad leaned over and patted Mom on the shoulder.
“Now, Ruth, we promised not to get excited this morning.”
“I’m sorry,” Mom said weakly. “But Marsh is too young to—” She caught herself and put her hand over her mouth.
“Stop talking like that!” Dad said. “Marsh is coming back. There’ve been thousands of rockets sent aloft. The space engineers have made sure that every bug has been ironed out before risking a man’s life. Why, that rocket which Marsh is going up in is as safe as our auto in the garage, isn’t it, Marsh?”
“I hope so, Dad,” Marsh murmured.
Later, as Dad drove Marsh to the field, each brooded silently. Every scene along the way seemed to take on a new look for Marsh. He saw things that he had never noticed before. It was an uncomfortable feeling, almost as if he were seeing these things for the last as well as the first time.
Finally the airport came into view. The guards at the gate recognized Marsh and ushered the Farnsworth car through ahead of scores of others that crowded the entrance. Some eager news photographers slipped up close and shot off flash bulbs in Marsh’s eyes.
Skyharbor, once a small commercial field, had been taken over by the Air Force in recent years and converted into the largest rocket experimental center in the United States.
13
Dad drove up to the building that would be the scene of Marsh’s first exhaustive tests and briefings. He stopped the car, and Marsh jumped out. Their good-by was brief. Marsh saw his father’s mouth quiver. There was a tightness in his own throat. He had gone through any number of grueling tests to prove that he could take the rigors of space, but not one of them had prepared him for the hardest moments of parting.
When Dad had driven off, Marsh reported first to the psychiatrist who checked his condition.
“Pulse fast, a rise in blood pressure,” he said.
“You’re excited, aren’t you, son?”
“Yes, sir,” Marsh admitted. “Maybe they’ve got the wrong man, sir. I might fail them.”
The doctor grinned. “They don’t have the wrong man,” he said. “They might have, with a so-called iron-nerved fellow. He could contain his tension and fears until later, until maybe the moment of blast-off. Then he’d let go, and when he needed his calmest judgment he wouldn’t have it. No, Marshall, there isn’t a man alive who could make this history-making flight without some anxiety. Forget it. You’ll feel better as the day goes on. I’ll see you once more before the blast-off.”
Marsh felt more at ease already. He went on to the space surgeon, was given a complete physical examination, and was pronounced in perfect condition. Then began his review briefing on everything he would encounter during the flight.
14
Blast-off time was for 2230, an hour and a half before midnight. Since at night, in the Western Hemisphere, Earth was masking the sun, the complications of excessive temperatures in the outer reaches were avoided during the time Marsh would be outside the ship. Marsh would occupy the small upper third section of a three-stage rocket. The first two parts would be jettisoned after reaching their peak velocities. Top speed of the third stage would carry Marsh into a perpetual-flight orbit around Earth, along the route that a permanent space station was to be built after the results of the flight were studied. After spending a little while in this orbit, Marsh would begin the precarious journey back to Earth, in gliding flight.
He got a few hours of sleep after sunset. When an officer shook him, he rose from the cot he had been lying on in a private room of General Forsythe, Chief of Space Operations.
“It’s almost time, son,” the officer said. “Your CO wants to see you in the outside office.”
Marsh went into the adjoining room and found his cadet chief awaiting him. The youth detected an unusual warmth about the severe gentleman who previously had shown only a firm, uncompromising attitude. Colonel Tregasker was past middle age, and his white, sparse hair was smoothed down close to his head in regulation neatness.
15
“Well, this is it, Marshall,” the colonel said.
“How I envy you this honor of being the first human to enter space. However, I do feel that a part of me is going along too, since I had a small share in preparing you for the trip. If the training was harsh at times, I believe that shortly you will understand the reason for it.”
“I didn’t feel that the Colonel was either too soft or strict, sir,” Marsh said diplomatically.
A speaker out on the brilliantly lit field blared loudly in the cool desert night: “X minus forty minutes.”
“We can’t talk all night, Marshall,” the colonel said briskly. “You’ve got a job to do. But first, a few of your friends want to wish you luck.” He called into the anteroom, “You may come in, gentlemen!”
There filed smartly into the room ten youths who had survived the hard prespace course with Marsh and would be his successors in case he failed tonight. They formed a line and shook hands with Marsh. The first was Armen Norton who had gotten sick in the rugged centrifuge at a force of 9 G’s, then had rallied to pass the test.
“Good luck, Marsh,” he said.
Next was lanky Lawrence Egan who had been certain he would wash out during navigation phase in the planetarium. “All the luck in the world, Marsh,” he added.
Each cadet brought back a special memory of his training as they passed before him, wishing him success.
16
When they had gone and the speaker outside had announced: “X minus thirty minutes,” the colonel said that he and Marsh had better be leaving. Colonel Tregasker was to be Marsh’s escort to the ship.
Photographers and newspapermen swarmed about them as they climbed into the jeep that was to take them to the launching site farther out on the field. Questions were flung at the two from all sides, but the colonel deftly maneuvered the jeep through the mob and sped off over the asphalt.
At the blast-off site, Marsh could see that the police had their hands full keeping out thousands of spectators who were trying to get into the closed-off area. The field was choked with a tide of humanity milling about in wild confusion. Giant searchlights, both at the airport and in other parts of Phoenix, directed spears of light on the towering rocket that held the interest of all the world tonight. There was one light, far larger than the rest, with powerful condensing lenses and connected to a giant radar screen, which would guide Marsh home from his trip among the stars.
A high wire fence surrounded the launching ramp and blockhouses. International scientists and dignitaries with priorities formed a ring around the fence, but even they were not allowed inside the small circle of important activity. The guards waved the colonel and Marsh through the gate.
17
Marsh had spent many weeks in a mock-up of the tiny third stage in which he was to spend his time aloft, but he had never been close to the completely assembled ship until this moment. The three stages had been nicknamed, “Tom,” “Dick,” and “Harry.” Marsh swallowed as his eyes roved up the side of the great vessel, part of a project that had cost millions to perfect and was as high as a four-story building.
The gigantic base, “Big Tom,” was the section that would have the hardest job to do, that of thrusting the rocket through the densest part of the atmosphere, and this was a great deal larger than the other sections. Marsh knew that most of the ship’s bulk was made up of the propellant fuel of hydrazine hydrate and its oxidizer, nitric acid.
“We’re going into that blockhouse over there,” Colonel Tregasker said. “You’ll don your space gear in there.”
First a multitude of gadgets with wires were fastened to the cadet’s wrists, ankles, nose, and head. Marsh knew this to be one of the most important phases of the flight—to find out a man’s reaction to space flight under actual rocketing conditions. Each wire would telemeter certain information by radio back to the airport. After a tight inner G suit had been put on to prevent blackout, the plastic and rubber outer garment was zipped up around Marsh, and then he was ready except for his helmet, which would not be donned until later.
18
Marsh and the colonel went back outside. The open-cage elevator was lowered from the top of the big latticed platform that surrounded the rocket. The two got into the cage, and it rose with them. Marsh had lost most of his anxiety and tension during the activities of the day, but his knees felt rubbery in these final moments as the elevator carried him high above the noisy confusion of the airport. This was it.
As they stepped from the cage onto the platform of the third stage, Marsh heard the speaker below call out: “X minus twenty minutes.”
There were eleven engineers and workmen on the platform readying the compartment that Marsh would occupy. Marsh suddenly felt helpless and alone as he faced the small chamber that might very well be his death cell. Its intricate dials and wires were staggering in their complexity.
Marsh turned and shook hands with Colonel Tregasker.
“Good-by, sir,” he said in a quavering voice.
“I hope I remember everything the Corps taught me.” He tried to smile, but his facial muscles twitched uncontrollably.
“Good luck, son—lots of it,” the officer said huskily. Suddenly he leaned forward and embraced the youth with a firm, fatherly hug. “This is not regulations,” he mumbled gruffly, “but hang regulations!” He turned quickly and asked to be carried down to the ground.
A man brought Marsh’s helmet and placed it over his head, then clamped it to the suit. Knobs on the suit were twisted, and Marsh felt a warm, pressurized helium-oxygen mixture fill his suit and headpiece.
19
Marsh stepped through the hatch into the small compartment. He reclined in the soft contour chair, and the straps were fastened by one of the engineers over his chest, waist, and legs. The wires connected to various parts of his body had been brought together into a single unit in the helmet. A wire cable leading from the panel was plugged into the outside of the helmet to complete the circuit.
Final tests were run off to make sure everything was in proper working order, including the two-way short-wave radio that would have to penetrate the electrical ocean of the ionosphere. Then the double-hatch air lock was closed. Through his helmet receiver, Marsh could hear the final minutes and seconds being called off from inside the blockhouse.
“Everything O.K.?” Marsh was asked by someone on the platform.
“Yes, sir,” Marsh replied.
“Then you’re on your own,” were the final ominous words.
“X minus five minutes,” called the speaker.
20
It was the longest five minutes that Marsh could remember. He was painfully aware of his cramped quarters. He thought of the tons of explosive beneath him that presently would literally blow him sky-high. And he thought of the millions of people the world over who, at this moment, were hovering at radios and TV’s anxiously awaiting the dawn of the space age. Finally he thought of Dad and Mom, lost in that multitude of night watchers, and among the few who were not primarily concerned with the scientific aspect of the experiment. He wondered if he would ever see them again.
“X minus sixty seconds!”
Marsh knew that a warning flare was being sent up, to be followed by a whistle and a cloud of smoke from one of the blockhouses. As he felt fear trying to master him, he began reviewing all the things he must remember and, above all, what to do in an emergency.
“X minus ten seconds—five—four—three—two—one—FIRE!”
There was a mighty explosion at Skyharbor.
The initial jolt which Marsh felt was much fiercer than the gradually built up speed of the whirling centrifuge in training. He was crushed deeply into his contour chair. It felt as though someone were pressing on his eyeballs; indeed, as if every organ in his body were clinging to his backbone. But these first moments would be the worst. A gauge showed a force of 7 G’s on him—equal to half a ton.
He watched the Mach numbers rise on the dial in front of his eyes on an overhead panel. Each Mach number represented that much times the speed of sound, 1,090 feet per second, 740 miles an hour.
Marsh knew “Big Tom” would blast for about a minute and a half under control of the automatic pilot, at which time it would drop free at an altitude of twenty-five miles and sink Earthward in a metal mesh ’chute.
21
Marsh’s hurting eyes flicked to the outside temperature gauge. It was on a steady 67 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, and would be until he reached twenty miles. A reflecting prism gave him a square of view of the sky outside. The clear deep blue of the cloud-free stratosphere met his eyes.
Mach 5, Mach 6, Mach 7 passed very quickly. He heard a rumble and felt a jerk. “Big Tom” was breaking free. The first hurdle had been successfully overcome, and the ship had already begun tilting into its trajectory.
There was a new surge of agony on his body as the second stage picked up the acceleration at a force of 7 G’s again. Marsh clamped his jaws as the force pulled his lips back from his teeth and dragged his cheek muscles down. The Mach numbers continued to rise—11, 12, 13—to altitude 200 miles, the outer fringe of the earth’s atmosphere. There was a slight lifting of the pressure on his body. The rocket was still in the stratosphere, but the sky was getting purple.
Mach 14—10,000 miles an hour.
“Dick” would jettison any moment. Marsh had been aloft only about four minutes, but it had seemed an age, every tortured second of it.
22
There was another rumble as the second stage broke free. Marsh felt a new surge directly beneath him as his own occupied section, “Harry,” began blasting. It was comforting to realize he had successfully weathered those tons of exploding hydrazine and acid that could have reduced him to nothing if something had gone wrong. Although his speed was still building up, the weight on him began to ease steadily as his body’s inertia finally yielded to the sickeningly swift acceleration.
The speedometer needle climbed to Mach 21, the peak velocity of the rocket, 16,000 miles per hour. His altitude was 350 miles—man’s highest ascent. Slowly then, the speedometer began to drop back. Marsh heard the turbo pumps and jets go silent as the “lift” fuel was spent and rocket “Harry” began its free-flight orbit around Earth.
The ship had reached a speed which exactly counterbalanced the pull of gravity, and it could, theoretically, travel this way forever, provided no other outside force acted upon it. The effect on Marsh now was as if he had stopped moving. Relieved of the viselike pressure, his stomach and chest for a few seconds felt like inflated balloons.
“Cadet Farnsworth,” the voice of General Forsythe spoke into his helmet receiver, “are you all right?”
“Yes, sir,” Marsh replied. “That is, I think so.”
It was good to hear a human voice again, something to hold onto in this crazy unreal world into which he had been hurtled.
“We’re getting the electronic readings from your gauges O.K.,” the voice went on. “The doctor says your pulse is satisfactory under the circumstances.”
It was queer having your pulse read from 350 miles up in the air.
23
Marsh realized, of course, that he was not truly in the “air.” A glance at his air-pressure gauge confirmed this. He was virtually in a vacuum. The temperature and wind velocity outside might have astounded him if he were not prepared for the readings. The heat was over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, and the wind velocity was of hurricane force! But these figures meant nothing because of the sparseness of air molecules. Temperature and wind applied only to the individual particles, which were thousands of feet apart.
“How is your cosmic-ray count?” asked the general.
Marsh checked the C-ray counter on the panel from which clicking sounds were coming. “It’s low, sir. Nothing to worry about.”
Cosmic rays, the most powerful emanations known, were the only radiation in space that could not be protected against. But in small doses they had been found not to be dangerous.
“As soon as our recorders get more of the figures your telemeter is giving us,” the operations chief said, “you can leave the rocket.”
When Marsh got the O.K. a few minutes later, he eagerly unstrapped the belts around his body. He could hardly contain his excitement at being the first person to view the globe of Earth from space. As he struggled to his feet, the lightness of zero gravity made him momentarily giddy, and it took some minutes for him to adjust to the terribly strange sensation.
24
He had disconnected the cable leading from his helmet to the ship’s transmitter and switched on the ship’s fast-lens movie camera that would photograph the area covered by “Harry.” Then he was ready to go outside. He pressed a button on the wall, and the first air-lock hatch opened. He floated into the narrow alcove and closed the door in the cramped chamber behind him. He watched a gauge, and when it showed normal pressure and temperature again, he opened the outside hatch, closing it behind him. Had Marsh permitted the vacuum of space to contact the interior of the ship’s quarters, delicate instruments would have been ruined by the sudden decompression and loss of heat. Marsh fastened his safety line to the ship so that there was no chance of his becoming separated from it.
Then he looked “downward,” to experience the thrill of his life. Like a gigantic relief map, the panorama of Earth stretched across his vision. A downy blanket of gray atmosphere spread over the whole of it, and patches of clouds were seen floating like phantom shapes beneath the clear vastness of the stratosphere. It was a stunning sight for Marsh, seeing the pinpoint lights of the night cities extending from horizon to horizon. It gave him an exhilarating feeling of being a king over it all.
25
Earth appeared to be rotating, but Marsh knew it was largely his own and the rocket’s fast speed that was responsible for the illusion. As he hung in this region of the exosphere, he was thankful for his cadet training in zero gravity. A special machine, developed only in recent years, simulated the weightlessness of space and trained the cadets for endurance in such artificial conditions.
“Describe some of the things you see, Marshall,” General Forsythe said over Marsh’s helmet receiver.
“I’ve just cut in a recorder.”
“It’s a scene almost beyond description, sir,” Marsh said into the helmet mike. “The sky is thickly powdered with stars. The Milky Way is very distinct, and I can make out lots of fuzzy spots that must be star clusters and nebulae and comets. Mars is like an extremely bright taillight, and the moon is so strong it hurts my eyes as much as the direct sun does on earth.”
Marsh saw a faintly luminous blur pass beyond the ship. It had been almost too sudden to catch. He believed it to be a meteor diving Earthward at a speed around forty-five miles a second. He reported this to the general.
As he brought his eyes down from the more distant fixtures of space to those closer by on Earth, a strange thing happened. He was suddenly seized with a fear of falling, although his zero-gravity training had been intended to prepare him against this very thing. A cold sweat come out over his body, and an uncontrollable panic threatened to take hold of him.
26
He made a sudden movement as though to catch himself. Forgetting the magnification of motion in frictionless space and his own weightlessness, he was shot quickly to the end of his safety line like a cracked whip. His body jerked at the taut end and then sped swiftly back in reaction toward the ship, head foremost. A collision could crack his helmet, exposing his body to decompression, causing him to swell like a balloon and finally explode.
In the grip of numbing fear, only at the last moment did he have the presence of mind to flip his body in a half-cartwheel and bring his boots up in front of him for protection. His feet bumped against the rocket’s side, and the motion sent him hurtling back out to the end of the safety line again. This back-and-forth action occurred several times before he could stop completely.
“I’ve got to be careful,” he panted to himself, as he thought of how close his space career had come to being ended scarcely before it had begun.
General Forsythe cut in with great concern, wondering what had happened. When Marsh had explained and the general seemed satisfied that Marsh had recovered himself, he had Marsh go on with his description.
His senseless fear having gone now, Marsh looked down calmly, entranced as the features of the United States passed below his gaze. He named the cities he could identify, also the mountain ranges, lakes, and rivers, explaining just how they looked from 350 miles up. In only a fraction of an hour’s time, the rocket had traversed the entire country and was approaching the twinkling phosphorescence of the Atlantic.
27
Marsh asked if “Tom” and “Dick” had landed safely.
“‘Tom’ landed near Roswell, New Mexico,” General Forsythe told him, “and the ’chute of the second section has been reported seen north of Dallas. I think you’d better start back now, Marshall. It’ll take us many months to analyze all the information we’ve gotten. We can’t contact you very well on the other side of the world either, and thirdly, I don’t want you exposed to the sun’s rays outside the atmosphere in the Eastern Hemisphere any longer than can be helped.”
Marsh tugged carefully on his safety line and floated slowly back toward the ship. He entered the air lock. Then, inside, he raised the angle of his contour chair to upright position, facing the console of the ship’s manual controls for the glide Earthward. He plugged in his telemeter helmet cable and buckled one of the straps across his waist.
Since he was still moving at many thousands of miles an hour, it would be suicide to plunge straight downward. He and the glider would be turned into a meteoric torch. Rather, he would have to spend considerable time soaring in and out of the atmosphere in braking ellipses until he reached much lower speed. Then the Earth’s gravitational pull would do the rest.
28
This was going to be the trickiest part of the operation, and the most dangerous. Where before, Marsh had depended on automatic controls to guide him, now much of the responsibility was on his own judgment. He remembered the many hours he had sweated through to log his flying time. Now he could look back on that period in his training and thank his lucky stars for it.
He took the manual controls and angled into the atmosphere. He carefully watched the AHF dial—the atmospheric heat friction gauge. When he had neared the dangerous incendiary point, with the ship having literally become red-hot, he soared into the frictionless vacuum again. He had to keep this up a long time in order to reduce his devastating speed.
It was something of a shock to him to leave the black midnight of Earth’s slumbering side for the brilliant hemisphere where the people of Europe and Asia were going about their daytime tasks. He would have liked to study this other half of the world which he had glimpsed only a few times before in his supersonic test flights, but he knew this would have to wait for future flights.
Finally, after a long time, his velocity was slowed enough so that the tug of gravity was stronger than the rocket’s ability to pull up out of the atmosphere. At this point, Marsh cut in “Harry’s” forward braking jets to check his falling speed.
“There’s something else to worry about,” he thought to himself. “Will old Harry hold together or will he fly apart in the crushing atmosphere?”
29
The directional radio signals from the powerful Skyharbor transmitter were growing stronger as Marsh neared the shores of California. He could see the winking lights of San Diego and Los Angeles, and farther inland the swinging thread that was the beacon at Skyharbor. All planes in his path of flight had been grounded for the past few hours because of the space flight. The only ground light scanning the skies was the gigantic space beacon in Phoenix.
When Marsh reached Arizona, he began spiraling downward over the state to kill the rest of his altitude and air speed. Even now the plane was a hurtling supersonic metal sliver streaking through the night skies like a comet. He topped the snow-capped summits of the towering San Francisco Peaks on the drive southward, and he recognized the sprawling serpent of the Grand Canyon. Then he was in the lower desert regions of moon-splashed sand and cactus. Although the fire-hot temperature of the outer skin had subsided, there had been damage done to the walls and instruments, and possibly to other parts, too. Marsh was worried lest his outside controls might be too warped to give him a good touchdown, if indeed he could get down safely at all.
A few thousand feet up, Marsh lowered his landing gear. Now the only problem left was to land himself and the valuable ship safely inside the narrow parallels of the airstrip. He circled the airport several times as his altitude continued to plummet.
30
The meter fell rapidly. His braking rocket fuel was gone now. From here on in, he would be on gliding power alone.
“Easy does it, Marshall,” the general said quietly into his ear. “You’re lining up fine. Level it out a little and keep straight with the approach lights. That’s fine. You’re just about in.”
The lights of the airport seeming to rush up at him, Marsh felt a jolt as the wheels touched ground on the west end of the runway. He kept the ship steady as it scurried along the smooth asphalt, losing the last of its once tremendous velocity. The plane hit the restraining wire across the strip and came to a sudden stop, shoving Marsh hard against the single safety belt he wore. Finally, incredibly, the ship was still and he was safe.
He unfastened his strap and removed his space helmet. The heat of the compartment brought the sweat out on his face. He rose on wobbly legs and pressed the buttons to the hatches. The last door flew open to admit the cool, bracing air of Earth which he had wondered if he would ever inhale again.
His aloneness was over then, suddenly and boisterously, as men swarmed over him with congratulations, eager questions, and looks of respect. Reporters’ flash bulbs popped, and he felt like a new Lindbergh as he was pulled down to the ground and mobbed. Finally the police came to his rescue and pushed back the curiosity seekers and newspapermen. Then only three men were allowed through the cordon.
Question:
How do Marsh's emotions change throughout the story?
Answer:
|
[
"During his last night on Earth, Marsh appears to be tense and scared, blaming himself for not being as strong as he wishes to be. He also feels the anxiety of his parents and is sad to see them like that. All the day before the trip, Marsh looks at everything around as if it is the last time he sees it. He feels unprepared and uneasy about parting. At the same time, he is excited, and his pulse goes up, which makes him feel unworthy of the honor. Then Marsh eases a little and even takes a nap. The atmosphere of goodbyes with his team is warm and full of good memories. When Marsh is left alone in the cabin, he becomes scared and thinks about the spectators and his parents, wondering if he sees his home ever again The countdown adds to his anxiety and the last seconds before departure seem an eternity. Marsh tries to concentrate and distract himself from the thoughts. The voice of the general brings ease and seeing how well things go, Marsh gets excited. He feels proud and extremely impressed with the view, forgetting about caution. Suddenly he is afraid to fall and makes a wrong move, which scares him a lot. Calming down after that, Marsh is able to manage himself and complete the mission. When he gets back to Earth he is full of disbelief that he made it, and he is extremely happy to smell the air of home. ",
"Marsh is initially nervous before his trip. He feels even worse by his parents' reactions but understands that he must not miss this opportunity. When he sees the doctor briefly after arriving, he cannot help but admit that he is excited to go to space. He begins to feel more at ease after the doctor reassures him and continues to do so up until he sees the rocket. Marsh's helpless feeling and anxiety come back here since he will be going to space. Once he reaches space, however, he is excited by the entirely new perspective of the galaxy he sees in front of him. There is a brief moment where he panics in the frictionless space, but he manages to control himself and becomes more careful. He then continues to try and remain calm for the remainder of the journey back home, knowing that many of the operations required to safely land must be done calmly. ",
"In the beginning of the story, Marsh is nervous and has anxiety for the journey ahead. He is sad when talking with his parents at breakfast, not knowing if they'll see them again. As he gets to the Skyharbour, he becomes trepidation, wondering if he was the right man for the job. His nerves calm after he talks with the psychiatrist, and then more as the day progresses. He gets nervous again as the rocket takes off, fearing for his life. He is overcome with joy when he gets to exit the cabin, and see the Earth from above. He is once again stricken with fear when he looks down below, floating in space. His fear starts to creep back in on re-entry, as he could burn up. Once he makes it to the ground, he is filled with a sense of relief, breathing the air he didn't know if he'd ever breathe again. \n",
"At first, he was frightened since he even got a nightmare about it. \nWhen the psychiatrist checks for his blood pressure, he confirms with Marsh if he is excited. But he was also scared and wondered if they have the wrong man; he might fail them. After the doctor tells him that he is not the wrong man, he felt more at ease. \nAs he takes the lift to get to the platform surrounding the rocket, Marsh is not as anxious as he was during the day, but his knees felt rubbery. When he talks to the officer up there, his facial expression is twitching uncontrollably despite his effort to smile. \n\nInside the rocket, he thinks of the explosives below him that can literally blow him into nothing; he thinks of being watched by millions of people; and he thinks of his parents. It fells very long before finally getting to the 10 seconds countdown. Then he feels fear. \n\nAfter getting into the designated orbit in space, Marsh feels great to hear a human voice again. \nIt was a stunning view to see Earth from outside his rocket in space. But he suddenly has a uncontrollable panic which hits him on the rocket’s side. He bounces a few times, but did not get hurt. And he becomes calm again. He gets a little worried about the touchdown that his outside controls can provide. In the end, he lands safely. "
] |
55801
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THE FIRST MAN INTO SPACE
Cadet Marshall Farnsworth woke from a nightmare of exploding novae and fouling rockets. After recovering from his fright, he laughed contemptuously at himself. “Here I was picked as the most stable of a group of two hundred cadets,” he thought, “and chosen to make man’s first trip into space, yet I’m shaking like a leaf.”
He got out of bed and went over to the window. From his father’s temporary apartment, he could see distant Skyharbor, the scene of the plunge into space tomorrow night. He had been awarded the frightening honor of making that trip.
10
As he watched teardrop cars whip along Phoenix, Arizona’s, double-decked streets, elevated over one another to avoid dangerous intersections and delaying stop lights, he thought back over the years; to the 1950’s, when mice and monkeys were sent up in Vikings to launch mankind’s first probing of the mysterious space beyond Earth, and the first satellites were launched; to the 1960’s, when huger, multiple-stage rockets finally conquered the problem of escape velocity; to 1975—today—when man was finally ready to send one of his own kind into the uninhabited deeps.
Marsh climbed back into bed, but sleep would not come.
In the adjoining room, he could hear the footsteps of mother and father. By their sound he knew they were the footsteps of worried people. This hurt Marsh more than his own uneasiness.
The anxiety had begun for them, he knew, when he had first signed up for space-cadet training. They had known there was an extremely high percentage of washouts, and after each test he passed, they had pretended to be glad. But Marsh knew that inwardly they had hoped he would fail, for they were aware of the ultimate goal that the space scientists were working for—the goal that had just now been reached.
Marsh finally fell into a troubled sleep that lasted until morning.
He woke early, before the alarm rang. He got up, showered, pulled on his blue-corded cadet uniform, and tugged on the polished gray boots. He took one final look around his room as though in farewell, then went out to the kitchen.
11
His folks were up ahead of time too, trying to act as though it were just another day. Dad was pretending to enjoy his morning paper, nodding only casually to Marsh as he came in. Mom was stirring scrambled eggs in the skillet, but she wasn’t a very good actor, Marsh noticed, for she furtively wiped her eyes with her free hand.
The eggs were cooked too hard and the toast had to be scraped, but no one seemed to care. The three of them sat down at the table, still speaking in monosyllables and of unimportant things. They made a pretense of eating.
“Well, Mom,” Dad suddenly said with a forced jollity that was intended to break the tension, “the Farnsworth family has finally got a celebrity in it.”
“I don’t see why they don’t send an older man!” Mom burst out, as though she had been holding it in as long as she could. “Sending a boy who isn’t even twenty-two—”
“Things are different nowadays, Mom,” Dad explained, still with the assumed calmness that masked his real feelings. “These days, men grow up faster and mature quicker. They’re stronger and more alert than older men—” His voice trailed off as if he were unable to convince himself.
“ Some body has to go,” Marsh said. “Why not a younger man without family and responsibility? That’s why they’re giving younger men more opportunities today than they used to.”
“It’s not younger men I’m talking about!” Mom blurted. “It’s you, Marsh!”
12
Dad leaned over and patted Mom on the shoulder.
“Now, Ruth, we promised not to get excited this morning.”
“I’m sorry,” Mom said weakly. “But Marsh is too young to—” She caught herself and put her hand over her mouth.
“Stop talking like that!” Dad said. “Marsh is coming back. There’ve been thousands of rockets sent aloft. The space engineers have made sure that every bug has been ironed out before risking a man’s life. Why, that rocket which Marsh is going up in is as safe as our auto in the garage, isn’t it, Marsh?”
“I hope so, Dad,” Marsh murmured.
Later, as Dad drove Marsh to the field, each brooded silently. Every scene along the way seemed to take on a new look for Marsh. He saw things that he had never noticed before. It was an uncomfortable feeling, almost as if he were seeing these things for the last as well as the first time.
Finally the airport came into view. The guards at the gate recognized Marsh and ushered the Farnsworth car through ahead of scores of others that crowded the entrance. Some eager news photographers slipped up close and shot off flash bulbs in Marsh’s eyes.
Skyharbor, once a small commercial field, had been taken over by the Air Force in recent years and converted into the largest rocket experimental center in the United States.
13
Dad drove up to the building that would be the scene of Marsh’s first exhaustive tests and briefings. He stopped the car, and Marsh jumped out. Their good-by was brief. Marsh saw his father’s mouth quiver. There was a tightness in his own throat. He had gone through any number of grueling tests to prove that he could take the rigors of space, but not one of them had prepared him for the hardest moments of parting.
When Dad had driven off, Marsh reported first to the psychiatrist who checked his condition.
“Pulse fast, a rise in blood pressure,” he said.
“You’re excited, aren’t you, son?”
“Yes, sir,” Marsh admitted. “Maybe they’ve got the wrong man, sir. I might fail them.”
The doctor grinned. “They don’t have the wrong man,” he said. “They might have, with a so-called iron-nerved fellow. He could contain his tension and fears until later, until maybe the moment of blast-off. Then he’d let go, and when he needed his calmest judgment he wouldn’t have it. No, Marshall, there isn’t a man alive who could make this history-making flight without some anxiety. Forget it. You’ll feel better as the day goes on. I’ll see you once more before the blast-off.”
Marsh felt more at ease already. He went on to the space surgeon, was given a complete physical examination, and was pronounced in perfect condition. Then began his review briefing on everything he would encounter during the flight.
14
Blast-off time was for 2230, an hour and a half before midnight. Since at night, in the Western Hemisphere, Earth was masking the sun, the complications of excessive temperatures in the outer reaches were avoided during the time Marsh would be outside the ship. Marsh would occupy the small upper third section of a three-stage rocket. The first two parts would be jettisoned after reaching their peak velocities. Top speed of the third stage would carry Marsh into a perpetual-flight orbit around Earth, along the route that a permanent space station was to be built after the results of the flight were studied. After spending a little while in this orbit, Marsh would begin the precarious journey back to Earth, in gliding flight.
He got a few hours of sleep after sunset. When an officer shook him, he rose from the cot he had been lying on in a private room of General Forsythe, Chief of Space Operations.
“It’s almost time, son,” the officer said. “Your CO wants to see you in the outside office.”
Marsh went into the adjoining room and found his cadet chief awaiting him. The youth detected an unusual warmth about the severe gentleman who previously had shown only a firm, uncompromising attitude. Colonel Tregasker was past middle age, and his white, sparse hair was smoothed down close to his head in regulation neatness.
15
“Well, this is it, Marshall,” the colonel said.
“How I envy you this honor of being the first human to enter space. However, I do feel that a part of me is going along too, since I had a small share in preparing you for the trip. If the training was harsh at times, I believe that shortly you will understand the reason for it.”
“I didn’t feel that the Colonel was either too soft or strict, sir,” Marsh said diplomatically.
A speaker out on the brilliantly lit field blared loudly in the cool desert night: “X minus forty minutes.”
“We can’t talk all night, Marshall,” the colonel said briskly. “You’ve got a job to do. But first, a few of your friends want to wish you luck.” He called into the anteroom, “You may come in, gentlemen!”
There filed smartly into the room ten youths who had survived the hard prespace course with Marsh and would be his successors in case he failed tonight. They formed a line and shook hands with Marsh. The first was Armen Norton who had gotten sick in the rugged centrifuge at a force of 9 G’s, then had rallied to pass the test.
“Good luck, Marsh,” he said.
Next was lanky Lawrence Egan who had been certain he would wash out during navigation phase in the planetarium. “All the luck in the world, Marsh,” he added.
Each cadet brought back a special memory of his training as they passed before him, wishing him success.
16
When they had gone and the speaker outside had announced: “X minus thirty minutes,” the colonel said that he and Marsh had better be leaving. Colonel Tregasker was to be Marsh’s escort to the ship.
Photographers and newspapermen swarmed about them as they climbed into the jeep that was to take them to the launching site farther out on the field. Questions were flung at the two from all sides, but the colonel deftly maneuvered the jeep through the mob and sped off over the asphalt.
At the blast-off site, Marsh could see that the police had their hands full keeping out thousands of spectators who were trying to get into the closed-off area. The field was choked with a tide of humanity milling about in wild confusion. Giant searchlights, both at the airport and in other parts of Phoenix, directed spears of light on the towering rocket that held the interest of all the world tonight. There was one light, far larger than the rest, with powerful condensing lenses and connected to a giant radar screen, which would guide Marsh home from his trip among the stars.
A high wire fence surrounded the launching ramp and blockhouses. International scientists and dignitaries with priorities formed a ring around the fence, but even they were not allowed inside the small circle of important activity. The guards waved the colonel and Marsh through the gate.
17
Marsh had spent many weeks in a mock-up of the tiny third stage in which he was to spend his time aloft, but he had never been close to the completely assembled ship until this moment. The three stages had been nicknamed, “Tom,” “Dick,” and “Harry.” Marsh swallowed as his eyes roved up the side of the great vessel, part of a project that had cost millions to perfect and was as high as a four-story building.
The gigantic base, “Big Tom,” was the section that would have the hardest job to do, that of thrusting the rocket through the densest part of the atmosphere, and this was a great deal larger than the other sections. Marsh knew that most of the ship’s bulk was made up of the propellant fuel of hydrazine hydrate and its oxidizer, nitric acid.
“We’re going into that blockhouse over there,” Colonel Tregasker said. “You’ll don your space gear in there.”
First a multitude of gadgets with wires were fastened to the cadet’s wrists, ankles, nose, and head. Marsh knew this to be one of the most important phases of the flight—to find out a man’s reaction to space flight under actual rocketing conditions. Each wire would telemeter certain information by radio back to the airport. After a tight inner G suit had been put on to prevent blackout, the plastic and rubber outer garment was zipped up around Marsh, and then he was ready except for his helmet, which would not be donned until later.
18
Marsh and the colonel went back outside. The open-cage elevator was lowered from the top of the big latticed platform that surrounded the rocket. The two got into the cage, and it rose with them. Marsh had lost most of his anxiety and tension during the activities of the day, but his knees felt rubbery in these final moments as the elevator carried him high above the noisy confusion of the airport. This was it.
As they stepped from the cage onto the platform of the third stage, Marsh heard the speaker below call out: “X minus twenty minutes.”
There were eleven engineers and workmen on the platform readying the compartment that Marsh would occupy. Marsh suddenly felt helpless and alone as he faced the small chamber that might very well be his death cell. Its intricate dials and wires were staggering in their complexity.
Marsh turned and shook hands with Colonel Tregasker.
“Good-by, sir,” he said in a quavering voice.
“I hope I remember everything the Corps taught me.” He tried to smile, but his facial muscles twitched uncontrollably.
“Good luck, son—lots of it,” the officer said huskily. Suddenly he leaned forward and embraced the youth with a firm, fatherly hug. “This is not regulations,” he mumbled gruffly, “but hang regulations!” He turned quickly and asked to be carried down to the ground.
A man brought Marsh’s helmet and placed it over his head, then clamped it to the suit. Knobs on the suit were twisted, and Marsh felt a warm, pressurized helium-oxygen mixture fill his suit and headpiece.
19
Marsh stepped through the hatch into the small compartment. He reclined in the soft contour chair, and the straps were fastened by one of the engineers over his chest, waist, and legs. The wires connected to various parts of his body had been brought together into a single unit in the helmet. A wire cable leading from the panel was plugged into the outside of the helmet to complete the circuit.
Final tests were run off to make sure everything was in proper working order, including the two-way short-wave radio that would have to penetrate the electrical ocean of the ionosphere. Then the double-hatch air lock was closed. Through his helmet receiver, Marsh could hear the final minutes and seconds being called off from inside the blockhouse.
“Everything O.K.?” Marsh was asked by someone on the platform.
“Yes, sir,” Marsh replied.
“Then you’re on your own,” were the final ominous words.
“X minus five minutes,” called the speaker.
20
It was the longest five minutes that Marsh could remember. He was painfully aware of his cramped quarters. He thought of the tons of explosive beneath him that presently would literally blow him sky-high. And he thought of the millions of people the world over who, at this moment, were hovering at radios and TV’s anxiously awaiting the dawn of the space age. Finally he thought of Dad and Mom, lost in that multitude of night watchers, and among the few who were not primarily concerned with the scientific aspect of the experiment. He wondered if he would ever see them again.
“X minus sixty seconds!”
Marsh knew that a warning flare was being sent up, to be followed by a whistle and a cloud of smoke from one of the blockhouses. As he felt fear trying to master him, he began reviewing all the things he must remember and, above all, what to do in an emergency.
“X minus ten seconds—five—four—three—two—one—FIRE!”
There was a mighty explosion at Skyharbor.
The initial jolt which Marsh felt was much fiercer than the gradually built up speed of the whirling centrifuge in training. He was crushed deeply into his contour chair. It felt as though someone were pressing on his eyeballs; indeed, as if every organ in his body were clinging to his backbone. But these first moments would be the worst. A gauge showed a force of 7 G’s on him—equal to half a ton.
He watched the Mach numbers rise on the dial in front of his eyes on an overhead panel. Each Mach number represented that much times the speed of sound, 1,090 feet per second, 740 miles an hour.
Marsh knew “Big Tom” would blast for about a minute and a half under control of the automatic pilot, at which time it would drop free at an altitude of twenty-five miles and sink Earthward in a metal mesh ’chute.
21
Marsh’s hurting eyes flicked to the outside temperature gauge. It was on a steady 67 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, and would be until he reached twenty miles. A reflecting prism gave him a square of view of the sky outside. The clear deep blue of the cloud-free stratosphere met his eyes.
Mach 5, Mach 6, Mach 7 passed very quickly. He heard a rumble and felt a jerk. “Big Tom” was breaking free. The first hurdle had been successfully overcome, and the ship had already begun tilting into its trajectory.
There was a new surge of agony on his body as the second stage picked up the acceleration at a force of 7 G’s again. Marsh clamped his jaws as the force pulled his lips back from his teeth and dragged his cheek muscles down. The Mach numbers continued to rise—11, 12, 13—to altitude 200 miles, the outer fringe of the earth’s atmosphere. There was a slight lifting of the pressure on his body. The rocket was still in the stratosphere, but the sky was getting purple.
Mach 14—10,000 miles an hour.
“Dick” would jettison any moment. Marsh had been aloft only about four minutes, but it had seemed an age, every tortured second of it.
22
There was another rumble as the second stage broke free. Marsh felt a new surge directly beneath him as his own occupied section, “Harry,” began blasting. It was comforting to realize he had successfully weathered those tons of exploding hydrazine and acid that could have reduced him to nothing if something had gone wrong. Although his speed was still building up, the weight on him began to ease steadily as his body’s inertia finally yielded to the sickeningly swift acceleration.
The speedometer needle climbed to Mach 21, the peak velocity of the rocket, 16,000 miles per hour. His altitude was 350 miles—man’s highest ascent. Slowly then, the speedometer began to drop back. Marsh heard the turbo pumps and jets go silent as the “lift” fuel was spent and rocket “Harry” began its free-flight orbit around Earth.
The ship had reached a speed which exactly counterbalanced the pull of gravity, and it could, theoretically, travel this way forever, provided no other outside force acted upon it. The effect on Marsh now was as if he had stopped moving. Relieved of the viselike pressure, his stomach and chest for a few seconds felt like inflated balloons.
“Cadet Farnsworth,” the voice of General Forsythe spoke into his helmet receiver, “are you all right?”
“Yes, sir,” Marsh replied. “That is, I think so.”
It was good to hear a human voice again, something to hold onto in this crazy unreal world into which he had been hurtled.
“We’re getting the electronic readings from your gauges O.K.,” the voice went on. “The doctor says your pulse is satisfactory under the circumstances.”
It was queer having your pulse read from 350 miles up in the air.
23
Marsh realized, of course, that he was not truly in the “air.” A glance at his air-pressure gauge confirmed this. He was virtually in a vacuum. The temperature and wind velocity outside might have astounded him if he were not prepared for the readings. The heat was over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, and the wind velocity was of hurricane force! But these figures meant nothing because of the sparseness of air molecules. Temperature and wind applied only to the individual particles, which were thousands of feet apart.
“How is your cosmic-ray count?” asked the general.
Marsh checked the C-ray counter on the panel from which clicking sounds were coming. “It’s low, sir. Nothing to worry about.”
Cosmic rays, the most powerful emanations known, were the only radiation in space that could not be protected against. But in small doses they had been found not to be dangerous.
“As soon as our recorders get more of the figures your telemeter is giving us,” the operations chief said, “you can leave the rocket.”
When Marsh got the O.K. a few minutes later, he eagerly unstrapped the belts around his body. He could hardly contain his excitement at being the first person to view the globe of Earth from space. As he struggled to his feet, the lightness of zero gravity made him momentarily giddy, and it took some minutes for him to adjust to the terribly strange sensation.
24
He had disconnected the cable leading from his helmet to the ship’s transmitter and switched on the ship’s fast-lens movie camera that would photograph the area covered by “Harry.” Then he was ready to go outside. He pressed a button on the wall, and the first air-lock hatch opened. He floated into the narrow alcove and closed the door in the cramped chamber behind him. He watched a gauge, and when it showed normal pressure and temperature again, he opened the outside hatch, closing it behind him. Had Marsh permitted the vacuum of space to contact the interior of the ship’s quarters, delicate instruments would have been ruined by the sudden decompression and loss of heat. Marsh fastened his safety line to the ship so that there was no chance of his becoming separated from it.
Then he looked “downward,” to experience the thrill of his life. Like a gigantic relief map, the panorama of Earth stretched across his vision. A downy blanket of gray atmosphere spread over the whole of it, and patches of clouds were seen floating like phantom shapes beneath the clear vastness of the stratosphere. It was a stunning sight for Marsh, seeing the pinpoint lights of the night cities extending from horizon to horizon. It gave him an exhilarating feeling of being a king over it all.
25
Earth appeared to be rotating, but Marsh knew it was largely his own and the rocket’s fast speed that was responsible for the illusion. As he hung in this region of the exosphere, he was thankful for his cadet training in zero gravity. A special machine, developed only in recent years, simulated the weightlessness of space and trained the cadets for endurance in such artificial conditions.
“Describe some of the things you see, Marshall,” General Forsythe said over Marsh’s helmet receiver.
“I’ve just cut in a recorder.”
“It’s a scene almost beyond description, sir,” Marsh said into the helmet mike. “The sky is thickly powdered with stars. The Milky Way is very distinct, and I can make out lots of fuzzy spots that must be star clusters and nebulae and comets. Mars is like an extremely bright taillight, and the moon is so strong it hurts my eyes as much as the direct sun does on earth.”
Marsh saw a faintly luminous blur pass beyond the ship. It had been almost too sudden to catch. He believed it to be a meteor diving Earthward at a speed around forty-five miles a second. He reported this to the general.
As he brought his eyes down from the more distant fixtures of space to those closer by on Earth, a strange thing happened. He was suddenly seized with a fear of falling, although his zero-gravity training had been intended to prepare him against this very thing. A cold sweat come out over his body, and an uncontrollable panic threatened to take hold of him.
26
He made a sudden movement as though to catch himself. Forgetting the magnification of motion in frictionless space and his own weightlessness, he was shot quickly to the end of his safety line like a cracked whip. His body jerked at the taut end and then sped swiftly back in reaction toward the ship, head foremost. A collision could crack his helmet, exposing his body to decompression, causing him to swell like a balloon and finally explode.
In the grip of numbing fear, only at the last moment did he have the presence of mind to flip his body in a half-cartwheel and bring his boots up in front of him for protection. His feet bumped against the rocket’s side, and the motion sent him hurtling back out to the end of the safety line again. This back-and-forth action occurred several times before he could stop completely.
“I’ve got to be careful,” he panted to himself, as he thought of how close his space career had come to being ended scarcely before it had begun.
General Forsythe cut in with great concern, wondering what had happened. When Marsh had explained and the general seemed satisfied that Marsh had recovered himself, he had Marsh go on with his description.
His senseless fear having gone now, Marsh looked down calmly, entranced as the features of the United States passed below his gaze. He named the cities he could identify, also the mountain ranges, lakes, and rivers, explaining just how they looked from 350 miles up. In only a fraction of an hour’s time, the rocket had traversed the entire country and was approaching the twinkling phosphorescence of the Atlantic.
27
Marsh asked if “Tom” and “Dick” had landed safely.
“‘Tom’ landed near Roswell, New Mexico,” General Forsythe told him, “and the ’chute of the second section has been reported seen north of Dallas. I think you’d better start back now, Marshall. It’ll take us many months to analyze all the information we’ve gotten. We can’t contact you very well on the other side of the world either, and thirdly, I don’t want you exposed to the sun’s rays outside the atmosphere in the Eastern Hemisphere any longer than can be helped.”
Marsh tugged carefully on his safety line and floated slowly back toward the ship. He entered the air lock. Then, inside, he raised the angle of his contour chair to upright position, facing the console of the ship’s manual controls for the glide Earthward. He plugged in his telemeter helmet cable and buckled one of the straps across his waist.
Since he was still moving at many thousands of miles an hour, it would be suicide to plunge straight downward. He and the glider would be turned into a meteoric torch. Rather, he would have to spend considerable time soaring in and out of the atmosphere in braking ellipses until he reached much lower speed. Then the Earth’s gravitational pull would do the rest.
28
This was going to be the trickiest part of the operation, and the most dangerous. Where before, Marsh had depended on automatic controls to guide him, now much of the responsibility was on his own judgment. He remembered the many hours he had sweated through to log his flying time. Now he could look back on that period in his training and thank his lucky stars for it.
He took the manual controls and angled into the atmosphere. He carefully watched the AHF dial—the atmospheric heat friction gauge. When he had neared the dangerous incendiary point, with the ship having literally become red-hot, he soared into the frictionless vacuum again. He had to keep this up a long time in order to reduce his devastating speed.
It was something of a shock to him to leave the black midnight of Earth’s slumbering side for the brilliant hemisphere where the people of Europe and Asia were going about their daytime tasks. He would have liked to study this other half of the world which he had glimpsed only a few times before in his supersonic test flights, but he knew this would have to wait for future flights.
Finally, after a long time, his velocity was slowed enough so that the tug of gravity was stronger than the rocket’s ability to pull up out of the atmosphere. At this point, Marsh cut in “Harry’s” forward braking jets to check his falling speed.
“There’s something else to worry about,” he thought to himself. “Will old Harry hold together or will he fly apart in the crushing atmosphere?”
29
The directional radio signals from the powerful Skyharbor transmitter were growing stronger as Marsh neared the shores of California. He could see the winking lights of San Diego and Los Angeles, and farther inland the swinging thread that was the beacon at Skyharbor. All planes in his path of flight had been grounded for the past few hours because of the space flight. The only ground light scanning the skies was the gigantic space beacon in Phoenix.
When Marsh reached Arizona, he began spiraling downward over the state to kill the rest of his altitude and air speed. Even now the plane was a hurtling supersonic metal sliver streaking through the night skies like a comet. He topped the snow-capped summits of the towering San Francisco Peaks on the drive southward, and he recognized the sprawling serpent of the Grand Canyon. Then he was in the lower desert regions of moon-splashed sand and cactus. Although the fire-hot temperature of the outer skin had subsided, there had been damage done to the walls and instruments, and possibly to other parts, too. Marsh was worried lest his outside controls might be too warped to give him a good touchdown, if indeed he could get down safely at all.
A few thousand feet up, Marsh lowered his landing gear. Now the only problem left was to land himself and the valuable ship safely inside the narrow parallels of the airstrip. He circled the airport several times as his altitude continued to plummet.
30
The meter fell rapidly. His braking rocket fuel was gone now. From here on in, he would be on gliding power alone.
“Easy does it, Marshall,” the general said quietly into his ear. “You’re lining up fine. Level it out a little and keep straight with the approach lights. That’s fine. You’re just about in.”
The lights of the airport seeming to rush up at him, Marsh felt a jolt as the wheels touched ground on the west end of the runway. He kept the ship steady as it scurried along the smooth asphalt, losing the last of its once tremendous velocity. The plane hit the restraining wire across the strip and came to a sudden stop, shoving Marsh hard against the single safety belt he wore. Finally, incredibly, the ship was still and he was safe.
He unfastened his strap and removed his space helmet. The heat of the compartment brought the sweat out on his face. He rose on wobbly legs and pressed the buttons to the hatches. The last door flew open to admit the cool, bracing air of Earth which he had wondered if he would ever inhale again.
His aloneness was over then, suddenly and boisterously, as men swarmed over him with congratulations, eager questions, and looks of respect. Reporters’ flash bulbs popped, and he felt like a new Lindbergh as he was pulled down to the ground and mobbed. Finally the police came to his rescue and pushed back the curiosity seekers and newspapermen. Then only three men were allowed through the cordon.
|
What is the plot of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Growing up on Big Muddy by Charles V. De Vet.
Relevant chunks:
Well, naturally Kaiser would transmit baby talk messages to his mother ship! He was—
GROWING UP ON BIG MUDDY
By CHARLES V. DE VET
Illustrated by TURPIN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction July 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Kaiser stared at the tape in his hand for a long uncomprehending minute. How long had the stuff been coming through in this inane baby talk? And why hadn't he noticed it before? Why had he had to read this last communication a third time before he recognized anything unusual about it?
He went over the words again, as though maybe this time they'd read as they should.
OO IS SICK, SMOKY. DO TO BEDDY-BY. KEEP UM WARM. WHEN UM FEELS BETTER, LET USNS KNOW.
SS II
Kaiser let himself ease back in the pilot chair and rolled the tape thoughtfully between his fingers. Overhead and to each side, large drops of rain thudded softly against the transparent walls of the scout ship and dripped wearily from the bottom ledge to the ground.
"Damn this climate!" Kaiser muttered irrelevantly. "Doesn't it ever do anything here except rain?"
His attention returned to the matter at hand. Why the baby talk? And why was his memory so hazy? How long had he been here? What had he been doing during that time?
Listlessly he reached for the towel at his elbow and wiped the moisture from his face and bare shoulders. The air conditioning had gone out when the scout ship cracked up. He'd have to repair the scout or he was stuck here for good. He remembered now that he had gone over the job very carefully and thoroughly, and had found it too big to handle alone—or without better equipment, at least. Yet there was little or no chance of his being able to find either here.
Calmly, deliberately, Kaiser collected his thoughts, his memories, and brought them out where he could look at them:
The mother ship, Soscites II , had been on the last leg of its planet-mapping tour. It had dropped Kaiser in the one remaining scout ship—the other seven had all been lost one way or another during the exploring of new worlds—and set itself into a giant orbit about this planet that Kaiser had named Big Muddy.
The Soscites II had to maintain its constant speed; it had no means of slowing, except to stop, and no way to start again once it did stop. Its limited range of maneuverability made it necessary to set up an orbit that would take it approximately one month, Earth time, to circle a pinpointed planet. And now its fuel was low.
Kaiser had that one month to repair his scout or be stranded here forever.
That was all he could remember. Nothing of what he had been doing recently.
A small shiver passed through his body as he glanced once again at the tape in his hand. Baby talk....
One thing he could find out: how long this had been going on. He turned to the communicator and unhooked the paper receptacle on its bottom. It held about a yard and a half of tape, probably his last several messages—both those sent and those received. He pulled it out impatiently and began reading.
The first was from himself:
YOUR SUGGESTIONS NO HELP. HOW AM I GOING TO REPAIR DAMAGE TO SCOUT WITHOUT PROPER EQUIPMENT? AND WHERE DO I GET IT? DO YOU THINK I FOUND A TOOL SHOP DOWN HERE? FOR GOD'S SAKE, COME UP WITH SOMETHING BETTER.
VISITED SEAL-PEOPLE AGAIN TODAY. STILL HAVE THEIR STINK IN MY NOSE. FOUND HUTS ALONG RIVER BANK, SO I GUESS THEY DON'T LIVE IN WATER. BUT THEY DO SPEND MOST OF THEIR TIME THERE. NO, I HAVE NO WAY OF ESTIMATING THEIR INTELLIGENCE. I WOULD JUDGE IT AVERAGES NO HIGHER THAN SEVEN-YEAR-OLD HUMAN. THEY DEFINITELY DO TALK TO ONE ANOTHER. WILL TRY TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THEM, BUT YOU GET TO WORK FAST ON HOW I REPAIR SCOUT.
SWELLING IN ARM WORSE AND AM DEVELOPING A FEVER. TEMPERATURE 102.7 AN HOUR AGO.
SMOKY
The ship must have answered immediately, for the return message time was six hours later than his own, the minimum interval necessary for two-way exchange.
DOING OUR BEST, SMOKY. YOUR IMMEDIATE PROBLEM, AS WE SEE IT, IS TO KEEP WELL. WE FED ALL THE INFORMATION YOU GAVE US INTO SAM, BUT YOU DIDN'T HAVE MUCH EXCEPT THE STING IN YOUR ARM. AS EXPECTED, ALL THAT CAME OUT WAS "DATA INSUFFICIENT." TRY TO GIVE US MORE. ALSO DETAIL ALL SYMPTOMS SINCE YOUR LAST REPORT. IN THE MEANTIME, WE'RE DOING EVERYTHING WE CAN AT THIS END. GOOD LUCK.
SS II
Sam, Kaiser knew, was the ship's mechanical diagnostician. His report followed:
ARM SWOLLEN. UNABLE TO KEEP DOWN FOOD LAST TWELVE HOURS. ABOUT TWO HOURS AGO, ENTIRE BODY TURNED LIVID RED. BRIEF PERIODS OF BLANKNESS. THINGS KEEP COMING AND GOING. SICK AS HELL. HURRY.
SMOKY
The ship's next message read:
INFECTION QUITE DEFINITE. BUT SOMETHING STRANGE THERE. GIVE US ANYTHING MORE YOU HAVE.
SS II
His own reply perplexed Kaiser:
LAST LETTER FUNNY. I NOT UNDERSTAND. WHY IS OO SENDING GARBLE TALK? DID USNS MAKE UP SECRET MESSAGES?
SMOKY
The expedition, apparently, was as puzzled as he:
WHAT'S THE MATTER, SMOKY? THAT LAST MESSAGE WAS IN PLAIN TERRAN. NO REASON WHY YOU COULDN'T READ IT. AND WHY THE BABY TALK? IF YOU'RE SPOOFING, STOP. GIVE US MORE SYMPTOMS. HOW ARE YOU FEELING NOW?
SS II
The baby talk was worse on Kaiser's next:
TWAZY. WHAT FOR OO TENDING TWAZY LETTERS? FINK UM CAN WEAD TWAZY LETTERS? SKIN ALL YELLOW NOW. COLD. COLD. CO
The ship's following communication was three hours late. It was the last on the tape—the one Kaiser had read earlier. Apparently they decided to humor him.
OO IS SICK, SMOKY. DO TO BEDDY-BY. KEEP UM WARM. WHEN UM FEELS BETTER, LET USNS KNOW.
SS II
That was not much help. All it told him was that he had been sick.
He felt better now, outside of a muscular weariness, as though convalescing from a long illness. He put the back of his hand to his forehead. Cool. No fever anyway.
He glanced at the clock-calendar on the instrument board and back at the date and time on the tape where he'd started his baby talk. Twenty hours. He hadn't been out of his head too long. He began punching the communicator keys while he nibbled at a biscuit.
SEEM TO BE FULLY RECOVERED. FEELING FINE. ANYTHING NEW FROM SAM? AND HOW ABOUT THE DAMAGE TO SCOUT? GIVE ME ANYTHING YOU HAVE ON EITHER OR BOTH.
SMOKY
Kaiser felt suddenly weary. He lay on the scout's bunk and tried to sleep. Soon he was in that phantasm land between sleep and wakefulness—he knew he was not sleeping, yet he did dream.
It was the same dream he had had many times before. In it, he was back home again, the home he had joined the space service to escape. He had realized soon after his marriage that his wife, Helene, did not love him. She had married him for the security his pay check provided. And though it soon became evident that she, too, regretted her bargain, she would not divorce him. Instead, she had her revenge on him by persistent nagging, by letting herself grow fat and querulous, and by caring for their house only in a slovenly way.
Her crippled brother had moved in with them the day they were married. His mind was as crippled as his body and he took an unhealthy delight in helping his sister torment Kaiser.
Kaiser came wide awake in a cold sweat. The clock showed that only an hour had passed since he had sent his last message to the ship. Still five more long hours to wait. He rose and wiped the sweat from his neck and shoulders and restlessly paced the small corridor of the scout.
After a few minutes, he stopped pacing and peered out into the gloom of Big Muddy. The rain seemed to have eased off some. Not much more than a heavy drizzle now.
Kaiser reached impulsively for the slicker he had thrown over a chest against one wall and put it on, then a pair of hip-high plastic boots and a plastic hat. He opened the door. The scout had come to rest with a slight tilt when it crashed, and Kaiser had to sit down and roll over onto his stomach to ease himself to the ground.
The weather outside was normal for Big Muddy: wet, humid, and warm.
Kaiser sank to his ankles in soft mud before his feet reached solid ground. He half walked and half slid to the rear of the scout. Beside the ship, the "octopus" was busily at work. Tentacles and antennae, extending from the yard-high box of its body, tested and recorded temperature, atmosphere, soil, and all other pertinent planetary conditions. The octopus was connected to the ship's communicator and all its findings were being transmitted to the mother ship for study.
Kaiser observed that it was working well and turned toward a wide, sluggish river, perhaps two hundred yards from the scout. Once there, he headed upstream. He could hear the pipings, and now and then a higher whistling, of the seal-people before he reached a bend and saw them. As usual, most were swimming in the river.
One old fellow, whose chocolate-brown fur showed a heavy intermixture of gray, was sitting on the bank of the river just at the bend. Perhaps a lookout. He pulled himself to his feet as he spied Kaiser and his toothless, hard-gummed mouth opened and emitted a long whistle that might have been a greeting—or a warning to the others that a stranger approached.
The native stood perhaps five feet tall, with the heavy, blubbery body of a seal, and short, thick arms. Membranes connected the arms to his body from shoulder-pits to mid-biceps. The arms ended in three-fingered, thumbless hands. His legs also were short and thick, with footpads that splayed out at forty-five-degree angles. They gave his legs the appearance of a split tail. About him hung a rank-fish smell that made Kaiser's stomach squirm.
The old fellow sounded a cheerful chirp as Kaiser came near. Feeling slightly ineffectual, Kaiser raised both hands and held them palm forward. The other chirped again and Kaiser went on toward the main group.
They had stopped their play and eating as Kaiser approached and now most of them swam in to shore and stood in the water, staring and piping. They varied in size from small seal-pups to full-grown adults. Some chewed on bunches of water weed, which they manipulated with their lips and drew into their mouths.
They had mammalian characteristics, Kaiser had noted before, so it was not difficult to distinguish the females from the males. The proportion was roughly fifty-fifty.
Several of the bolder males climbed up beside Kaiser and began pawing his plastic clothing. Kaiser stood still and tried to keep his breathing shallow, for their odor was almost more than he could bear. One native smeared Kaiser's face with an exploring paw and Kaiser gagged and pushed him roughly away. He was bound by regulations to display no hostility to newly discovered natives, but he couldn't take much more of this.
A young female splashed water on two young males who stood near and they turned with shrill pipings and chased her into the water. The entire group seemed to lose interest in Kaiser and joined in the chase, or went back to other diversions of their own. Kaiser's inspectors followed.
They were a mindless lot, Kaiser observed. The river supplied them with an easy existence, with food and living space, and apparently they had few natural enemies.
Kaiser walked away, following the long slow bend of the river, and came to a collection of perhaps two hundred dwellings built in three haphazard rows along the river bank. He took time to study their construction more closely this time.
They were all round domes, little more than the height of a man, built of blocks that appeared to be mud, packed with river weed and sand. How they were able to dry these to give them the necessary solidity, Kaiser did not know. He had found no signs that they knew how to use fire, and all apparent evidence was against their having it. They then had to have sunlight. Maybe it rained less during certain seasons.
The domes' construction was based on a series of four arches built in a circle. When the base covering the periphery had been laid, four others were built on and between them, and continued in successive tiers until the top was reached. Each tier thus furnished support for the next above. No other framework was needed. The final tier formed the roof. They made sound shelters, but Kaiser had peered into several and found them dark and dank—and as smelly as the natives themselves.
The few loungers in the village paid little attention to Kaiser and he wandered through the irregular streets until he became bored and returned to the scout.
The Soscites II sent little that helped during the next twelve hours and Kaiser occupied his time trying again to repair the damage to the scout.
The job appeared maddeningly simply. As the scout had glided in for a soft landing, its metal bottom had ridden a concealed rock and bent inward. The bent metal had carried up with it the tube supplying the fuel pump and flattened it against the motor casing.
Opening the tube again would not have been difficult, but first it had to be freed from under the ship. Kaiser had tried forcing the sheet metal back into place with a small crowbar—the best leverage he had on hand—but it resisted his best efforts. He still could think of no way to do the job, simple as it was, though he gave his concentration to it the rest of the day.
That evening, Kaiser received information from the Soscites II that was at least definite:
SET YOURSELF FOR A SHOCK, SMOKY. SAM FINALLY CAME THROUGH. YOU WON'T LIKE WHAT YOU HEAR. AT LEAST NOT AT FIRST. BUT IT COULD BE WORSE. YOU HAVE BEEN INVADED BY A SYMBIOTE—SIMILAR TO THE TYPE FOUND ON THE SAND WORLD, BARTEL-BLEETHERS. GIVE US A FEW MORE HOURS TO WORK WITH SAM AND WE'LL GET YOU ALL THE PARTICULARS HE CAN GIVE US. HANG ON NOW!
SOSCITES II
Kaiser's reply was short and succinct:
WHAT THE HELL?
SMOKY
Soscites II's next communication followed within twenty minutes and was signed by the ship's doctor:
JUST A FEW WORDS, SMOKY, IN CASE YOU'RE WORRIED. I THOUGHT I'D GET THIS OFF WHILE WE'RE WAITING FOR MORE INFORMATION FROM SAM. REMEMBER THAT A SYMBIOTE IS NOT A PARASITE. IT WILL NOT HARM YOU, EXCEPT INADVERTENTLY. YOUR WELFARE IS AS ESSENTIAL TO IT AS TO YOU. ALMOST CERTAINLY, IF YOU DIE, IT WILL DIE WITH YOU. ANY TROUBLE YOU'VE HAD SO FAR WAS PROBABLY CAUSED BY THE SYMBIOTE'S DIFFICULTY IN ADJUSTING ITSELF TO ITS NEW ENVIRONMENT. IN A WAY, I ENVY YOU. MORE LATER, WHEN WE FINISH WITH SAM.
J. G. ZARWELL
Kaiser did not answer. The news was so startling, so unforeseen, that his mind refused to accept the actuality. He lay on the scout's bunk and stared at the ceiling without conscious attention, and with very little clear thought, for several hours—until the next communication came in:
WELL, THIS IS WHAT SAM HAS TO SAY, SMOKY. SYMBIOTE AMICABLE AND APPARENTLY SWIFTLY ADAPTABLE. YOUR CHANGING COLOR, DIFFICULTY IN EATING AND EVEN BABY TALK WERE THE RESULT OF ITS EFFORTS TO GIVE YOU WHAT IT BELIEVED YOU NEEDED OR WANTED.
CHANGING COLOR: PROTECTIVE CAMOUFLAGE. TROUBLE KEEPING FOOD DOWN: IT KEPT YOUR STOMACH EMPTY BECAUSE IT SENSED YOU WERE IN TROUBLE AND MIGHT HAVE NEED FOR SHARP REFLEXES, WITH NO EXCESS WEIGHT TO CARRY. THE BABY TALK WE AREN'T TOO CERTAIN ABOUT, BUT OUR BEST CONCLUSION IS THAT WHEN YOU WERE A CHILD, YOU WERE MOST HAPPY. IT WAS TRYING TO GIVE YOU BACK THAT HAPPY STATE OF MIND. OBVIOUSLY IT QUICKLY RECOGNIZED THE MISTAKES IT MADE AND CORRECTED THEM.
SAM CAME UP WITH A FEW MORE IDEAS, BUT WE WANT TO WORK ON THEM A BIT BEFORE WE SEND THEM THROUGH. SLEEP ON THIS.
SS II
Kaiser could imagine that most of the crew were not too concerned about the trouble he was in. He was not the gregarious type and had no close friends on board. He had hoped to find the solitude he liked best in space, but he had been disappointed. True, there were fewer people here, but he was brought into such intimate contact with them that he would have been more contented living in a crowded city.
His naturally unsociable nature was more irksome to the crew because he was more intelligent and efficient than they were. He did his work well and painstakingly and was seldom in error. They would have liked him better had he been more prone to mistakes. He was certain that they respected him, but they did not like him. And he returned the dislike.
The suggestion that he get some sleep might not be a bad idea. He hadn't slept in over eighteen hours, Kaiser realized—and fell instantly asleep.
The communicator had a message waiting for him when he awoke:
SAM COULDN'T HELP US MUCH ON THIS PART, BUT AFTER RESEARCH AND MUCH DISCUSSION, WE ARRIVED AT THE FOLLOWING TWO CONCLUSIONS.
FIRST, PHYSICAL PROPERTY OF SYMBIOTE IS EITHER THAT OF A VERY THIN LIQUID OR, MORE PROBABLY, A VIRUS FORM WITH SWIFT PROPAGATION CHARACTERISTIC. IT UNDOUBTEDLY LIVES IN YOUR BLOOD STREAM AND PERMEATES YOUR SYSTEM.
SECOND, IT SEEMED TO US, AS IT MUST HAVE TO YOU, THAT THE SYMBIOTE COULD ONLY KNOW WHAT YOU WANTED BY READING YOUR MIND. HOWEVER, WE BELIEVE DIFFERENTLY NOW. WE THINK THAT IT HAS SUCH CLOSE CONTACT WITH YOUR GLANDS AND THEIR SECRETIONS, WHICH STIMULATE EMOTION, THAT IT CAN GAUGE YOUR FEELINGS EVEN MORE ACCURATELY THAN YOU YOURSELF CAN. THUS IT CAN JUDGE YOUR LIKES AND DISLIKES QUITE ACCURATELY.
WE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE YOU TEST OUR THEORY. THERE ARE DOZENS OF WAYS. IF YOU ARE STUMPED AND NEED SUGGESTIONS, JUST LET US KNOW. WE AWAIT WORD FROM YOU WITH GREAT INTEREST.
SS II
By now, Kaiser had accepted what had happened to him. His distress and anxiety were gone and he was impatient to do what he could to establish better contact with his uninvited tenant. With eager anticipation, he set to thinking how it could be done. After a few minutes, an idea occurred to him.
Taking a small scalpel from a medical kit, he made a shallow cut in his arm, just deep enough to bleed freely. He knew that the pain would supply the necessary glandular reaction. The cut bled a few slow drops—and as Kaiser watched, a shiny film formed and the bleeding stopped.
That checked pretty well with the ship's theory.
Perhaps the symbiote had made his senses more acute. He tried closing his eyes and fingering several objects in the room. It seemed to him that he could determine the texture of each better than before, but the test was inconclusive. Walking to the rear of the scout, he tried reading the printed words on the instrument panel. Each letter stood out sharp and clear!
Kaiser wondered if he might not make an immediate, practical use of the symbiote's apparent desire to help him. Concentrating on the discomfort of the high humidity and exaggerating his own displeasure with it, he waited. The result surprised and pleased him.
The temperature within the scout cabin seemed to lower, the moisture on his body vanished, and he was more comfortable than he had yet been here.
As a double check, he looked at the ship's thermometer. Temperature
102, humidity 113—just about the same as it had been on earlier readings.
During the next twenty-four hours, Kaiser and the mother ship exchanged messages at regular six-hour intervals. In between, he worked at repairing the damaged scout. He had no more success than before.
He tired easily and lay on the cot often to rest. Each time he seemed to drop off to sleep immediately—and awake at the exact times he had decided on beforehand. At first, despite the lack of success in straightening the bent metal of the scout bottom, there had been a subdued exhilaration in reporting each new discovery concerning the symbiote, but as time passed, his enthusiasm ebbed. His one really important problem was how to repair the scout and he was fast becoming discouraged.
At last Kaiser could bear the futility of his efforts no longer. He sent out a terse message to the Soscites II :
TAKING SHORT TRIP TO ANOTHER LOCATION ON RIVER. HOPE TO FIND MORE INTELLIGENT NATIVES. COULD BE THAT THE SETTLEMENT I FOUND HERE IS ANALOGOUS TO TRIBE OF MONKEYS ON EARTH. I KNOW THE CHANCE IS SMALL, BUT WHAT HAVE I TO LOSE? I CAN'T FIX SCOUT WITHOUT BETTER TOOLS, AND IF MY GUESS IS RIGHT, I MAY BE ABLE TO GET EQUIPMENT. EXPECT TO RETURN IN TEN OR TWELVE HOURS. PLEASE KEEP CONTACT WITH SCOUT.
SMOKY
Kaiser packed a mudsled with tent, portable generator and guard wires, a spare sidearm and ammunition, and food for two days. He had noticed that a range of high hills, which caused the bend in the river at the native settlement, seemed to continue its long curve, and he wondered if the hills might not turn the river in the shape of a giant horseshoe. He intended to find out.
Wrapping his equipment in a plastic tarp, Kaiser eased it out the doorway and tied it on the sled. He hooked a towline to a harness on his shoulders and began his journey—in the opposite direction from the first native settlement.
He walked for more than seven hours before he found that his surmise had been correct. And a second cluster of huts, and seal-people in the river, greeted his sight. He received a further pleasant surprise. This group was decidedly more advanced than the first!
They were little different in actual physical appearance; the change was mainly noticeable in their actions and demeanor. And their odor was more subdued, less repugnant.
By signs, Kaiser indicated that he came in peace, and they seemed to understand. A thick-bodied male went solemnly to the river bank and called to a second, who dived and brought up a mouthful of weed. The first male took the weed and brought it to Kaiser. This was obviously a gesture of friendship.
The weed had a white starchy core and looked edible. Kaiser cleaned part of it with his handkerchief, bit and chewed it.
The weed had a slight iron taste, but was not unpalatable. He swallowed the mouthful and tried another. He ate most of what had been given him and waited with some trepidation for a reaction.
As dusk fell, Kaiser set up his tent a few hundred yards back from the native settlement. All apprehension about how his stomach would react to the river weed had left him. Apparently it could be assimilated by his digestive system. Lying on his air mattress, he felt thoroughly at peace with this world.
Once, just before dropping off to sleep, he heard the snuffling noise of some large animal outside his tent and picked up a pistol, just in case. However, the first jolt of the guard-wire charge discouraged the beast and Kaiser heard it shuffle away, making puzzled mewing sounds as it went.
The next morning, Kaiser left off all his clothes except a pair of shorts and went swimming in the river. The seal-people were already in the water when he arrived and were very friendly.
That friendliness nearly resulted in disaster. The natives crowded around as he swam—they maneuvered with an otter-like proficiency—and often nudged him with their bodies when they came too close. He had difficulty keeping afloat and soon turned and started back. As he neared the river edge, a playful female grabbed him by the ankle and pulled him under.
Kaiser tried to break her hold, but she evidently thought he was clowning and wrapped her warm furred arms around him and held him helpless. They sank deeper.
When his breath threatened to burst from his lungs in a stream of bubbles, and he still could not free himself, Kaiser brought his knee up into her stomach and her grip loosened abruptly. He reached the surface, choking and coughing, and swam blindly toward shore until his feet hit the river bottom.
As he stood on the bank, getting his breath, the natives were quiet and seemed to be looking at him reproachfully. He stood for a time, trying to think of a way to explain the necessity of what he had done, but there was none. He shrugged helplessly.
There was no longer anything to be gained by staying here—if they had the tools he needed, he had no way of finding out or asking for them—and he packed and started back to the scout.
Kaiser's good spirits returned on his return journey. He had enjoyed the relief from the tedium of spending day after day in the scout, and now he enjoyed the exercise of pulling the mudsled. Above the waist, he wore only the harness and the large, soft drops of rain against his bare skin were pleasant to feel.
When he reached the scout, Kaiser began to unload the sled. The tarpaulin caught on the edge of a runner and he gave it a tug to free it. To his amazement, the heavy sled turned completely over, spilling the equipment to the ground.
Perplexed, Kaiser stooped and began replacing the spilled articles in the tarp. They felt exceptionally light. He paused again, and suddenly his eyes widened.
Moving quickly to the door of the scout, he shoved his equipment through and crawled in behind it. He did not consult the communicator, as he customarily did on entering, but went directly to the warped place on the floor and picked up the crowbar he had laid there.
Inserting the bar between the metal of the scout bottom and the engine casing, he lifted. Nothing happened. He rested a minute and tried again, this time concentrating on his desire to raise the bar. The metal beneath yielded slightly—but he felt the palms of his hands bruise against the lever.
Only after he dropped the bar did he realize the force he had exerted. His hands ached and tingled. His strength must have been increased tremendously. With his plastic coat wrapped around the lever, he tried again. The metal of the scout bottom gave slowly—until the fuel pump hung free!
Kaiser did not repair the tube immediately. He let the solution rest in his hands, like a package to be opened, the pleasure of its anticipation to be enjoyed as much as the final act.
He transmitted the news of what he had been able to do and sat down to read the two messages waiting for him.
The first was quite routine:
REPORTS FROM THE OCTOPUS INDICATE THAT BIG MUDDY UNDERGOES RADICAL WEATHER-CYCLE CHANGES DURING SPRING AND FALL SEASONS, FROM EXTREME MOISTURE TO EXTREME ARIDITY. AT HEIGHT OF DRY SEASON, PLANET MUST BE COMPLETELY DEVOID OF SURFACE LIQUID.
TO SURVIVE THESE UNUSUAL EXTREMES, SEAL-PEOPLE WOULD NEED EXTREME ADAPTABILITY. THIS VERIFIES OUR EARLIER GUESS THAT NATIVES HAVE SYMBIOSIS WITH THE SAME VIRUS FORM THAT INVADED YOU. WITH SYMBIOTES' AID, SUCH RADICAL PHYSICAL CHANGE COULD BE POSSIBLE. WILL KEEP YOU INFORMED.
GIVE US ANY NEW INFORMATION YOU MIGHT HAVE ON NATIVES.
SS II
The second report was not so routine. Kaiser thought he detected a note of uneasiness in it.
SUGGEST YOU DEVOTE ALL TIME AND EFFORT TO REPAIR OF SCOUT. INFORMATION ON SEAL-PEOPLE ADEQUATE FOR OUR PURPOSES.
SS II
Kaiser did not answer either communication. His earlier report had covered all that he had learned lately. He lay on his cot and went to sleep.
In the morning, another message was waiting:
VERY PLEASED TO HEAR OF PROGRESS ON REPAIR OF SCOUT. COMPLETE AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE AND RETURN HERE IMMEDIATELY.
SS II
Kaiser wondered about the abrupt recall. Could the Soscites II be experiencing some difficulty? He shrugged the thought aside. If they were, they would have told him. The last notes had had more than just a suggestion of urgency—there appeared to be a deliberate concealing of information.
Strangely, the messages indicated need for haste did not prod Kaiser. He knew now that the job could be done, perhaps in a few hours' time. And the Soscites II would not complete its orbit of the planet for two weeks yet.
Without putting on more than the shirt and trousers he had grown used to wearing, Kaiser went outside and wandered listlessly about the vicinity of the ship for several hours. When he became hungry, he went back inside.
Another message came in as he finished eating. This one was from the captain himself:
WHY HAVE WE RECEIVED NO VERIFICATION OF LAST INSTRUCTIONS? REPAIR SCOUT IMMEDIATELY AND RETURN WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY. THIS IS AN ORDER!
H. A. HESSE, CAPT.
Kaiser pushed the last of his meal—which he had been eating with his fingers—into his mouth, crumpled the tape, wiped the grease from his hands with it and dropped it to the floor.
He pondered mildly, as he packed his equipment, why he was disregarding the captain's message. For some reason, it seemed too trivial for serious consideration. He placated his slightly uneasy conscience only to the extent of packing the communicator in with his other equipment. It was a self-contained unit and he'd be able to receive messages from the ship on his trip.
The tracks of his earlier journey had been erased by the soft rain, and when Kaiser reached the river, he found that he had not returned to the village he had visited the day before. However, there were other seal-people here.
And they were almost human!
The resemblance was still not so much in their physical makeup—that was little changed from the first he had found—as in their obviously greater intelligence.
This was mainly noticeable in their facile expressions as they talked. Kaiser was even certain that he read smiles on their faces when he slipped on a particularly slick mud patch as he hurried toward them. Where the members of the first tribes had all looked almost exactly alike, these had very marked individual characteristics. Also, these had no odor—only a mild, rather pleasing scent. When they came to meet him, Kaiser could detect distinct syllabism in their pipings.
Most of the natives returned to the river after the first ten minutes of curious inspection, but two stayed behind as Kaiser set up his tent.
One was a female.
They made small noises while he went about his work. After a time, he understood that they were trying to give names to his paraphernalia. He tried saying "tent" and "wire" and "tarp" as he handled each object, but their piping voices could not repeat the words. Kaiser amused himself by trying to imitate their sounds for the articles. He was fairly successful. He was certain that he could soon learn enough to carry on a limited conversation.
The male became bored after a time and left, but the girl stayed until Kaiser finished. She motioned to him then to follow. When they reached the river bank, he saw that she wanted him to go into the water.
Before he had time to decide, Kaiser heard the small bell of the communicator from the tent behind him. He stood undecided for a moment, then returned and read the message on the tape:
STILL ANXIOUSLY AWAITING WORD FROM YOU.
IN MEANTIME, GIVE VERY CLOSE ATTENTION TO FOLLOWING.
WE KNOW THAT THE SYMBIOTES MUST BE ABLE TO MAKE RADICAL CHANGES IN THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE SEAL-PEOPLE. THERE IS EVERY PROBABILITY THAT YOURS WILL ATTEMPT TO DO THE SAME TO YOU—TO BETTER FIT YOUR BODY TO ITS PRESENT ENVIRONMENT.
THE DANGER, WHICH WE HESITATED TO MENTION UNTIL NOW—WHEN YOU HAVE FORCED US BY YOUR OBSTINATE SILENCE—IS THAT IT CAN ALTER YOUR MIND ALSO. YOUR REPORT ON SECOND TRIBE OF SEAL-PEOPLE STRONGLY INDICATES THAT THIS IS ALREADY HAPPENING. THEY WERE PROBABLY NOT MORE INTELLIGENT AND HUMANLIKE THAN THE OTHERS. ON THE CONTRARY, YOU ARE BECOMING MORE LIKE THEM.
DANGER ACUTE. RETURN IMMEDIATELY. REPEAT: IMMEDIATELY!
SS II
Kaiser picked up a large rock and slowly, methodically pounded the communicator into a flattened jumble of metal and loose parts.
When he finished, he returned to the waiting girl on the river bank. She pointed at his plastic trousers and made laughing sounds in her throat. Kaiser returned the laugh and stripped off the trousers. They ran, still laughing, into the water.
Already the long pink hair that had been growing on his body during the past week was beginning to turn brown at the roots.
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Kaiser is a young man who was unhappily married and decided to join space service to escape his wife and her brother. He was on the mothership, Soscites II, that was finishing its planet-mapping tour. The team put him in a scout ship and sent him to the planet he calls Big Muddy. During the landing, the scout’s bottom bent inward and flattened the fuel tube. At some point, Kaiser finds himself lost because he doesn’t remember what was happening in the last hours, only the fact that he must fix the scout during the next few weeks. He reads the message tape with the mothership and learns that he had a swollen arm, a fever, periods of blankness, and in the middle of the exchange, he started using baby-talk. Now Kaiser feels better and asks for some information on fixing the scout from the mothership’s team. Then, he walks around the scout, looks at the “octopus” testing the environment of Big Muddy, and heads toward a sluggish river and native seal-people. They are short, with the body of a seal, thick arms, and thumbless hands, and have mammalian characteristics. The man spends some time observing them and then looks at their domed buildings. Soon the mothership informs Kaiser that he has probably been invaded by a symbiote, though it is not supposed to harm him. It’s adaptable and tried to give Kaiser what he emotionally desired. Hours later, the team adds that the symbiote can accurately gauge his feelings, and he needs to test this. Kaiser makes a shallow cut - it immediately heels, his sensory perception improves, and now he can control how humidity affects him. He spends a day trying to repair the scout and then leaves for a day walking trip. He meets another group of seal-people. They seem more advanced than the first ones. Kaiser sleeps in a tent and, in the morning, swims with the natives until one of them starts playfully drowning him. He comes back to his ship and realizes that his physical strength has improved. Kaiser manages to partially fix the metal bottom and report the events of the day to the mothership. They tell him that the natives probably have the symbiote and then order him to repair the ship as soon as possible. In the morning, they repeat that he needs to leave very soon, which puzzles Kaiser. The captain sends an angry message with the order to finish repairing the scout. Kaiser goes to the river and takes the communicator with him. The natives look almost human-like now and use syllabism. A female native invites him to the river, but Kaiser hears that the communicator received a message. He walks back and reads that the team has a suspicion the symbiote can alter Kaiser’s mind. The second group of seal-people was not more advanced - he just became more like them. The man destroys the communicator and follows the girl to the river. ",
"Kaiser is busy trying to figure out the strange communication from the tape in his hand, but he is also annoyed by the rainy climate outside. He tries to think back to the baby talk but finds it hard to even remember what he was doing here. Kaiser knows that he has to repair the scout ship, or else he will be stuck here forever. The mothership, Soscites II, has set itself into orbit around the Big Muddy ship, which is why he only has a month to repair the ship. The message he sends from himself is about the seal-people and repairing the scout ship, and the ship responds with a message about how this information has been given to Sam. He responds with a list of his symptoms, and the ship asks for more information. Kaiser wonders why some of his messages are sending in baby talk, but the ship says that everything is perfectly legible. However, after the last message, he does feel better and sends another one to the ship for more information. Kaiser dreams about his wife Helene and their loveless marriage, waking up in a cold sweat an hour later. He decides to go outside, observing how the octopus part of the scout ship is busy sending everything to the mothership. Kaiser goes to visit the seal-people again, and they chirp when he comes close. Some of the seal-people come up to him, but the smell of fish is too much for him to bear. He finds that they are a mindless lot and decides to explore the round domes. For the rest of the day, Kaiser tries to figure out how to fix his scout ship because the Soscites II sent little to no help. The ship tells him that he has been invaded by a symbiote, but it is not dangerous because the symbiote will die with Kaiser if he dies. It also explains the baby talk, as the symbiote was trying to give him what it thought he needed. It is revealed the crew does not like him much because he is intelligent and not prone to mistakes. Later, he accepts that he will live with the symbiote and goes to observe the seal-people again. This new group seems more advanced than the other, and they even give him seaweed as a gesture of friendship. Kaiser goes to swim the next day, and the locals are extremely friendly as they try to play with him in the water. When he goes back to his ship, he finds equipment and begins to put work into repairing the scout. The mothership sends him messages to come back, but they deliberately conceal information. He also finds out that the seal-people are becoming more human like now, and a female even stays to watch him repair. During his last communication with the ship, he smashes the communicator and joins the female as they run to the river bank to play. ",
"This story follows Kaiser in his scout ship as he is grounded upon Big Muddy. He is temporarily separated from his mother ship, Soscites II, as the mothership takes an orbit around the planet. Kaiser is grounded because his scout is broken, and he does not have the appropriate equipment to fix it. \n\nIn his communications log with the mother ship, it is revealed that Kaiser had fallen ill. After he recovered, he took a trip to observe the seal-people. They had been swimming and eating by the river bank and paused in curiosity as Kaiser approached. Alongside the riverbank lay a few hundred dwellings - round domes built with mud bricks. \n\nUpon receiving more information from the ship, Kaiser and the crew find out that the symbiote is harmless to humans. Any of his prior illnesses was perhaps the symbiote adjusting his body to the new environment and correcting any subsequent mistakes it may have made. In addition, the symbiote can only know what Kaiser wants by reading his mind. At this theory, the crew urged Kaiser to perform his own tests to see if it was true. He tested this theory by changing his body temperature and checking that the room temperature stayed the same, and confirmed it to be true. \n\nKaiser then took another trip, hoping to find more intelligent natives. He found a group of seal-people that seemed more intelligence in their actions and has less of an odor to them. The next morning, he went swimming with the seal-people and they crowded around him in a friendly manner. However, their overeagerness to play nearly caused Kaiser to drown, and so he headed back to the scout. There, he accidentally turned a sled and found the equipment. He was able to concentrate and fix part of the scout using his mind and tools. As he sent off the news to the ship, he read his messages. \n\nIt appears that Big Muddy undergoes two drastic seasonal changes - extreme moisture and aridity. As a result, the seal-people must be able to physically adapt in order to survive. SS II informs Kaiser that it is due to the natives also having symbiosis, and that all efforts should be devoted to fixing the scout and returning home. Though noting the urgency behind the messages, Kaiser still chose to take another trip to the river banks. This time, he noticed that the seal-people looked almost human and he could detect syllabism in their speech. \n\nIn a frantic last message from the ship, Kaiser learned that the symbiotes have already begun altering Kaiser in more sinister ways. His perceptions on finding seal-peole becoming more intelligent and human-like wasn't actually because of that, but because he himself was becoming more seal-like. The symbiote is able to alter his mind and physical state, and already has. After reading the message, Kaiser picked up a rock to destroy the device, and happily returned to the girl on river bank and they swam in the water. ",
"The story follows Kaiser, a human who gets stranded on a new planet. He is a part of a space expedition, and after his ship crash lands he only has one month to fix his scout ship and return to the large ship. He can communicate with the large ship using a typing system, and it is revealed that he has been communicating with the crew because he had been feeling sick. Kaiser also interacted with the natives of the planet, which are described to be seal-people. The ship’s doctor informed Kaiser that his symptoms most likely come from a symbiote which inhabited his body, but that there is no reason for concern, as the symbiotic relationship can help both the symbiote and Kaiser. Kaiser struggled with this news for a while, but then realized that it could be a good thing. The symbiote allowed Kaiser to control his feelings better, and even helped him physically. Kaiser then went on a journey to a new village of the natives in order to search for tools that could help him repair the ship. Here, he interacted very well with the natives, and felt happy doing so. After coming back, he realized that the symbiote was giving him extra strength and managed to repair the ship. When the ship told him to immediately come back, he started to doubt his desire to go back. He went back to the original village of the seal-people, taking with him a transportable communication device. He seemed to be very happy with the seal-people, having fun and interacting with females. The ship sent him a message telling him that there is a lot of urgency in his order for Kaiser to go up, as the symbiote was adapting his body and mind to the planet. Kaiser responded to this message by breaking the communication device and going back to the river with the seal-people. "
] |
51398
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Well, naturally Kaiser would transmit baby talk messages to his mother ship! He was—
GROWING UP ON BIG MUDDY
By CHARLES V. DE VET
Illustrated by TURPIN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction July 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Kaiser stared at the tape in his hand for a long uncomprehending minute. How long had the stuff been coming through in this inane baby talk? And why hadn't he noticed it before? Why had he had to read this last communication a third time before he recognized anything unusual about it?
He went over the words again, as though maybe this time they'd read as they should.
OO IS SICK, SMOKY. DO TO BEDDY-BY. KEEP UM WARM. WHEN UM FEELS BETTER, LET USNS KNOW.
SS II
Kaiser let himself ease back in the pilot chair and rolled the tape thoughtfully between his fingers. Overhead and to each side, large drops of rain thudded softly against the transparent walls of the scout ship and dripped wearily from the bottom ledge to the ground.
"Damn this climate!" Kaiser muttered irrelevantly. "Doesn't it ever do anything here except rain?"
His attention returned to the matter at hand. Why the baby talk? And why was his memory so hazy? How long had he been here? What had he been doing during that time?
Listlessly he reached for the towel at his elbow and wiped the moisture from his face and bare shoulders. The air conditioning had gone out when the scout ship cracked up. He'd have to repair the scout or he was stuck here for good. He remembered now that he had gone over the job very carefully and thoroughly, and had found it too big to handle alone—or without better equipment, at least. Yet there was little or no chance of his being able to find either here.
Calmly, deliberately, Kaiser collected his thoughts, his memories, and brought them out where he could look at them:
The mother ship, Soscites II , had been on the last leg of its planet-mapping tour. It had dropped Kaiser in the one remaining scout ship—the other seven had all been lost one way or another during the exploring of new worlds—and set itself into a giant orbit about this planet that Kaiser had named Big Muddy.
The Soscites II had to maintain its constant speed; it had no means of slowing, except to stop, and no way to start again once it did stop. Its limited range of maneuverability made it necessary to set up an orbit that would take it approximately one month, Earth time, to circle a pinpointed planet. And now its fuel was low.
Kaiser had that one month to repair his scout or be stranded here forever.
That was all he could remember. Nothing of what he had been doing recently.
A small shiver passed through his body as he glanced once again at the tape in his hand. Baby talk....
One thing he could find out: how long this had been going on. He turned to the communicator and unhooked the paper receptacle on its bottom. It held about a yard and a half of tape, probably his last several messages—both those sent and those received. He pulled it out impatiently and began reading.
The first was from himself:
YOUR SUGGESTIONS NO HELP. HOW AM I GOING TO REPAIR DAMAGE TO SCOUT WITHOUT PROPER EQUIPMENT? AND WHERE DO I GET IT? DO YOU THINK I FOUND A TOOL SHOP DOWN HERE? FOR GOD'S SAKE, COME UP WITH SOMETHING BETTER.
VISITED SEAL-PEOPLE AGAIN TODAY. STILL HAVE THEIR STINK IN MY NOSE. FOUND HUTS ALONG RIVER BANK, SO I GUESS THEY DON'T LIVE IN WATER. BUT THEY DO SPEND MOST OF THEIR TIME THERE. NO, I HAVE NO WAY OF ESTIMATING THEIR INTELLIGENCE. I WOULD JUDGE IT AVERAGES NO HIGHER THAN SEVEN-YEAR-OLD HUMAN. THEY DEFINITELY DO TALK TO ONE ANOTHER. WILL TRY TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THEM, BUT YOU GET TO WORK FAST ON HOW I REPAIR SCOUT.
SWELLING IN ARM WORSE AND AM DEVELOPING A FEVER. TEMPERATURE 102.7 AN HOUR AGO.
SMOKY
The ship must have answered immediately, for the return message time was six hours later than his own, the minimum interval necessary for two-way exchange.
DOING OUR BEST, SMOKY. YOUR IMMEDIATE PROBLEM, AS WE SEE IT, IS TO KEEP WELL. WE FED ALL THE INFORMATION YOU GAVE US INTO SAM, BUT YOU DIDN'T HAVE MUCH EXCEPT THE STING IN YOUR ARM. AS EXPECTED, ALL THAT CAME OUT WAS "DATA INSUFFICIENT." TRY TO GIVE US MORE. ALSO DETAIL ALL SYMPTOMS SINCE YOUR LAST REPORT. IN THE MEANTIME, WE'RE DOING EVERYTHING WE CAN AT THIS END. GOOD LUCK.
SS II
Sam, Kaiser knew, was the ship's mechanical diagnostician. His report followed:
ARM SWOLLEN. UNABLE TO KEEP DOWN FOOD LAST TWELVE HOURS. ABOUT TWO HOURS AGO, ENTIRE BODY TURNED LIVID RED. BRIEF PERIODS OF BLANKNESS. THINGS KEEP COMING AND GOING. SICK AS HELL. HURRY.
SMOKY
The ship's next message read:
INFECTION QUITE DEFINITE. BUT SOMETHING STRANGE THERE. GIVE US ANYTHING MORE YOU HAVE.
SS II
His own reply perplexed Kaiser:
LAST LETTER FUNNY. I NOT UNDERSTAND. WHY IS OO SENDING GARBLE TALK? DID USNS MAKE UP SECRET MESSAGES?
SMOKY
The expedition, apparently, was as puzzled as he:
WHAT'S THE MATTER, SMOKY? THAT LAST MESSAGE WAS IN PLAIN TERRAN. NO REASON WHY YOU COULDN'T READ IT. AND WHY THE BABY TALK? IF YOU'RE SPOOFING, STOP. GIVE US MORE SYMPTOMS. HOW ARE YOU FEELING NOW?
SS II
The baby talk was worse on Kaiser's next:
TWAZY. WHAT FOR OO TENDING TWAZY LETTERS? FINK UM CAN WEAD TWAZY LETTERS? SKIN ALL YELLOW NOW. COLD. COLD. CO
The ship's following communication was three hours late. It was the last on the tape—the one Kaiser had read earlier. Apparently they decided to humor him.
OO IS SICK, SMOKY. DO TO BEDDY-BY. KEEP UM WARM. WHEN UM FEELS BETTER, LET USNS KNOW.
SS II
That was not much help. All it told him was that he had been sick.
He felt better now, outside of a muscular weariness, as though convalescing from a long illness. He put the back of his hand to his forehead. Cool. No fever anyway.
He glanced at the clock-calendar on the instrument board and back at the date and time on the tape where he'd started his baby talk. Twenty hours. He hadn't been out of his head too long. He began punching the communicator keys while he nibbled at a biscuit.
SEEM TO BE FULLY RECOVERED. FEELING FINE. ANYTHING NEW FROM SAM? AND HOW ABOUT THE DAMAGE TO SCOUT? GIVE ME ANYTHING YOU HAVE ON EITHER OR BOTH.
SMOKY
Kaiser felt suddenly weary. He lay on the scout's bunk and tried to sleep. Soon he was in that phantasm land between sleep and wakefulness—he knew he was not sleeping, yet he did dream.
It was the same dream he had had many times before. In it, he was back home again, the home he had joined the space service to escape. He had realized soon after his marriage that his wife, Helene, did not love him. She had married him for the security his pay check provided. And though it soon became evident that she, too, regretted her bargain, she would not divorce him. Instead, she had her revenge on him by persistent nagging, by letting herself grow fat and querulous, and by caring for their house only in a slovenly way.
Her crippled brother had moved in with them the day they were married. His mind was as crippled as his body and he took an unhealthy delight in helping his sister torment Kaiser.
Kaiser came wide awake in a cold sweat. The clock showed that only an hour had passed since he had sent his last message to the ship. Still five more long hours to wait. He rose and wiped the sweat from his neck and shoulders and restlessly paced the small corridor of the scout.
After a few minutes, he stopped pacing and peered out into the gloom of Big Muddy. The rain seemed to have eased off some. Not much more than a heavy drizzle now.
Kaiser reached impulsively for the slicker he had thrown over a chest against one wall and put it on, then a pair of hip-high plastic boots and a plastic hat. He opened the door. The scout had come to rest with a slight tilt when it crashed, and Kaiser had to sit down and roll over onto his stomach to ease himself to the ground.
The weather outside was normal for Big Muddy: wet, humid, and warm.
Kaiser sank to his ankles in soft mud before his feet reached solid ground. He half walked and half slid to the rear of the scout. Beside the ship, the "octopus" was busily at work. Tentacles and antennae, extending from the yard-high box of its body, tested and recorded temperature, atmosphere, soil, and all other pertinent planetary conditions. The octopus was connected to the ship's communicator and all its findings were being transmitted to the mother ship for study.
Kaiser observed that it was working well and turned toward a wide, sluggish river, perhaps two hundred yards from the scout. Once there, he headed upstream. He could hear the pipings, and now and then a higher whistling, of the seal-people before he reached a bend and saw them. As usual, most were swimming in the river.
One old fellow, whose chocolate-brown fur showed a heavy intermixture of gray, was sitting on the bank of the river just at the bend. Perhaps a lookout. He pulled himself to his feet as he spied Kaiser and his toothless, hard-gummed mouth opened and emitted a long whistle that might have been a greeting—or a warning to the others that a stranger approached.
The native stood perhaps five feet tall, with the heavy, blubbery body of a seal, and short, thick arms. Membranes connected the arms to his body from shoulder-pits to mid-biceps. The arms ended in three-fingered, thumbless hands. His legs also were short and thick, with footpads that splayed out at forty-five-degree angles. They gave his legs the appearance of a split tail. About him hung a rank-fish smell that made Kaiser's stomach squirm.
The old fellow sounded a cheerful chirp as Kaiser came near. Feeling slightly ineffectual, Kaiser raised both hands and held them palm forward. The other chirped again and Kaiser went on toward the main group.
They had stopped their play and eating as Kaiser approached and now most of them swam in to shore and stood in the water, staring and piping. They varied in size from small seal-pups to full-grown adults. Some chewed on bunches of water weed, which they manipulated with their lips and drew into their mouths.
They had mammalian characteristics, Kaiser had noted before, so it was not difficult to distinguish the females from the males. The proportion was roughly fifty-fifty.
Several of the bolder males climbed up beside Kaiser and began pawing his plastic clothing. Kaiser stood still and tried to keep his breathing shallow, for their odor was almost more than he could bear. One native smeared Kaiser's face with an exploring paw and Kaiser gagged and pushed him roughly away. He was bound by regulations to display no hostility to newly discovered natives, but he couldn't take much more of this.
A young female splashed water on two young males who stood near and they turned with shrill pipings and chased her into the water. The entire group seemed to lose interest in Kaiser and joined in the chase, or went back to other diversions of their own. Kaiser's inspectors followed.
They were a mindless lot, Kaiser observed. The river supplied them with an easy existence, with food and living space, and apparently they had few natural enemies.
Kaiser walked away, following the long slow bend of the river, and came to a collection of perhaps two hundred dwellings built in three haphazard rows along the river bank. He took time to study their construction more closely this time.
They were all round domes, little more than the height of a man, built of blocks that appeared to be mud, packed with river weed and sand. How they were able to dry these to give them the necessary solidity, Kaiser did not know. He had found no signs that they knew how to use fire, and all apparent evidence was against their having it. They then had to have sunlight. Maybe it rained less during certain seasons.
The domes' construction was based on a series of four arches built in a circle. When the base covering the periphery had been laid, four others were built on and between them, and continued in successive tiers until the top was reached. Each tier thus furnished support for the next above. No other framework was needed. The final tier formed the roof. They made sound shelters, but Kaiser had peered into several and found them dark and dank—and as smelly as the natives themselves.
The few loungers in the village paid little attention to Kaiser and he wandered through the irregular streets until he became bored and returned to the scout.
The Soscites II sent little that helped during the next twelve hours and Kaiser occupied his time trying again to repair the damage to the scout.
The job appeared maddeningly simply. As the scout had glided in for a soft landing, its metal bottom had ridden a concealed rock and bent inward. The bent metal had carried up with it the tube supplying the fuel pump and flattened it against the motor casing.
Opening the tube again would not have been difficult, but first it had to be freed from under the ship. Kaiser had tried forcing the sheet metal back into place with a small crowbar—the best leverage he had on hand—but it resisted his best efforts. He still could think of no way to do the job, simple as it was, though he gave his concentration to it the rest of the day.
That evening, Kaiser received information from the Soscites II that was at least definite:
SET YOURSELF FOR A SHOCK, SMOKY. SAM FINALLY CAME THROUGH. YOU WON'T LIKE WHAT YOU HEAR. AT LEAST NOT AT FIRST. BUT IT COULD BE WORSE. YOU HAVE BEEN INVADED BY A SYMBIOTE—SIMILAR TO THE TYPE FOUND ON THE SAND WORLD, BARTEL-BLEETHERS. GIVE US A FEW MORE HOURS TO WORK WITH SAM AND WE'LL GET YOU ALL THE PARTICULARS HE CAN GIVE US. HANG ON NOW!
SOSCITES II
Kaiser's reply was short and succinct:
WHAT THE HELL?
SMOKY
Soscites II's next communication followed within twenty minutes and was signed by the ship's doctor:
JUST A FEW WORDS, SMOKY, IN CASE YOU'RE WORRIED. I THOUGHT I'D GET THIS OFF WHILE WE'RE WAITING FOR MORE INFORMATION FROM SAM. REMEMBER THAT A SYMBIOTE IS NOT A PARASITE. IT WILL NOT HARM YOU, EXCEPT INADVERTENTLY. YOUR WELFARE IS AS ESSENTIAL TO IT AS TO YOU. ALMOST CERTAINLY, IF YOU DIE, IT WILL DIE WITH YOU. ANY TROUBLE YOU'VE HAD SO FAR WAS PROBABLY CAUSED BY THE SYMBIOTE'S DIFFICULTY IN ADJUSTING ITSELF TO ITS NEW ENVIRONMENT. IN A WAY, I ENVY YOU. MORE LATER, WHEN WE FINISH WITH SAM.
J. G. ZARWELL
Kaiser did not answer. The news was so startling, so unforeseen, that his mind refused to accept the actuality. He lay on the scout's bunk and stared at the ceiling without conscious attention, and with very little clear thought, for several hours—until the next communication came in:
WELL, THIS IS WHAT SAM HAS TO SAY, SMOKY. SYMBIOTE AMICABLE AND APPARENTLY SWIFTLY ADAPTABLE. YOUR CHANGING COLOR, DIFFICULTY IN EATING AND EVEN BABY TALK WERE THE RESULT OF ITS EFFORTS TO GIVE YOU WHAT IT BELIEVED YOU NEEDED OR WANTED.
CHANGING COLOR: PROTECTIVE CAMOUFLAGE. TROUBLE KEEPING FOOD DOWN: IT KEPT YOUR STOMACH EMPTY BECAUSE IT SENSED YOU WERE IN TROUBLE AND MIGHT HAVE NEED FOR SHARP REFLEXES, WITH NO EXCESS WEIGHT TO CARRY. THE BABY TALK WE AREN'T TOO CERTAIN ABOUT, BUT OUR BEST CONCLUSION IS THAT WHEN YOU WERE A CHILD, YOU WERE MOST HAPPY. IT WAS TRYING TO GIVE YOU BACK THAT HAPPY STATE OF MIND. OBVIOUSLY IT QUICKLY RECOGNIZED THE MISTAKES IT MADE AND CORRECTED THEM.
SAM CAME UP WITH A FEW MORE IDEAS, BUT WE WANT TO WORK ON THEM A BIT BEFORE WE SEND THEM THROUGH. SLEEP ON THIS.
SS II
Kaiser could imagine that most of the crew were not too concerned about the trouble he was in. He was not the gregarious type and had no close friends on board. He had hoped to find the solitude he liked best in space, but he had been disappointed. True, there were fewer people here, but he was brought into such intimate contact with them that he would have been more contented living in a crowded city.
His naturally unsociable nature was more irksome to the crew because he was more intelligent and efficient than they were. He did his work well and painstakingly and was seldom in error. They would have liked him better had he been more prone to mistakes. He was certain that they respected him, but they did not like him. And he returned the dislike.
The suggestion that he get some sleep might not be a bad idea. He hadn't slept in over eighteen hours, Kaiser realized—and fell instantly asleep.
The communicator had a message waiting for him when he awoke:
SAM COULDN'T HELP US MUCH ON THIS PART, BUT AFTER RESEARCH AND MUCH DISCUSSION, WE ARRIVED AT THE FOLLOWING TWO CONCLUSIONS.
FIRST, PHYSICAL PROPERTY OF SYMBIOTE IS EITHER THAT OF A VERY THIN LIQUID OR, MORE PROBABLY, A VIRUS FORM WITH SWIFT PROPAGATION CHARACTERISTIC. IT UNDOUBTEDLY LIVES IN YOUR BLOOD STREAM AND PERMEATES YOUR SYSTEM.
SECOND, IT SEEMED TO US, AS IT MUST HAVE TO YOU, THAT THE SYMBIOTE COULD ONLY KNOW WHAT YOU WANTED BY READING YOUR MIND. HOWEVER, WE BELIEVE DIFFERENTLY NOW. WE THINK THAT IT HAS SUCH CLOSE CONTACT WITH YOUR GLANDS AND THEIR SECRETIONS, WHICH STIMULATE EMOTION, THAT IT CAN GAUGE YOUR FEELINGS EVEN MORE ACCURATELY THAN YOU YOURSELF CAN. THUS IT CAN JUDGE YOUR LIKES AND DISLIKES QUITE ACCURATELY.
WE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE YOU TEST OUR THEORY. THERE ARE DOZENS OF WAYS. IF YOU ARE STUMPED AND NEED SUGGESTIONS, JUST LET US KNOW. WE AWAIT WORD FROM YOU WITH GREAT INTEREST.
SS II
By now, Kaiser had accepted what had happened to him. His distress and anxiety were gone and he was impatient to do what he could to establish better contact with his uninvited tenant. With eager anticipation, he set to thinking how it could be done. After a few minutes, an idea occurred to him.
Taking a small scalpel from a medical kit, he made a shallow cut in his arm, just deep enough to bleed freely. He knew that the pain would supply the necessary glandular reaction. The cut bled a few slow drops—and as Kaiser watched, a shiny film formed and the bleeding stopped.
That checked pretty well with the ship's theory.
Perhaps the symbiote had made his senses more acute. He tried closing his eyes and fingering several objects in the room. It seemed to him that he could determine the texture of each better than before, but the test was inconclusive. Walking to the rear of the scout, he tried reading the printed words on the instrument panel. Each letter stood out sharp and clear!
Kaiser wondered if he might not make an immediate, practical use of the symbiote's apparent desire to help him. Concentrating on the discomfort of the high humidity and exaggerating his own displeasure with it, he waited. The result surprised and pleased him.
The temperature within the scout cabin seemed to lower, the moisture on his body vanished, and he was more comfortable than he had yet been here.
As a double check, he looked at the ship's thermometer. Temperature
102, humidity 113—just about the same as it had been on earlier readings.
During the next twenty-four hours, Kaiser and the mother ship exchanged messages at regular six-hour intervals. In between, he worked at repairing the damaged scout. He had no more success than before.
He tired easily and lay on the cot often to rest. Each time he seemed to drop off to sleep immediately—and awake at the exact times he had decided on beforehand. At first, despite the lack of success in straightening the bent metal of the scout bottom, there had been a subdued exhilaration in reporting each new discovery concerning the symbiote, but as time passed, his enthusiasm ebbed. His one really important problem was how to repair the scout and he was fast becoming discouraged.
At last Kaiser could bear the futility of his efforts no longer. He sent out a terse message to the Soscites II :
TAKING SHORT TRIP TO ANOTHER LOCATION ON RIVER. HOPE TO FIND MORE INTELLIGENT NATIVES. COULD BE THAT THE SETTLEMENT I FOUND HERE IS ANALOGOUS TO TRIBE OF MONKEYS ON EARTH. I KNOW THE CHANCE IS SMALL, BUT WHAT HAVE I TO LOSE? I CAN'T FIX SCOUT WITHOUT BETTER TOOLS, AND IF MY GUESS IS RIGHT, I MAY BE ABLE TO GET EQUIPMENT. EXPECT TO RETURN IN TEN OR TWELVE HOURS. PLEASE KEEP CONTACT WITH SCOUT.
SMOKY
Kaiser packed a mudsled with tent, portable generator and guard wires, a spare sidearm and ammunition, and food for two days. He had noticed that a range of high hills, which caused the bend in the river at the native settlement, seemed to continue its long curve, and he wondered if the hills might not turn the river in the shape of a giant horseshoe. He intended to find out.
Wrapping his equipment in a plastic tarp, Kaiser eased it out the doorway and tied it on the sled. He hooked a towline to a harness on his shoulders and began his journey—in the opposite direction from the first native settlement.
He walked for more than seven hours before he found that his surmise had been correct. And a second cluster of huts, and seal-people in the river, greeted his sight. He received a further pleasant surprise. This group was decidedly more advanced than the first!
They were little different in actual physical appearance; the change was mainly noticeable in their actions and demeanor. And their odor was more subdued, less repugnant.
By signs, Kaiser indicated that he came in peace, and they seemed to understand. A thick-bodied male went solemnly to the river bank and called to a second, who dived and brought up a mouthful of weed. The first male took the weed and brought it to Kaiser. This was obviously a gesture of friendship.
The weed had a white starchy core and looked edible. Kaiser cleaned part of it with his handkerchief, bit and chewed it.
The weed had a slight iron taste, but was not unpalatable. He swallowed the mouthful and tried another. He ate most of what had been given him and waited with some trepidation for a reaction.
As dusk fell, Kaiser set up his tent a few hundred yards back from the native settlement. All apprehension about how his stomach would react to the river weed had left him. Apparently it could be assimilated by his digestive system. Lying on his air mattress, he felt thoroughly at peace with this world.
Once, just before dropping off to sleep, he heard the snuffling noise of some large animal outside his tent and picked up a pistol, just in case. However, the first jolt of the guard-wire charge discouraged the beast and Kaiser heard it shuffle away, making puzzled mewing sounds as it went.
The next morning, Kaiser left off all his clothes except a pair of shorts and went swimming in the river. The seal-people were already in the water when he arrived and were very friendly.
That friendliness nearly resulted in disaster. The natives crowded around as he swam—they maneuvered with an otter-like proficiency—and often nudged him with their bodies when they came too close. He had difficulty keeping afloat and soon turned and started back. As he neared the river edge, a playful female grabbed him by the ankle and pulled him under.
Kaiser tried to break her hold, but she evidently thought he was clowning and wrapped her warm furred arms around him and held him helpless. They sank deeper.
When his breath threatened to burst from his lungs in a stream of bubbles, and he still could not free himself, Kaiser brought his knee up into her stomach and her grip loosened abruptly. He reached the surface, choking and coughing, and swam blindly toward shore until his feet hit the river bottom.
As he stood on the bank, getting his breath, the natives were quiet and seemed to be looking at him reproachfully. He stood for a time, trying to think of a way to explain the necessity of what he had done, but there was none. He shrugged helplessly.
There was no longer anything to be gained by staying here—if they had the tools he needed, he had no way of finding out or asking for them—and he packed and started back to the scout.
Kaiser's good spirits returned on his return journey. He had enjoyed the relief from the tedium of spending day after day in the scout, and now he enjoyed the exercise of pulling the mudsled. Above the waist, he wore only the harness and the large, soft drops of rain against his bare skin were pleasant to feel.
When he reached the scout, Kaiser began to unload the sled. The tarpaulin caught on the edge of a runner and he gave it a tug to free it. To his amazement, the heavy sled turned completely over, spilling the equipment to the ground.
Perplexed, Kaiser stooped and began replacing the spilled articles in the tarp. They felt exceptionally light. He paused again, and suddenly his eyes widened.
Moving quickly to the door of the scout, he shoved his equipment through and crawled in behind it. He did not consult the communicator, as he customarily did on entering, but went directly to the warped place on the floor and picked up the crowbar he had laid there.
Inserting the bar between the metal of the scout bottom and the engine casing, he lifted. Nothing happened. He rested a minute and tried again, this time concentrating on his desire to raise the bar. The metal beneath yielded slightly—but he felt the palms of his hands bruise against the lever.
Only after he dropped the bar did he realize the force he had exerted. His hands ached and tingled. His strength must have been increased tremendously. With his plastic coat wrapped around the lever, he tried again. The metal of the scout bottom gave slowly—until the fuel pump hung free!
Kaiser did not repair the tube immediately. He let the solution rest in his hands, like a package to be opened, the pleasure of its anticipation to be enjoyed as much as the final act.
He transmitted the news of what he had been able to do and sat down to read the two messages waiting for him.
The first was quite routine:
REPORTS FROM THE OCTOPUS INDICATE THAT BIG MUDDY UNDERGOES RADICAL WEATHER-CYCLE CHANGES DURING SPRING AND FALL SEASONS, FROM EXTREME MOISTURE TO EXTREME ARIDITY. AT HEIGHT OF DRY SEASON, PLANET MUST BE COMPLETELY DEVOID OF SURFACE LIQUID.
TO SURVIVE THESE UNUSUAL EXTREMES, SEAL-PEOPLE WOULD NEED EXTREME ADAPTABILITY. THIS VERIFIES OUR EARLIER GUESS THAT NATIVES HAVE SYMBIOSIS WITH THE SAME VIRUS FORM THAT INVADED YOU. WITH SYMBIOTES' AID, SUCH RADICAL PHYSICAL CHANGE COULD BE POSSIBLE. WILL KEEP YOU INFORMED.
GIVE US ANY NEW INFORMATION YOU MIGHT HAVE ON NATIVES.
SS II
The second report was not so routine. Kaiser thought he detected a note of uneasiness in it.
SUGGEST YOU DEVOTE ALL TIME AND EFFORT TO REPAIR OF SCOUT. INFORMATION ON SEAL-PEOPLE ADEQUATE FOR OUR PURPOSES.
SS II
Kaiser did not answer either communication. His earlier report had covered all that he had learned lately. He lay on his cot and went to sleep.
In the morning, another message was waiting:
VERY PLEASED TO HEAR OF PROGRESS ON REPAIR OF SCOUT. COMPLETE AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE AND RETURN HERE IMMEDIATELY.
SS II
Kaiser wondered about the abrupt recall. Could the Soscites II be experiencing some difficulty? He shrugged the thought aside. If they were, they would have told him. The last notes had had more than just a suggestion of urgency—there appeared to be a deliberate concealing of information.
Strangely, the messages indicated need for haste did not prod Kaiser. He knew now that the job could be done, perhaps in a few hours' time. And the Soscites II would not complete its orbit of the planet for two weeks yet.
Without putting on more than the shirt and trousers he had grown used to wearing, Kaiser went outside and wandered listlessly about the vicinity of the ship for several hours. When he became hungry, he went back inside.
Another message came in as he finished eating. This one was from the captain himself:
WHY HAVE WE RECEIVED NO VERIFICATION OF LAST INSTRUCTIONS? REPAIR SCOUT IMMEDIATELY AND RETURN WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY. THIS IS AN ORDER!
H. A. HESSE, CAPT.
Kaiser pushed the last of his meal—which he had been eating with his fingers—into his mouth, crumpled the tape, wiped the grease from his hands with it and dropped it to the floor.
He pondered mildly, as he packed his equipment, why he was disregarding the captain's message. For some reason, it seemed too trivial for serious consideration. He placated his slightly uneasy conscience only to the extent of packing the communicator in with his other equipment. It was a self-contained unit and he'd be able to receive messages from the ship on his trip.
The tracks of his earlier journey had been erased by the soft rain, and when Kaiser reached the river, he found that he had not returned to the village he had visited the day before. However, there were other seal-people here.
And they were almost human!
The resemblance was still not so much in their physical makeup—that was little changed from the first he had found—as in their obviously greater intelligence.
This was mainly noticeable in their facile expressions as they talked. Kaiser was even certain that he read smiles on their faces when he slipped on a particularly slick mud patch as he hurried toward them. Where the members of the first tribes had all looked almost exactly alike, these had very marked individual characteristics. Also, these had no odor—only a mild, rather pleasing scent. When they came to meet him, Kaiser could detect distinct syllabism in their pipings.
Most of the natives returned to the river after the first ten minutes of curious inspection, but two stayed behind as Kaiser set up his tent.
One was a female.
They made small noises while he went about his work. After a time, he understood that they were trying to give names to his paraphernalia. He tried saying "tent" and "wire" and "tarp" as he handled each object, but their piping voices could not repeat the words. Kaiser amused himself by trying to imitate their sounds for the articles. He was fairly successful. He was certain that he could soon learn enough to carry on a limited conversation.
The male became bored after a time and left, but the girl stayed until Kaiser finished. She motioned to him then to follow. When they reached the river bank, he saw that she wanted him to go into the water.
Before he had time to decide, Kaiser heard the small bell of the communicator from the tent behind him. He stood undecided for a moment, then returned and read the message on the tape:
STILL ANXIOUSLY AWAITING WORD FROM YOU.
IN MEANTIME, GIVE VERY CLOSE ATTENTION TO FOLLOWING.
WE KNOW THAT THE SYMBIOTES MUST BE ABLE TO MAKE RADICAL CHANGES IN THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE SEAL-PEOPLE. THERE IS EVERY PROBABILITY THAT YOURS WILL ATTEMPT TO DO THE SAME TO YOU—TO BETTER FIT YOUR BODY TO ITS PRESENT ENVIRONMENT.
THE DANGER, WHICH WE HESITATED TO MENTION UNTIL NOW—WHEN YOU HAVE FORCED US BY YOUR OBSTINATE SILENCE—IS THAT IT CAN ALTER YOUR MIND ALSO. YOUR REPORT ON SECOND TRIBE OF SEAL-PEOPLE STRONGLY INDICATES THAT THIS IS ALREADY HAPPENING. THEY WERE PROBABLY NOT MORE INTELLIGENT AND HUMANLIKE THAN THE OTHERS. ON THE CONTRARY, YOU ARE BECOMING MORE LIKE THEM.
DANGER ACUTE. RETURN IMMEDIATELY. REPEAT: IMMEDIATELY!
SS II
Kaiser picked up a large rock and slowly, methodically pounded the communicator into a flattened jumble of metal and loose parts.
When he finished, he returned to the waiting girl on the river bank. She pointed at his plastic trousers and made laughing sounds in her throat. Kaiser returned the laugh and stripped off the trousers. They ran, still laughing, into the water.
Already the long pink hair that had been growing on his body during the past week was beginning to turn brown at the roots.
|
What is the significance of the principle of mental privacy?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Dr. Kometevsky's Day by Fritz Leiber.
Relevant chunks:
DR. KOMETEVSKY'S DAY
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by DAVID STONE
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Before science, there was superstition. After science, there will be ... what? The biggest, most staggering , most final fact of them all!
"But it's all predicted here! It even names this century for the next reshuffling of the planets."
Celeste Wolver looked up unwillingly at the book her friend Madge Carnap held aloft like a torch. She made out the ill-stamped title, The Dance of the Planets . There was no mistaking the time of its origin; only paper from the Twentieth Century aged to that particularly nasty shade of brown. Indeed, the book seemed to Celeste a brown old witch resurrected from the Last Age of Madness to confound a world growing sane, and she couldn't help shrinking back a trifle toward her husband Theodor.
He tried to come to her rescue. "Only predicted in the vaguest way. As I understand it, Kometevsky claimed, on the basis of a lot of evidence drawn from folklore, that the planets and their moons trade positions every so often."
"As if they were playing Going to Jerusalem, or musical chairs," Celeste chimed in, but she couldn't make it sound funny.
"Jupiter was supposed to have started as the outermost planet, and is to end up in the orbit of Mercury," Theodor continued. "Well, nothing at all like that has happened."
"But it's begun," Madge said with conviction. "Phobos and Deimos have disappeared. You can't argue away that stubborn little fact."
That was the trouble; you couldn't. Mars' two tiny moons had simply vanished during a period when, as was generally the case, the eyes of astronomy weren't on them. Just some hundred-odd cubic miles of rock—the merest cosmic flyspecks—yet they had carried away with them the security of a whole world.
Looking at the lovely garden landscape around her, Celeste Wolver felt that in a moment the shrubby hills would begin to roll like waves, the charmingly aimless paths twist like snakes and sink in the green sea, the sparsely placed skyscrapers dissolve into the misty clouds they pierced.
People must have felt like this , she thought, when Aristarches first hinted and Copernicus told them that the solid Earth under their feet was falling dizzily through space. Only it's worse for us, because they couldn't see that anything had changed. We can.
"You need something to cling to," she heard Madge say. "Dr. Kometevsky was the only person who ever had an inkling that anything like this might happen. I was never a Kometevskyite before. Hadn't even heard of the man."
She said it almost apologetically. In fact, standing there so frank and anxious-eyed, Madge looked anything but a fanatic, which made it much worse.
"Of course, there are several more convincing alternate explanations...." Theodor began hesitantly, knowing very well that there weren't. If Phobos and Deimos had suddenly disintegrated, surely Mars Base would have noticed something. Of course there was the Disordered Space Hypothesis, even if it was little more than the chance phrase of a prominent physicist pounded upon by an eager journalist. And in any case, what sense of security were you left with if you admitted that moons and planets might explode, or drop through unseen holes in space? So he ended up by taking a different tack: "Besides, if Phobos and Deimos simply shot off somewhere, surely they'd have been picked up by now by 'scope or radar."
"Two balls of rock just a few miles in diameter?" Madge questioned.
"Aren't they smaller than many of the asteroids? I'm no astronomer, but I think' I'm right."
And of course she was.
She swung the book under her arm. "Whew, it's heavy," she observed, adding in slightly scandalized tones, "Never been microfilmed." She smiled nervously and looked them up and down. "Going to a party?" she asked.
Theodor's scarlet cloak and Celeste's green culottes and silver jacket justified the question, but they shook their heads.
"Just the normally flamboyant garb of the family," Celeste said, while Theodor explained, "As it happens, we're bound on business connected with the disappearance. We Wolvers practically constitute a sub-committee of the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes. And since a lot of varied material comes to our attention, we're going to see if any of it correlates with this bit of astronomical sleight-of-hand."
Madge nodded. "Give you something to do, at any rate. Well, I must be off. The Buddhist temple has lent us their place for a meeting." She gave them a woeful grin. "See you when the Earth jumps."
Theodor said to Celeste, "Come on, dear. We'll be late."
But Celeste didn't want to move too fast. "You know, Teddy," she said uncomfortably, "all this reminds me of those old myths where too much good fortune is a sure sign of coming disaster. It was just too much luck, our great-grandparents missing World III and getting the World Government started a thousand years ahead of schedule. Luck like that couldn't last, evidently. Maybe we've gone too fast with a lot of things, like space-flight and the Deep Shaft and—" she hesitated a bit—"complex marriages. I'm a woman. I want complete security. Where am I to find it?"
"In me," Theodor said promptly.
"In you?" Celeste questioned, walking slowly. "But you're just one-third of my husband. Perhaps I should look for it in Edmund or Ivan."
"You angry with me about something?"
"Of course not. But a woman wants her source of security whole. In a crisis like this, it's disturbing to have it divided."
"Well, we are a whole and, I believe, indivisible family," Theodor told her warmly. "You're not suggesting, are you, that we're going to be punished for our polygamous sins by a cosmic catastrophe? Fire from Heaven and all that?"
"Don't be silly. I just wanted to give you a picture of my feeling." Celeste smiled. "I guess none of us realized how much we've come to depend on the idea of unchanging scientific law. Knocks the props from under you."
Theodor nodded emphatically. "All the more reason to get a line on what's happening as quickly as possible. You know, it's fantastically far-fetched, but I think the experience of persons with Extra-Sensory Perception may give us a clue. During the past three or four days there's been a remarkable similarity in the dreams of ESPs all over the planet. I'm going to present the evidence at the meeting."
Celeste looked up at him. "So that's why Rosalind's bringing Frieda's daughter?"
"Dotty is your daughter, too, and Rosalind's," Theodor reminded her.
"No, just Frieda's," Celeste said bitterly. "Of course you may be the father. One-third of a chance."
Theodor looked at her sharply, but didn't comment. "Anyway, Dotty will be there," he said. "Probably asleep by now. All the ESPs have suddenly seemed to need more sleep."
As they talked, it had been growing darker, though the luminescence of the path kept it from being bothersome. And now the cloud rack parted to the east, showing a single red planet low on the horizon.
"Did you know," Theodor said suddenly, "that in Gulliver's Travels Dean Swift predicted that better telescopes would show Mars to have two moons? He got the sizes and distances and periods damned accurately, too. One of the few really startling coincidences of reality and literature."
"Stop being eerie," Celeste said sharply. But then she went on, "Those names Phobos and Deimos—they're Greek, aren't they? What do they mean?"
Theodor lost a step. "Fear and Terror," he said unwillingly. "Now don't go taking that for an omen. Most of the mythological names of major and minor ancient gods had been taken—the bodies in the Solar System are named that way, of course—and these were about all that were available."
It was true, but it didn't comfort him much.
I am a God , Dotty was dreaming, and I want to be by myself and think. I and my god-friends like to keep some of our thoughts secret, but the other gods have forbidden us to.
A little smile flickered across the lips of the sleeping girl, and the woman in gold tights and gold-spangled jacket leaned forward thoughtfully. In her dignity and simplicity and straight-spined grace, she was rather like a circus mother watching her sick child before she went out for the trapeze act.
I and my god-friends sail off in our great round silver boats , Dotty went on dreaming. The other gods are angry and scared. They are frightened of the thoughts we may think in secret. They follow us to hunt us down. There are many more of them than of us.
As Celeste and Theodor entered the committee room, Rosalind Wolver—a glitter of platinum against darkness—came in through the opposite door and softly shut it behind her. Frieda, a fair woman in blue robes, got up from the round table.
Celeste turned away with outward casualness as Theodor kissed his two other wives. She was pleased to note that Edmund seemed impatient too. A figure in close-fitting black, unrelieved except for two red arrows at the collar, he struck her as embodying very properly the serious, fateful temper of the moment.
He took two briefcases from his vest pocket and tossed them down on the table beside one of the microfilm projectors.
"I suggest we get started without waiting for Ivan," he said.
Frieda frowned anxiously. "It's ten minutes since he phoned from the Deep Space Bar to say he was starting right away. And that's hardly a two minutes walk."
Rosalind instantly started toward the outside door.
"I'll check," she explained. "Oh, Frieda, I've set the mike so you'll hear if Dotty calls."
Edmund threw up his hands. "Very well, then," he said and walked over, switched on the picture and stared out moodily.
Theodor and Frieda got out their briefcases, switched on projectors, and began silently checking through their material.
Celeste fiddled with the TV and got a newscast. But she found her eyes didn't want to absorb the blocks of print that rather swiftly succeeded each other, so, after a few moments, she shrugged impatiently and switched to audio.
At the noise, the others looked around at her with surprise and some irritation, but in a few moments they were also listening.
"The two rocket ships sent out from Mars Base to explore the orbital positions of Phobos and Deimos—that is, the volume of space they'd be occupying if their positions had remained normal—report finding masses of dust and larger debris. The two masses of fine debris are moving in the same orbits and at the same velocities as the two vanished moons, and occupy roughly the same volumes of space, though the mass of material is hardly a hundredth that of the moons. Physicists have ventured no statements as to whether this constitutes a confirmation of the Disintegration Hypothesis.
"However, we're mighty pleased at this news here. There's a marked lessening of tension. The finding of the debris—solid, tangible stuff—seems to lift the whole affair out of the supernatural miasma in which some of us have been tempted to plunge it. One-hundredth of the moons has been found.
"The rest will also be!"
Edmund had turned his back on the window. Frieda and Theodor had switched off their projectors.
"Meanwhile, Earthlings are going about their business with a minimum of commotion, meeting with considerable calm the strange threat to the fabric of their Solar System. Many, of course, are assembled in churches and humanist temples. Kometevskyites have staged helicopter processions at Washington, Peking, Pretoria, and Christiana, demanding that instant preparations be made for—and I quote—'Earth's coming leap through space.' They have also formally challenged all astronomers to produce an explanation other than the one contained in that strange book so recently conjured from oblivion, The Dance of the Planets .
"That about winds up the story for the present. There are no new reports from Interplanetary Radar, Astronomy, or the other rocket ships searching in the extended Mars volume. Nor have any statements been issued by the various groups working on the problem in Astrophysics, Cosmic Ecology, the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes, and so forth. Meanwhile, however, we can take courage from the words of a poem written even before Dr. Kometevsky's book:
"This Earth is not the steadfast place
We landsmen build upon;
From deep to deep she varies pace,
And while she comes is gone.
Beneath my feet I feel
Her smooth bulk heave and dip;
With velvet plunge and soft upreel
She swings and steadies to her keel
Like a gallant, gallant ship."
While the TV voice intoned the poem, growing richer as emotion caught it up, Celeste looked around her at the others. Frieda, with her touch of feminine helplessness showing more than ever through her business-like poise. Theodor leaning forward from his scarlet cloak thrown back, smiling the half-smile with which he seemed to face even the unknown. Black Edmund, masking a deep uncertainty with a strong show of decisiveness.
In short, her family. She knew their every quirk and foible. And yet now they seemed to her a million miles away, figures seen through the wrong end of a telescope.
Were they really a family? Strong sources of mutual strength and security to each other? Or had they merely been playing family, experimenting with their notions of complex marriage like a bunch of silly adolescents? Butterflies taking advantage of good weather to wing together in a glamorous, artificial dance—until outraged Nature decided to wipe them out?
As the poem was ending, Celeste saw the door open and Rosalind come slowly in. The Golden Woman's face was white as the paths she had been treading.
Just then the TV voice quickened with shock. "News! Lunar Observatory One reports that, although Jupiter is just about to pass behind the Sun, a good coronagraph of the planet has been obtained. Checked and rechecked, it admits of only one interpretation, which Lunar One feels duty-bound to release. Jupiter's fourteen moons are no longer visible! "
The chorus of remarks with which the Wolvers would otherwise have received this was checked by one thing: the fact that Rosalind seemed not to hear it. Whatever was on her mind prevented even that incredible statement from penetrating.
She walked shakily to the table and put down a briefcase, one end of which was smudged with dirt.
Without looking at them, she said, "Ivan left the Deep Space Bar twenty minutes ago, said he was coming straight here. On my way back I searched the path. Midway I found this half-buried in the dirt. I had to tug to get it out—almost as if it had been cemented into the ground. Do you feel how the dirt seems to be in the leather, as if it had lain for years in the grave?"
By now the others were fingering the small case of microfilms they had seen so many times in Ivan's competent hands. What Rosalind said was true. It had a gritty, unwholesome feel to it. Also, it felt strangely heavy.
"And see what's written on it," she added.
They turned it over. Scrawled with white pencil in big, hasty, frantic letters were two words:
"Going down!"
The other gods , Dotty dreamt, are combing the whole Universe for us. We have escaped them many times, but now our tricks are almost used up. There are no doors going out of the Universe and our boats are silver beacons to the hunters. So we decide to disguise them in the only way they can be disguised. It is our last chance.
Edmund rapped the table to gain the family's attention. "I'd say we've done everything we can for the moment to find Ivan. We've made a thorough local search. A wider one, which we can't conduct personally, is in progress. All helpful agencies have been alerted and descriptions are being broadcast. I suggest we get on with the business of the evening—which may very well be connected with Ivan's disappearance."
One by one the others nodded and took their places at the round table. Celeste made a great effort to throw off the feeling of unreality that had engulfed her and focus attention on her microfilms.
"I'll take over Ivan's notes," she heard Edmund say. "They're mainly about the Deep Shaft."
"How far have they got with that?" Frieda asked idly. "Twenty-five miles?"
"Nearer thirty, I believe," Edmund answered, "and still going down."
At those last two words they all looked up quickly. Then their eyes went toward Ivan's briefcase.
Our trick has succeeded , Dotty dreamt. The other gods have passed our hiding place a dozen times without noticing. They search the Universe for us many times in vain. They finally decide that we have found a door going out of the Universe. Yet they fear us all the more. They think of us as devils who will some day return through the door to destroy them. So they watch everywhere. We lie quietly smiling in our camouflaged boats, yet hardly daring to move or think, for fear that the faintest echoes of our doings will give them a clue. Hundreds of millions of years pass by. They seem to us no more than drugged hours in a prison.
Theodor rubbed his eyes and pushed his chair back from the table. "We need a break."
Frieda agreed wearily. "We've gone through everything."
"Good idea," Edmund said briskly. "I think we've hit on several crucial points along the way and half disentangled them from the great mass of inconsequential material. I'll finish up that part of the job right now and present my case when we're all a bit fresher. Say half an hour?"
Theodor nodded heavily, pushing up from his chair and hitching his cloak over a shoulder.
"I'm going out for a drink," he informed them.
After several hesitant seconds, Rosalind quietly followed him. Frieda stretched out on a couch and closed her eyes. Edmund scanned microfilms tirelessly, every now and then setting one aside.
Celeste watched him for a minute, then sprang up and started toward the room where Dotty was asleep. But midway she stopped.
Not my child , she thought bitterly. Frieda's her mother, Rosalind her nurse. I'm nothing at all. Just one of the husband's girl friends. A lady of uneasy virtue in a dissolving world.
But then she straightened her shoulders and went on.
Rosalind didn't catch up with Theodor. Her footsteps were silent and he never looked back along the path whose feeble white glow rose only knee-high, lighting a low strip of shrub and mossy tree trunk to either side, no more.
It was a little chilly. She drew on her gloves, but she didn't hurry. In fact, she fell farther and farther behind the dipping tail of his scarlet cloak and his plodding red shoes, which seemed to move disembodied, like those in the fairy tale.
When she reached the point where she had found Ivan's briefcase, she stopped altogether.
A breeze rustled the leaves, and, moistly brushing her cheek, brought forest scents of rot and mold. After a bit she began to hear the furtive scurryings and scuttlings of forest creatures.
She looked around her half-heartedly, suddenly realizing the futility of her quest. What clues could she hope to find in this knee-high twilight? And they'd thoroughly combed the place earlier in the night.
Without warning, an eerie tingling went through her and she was seized by a horror of the cold, grainy Earth underfoot—an ancestral terror from the days when men shivered at ghost stories about graves and tombs.
A tiny detail persisted in bulking larger and larger in her mind—the unnaturalness of the way the Earth had impregnated the corner of Ivan's briefcase, almost as if dirt and leather co-existed in the same space. She remembered the queer way the partly buried briefcase had resisted her first tug, like a rooted plant.
She felt cowed by the mysterious night about her, and literally dwarfed, as if she had grown several inches shorter. She roused herself and started forward.
Something held her feet.
They were ankle-deep in the path. While she looked in fright and horror, they began to sink still lower into the ground.
She plunged frantically, trying to jerk loose. She couldn't. She had the panicky feeling that the Earth had not only trapped but invaded her; that its molecules were creeping up between the molecules of her flesh; that the two were becoming one.
And she was sinking faster. Now knee-deep, thigh-deep, hip-deep, waist-deep. She beat at the powdery path with her hands and threw her body from side to side in agonized frenzy like some sinner frozen in the ice of the innermost circle of the ancients' hell. And always the sense of the dark, grainy tide rose inside as well as around her.
She thought, he'd just have had time to scribble that note on his briefcase and toss it away. She jerked off a glove, leaned out as far as she could, and made a frantic effort to drive its fingers into the powdery path. Then the Earth mounted to her chin, her nose, and covered her eyes.
She expected blackness, but it was as if the light of the path stayed with her, making a little glow all around. She saw roots, pebbles, black rot, worn tunnels, worms. Tier on tier of them, her vision penetrating the solid ground. And at the same time, the knowledge that these same sorts of things were coursing up through her.
And still she continued to sink at a speed that increased, as if the law of gravitation applied to her in a diminished way. She dropped from black soil through gray clay and into pale limestone.
Her tortured, rock-permeated lungs sucked at rock and drew in air. She wondered madly if a volume of air were falling with her through the stone.
A glitter of quartz. The momentary openness of a foot-high cavern with a trickle of water. And then she was sliding down a black basalt column, half inside it, half inside gold-flecked ore. Then just black basalt. And always faster.
It grew hot, then hotter, as if she were approaching the mythical eternal fires.
At first glance Theodor thought the Deep Space Bar was empty. Then he saw a figure hunched monkeylike on the last stool, almost lost in the blue shadows, while behind the bar, her crystal dress blending with the tiers of sparkling glasses, stood a grave-eyed young girl who could hardly have been fifteen.
The TV was saying, "... in addition, a number of mysterious disappearances of high-rating individuals have been reported. These are thought to be cases of misunderstanding, illusory apprehension, and impulse traveling—a result of the unusual stresses of the time. Finally, a few suggestible individuals in various parts of the globe, especially the Indian Peninsula, have declared themselves to be 'gods' and in some way responsible for current events.
"It is thought—"
The girl switched off the TV and took Theodor's order, explaining casually, "Joe wanted to go to a Kometevskyite meeting, so I took over for him." When she had prepared Theodor's highball, she announced,
"I'll have a drink with you gentlemen," and squeezed herself a glass of pomegranate juice.
The monkeylike figure muttered, "Scotch-and-soda," then turned toward Edmund and asked, "And what is your reaction to all this, sir?"
Theodor recognized the shrunken wrinkle-seamed face. It was Colonel Fortescue, a military antique long retired from the Peace Patrol and reputed to have seen actual fighting in the Last Age of Madness. Now, for some reason, the face sported a knowing smile.
Theodor shrugged. Just then the TV "big news" light blinked blue and the girl switched on audio. The Colonel winked at Theodor.
"... confirming the disappearance of Jupiter's moons. But two other utterly fantastic reports have just been received. First, Lunar Observatory One says that it is visually tracking fourteen small bodies which it believes may be the lost moons of Jupiter. They are moving outward from the Solar System at an incredible velocity and are already beyond the orbit of Saturn!"
The Colonel said, "Ah!"
"Second, Palomar reports a large number of dark bodies approaching the Solar System at an equally incredible velocity. They are at about twice the distance of Pluto, but closing in fast! We will be on the air with further details as soon as possible."
The Colonel said, "Ah-ha!"
Theodor stared at him. The old man's self-satisfied poise was almost amusing.
"Are you a Kometevskyite?" Theodor asked him.
The Colonel laughed. "Of course not, my boy. Those poor people are fumbling in the dark. Don't you see what's happened?"
"Frankly, no."
The Colonel leaned toward Theodor and whispered gruffly, "The Divine Plan. God is a military strategist, naturally."
Then he lifted the scotch-and-soda in his clawlike hand and took a satisfying swallow.
"I knew it all along, of course," he went on musingly, "but this last news makes it as plain as a rocket blast, at least to anyone who knows military strategy. Look here, my boy, suppose you were commanding a fleet and got wind of the enemy's approach—what would you do? Why, you'd send your scouts and destroyers fanning out toward them. Behind that screen you'd mass your heavy ships. Then—"
"You don't mean to imply—" Theodor interrupted.
The girl behind the bar looked at them both cryptically.
"Of course I do!" the Colonel cut in sharply. "It's a war between the forces of good and evil. The bright suns and planets are on one side, the dark on the other. The moons are the destroyers, Jupiter and Saturn are the big battleships, while we're on a heavy cruiser, I'm proud to say. We'll probably go into action soon. Be a corking fight, what? And all by divine strategy!"
He chuckled and took another big drink. Theodor looked at him sourly. The girl behind the bar polished a glass and said nothing.
Dotty suddenly began to turn and toss, and a look of terror came over her sleeping face. Celeste leaned forward apprehensively.
The child's lips worked and Celeste made out the sleepy-fuzzy words:
"They've found out where we're hiding. They're coming to get us. No! Please, no!"
Celeste's reactions were mixed. She felt worried about Dotty and at the same time almost in terror of her, as if the little girl were an agent of supernatural forces. She told herself that this fear was an expression of her own hostility, yet she didn't really believe it. She touched the child's hand.
Dotty's eyes opened without making Celeste feel she had quite come awake. After a bit she looked at Celeste and her little lips parted in a smile.
"Hello," she said sleepily. "I've been having such funny dreams." Then, after a pause, frowning, "I really am a god, you know. It feels very queer."
"Yes, dear?" Celeste prompted uneasily. "Shall I call Frieda?"
The smile left Dotty's lips. "Why do you act so nervous around me?" she asked. "Don't you love me, Mummy?"
Celeste started at the word. Her throat closed. Then, very slowly, her face broke into a radiant smile. "Of course I do, darling. I love you very much."
Dotty nodded happily, her eyes already closed again.
There was a sudden flurry of excited voices beyond the door. Celeste heard her name called. She stood up.
"I'm going to have to go out and talk with the others," she said. "If you want me, dear, just call."
"Yes, Mummy."
Edmund rapped for attention. Celeste, Frieda, and Theodor glanced around at him. He looked more frightfully strained, they realized, than even they felt. His expression was a study in suppressed excitement, but there were also signs of a knowledge that was almost too overpowering for a human being to bear.
His voice was clipped, rapid. "I think it's about time we stopped worrying about our own affairs and thought of those of the Solar System, partly because I think they have a direct bearing on the disappearances of Ivan end Rosalind. As I told you, I've been sorting out the crucial items from the material we've been presenting. There are roughly four of those items, as I see it. It's rather like a mystery story. I wonder if, hearing those four clues, you will come to the same conclusion I have."
The others nodded.
"First, there are the latest reports from Deep Shaft, which, as you know, has been sunk to investigate deep-Earth conditions. At approximately twenty-nine miles below the surface, the delvers have encountered a metallic obstruction which they have tentatively named the durasphere. It resists their hardest drills, their strongest corrosives. They have extended a side-tunnel at that level for a quarter of a mile. Delicate measurements, made possible by the mirror-smooth metal surface, show that the durasphere has a slight curvature that is almost exactly equal to the curvature of the Earth itself. The suggestion is that deep borings made anywhere in the world would encounter the durasphere at the same depth.
"Second, the movements of the moons of Mars and Jupiter, and particularly the debris left behind by the moons of Mars. Granting Phobos and Deimos had duraspheres proportional in size to that of Earth, then the debris would roughly equal in amount the material in those two duraspheres' rocky envelopes. The suggestion is that the two duraspheres suddenly burst from their envelopes with such titanic velocity as to leave those disrupted envelopes behind."
It was deadly quiet in the committee room.
"Thirdly, the disappearances of Ivan and Rosalind, and especially the baffling hint—from Ivan's message in one case and Rosalind's downward-pointing glove in the other—that they were both somehow drawn into the depths of the Earth.
"Finally, the dreams of the ESPs, which agree overwhelmingly in the following points: A group of beings separate themselves from a godlike and telepathic race because they insist on maintaining a degree of mental privacy. They flee in great boats or ships of some sort. They are pursued on such a scale that there is no hiding place for them anywhere in the universe. In some manner they successfully camouflage their ships. Eons pass and their still-fanatical pursuers do not penetrate their secret. Then, suddenly, they are detected."
Edmund waited. "Do you see what I'm driving at?" he asked hoarsely.
He could tell from their looks that the others did, but couldn't bring
themselves to put it into words.
"I suppose it's the time-scale and the value-scale that are so hard for
us to accept," he said softly. "Much more, even, than the size-scale.
The thought that there are creatures in the Universe to whom the whole
career of Man—in fact, the whole career of life—is no more than a few
thousand or hundred thousand years. And to whom Man is no more than a
minor stage property—a trifling part of a clever job of camouflage."
This time he went on, "Fantasy writers have at times hinted all sorts
of odd things about the Earth—that it might even be a kind of single
living creature, or honeycombed with inhabited caverns, and so on.
But I don't know that any of them have ever suggested that the Earth,
together with all the planets and moons of the Solar System, might
be...."
In a whisper, Frieda finished for him, "... a camouflaged fleet of
gigantic spherical spaceships."
" Your guess happens to be the precise truth. "
At that familiar, yet dreadly unfamiliar voice, all four of them swung
toward the inner door. Dotty was standing there, a sleep-stupefied
little girl with a blanket caught up around her and dragging behind.
Their own daughter. But in her eyes was a look from which they cringed.
She said, "I am a creature somewhat older than what your geologists
call the Archeozoic Era. I am speaking to you through a number of
telepathically sensitive individuals among your kind. In each case my
thoughts suit themselves to your level of comprehension. I inhabit the
disguised and jetless spaceship which is your Earth."
Celeste swayed a step forward. "Baby...." she implored.
Dotty went on, without giving her a glance, "It is true that we planted
the seeds of life on some of these planets simply as part of our
camouflage, just as we gave them a suitable environment for each. And
it is true that now we must let most of that life be destroyed. Our
hiding place has been discovered, our pursuers are upon us, and we must
make one last effort to escape or do battle, since we firmly believe
that the principle of mental privacy to which we have devoted our
existence is perhaps the greatest good in the whole Universe.
"But it is not true that we look with contempt upon you. Our whole race
is deeply devoted to life, wherever it may come into being, and it is
our rule never to interfere with its development. That was one of
the reasons we made life a part of our camouflage—it would make our
pursuers reluctant to examine these planets too closely.
"Yes, we have always cherished you and watched your evolution with
interest from our hidden lairs. We may even unconsciously have shaped
your development in certain ways, trying constantly to educate you away
from war and finally succeeding—which may have given the betraying
clue to our pursuers.
"Your planets must be burst asunder—this particular planet in the
area of the Pacific—so that we may have our last chance to escape.
Even if we did not move, our pursuers would destroy you with us. We
cannot invite you inside our ships—not for lack of space, but because
you could never survive the vast accelerations to which you would be
subjected. You would, you see, need very special accommodations, of
which we have enough only for a few.
"Those few we will take with us, as the seed from which a new human
race may—if we ourselves somehow survive—be born."
Rosalind and Ivan stared dumbly at each other across the egg-shaped
silver room, without apparent entrance or exit, in which they were
sprawled. But their thoughts were no longer of thirty-odd mile
journeys down through solid earth, or of how cool it was after the
heat of the passage, or of how grotesque it was to be trapped here,
the fragment of a marriage. They were both listening to the voice that
spoke inside their minds.
"In a few minutes your bodies will be separated into layers one atom
thick, capable of being shelved or stored in such a way as to endure
almost infinite accelerations. Single cells will cover acres of space.
But do not be alarmed. The process will be painless and each particle
will be catalogued for future assembly. Your consciousness will endure
throughout the process."
Rosalind looked at her gold-shod toes. She was wondering, will they go
first, or my head? Or will I be peeled like an apple?
She looked at Ivan and knew he was thinking the same thing.
Up in the committee room, the other Wolvers slumped around the table.
Only little Dotty sat straight and staring, speechless and unanswering,
quite beyond their reach, like a telephone off the hook and with the
connection open, but no voice from the other end.
They had just switched off the TV after listening to a confused
medley of denials, prayers, Kometevskyite chatterings, and a few
astonishingly realistic comments on the possibility of survival.
These last pointed out that, on the side of the Earth opposite the
Pacific, the convulsions would come slowly when the entombed spaceship
burst forth—provided, as seemed the case, that it moved without jets
or reaction.
It would be as if the Earth's vast core simply vanished. Gravity would
diminish abruptly to a fraction of its former value. The empty envelope
of rock and water and air would slowly fall together, though at the
same time the air would begin to escape from the debris because there
would no longer be the mass required to hold it.
However, there might be definite chances of temporary and even
prolonged survival for individuals in strong, hermetically sealed
structures, such as submarines and spaceships. The few spaceships on
Earth were reported to have blasted off, or be preparing to leave, with
as many passengers as could be carried.
But most persons, apparently, could not contemplate action of any sort.
They could only sit and think, like the Wolvers.
A faint smile relaxed Celeste's face. She was thinking, how beautiful!
It means the death of the Solar System, which is a horrifying
subjective concept. Objectively, though, it would be a more awesome
sight than any human being has ever seen or ever could see. It's an
absurd and even brutal thing to wish—but I wish I could see the whole
cataclysm from beginning to end. It would make death seem very small, a
tiny personal event.
Dotty's face was losing its blank expression, becoming intent and
alarmed.
"We are in contact with our pursuers," she said in the
familiar-unfamiliar voice. "Negotiations are now going on. There
seems to be—there is a change in them. Where they were harsh and
vindictive before, they now are gentle and conciliatory." She paused,
the alarm on her childish features pinching into anxious uncertainty.
"Our pursuers have always been shrewd. The change in them may be false,
intended merely to lull us into allowing them to come close enough to
destroy us. We must not fall into the trap by growing hopeful...."
They leaned forward, clutching hands, watching the little face as
though it were a television screen. Celeste had the wild feeling that
she was listening to a communique from a war so unthinkably vast and
violent, between opponents so astronomically huge and nearly immortal,
that she felt like no more than a reasoning ameba ... and then realized
with an explosive urge to laugh that that was exactly the situation.
"No!" said Dotty. Her eyes began to glow. "They have changed! During
the eons in which we lay sealed away and hidden from them, knowing
nothing of them, they have rebelled against the tyranny of a communal
mind to which no thoughts are private ... the tyranny that we ourselves
fled to escape. They come not to destroy us, but to welcome us back to
a society that we and they can make truly great!"
Frieda collapsed to a chair, trembling between laughter and hysterical
weeping. Theodor looked as blank as Dotty had while waiting for words
to speak. Edmund sprang to the picture window, Celeste toward the TV
set.
Climbing shakily out of the chair, Frieda stumbled to the picture
window and peered out beside Edmund. She saw lights bobbing along the
paths with a wild excitement.
On the TV screen, Celeste watched two brightly lit ships spinning in
the sky—whether human spaceships or Phobos and Deimos come to help
Earth rejoice, she couldn't tell.
Dotty spoke again, the joy in her strange voice forcing them to turn.
"And you, dear children, creatures of our camouflage, we welcome
you—whatever your future career on these planets or like ones—into
the society of enlightened worlds! You need not feel small and alone
and helpless ever again, for we shall always be with you!"
The outer door opened. Ivan and Rosalind reeled in, drunkenly smiling,
arm in arm.
"Like rockets," Rosalind blurted happily. "We came through the
durasphere and solid rock ... shot up right to the surface."
"They didn't have to take us along," Ivan added with a bleary grin.
"But you know that already, don't you? They're too good to let you live
in fear, so they must have told you by now."
"Yes, we know," said Theodor. "They must be almost godlike in their
goodness. I feel ... calm."
Edmund nodded soberly. "Calmer than I ever felt before. It's knowing, I
suppose, that—well, we're not alone."
Dotty blinked and looked around and smiled at them all with a wholly
little-girl smile.
"Oh, Mummy," she said, and it was impossible to tell whether she spoke
to Frieda or Rosalind or Celeste, "I've just had the funniest dream."
"No, darling," said Rosalind gently, "it's we who had the dream. We've
just awakened."
Question:
What is the significance of the principle of mental privacy?
Answer:
|
[
"The incredibly old semi-god creatures escaped the tyranny of a communal mind to which no thoughts were private. These creatures believe in the principle of mental privacy, and that’s why they escaped and planted seeds of life on planets, including the Earth, as part of their camouflage. Humanity exists as a result of these actions, and it also may shrink in numbers since the creatures have been found by their pursuers and are ready to leave again, thus destroying the planet. The belief in this principle also allowed the enemies of these creatures to rebel against the communal mind and welcome them back to the society of enlightened worlds and let humans live. ",
"Mental privacy is one of the reasons that the species was being hunted. It is said in the story that the species was hunted because they wanted to maintain a degree of mental privacy that the hunters didn’t agree with. The species isn’t willing to compromise with the hunters, as they firmly believe in their mental privacy. At the end it is revealed that the hunters have in fact separated from a hive mind that they had, and that they are now looking for their own mental privacy. Because of this reason, they want to welcome them back into their society without any violence. ",
"There are superior, godlike creatures living in the core of Earth. Earth and other planets are the superior creatures’ battleships, and humans living on the Earth are their camouflage to escape from the search of their pursuers. The whole race of these superior creatures was under the tyranny of the communal mind that no private thoughts exist, which is why they escaped from it because they devoted themselves to the principle of mental privacy, which they believed is the greatest good in the Universe. Moreover, they have been hiding successfully under the camouflage of humans because the rule of the race is to never interfere with any life forms’ developments, which makes the pursuers reluctant to examine Earth closely for not to interfere with humans living on it. In short, the principle of mental privacy is significant in the story as it is the leading cause for the superior creature to escape from their pursuers and plant life on Earth, their battleship. Therefore, the story cannot develop without the principle.",
"The principle of mental privacy is significant because it is what the group of godlike and telepathic beings have tried to maintain to the point of separating themselves from their race. It is also the reason why the beings must create great boats and ships to flee in, camouflaging themselves in order to throw off the enemy pursuers. Mental privacy is also important because it allows people’s thoughts to remain their own without any other disturbances or possibly being forcefully shared. The godlike beings call it the greatest good in the universe because it is what they have stood for all their lives. It is also significant because without mental privacy, the godlike beings could control more things easily and become an even greater threat. "
] |
51353
|
DR. KOMETEVSKY'S DAY
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by DAVID STONE
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Before science, there was superstition. After science, there will be ... what? The biggest, most staggering , most final fact of them all!
"But it's all predicted here! It even names this century for the next reshuffling of the planets."
Celeste Wolver looked up unwillingly at the book her friend Madge Carnap held aloft like a torch. She made out the ill-stamped title, The Dance of the Planets . There was no mistaking the time of its origin; only paper from the Twentieth Century aged to that particularly nasty shade of brown. Indeed, the book seemed to Celeste a brown old witch resurrected from the Last Age of Madness to confound a world growing sane, and she couldn't help shrinking back a trifle toward her husband Theodor.
He tried to come to her rescue. "Only predicted in the vaguest way. As I understand it, Kometevsky claimed, on the basis of a lot of evidence drawn from folklore, that the planets and their moons trade positions every so often."
"As if they were playing Going to Jerusalem, or musical chairs," Celeste chimed in, but she couldn't make it sound funny.
"Jupiter was supposed to have started as the outermost planet, and is to end up in the orbit of Mercury," Theodor continued. "Well, nothing at all like that has happened."
"But it's begun," Madge said with conviction. "Phobos and Deimos have disappeared. You can't argue away that stubborn little fact."
That was the trouble; you couldn't. Mars' two tiny moons had simply vanished during a period when, as was generally the case, the eyes of astronomy weren't on them. Just some hundred-odd cubic miles of rock—the merest cosmic flyspecks—yet they had carried away with them the security of a whole world.
Looking at the lovely garden landscape around her, Celeste Wolver felt that in a moment the shrubby hills would begin to roll like waves, the charmingly aimless paths twist like snakes and sink in the green sea, the sparsely placed skyscrapers dissolve into the misty clouds they pierced.
People must have felt like this , she thought, when Aristarches first hinted and Copernicus told them that the solid Earth under their feet was falling dizzily through space. Only it's worse for us, because they couldn't see that anything had changed. We can.
"You need something to cling to," she heard Madge say. "Dr. Kometevsky was the only person who ever had an inkling that anything like this might happen. I was never a Kometevskyite before. Hadn't even heard of the man."
She said it almost apologetically. In fact, standing there so frank and anxious-eyed, Madge looked anything but a fanatic, which made it much worse.
"Of course, there are several more convincing alternate explanations...." Theodor began hesitantly, knowing very well that there weren't. If Phobos and Deimos had suddenly disintegrated, surely Mars Base would have noticed something. Of course there was the Disordered Space Hypothesis, even if it was little more than the chance phrase of a prominent physicist pounded upon by an eager journalist. And in any case, what sense of security were you left with if you admitted that moons and planets might explode, or drop through unseen holes in space? So he ended up by taking a different tack: "Besides, if Phobos and Deimos simply shot off somewhere, surely they'd have been picked up by now by 'scope or radar."
"Two balls of rock just a few miles in diameter?" Madge questioned.
"Aren't they smaller than many of the asteroids? I'm no astronomer, but I think' I'm right."
And of course she was.
She swung the book under her arm. "Whew, it's heavy," she observed, adding in slightly scandalized tones, "Never been microfilmed." She smiled nervously and looked them up and down. "Going to a party?" she asked.
Theodor's scarlet cloak and Celeste's green culottes and silver jacket justified the question, but they shook their heads.
"Just the normally flamboyant garb of the family," Celeste said, while Theodor explained, "As it happens, we're bound on business connected with the disappearance. We Wolvers practically constitute a sub-committee of the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes. And since a lot of varied material comes to our attention, we're going to see if any of it correlates with this bit of astronomical sleight-of-hand."
Madge nodded. "Give you something to do, at any rate. Well, I must be off. The Buddhist temple has lent us their place for a meeting." She gave them a woeful grin. "See you when the Earth jumps."
Theodor said to Celeste, "Come on, dear. We'll be late."
But Celeste didn't want to move too fast. "You know, Teddy," she said uncomfortably, "all this reminds me of those old myths where too much good fortune is a sure sign of coming disaster. It was just too much luck, our great-grandparents missing World III and getting the World Government started a thousand years ahead of schedule. Luck like that couldn't last, evidently. Maybe we've gone too fast with a lot of things, like space-flight and the Deep Shaft and—" she hesitated a bit—"complex marriages. I'm a woman. I want complete security. Where am I to find it?"
"In me," Theodor said promptly.
"In you?" Celeste questioned, walking slowly. "But you're just one-third of my husband. Perhaps I should look for it in Edmund or Ivan."
"You angry with me about something?"
"Of course not. But a woman wants her source of security whole. In a crisis like this, it's disturbing to have it divided."
"Well, we are a whole and, I believe, indivisible family," Theodor told her warmly. "You're not suggesting, are you, that we're going to be punished for our polygamous sins by a cosmic catastrophe? Fire from Heaven and all that?"
"Don't be silly. I just wanted to give you a picture of my feeling." Celeste smiled. "I guess none of us realized how much we've come to depend on the idea of unchanging scientific law. Knocks the props from under you."
Theodor nodded emphatically. "All the more reason to get a line on what's happening as quickly as possible. You know, it's fantastically far-fetched, but I think the experience of persons with Extra-Sensory Perception may give us a clue. During the past three or four days there's been a remarkable similarity in the dreams of ESPs all over the planet. I'm going to present the evidence at the meeting."
Celeste looked up at him. "So that's why Rosalind's bringing Frieda's daughter?"
"Dotty is your daughter, too, and Rosalind's," Theodor reminded her.
"No, just Frieda's," Celeste said bitterly. "Of course you may be the father. One-third of a chance."
Theodor looked at her sharply, but didn't comment. "Anyway, Dotty will be there," he said. "Probably asleep by now. All the ESPs have suddenly seemed to need more sleep."
As they talked, it had been growing darker, though the luminescence of the path kept it from being bothersome. And now the cloud rack parted to the east, showing a single red planet low on the horizon.
"Did you know," Theodor said suddenly, "that in Gulliver's Travels Dean Swift predicted that better telescopes would show Mars to have two moons? He got the sizes and distances and periods damned accurately, too. One of the few really startling coincidences of reality and literature."
"Stop being eerie," Celeste said sharply. But then she went on, "Those names Phobos and Deimos—they're Greek, aren't they? What do they mean?"
Theodor lost a step. "Fear and Terror," he said unwillingly. "Now don't go taking that for an omen. Most of the mythological names of major and minor ancient gods had been taken—the bodies in the Solar System are named that way, of course—and these were about all that were available."
It was true, but it didn't comfort him much.
I am a God , Dotty was dreaming, and I want to be by myself and think. I and my god-friends like to keep some of our thoughts secret, but the other gods have forbidden us to.
A little smile flickered across the lips of the sleeping girl, and the woman in gold tights and gold-spangled jacket leaned forward thoughtfully. In her dignity and simplicity and straight-spined grace, she was rather like a circus mother watching her sick child before she went out for the trapeze act.
I and my god-friends sail off in our great round silver boats , Dotty went on dreaming. The other gods are angry and scared. They are frightened of the thoughts we may think in secret. They follow us to hunt us down. There are many more of them than of us.
As Celeste and Theodor entered the committee room, Rosalind Wolver—a glitter of platinum against darkness—came in through the opposite door and softly shut it behind her. Frieda, a fair woman in blue robes, got up from the round table.
Celeste turned away with outward casualness as Theodor kissed his two other wives. She was pleased to note that Edmund seemed impatient too. A figure in close-fitting black, unrelieved except for two red arrows at the collar, he struck her as embodying very properly the serious, fateful temper of the moment.
He took two briefcases from his vest pocket and tossed them down on the table beside one of the microfilm projectors.
"I suggest we get started without waiting for Ivan," he said.
Frieda frowned anxiously. "It's ten minutes since he phoned from the Deep Space Bar to say he was starting right away. And that's hardly a two minutes walk."
Rosalind instantly started toward the outside door.
"I'll check," she explained. "Oh, Frieda, I've set the mike so you'll hear if Dotty calls."
Edmund threw up his hands. "Very well, then," he said and walked over, switched on the picture and stared out moodily.
Theodor and Frieda got out their briefcases, switched on projectors, and began silently checking through their material.
Celeste fiddled with the TV and got a newscast. But she found her eyes didn't want to absorb the blocks of print that rather swiftly succeeded each other, so, after a few moments, she shrugged impatiently and switched to audio.
At the noise, the others looked around at her with surprise and some irritation, but in a few moments they were also listening.
"The two rocket ships sent out from Mars Base to explore the orbital positions of Phobos and Deimos—that is, the volume of space they'd be occupying if their positions had remained normal—report finding masses of dust and larger debris. The two masses of fine debris are moving in the same orbits and at the same velocities as the two vanished moons, and occupy roughly the same volumes of space, though the mass of material is hardly a hundredth that of the moons. Physicists have ventured no statements as to whether this constitutes a confirmation of the Disintegration Hypothesis.
"However, we're mighty pleased at this news here. There's a marked lessening of tension. The finding of the debris—solid, tangible stuff—seems to lift the whole affair out of the supernatural miasma in which some of us have been tempted to plunge it. One-hundredth of the moons has been found.
"The rest will also be!"
Edmund had turned his back on the window. Frieda and Theodor had switched off their projectors.
"Meanwhile, Earthlings are going about their business with a minimum of commotion, meeting with considerable calm the strange threat to the fabric of their Solar System. Many, of course, are assembled in churches and humanist temples. Kometevskyites have staged helicopter processions at Washington, Peking, Pretoria, and Christiana, demanding that instant preparations be made for—and I quote—'Earth's coming leap through space.' They have also formally challenged all astronomers to produce an explanation other than the one contained in that strange book so recently conjured from oblivion, The Dance of the Planets .
"That about winds up the story for the present. There are no new reports from Interplanetary Radar, Astronomy, or the other rocket ships searching in the extended Mars volume. Nor have any statements been issued by the various groups working on the problem in Astrophysics, Cosmic Ecology, the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes, and so forth. Meanwhile, however, we can take courage from the words of a poem written even before Dr. Kometevsky's book:
"This Earth is not the steadfast place
We landsmen build upon;
From deep to deep she varies pace,
And while she comes is gone.
Beneath my feet I feel
Her smooth bulk heave and dip;
With velvet plunge and soft upreel
She swings and steadies to her keel
Like a gallant, gallant ship."
While the TV voice intoned the poem, growing richer as emotion caught it up, Celeste looked around her at the others. Frieda, with her touch of feminine helplessness showing more than ever through her business-like poise. Theodor leaning forward from his scarlet cloak thrown back, smiling the half-smile with which he seemed to face even the unknown. Black Edmund, masking a deep uncertainty with a strong show of decisiveness.
In short, her family. She knew their every quirk and foible. And yet now they seemed to her a million miles away, figures seen through the wrong end of a telescope.
Were they really a family? Strong sources of mutual strength and security to each other? Or had they merely been playing family, experimenting with their notions of complex marriage like a bunch of silly adolescents? Butterflies taking advantage of good weather to wing together in a glamorous, artificial dance—until outraged Nature decided to wipe them out?
As the poem was ending, Celeste saw the door open and Rosalind come slowly in. The Golden Woman's face was white as the paths she had been treading.
Just then the TV voice quickened with shock. "News! Lunar Observatory One reports that, although Jupiter is just about to pass behind the Sun, a good coronagraph of the planet has been obtained. Checked and rechecked, it admits of only one interpretation, which Lunar One feels duty-bound to release. Jupiter's fourteen moons are no longer visible! "
The chorus of remarks with which the Wolvers would otherwise have received this was checked by one thing: the fact that Rosalind seemed not to hear it. Whatever was on her mind prevented even that incredible statement from penetrating.
She walked shakily to the table and put down a briefcase, one end of which was smudged with dirt.
Without looking at them, she said, "Ivan left the Deep Space Bar twenty minutes ago, said he was coming straight here. On my way back I searched the path. Midway I found this half-buried in the dirt. I had to tug to get it out—almost as if it had been cemented into the ground. Do you feel how the dirt seems to be in the leather, as if it had lain for years in the grave?"
By now the others were fingering the small case of microfilms they had seen so many times in Ivan's competent hands. What Rosalind said was true. It had a gritty, unwholesome feel to it. Also, it felt strangely heavy.
"And see what's written on it," she added.
They turned it over. Scrawled with white pencil in big, hasty, frantic letters were two words:
"Going down!"
The other gods , Dotty dreamt, are combing the whole Universe for us. We have escaped them many times, but now our tricks are almost used up. There are no doors going out of the Universe and our boats are silver beacons to the hunters. So we decide to disguise them in the only way they can be disguised. It is our last chance.
Edmund rapped the table to gain the family's attention. "I'd say we've done everything we can for the moment to find Ivan. We've made a thorough local search. A wider one, which we can't conduct personally, is in progress. All helpful agencies have been alerted and descriptions are being broadcast. I suggest we get on with the business of the evening—which may very well be connected with Ivan's disappearance."
One by one the others nodded and took their places at the round table. Celeste made a great effort to throw off the feeling of unreality that had engulfed her and focus attention on her microfilms.
"I'll take over Ivan's notes," she heard Edmund say. "They're mainly about the Deep Shaft."
"How far have they got with that?" Frieda asked idly. "Twenty-five miles?"
"Nearer thirty, I believe," Edmund answered, "and still going down."
At those last two words they all looked up quickly. Then their eyes went toward Ivan's briefcase.
Our trick has succeeded , Dotty dreamt. The other gods have passed our hiding place a dozen times without noticing. They search the Universe for us many times in vain. They finally decide that we have found a door going out of the Universe. Yet they fear us all the more. They think of us as devils who will some day return through the door to destroy them. So they watch everywhere. We lie quietly smiling in our camouflaged boats, yet hardly daring to move or think, for fear that the faintest echoes of our doings will give them a clue. Hundreds of millions of years pass by. They seem to us no more than drugged hours in a prison.
Theodor rubbed his eyes and pushed his chair back from the table. "We need a break."
Frieda agreed wearily. "We've gone through everything."
"Good idea," Edmund said briskly. "I think we've hit on several crucial points along the way and half disentangled them from the great mass of inconsequential material. I'll finish up that part of the job right now and present my case when we're all a bit fresher. Say half an hour?"
Theodor nodded heavily, pushing up from his chair and hitching his cloak over a shoulder.
"I'm going out for a drink," he informed them.
After several hesitant seconds, Rosalind quietly followed him. Frieda stretched out on a couch and closed her eyes. Edmund scanned microfilms tirelessly, every now and then setting one aside.
Celeste watched him for a minute, then sprang up and started toward the room where Dotty was asleep. But midway she stopped.
Not my child , she thought bitterly. Frieda's her mother, Rosalind her nurse. I'm nothing at all. Just one of the husband's girl friends. A lady of uneasy virtue in a dissolving world.
But then she straightened her shoulders and went on.
Rosalind didn't catch up with Theodor. Her footsteps were silent and he never looked back along the path whose feeble white glow rose only knee-high, lighting a low strip of shrub and mossy tree trunk to either side, no more.
It was a little chilly. She drew on her gloves, but she didn't hurry. In fact, she fell farther and farther behind the dipping tail of his scarlet cloak and his plodding red shoes, which seemed to move disembodied, like those in the fairy tale.
When she reached the point where she had found Ivan's briefcase, she stopped altogether.
A breeze rustled the leaves, and, moistly brushing her cheek, brought forest scents of rot and mold. After a bit she began to hear the furtive scurryings and scuttlings of forest creatures.
She looked around her half-heartedly, suddenly realizing the futility of her quest. What clues could she hope to find in this knee-high twilight? And they'd thoroughly combed the place earlier in the night.
Without warning, an eerie tingling went through her and she was seized by a horror of the cold, grainy Earth underfoot—an ancestral terror from the days when men shivered at ghost stories about graves and tombs.
A tiny detail persisted in bulking larger and larger in her mind—the unnaturalness of the way the Earth had impregnated the corner of Ivan's briefcase, almost as if dirt and leather co-existed in the same space. She remembered the queer way the partly buried briefcase had resisted her first tug, like a rooted plant.
She felt cowed by the mysterious night about her, and literally dwarfed, as if she had grown several inches shorter. She roused herself and started forward.
Something held her feet.
They were ankle-deep in the path. While she looked in fright and horror, they began to sink still lower into the ground.
She plunged frantically, trying to jerk loose. She couldn't. She had the panicky feeling that the Earth had not only trapped but invaded her; that its molecules were creeping up between the molecules of her flesh; that the two were becoming one.
And she was sinking faster. Now knee-deep, thigh-deep, hip-deep, waist-deep. She beat at the powdery path with her hands and threw her body from side to side in agonized frenzy like some sinner frozen in the ice of the innermost circle of the ancients' hell. And always the sense of the dark, grainy tide rose inside as well as around her.
She thought, he'd just have had time to scribble that note on his briefcase and toss it away. She jerked off a glove, leaned out as far as she could, and made a frantic effort to drive its fingers into the powdery path. Then the Earth mounted to her chin, her nose, and covered her eyes.
She expected blackness, but it was as if the light of the path stayed with her, making a little glow all around. She saw roots, pebbles, black rot, worn tunnels, worms. Tier on tier of them, her vision penetrating the solid ground. And at the same time, the knowledge that these same sorts of things were coursing up through her.
And still she continued to sink at a speed that increased, as if the law of gravitation applied to her in a diminished way. She dropped from black soil through gray clay and into pale limestone.
Her tortured, rock-permeated lungs sucked at rock and drew in air. She wondered madly if a volume of air were falling with her through the stone.
A glitter of quartz. The momentary openness of a foot-high cavern with a trickle of water. And then she was sliding down a black basalt column, half inside it, half inside gold-flecked ore. Then just black basalt. And always faster.
It grew hot, then hotter, as if she were approaching the mythical eternal fires.
At first glance Theodor thought the Deep Space Bar was empty. Then he saw a figure hunched monkeylike on the last stool, almost lost in the blue shadows, while behind the bar, her crystal dress blending with the tiers of sparkling glasses, stood a grave-eyed young girl who could hardly have been fifteen.
The TV was saying, "... in addition, a number of mysterious disappearances of high-rating individuals have been reported. These are thought to be cases of misunderstanding, illusory apprehension, and impulse traveling—a result of the unusual stresses of the time. Finally, a few suggestible individuals in various parts of the globe, especially the Indian Peninsula, have declared themselves to be 'gods' and in some way responsible for current events.
"It is thought—"
The girl switched off the TV and took Theodor's order, explaining casually, "Joe wanted to go to a Kometevskyite meeting, so I took over for him." When she had prepared Theodor's highball, she announced,
"I'll have a drink with you gentlemen," and squeezed herself a glass of pomegranate juice.
The monkeylike figure muttered, "Scotch-and-soda," then turned toward Edmund and asked, "And what is your reaction to all this, sir?"
Theodor recognized the shrunken wrinkle-seamed face. It was Colonel Fortescue, a military antique long retired from the Peace Patrol and reputed to have seen actual fighting in the Last Age of Madness. Now, for some reason, the face sported a knowing smile.
Theodor shrugged. Just then the TV "big news" light blinked blue and the girl switched on audio. The Colonel winked at Theodor.
"... confirming the disappearance of Jupiter's moons. But two other utterly fantastic reports have just been received. First, Lunar Observatory One says that it is visually tracking fourteen small bodies which it believes may be the lost moons of Jupiter. They are moving outward from the Solar System at an incredible velocity and are already beyond the orbit of Saturn!"
The Colonel said, "Ah!"
"Second, Palomar reports a large number of dark bodies approaching the Solar System at an equally incredible velocity. They are at about twice the distance of Pluto, but closing in fast! We will be on the air with further details as soon as possible."
The Colonel said, "Ah-ha!"
Theodor stared at him. The old man's self-satisfied poise was almost amusing.
"Are you a Kometevskyite?" Theodor asked him.
The Colonel laughed. "Of course not, my boy. Those poor people are fumbling in the dark. Don't you see what's happened?"
"Frankly, no."
The Colonel leaned toward Theodor and whispered gruffly, "The Divine Plan. God is a military strategist, naturally."
Then he lifted the scotch-and-soda in his clawlike hand and took a satisfying swallow.
"I knew it all along, of course," he went on musingly, "but this last news makes it as plain as a rocket blast, at least to anyone who knows military strategy. Look here, my boy, suppose you were commanding a fleet and got wind of the enemy's approach—what would you do? Why, you'd send your scouts and destroyers fanning out toward them. Behind that screen you'd mass your heavy ships. Then—"
"You don't mean to imply—" Theodor interrupted.
The girl behind the bar looked at them both cryptically.
"Of course I do!" the Colonel cut in sharply. "It's a war between the forces of good and evil. The bright suns and planets are on one side, the dark on the other. The moons are the destroyers, Jupiter and Saturn are the big battleships, while we're on a heavy cruiser, I'm proud to say. We'll probably go into action soon. Be a corking fight, what? And all by divine strategy!"
He chuckled and took another big drink. Theodor looked at him sourly. The girl behind the bar polished a glass and said nothing.
Dotty suddenly began to turn and toss, and a look of terror came over her sleeping face. Celeste leaned forward apprehensively.
The child's lips worked and Celeste made out the sleepy-fuzzy words:
"They've found out where we're hiding. They're coming to get us. No! Please, no!"
Celeste's reactions were mixed. She felt worried about Dotty and at the same time almost in terror of her, as if the little girl were an agent of supernatural forces. She told herself that this fear was an expression of her own hostility, yet she didn't really believe it. She touched the child's hand.
Dotty's eyes opened without making Celeste feel she had quite come awake. After a bit she looked at Celeste and her little lips parted in a smile.
"Hello," she said sleepily. "I've been having such funny dreams." Then, after a pause, frowning, "I really am a god, you know. It feels very queer."
"Yes, dear?" Celeste prompted uneasily. "Shall I call Frieda?"
The smile left Dotty's lips. "Why do you act so nervous around me?" she asked. "Don't you love me, Mummy?"
Celeste started at the word. Her throat closed. Then, very slowly, her face broke into a radiant smile. "Of course I do, darling. I love you very much."
Dotty nodded happily, her eyes already closed again.
There was a sudden flurry of excited voices beyond the door. Celeste heard her name called. She stood up.
"I'm going to have to go out and talk with the others," she said. "If you want me, dear, just call."
"Yes, Mummy."
Edmund rapped for attention. Celeste, Frieda, and Theodor glanced around at him. He looked more frightfully strained, they realized, than even they felt. His expression was a study in suppressed excitement, but there were also signs of a knowledge that was almost too overpowering for a human being to bear.
His voice was clipped, rapid. "I think it's about time we stopped worrying about our own affairs and thought of those of the Solar System, partly because I think they have a direct bearing on the disappearances of Ivan end Rosalind. As I told you, I've been sorting out the crucial items from the material we've been presenting. There are roughly four of those items, as I see it. It's rather like a mystery story. I wonder if, hearing those four clues, you will come to the same conclusion I have."
The others nodded.
"First, there are the latest reports from Deep Shaft, which, as you know, has been sunk to investigate deep-Earth conditions. At approximately twenty-nine miles below the surface, the delvers have encountered a metallic obstruction which they have tentatively named the durasphere. It resists their hardest drills, their strongest corrosives. They have extended a side-tunnel at that level for a quarter of a mile. Delicate measurements, made possible by the mirror-smooth metal surface, show that the durasphere has a slight curvature that is almost exactly equal to the curvature of the Earth itself. The suggestion is that deep borings made anywhere in the world would encounter the durasphere at the same depth.
"Second, the movements of the moons of Mars and Jupiter, and particularly the debris left behind by the moons of Mars. Granting Phobos and Deimos had duraspheres proportional in size to that of Earth, then the debris would roughly equal in amount the material in those two duraspheres' rocky envelopes. The suggestion is that the two duraspheres suddenly burst from their envelopes with such titanic velocity as to leave those disrupted envelopes behind."
It was deadly quiet in the committee room.
"Thirdly, the disappearances of Ivan and Rosalind, and especially the baffling hint—from Ivan's message in one case and Rosalind's downward-pointing glove in the other—that they were both somehow drawn into the depths of the Earth.
"Finally, the dreams of the ESPs, which agree overwhelmingly in the following points: A group of beings separate themselves from a godlike and telepathic race because they insist on maintaining a degree of mental privacy. They flee in great boats or ships of some sort. They are pursued on such a scale that there is no hiding place for them anywhere in the universe. In some manner they successfully camouflage their ships. Eons pass and their still-fanatical pursuers do not penetrate their secret. Then, suddenly, they are detected."
Edmund waited. "Do you see what I'm driving at?" he asked hoarsely.
He could tell from their looks that the others did, but couldn't bring
themselves to put it into words.
"I suppose it's the time-scale and the value-scale that are so hard for
us to accept," he said softly. "Much more, even, than the size-scale.
The thought that there are creatures in the Universe to whom the whole
career of Man—in fact, the whole career of life—is no more than a few
thousand or hundred thousand years. And to whom Man is no more than a
minor stage property—a trifling part of a clever job of camouflage."
This time he went on, "Fantasy writers have at times hinted all sorts
of odd things about the Earth—that it might even be a kind of single
living creature, or honeycombed with inhabited caverns, and so on.
But I don't know that any of them have ever suggested that the Earth,
together with all the planets and moons of the Solar System, might
be...."
In a whisper, Frieda finished for him, "... a camouflaged fleet of
gigantic spherical spaceships."
" Your guess happens to be the precise truth. "
At that familiar, yet dreadly unfamiliar voice, all four of them swung
toward the inner door. Dotty was standing there, a sleep-stupefied
little girl with a blanket caught up around her and dragging behind.
Their own daughter. But in her eyes was a look from which they cringed.
She said, "I am a creature somewhat older than what your geologists
call the Archeozoic Era. I am speaking to you through a number of
telepathically sensitive individuals among your kind. In each case my
thoughts suit themselves to your level of comprehension. I inhabit the
disguised and jetless spaceship which is your Earth."
Celeste swayed a step forward. "Baby...." she implored.
Dotty went on, without giving her a glance, "It is true that we planted
the seeds of life on some of these planets simply as part of our
camouflage, just as we gave them a suitable environment for each. And
it is true that now we must let most of that life be destroyed. Our
hiding place has been discovered, our pursuers are upon us, and we must
make one last effort to escape or do battle, since we firmly believe
that the principle of mental privacy to which we have devoted our
existence is perhaps the greatest good in the whole Universe.
"But it is not true that we look with contempt upon you. Our whole race
is deeply devoted to life, wherever it may come into being, and it is
our rule never to interfere with its development. That was one of
the reasons we made life a part of our camouflage—it would make our
pursuers reluctant to examine these planets too closely.
"Yes, we have always cherished you and watched your evolution with
interest from our hidden lairs. We may even unconsciously have shaped
your development in certain ways, trying constantly to educate you away
from war and finally succeeding—which may have given the betraying
clue to our pursuers.
"Your planets must be burst asunder—this particular planet in the
area of the Pacific—so that we may have our last chance to escape.
Even if we did not move, our pursuers would destroy you with us. We
cannot invite you inside our ships—not for lack of space, but because
you could never survive the vast accelerations to which you would be
subjected. You would, you see, need very special accommodations, of
which we have enough only for a few.
"Those few we will take with us, as the seed from which a new human
race may—if we ourselves somehow survive—be born."
Rosalind and Ivan stared dumbly at each other across the egg-shaped
silver room, without apparent entrance or exit, in which they were
sprawled. But their thoughts were no longer of thirty-odd mile
journeys down through solid earth, or of how cool it was after the
heat of the passage, or of how grotesque it was to be trapped here,
the fragment of a marriage. They were both listening to the voice that
spoke inside their minds.
"In a few minutes your bodies will be separated into layers one atom
thick, capable of being shelved or stored in such a way as to endure
almost infinite accelerations. Single cells will cover acres of space.
But do not be alarmed. The process will be painless and each particle
will be catalogued for future assembly. Your consciousness will endure
throughout the process."
Rosalind looked at her gold-shod toes. She was wondering, will they go
first, or my head? Or will I be peeled like an apple?
She looked at Ivan and knew he was thinking the same thing.
Up in the committee room, the other Wolvers slumped around the table.
Only little Dotty sat straight and staring, speechless and unanswering,
quite beyond their reach, like a telephone off the hook and with the
connection open, but no voice from the other end.
They had just switched off the TV after listening to a confused
medley of denials, prayers, Kometevskyite chatterings, and a few
astonishingly realistic comments on the possibility of survival.
These last pointed out that, on the side of the Earth opposite the
Pacific, the convulsions would come slowly when the entombed spaceship
burst forth—provided, as seemed the case, that it moved without jets
or reaction.
It would be as if the Earth's vast core simply vanished. Gravity would
diminish abruptly to a fraction of its former value. The empty envelope
of rock and water and air would slowly fall together, though at the
same time the air would begin to escape from the debris because there
would no longer be the mass required to hold it.
However, there might be definite chances of temporary and even
prolonged survival for individuals in strong, hermetically sealed
structures, such as submarines and spaceships. The few spaceships on
Earth were reported to have blasted off, or be preparing to leave, with
as many passengers as could be carried.
But most persons, apparently, could not contemplate action of any sort.
They could only sit and think, like the Wolvers.
A faint smile relaxed Celeste's face. She was thinking, how beautiful!
It means the death of the Solar System, which is a horrifying
subjective concept. Objectively, though, it would be a more awesome
sight than any human being has ever seen or ever could see. It's an
absurd and even brutal thing to wish—but I wish I could see the whole
cataclysm from beginning to end. It would make death seem very small, a
tiny personal event.
Dotty's face was losing its blank expression, becoming intent and
alarmed.
"We are in contact with our pursuers," she said in the
familiar-unfamiliar voice. "Negotiations are now going on. There
seems to be—there is a change in them. Where they were harsh and
vindictive before, they now are gentle and conciliatory." She paused,
the alarm on her childish features pinching into anxious uncertainty.
"Our pursuers have always been shrewd. The change in them may be false,
intended merely to lull us into allowing them to come close enough to
destroy us. We must not fall into the trap by growing hopeful...."
They leaned forward, clutching hands, watching the little face as
though it were a television screen. Celeste had the wild feeling that
she was listening to a communique from a war so unthinkably vast and
violent, between opponents so astronomically huge and nearly immortal,
that she felt like no more than a reasoning ameba ... and then realized
with an explosive urge to laugh that that was exactly the situation.
"No!" said Dotty. Her eyes began to glow. "They have changed! During
the eons in which we lay sealed away and hidden from them, knowing
nothing of them, they have rebelled against the tyranny of a communal
mind to which no thoughts are private ... the tyranny that we ourselves
fled to escape. They come not to destroy us, but to welcome us back to
a society that we and they can make truly great!"
Frieda collapsed to a chair, trembling between laughter and hysterical
weeping. Theodor looked as blank as Dotty had while waiting for words
to speak. Edmund sprang to the picture window, Celeste toward the TV
set.
Climbing shakily out of the chair, Frieda stumbled to the picture
window and peered out beside Edmund. She saw lights bobbing along the
paths with a wild excitement.
On the TV screen, Celeste watched two brightly lit ships spinning in
the sky—whether human spaceships or Phobos and Deimos come to help
Earth rejoice, she couldn't tell.
Dotty spoke again, the joy in her strange voice forcing them to turn.
"And you, dear children, creatures of our camouflage, we welcome
you—whatever your future career on these planets or like ones—into
the society of enlightened worlds! You need not feel small and alone
and helpless ever again, for we shall always be with you!"
The outer door opened. Ivan and Rosalind reeled in, drunkenly smiling,
arm in arm.
"Like rockets," Rosalind blurted happily. "We came through the
durasphere and solid rock ... shot up right to the surface."
"They didn't have to take us along," Ivan added with a bleary grin.
"But you know that already, don't you? They're too good to let you live
in fear, so they must have told you by now."
"Yes, we know," said Theodor. "They must be almost godlike in their
goodness. I feel ... calm."
Edmund nodded soberly. "Calmer than I ever felt before. It's knowing, I
suppose, that—well, we're not alone."
Dotty blinked and looked around and smiled at them all with a wholly
little-girl smile.
"Oh, Mummy," she said, and it was impossible to tell whether she spoke
to Frieda or Rosalind or Celeste, "I've just had the funniest dream."
"No, darling," said Rosalind gently, "it's we who had the dream. We've
just awakened."
|
Describe the relationship between Captain Linden and his lieutenant "Split" Campbell
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Serpent River by Don Wilcox.
Relevant chunks:
THE SERPENT RIVER
By Don Wilcox
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Other Worlds May 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The Code was rigid—no fraternization with the peoples of other planets! Earth wanted no "shotgun weddings" of the worlds of space!
"Split" Campbell and I brought our ship down to a quiet landing on the summit of a mile-wide naked rock, and I turned to the telescope for a closer view of the strange thing we had come to see.
It shone, eighteen or twenty miles away, in the light of the late afternoon sun. It was a long silvery serpent-like
something
that crawled slowly over the planet's surface.
There was no way of guessing how large it was, at this distance. It might have been a rope rolled into shape out of a mountain—or a chain of mountains. It might have been a river of bluish-gray dough that had shaped itself into a great cable. Its diameter? If it had been a hollow tube, cities could have flowed through it upright without bending their skyscrapers. It was, to the eye, an endless rope of cloud oozing along the surface of the land. No, not cloud, for it had the compactness of solid substance.
We could see it at several points among the low foothills. Even from this distance we could guess that it had been moving along its course for centuries. Moving like a sluggish snake. It followed a deep-worn path between the nearer hills and the high jagged mountains on the horizon.
What was it?
"Split" Campbell and I had been sent here to learn the answers. Our sponsor was the well known "EGGWE" (the Earth-Galaxy Good Will Expeditions.) We were under the EGGWE Code. We were the first expedition to this planet, but we had come equipped with two important pieces of advance information. The Keynes-Roy roving cameras (unmanned) had brought back to the Earth choice items of fact about various parts of the universe. From these photos we knew (1) that man lived on this planet, a humanoid closely resembling the humans of the Earth; and
(2) that a vast cylindrical "rope" crawled the surface of this land, continuously, endlessly.
We had intentionally landed at what we guessed would be a safe distance from the rope. If it were a living thing, like a serpent, we preferred not to disturb it. If it gave off heat or poisonous gases or deadly vibrations, we meant to keep our distance. If, on the other hand, it proved to be some sort of vegetable—a vine of glacier proportions—or a river of some silvery, creamy substance—we would move in upon it gradually, gathering facts as we progressed. I could depend upon
"Split" to record all observable phenomena with the accuracy of split-hairs.
Split was working at the reports like a drudge at this very moment.
I looked up from the telescope, expecting him to be waiting his turn eagerly. I misguessed. He didn't even glance up from his books. Rare young Campbell! Always a man of duty, never a man of impulse!
"Here Campbell, take a look at the 'rope'."
"Before I finish the reports, sir? If I recall our Code, Section Two, Order of Duties upon Landing: A—"
"Forget the Code. Take a look at the rope while the sun's on it.... See it?"
"Yes sir."
"Can you see it's moving? See the little clouds of dust coming up from under its belly?"
"Yes sir. An excellent view, Captain Linden."
"What do you think of it, Split? Ever see a sight like that before?"
"No sir."
"Well, what about it? Any comments?"
Split answered me with an enthusiastic, "By gollies, sir!" Then, with restraint, "It's precisely what I expected from the photographs, sir. Any orders, sir?"
"Relax, Split! That's the order. Relax!"
"Thanks—thanks, Cap!" That was his effort to sound informal, though coming from him it was strained. His training had given him an exaggerated notion of the importance of dignity and discipline.
He was naturally so conscientious it was painful. And to top it all, his scientific habit of thought made him want to stop and weigh his words even when speaking of casual things such as how much sugar he required in his coffee.
Needless to say, I had kidded him unmercifully over these traits. Across the millions of miles of space that we had recently traveled
(our first voyage together) I had amused myself at his expense. I had sworn that he would find, in time, that he couldn't even trim his fingernails without calipers, or comb his hair without actually physically splitting the hairs that cropped up in the middle of the part. That was when I had nicknamed him "Split"—and the wide ears that stuck out from his stubble-cut blond hair had glowed with the pink of selfconsciousness. Plainly, he liked the kidding. But if I thought I could rescue him from the weight of dignity and duty, I was mistaken.
Now he had turned the telescope for a view far to the right. He paused.
"What do you see?" I asked.
"I cannot say definitely. The exact scientific classification of the object I am observing would call for more detailed scrutiny—"
"You're seeing some sort of object?"
"Yes sir."
"What sort of object?"
"A living creature, sir—upright, wearing clothes—"
"A
man
?"
"To all appearances, sir—"
"You bounder, give me that telescope!"
2.
If you have explored the weird life of many a planet, as I have, you can appreciate the deep sense of excitement that comes over me when, looking out at a new world for the first time, I see a man-like animal.
Walking upright!
Wearing adornments in the nature of clothing!
I gazed, and my lungs filled with the breath of wonderment. A man! Across millions of miles of space—a man, like the men of the Earth.
Six times before in my life of exploration I had gazed at new realms within the approachable parts of our universe, but never before had the living creatures borne such wonderful resemblance to the human life of our Earth.
A man!
He might have been creeping on all fours.
He might have been skulking like a lesser animal.
He might have been entirely naked.
He was none of these—and at the very first moment of viewing him I felt a kinship toward him. Oh, he was primitive in appearance—but had my ancestors not been the same? Was this not a mirror of my own race a million years or so ago? I sensed that my own stream of life had somehow crossed with his in ages gone by. How? Who can ever know? By what faded charts of the movements through the sky will man ever be able to retrace relationships of forms of life among planets?
"Get ready to go out and meet him, Campbell," I said. "He's a friend."
Split Campbell gave me a look as if to say, Sir, you don't even know what sort of animal he is, actually, much less whether he's friendly or murderous.
"There are some things I can sense on first sight, Campbell. Take my word for it, he's a friend."
"I didn't say anything, sir."
"Good. Don't. Just get ready."
"We're going to go
out
—?"
"Yes," I said. "Orders."
"And meet both of them?" Split was at the telescope.
"Both?" I took the instrument from him. Both! "Well!"
"They seem to be coming out of the ground," Split said. "I see no signs of habitation, but apparently we've landed on top of an underground city—though I hasten to add that this is only an hypothesis."
"One's a male and the other's a female," I said.
"Another hypothesis," said Split.
The late evening sunshine gave us a clear view of our two "friends". They were fully a mile away. Split was certain they had not seen our ship, and to this conclusion I was in agreement. They had apparently come up out of the barren rock hillside to view the sunset. I studied them through the telescope while Split checked over equipment for a hike.
The man's walk was unhurried. He moved thoughtfully, one might guess. His bare chest and legs showed him to be statuesque in mold, cleanly muscled, fine of bone. His skin was almost the color of the cream-colored robe which flowed from his back, whipping lightly in the breeze. He wore a brilliant red sash about his middle, and this was matched by a red headdress that came down over his shoulders as a circular mantle.
The girl stood several yards distant, watching him. This was some sort of ritual, no doubt. He was not concerned with her, but with the setting sun. Its rays were almost horizontal, knifing through a break in the distant mountain skyline. He went through some routine motions, his moving arms highlighted by the lemon-colored light of evening.
The girl approached him. Two other persons appeared from somewhere back of her.... Three.... Four.... Five....
"Where do they come from?" Split had paused in the act of checking equipment to take his turn at the telescope. If he had not done so, I might not have made a discovery. The landscape was
moving
.
The long shadows that I had not noticed through the telescope were a prominent part of the picture I saw through the ship's window when I looked out across the scene with the naked eye. The shadows were moving.
They were tree shadows. They were moving toward the clearing where the crowd gathered. And the reason for their movement was that the trees themselves were moving.
"Notice anything?" I asked Split.
"The crowd is growing. We've certainly landed on top of a city." He gazed. "They're coming from underground."
Looking through the telescope, obviously he didn't catch the view of the moving trees.
"Notice anything else unusual?" I persisted.
"Yes. The females—I'm speaking hypothetically—but they
must
be females—are all wearing puffy white fur ornaments around their elbows. I wonder why?"
"You haven't noticed the trees?"
"The females are quite attractive," said Split.
I forgot about the moving trees, then, and took over the telescope. Mobile trees were not new to me. I had seen similar vegetation on other planets—"sponge-trees"—which possessed a sort of muscular quality. If these were similar, they were no doubt feeding along the surface of the slope below the rocky plateau. The people in the clearing beyond paid no attention to them.
I studied the crowd of people. Only the leader wore the brilliant garb. The others were more scantily clothed. All were handsome of build. The lemon-tinted sunlight glanced off the muscular shoulders of the males and the soft curves of the females.
"Those furry elbow ornaments on the females," I said to Split,
"they're for protection. The caves they live in must be narrow, so they pad their elbows."
"Why don't they pad their shoulders? They don't have anything on their shoulders."
"Are you complaining?"
We became fascinated in watching, from the seclusion of our ship. If we were to walk out, or make any sounds, we might have interrupted their meeting. Here they were in their native ritual of sunset, not knowing that people from another world watched. The tall leader must be making a speech. They sat around him in little huddles. He moved his arms in calm, graceful gestures.
"They'd better break it up!" Split said suddenly. "The jungles are moving in on them."
"They're spellbound," I said. "They're used to sponge-trees. Didn't you ever see moving trees?"
Split said sharply, "Those trees are marching! They're an army under cover. Look!"
I saw, then. The whole line of advancing vegetation was camouflage for a sneak attack. And all those natives sitting around in meeting were as innocent as a flock of sitting ducks. Split Campbell's voice was edged with alarm. "Captain! Those worshippers—how can we warn them? Oh-oh! Too late. Look!"
All at once the advancing sponge-trees were tossed back over the heads of the savage band concealed within. They were warriors—fifty or more of them—with painted naked bodies. They dashed forward in a wide semicircle, swinging crude weapons, bent on slaughter.
3.
They were waving short clubs or whips with stones tied to the ends. They charged up the slope, about sixty yards, swinging their weird clubs with a threat of death.
Wild disorder suddenly struck the audience. Campbell and I believed we were about to witness a massacre.
"Captain—
Jim
! You're not going to let this happen!"
Our sympathies had gone to the first groups, the peaceable ones. I had the same impulse as Campbell—to do something—anything! Yet here we sat in our ship, more than half a mile from our thirty-five or forty
"friends" in danger.
Our friends were panicked. But they didn't take flight. They didn't duck for the holes in the rocky hilltop. Instead, they rallied and packed themselves around their tall leader. They stood, a defiant wall.
"Can we shoot a ray, Jim?"
I didn't answer. Later I would recall that Split
could
drop his dignity under excitement—his "Captain Linden" and "sir." Just now he wanted any sort of split-second order.
We saw the naked warriors run out in a wide circle. They spun and weaved, they twirled their deadly clubs, they danced grotesquely. They were closing in. Closer and closer. It was all their party.
"Jim, can we shoot?"
"Hit number sixteen, Campbell."
Split touched the number sixteen signal.
The ship's siren wailed out over the land.
You could tell when the sound struck them. The circle of savage ones suddenly fell apart. The dancing broke into the wildest contortions you ever saw. As if they'd been spanked by a wave of electricity. The siren scream must have sounded like an animal cry from an unknown world. The attackers ran for the sponge-trees. The rootless jungle came to life. It jerked and jumped spasmodically down the slope. And our siren kept right on singing.
"Ready for that hike, Campbell? Give me my equipment coat." I got into it. I looked back to the telescope. The tall man of the party had behaved with exceptional calmness. He had turned to stare in our direction from the instant the siren sounded. He could no doubt make out the lines of our silvery ship in the shadows. Slowly, deliberately, he marched over the hilltop toward us.
Most of his party now scampered back to the safety of their hiding places in the ground. But a few—the brave ones, perhaps, or the officials of his group—came with him.
"He needs a stronger guard than that," Campbell grumbled.
Sixteen was still wailing. "Set it for ten minutes and come on," I said. Together we descended from the ship.
We took into our nostrils the tangy air, breathing fiercely, at first. We slogged along over the rock surface feeling our weight to be one-and-a-third times normal. We glanced down the slope apprehensively. We didn't want any footraces. The trees, however, were still retreating. Our siren would sing on for another eight minutes. And in case of further danger, we were equipped with the standard pocket arsenal of special purpose capsule bombs.
Soon we came face to face with the tall, stately old leader in the cream-and-red cloak.
Split and I stood together, close enough to exchange comments against the siren's wail. Fine looking people, we observed. Smooth faces. Like the features of Earth men. These creatures could walk down any main street back home. With a bit of makeup they would pass.
"Notice, Captain, they have strange looking eyes." "Very smooth."
"It's because they have no eyebrows ... no eye lashes." "Very smooth—handsome—attractive."
Then the siren went off.
The leader stood before me, apparently unafraid. He seemed to be waiting for me to explain my presence. His group of twelve gathered in close.
I had met such situations with ease before. "EGGWE" explorers come equipped. I held out a gift toward the leader. It was a singing medallion attached to a chain. It was disc-shaped, patterned after a large silver coin. It made music at the touch of a button. In clear, dainty bell tones it rang out its one tune, "Trail of Stars."
As it played I held it up for inspection. I placed it around my own neck, then offered it to the leader. I thought he was smiling. He was not overwhelmed by the "magic" of this gadget. He saw it for what it was, a token of friendship. There was a keenness about him that I liked. Yes, he was smiling. He bent his head forward and allowed me to place the gift around his neck.
"Tomboldo," he said, pointing to himself.
Split and I tried to imitate his breathy accents as we repeated aloud,
"Tomboldo."
We pointed to ourselves, in turn, and spoke our own names. And then, as the names of the others were pronounced, we tried to memorize each breathy sound that was uttered. I was able to remember four or five of them. One was Gravgak.
Gravgak's piercing eyes caused me to notice him. Suspicious eyes? I did not know these people's expressions well enough to be sure.
Gravgak was a guard, tall and muscular, whose arms and legs were painted with green and black diamond designs.
By motions and words we didn't understand, we inferred that we were invited to accompany the party back home, inside the hill, where we would be safe. I nodded to Campbell. "It's our chance to be guests of Tomboldo." Nothing could have pleased us more. For our big purpose—to understand the Serpent River—would be forwarded greatly if we could learn, through the people, what its meanings were. To analyze the river's substance, estimate its rate, its weight, its temperature, and to map its course—these facts were only a part of the information we sought. The fuller story would be to learn how the inhabitants of this planet regarded it: whether they loved or shunned it, and what legends they may have woven around it. All this knowledge would be useful when future expeditions of men from the Earth followed us (through EGGWE) for an extension of peaceful trade relationships.
Tomboldo depended upon the guard Gravgak to make sure that the way was safe. Gravgak was supposed to keep an eye on the line of floating trees that had taken flight down the hillside. Danger still lurked there, we knew. And now the siren that had frightened off the attack was silent. Our ship, locked against invaders, could be forgotten. We were guests of Tomboldo.
Gravgak was our guard, but he didn't work at it. He was too anxious to hear all the talk. In the excitement of our meeting, everyone ignored the growing darkness, the lurking dangers. Gravgak confronted us with agitated jabbering:
"Wollo—yeeta—vo—vandartch—vandartch! Grr—see—o—see—o—see—o!"
"See—o—see—o—see—o," one of the others echoed.
It began to make sense. They wanted us to repeat the siren noises. The enemy had threatened their lives. There could very well have been a wholesale slaughter. But as long as we could make the "see—o—see—o" we were all safe.
Split and I exchanged glances. He touched his hand to the equipment jacket, to remind me we were armed with something more miraculous than a yowling siren.
"See—o—see—o—see—o!" Others of Tomboldo's party echoed the demand. They must have seen the sponge-trees again moving toward our path.
"
See—o—see—o!
"
Our peaceful march turned into a spasm of terror. The sponge-trees came rushing up the slope, as if borne by a sudden gust of wind. They bounced over our path, and the war party spilled out of them.
Shouting. A wild swinging of clubs. And no cat-and-mouse tricks. No deliberate circling and closing in. An outright attack. Naked bodies gleaming in the semi-darkness. Arms swinging weapons, choosing the nearest victims. The luminous rocks on the ends of the clubs flashed. Shouting, screeching, hurling their clubs. The whizzing fury filled the air.
I hurled a capsule bomb. It struck at the base of a bouncing sponge-tree, and blew the thing to bits.
The attackers ran back into a huddle, screaming. Then they came forward, rushing defiantly.
Our muscular guard, Gravgak was too bold. He had picked up one of their clubs and he ran toward their advance, and to all of Tomboldo's party it must have appeared that he was bravely rushing to his death. Yet the gesture of the club he swung so wildly could have been intended as a
warning
! It could have meant, Run back, you fools, or these strange devils will throw fire at you.
I threw fire. And so did my lieutenant. He didn't wait for orders, thank goodness. He knew it was their lives or ours. Zip, zip, zip—BLANG-BLANG-BLANG! The bursts of fire at their feet ripped the rocks. The spray caught them and knocked them back. Three or four warriors in the fore ranks were torn up in the blasts. Others were flattened—and those who were able, ran.
They ran, not waiting for the cover of sponge-trees. Not bothering to pick up their clubs.
But the operation was not a complete success. We had suffered a serious casualty. The guard Gravgak. He had rushed out too far, and the first blast of fire and rock had knocked him down. Now Tomboldo and others of the party hovered over him.
His eyes opened a little. I thought he was staring at me, drilling me with suspicion. I worked over him with medicines. The crowd around us stood back in an attitude of awe as Split and I applied ready bandages, and held a stimulant to his nostrils that made him breath back to consciousness.
Suddenly he came to life. Lying there on his back, with the club still at his fingertips, he swung up on one elbow. The swift motion caused a cry of joy from the crowd. I heard a little of it—and then blacked out. For as the muscular Gravgak moved, his fingers closed over the handle of the club. It whizzed upward with him—apparently all by accident. The stone that dangled from the end of the club crashed into my head.
I went into instant darkness. Darkness, and a long, long silence.
4.
Vauna, the beautiful daughter of Tomboldo, came into my life during the weeks that I lay unconscious.
I must have talked aloud much during those feverish hours of darkness.
"Campbell!" I would call out of a nightmare. "Campbell, we're about to land. Is everything set? Check the instruments again, Campbell."
"S-s-sh!" The low hush of Split Campbell's voice would somehow penetrate my dream.
The voices about me were soft. My dreams echoed the soft female voices of this new, strange language.
"Campbell, are you there?... Have you forgotten the Code, Campbell?"
"Quiet, Captain."
"Who is it that's swabbing my face? I can't see."
"It's Vauna. She's smiling at you, Captain. Can't you see her?"
"Is this the pretty one we saw through the telescope?"
"One of them."
"And what of the other? There were two together. I remember—"
"Omosla is here too. She's Vauna's attendant. We're all looking after you, Captain Linden. Did you know I performed an operation to relieve the pressure on your brain? You must get well, Captain." The words of Campbell came through insistently.
After a silence that may have lasted for hours or days, I said,
"Campbell, you haven't forgot the EGGWE Code?"
"Of course not, Captain."
"Section Four?"
"Section Four," he repeated in a low voice, as if to pacify me and put me to sleep. "Conduct of EGGWE agents toward native inhabitants: A, No agent shall enter into any diplomatic agreement that shall be construed as binding—"
I interrupted. "Clause D?"
He picked it up. "D, no agent shall enter into a marriage contract with any native.... H-m-m. You're not trying to warn me, are you, Captain Linden? Or are you warning
yourself
?"
At that moment my eyes opened a little. Swimming before my blurred vision was the face of Vauna. I did remember her—yes, she must have haunted my dreams, for now my eyes burned in an effort to define her features more clearly. This was indeed Vauna, who had been one of the party of twelve, and had walked beside her father in the face of the attack. Deep within my subconscious the image of her beautiful face and figure had lingered. I murmured a single word of answer to Campbell's question. "Myself."
In the hours that followed, I came to know the soft footsteps of Vauna. The caverns in which she and her father and all these Benzendella people lived were pleasantly warm and fragrant. My misty impressions of their life about me were like the first impressions of a child learning about the world into which he has been born.
Sometimes I would hear Vauna and her attendant Omosla talking together. Often when Campbell would stop in this part of the cavern to inquire about me, Omosla would drop in also. She and Campbell were learning to converse in simple words. And Vauna and I—yes. If I could only avoid blacking out.
I wanted to see her.
So often my eyes would refuse to open. A thousand nightmares. Space ships shooting through meteor swarms. Stars like eyes. Eyes like stars. The eyes of Vauna, the daughter of Tomboldo. The sensitive stroke of Vauna's fingers, brushing my forehead, pressing my hand.
I regained my health gradually.
"Are you quite awake?" Vauna would ask me in her musical Benzendella words. "You speak better today. Your friend Campbell has brought you more recordings of our language, so you can learn to speak more. My father is eager to talk with you. But you must sleep more. You are still weak."
It gave me a weird sensation to awaken in the night, trying to adjust myself to my surroundings. The Benzendellas were sleep-singers. By night they murmured mysterious little songs through their sleep. Strange harmonies whispered through the caves.
And if I stirred restlessly, the footsteps of Vauna might come to me through the darkness. In her sleeping garments she would come to me, faintly visible in the pink light that filtered through from some corridor. She would whisper melodious Benzendella words and tell me to go back to sleep, and I would drift into the darkness of my endless dreams.
The day came when I awakened to see both Vauna and her father standing before me. Stern old Tomboldo, with his chalk-smooth face and not a hint of an eyebrow or eyelash, rapped his hand against my ribs, shook the fiber bed lightly, and smiled. From a pocket concealed in his flowing cape, he drew forth the musical watch, touched the button, and played, "Trail of Stars."
"I have learned to talk," I said.
"You have had a long sleep."
"I am well again. See, I can almost walk." But as I started to rise, the wave of blackness warned me, and I restrained my ambition. "I will walk soon."
"We will have much to talk about. Your friend has pointed to the stars and told me a strange story of your coming. We have walked around the ship. He has told me how it rides through the sky. I can hardly make myself believe." Tomboldo's eyes cast upward under the strong ridge of forehead where the eyebrows should have been. He was evidently trying to visualize the flight of a space ship. "We will have much to tell each other."
"I hope so," I said. "Campbell and I came to learn about the
serpent river
." I resorted to my own language for the last two words, not knowing the Benzendella equivalent.
I
made an eel-like motion with my arm. But they didn't understand. And before I could explain, the footsteps of other Benzendellas approached, and presently I looked around to see that quite an audience had gathered. The most prominent figure of the new group was the big muscular guard of the black and green diamond markings—Gravgak.
"You get well?" Gravgak said to me. His eyes drilled me closely.
"I get well," I said.
"The blow on the head," he said, "was not meant."
I looked at him. Everyone was looking at him, and I knew this was meant to be an occasion of apology. But the light of fire in Vauna's eyes told me that she did not believe. He saw her look, and his own eyes flashed darts of defiance. With an abrupt word to me, he wheeled and started off. "Get well!"
The crowd of men and women made way for him. But in the arched doorway he turned. "Vauna. I am ready to speak to you alone."
She started. I reached and barely touched her hand. She stopped. "I will talk with you later, Gravgak."
"Now!" he shouted. "Alone."
He stalked off. A moment later Vauna, after exchanging a word with her father, excused herself from the crowd and followed Gravgak.
From the way those in the room looked, I knew this must be a dramatic moment. It was as if she had acknowledged Gravgak as her master—or her lover. He had called for her. She had followed.
But her old father was still the master. He stepped toward the door.
"Vauna!... Gravgak!... Come back."
(I will always wonder what might have happened if he hadn't called them! Was my distrust of Gravgak justified? Had I become merely a jealous lover—or was I right in my hunch that the tall muscular guard was a potential traitor?)
Vauna reappeared at once. I believe she was glad that she had been called back.
Gravgak came sullenly. At the edge of the crowd in the arched doorway he stood scowling.
"While we are together," old Tomboldo said quietly, looking around at the assemblage, "I must tell you the decision of the council. Soon we will move back to the other part of the world."
There were low murmurs of approval through the chamber.
"We will wait a few days," Tomboldo went on, "until our new friend—" he pointed to me—"is well enough to travel. We would never leave him here to the mercy of the savage ones. He and his helper came through the sky in time to save us from being destroyed. We must never forget this kindness. When we ascend the
Kao-Wagwattl
, the ever moving
rope of life
, these friends shall come with us. On the back of the Kao-Wagwattl
they shall ride with us across the land
."
Question:
Describe the relationship between Captain Linden and his lieutenant "Split" Campbell
Answer:
|
[
"Linden is a fairly relaxed captain who is ready to perform his mission to code, but is almost amused at his lieutenant's inability to stray from code. He calls Campbell \"Split\" because he does everything so by-the-book that if he were combing his hair down the middle, he wouldn't be surprised if he split the hairs in the middle of his head for perfect symmetry. They seem to work well together, and Campbell is dedicated to his scientific mission and reviewing reports, while Linden reminds him to look at the window at the world around them, which offers a nice balance to their progress. Campbell clearly respects Linden a lot, and Linden is always kind to him and not rude or condescending, which is important for team cohesion on a mission away from a home planet. ",
"Captain Linden is the senior commanding officer of Lieutenant Split Campbell; however, Campbell is a much more by-the-book military man than Linden is. Linden has a sense of humor and enjoys teasing Campbell about his strict adherence to military standards and codes. He gives Campbell the nickname “Split” because of Campbell’s extreme attention to detail and teases that Campbell will split the hairs that pop up when he parts his hair. Linden wishes Campbell would lighten up a little and even orders him to relax. At the same time, Linden also knows that he can depend on Campbell to fulfill his duties. When the two agents witness the “trees” moving toward the group of humanoids and realize they are actually warriors launching an attack, Split addresses Linden first as “Captain” and then as “Jim” as he worries about the group about to be attacked. Linden notices this and realizes that Split’s formality drops when he is excited. The two men work well together, and Campbell seems to know what Linden wants from him without needing any orders. When Linden suffers a head injury after being hit by a rock, Campbell performs the surgery that relieves the pressure on his brain; he tells Linden he must get well, as if Campbell is counting on Linden both as a friend and an officer. As Linden realizes he is falling in love with Vauna, he reminds Campbell of the EGGWE Code Clause D, which prevents agents from marrying natives, and Campbell asks whether Linden is warning Campbell or himself. Campbell seems to be speaking to him as a friend by acknowledging that Linden has feelings for Vauna. At the same time, Campbell addresses Linden as “Captain,” showing that their friendship does not place them on equal standing even though they are close enough to call each other by their first names.\n\n",
"Jim gives Campbell the nickname \"Split\" because of his meticulous attention to detail and his need for order in life. Split memorizes the EGGWE code and recites relevant sections throughout the story such as when Jim asks him to recall the clause about the ban on marrying any natives whom agents might encounter during inter-planetary expeditions. After Gravgak clubs Jim, Split performs surgery on him during his state of unconsciousness in order to relieve pressure on his brain and even brings him recordings of the Benzendella language so that he can learn to speak while he gathers his strength. Split also communicates with Omosla and Tomboldo during Jim's coma-like state, so that he can learn more about the Benzendella people and share about the purpose of their own expedition. Jim’s more spontaneous, empathetic approach to leadership complements Split’s rigid commitment to rules, and this makes them a strong and effective team.",
"Captain Linden and Lieutenant “Split” Campbell have developed a very friendly relationship over the course of their two expeditions. Linden even nicknamed Lieutenant Campbell “Split” for his diligent and dutiful ways. Linden constantly teases Split and pushes him to think outside the box and outside the EGGWE’s code of conduct. They can easily rely on each other, as can be seen in battle and underground. Split throws his bombs when being attacked by the warriors, even though Linden didn’t order him to do so. Despite being a very diligent traveler, he recognizes that in times of crisis it’s better to just act. As well, when Linden was gravely injured by Gravgak, Linden performs surgery to relieve the pressure on his brain and help him heal quicker."
] |
50923
|
THE SERPENT RIVER
By Don Wilcox
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Other Worlds May 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The Code was rigid—no fraternization with the peoples of other planets! Earth wanted no "shotgun weddings" of the worlds of space!
"Split" Campbell and I brought our ship down to a quiet landing on the summit of a mile-wide naked rock, and I turned to the telescope for a closer view of the strange thing we had come to see.
It shone, eighteen or twenty miles away, in the light of the late afternoon sun. It was a long silvery serpent-like
something
that crawled slowly over the planet's surface.
There was no way of guessing how large it was, at this distance. It might have been a rope rolled into shape out of a mountain—or a chain of mountains. It might have been a river of bluish-gray dough that had shaped itself into a great cable. Its diameter? If it had been a hollow tube, cities could have flowed through it upright without bending their skyscrapers. It was, to the eye, an endless rope of cloud oozing along the surface of the land. No, not cloud, for it had the compactness of solid substance.
We could see it at several points among the low foothills. Even from this distance we could guess that it had been moving along its course for centuries. Moving like a sluggish snake. It followed a deep-worn path between the nearer hills and the high jagged mountains on the horizon.
What was it?
"Split" Campbell and I had been sent here to learn the answers. Our sponsor was the well known "EGGWE" (the Earth-Galaxy Good Will Expeditions.) We were under the EGGWE Code. We were the first expedition to this planet, but we had come equipped with two important pieces of advance information. The Keynes-Roy roving cameras (unmanned) had brought back to the Earth choice items of fact about various parts of the universe. From these photos we knew (1) that man lived on this planet, a humanoid closely resembling the humans of the Earth; and
(2) that a vast cylindrical "rope" crawled the surface of this land, continuously, endlessly.
We had intentionally landed at what we guessed would be a safe distance from the rope. If it were a living thing, like a serpent, we preferred not to disturb it. If it gave off heat or poisonous gases or deadly vibrations, we meant to keep our distance. If, on the other hand, it proved to be some sort of vegetable—a vine of glacier proportions—or a river of some silvery, creamy substance—we would move in upon it gradually, gathering facts as we progressed. I could depend upon
"Split" to record all observable phenomena with the accuracy of split-hairs.
Split was working at the reports like a drudge at this very moment.
I looked up from the telescope, expecting him to be waiting his turn eagerly. I misguessed. He didn't even glance up from his books. Rare young Campbell! Always a man of duty, never a man of impulse!
"Here Campbell, take a look at the 'rope'."
"Before I finish the reports, sir? If I recall our Code, Section Two, Order of Duties upon Landing: A—"
"Forget the Code. Take a look at the rope while the sun's on it.... See it?"
"Yes sir."
"Can you see it's moving? See the little clouds of dust coming up from under its belly?"
"Yes sir. An excellent view, Captain Linden."
"What do you think of it, Split? Ever see a sight like that before?"
"No sir."
"Well, what about it? Any comments?"
Split answered me with an enthusiastic, "By gollies, sir!" Then, with restraint, "It's precisely what I expected from the photographs, sir. Any orders, sir?"
"Relax, Split! That's the order. Relax!"
"Thanks—thanks, Cap!" That was his effort to sound informal, though coming from him it was strained. His training had given him an exaggerated notion of the importance of dignity and discipline.
He was naturally so conscientious it was painful. And to top it all, his scientific habit of thought made him want to stop and weigh his words even when speaking of casual things such as how much sugar he required in his coffee.
Needless to say, I had kidded him unmercifully over these traits. Across the millions of miles of space that we had recently traveled
(our first voyage together) I had amused myself at his expense. I had sworn that he would find, in time, that he couldn't even trim his fingernails without calipers, or comb his hair without actually physically splitting the hairs that cropped up in the middle of the part. That was when I had nicknamed him "Split"—and the wide ears that stuck out from his stubble-cut blond hair had glowed with the pink of selfconsciousness. Plainly, he liked the kidding. But if I thought I could rescue him from the weight of dignity and duty, I was mistaken.
Now he had turned the telescope for a view far to the right. He paused.
"What do you see?" I asked.
"I cannot say definitely. The exact scientific classification of the object I am observing would call for more detailed scrutiny—"
"You're seeing some sort of object?"
"Yes sir."
"What sort of object?"
"A living creature, sir—upright, wearing clothes—"
"A
man
?"
"To all appearances, sir—"
"You bounder, give me that telescope!"
2.
If you have explored the weird life of many a planet, as I have, you can appreciate the deep sense of excitement that comes over me when, looking out at a new world for the first time, I see a man-like animal.
Walking upright!
Wearing adornments in the nature of clothing!
I gazed, and my lungs filled with the breath of wonderment. A man! Across millions of miles of space—a man, like the men of the Earth.
Six times before in my life of exploration I had gazed at new realms within the approachable parts of our universe, but never before had the living creatures borne such wonderful resemblance to the human life of our Earth.
A man!
He might have been creeping on all fours.
He might have been skulking like a lesser animal.
He might have been entirely naked.
He was none of these—and at the very first moment of viewing him I felt a kinship toward him. Oh, he was primitive in appearance—but had my ancestors not been the same? Was this not a mirror of my own race a million years or so ago? I sensed that my own stream of life had somehow crossed with his in ages gone by. How? Who can ever know? By what faded charts of the movements through the sky will man ever be able to retrace relationships of forms of life among planets?
"Get ready to go out and meet him, Campbell," I said. "He's a friend."
Split Campbell gave me a look as if to say, Sir, you don't even know what sort of animal he is, actually, much less whether he's friendly or murderous.
"There are some things I can sense on first sight, Campbell. Take my word for it, he's a friend."
"I didn't say anything, sir."
"Good. Don't. Just get ready."
"We're going to go
out
—?"
"Yes," I said. "Orders."
"And meet both of them?" Split was at the telescope.
"Both?" I took the instrument from him. Both! "Well!"
"They seem to be coming out of the ground," Split said. "I see no signs of habitation, but apparently we've landed on top of an underground city—though I hasten to add that this is only an hypothesis."
"One's a male and the other's a female," I said.
"Another hypothesis," said Split.
The late evening sunshine gave us a clear view of our two "friends". They were fully a mile away. Split was certain they had not seen our ship, and to this conclusion I was in agreement. They had apparently come up out of the barren rock hillside to view the sunset. I studied them through the telescope while Split checked over equipment for a hike.
The man's walk was unhurried. He moved thoughtfully, one might guess. His bare chest and legs showed him to be statuesque in mold, cleanly muscled, fine of bone. His skin was almost the color of the cream-colored robe which flowed from his back, whipping lightly in the breeze. He wore a brilliant red sash about his middle, and this was matched by a red headdress that came down over his shoulders as a circular mantle.
The girl stood several yards distant, watching him. This was some sort of ritual, no doubt. He was not concerned with her, but with the setting sun. Its rays were almost horizontal, knifing through a break in the distant mountain skyline. He went through some routine motions, his moving arms highlighted by the lemon-colored light of evening.
The girl approached him. Two other persons appeared from somewhere back of her.... Three.... Four.... Five....
"Where do they come from?" Split had paused in the act of checking equipment to take his turn at the telescope. If he had not done so, I might not have made a discovery. The landscape was
moving
.
The long shadows that I had not noticed through the telescope were a prominent part of the picture I saw through the ship's window when I looked out across the scene with the naked eye. The shadows were moving.
They were tree shadows. They were moving toward the clearing where the crowd gathered. And the reason for their movement was that the trees themselves were moving.
"Notice anything?" I asked Split.
"The crowd is growing. We've certainly landed on top of a city." He gazed. "They're coming from underground."
Looking through the telescope, obviously he didn't catch the view of the moving trees.
"Notice anything else unusual?" I persisted.
"Yes. The females—I'm speaking hypothetically—but they
must
be females—are all wearing puffy white fur ornaments around their elbows. I wonder why?"
"You haven't noticed the trees?"
"The females are quite attractive," said Split.
I forgot about the moving trees, then, and took over the telescope. Mobile trees were not new to me. I had seen similar vegetation on other planets—"sponge-trees"—which possessed a sort of muscular quality. If these were similar, they were no doubt feeding along the surface of the slope below the rocky plateau. The people in the clearing beyond paid no attention to them.
I studied the crowd of people. Only the leader wore the brilliant garb. The others were more scantily clothed. All were handsome of build. The lemon-tinted sunlight glanced off the muscular shoulders of the males and the soft curves of the females.
"Those furry elbow ornaments on the females," I said to Split,
"they're for protection. The caves they live in must be narrow, so they pad their elbows."
"Why don't they pad their shoulders? They don't have anything on their shoulders."
"Are you complaining?"
We became fascinated in watching, from the seclusion of our ship. If we were to walk out, or make any sounds, we might have interrupted their meeting. Here they were in their native ritual of sunset, not knowing that people from another world watched. The tall leader must be making a speech. They sat around him in little huddles. He moved his arms in calm, graceful gestures.
"They'd better break it up!" Split said suddenly. "The jungles are moving in on them."
"They're spellbound," I said. "They're used to sponge-trees. Didn't you ever see moving trees?"
Split said sharply, "Those trees are marching! They're an army under cover. Look!"
I saw, then. The whole line of advancing vegetation was camouflage for a sneak attack. And all those natives sitting around in meeting were as innocent as a flock of sitting ducks. Split Campbell's voice was edged with alarm. "Captain! Those worshippers—how can we warn them? Oh-oh! Too late. Look!"
All at once the advancing sponge-trees were tossed back over the heads of the savage band concealed within. They were warriors—fifty or more of them—with painted naked bodies. They dashed forward in a wide semicircle, swinging crude weapons, bent on slaughter.
3.
They were waving short clubs or whips with stones tied to the ends. They charged up the slope, about sixty yards, swinging their weird clubs with a threat of death.
Wild disorder suddenly struck the audience. Campbell and I believed we were about to witness a massacre.
"Captain—
Jim
! You're not going to let this happen!"
Our sympathies had gone to the first groups, the peaceable ones. I had the same impulse as Campbell—to do something—anything! Yet here we sat in our ship, more than half a mile from our thirty-five or forty
"friends" in danger.
Our friends were panicked. But they didn't take flight. They didn't duck for the holes in the rocky hilltop. Instead, they rallied and packed themselves around their tall leader. They stood, a defiant wall.
"Can we shoot a ray, Jim?"
I didn't answer. Later I would recall that Split
could
drop his dignity under excitement—his "Captain Linden" and "sir." Just now he wanted any sort of split-second order.
We saw the naked warriors run out in a wide circle. They spun and weaved, they twirled their deadly clubs, they danced grotesquely. They were closing in. Closer and closer. It was all their party.
"Jim, can we shoot?"
"Hit number sixteen, Campbell."
Split touched the number sixteen signal.
The ship's siren wailed out over the land.
You could tell when the sound struck them. The circle of savage ones suddenly fell apart. The dancing broke into the wildest contortions you ever saw. As if they'd been spanked by a wave of electricity. The siren scream must have sounded like an animal cry from an unknown world. The attackers ran for the sponge-trees. The rootless jungle came to life. It jerked and jumped spasmodically down the slope. And our siren kept right on singing.
"Ready for that hike, Campbell? Give me my equipment coat." I got into it. I looked back to the telescope. The tall man of the party had behaved with exceptional calmness. He had turned to stare in our direction from the instant the siren sounded. He could no doubt make out the lines of our silvery ship in the shadows. Slowly, deliberately, he marched over the hilltop toward us.
Most of his party now scampered back to the safety of their hiding places in the ground. But a few—the brave ones, perhaps, or the officials of his group—came with him.
"He needs a stronger guard than that," Campbell grumbled.
Sixteen was still wailing. "Set it for ten minutes and come on," I said. Together we descended from the ship.
We took into our nostrils the tangy air, breathing fiercely, at first. We slogged along over the rock surface feeling our weight to be one-and-a-third times normal. We glanced down the slope apprehensively. We didn't want any footraces. The trees, however, were still retreating. Our siren would sing on for another eight minutes. And in case of further danger, we were equipped with the standard pocket arsenal of special purpose capsule bombs.
Soon we came face to face with the tall, stately old leader in the cream-and-red cloak.
Split and I stood together, close enough to exchange comments against the siren's wail. Fine looking people, we observed. Smooth faces. Like the features of Earth men. These creatures could walk down any main street back home. With a bit of makeup they would pass.
"Notice, Captain, they have strange looking eyes." "Very smooth."
"It's because they have no eyebrows ... no eye lashes." "Very smooth—handsome—attractive."
Then the siren went off.
The leader stood before me, apparently unafraid. He seemed to be waiting for me to explain my presence. His group of twelve gathered in close.
I had met such situations with ease before. "EGGWE" explorers come equipped. I held out a gift toward the leader. It was a singing medallion attached to a chain. It was disc-shaped, patterned after a large silver coin. It made music at the touch of a button. In clear, dainty bell tones it rang out its one tune, "Trail of Stars."
As it played I held it up for inspection. I placed it around my own neck, then offered it to the leader. I thought he was smiling. He was not overwhelmed by the "magic" of this gadget. He saw it for what it was, a token of friendship. There was a keenness about him that I liked. Yes, he was smiling. He bent his head forward and allowed me to place the gift around his neck.
"Tomboldo," he said, pointing to himself.
Split and I tried to imitate his breathy accents as we repeated aloud,
"Tomboldo."
We pointed to ourselves, in turn, and spoke our own names. And then, as the names of the others were pronounced, we tried to memorize each breathy sound that was uttered. I was able to remember four or five of them. One was Gravgak.
Gravgak's piercing eyes caused me to notice him. Suspicious eyes? I did not know these people's expressions well enough to be sure.
Gravgak was a guard, tall and muscular, whose arms and legs were painted with green and black diamond designs.
By motions and words we didn't understand, we inferred that we were invited to accompany the party back home, inside the hill, where we would be safe. I nodded to Campbell. "It's our chance to be guests of Tomboldo." Nothing could have pleased us more. For our big purpose—to understand the Serpent River—would be forwarded greatly if we could learn, through the people, what its meanings were. To analyze the river's substance, estimate its rate, its weight, its temperature, and to map its course—these facts were only a part of the information we sought. The fuller story would be to learn how the inhabitants of this planet regarded it: whether they loved or shunned it, and what legends they may have woven around it. All this knowledge would be useful when future expeditions of men from the Earth followed us (through EGGWE) for an extension of peaceful trade relationships.
Tomboldo depended upon the guard Gravgak to make sure that the way was safe. Gravgak was supposed to keep an eye on the line of floating trees that had taken flight down the hillside. Danger still lurked there, we knew. And now the siren that had frightened off the attack was silent. Our ship, locked against invaders, could be forgotten. We were guests of Tomboldo.
Gravgak was our guard, but he didn't work at it. He was too anxious to hear all the talk. In the excitement of our meeting, everyone ignored the growing darkness, the lurking dangers. Gravgak confronted us with agitated jabbering:
"Wollo—yeeta—vo—vandartch—vandartch! Grr—see—o—see—o—see—o!"
"See—o—see—o—see—o," one of the others echoed.
It began to make sense. They wanted us to repeat the siren noises. The enemy had threatened their lives. There could very well have been a wholesale slaughter. But as long as we could make the "see—o—see—o" we were all safe.
Split and I exchanged glances. He touched his hand to the equipment jacket, to remind me we were armed with something more miraculous than a yowling siren.
"See—o—see—o—see—o!" Others of Tomboldo's party echoed the demand. They must have seen the sponge-trees again moving toward our path.
"
See—o—see—o!
"
Our peaceful march turned into a spasm of terror. The sponge-trees came rushing up the slope, as if borne by a sudden gust of wind. They bounced over our path, and the war party spilled out of them.
Shouting. A wild swinging of clubs. And no cat-and-mouse tricks. No deliberate circling and closing in. An outright attack. Naked bodies gleaming in the semi-darkness. Arms swinging weapons, choosing the nearest victims. The luminous rocks on the ends of the clubs flashed. Shouting, screeching, hurling their clubs. The whizzing fury filled the air.
I hurled a capsule bomb. It struck at the base of a bouncing sponge-tree, and blew the thing to bits.
The attackers ran back into a huddle, screaming. Then they came forward, rushing defiantly.
Our muscular guard, Gravgak was too bold. He had picked up one of their clubs and he ran toward their advance, and to all of Tomboldo's party it must have appeared that he was bravely rushing to his death. Yet the gesture of the club he swung so wildly could have been intended as a
warning
! It could have meant, Run back, you fools, or these strange devils will throw fire at you.
I threw fire. And so did my lieutenant. He didn't wait for orders, thank goodness. He knew it was their lives or ours. Zip, zip, zip—BLANG-BLANG-BLANG! The bursts of fire at their feet ripped the rocks. The spray caught them and knocked them back. Three or four warriors in the fore ranks were torn up in the blasts. Others were flattened—and those who were able, ran.
They ran, not waiting for the cover of sponge-trees. Not bothering to pick up their clubs.
But the operation was not a complete success. We had suffered a serious casualty. The guard Gravgak. He had rushed out too far, and the first blast of fire and rock had knocked him down. Now Tomboldo and others of the party hovered over him.
His eyes opened a little. I thought he was staring at me, drilling me with suspicion. I worked over him with medicines. The crowd around us stood back in an attitude of awe as Split and I applied ready bandages, and held a stimulant to his nostrils that made him breath back to consciousness.
Suddenly he came to life. Lying there on his back, with the club still at his fingertips, he swung up on one elbow. The swift motion caused a cry of joy from the crowd. I heard a little of it—and then blacked out. For as the muscular Gravgak moved, his fingers closed over the handle of the club. It whizzed upward with him—apparently all by accident. The stone that dangled from the end of the club crashed into my head.
I went into instant darkness. Darkness, and a long, long silence.
4.
Vauna, the beautiful daughter of Tomboldo, came into my life during the weeks that I lay unconscious.
I must have talked aloud much during those feverish hours of darkness.
"Campbell!" I would call out of a nightmare. "Campbell, we're about to land. Is everything set? Check the instruments again, Campbell."
"S-s-sh!" The low hush of Split Campbell's voice would somehow penetrate my dream.
The voices about me were soft. My dreams echoed the soft female voices of this new, strange language.
"Campbell, are you there?... Have you forgotten the Code, Campbell?"
"Quiet, Captain."
"Who is it that's swabbing my face? I can't see."
"It's Vauna. She's smiling at you, Captain. Can't you see her?"
"Is this the pretty one we saw through the telescope?"
"One of them."
"And what of the other? There were two together. I remember—"
"Omosla is here too. She's Vauna's attendant. We're all looking after you, Captain Linden. Did you know I performed an operation to relieve the pressure on your brain? You must get well, Captain." The words of Campbell came through insistently.
After a silence that may have lasted for hours or days, I said,
"Campbell, you haven't forgot the EGGWE Code?"
"Of course not, Captain."
"Section Four?"
"Section Four," he repeated in a low voice, as if to pacify me and put me to sleep. "Conduct of EGGWE agents toward native inhabitants: A, No agent shall enter into any diplomatic agreement that shall be construed as binding—"
I interrupted. "Clause D?"
He picked it up. "D, no agent shall enter into a marriage contract with any native.... H-m-m. You're not trying to warn me, are you, Captain Linden? Or are you warning
yourself
?"
At that moment my eyes opened a little. Swimming before my blurred vision was the face of Vauna. I did remember her—yes, she must have haunted my dreams, for now my eyes burned in an effort to define her features more clearly. This was indeed Vauna, who had been one of the party of twelve, and had walked beside her father in the face of the attack. Deep within my subconscious the image of her beautiful face and figure had lingered. I murmured a single word of answer to Campbell's question. "Myself."
In the hours that followed, I came to know the soft footsteps of Vauna. The caverns in which she and her father and all these Benzendella people lived were pleasantly warm and fragrant. My misty impressions of their life about me were like the first impressions of a child learning about the world into which he has been born.
Sometimes I would hear Vauna and her attendant Omosla talking together. Often when Campbell would stop in this part of the cavern to inquire about me, Omosla would drop in also. She and Campbell were learning to converse in simple words. And Vauna and I—yes. If I could only avoid blacking out.
I wanted to see her.
So often my eyes would refuse to open. A thousand nightmares. Space ships shooting through meteor swarms. Stars like eyes. Eyes like stars. The eyes of Vauna, the daughter of Tomboldo. The sensitive stroke of Vauna's fingers, brushing my forehead, pressing my hand.
I regained my health gradually.
"Are you quite awake?" Vauna would ask me in her musical Benzendella words. "You speak better today. Your friend Campbell has brought you more recordings of our language, so you can learn to speak more. My father is eager to talk with you. But you must sleep more. You are still weak."
It gave me a weird sensation to awaken in the night, trying to adjust myself to my surroundings. The Benzendellas were sleep-singers. By night they murmured mysterious little songs through their sleep. Strange harmonies whispered through the caves.
And if I stirred restlessly, the footsteps of Vauna might come to me through the darkness. In her sleeping garments she would come to me, faintly visible in the pink light that filtered through from some corridor. She would whisper melodious Benzendella words and tell me to go back to sleep, and I would drift into the darkness of my endless dreams.
The day came when I awakened to see both Vauna and her father standing before me. Stern old Tomboldo, with his chalk-smooth face and not a hint of an eyebrow or eyelash, rapped his hand against my ribs, shook the fiber bed lightly, and smiled. From a pocket concealed in his flowing cape, he drew forth the musical watch, touched the button, and played, "Trail of Stars."
"I have learned to talk," I said.
"You have had a long sleep."
"I am well again. See, I can almost walk." But as I started to rise, the wave of blackness warned me, and I restrained my ambition. "I will walk soon."
"We will have much to talk about. Your friend has pointed to the stars and told me a strange story of your coming. We have walked around the ship. He has told me how it rides through the sky. I can hardly make myself believe." Tomboldo's eyes cast upward under the strong ridge of forehead where the eyebrows should have been. He was evidently trying to visualize the flight of a space ship. "We will have much to tell each other."
"I hope so," I said. "Campbell and I came to learn about the
serpent river
." I resorted to my own language for the last two words, not knowing the Benzendella equivalent.
I
made an eel-like motion with my arm. But they didn't understand. And before I could explain, the footsteps of other Benzendellas approached, and presently I looked around to see that quite an audience had gathered. The most prominent figure of the new group was the big muscular guard of the black and green diamond markings—Gravgak.
"You get well?" Gravgak said to me. His eyes drilled me closely.
"I get well," I said.
"The blow on the head," he said, "was not meant."
I looked at him. Everyone was looking at him, and I knew this was meant to be an occasion of apology. But the light of fire in Vauna's eyes told me that she did not believe. He saw her look, and his own eyes flashed darts of defiance. With an abrupt word to me, he wheeled and started off. "Get well!"
The crowd of men and women made way for him. But in the arched doorway he turned. "Vauna. I am ready to speak to you alone."
She started. I reached and barely touched her hand. She stopped. "I will talk with you later, Gravgak."
"Now!" he shouted. "Alone."
He stalked off. A moment later Vauna, after exchanging a word with her father, excused herself from the crowd and followed Gravgak.
From the way those in the room looked, I knew this must be a dramatic moment. It was as if she had acknowledged Gravgak as her master—or her lover. He had called for her. She had followed.
But her old father was still the master. He stepped toward the door.
"Vauna!... Gravgak!... Come back."
(I will always wonder what might have happened if he hadn't called them! Was my distrust of Gravgak justified? Had I become merely a jealous lover—or was I right in my hunch that the tall muscular guard was a potential traitor?)
Vauna reappeared at once. I believe she was glad that she had been called back.
Gravgak came sullenly. At the edge of the crowd in the arched doorway he stood scowling.
"While we are together," old Tomboldo said quietly, looking around at the assemblage, "I must tell you the decision of the council. Soon we will move back to the other part of the world."
There were low murmurs of approval through the chamber.
"We will wait a few days," Tomboldo went on, "until our new friend—" he pointed to me—"is well enough to travel. We would never leave him here to the mercy of the savage ones. He and his helper came through the sky in time to save us from being destroyed. We must never forget this kindness. When we ascend the
Kao-Wagwattl
, the ever moving
rope of life
, these friends shall come with us. On the back of the Kao-Wagwattl
they shall ride with us across the land
."
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Who is Edward C. Loyce, and what are his characteristics?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Hanging Stranger by Philip K. Dick.
Relevant chunks:
THE HANGING STRANGER
BY PHILIP K. DICK
ILLUSTRATED BY SMITH
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Science Fiction Adventures Magazine December 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Ed had always been a practical man, when he saw something was wrong he tried to correct it. Then one day he saw
it
hanging in the town square.
Five o'clock Ed Loyce washed up, tossed on his hat and coat, got his car out and headed across town toward his TV sales store. He was tired. His back and shoulders ached from digging dirt out of the basement and wheeling it into the back yard. But for a forty-year-old man he had done okay. Janet could get a new vase with the money he had saved; and he liked the idea of repairing the foundations himself!
It was getting dark. The setting sun cast long rays over the scurrying commuters, tired and grim-faced, women loaded down with bundles and packages, students swarming home from the university, mixing with clerks and businessmen and drab secretaries. He stopped his Packard for a red light and then started it up again. The store had been open without him; he'd arrive just in time to spell the help for dinner, go over the records of the day, maybe even close a couple of sales himself. He drove slowly past the small square of green in the center of the street, the town park. There were no parking places in front of LOYCE TV SALES AND SERVICE. He cursed under his breath and swung the car in a U-turn. Again he passed the little square of green with its lonely drinking fountain and bench and single lamppost.
From the lamppost something was hanging. A shapeless dark bundle, swinging a little with the wind. Like a dummy of some sort. Loyce rolled down his window and peered out. What the hell was it? A display of some kind? Sometimes the Chamber of Commerce put up displays in the square.
Again he made a U-turn and brought his car around. He passed the park and concentrated on the dark bundle. It wasn't a dummy. And if it was a display it was a strange kind. The hackles on his neck rose and he swallowed uneasily. Sweat slid out on his face and hands.
It was a body. A human body.
"Look at it!" Loyce snapped. "Come on out here!"
Don Fergusson came slowly out of the store, buttoning his pin-stripe coat with dignity. "This is a big deal, Ed. I can't just leave the guy standing there."
"See it?" Ed pointed into the gathering gloom. The lamppost jutted up against the sky—the post and the bundle swinging from it. "There it is. How the hell long has it been there?" His voice rose excitedly. "What's wrong with everybody? They just walk on past!"
Don Fergusson lit a cigarette slowly. "Take it easy, old man. There must be a good reason, or it wouldn't be there."
"A reason! What kind of a reason?"
Fergusson shrugged. "Like the time the Traffic Safety Council put that wrecked Buick there. Some sort of civic thing. How would I know?"
Jack Potter from the shoe shop joined them. "What's up, boys?"
"There's a body hanging from the lamppost," Loyce said. "I'm going to call the cops."
"They must know about it," Potter said. "Or otherwise it wouldn't be there."
"I got to get back in." Fergusson headed back into the store. "Business before pleasure."
Loyce began to get hysterical. "You see it? You see it hanging there? A man's body! A dead man!"
"Sure, Ed. I saw it this afternoon when I went out for coffee."
"You mean it's been there all afternoon?"
"Sure. What's the matter?" Potter glanced at his watch. "Have to run. See you later, Ed."
Potter hurried off, joining the flow of people moving along the sidewalk. Men and women, passing by the park. A few glanced up curiously at the dark bundle—and then went on. Nobody stopped. Nobody paid any attention.
"I'm going nuts," Loyce whispered. He made his way to the curb and crossed out into traffic, among the cars. Horns honked angrily at him. He gained the curb and stepped up onto the little square of green.
The man had been middle-aged. His clothing was ripped and torn, a gray suit, splashed and caked with dried mud. A stranger. Loyce had never seen him before. Not a local man. His face was partly turned, away, and in the evening wind he spun a little, turning gently, silently. His skin was gouged and cut. Red gashes, deep scratches of congealed blood. A pair of steel-rimmed glasses hung from one ear, dangling foolishly. His eyes bulged. His mouth was open, tongue thick and ugly blue.
"For Heaven's sake," Loyce muttered, sickened. He pushed down his nausea and made his way back to the sidewalk. He was shaking all over, with revulsion—and fear.
Why? Who was the man? Why was he hanging there? What did it mean?
And—why didn't anybody notice?
He bumped into a small man hurrying along the sidewalk. "Watch it!" the man grated, "Oh, it's you, Ed."
Ed nodded dazedly. "Hello, Jenkins."
"What's the matter?" The stationery clerk caught Ed's arm. "You look sick."
"The body. There in the park."
"Sure, Ed." Jenkins led him into the alcove of LOYCE TV SALES AND SERVICE. "Take it easy."
Margaret Henderson from the jewelry store joined them. "Something wrong?"
"Ed's not feeling well."
Loyce yanked himself free. "How can you stand here? Don't you see it? For God's sake—"
"What's he talking about?" Margaret asked nervously.
"The body!" Ed shouted. "The body hanging there!"
More people collected. "Is he sick? It's Ed Loyce. You okay, Ed?"
"The body!" Loyce screamed, struggling to get past them. Hands caught at him. He tore loose. "Let me go! The police! Get the police!"
"Ed—"
"Better get a doctor!"
"He must be sick."
"Or drunk."
Loyce fought his way through the people. He stumbled and half fell. Through a blur he saw rows of faces, curious, concerned, anxious. Men and women halting to see what the disturbance was. He fought past them toward his store. He could see Fergusson inside talking to a man, showing him an Emerson TV set. Pete Foley in the back at the service counter, setting up a new Philco. Loyce shouted at them frantically. His voice was lost in the roar of traffic and the murmur around him.
"Do something!" he screamed. "Don't stand there! Do something! Something's wrong! Something's happened! Things are going on!"
The crowd melted respectfully for the two heavy-set cops moving efficiently toward Loyce.
"Name?" the cop with the notebook murmured.
"Loyce." He mopped his forehead wearily. "Edward C. Loyce. Listen to me. Back there—"
"Address?" the cop demanded. The police car moved swiftly through traffic, shooting among the cars and buses. Loyce sagged against the seat, exhausted and confused. He took a deep shuddering breath.
"1368 Hurst Road."
"That's here in Pikeville?"
"That's right." Loyce pulled himself up with a violent effort. "Listen to me. Back there. In the square. Hanging from the lamppost—"
"Where were you today?" the cop behind the wheel demanded.
"Where?" Loyce echoed.
"You weren't in your shop, were you?"
"No." He shook his head. "No, I was home. Down in the basement."
"In the basement ?"
"Digging. A new foundation. Getting out the dirt to pour a cement frame. Why? What has that to do with—"
"Was anybody else down there with you?"
"No. My wife was downtown. My kids were at school." Loyce looked from one heavy-set cop to the other. Hope flicked across his face, wild hope.
"You mean because I was down there I missed—the explanation? I didn't get in on it? Like everybody else?"
After a pause the cop with the notebook said: "That's right. You missed the explanation."
"Then it's official? The body—it's supposed to be hanging there?"
"It's supposed to be hanging there. For everybody to see."
Ed Loyce grinned weakly. "Good Lord. I guess I sort of went off the deep end. I thought maybe something had happened. You know, something like the Ku Klux Klan. Some kind of violence. Communists or Fascists taking over." He wiped his face with his breast-pocket handkerchief, his hands shaking. "I'm glad to know it's on the level."
"It's on the level." The police car was getting near the Hall of Justice. The sun had set. The streets were gloomy and dark. The lights had not yet come on.
"I feel better," Loyce said. "I was pretty excited there, for a minute. I guess I got all stirred up. Now that I understand, there's no need to take me in, is there?"
The two cops said nothing.
"I should be back at my store. The boys haven't had dinner. I'm all right, now. No more trouble. Is there any need of—"
"This won't take long," the cop behind the wheel interrupted. "A short process. Only a few minutes."
"I hope it's short," Loyce muttered. The car slowed down for a stoplight. "I guess I sort of disturbed the peace. Funny, getting excited like that and—"
Loyce yanked the door open. He sprawled out into the street and rolled to his feet. Cars were moving all around him, gaining speed as the light changed. Loyce leaped onto the curb and raced among the people, burrowing into the swarming crowds. Behind him he heard sounds, shouts, people running.
They weren't cops. He had realized that right away. He knew every cop in Pikeville. A man couldn't own a store, operate a business in a small town for twenty-five years without getting to know all the cops.
They weren't cops—and there hadn't been any explanation. Potter, Fergusson, Jenkins, none of them knew why it was there. They didn't know—and they didn't care. That was the strange part.
Loyce ducked into a hardware store. He raced toward the back, past the startled clerks and customers, into the shipping room and through the back door. He tripped over a garbage can and ran up a flight of concrete steps. He climbed over a fence and jumped down on the other side, gasping and panting.
There was no sound behind him. He had got away.
He was at the entrance of an alley, dark and strewn with boards and ruined boxes and tires. He could see the street at the far end. A street light wavered and came on. Men and women. Stores. Neon signs. Cars.
And to his right—the police station.
He was close, terribly close. Past the loading platform of a grocery store rose the white concrete side of the Hall of Justice. Barred windows. The police antenna. A great concrete wall rising up in the darkness. A bad place for him to be near. He was too close. He had to keep moving, get farther away from them.
Them?
Loyce moved cautiously down the alley. Beyond the police station was the City Hall, the old-fashioned yellow structure of wood and gilded brass and broad cement steps. He could see the endless rows of offices, dark windows, the cedars and beds of flowers on each side of the entrance.
And—something else.
Above the City Hall was a patch of darkness, a cone of gloom denser than the surrounding night. A prism of black that spread out and was lost into the sky.
He listened. Good God, he could hear something. Something that made him struggle frantically to close his ears, his mind, to shut out the sound. A buzzing. A distant, muted hum like a great swarm of bees.
Loyce gazed up, rigid with horror. The splotch of darkness, hanging over the City Hall. Darkness so thick it seemed almost solid. In the vortex something moved. Flickering shapes. Things, descending from the sky, pausing momentarily above the City Hall, fluttering over it in a dense swarm and then dropping silently onto the roof.
Shapes. Fluttering shapes from the sky. From the crack of darkness that hung above him.
He was seeing—them.
For a long time Loyce watched, crouched behind a sagging fence in a pool of scummy water.
They were landing. Coming down in groups, landing on the roof of the City Hall and disappearing inside. They had wings. Like giant insects of some kind. They flew and fluttered and came to rest—and then crawled crab-fashion, sideways, across the roof and into the building.
He was sickened. And fascinated. Cold night wind blew around him and he shuddered. He was tired, dazed with shock. On the front steps of the City Hall were men, standing here and there. Groups of men coming out of the building and halting for a moment before going on.
Were there more of them?
It didn't seem possible. What he saw descending from the black chasm weren't men. They were alien—from some other world, some other dimension. Sliding through this slit, this break in the shell of the universe. Entering through this gap, winged insects from another realm of being.
On the steps of the City Hall a group of men broke up. A few moved toward a waiting car. One of the remaining shapes started to re-enter the City Hall. It changed its mind and turned to follow the others.
Loyce closed his eyes in horror. His senses reeled. He hung on tight, clutching at the sagging fence. The shape, the man-shape, had abruptly fluttered up and flapped after the others. It flew to the sidewalk and came to rest among them.
Pseudo-men. Imitation men. Insects with ability to disguise themselves as men. Like other insects familiar to Earth. Protective coloration. Mimicry.
Loyce pulled himself away. He got slowly to his feet. It was night. The alley was totally dark. But maybe they could see in the dark. Maybe darkness made no difference to them.
He left the alley cautiously and moved out onto the street. Men and women flowed past, but not so many, now. At the bus-stops stood waiting groups. A huge bus lumbered along the street, its lights flashing in the evening gloom.
Loyce moved forward. He pushed his way among those waiting and when the bus halted he boarded it and took a seat in the rear, by the door. A moment later the bus moved into life and rumbled down the street.
Loyce relaxed a little. He studied the people around him. Dulled, tired faces. People going home from work. Quite ordinary faces. None of them paid any attention to him. All sat quietly, sunk down in their seats, jiggling with the motion of the bus.
The man sitting next to him unfolded a newspaper. He began to read the sports section, his lips moving. An ordinary man. Blue suit. Tie. A businessman, or a salesman. On his way home to his wife and family.
Across the aisle a young woman, perhaps twenty. Dark eyes and hair, a package on her lap. Nylons and heels. Red coat and white angora sweater. Gazing absently ahead of her.
A high school boy in jeans and black jacket.
A great triple-chinned woman with an immense shopping bag loaded with packages and parcels. Her thick face dim with weariness.
Ordinary people. The kind that rode the bus every evening. Going home to their families. To dinner.
Going home—with their minds dead. Controlled, filmed over with the mask of an alien being that had appeared and taken possession of them, their town, their lives. Himself, too. Except that he happened to be deep in his cellar instead of in the store. Somehow, he had been overlooked. They had missed him. Their control wasn't perfect, foolproof.
Maybe there were others.
Hope flickered in Loyce. They weren't omnipotent. They had made a mistake, not got control of him. Their net, their field of control, had passed over him. He had emerged from his cellar as he had gone down. Apparently their power-zone was limited.
A few seats down the aisle a man was watching him. Loyce broke off his chain of thought. A slender man, with dark hair and a small mustache. Well-dressed, brown suit and shiny shoes. A book between his small hands. He was watching Loyce, studying him intently. He turned quickly away.
Loyce tensed. One of them ? Or—another they had missed?
The man was watching him again. Small dark eyes, alive and clever. Shrewd. A man too shrewd for them—or one of the things itself, an alien insect from beyond.
The bus halted. An elderly man got on slowly and dropped his token into the box. He moved down the aisle and took a seat opposite Loyce.
The elderly man caught the sharp-eyed man's gaze. For a split second something passed between them.
A look rich with meaning.
Loyce got to his feet. The bus was moving. He ran to the door. One step down into the well. He yanked the emergency door release. The rubber door swung open.
"Hey!" the driver shouted, jamming on the brakes. "What the hell—"
Loyce squirmed through. The bus was slowing down. Houses on all sides. A residential district, lawns and tall apartment buildings. Behind him, the bright-eyed man had leaped up. The elderly man was also on his feet. They were coming after him.
Loyce leaped. He hit the pavement with terrific force and rolled against the curb. Pain lapped over him. Pain and a vast tide of blackness. Desperately, he fought it off. He struggled to his knees and then slid down again. The bus had stopped. People were getting off.
Loyce groped around. His fingers closed over something. A rock, lying in the gutter. He crawled to his feet, grunting with pain. A shape loomed before him. A man, the bright-eyed man with the book.
Loyce kicked. The man gasped and fell. Loyce brought the rock down. The man screamed and tried to roll away. " Stop! For God's sake listen—"
He struck again. A hideous crunching sound. The man's voice cut off and dissolved in a bubbling wail. Loyce scrambled up and back. The others were there, now. All around him. He ran, awkwardly, down the sidewalk, up a driveway. None of them followed him. They had stopped and were bending over the inert body of the man with the book, the bright-eyed man who had come after him.
Had he made a mistake?
But it was too late to worry about that. He had to get out—away from them. Out of Pikeville, beyond the crack of darkness, the rent between their world and his.
"Ed!" Janet Loyce backed away nervously. "What is it? What—"
Ed Loyce slammed the door behind him and came into the living room.
"Pull down the shades. Quick."
Janet moved toward the window. "But—"
"Do as I say. Who else is here besides you?"
"Nobody. Just the twins. They're upstairs in their room. What's happened? You look so strange. Why are you home?"
Ed locked the front door. He prowled around the house, into the kitchen. From the drawer under the sink he slid out the big butcher knife and ran his finger along it. Sharp. Plenty sharp. He returned to the living room.
"Listen to me," he said. "I don't have much time. They know I escaped and they'll be looking for me."
"Escaped?" Janet's face twisted with bewilderment and fear. "Who?"
"The town has been taken over. They're in control. I've got it pretty well figured out. They started at the top, at the City Hall and police department. What they did with the real humans they—"
"What are you talking about?"
"We've been invaded. From some other universe, some other dimension. They're insects. Mimicry. And more. Power to control minds. Your mind."
"My mind?"
"Their entrance is here , in Pikeville. They've taken over all of you. The whole town—except me. We're up against an incredibly powerful enemy, but they have their limitations. That's our hope. They're limited! They can make mistakes!"
Janet shook her head. "I don't understand, Ed. You must be insane."
"Insane? No. Just lucky. If I hadn't been down in the basement I'd be like all the rest of you." Loyce peered out the window. "But I can't stand here talking. Get your coat."
"My coat?"
"We're getting out of here. Out of Pikeville. We've got to get help. Fight this thing. They can be beaten. They're not infallible. It's going to be close—but we may make it if we hurry. Come on!" He grabbed her arm roughly. "Get your coat and call the twins. We're all leaving. Don't stop to pack. There's no time for that."
White-faced, his wife moved toward the closet and got down her coat.
"Where are we going?"
Ed pulled open the desk drawer and spilled the contents out onto the floor. He grabbed up a road map and spread it open. "They'll have the highway covered, of course. But there's a back road. To Oak Grove. I got onto it once. It's practically abandoned. Maybe they'll forget about it."
"The old Ranch Road? Good Lord—it's completely closed. Nobody's supposed to drive over it."
"I know." Ed thrust the map grimly into his coat. "That's our best chance. Now call down the twins and let's get going. Your car is full of gas, isn't it?"
Janet was dazed.
"The Chevy? I had it filled up yesterday afternoon." Janet moved toward the stairs. "Ed, I—"
"Call the twins!" Ed unlocked the front door and peered out. Nothing stirred. No sign of life. All right so far.
"Come on downstairs," Janet called in a wavering voice. "We're—going out for awhile."
"Now?" Tommy's voice came.
"Hurry up," Ed barked. "Get down here, both of you."
Tommy appeared at the top of the stairs. "I was doing my home work. We're starting fractions. Miss Parker says if we don't get this done—"
"You can forget about fractions." Ed grabbed his son as he came down the stairs and propelled him toward the door. "Where's Jim?"
"He's coming."
Jim started slowly down the stairs. "What's up, Dad?"
"We're going for a ride."
"A ride? Where?"
Ed turned to Janet. "We'll leave the lights on. And the TV set. Go turn it on." He pushed her toward the set. "So they'll think we're still—"
He heard the buzz. And dropped instantly, the long butcher knife out. Sickened, he saw it coming down the stairs at him, wings a blur of motion as it aimed itself. It still bore a vague resemblance to Jimmy. It was small, a baby one. A brief glimpse—the thing hurtling at him, cold, multi-lensed inhuman eyes. Wings, body still clothed in yellow T-shirt and jeans, the mimic outline still stamped on it. A strange half-turn of its body as it reached him. What was it doing?
A stinger.
Loyce stabbed wildly at it. It retreated, buzzing frantically. Loyce rolled and crawled toward the door. Tommy and Janet stood still as statues, faces blank. Watching without expression. Loyce stabbed again. This time the knife connected. The thing shrieked and faltered. It bounced against the wall and fluttered down.
Something lapped through his mind. A wall of force, energy, an alien mind probing into him. He was suddenly paralyzed. The mind entered his own, touched against him briefly, shockingly. An utterly alien presence, settling over him—and then it flickered out as the thing collapsed in a broken heap on the rug.
It was dead. He turned it over with his foot. It was an insect, a fly of some kind. Yellow T-shirt, jeans. His son Jimmy.... He closed his mind tight. It was too late to think about that. Savagely he scooped up his knife and headed toward the door. Janet and Tommy stood stone-still, neither of them moving.
The car was out. He'd never get through. They'd be waiting for him. It was ten miles on foot. Ten long miles over rough ground, gulleys and open fields and hills of uncut forest. He'd have to go alone.
Loyce opened the door. For a brief second he looked back at his wife and son. Then he slammed the door behind him and raced down the porch steps.
A moment later he was on his way, hurrying swiftly through the darkness toward the edge of town.
The early morning sunlight was blinding. Loyce halted, gasping for breath, swaying back and forth. Sweat ran down in his eyes. His clothing was torn, shredded by the brush and thorns through which he had crawled. Ten miles—on his hands and knees. Crawling, creeping through the night. His shoes were mud-caked. He was scratched and limping, utterly exhausted.
But ahead of him lay Oak Grove.
He took a deep breath and started down the hill. Twice he stumbled and fell, picking himself up and trudging on. His ears rang. Everything receded and wavered. But he was there. He had got out, away from Pikeville.
A farmer in a field gaped at him. From a house a young woman watched in wonder. Loyce reached the road and turned onto it. Ahead of him was a gasoline station and a drive-in. A couple of trucks, some chickens pecking in the dirt, a dog tied with a string.
The white-clad attendant watched suspiciously as he dragged himself up to the station. "Thank God." He caught hold of the wall. "I didn't think I was going to make it. They followed me most of the way. I could hear them buzzing. Buzzing and flitting around behind me."
"What happened?" the attendant demanded. "You in a wreck? A hold-up?"
Loyce shook his head wearily. "They have the whole town. The City Hall and the police station. They hung a man from the lamppost. That was the first thing I saw. They've got all the roads blocked. I saw them hovering over the cars coming in. About four this morning I got beyond them. I knew it right away. I could feel them leave. And then the sun came up."
The attendant licked his lip nervously. "You're out of your head. I better get a doctor."
"Get me into Oak Grove," Loyce gasped. He sank down on the gravel.
"We've got to get started—cleaning them out. Got to get started right away."
They kept a tape recorder going all the time he talked. When he had finished the Commissioner snapped off the recorder and got to his feet. He stood for a moment, deep in thought. Finally he got out his cigarettes and lit up slowly, a frown on his beefy face.
"You don't believe me," Loyce said.
The Commissioner offered him a cigarette. Loyce pushed it impatiently away. "Suit yourself." The Commissioner moved over to the window and stood for a time looking out at the town of Oak Grove. "I believe you," he said abruptly.
Loyce sagged. "Thank God."
"So you got away." The Commissioner shook his head. "You were down in your cellar instead of at work. A freak chance. One in a million."
Loyce sipped some of the black coffee they had brought him. "I have a theory," he murmured.
"What is it?"
"About them. Who they are. They take over one area at a time. Starting at the top—the highest level of authority. Working down from there in a widening circle. When they're firmly in control they go on to the next town. They spread, slowly, very gradually. I think it's been going on for a long time."
"A long time?"
"Thousands of years. I don't think it's new."
"Why do you say that?"
"When I was a kid.... A picture they showed us in Bible League. A religious picture—an old print. The enemy gods, defeated by Jehovah. Moloch, Beelzebub, Moab, Baalin, Ashtaroth—"
"So?"
"They were all represented by figures." Loyce looked up at the Commissioner. "Beelzebub was represented as—a giant fly."
The Commissioner grunted. "An old struggle."
"They've been defeated. The Bible is an account of their defeats. They make gains—but finally they're defeated."
"Why defeated?"
"They can't get everyone. They didn't get me. And they never got the Hebrews. The Hebrews carried the message to the whole world. The realization of the danger. The two men on the bus. I think they understood. Had escaped, like I did." He clenched his fists. "I killed one of them. I made a mistake. I was afraid to take a chance."
The Commissioner nodded. "Yes, they undoubtedly had escaped, as you did. Freak accidents. But the rest of the town was firmly in control." He turned from the window. "Well, Mr. Loyce. You seem to have figured everything out."
"Not everything. The hanging man. The dead man hanging from the lamppost. I don't understand that. Why? Why did they deliberately hang him there?"
"That would seem simple." The Commissioner smiled faintly. " Bait. "
Loyce stiffened. His heart stopped beating. "Bait? What do you mean?"
"To draw you out. Make you declare yourself. So they'd know who was under control—and who had escaped."
Loyce recoiled with horror. "Then they expected failures! They anticipated—" He broke off. "They were ready with a trap."
"And you showed yourself. You reacted. You made yourself known." The Commissioner abruptly moved toward the door. "Come along, Loyce. There's a lot to do. We must get moving. There's no time to waste."
Loyce started slowly to his feet, numbed. "And the man. Who was the man? I never saw him before. He wasn't a local man. He was a stranger. All muddy and dirty, his face cut, slashed—"
There was a strange look on the Commissioner's face as he answered.
"Maybe," he said softly, "you'll understand that, too. Come along with me, Mr. Loyce." He held the door open, his eyes gleaming. Loyce caught a glimpse of the street in front of the police station. Policemen, a platform of some sort. A telephone pole—and a rope! "Right this way," the Commissioner said, smiling coldly.
As the sun set, the vice-president of the Oak Grove Merchants' Bank came up out of the vault, threw the heavy time locks, put on his hat and coat, and hurried outside onto the sidewalk. Only a few people were there, hurrying home to dinner.
"Good night," the guard said, locking the door after him.
"Good night," Clarence Mason murmured. He started along the street toward his car. He was tired. He had been working all day down in the vault, examining the lay-out of the safety deposit boxes to see if there was room for another tier. He was glad to be finished.
At the corner he halted. The street lights had not yet come on. The street was dim. Everything was vague. He looked around—and froze.
From the telephone pole in front of the police station, something large and shapeless hung. It moved a little with the wind.
What the hell was it?
Mason approached it warily. He wanted to get home. He was tired and hungry. He thought of his wife, his kids, a hot meal on the dinner table. But there was something about the dark bundle, something ominous and ugly. The light was bad; he couldn't tell what it was. Yet it drew him on, made him move closer for a better look. The shapeless thing made him uneasy. He was frightened by it. Frightened—and fascinated.
And the strange part was that nobody else seemed to notice it.
Question:
Who is Edward C. Loyce, and what are his characteristics?
Answer:
|
[
"Edward C. Loyce has been the owner of the TV sales store in the town for twenty-five years, and he is also called Ed by the town people. He is forty years old, living at 1368 Hurst Road, Pikeville. He has a wife, Janet, and twin sons, Jimmy and Tommy. He owns a Packard. He is practical and always tries to correct wrong things. He is friendly because he knows everyone in the town, and everyone seems to have a good relationship with him. Ed is brave because when he realizes that nobody pays attention to the hanged body in the town park, he gets closer and tries to figure out who the corpse is. Ed is also brilliant because he grasps the abnormal situations immediately after noticing the difference between the current situation and the normal one and because he sees the alien’s power flaws right after knowing the situation. He is also practical because he plans what he should do right after grasping the situation in the town. He is cautious as he kills the man with the book on the bus, not letting the aliens' slight chance get him. His will is formidable because he runs with his feet for ten miles along the rough ground to escape from Pikeville and because he makes the decision immediately when he knows that he has to abandon his family.",
"Edward C. Loyce is a man who lives in a small town, and is the owner of a TV sales store. He seems to be very intelligent, determined and can handle himself in a fight. Once Ed is put in a situation in which he is in danger, he immediately starts to think about what he can do to survive. He did this in the police car, in the bus and in his house when he had to kill one of his children. He is also described as a practical man. ",
"Edward C. Loyce is the owner of LOYCE TV SALES AND SERVICES. He is married to his wife Janet; he also has two twin sons named Jimmy and Tommy. Loyce is described to be a forty year old man. He is also a very brave person, being unafraid to stab the alien that hurled itself at him even when it bore a vague resemblance to his son. He also chose to act quickly after seeing the aliens go to the City Hall. Loyce is also very perceptive as well, realizing that the two cops weren’t actually cops because he knew every cop in Pikeville. Even though he is very perceptive, it can cause him to become overly-paranoid as he accidentally killed one of the other men who escaped the alien control because he suspected that the man was one of the aliens. He is shown to love his family very much, choosing to go back for them in hopes that the whole town is not completely controlled yet",
"Edward C. Loyce is a forty-year-old citizen of Pikeville. He owns Loyce TV sales and service store. At the beginning, we learn that he is a practical person. He is friendly and approachable, many people know him and his store, and he’s also met every police officer in the town. He is terrified by death and instantly starts looking for something that could explain a dead body hanging from a lamppost. He’s also quite shrewd and good at pretending. We see that, when he manages to deceive two cops and escape after he realizes that they are not real police officers. He also shows his intellect when sharing his assumption regarding the creatures and referencing the biblical image. He cares for his family and tries to take them with him, to hide them from the alien creatures but is then forced to leave them. \n"
] |
41562
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THE HANGING STRANGER
BY PHILIP K. DICK
ILLUSTRATED BY SMITH
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Science Fiction Adventures Magazine December 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Ed had always been a practical man, when he saw something was wrong he tried to correct it. Then one day he saw
it
hanging in the town square.
Five o'clock Ed Loyce washed up, tossed on his hat and coat, got his car out and headed across town toward his TV sales store. He was tired. His back and shoulders ached from digging dirt out of the basement and wheeling it into the back yard. But for a forty-year-old man he had done okay. Janet could get a new vase with the money he had saved; and he liked the idea of repairing the foundations himself!
It was getting dark. The setting sun cast long rays over the scurrying commuters, tired and grim-faced, women loaded down with bundles and packages, students swarming home from the university, mixing with clerks and businessmen and drab secretaries. He stopped his Packard for a red light and then started it up again. The store had been open without him; he'd arrive just in time to spell the help for dinner, go over the records of the day, maybe even close a couple of sales himself. He drove slowly past the small square of green in the center of the street, the town park. There were no parking places in front of LOYCE TV SALES AND SERVICE. He cursed under his breath and swung the car in a U-turn. Again he passed the little square of green with its lonely drinking fountain and bench and single lamppost.
From the lamppost something was hanging. A shapeless dark bundle, swinging a little with the wind. Like a dummy of some sort. Loyce rolled down his window and peered out. What the hell was it? A display of some kind? Sometimes the Chamber of Commerce put up displays in the square.
Again he made a U-turn and brought his car around. He passed the park and concentrated on the dark bundle. It wasn't a dummy. And if it was a display it was a strange kind. The hackles on his neck rose and he swallowed uneasily. Sweat slid out on his face and hands.
It was a body. A human body.
"Look at it!" Loyce snapped. "Come on out here!"
Don Fergusson came slowly out of the store, buttoning his pin-stripe coat with dignity. "This is a big deal, Ed. I can't just leave the guy standing there."
"See it?" Ed pointed into the gathering gloom. The lamppost jutted up against the sky—the post and the bundle swinging from it. "There it is. How the hell long has it been there?" His voice rose excitedly. "What's wrong with everybody? They just walk on past!"
Don Fergusson lit a cigarette slowly. "Take it easy, old man. There must be a good reason, or it wouldn't be there."
"A reason! What kind of a reason?"
Fergusson shrugged. "Like the time the Traffic Safety Council put that wrecked Buick there. Some sort of civic thing. How would I know?"
Jack Potter from the shoe shop joined them. "What's up, boys?"
"There's a body hanging from the lamppost," Loyce said. "I'm going to call the cops."
"They must know about it," Potter said. "Or otherwise it wouldn't be there."
"I got to get back in." Fergusson headed back into the store. "Business before pleasure."
Loyce began to get hysterical. "You see it? You see it hanging there? A man's body! A dead man!"
"Sure, Ed. I saw it this afternoon when I went out for coffee."
"You mean it's been there all afternoon?"
"Sure. What's the matter?" Potter glanced at his watch. "Have to run. See you later, Ed."
Potter hurried off, joining the flow of people moving along the sidewalk. Men and women, passing by the park. A few glanced up curiously at the dark bundle—and then went on. Nobody stopped. Nobody paid any attention.
"I'm going nuts," Loyce whispered. He made his way to the curb and crossed out into traffic, among the cars. Horns honked angrily at him. He gained the curb and stepped up onto the little square of green.
The man had been middle-aged. His clothing was ripped and torn, a gray suit, splashed and caked with dried mud. A stranger. Loyce had never seen him before. Not a local man. His face was partly turned, away, and in the evening wind he spun a little, turning gently, silently. His skin was gouged and cut. Red gashes, deep scratches of congealed blood. A pair of steel-rimmed glasses hung from one ear, dangling foolishly. His eyes bulged. His mouth was open, tongue thick and ugly blue.
"For Heaven's sake," Loyce muttered, sickened. He pushed down his nausea and made his way back to the sidewalk. He was shaking all over, with revulsion—and fear.
Why? Who was the man? Why was he hanging there? What did it mean?
And—why didn't anybody notice?
He bumped into a small man hurrying along the sidewalk. "Watch it!" the man grated, "Oh, it's you, Ed."
Ed nodded dazedly. "Hello, Jenkins."
"What's the matter?" The stationery clerk caught Ed's arm. "You look sick."
"The body. There in the park."
"Sure, Ed." Jenkins led him into the alcove of LOYCE TV SALES AND SERVICE. "Take it easy."
Margaret Henderson from the jewelry store joined them. "Something wrong?"
"Ed's not feeling well."
Loyce yanked himself free. "How can you stand here? Don't you see it? For God's sake—"
"What's he talking about?" Margaret asked nervously.
"The body!" Ed shouted. "The body hanging there!"
More people collected. "Is he sick? It's Ed Loyce. You okay, Ed?"
"The body!" Loyce screamed, struggling to get past them. Hands caught at him. He tore loose. "Let me go! The police! Get the police!"
"Ed—"
"Better get a doctor!"
"He must be sick."
"Or drunk."
Loyce fought his way through the people. He stumbled and half fell. Through a blur he saw rows of faces, curious, concerned, anxious. Men and women halting to see what the disturbance was. He fought past them toward his store. He could see Fergusson inside talking to a man, showing him an Emerson TV set. Pete Foley in the back at the service counter, setting up a new Philco. Loyce shouted at them frantically. His voice was lost in the roar of traffic and the murmur around him.
"Do something!" he screamed. "Don't stand there! Do something! Something's wrong! Something's happened! Things are going on!"
The crowd melted respectfully for the two heavy-set cops moving efficiently toward Loyce.
"Name?" the cop with the notebook murmured.
"Loyce." He mopped his forehead wearily. "Edward C. Loyce. Listen to me. Back there—"
"Address?" the cop demanded. The police car moved swiftly through traffic, shooting among the cars and buses. Loyce sagged against the seat, exhausted and confused. He took a deep shuddering breath.
"1368 Hurst Road."
"That's here in Pikeville?"
"That's right." Loyce pulled himself up with a violent effort. "Listen to me. Back there. In the square. Hanging from the lamppost—"
"Where were you today?" the cop behind the wheel demanded.
"Where?" Loyce echoed.
"You weren't in your shop, were you?"
"No." He shook his head. "No, I was home. Down in the basement."
"In the basement ?"
"Digging. A new foundation. Getting out the dirt to pour a cement frame. Why? What has that to do with—"
"Was anybody else down there with you?"
"No. My wife was downtown. My kids were at school." Loyce looked from one heavy-set cop to the other. Hope flicked across his face, wild hope.
"You mean because I was down there I missed—the explanation? I didn't get in on it? Like everybody else?"
After a pause the cop with the notebook said: "That's right. You missed the explanation."
"Then it's official? The body—it's supposed to be hanging there?"
"It's supposed to be hanging there. For everybody to see."
Ed Loyce grinned weakly. "Good Lord. I guess I sort of went off the deep end. I thought maybe something had happened. You know, something like the Ku Klux Klan. Some kind of violence. Communists or Fascists taking over." He wiped his face with his breast-pocket handkerchief, his hands shaking. "I'm glad to know it's on the level."
"It's on the level." The police car was getting near the Hall of Justice. The sun had set. The streets were gloomy and dark. The lights had not yet come on.
"I feel better," Loyce said. "I was pretty excited there, for a minute. I guess I got all stirred up. Now that I understand, there's no need to take me in, is there?"
The two cops said nothing.
"I should be back at my store. The boys haven't had dinner. I'm all right, now. No more trouble. Is there any need of—"
"This won't take long," the cop behind the wheel interrupted. "A short process. Only a few minutes."
"I hope it's short," Loyce muttered. The car slowed down for a stoplight. "I guess I sort of disturbed the peace. Funny, getting excited like that and—"
Loyce yanked the door open. He sprawled out into the street and rolled to his feet. Cars were moving all around him, gaining speed as the light changed. Loyce leaped onto the curb and raced among the people, burrowing into the swarming crowds. Behind him he heard sounds, shouts, people running.
They weren't cops. He had realized that right away. He knew every cop in Pikeville. A man couldn't own a store, operate a business in a small town for twenty-five years without getting to know all the cops.
They weren't cops—and there hadn't been any explanation. Potter, Fergusson, Jenkins, none of them knew why it was there. They didn't know—and they didn't care. That was the strange part.
Loyce ducked into a hardware store. He raced toward the back, past the startled clerks and customers, into the shipping room and through the back door. He tripped over a garbage can and ran up a flight of concrete steps. He climbed over a fence and jumped down on the other side, gasping and panting.
There was no sound behind him. He had got away.
He was at the entrance of an alley, dark and strewn with boards and ruined boxes and tires. He could see the street at the far end. A street light wavered and came on. Men and women. Stores. Neon signs. Cars.
And to his right—the police station.
He was close, terribly close. Past the loading platform of a grocery store rose the white concrete side of the Hall of Justice. Barred windows. The police antenna. A great concrete wall rising up in the darkness. A bad place for him to be near. He was too close. He had to keep moving, get farther away from them.
Them?
Loyce moved cautiously down the alley. Beyond the police station was the City Hall, the old-fashioned yellow structure of wood and gilded brass and broad cement steps. He could see the endless rows of offices, dark windows, the cedars and beds of flowers on each side of the entrance.
And—something else.
Above the City Hall was a patch of darkness, a cone of gloom denser than the surrounding night. A prism of black that spread out and was lost into the sky.
He listened. Good God, he could hear something. Something that made him struggle frantically to close his ears, his mind, to shut out the sound. A buzzing. A distant, muted hum like a great swarm of bees.
Loyce gazed up, rigid with horror. The splotch of darkness, hanging over the City Hall. Darkness so thick it seemed almost solid. In the vortex something moved. Flickering shapes. Things, descending from the sky, pausing momentarily above the City Hall, fluttering over it in a dense swarm and then dropping silently onto the roof.
Shapes. Fluttering shapes from the sky. From the crack of darkness that hung above him.
He was seeing—them.
For a long time Loyce watched, crouched behind a sagging fence in a pool of scummy water.
They were landing. Coming down in groups, landing on the roof of the City Hall and disappearing inside. They had wings. Like giant insects of some kind. They flew and fluttered and came to rest—and then crawled crab-fashion, sideways, across the roof and into the building.
He was sickened. And fascinated. Cold night wind blew around him and he shuddered. He was tired, dazed with shock. On the front steps of the City Hall were men, standing here and there. Groups of men coming out of the building and halting for a moment before going on.
Were there more of them?
It didn't seem possible. What he saw descending from the black chasm weren't men. They were alien—from some other world, some other dimension. Sliding through this slit, this break in the shell of the universe. Entering through this gap, winged insects from another realm of being.
On the steps of the City Hall a group of men broke up. A few moved toward a waiting car. One of the remaining shapes started to re-enter the City Hall. It changed its mind and turned to follow the others.
Loyce closed his eyes in horror. His senses reeled. He hung on tight, clutching at the sagging fence. The shape, the man-shape, had abruptly fluttered up and flapped after the others. It flew to the sidewalk and came to rest among them.
Pseudo-men. Imitation men. Insects with ability to disguise themselves as men. Like other insects familiar to Earth. Protective coloration. Mimicry.
Loyce pulled himself away. He got slowly to his feet. It was night. The alley was totally dark. But maybe they could see in the dark. Maybe darkness made no difference to them.
He left the alley cautiously and moved out onto the street. Men and women flowed past, but not so many, now. At the bus-stops stood waiting groups. A huge bus lumbered along the street, its lights flashing in the evening gloom.
Loyce moved forward. He pushed his way among those waiting and when the bus halted he boarded it and took a seat in the rear, by the door. A moment later the bus moved into life and rumbled down the street.
Loyce relaxed a little. He studied the people around him. Dulled, tired faces. People going home from work. Quite ordinary faces. None of them paid any attention to him. All sat quietly, sunk down in their seats, jiggling with the motion of the bus.
The man sitting next to him unfolded a newspaper. He began to read the sports section, his lips moving. An ordinary man. Blue suit. Tie. A businessman, or a salesman. On his way home to his wife and family.
Across the aisle a young woman, perhaps twenty. Dark eyes and hair, a package on her lap. Nylons and heels. Red coat and white angora sweater. Gazing absently ahead of her.
A high school boy in jeans and black jacket.
A great triple-chinned woman with an immense shopping bag loaded with packages and parcels. Her thick face dim with weariness.
Ordinary people. The kind that rode the bus every evening. Going home to their families. To dinner.
Going home—with their minds dead. Controlled, filmed over with the mask of an alien being that had appeared and taken possession of them, their town, their lives. Himself, too. Except that he happened to be deep in his cellar instead of in the store. Somehow, he had been overlooked. They had missed him. Their control wasn't perfect, foolproof.
Maybe there were others.
Hope flickered in Loyce. They weren't omnipotent. They had made a mistake, not got control of him. Their net, their field of control, had passed over him. He had emerged from his cellar as he had gone down. Apparently their power-zone was limited.
A few seats down the aisle a man was watching him. Loyce broke off his chain of thought. A slender man, with dark hair and a small mustache. Well-dressed, brown suit and shiny shoes. A book between his small hands. He was watching Loyce, studying him intently. He turned quickly away.
Loyce tensed. One of them ? Or—another they had missed?
The man was watching him again. Small dark eyes, alive and clever. Shrewd. A man too shrewd for them—or one of the things itself, an alien insect from beyond.
The bus halted. An elderly man got on slowly and dropped his token into the box. He moved down the aisle and took a seat opposite Loyce.
The elderly man caught the sharp-eyed man's gaze. For a split second something passed between them.
A look rich with meaning.
Loyce got to his feet. The bus was moving. He ran to the door. One step down into the well. He yanked the emergency door release. The rubber door swung open.
"Hey!" the driver shouted, jamming on the brakes. "What the hell—"
Loyce squirmed through. The bus was slowing down. Houses on all sides. A residential district, lawns and tall apartment buildings. Behind him, the bright-eyed man had leaped up. The elderly man was also on his feet. They were coming after him.
Loyce leaped. He hit the pavement with terrific force and rolled against the curb. Pain lapped over him. Pain and a vast tide of blackness. Desperately, he fought it off. He struggled to his knees and then slid down again. The bus had stopped. People were getting off.
Loyce groped around. His fingers closed over something. A rock, lying in the gutter. He crawled to his feet, grunting with pain. A shape loomed before him. A man, the bright-eyed man with the book.
Loyce kicked. The man gasped and fell. Loyce brought the rock down. The man screamed and tried to roll away. " Stop! For God's sake listen—"
He struck again. A hideous crunching sound. The man's voice cut off and dissolved in a bubbling wail. Loyce scrambled up and back. The others were there, now. All around him. He ran, awkwardly, down the sidewalk, up a driveway. None of them followed him. They had stopped and were bending over the inert body of the man with the book, the bright-eyed man who had come after him.
Had he made a mistake?
But it was too late to worry about that. He had to get out—away from them. Out of Pikeville, beyond the crack of darkness, the rent between their world and his.
"Ed!" Janet Loyce backed away nervously. "What is it? What—"
Ed Loyce slammed the door behind him and came into the living room.
"Pull down the shades. Quick."
Janet moved toward the window. "But—"
"Do as I say. Who else is here besides you?"
"Nobody. Just the twins. They're upstairs in their room. What's happened? You look so strange. Why are you home?"
Ed locked the front door. He prowled around the house, into the kitchen. From the drawer under the sink he slid out the big butcher knife and ran his finger along it. Sharp. Plenty sharp. He returned to the living room.
"Listen to me," he said. "I don't have much time. They know I escaped and they'll be looking for me."
"Escaped?" Janet's face twisted with bewilderment and fear. "Who?"
"The town has been taken over. They're in control. I've got it pretty well figured out. They started at the top, at the City Hall and police department. What they did with the real humans they—"
"What are you talking about?"
"We've been invaded. From some other universe, some other dimension. They're insects. Mimicry. And more. Power to control minds. Your mind."
"My mind?"
"Their entrance is here , in Pikeville. They've taken over all of you. The whole town—except me. We're up against an incredibly powerful enemy, but they have their limitations. That's our hope. They're limited! They can make mistakes!"
Janet shook her head. "I don't understand, Ed. You must be insane."
"Insane? No. Just lucky. If I hadn't been down in the basement I'd be like all the rest of you." Loyce peered out the window. "But I can't stand here talking. Get your coat."
"My coat?"
"We're getting out of here. Out of Pikeville. We've got to get help. Fight this thing. They can be beaten. They're not infallible. It's going to be close—but we may make it if we hurry. Come on!" He grabbed her arm roughly. "Get your coat and call the twins. We're all leaving. Don't stop to pack. There's no time for that."
White-faced, his wife moved toward the closet and got down her coat.
"Where are we going?"
Ed pulled open the desk drawer and spilled the contents out onto the floor. He grabbed up a road map and spread it open. "They'll have the highway covered, of course. But there's a back road. To Oak Grove. I got onto it once. It's practically abandoned. Maybe they'll forget about it."
"The old Ranch Road? Good Lord—it's completely closed. Nobody's supposed to drive over it."
"I know." Ed thrust the map grimly into his coat. "That's our best chance. Now call down the twins and let's get going. Your car is full of gas, isn't it?"
Janet was dazed.
"The Chevy? I had it filled up yesterday afternoon." Janet moved toward the stairs. "Ed, I—"
"Call the twins!" Ed unlocked the front door and peered out. Nothing stirred. No sign of life. All right so far.
"Come on downstairs," Janet called in a wavering voice. "We're—going out for awhile."
"Now?" Tommy's voice came.
"Hurry up," Ed barked. "Get down here, both of you."
Tommy appeared at the top of the stairs. "I was doing my home work. We're starting fractions. Miss Parker says if we don't get this done—"
"You can forget about fractions." Ed grabbed his son as he came down the stairs and propelled him toward the door. "Where's Jim?"
"He's coming."
Jim started slowly down the stairs. "What's up, Dad?"
"We're going for a ride."
"A ride? Where?"
Ed turned to Janet. "We'll leave the lights on. And the TV set. Go turn it on." He pushed her toward the set. "So they'll think we're still—"
He heard the buzz. And dropped instantly, the long butcher knife out. Sickened, he saw it coming down the stairs at him, wings a blur of motion as it aimed itself. It still bore a vague resemblance to Jimmy. It was small, a baby one. A brief glimpse—the thing hurtling at him, cold, multi-lensed inhuman eyes. Wings, body still clothed in yellow T-shirt and jeans, the mimic outline still stamped on it. A strange half-turn of its body as it reached him. What was it doing?
A stinger.
Loyce stabbed wildly at it. It retreated, buzzing frantically. Loyce rolled and crawled toward the door. Tommy and Janet stood still as statues, faces blank. Watching without expression. Loyce stabbed again. This time the knife connected. The thing shrieked and faltered. It bounced against the wall and fluttered down.
Something lapped through his mind. A wall of force, energy, an alien mind probing into him. He was suddenly paralyzed. The mind entered his own, touched against him briefly, shockingly. An utterly alien presence, settling over him—and then it flickered out as the thing collapsed in a broken heap on the rug.
It was dead. He turned it over with his foot. It was an insect, a fly of some kind. Yellow T-shirt, jeans. His son Jimmy.... He closed his mind tight. It was too late to think about that. Savagely he scooped up his knife and headed toward the door. Janet and Tommy stood stone-still, neither of them moving.
The car was out. He'd never get through. They'd be waiting for him. It was ten miles on foot. Ten long miles over rough ground, gulleys and open fields and hills of uncut forest. He'd have to go alone.
Loyce opened the door. For a brief second he looked back at his wife and son. Then he slammed the door behind him and raced down the porch steps.
A moment later he was on his way, hurrying swiftly through the darkness toward the edge of town.
The early morning sunlight was blinding. Loyce halted, gasping for breath, swaying back and forth. Sweat ran down in his eyes. His clothing was torn, shredded by the brush and thorns through which he had crawled. Ten miles—on his hands and knees. Crawling, creeping through the night. His shoes were mud-caked. He was scratched and limping, utterly exhausted.
But ahead of him lay Oak Grove.
He took a deep breath and started down the hill. Twice he stumbled and fell, picking himself up and trudging on. His ears rang. Everything receded and wavered. But he was there. He had got out, away from Pikeville.
A farmer in a field gaped at him. From a house a young woman watched in wonder. Loyce reached the road and turned onto it. Ahead of him was a gasoline station and a drive-in. A couple of trucks, some chickens pecking in the dirt, a dog tied with a string.
The white-clad attendant watched suspiciously as he dragged himself up to the station. "Thank God." He caught hold of the wall. "I didn't think I was going to make it. They followed me most of the way. I could hear them buzzing. Buzzing and flitting around behind me."
"What happened?" the attendant demanded. "You in a wreck? A hold-up?"
Loyce shook his head wearily. "They have the whole town. The City Hall and the police station. They hung a man from the lamppost. That was the first thing I saw. They've got all the roads blocked. I saw them hovering over the cars coming in. About four this morning I got beyond them. I knew it right away. I could feel them leave. And then the sun came up."
The attendant licked his lip nervously. "You're out of your head. I better get a doctor."
"Get me into Oak Grove," Loyce gasped. He sank down on the gravel.
"We've got to get started—cleaning them out. Got to get started right away."
They kept a tape recorder going all the time he talked. When he had finished the Commissioner snapped off the recorder and got to his feet. He stood for a moment, deep in thought. Finally he got out his cigarettes and lit up slowly, a frown on his beefy face.
"You don't believe me," Loyce said.
The Commissioner offered him a cigarette. Loyce pushed it impatiently away. "Suit yourself." The Commissioner moved over to the window and stood for a time looking out at the town of Oak Grove. "I believe you," he said abruptly.
Loyce sagged. "Thank God."
"So you got away." The Commissioner shook his head. "You were down in your cellar instead of at work. A freak chance. One in a million."
Loyce sipped some of the black coffee they had brought him. "I have a theory," he murmured.
"What is it?"
"About them. Who they are. They take over one area at a time. Starting at the top—the highest level of authority. Working down from there in a widening circle. When they're firmly in control they go on to the next town. They spread, slowly, very gradually. I think it's been going on for a long time."
"A long time?"
"Thousands of years. I don't think it's new."
"Why do you say that?"
"When I was a kid.... A picture they showed us in Bible League. A religious picture—an old print. The enemy gods, defeated by Jehovah. Moloch, Beelzebub, Moab, Baalin, Ashtaroth—"
"So?"
"They were all represented by figures." Loyce looked up at the Commissioner. "Beelzebub was represented as—a giant fly."
The Commissioner grunted. "An old struggle."
"They've been defeated. The Bible is an account of their defeats. They make gains—but finally they're defeated."
"Why defeated?"
"They can't get everyone. They didn't get me. And they never got the Hebrews. The Hebrews carried the message to the whole world. The realization of the danger. The two men on the bus. I think they understood. Had escaped, like I did." He clenched his fists. "I killed one of them. I made a mistake. I was afraid to take a chance."
The Commissioner nodded. "Yes, they undoubtedly had escaped, as you did. Freak accidents. But the rest of the town was firmly in control." He turned from the window. "Well, Mr. Loyce. You seem to have figured everything out."
"Not everything. The hanging man. The dead man hanging from the lamppost. I don't understand that. Why? Why did they deliberately hang him there?"
"That would seem simple." The Commissioner smiled faintly. " Bait. "
Loyce stiffened. His heart stopped beating. "Bait? What do you mean?"
"To draw you out. Make you declare yourself. So they'd know who was under control—and who had escaped."
Loyce recoiled with horror. "Then they expected failures! They anticipated—" He broke off. "They were ready with a trap."
"And you showed yourself. You reacted. You made yourself known." The Commissioner abruptly moved toward the door. "Come along, Loyce. There's a lot to do. We must get moving. There's no time to waste."
Loyce started slowly to his feet, numbed. "And the man. Who was the man? I never saw him before. He wasn't a local man. He was a stranger. All muddy and dirty, his face cut, slashed—"
There was a strange look on the Commissioner's face as he answered.
"Maybe," he said softly, "you'll understand that, too. Come along with me, Mr. Loyce." He held the door open, his eyes gleaming. Loyce caught a glimpse of the street in front of the police station. Policemen, a platform of some sort. A telephone pole—and a rope! "Right this way," the Commissioner said, smiling coldly.
As the sun set, the vice-president of the Oak Grove Merchants' Bank came up out of the vault, threw the heavy time locks, put on his hat and coat, and hurried outside onto the sidewalk. Only a few people were there, hurrying home to dinner.
"Good night," the guard said, locking the door after him.
"Good night," Clarence Mason murmured. He started along the street toward his car. He was tired. He had been working all day down in the vault, examining the lay-out of the safety deposit boxes to see if there was room for another tier. He was glad to be finished.
At the corner he halted. The street lights had not yet come on. The street was dim. Everything was vague. He looked around—and froze.
From the telephone pole in front of the police station, something large and shapeless hung. It moved a little with the wind.
What the hell was it?
Mason approached it warily. He wanted to get home. He was tired and hungry. He thought of his wife, his kids, a hot meal on the dinner table. But there was something about the dark bundle, something ominous and ugly. The light was bad; he couldn't tell what it was. Yet it drew him on, made him move closer for a better look. The shapeless thing made him uneasy. He was frightened by it. Frightened—and fascinated.
And the strange part was that nobody else seemed to notice it.
|
What is the impact of the first flight on all the characters in the story?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The First Man in Space by Heather Feldman.
Relevant chunks:
THE FIRST MAN INTO SPACE
Cadet Marshall Farnsworth woke from a nightmare of exploding novae and fouling rockets. After recovering from his fright, he laughed contemptuously at himself. “Here I was picked as the most stable of a group of two hundred cadets,” he thought, “and chosen to make man’s first trip into space, yet I’m shaking like a leaf.”
He got out of bed and went over to the window. From his father’s temporary apartment, he could see distant Skyharbor, the scene of the plunge into space tomorrow night. He had been awarded the frightening honor of making that trip.
10
As he watched teardrop cars whip along Phoenix, Arizona’s, double-decked streets, elevated over one another to avoid dangerous intersections and delaying stop lights, he thought back over the years; to the 1950’s, when mice and monkeys were sent up in Vikings to launch mankind’s first probing of the mysterious space beyond Earth, and the first satellites were launched; to the 1960’s, when huger, multiple-stage rockets finally conquered the problem of escape velocity; to 1975—today—when man was finally ready to send one of his own kind into the uninhabited deeps.
Marsh climbed back into bed, but sleep would not come.
In the adjoining room, he could hear the footsteps of mother and father. By their sound he knew they were the footsteps of worried people. This hurt Marsh more than his own uneasiness.
The anxiety had begun for them, he knew, when he had first signed up for space-cadet training. They had known there was an extremely high percentage of washouts, and after each test he passed, they had pretended to be glad. But Marsh knew that inwardly they had hoped he would fail, for they were aware of the ultimate goal that the space scientists were working for—the goal that had just now been reached.
Marsh finally fell into a troubled sleep that lasted until morning.
He woke early, before the alarm rang. He got up, showered, pulled on his blue-corded cadet uniform, and tugged on the polished gray boots. He took one final look around his room as though in farewell, then went out to the kitchen.
11
His folks were up ahead of time too, trying to act as though it were just another day. Dad was pretending to enjoy his morning paper, nodding only casually to Marsh as he came in. Mom was stirring scrambled eggs in the skillet, but she wasn’t a very good actor, Marsh noticed, for she furtively wiped her eyes with her free hand.
The eggs were cooked too hard and the toast had to be scraped, but no one seemed to care. The three of them sat down at the table, still speaking in monosyllables and of unimportant things. They made a pretense of eating.
“Well, Mom,” Dad suddenly said with a forced jollity that was intended to break the tension, “the Farnsworth family has finally got a celebrity in it.”
“I don’t see why they don’t send an older man!” Mom burst out, as though she had been holding it in as long as she could. “Sending a boy who isn’t even twenty-two—”
“Things are different nowadays, Mom,” Dad explained, still with the assumed calmness that masked his real feelings. “These days, men grow up faster and mature quicker. They’re stronger and more alert than older men—” His voice trailed off as if he were unable to convince himself.
“ Some body has to go,” Marsh said. “Why not a younger man without family and responsibility? That’s why they’re giving younger men more opportunities today than they used to.”
“It’s not younger men I’m talking about!” Mom blurted. “It’s you, Marsh!”
12
Dad leaned over and patted Mom on the shoulder.
“Now, Ruth, we promised not to get excited this morning.”
“I’m sorry,” Mom said weakly. “But Marsh is too young to—” She caught herself and put her hand over her mouth.
“Stop talking like that!” Dad said. “Marsh is coming back. There’ve been thousands of rockets sent aloft. The space engineers have made sure that every bug has been ironed out before risking a man’s life. Why, that rocket which Marsh is going up in is as safe as our auto in the garage, isn’t it, Marsh?”
“I hope so, Dad,” Marsh murmured.
Later, as Dad drove Marsh to the field, each brooded silently. Every scene along the way seemed to take on a new look for Marsh. He saw things that he had never noticed before. It was an uncomfortable feeling, almost as if he were seeing these things for the last as well as the first time.
Finally the airport came into view. The guards at the gate recognized Marsh and ushered the Farnsworth car through ahead of scores of others that crowded the entrance. Some eager news photographers slipped up close and shot off flash bulbs in Marsh’s eyes.
Skyharbor, once a small commercial field, had been taken over by the Air Force in recent years and converted into the largest rocket experimental center in the United States.
13
Dad drove up to the building that would be the scene of Marsh’s first exhaustive tests and briefings. He stopped the car, and Marsh jumped out. Their good-by was brief. Marsh saw his father’s mouth quiver. There was a tightness in his own throat. He had gone through any number of grueling tests to prove that he could take the rigors of space, but not one of them had prepared him for the hardest moments of parting.
When Dad had driven off, Marsh reported first to the psychiatrist who checked his condition.
“Pulse fast, a rise in blood pressure,” he said.
“You’re excited, aren’t you, son?”
“Yes, sir,” Marsh admitted. “Maybe they’ve got the wrong man, sir. I might fail them.”
The doctor grinned. “They don’t have the wrong man,” he said. “They might have, with a so-called iron-nerved fellow. He could contain his tension and fears until later, until maybe the moment of blast-off. Then he’d let go, and when he needed his calmest judgment he wouldn’t have it. No, Marshall, there isn’t a man alive who could make this history-making flight without some anxiety. Forget it. You’ll feel better as the day goes on. I’ll see you once more before the blast-off.”
Marsh felt more at ease already. He went on to the space surgeon, was given a complete physical examination, and was pronounced in perfect condition. Then began his review briefing on everything he would encounter during the flight.
14
Blast-off time was for 2230, an hour and a half before midnight. Since at night, in the Western Hemisphere, Earth was masking the sun, the complications of excessive temperatures in the outer reaches were avoided during the time Marsh would be outside the ship. Marsh would occupy the small upper third section of a three-stage rocket. The first two parts would be jettisoned after reaching their peak velocities. Top speed of the third stage would carry Marsh into a perpetual-flight orbit around Earth, along the route that a permanent space station was to be built after the results of the flight were studied. After spending a little while in this orbit, Marsh would begin the precarious journey back to Earth, in gliding flight.
He got a few hours of sleep after sunset. When an officer shook him, he rose from the cot he had been lying on in a private room of General Forsythe, Chief of Space Operations.
“It’s almost time, son,” the officer said. “Your CO wants to see you in the outside office.”
Marsh went into the adjoining room and found his cadet chief awaiting him. The youth detected an unusual warmth about the severe gentleman who previously had shown only a firm, uncompromising attitude. Colonel Tregasker was past middle age, and his white, sparse hair was smoothed down close to his head in regulation neatness.
15
“Well, this is it, Marshall,” the colonel said.
“How I envy you this honor of being the first human to enter space. However, I do feel that a part of me is going along too, since I had a small share in preparing you for the trip. If the training was harsh at times, I believe that shortly you will understand the reason for it.”
“I didn’t feel that the Colonel was either too soft or strict, sir,” Marsh said diplomatically.
A speaker out on the brilliantly lit field blared loudly in the cool desert night: “X minus forty minutes.”
“We can’t talk all night, Marshall,” the colonel said briskly. “You’ve got a job to do. But first, a few of your friends want to wish you luck.” He called into the anteroom, “You may come in, gentlemen!”
There filed smartly into the room ten youths who had survived the hard prespace course with Marsh and would be his successors in case he failed tonight. They formed a line and shook hands with Marsh. The first was Armen Norton who had gotten sick in the rugged centrifuge at a force of 9 G’s, then had rallied to pass the test.
“Good luck, Marsh,” he said.
Next was lanky Lawrence Egan who had been certain he would wash out during navigation phase in the planetarium. “All the luck in the world, Marsh,” he added.
Each cadet brought back a special memory of his training as they passed before him, wishing him success.
16
When they had gone and the speaker outside had announced: “X minus thirty minutes,” the colonel said that he and Marsh had better be leaving. Colonel Tregasker was to be Marsh’s escort to the ship.
Photographers and newspapermen swarmed about them as they climbed into the jeep that was to take them to the launching site farther out on the field. Questions were flung at the two from all sides, but the colonel deftly maneuvered the jeep through the mob and sped off over the asphalt.
At the blast-off site, Marsh could see that the police had their hands full keeping out thousands of spectators who were trying to get into the closed-off area. The field was choked with a tide of humanity milling about in wild confusion. Giant searchlights, both at the airport and in other parts of Phoenix, directed spears of light on the towering rocket that held the interest of all the world tonight. There was one light, far larger than the rest, with powerful condensing lenses and connected to a giant radar screen, which would guide Marsh home from his trip among the stars.
A high wire fence surrounded the launching ramp and blockhouses. International scientists and dignitaries with priorities formed a ring around the fence, but even they were not allowed inside the small circle of important activity. The guards waved the colonel and Marsh through the gate.
17
Marsh had spent many weeks in a mock-up of the tiny third stage in which he was to spend his time aloft, but he had never been close to the completely assembled ship until this moment. The three stages had been nicknamed, “Tom,” “Dick,” and “Harry.” Marsh swallowed as his eyes roved up the side of the great vessel, part of a project that had cost millions to perfect and was as high as a four-story building.
The gigantic base, “Big Tom,” was the section that would have the hardest job to do, that of thrusting the rocket through the densest part of the atmosphere, and this was a great deal larger than the other sections. Marsh knew that most of the ship’s bulk was made up of the propellant fuel of hydrazine hydrate and its oxidizer, nitric acid.
“We’re going into that blockhouse over there,” Colonel Tregasker said. “You’ll don your space gear in there.”
First a multitude of gadgets with wires were fastened to the cadet’s wrists, ankles, nose, and head. Marsh knew this to be one of the most important phases of the flight—to find out a man’s reaction to space flight under actual rocketing conditions. Each wire would telemeter certain information by radio back to the airport. After a tight inner G suit had been put on to prevent blackout, the plastic and rubber outer garment was zipped up around Marsh, and then he was ready except for his helmet, which would not be donned until later.
18
Marsh and the colonel went back outside. The open-cage elevator was lowered from the top of the big latticed platform that surrounded the rocket. The two got into the cage, and it rose with them. Marsh had lost most of his anxiety and tension during the activities of the day, but his knees felt rubbery in these final moments as the elevator carried him high above the noisy confusion of the airport. This was it.
As they stepped from the cage onto the platform of the third stage, Marsh heard the speaker below call out: “X minus twenty minutes.”
There were eleven engineers and workmen on the platform readying the compartment that Marsh would occupy. Marsh suddenly felt helpless and alone as he faced the small chamber that might very well be his death cell. Its intricate dials and wires were staggering in their complexity.
Marsh turned and shook hands with Colonel Tregasker.
“Good-by, sir,” he said in a quavering voice.
“I hope I remember everything the Corps taught me.” He tried to smile, but his facial muscles twitched uncontrollably.
“Good luck, son—lots of it,” the officer said huskily. Suddenly he leaned forward and embraced the youth with a firm, fatherly hug. “This is not regulations,” he mumbled gruffly, “but hang regulations!” He turned quickly and asked to be carried down to the ground.
A man brought Marsh’s helmet and placed it over his head, then clamped it to the suit. Knobs on the suit were twisted, and Marsh felt a warm, pressurized helium-oxygen mixture fill his suit and headpiece.
19
Marsh stepped through the hatch into the small compartment. He reclined in the soft contour chair, and the straps were fastened by one of the engineers over his chest, waist, and legs. The wires connected to various parts of his body had been brought together into a single unit in the helmet. A wire cable leading from the panel was plugged into the outside of the helmet to complete the circuit.
Final tests were run off to make sure everything was in proper working order, including the two-way short-wave radio that would have to penetrate the electrical ocean of the ionosphere. Then the double-hatch air lock was closed. Through his helmet receiver, Marsh could hear the final minutes and seconds being called off from inside the blockhouse.
“Everything O.K.?” Marsh was asked by someone on the platform.
“Yes, sir,” Marsh replied.
“Then you’re on your own,” were the final ominous words.
“X minus five minutes,” called the speaker.
20
It was the longest five minutes that Marsh could remember. He was painfully aware of his cramped quarters. He thought of the tons of explosive beneath him that presently would literally blow him sky-high. And he thought of the millions of people the world over who, at this moment, were hovering at radios and TV’s anxiously awaiting the dawn of the space age. Finally he thought of Dad and Mom, lost in that multitude of night watchers, and among the few who were not primarily concerned with the scientific aspect of the experiment. He wondered if he would ever see them again.
“X minus sixty seconds!”
Marsh knew that a warning flare was being sent up, to be followed by a whistle and a cloud of smoke from one of the blockhouses. As he felt fear trying to master him, he began reviewing all the things he must remember and, above all, what to do in an emergency.
“X minus ten seconds—five—four—three—two—one—FIRE!”
There was a mighty explosion at Skyharbor.
The initial jolt which Marsh felt was much fiercer than the gradually built up speed of the whirling centrifuge in training. He was crushed deeply into his contour chair. It felt as though someone were pressing on his eyeballs; indeed, as if every organ in his body were clinging to his backbone. But these first moments would be the worst. A gauge showed a force of 7 G’s on him—equal to half a ton.
He watched the Mach numbers rise on the dial in front of his eyes on an overhead panel. Each Mach number represented that much times the speed of sound, 1,090 feet per second, 740 miles an hour.
Marsh knew “Big Tom” would blast for about a minute and a half under control of the automatic pilot, at which time it would drop free at an altitude of twenty-five miles and sink Earthward in a metal mesh ’chute.
21
Marsh’s hurting eyes flicked to the outside temperature gauge. It was on a steady 67 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, and would be until he reached twenty miles. A reflecting prism gave him a square of view of the sky outside. The clear deep blue of the cloud-free stratosphere met his eyes.
Mach 5, Mach 6, Mach 7 passed very quickly. He heard a rumble and felt a jerk. “Big Tom” was breaking free. The first hurdle had been successfully overcome, and the ship had already begun tilting into its trajectory.
There was a new surge of agony on his body as the second stage picked up the acceleration at a force of 7 G’s again. Marsh clamped his jaws as the force pulled his lips back from his teeth and dragged his cheek muscles down. The Mach numbers continued to rise—11, 12, 13—to altitude 200 miles, the outer fringe of the earth’s atmosphere. There was a slight lifting of the pressure on his body. The rocket was still in the stratosphere, but the sky was getting purple.
Mach 14—10,000 miles an hour.
“Dick” would jettison any moment. Marsh had been aloft only about four minutes, but it had seemed an age, every tortured second of it.
22
There was another rumble as the second stage broke free. Marsh felt a new surge directly beneath him as his own occupied section, “Harry,” began blasting. It was comforting to realize he had successfully weathered those tons of exploding hydrazine and acid that could have reduced him to nothing if something had gone wrong. Although his speed was still building up, the weight on him began to ease steadily as his body’s inertia finally yielded to the sickeningly swift acceleration.
The speedometer needle climbed to Mach 21, the peak velocity of the rocket, 16,000 miles per hour. His altitude was 350 miles—man’s highest ascent. Slowly then, the speedometer began to drop back. Marsh heard the turbo pumps and jets go silent as the “lift” fuel was spent and rocket “Harry” began its free-flight orbit around Earth.
The ship had reached a speed which exactly counterbalanced the pull of gravity, and it could, theoretically, travel this way forever, provided no other outside force acted upon it. The effect on Marsh now was as if he had stopped moving. Relieved of the viselike pressure, his stomach and chest for a few seconds felt like inflated balloons.
“Cadet Farnsworth,” the voice of General Forsythe spoke into his helmet receiver, “are you all right?”
“Yes, sir,” Marsh replied. “That is, I think so.”
It was good to hear a human voice again, something to hold onto in this crazy unreal world into which he had been hurtled.
“We’re getting the electronic readings from your gauges O.K.,” the voice went on. “The doctor says your pulse is satisfactory under the circumstances.”
It was queer having your pulse read from 350 miles up in the air.
23
Marsh realized, of course, that he was not truly in the “air.” A glance at his air-pressure gauge confirmed this. He was virtually in a vacuum. The temperature and wind velocity outside might have astounded him if he were not prepared for the readings. The heat was over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, and the wind velocity was of hurricane force! But these figures meant nothing because of the sparseness of air molecules. Temperature and wind applied only to the individual particles, which were thousands of feet apart.
“How is your cosmic-ray count?” asked the general.
Marsh checked the C-ray counter on the panel from which clicking sounds were coming. “It’s low, sir. Nothing to worry about.”
Cosmic rays, the most powerful emanations known, were the only radiation in space that could not be protected against. But in small doses they had been found not to be dangerous.
“As soon as our recorders get more of the figures your telemeter is giving us,” the operations chief said, “you can leave the rocket.”
When Marsh got the O.K. a few minutes later, he eagerly unstrapped the belts around his body. He could hardly contain his excitement at being the first person to view the globe of Earth from space. As he struggled to his feet, the lightness of zero gravity made him momentarily giddy, and it took some minutes for him to adjust to the terribly strange sensation.
24
He had disconnected the cable leading from his helmet to the ship’s transmitter and switched on the ship’s fast-lens movie camera that would photograph the area covered by “Harry.” Then he was ready to go outside. He pressed a button on the wall, and the first air-lock hatch opened. He floated into the narrow alcove and closed the door in the cramped chamber behind him. He watched a gauge, and when it showed normal pressure and temperature again, he opened the outside hatch, closing it behind him. Had Marsh permitted the vacuum of space to contact the interior of the ship’s quarters, delicate instruments would have been ruined by the sudden decompression and loss of heat. Marsh fastened his safety line to the ship so that there was no chance of his becoming separated from it.
Then he looked “downward,” to experience the thrill of his life. Like a gigantic relief map, the panorama of Earth stretched across his vision. A downy blanket of gray atmosphere spread over the whole of it, and patches of clouds were seen floating like phantom shapes beneath the clear vastness of the stratosphere. It was a stunning sight for Marsh, seeing the pinpoint lights of the night cities extending from horizon to horizon. It gave him an exhilarating feeling of being a king over it all.
25
Earth appeared to be rotating, but Marsh knew it was largely his own and the rocket’s fast speed that was responsible for the illusion. As he hung in this region of the exosphere, he was thankful for his cadet training in zero gravity. A special machine, developed only in recent years, simulated the weightlessness of space and trained the cadets for endurance in such artificial conditions.
“Describe some of the things you see, Marshall,” General Forsythe said over Marsh’s helmet receiver.
“I’ve just cut in a recorder.”
“It’s a scene almost beyond description, sir,” Marsh said into the helmet mike. “The sky is thickly powdered with stars. The Milky Way is very distinct, and I can make out lots of fuzzy spots that must be star clusters and nebulae and comets. Mars is like an extremely bright taillight, and the moon is so strong it hurts my eyes as much as the direct sun does on earth.”
Marsh saw a faintly luminous blur pass beyond the ship. It had been almost too sudden to catch. He believed it to be a meteor diving Earthward at a speed around forty-five miles a second. He reported this to the general.
As he brought his eyes down from the more distant fixtures of space to those closer by on Earth, a strange thing happened. He was suddenly seized with a fear of falling, although his zero-gravity training had been intended to prepare him against this very thing. A cold sweat come out over his body, and an uncontrollable panic threatened to take hold of him.
26
He made a sudden movement as though to catch himself. Forgetting the magnification of motion in frictionless space and his own weightlessness, he was shot quickly to the end of his safety line like a cracked whip. His body jerked at the taut end and then sped swiftly back in reaction toward the ship, head foremost. A collision could crack his helmet, exposing his body to decompression, causing him to swell like a balloon and finally explode.
In the grip of numbing fear, only at the last moment did he have the presence of mind to flip his body in a half-cartwheel and bring his boots up in front of him for protection. His feet bumped against the rocket’s side, and the motion sent him hurtling back out to the end of the safety line again. This back-and-forth action occurred several times before he could stop completely.
“I’ve got to be careful,” he panted to himself, as he thought of how close his space career had come to being ended scarcely before it had begun.
General Forsythe cut in with great concern, wondering what had happened. When Marsh had explained and the general seemed satisfied that Marsh had recovered himself, he had Marsh go on with his description.
His senseless fear having gone now, Marsh looked down calmly, entranced as the features of the United States passed below his gaze. He named the cities he could identify, also the mountain ranges, lakes, and rivers, explaining just how they looked from 350 miles up. In only a fraction of an hour’s time, the rocket had traversed the entire country and was approaching the twinkling phosphorescence of the Atlantic.
27
Marsh asked if “Tom” and “Dick” had landed safely.
“‘Tom’ landed near Roswell, New Mexico,” General Forsythe told him, “and the ’chute of the second section has been reported seen north of Dallas. I think you’d better start back now, Marshall. It’ll take us many months to analyze all the information we’ve gotten. We can’t contact you very well on the other side of the world either, and thirdly, I don’t want you exposed to the sun’s rays outside the atmosphere in the Eastern Hemisphere any longer than can be helped.”
Marsh tugged carefully on his safety line and floated slowly back toward the ship. He entered the air lock. Then, inside, he raised the angle of his contour chair to upright position, facing the console of the ship’s manual controls for the glide Earthward. He plugged in his telemeter helmet cable and buckled one of the straps across his waist.
Since he was still moving at many thousands of miles an hour, it would be suicide to plunge straight downward. He and the glider would be turned into a meteoric torch. Rather, he would have to spend considerable time soaring in and out of the atmosphere in braking ellipses until he reached much lower speed. Then the Earth’s gravitational pull would do the rest.
28
This was going to be the trickiest part of the operation, and the most dangerous. Where before, Marsh had depended on automatic controls to guide him, now much of the responsibility was on his own judgment. He remembered the many hours he had sweated through to log his flying time. Now he could look back on that period in his training and thank his lucky stars for it.
He took the manual controls and angled into the atmosphere. He carefully watched the AHF dial—the atmospheric heat friction gauge. When he had neared the dangerous incendiary point, with the ship having literally become red-hot, he soared into the frictionless vacuum again. He had to keep this up a long time in order to reduce his devastating speed.
It was something of a shock to him to leave the black midnight of Earth’s slumbering side for the brilliant hemisphere where the people of Europe and Asia were going about their daytime tasks. He would have liked to study this other half of the world which he had glimpsed only a few times before in his supersonic test flights, but he knew this would have to wait for future flights.
Finally, after a long time, his velocity was slowed enough so that the tug of gravity was stronger than the rocket’s ability to pull up out of the atmosphere. At this point, Marsh cut in “Harry’s” forward braking jets to check his falling speed.
“There’s something else to worry about,” he thought to himself. “Will old Harry hold together or will he fly apart in the crushing atmosphere?”
29
The directional radio signals from the powerful Skyharbor transmitter were growing stronger as Marsh neared the shores of California. He could see the winking lights of San Diego and Los Angeles, and farther inland the swinging thread that was the beacon at Skyharbor. All planes in his path of flight had been grounded for the past few hours because of the space flight. The only ground light scanning the skies was the gigantic space beacon in Phoenix.
When Marsh reached Arizona, he began spiraling downward over the state to kill the rest of his altitude and air speed. Even now the plane was a hurtling supersonic metal sliver streaking through the night skies like a comet. He topped the snow-capped summits of the towering San Francisco Peaks on the drive southward, and he recognized the sprawling serpent of the Grand Canyon. Then he was in the lower desert regions of moon-splashed sand and cactus. Although the fire-hot temperature of the outer skin had subsided, there had been damage done to the walls and instruments, and possibly to other parts, too. Marsh was worried lest his outside controls might be too warped to give him a good touchdown, if indeed he could get down safely at all.
A few thousand feet up, Marsh lowered his landing gear. Now the only problem left was to land himself and the valuable ship safely inside the narrow parallels of the airstrip. He circled the airport several times as his altitude continued to plummet.
30
The meter fell rapidly. His braking rocket fuel was gone now. From here on in, he would be on gliding power alone.
“Easy does it, Marshall,” the general said quietly into his ear. “You’re lining up fine. Level it out a little and keep straight with the approach lights. That’s fine. You’re just about in.”
The lights of the airport seeming to rush up at him, Marsh felt a jolt as the wheels touched ground on the west end of the runway. He kept the ship steady as it scurried along the smooth asphalt, losing the last of its once tremendous velocity. The plane hit the restraining wire across the strip and came to a sudden stop, shoving Marsh hard against the single safety belt he wore. Finally, incredibly, the ship was still and he was safe.
He unfastened his strap and removed his space helmet. The heat of the compartment brought the sweat out on his face. He rose on wobbly legs and pressed the buttons to the hatches. The last door flew open to admit the cool, bracing air of Earth which he had wondered if he would ever inhale again.
His aloneness was over then, suddenly and boisterously, as men swarmed over him with congratulations, eager questions, and looks of respect. Reporters’ flash bulbs popped, and he felt like a new Lindbergh as he was pulled down to the ground and mobbed. Finally the police came to his rescue and pushed back the curiosity seekers and newspapermen. Then only three men were allowed through the cordon.
Question:
What is the impact of the first flight on all the characters in the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Marsh, the only person who is to fly, is excited and scared at the same time. He can not believe he is to be the first to exit in space, but he thinks himself not brave and worthy enough, and is afraid to fail everyone. He feels the burden of responsibility for being chosen, which is increased by his duty before his parents to come back and the attention of the huge amount of spectators. Marsh's parents are extremely anxious. The mom struggles to understand why such a young boy is sent, the dad tries to joke and calm down the mom, but they are both afraid Marsh won't come back. The spectators and journalists are excited and interested. The whole team working on the project is also excited and anxious, they try to support Marsh. The Colonel is worried for Marsh, all of them take caution, check everything, and cheer Marsh up. They work on detecting every data, controlling every detail. The whole planet watches closely, while Marsh is the only one to really feel like the king of the universe. ",
"For Marsh’s parents, the first flight has a negative impact. While they are proud of him, they are scared that he will get injured or even potentially die during the flight. For Colonel Tregasker, the first flight gives him a sense of accomplishment because he is the one who oversaw Marsh’s training. He is very proud of Marsh for how far he has come. For Marsh himself, this first flight is the result of his hard work in training and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He has prepared long for this moment, and the view that he sees from space makes all of it worthwhile.",
"There is a different impact of the first flight on all the characters in the story. For Marsh, the impact is seen the most. He is overcome with a range of emotions, fear, excitement, happiness, sadness at the prospect of never seeing his parents again. This is the chance of a lifetime for him. This is the journey of his career; to be the first ever man in space. \nThe impact on Mom and Dad is one of fear, worry and anger. They question why the program couldn't have gotten an older person to pilot the rocket, with Mom being particularly ticked off by this. It is mentioned that they always appeared to be happy when Marsh passed various exams, but secretly wished that he had failed, so he could escape the danger. \nColonel Tregasker is proud of Marsh. He is very happy with his Cadet and his achievement. It is clear that the colonel cares deeply for Marsh, hugging him, showing his fear and anxiety for what might happen. This is a great moment for him, but also a moment of great worry. \nThere is a great impact on every character in this story, including the general and Marsh's cadet friends. It is the first flight in which a man has ever gone into space, changing space exploration forever. ",
"Marsh’s parents are worried and does not want him to go since he is still very young. The doctor encourages him before his first flight. The other classmates that he trained with was going to be his successor if he has failed the trip today. The Air Force are able to study the data for month, which are brought back by Marth. The people watching was at first worried about the successfulness of the flight, but they and the reporters congratulates him once he lands. "
] |
55801
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THE FIRST MAN INTO SPACE
Cadet Marshall Farnsworth woke from a nightmare of exploding novae and fouling rockets. After recovering from his fright, he laughed contemptuously at himself. “Here I was picked as the most stable of a group of two hundred cadets,” he thought, “and chosen to make man’s first trip into space, yet I’m shaking like a leaf.”
He got out of bed and went over to the window. From his father’s temporary apartment, he could see distant Skyharbor, the scene of the plunge into space tomorrow night. He had been awarded the frightening honor of making that trip.
10
As he watched teardrop cars whip along Phoenix, Arizona’s, double-decked streets, elevated over one another to avoid dangerous intersections and delaying stop lights, he thought back over the years; to the 1950’s, when mice and monkeys were sent up in Vikings to launch mankind’s first probing of the mysterious space beyond Earth, and the first satellites were launched; to the 1960’s, when huger, multiple-stage rockets finally conquered the problem of escape velocity; to 1975—today—when man was finally ready to send one of his own kind into the uninhabited deeps.
Marsh climbed back into bed, but sleep would not come.
In the adjoining room, he could hear the footsteps of mother and father. By their sound he knew they were the footsteps of worried people. This hurt Marsh more than his own uneasiness.
The anxiety had begun for them, he knew, when he had first signed up for space-cadet training. They had known there was an extremely high percentage of washouts, and after each test he passed, they had pretended to be glad. But Marsh knew that inwardly they had hoped he would fail, for they were aware of the ultimate goal that the space scientists were working for—the goal that had just now been reached.
Marsh finally fell into a troubled sleep that lasted until morning.
He woke early, before the alarm rang. He got up, showered, pulled on his blue-corded cadet uniform, and tugged on the polished gray boots. He took one final look around his room as though in farewell, then went out to the kitchen.
11
His folks were up ahead of time too, trying to act as though it were just another day. Dad was pretending to enjoy his morning paper, nodding only casually to Marsh as he came in. Mom was stirring scrambled eggs in the skillet, but she wasn’t a very good actor, Marsh noticed, for she furtively wiped her eyes with her free hand.
The eggs were cooked too hard and the toast had to be scraped, but no one seemed to care. The three of them sat down at the table, still speaking in monosyllables and of unimportant things. They made a pretense of eating.
“Well, Mom,” Dad suddenly said with a forced jollity that was intended to break the tension, “the Farnsworth family has finally got a celebrity in it.”
“I don’t see why they don’t send an older man!” Mom burst out, as though she had been holding it in as long as she could. “Sending a boy who isn’t even twenty-two—”
“Things are different nowadays, Mom,” Dad explained, still with the assumed calmness that masked his real feelings. “These days, men grow up faster and mature quicker. They’re stronger and more alert than older men—” His voice trailed off as if he were unable to convince himself.
“ Some body has to go,” Marsh said. “Why not a younger man without family and responsibility? That’s why they’re giving younger men more opportunities today than they used to.”
“It’s not younger men I’m talking about!” Mom blurted. “It’s you, Marsh!”
12
Dad leaned over and patted Mom on the shoulder.
“Now, Ruth, we promised not to get excited this morning.”
“I’m sorry,” Mom said weakly. “But Marsh is too young to—” She caught herself and put her hand over her mouth.
“Stop talking like that!” Dad said. “Marsh is coming back. There’ve been thousands of rockets sent aloft. The space engineers have made sure that every bug has been ironed out before risking a man’s life. Why, that rocket which Marsh is going up in is as safe as our auto in the garage, isn’t it, Marsh?”
“I hope so, Dad,” Marsh murmured.
Later, as Dad drove Marsh to the field, each brooded silently. Every scene along the way seemed to take on a new look for Marsh. He saw things that he had never noticed before. It was an uncomfortable feeling, almost as if he were seeing these things for the last as well as the first time.
Finally the airport came into view. The guards at the gate recognized Marsh and ushered the Farnsworth car through ahead of scores of others that crowded the entrance. Some eager news photographers slipped up close and shot off flash bulbs in Marsh’s eyes.
Skyharbor, once a small commercial field, had been taken over by the Air Force in recent years and converted into the largest rocket experimental center in the United States.
13
Dad drove up to the building that would be the scene of Marsh’s first exhaustive tests and briefings. He stopped the car, and Marsh jumped out. Their good-by was brief. Marsh saw his father’s mouth quiver. There was a tightness in his own throat. He had gone through any number of grueling tests to prove that he could take the rigors of space, but not one of them had prepared him for the hardest moments of parting.
When Dad had driven off, Marsh reported first to the psychiatrist who checked his condition.
“Pulse fast, a rise in blood pressure,” he said.
“You’re excited, aren’t you, son?”
“Yes, sir,” Marsh admitted. “Maybe they’ve got the wrong man, sir. I might fail them.”
The doctor grinned. “They don’t have the wrong man,” he said. “They might have, with a so-called iron-nerved fellow. He could contain his tension and fears until later, until maybe the moment of blast-off. Then he’d let go, and when he needed his calmest judgment he wouldn’t have it. No, Marshall, there isn’t a man alive who could make this history-making flight without some anxiety. Forget it. You’ll feel better as the day goes on. I’ll see you once more before the blast-off.”
Marsh felt more at ease already. He went on to the space surgeon, was given a complete physical examination, and was pronounced in perfect condition. Then began his review briefing on everything he would encounter during the flight.
14
Blast-off time was for 2230, an hour and a half before midnight. Since at night, in the Western Hemisphere, Earth was masking the sun, the complications of excessive temperatures in the outer reaches were avoided during the time Marsh would be outside the ship. Marsh would occupy the small upper third section of a three-stage rocket. The first two parts would be jettisoned after reaching their peak velocities. Top speed of the third stage would carry Marsh into a perpetual-flight orbit around Earth, along the route that a permanent space station was to be built after the results of the flight were studied. After spending a little while in this orbit, Marsh would begin the precarious journey back to Earth, in gliding flight.
He got a few hours of sleep after sunset. When an officer shook him, he rose from the cot he had been lying on in a private room of General Forsythe, Chief of Space Operations.
“It’s almost time, son,” the officer said. “Your CO wants to see you in the outside office.”
Marsh went into the adjoining room and found his cadet chief awaiting him. The youth detected an unusual warmth about the severe gentleman who previously had shown only a firm, uncompromising attitude. Colonel Tregasker was past middle age, and his white, sparse hair was smoothed down close to his head in regulation neatness.
15
“Well, this is it, Marshall,” the colonel said.
“How I envy you this honor of being the first human to enter space. However, I do feel that a part of me is going along too, since I had a small share in preparing you for the trip. If the training was harsh at times, I believe that shortly you will understand the reason for it.”
“I didn’t feel that the Colonel was either too soft or strict, sir,” Marsh said diplomatically.
A speaker out on the brilliantly lit field blared loudly in the cool desert night: “X minus forty minutes.”
“We can’t talk all night, Marshall,” the colonel said briskly. “You’ve got a job to do. But first, a few of your friends want to wish you luck.” He called into the anteroom, “You may come in, gentlemen!”
There filed smartly into the room ten youths who had survived the hard prespace course with Marsh and would be his successors in case he failed tonight. They formed a line and shook hands with Marsh. The first was Armen Norton who had gotten sick in the rugged centrifuge at a force of 9 G’s, then had rallied to pass the test.
“Good luck, Marsh,” he said.
Next was lanky Lawrence Egan who had been certain he would wash out during navigation phase in the planetarium. “All the luck in the world, Marsh,” he added.
Each cadet brought back a special memory of his training as they passed before him, wishing him success.
16
When they had gone and the speaker outside had announced: “X minus thirty minutes,” the colonel said that he and Marsh had better be leaving. Colonel Tregasker was to be Marsh’s escort to the ship.
Photographers and newspapermen swarmed about them as they climbed into the jeep that was to take them to the launching site farther out on the field. Questions were flung at the two from all sides, but the colonel deftly maneuvered the jeep through the mob and sped off over the asphalt.
At the blast-off site, Marsh could see that the police had their hands full keeping out thousands of spectators who were trying to get into the closed-off area. The field was choked with a tide of humanity milling about in wild confusion. Giant searchlights, both at the airport and in other parts of Phoenix, directed spears of light on the towering rocket that held the interest of all the world tonight. There was one light, far larger than the rest, with powerful condensing lenses and connected to a giant radar screen, which would guide Marsh home from his trip among the stars.
A high wire fence surrounded the launching ramp and blockhouses. International scientists and dignitaries with priorities formed a ring around the fence, but even they were not allowed inside the small circle of important activity. The guards waved the colonel and Marsh through the gate.
17
Marsh had spent many weeks in a mock-up of the tiny third stage in which he was to spend his time aloft, but he had never been close to the completely assembled ship until this moment. The three stages had been nicknamed, “Tom,” “Dick,” and “Harry.” Marsh swallowed as his eyes roved up the side of the great vessel, part of a project that had cost millions to perfect and was as high as a four-story building.
The gigantic base, “Big Tom,” was the section that would have the hardest job to do, that of thrusting the rocket through the densest part of the atmosphere, and this was a great deal larger than the other sections. Marsh knew that most of the ship’s bulk was made up of the propellant fuel of hydrazine hydrate and its oxidizer, nitric acid.
“We’re going into that blockhouse over there,” Colonel Tregasker said. “You’ll don your space gear in there.”
First a multitude of gadgets with wires were fastened to the cadet’s wrists, ankles, nose, and head. Marsh knew this to be one of the most important phases of the flight—to find out a man’s reaction to space flight under actual rocketing conditions. Each wire would telemeter certain information by radio back to the airport. After a tight inner G suit had been put on to prevent blackout, the plastic and rubber outer garment was zipped up around Marsh, and then he was ready except for his helmet, which would not be donned until later.
18
Marsh and the colonel went back outside. The open-cage elevator was lowered from the top of the big latticed platform that surrounded the rocket. The two got into the cage, and it rose with them. Marsh had lost most of his anxiety and tension during the activities of the day, but his knees felt rubbery in these final moments as the elevator carried him high above the noisy confusion of the airport. This was it.
As they stepped from the cage onto the platform of the third stage, Marsh heard the speaker below call out: “X minus twenty minutes.”
There were eleven engineers and workmen on the platform readying the compartment that Marsh would occupy. Marsh suddenly felt helpless and alone as he faced the small chamber that might very well be his death cell. Its intricate dials and wires were staggering in their complexity.
Marsh turned and shook hands with Colonel Tregasker.
“Good-by, sir,” he said in a quavering voice.
“I hope I remember everything the Corps taught me.” He tried to smile, but his facial muscles twitched uncontrollably.
“Good luck, son—lots of it,” the officer said huskily. Suddenly he leaned forward and embraced the youth with a firm, fatherly hug. “This is not regulations,” he mumbled gruffly, “but hang regulations!” He turned quickly and asked to be carried down to the ground.
A man brought Marsh’s helmet and placed it over his head, then clamped it to the suit. Knobs on the suit were twisted, and Marsh felt a warm, pressurized helium-oxygen mixture fill his suit and headpiece.
19
Marsh stepped through the hatch into the small compartment. He reclined in the soft contour chair, and the straps were fastened by one of the engineers over his chest, waist, and legs. The wires connected to various parts of his body had been brought together into a single unit in the helmet. A wire cable leading from the panel was plugged into the outside of the helmet to complete the circuit.
Final tests were run off to make sure everything was in proper working order, including the two-way short-wave radio that would have to penetrate the electrical ocean of the ionosphere. Then the double-hatch air lock was closed. Through his helmet receiver, Marsh could hear the final minutes and seconds being called off from inside the blockhouse.
“Everything O.K.?” Marsh was asked by someone on the platform.
“Yes, sir,” Marsh replied.
“Then you’re on your own,” were the final ominous words.
“X minus five minutes,” called the speaker.
20
It was the longest five minutes that Marsh could remember. He was painfully aware of his cramped quarters. He thought of the tons of explosive beneath him that presently would literally blow him sky-high. And he thought of the millions of people the world over who, at this moment, were hovering at radios and TV’s anxiously awaiting the dawn of the space age. Finally he thought of Dad and Mom, lost in that multitude of night watchers, and among the few who were not primarily concerned with the scientific aspect of the experiment. He wondered if he would ever see them again.
“X minus sixty seconds!”
Marsh knew that a warning flare was being sent up, to be followed by a whistle and a cloud of smoke from one of the blockhouses. As he felt fear trying to master him, he began reviewing all the things he must remember and, above all, what to do in an emergency.
“X minus ten seconds—five—four—three—two—one—FIRE!”
There was a mighty explosion at Skyharbor.
The initial jolt which Marsh felt was much fiercer than the gradually built up speed of the whirling centrifuge in training. He was crushed deeply into his contour chair. It felt as though someone were pressing on his eyeballs; indeed, as if every organ in his body were clinging to his backbone. But these first moments would be the worst. A gauge showed a force of 7 G’s on him—equal to half a ton.
He watched the Mach numbers rise on the dial in front of his eyes on an overhead panel. Each Mach number represented that much times the speed of sound, 1,090 feet per second, 740 miles an hour.
Marsh knew “Big Tom” would blast for about a minute and a half under control of the automatic pilot, at which time it would drop free at an altitude of twenty-five miles and sink Earthward in a metal mesh ’chute.
21
Marsh’s hurting eyes flicked to the outside temperature gauge. It was on a steady 67 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, and would be until he reached twenty miles. A reflecting prism gave him a square of view of the sky outside. The clear deep blue of the cloud-free stratosphere met his eyes.
Mach 5, Mach 6, Mach 7 passed very quickly. He heard a rumble and felt a jerk. “Big Tom” was breaking free. The first hurdle had been successfully overcome, and the ship had already begun tilting into its trajectory.
There was a new surge of agony on his body as the second stage picked up the acceleration at a force of 7 G’s again. Marsh clamped his jaws as the force pulled his lips back from his teeth and dragged his cheek muscles down. The Mach numbers continued to rise—11, 12, 13—to altitude 200 miles, the outer fringe of the earth’s atmosphere. There was a slight lifting of the pressure on his body. The rocket was still in the stratosphere, but the sky was getting purple.
Mach 14—10,000 miles an hour.
“Dick” would jettison any moment. Marsh had been aloft only about four minutes, but it had seemed an age, every tortured second of it.
22
There was another rumble as the second stage broke free. Marsh felt a new surge directly beneath him as his own occupied section, “Harry,” began blasting. It was comforting to realize he had successfully weathered those tons of exploding hydrazine and acid that could have reduced him to nothing if something had gone wrong. Although his speed was still building up, the weight on him began to ease steadily as his body’s inertia finally yielded to the sickeningly swift acceleration.
The speedometer needle climbed to Mach 21, the peak velocity of the rocket, 16,000 miles per hour. His altitude was 350 miles—man’s highest ascent. Slowly then, the speedometer began to drop back. Marsh heard the turbo pumps and jets go silent as the “lift” fuel was spent and rocket “Harry” began its free-flight orbit around Earth.
The ship had reached a speed which exactly counterbalanced the pull of gravity, and it could, theoretically, travel this way forever, provided no other outside force acted upon it. The effect on Marsh now was as if he had stopped moving. Relieved of the viselike pressure, his stomach and chest for a few seconds felt like inflated balloons.
“Cadet Farnsworth,” the voice of General Forsythe spoke into his helmet receiver, “are you all right?”
“Yes, sir,” Marsh replied. “That is, I think so.”
It was good to hear a human voice again, something to hold onto in this crazy unreal world into which he had been hurtled.
“We’re getting the electronic readings from your gauges O.K.,” the voice went on. “The doctor says your pulse is satisfactory under the circumstances.”
It was queer having your pulse read from 350 miles up in the air.
23
Marsh realized, of course, that he was not truly in the “air.” A glance at his air-pressure gauge confirmed this. He was virtually in a vacuum. The temperature and wind velocity outside might have astounded him if he were not prepared for the readings. The heat was over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, and the wind velocity was of hurricane force! But these figures meant nothing because of the sparseness of air molecules. Temperature and wind applied only to the individual particles, which were thousands of feet apart.
“How is your cosmic-ray count?” asked the general.
Marsh checked the C-ray counter on the panel from which clicking sounds were coming. “It’s low, sir. Nothing to worry about.”
Cosmic rays, the most powerful emanations known, were the only radiation in space that could not be protected against. But in small doses they had been found not to be dangerous.
“As soon as our recorders get more of the figures your telemeter is giving us,” the operations chief said, “you can leave the rocket.”
When Marsh got the O.K. a few minutes later, he eagerly unstrapped the belts around his body. He could hardly contain his excitement at being the first person to view the globe of Earth from space. As he struggled to his feet, the lightness of zero gravity made him momentarily giddy, and it took some minutes for him to adjust to the terribly strange sensation.
24
He had disconnected the cable leading from his helmet to the ship’s transmitter and switched on the ship’s fast-lens movie camera that would photograph the area covered by “Harry.” Then he was ready to go outside. He pressed a button on the wall, and the first air-lock hatch opened. He floated into the narrow alcove and closed the door in the cramped chamber behind him. He watched a gauge, and when it showed normal pressure and temperature again, he opened the outside hatch, closing it behind him. Had Marsh permitted the vacuum of space to contact the interior of the ship’s quarters, delicate instruments would have been ruined by the sudden decompression and loss of heat. Marsh fastened his safety line to the ship so that there was no chance of his becoming separated from it.
Then he looked “downward,” to experience the thrill of his life. Like a gigantic relief map, the panorama of Earth stretched across his vision. A downy blanket of gray atmosphere spread over the whole of it, and patches of clouds were seen floating like phantom shapes beneath the clear vastness of the stratosphere. It was a stunning sight for Marsh, seeing the pinpoint lights of the night cities extending from horizon to horizon. It gave him an exhilarating feeling of being a king over it all.
25
Earth appeared to be rotating, but Marsh knew it was largely his own and the rocket’s fast speed that was responsible for the illusion. As he hung in this region of the exosphere, he was thankful for his cadet training in zero gravity. A special machine, developed only in recent years, simulated the weightlessness of space and trained the cadets for endurance in such artificial conditions.
“Describe some of the things you see, Marshall,” General Forsythe said over Marsh’s helmet receiver.
“I’ve just cut in a recorder.”
“It’s a scene almost beyond description, sir,” Marsh said into the helmet mike. “The sky is thickly powdered with stars. The Milky Way is very distinct, and I can make out lots of fuzzy spots that must be star clusters and nebulae and comets. Mars is like an extremely bright taillight, and the moon is so strong it hurts my eyes as much as the direct sun does on earth.”
Marsh saw a faintly luminous blur pass beyond the ship. It had been almost too sudden to catch. He believed it to be a meteor diving Earthward at a speed around forty-five miles a second. He reported this to the general.
As he brought his eyes down from the more distant fixtures of space to those closer by on Earth, a strange thing happened. He was suddenly seized with a fear of falling, although his zero-gravity training had been intended to prepare him against this very thing. A cold sweat come out over his body, and an uncontrollable panic threatened to take hold of him.
26
He made a sudden movement as though to catch himself. Forgetting the magnification of motion in frictionless space and his own weightlessness, he was shot quickly to the end of his safety line like a cracked whip. His body jerked at the taut end and then sped swiftly back in reaction toward the ship, head foremost. A collision could crack his helmet, exposing his body to decompression, causing him to swell like a balloon and finally explode.
In the grip of numbing fear, only at the last moment did he have the presence of mind to flip his body in a half-cartwheel and bring his boots up in front of him for protection. His feet bumped against the rocket’s side, and the motion sent him hurtling back out to the end of the safety line again. This back-and-forth action occurred several times before he could stop completely.
“I’ve got to be careful,” he panted to himself, as he thought of how close his space career had come to being ended scarcely before it had begun.
General Forsythe cut in with great concern, wondering what had happened. When Marsh had explained and the general seemed satisfied that Marsh had recovered himself, he had Marsh go on with his description.
His senseless fear having gone now, Marsh looked down calmly, entranced as the features of the United States passed below his gaze. He named the cities he could identify, also the mountain ranges, lakes, and rivers, explaining just how they looked from 350 miles up. In only a fraction of an hour’s time, the rocket had traversed the entire country and was approaching the twinkling phosphorescence of the Atlantic.
27
Marsh asked if “Tom” and “Dick” had landed safely.
“‘Tom’ landed near Roswell, New Mexico,” General Forsythe told him, “and the ’chute of the second section has been reported seen north of Dallas. I think you’d better start back now, Marshall. It’ll take us many months to analyze all the information we’ve gotten. We can’t contact you very well on the other side of the world either, and thirdly, I don’t want you exposed to the sun’s rays outside the atmosphere in the Eastern Hemisphere any longer than can be helped.”
Marsh tugged carefully on his safety line and floated slowly back toward the ship. He entered the air lock. Then, inside, he raised the angle of his contour chair to upright position, facing the console of the ship’s manual controls for the glide Earthward. He plugged in his telemeter helmet cable and buckled one of the straps across his waist.
Since he was still moving at many thousands of miles an hour, it would be suicide to plunge straight downward. He and the glider would be turned into a meteoric torch. Rather, he would have to spend considerable time soaring in and out of the atmosphere in braking ellipses until he reached much lower speed. Then the Earth’s gravitational pull would do the rest.
28
This was going to be the trickiest part of the operation, and the most dangerous. Where before, Marsh had depended on automatic controls to guide him, now much of the responsibility was on his own judgment. He remembered the many hours he had sweated through to log his flying time. Now he could look back on that period in his training and thank his lucky stars for it.
He took the manual controls and angled into the atmosphere. He carefully watched the AHF dial—the atmospheric heat friction gauge. When he had neared the dangerous incendiary point, with the ship having literally become red-hot, he soared into the frictionless vacuum again. He had to keep this up a long time in order to reduce his devastating speed.
It was something of a shock to him to leave the black midnight of Earth’s slumbering side for the brilliant hemisphere where the people of Europe and Asia were going about their daytime tasks. He would have liked to study this other half of the world which he had glimpsed only a few times before in his supersonic test flights, but he knew this would have to wait for future flights.
Finally, after a long time, his velocity was slowed enough so that the tug of gravity was stronger than the rocket’s ability to pull up out of the atmosphere. At this point, Marsh cut in “Harry’s” forward braking jets to check his falling speed.
“There’s something else to worry about,” he thought to himself. “Will old Harry hold together or will he fly apart in the crushing atmosphere?”
29
The directional radio signals from the powerful Skyharbor transmitter were growing stronger as Marsh neared the shores of California. He could see the winking lights of San Diego and Los Angeles, and farther inland the swinging thread that was the beacon at Skyharbor. All planes in his path of flight had been grounded for the past few hours because of the space flight. The only ground light scanning the skies was the gigantic space beacon in Phoenix.
When Marsh reached Arizona, he began spiraling downward over the state to kill the rest of his altitude and air speed. Even now the plane was a hurtling supersonic metal sliver streaking through the night skies like a comet. He topped the snow-capped summits of the towering San Francisco Peaks on the drive southward, and he recognized the sprawling serpent of the Grand Canyon. Then he was in the lower desert regions of moon-splashed sand and cactus. Although the fire-hot temperature of the outer skin had subsided, there had been damage done to the walls and instruments, and possibly to other parts, too. Marsh was worried lest his outside controls might be too warped to give him a good touchdown, if indeed he could get down safely at all.
A few thousand feet up, Marsh lowered his landing gear. Now the only problem left was to land himself and the valuable ship safely inside the narrow parallels of the airstrip. He circled the airport several times as his altitude continued to plummet.
30
The meter fell rapidly. His braking rocket fuel was gone now. From here on in, he would be on gliding power alone.
“Easy does it, Marshall,” the general said quietly into his ear. “You’re lining up fine. Level it out a little and keep straight with the approach lights. That’s fine. You’re just about in.”
The lights of the airport seeming to rush up at him, Marsh felt a jolt as the wheels touched ground on the west end of the runway. He kept the ship steady as it scurried along the smooth asphalt, losing the last of its once tremendous velocity. The plane hit the restraining wire across the strip and came to a sudden stop, shoving Marsh hard against the single safety belt he wore. Finally, incredibly, the ship was still and he was safe.
He unfastened his strap and removed his space helmet. The heat of the compartment brought the sweat out on his face. He rose on wobbly legs and pressed the buttons to the hatches. The last door flew open to admit the cool, bracing air of Earth which he had wondered if he would ever inhale again.
His aloneness was over then, suddenly and boisterously, as men swarmed over him with congratulations, eager questions, and looks of respect. Reporters’ flash bulbs popped, and he felt like a new Lindbergh as he was pulled down to the ground and mobbed. Finally the police came to his rescue and pushed back the curiosity seekers and newspapermen. Then only three men were allowed through the cordon.
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What is the plot of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Breakdown by Herbert D. Kastle.
Relevant chunks:
BREAKDOWN
By HERBERT D. KASTLE
Illustrated by COWLES
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine June 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
He didn't know exactly when it had started, but it had been going on for weeks. Edna begged him to see the doctor living in that new house two miles past Dugan's farm, but he refused. He point-blank refused to admit he was sick that way—in the head!
Of course, a man could grow forgetful. He had to admit there were moments when he had all sorts of mixed-up memories and thoughts in his mind. And sometimes—like right now, lying in bed beside Edna, watching the first hint of light touch the windows—he began sweating with fear. A horrible, gut-wrenching fear, all the more horrible because it was based on nothing.
The chicken-run came alive; the barn followed minutes later. There were chores to do, the same chores he'd done all his forty-one years. Except that now, with the new regulations about wheat and corn, he had only a vegetable patch to farm. Sure, he got paid for letting the fields remain empty. But it just didn't seem right, all that land going to waste....
Davie. Blond hair and a round, tanned face and strong arms growing stronger each day from helping out after school.
He turned and shook Edna. "What happened to Davie?"
She cleared her throat, mumbled, "Huh? What happened to who?"
"I said, what...." But then it slipped away. Davie? No, that was part of a dream he'd had last week. He and Edna had no children.
He felt the fear again, and got up fast to escape it. Edna opened her eyes as soon as his weight left the bed. "Like hotcakes for breakfast?"
"Eggs," he said. "Bacon." And then, seeing her face change, he remembered. "Course," he muttered. "Can't have bacon. Rationed."
She was fully awake now. "If you'd only go see Dr. Hamming, Harry. Just for a checkup. Or let me call him so he could—"
"You stop that! You stop that right now, and for good! I don't want to hear no more about doctors. I get laid up, I'll call one. And it won't be that Hamming who I ain't never seen in my life! It'll be Timkins, who took care'n us and brought our son into the world and...."
She began to cry, and he realized he'd said something crazy again. They had no son, never had a son. And Timkins—he'd died and they'd gone to his funeral. Or so Edna said.
He himself just couldn't remember it.
He went to the bed and sat down beside her. "Sorry. That was just a dream I had. I'm still half asleep this morning. Couldn't fall off last night, not till real late. Guess I'm a little nervous, what with all the new regulations and not working regular. I never meant we had a son." He waited then, hoping she'd say they had had a son, and he'd died or gone away. But of course she didn't.
He went to the bathroom and washed. By the time he came to the kitchen, Edna had hotcakes on a plate and coffee in a cup. He sat down and ate. Part way through the meal, he paused. "Got an awful craving for meat," he said. "Goddam those rations! Man can't even butcher his own stock for his own table!"
"We're having meat for lunch," she said placatingly. "Nice cut of multi-pro."
"Multi-pro," he scoffed. "God knows what's in it. Like spam put through a grinder a hundred times and then baked into slabs. Can't hardly taste any meat there."
"Well, we got no choice. Country's on emergency rations. The current crisis, you know."
The way she said it irritated him. Like it was Scripture; like no one could question one word of it without being damned to Hell. He finished quickly and without speaking went on out to the barn.
He milked and curried and fed and cleaned, and still was done inside of two hours. Then he walked slowly, head down, across the hay-strewn floor. He stopped, put out his hand as if to find a pole or beam that was too familiar to require raising his eyes, and almost fell as he leaned in that direction. Regaining his balance after a sideward staggering shuffle, he looked around, startled. "Why, this ain't the way I had my barn...."
He heard his own voice, and stopped. He fought the flash of senseless panic. Of course this was the way he'd had his barn built, because it was his barn!
He rubbed his hard hands together and said aloud, "Get down to the patch. Them tomatoes need fertilizer for tang." He walked outside and took a deep breath. Air was different, wasn't it? Sweet and pure and clean, like country air always was and always would be; but still, different somehow. Maybe sharper. Or was sharp the word? Maybe....
He went quickly across the yard, past the pig-pen—he'd had twelve pigs, hadn't he? Now he had four—behind the house to where the half-acre truck farm lay greening in the sun. He got to work. Sometime later, Edna called to him. "Delivery last night, Harry. I took some. Pick up rest?"
"Yes," he shouted.
She disappeared.
He walked slowly back to the house. As he came into the front yard, moving toward the road and the supply bin, something occurred to him. The car. He hadn't seen the old Chevvy in ... how long? It'd be nice to take a ride to town, see a movie, maybe have a few beers.
No. It was against the travel regulations. He couldn't go further than Walt and Gloria Shanks' place. They couldn't go further than his. And the gas rationing. Besides, he'd sold the car, hadn't he? Because it was no use to him lying in the tractor shed.
He whirled, staring out across the fields to his left. Why, the tractor shed had stood just fifty feet from the house!
No, he'd torn it down. The tractor was in town, being overhauled and all. He was leaving it there until he had use for it.
He went on toward the road, his head beginning to throb. Why should a man his age, hardly sick at all since he was a kid, suddenly start losing hold this way? Edna was worried. The Shanks had noticed it too.
He was at the supply bin—like an old-fashioned wood bin; a box with a sloping flap lid. Deliveries of food and clothing and home medicines and other things were left here. You wrote down what you needed, and they left it—or whatever they allowed you—with a bill. You paid the bill by leaving money in the bin, and the next week you found a receipt and your new stuff and your new bill. And almost always you found some money from the government, for not planting wheat or not planting corn. It came out just about even.
He hauled out a sack of flour, half the amount of sugar Edna had ordered, some dried fruit, a new Homekit Medicine Shelf. He carried it into the house, and noticed a slip of paper pinned to the sugar bag. A television program guide.
Edna hustled over excitedly. "Anything good on this week, Harry?"
He looked down the listings, and frowned. "All old movies. Still only one channel. Still only from nine to eleven at night." He gave it to her, turned away; then stopped and waited. He'd said the same thing last week. And she had said the films were all new to her.
She said it now. "Why Harry, I've never seen this movie with Clark Gable. Nor the comedy with Red Skeleton. Nor the other five neither."
"I'm gonna lie down," he said flatly. He turned and stepped forward, and found himself facing the stove. Not the door to the hall; the stove. "But the door...." he began. He cut himself short. He turned and saw the door a few feet to the left, beside the table. He went there and out and up the stairs (they too had moved; they too weren't right) and into the bedroom and lay down. The bedroom was wrong. The bed was wrong. The windows were wrong.
The world was wrong! Lord, the whole damned world was wrong!
Edna didn't wake him, so they had a late lunch. Then he went back to the barn and let the four cows and four sheep and two horses into the pastures. Then he checked to see that Edna had fed the chickens right. They had only a dozen or so now.
When had he sold the rest? And when had he sold his other livestock?
Or had they died somehow? A rough winter? Disease?
He stood in the yard, a tall, husky man with pale brown hair and a face that had once been long, lean and strong and was now only long and lean. He blinked gray eyes and tried hard to remember, then turned and went to the house. Edna was soaking dishes in the sink, according to regulations—one sinkful of dishwater a day. And one tub of bath water twice a week.
She was looking at him. He realized his anger and confusion must be showing. He managed a smile. "You remember how much we got for our livestock, Edna?"
"Same as everyone else," she said. "Government agents paid flat rates."
He remembered then, or thought he did. The headache was back. He went upstairs and slept again, but this time he had dreams, many of them, and all confused and all frightening. He was glad to get up. And he was glad to hear Walt and Gloria talking to Edna downstairs.
He washed his face, combed his hair and went down. Walt and Gloria were sitting on the sofa, Edna in the blue armchair. Walt was saying he'd gotten the new TV picture tube he'd ordered. "Found it in the supply bin this morning. Spent the whole day installing it according to the book of directions."
Harry said hi and they all said hi and he sat down and they talked about TV and gardens and livestock. Then Harry said, "How's Penny?"
"Fine," Gloria answered. "I'm starting her on the kindergarten book next week."
"She's five already?" Harry asked.
"Almost six," Walt said. "Emergency Education Regulations state that the child should be five years nine months old before embarking on kindergarten book."
"And Frances?" Harry asked. "Your oldest? She must be starting high...." He stopped, because they were all staring at him, and because he couldn't remember Frances clearly. "Just a joke," he said, laughing and rising. "Let's eat. I'm starved."
They ate in the kitchen. They talked—or rather Edna, Gloria and Walt did. Harry nodded and said uh-huh and used his mouth for chewing.
Walt and Gloria went home at ten-fifteen. They said goodbye at the door and Harry walked away. He heard Gloria whispering something about Doctor Hamming.
He was sitting in the living room when Edna came in. She was crying.
"Harry, please see the doctor."
He got up. "I'm going out. I might even sleep out!"
"But why, Harry, why?"
He couldn't stand to see her crying. He went to her, kissed her wet cheek, spoke more softly. "It'll do me good, like when I was a kid."
"If you say so, Harry."
He left quickly. He went outside and across the yard to the road. He looked up it and down it, to the north and to the south. It was a bright night with moon and stars, but he saw nothing, no one. The road was empty. It was always empty, except when Walt and Gloria walked over from their place a mile or so south. But once it hadn't been empty. Once there'd been cars, people....
He had to do something. Just sitting and looking at the sky wouldn't help him. He had to go somewhere, see someone.
He went to the barn and looked for his saddle. There was no saddle. But he'd had one hanging right behind the door. Or had he?
He threw a blanket over Plum, the big mare, and tied it with a piece of wash line. He used another piece for a bridle, since he couldn't find that either, and didn't bother making a bit. He mounted, and Plum moved out of the barn and onto the road. He headed north, toward town.
Then he realized he couldn't go along the road this way. He'd be reported. Breaking travel regulations was a serious offense. He didn't know what they did to you, but it wasn't anything easy like a fine.
He cut into an unfenced, unplanted field.
His headache was back, worse now than it had ever been. His entire head throbbed, and he leaned forward and put his cheek against Plum's mane. The mare whinnied uneasily, but he kicked her sides and she moved forward. He lay there, just wanting to go somewhere, just wanting to leave his headache and confusion behind.
He didn't know how long it was, but Plum was moving cautiously now. He raised his head. They were approaching a fence. He noticed a gate off to the right, and pulled the rope so Plum went that way. They reached the gate and he got down to open it, and saw the sign. "Phineas Grotton Farm." He looked up at the sky, found the constellations, turned his head, and nodded. He'd started north, and Plum had continued north. He'd crossed land belonging both to himself and the Franklins. Now he was leaving the Franklin farm. North of the Franklins were the Bessers. Who was this Phineas Grotton? Had he bought out Lon Besser? But anything like that would've gotten around.
Was he forgetting again?
Well, no matter. Mr. Grotton would have to excuse his trespass. He opened the gate, led Plum through it, closed the gate. He mounted and rode forward, still north, toward the small Pangborn place and after the Pangborns the biggest farm in the county—old Wallace Elverton's place. The fields here, as everywhere in the county, lay fallow. Seemed as if the government had so much grain stored up they'd be able to get along without crops for years more.
He looked around. Somehow, the country bothered him. He wasn't sure why, but ... everything was wrong.
His head weighed an agonized ton. He put it down again. Plum went sedately forward. After a while she stopped. Harry looked up. Another fence. And what a fence! About ten feet of heavy steel mesh, topped by three feet of barbed-wire—five separate strands. What in the world had Sam Pangborn been thinking of to put up a monster like this?
He looked around. The gate should be further west. He rode that way. He found no gate. He turned back, heading east. No gate. Nothing but fence. And wasn't the fence gradually curving inward? He looked back. Yes, there was a slight inward curve.
He dismounted and tied Plum to the fence, then stepped back and figured the best way to get to the other side.
The best way, the only way, was to claw, clutch and clamber, as they used to say back when he was a kid.
It took some doing. He tore his shirt on the barbed wire, but he got over and began walking, straight ahead, due north. The earth changed beneath his feet. He stooped and touched it. Sand. Hard-packed sand. He'd never seen the like of it in this county.
He walked on. A sound came to him; a rising-falling whisper. He listened to it, and looked up every so often at the sky, to make sure he was heading in the right direction.
And the sand ended. His shoes plunked over flooring.
Flooring!
He knelt to make sure, and his hand felt wooden planks. He rose, and glanced up to see if he was still outdoors. Then he laughed. It was a sick laugh, so he stopped it.
He took another step. His shoes sounded against the wood. He walked. More wood. Wood that went on, as the sand had. And the roaring sound growing louder. And the air changing, smelling like air never had before in Cultwait County.
His entire body trembled. His mind trembled too. He walked, and came to a waist-high metal railing, and made a tiny sound deep in his throat. He looked out over water, endless water rolling in endless waves under the night sky. Crashing water, topped with reflected silver from the moon. Pounding water, filling the air with spray.
He put out his hands and grasped the railing. It was wet. He raised damp fingers to his mouth. Salt.
He stepped back, back, and turned and ran. He ran wildly, blindly, until he could run no more. Then he fell, feeling the sand beneath him, and shut his eyes and mind to everything.
Much later, he got up and went to the fence and climbed it. He came down on the other side and looked around and saw Plum. He walked to her, mounted her, sat still. The thoughts, or dreams, or whatever they were which had been torturing him these past few weeks began torturing him again.
It was getting light. His head was splitting.
Davie. His son Davie. Fourteen years old. Going to high school in town....
Town! He should've gone there in the first place! He would ride east, to the road, then head south, back toward home. That would bring him right down Main Street. Regulations or not, he'd talk to people, find out what was happening.
He kicked Plum's sides. The mare began to move. He kept kicking until she broke into a brisk canter. He held on with hands and legs.
Why hadn't he seen the Pangborns and Elvertons lately—a long time lately?
The ocean. He'd seen the ocean. Not a reservoir or lake made by flooding and by damming, but salt water and enormous. An ocean, where there could be no ocean. The Pangborns and Elvertons had been where that ocean was now. And after the Elvertons had come the Dobsons. And after them the new plastics plant. And after that the city of Crossville. And after that....
He was passing his own farm. He hadn't come through town, and yet here he was at his own farm. Could he have forgotten where town was? Could it be north of his home, not south? Could a man get so confused as to forget things he'd known all his life?
He reached the Shanks' place, and passed it at a trot. Then he was beyond their boundaries and breaking regulations again. He stayed on the road. He went by a small house and saw colored folks in the yard. There'd been no colored folks here. There'd been Eli Bergen and his family and his mother, in a bigger, newer house. The colored folks heard Plum's hooves and looked up and stared. Then a man raised his voice. "Mistah, you breakin' regulations! Mistah, the police gonnah get you!"
He rode on. He came to another house, neat and white, with three children playing on a grassy lawn. They saw him and ran inside. A moment later, adult voices yelled after him:
"You theah! Stop!"
"Call the sheriff! He's headin' foah Piney Woods!"
There was no place called Piney Woods in this county.
Was this how a man's mind went?
He came to another house, and another. He passed ten all told, and people shouted at him for breaking regulations, and the last three or four sounded like Easterners. And their houses looked like pictures of New England he'd seen in magazines.
He rode on. He never did come to town. He came to a ten-foot fence with a three-foot barbed-wire extension. He got off Plum and ripped his clothing climbing. He walked over hard-packed sand, and then wood, and came to a low metal railing. He looked out at the ocean, gleaming in bright sunlight, surging and seething endlessly. He felt the earth sway beneath him. He staggered, and dropped to his hands and knees, and shook his head like a fighter hit too many times. Then he got up and went back to the fence and heard a sound. It was a familiar sound, yet strange too. He shaded his eyes against the climbing sun. Then he saw it—a car. A car!
It was one of those tiny foreign jobs that run on practically no gas at all. It stopped beside him and two men got out. Young men with lined, tired faces; they wore policemen's uniforms. "You broke regulations, Mr. Burr. You'll have to come with us."
He nodded. He wanted to. He wanted to be taken care of. He turned toward Plum.
The other officer was walking around the horse. "Rode her hard," he said, and he sounded real worried. "Shouldn't have done that, Mr. Burr. We have so very few now...."
The officer holding Harry's arm said, "Pete."
The officer examining Plum said, "It won't make any difference in a while."
Harry looked at both of them, and felt sharp, personal fear.
"Take the horse back to his farm," the officer holding Harry said. He opened the door of the little car and pushed Harry inside. He went around to the driver's side and got behind the wheel and drove away. Harry looked back. Pete was leading Plum after them; not riding him, walking him. "He sure must like horses," he said.
"Yes."
"Am I going to jail?"
"No."
"Where then?"
"The doctor's place."
They stopped in front of the new house two miles past Dugan's farm. Except he'd never seen it before. Or had he? Everyone seemed to know about it—or was everyone only Edna and the Shanks?
He got out of the car. The officer took his arm and led him up the path. Harry noticed that the new house was big.
When they came inside, he knew it wasn't like any house he'd ever seen or heard of. There was this long central passageway, and dozens of doors branched off it on both sides, and stairways went down from it in at least three places that he could see, and at the far end—a good two hundred yards away—a big ramp led upward. And it was all gray plaster walls and dull black floors and cold white lighting, like a hospital, or a modern factory, or maybe a government building. Except that he didn't see or hear people.
He did hear something ; a low, rumbling noise. The further they came along the hall, the louder the rumbling grew. It seemed to be deep down somewhere.
They went through one of the doors on the right, into a windowless room. A thin little man with bald head and frameless glasses was there, putting on a white coat. His veiny hands shook. He looked a hundred years old. "Where's Petey?" he asked.
"Pete's all right, Dad. Just leading a horse back to Burr's farm."
The old man sighed. "I didn't know what form it would take. I expected one or two cases, but I couldn't predict whether it would be gradual or sudden, whether or not it would lead to violence."
"No violence, Dad."
"Fine, Stan." He looked at Harry. "I'm going to give you a little treatment, Mr. Burr. It'll settle your nerves and make everything...."
"What happened to Davie?" Harry asked, things pushing at his brain again.
Stan helped him up. "Just step this way, Mr. Burr."
He didn't resist. He went through the second door into the room with the big chair. He sat down and let them strap his arms and legs and let them lower the metal thing over his head. He felt needles pierce his scalp and the back of his neck. He let them do what they wanted; he would let them kill him if they wanted. All he asked was one answer so as to know whether or not he was insane.
"What happened to my son Davie?"
The old man walked across the room and examined what looked like the insides of a dozen big radios. He turned, his hand on a switch.
"Please," Harry whispered. "Just tell me about my son."
The doctor blinked behind his glasses, and then his hand left the switch. "Dead," he said, his voice a rustling of dried leaves. "Like so many millions of others. Dead, when the bombs fell. Dead, as everyone knew they would be and no one did anything to prevent. Dead. Perhaps the whole world is dead—except for us."
Harry stared at him.
"I can't take the time to explain it all. I have too much to do. Just three of us—myself and my two sons. My wife lost her mind. I should have helped her as I'm helping you."
"I don't understand," Harry said. "I remember people, and things, and where are they now? Dead? People can die, but farms, cities...."
"I haven't the time," the doctor repeated, voice rising. "I have to run a world. Three of us, to run a world! I built it as best I could, but how large could I make it? The money. The years and years of work. The people calling me insane when they found out ... but a few giving me more money, and the work going on. And those few caught like everyone else, unprepared when the holocaust started, unprepared and unable to reach my world. So they died. As I knew they would. As they should have known they would."
Harry felt the rumbling beneath him. Engines?
"You survived," the doctor said. "Your wife. A few hundred others in the rural areas. One other family in your area. I survived because I lived for survival, like a mole deep in the earth, expecting the catastrophe every minute. I survived because I gave up living to survive." He laughed, high and thin.
His son said, "Please, Dad...."
"No! I want to talk to someone sane ! You and Petey and I—we're all insane, you know. Three years now, playing God, waiting for some land, any land, to become habitable. And knowing everything, and surrounded by people who are sane only because I made sure they would know nothing." He stepped forward, glaring at Harry. "Now do you understand? I went across the country, picking up a few of the few left alive. Most were farmers, and even where some weren't I picked the farmers anyway. Because farmers are what we'll need, and all the rest can evolve later. I put you and the others, eighty-six all told, from every section of the country, on my world, the only uncontaminated land left. I gave you back your old lives. I couldn't give you big crops because we don't need big crops. We would only exhaust our limited soil with big crops. But I gave you vegetable gardens and livestock and, best of all, sanity ! I wiped the insane moments from your minds. I gave you peace and consigned myself, my sons, my own wife...."
He choked and stopped.
Stan ran across the room to the switch. Harry watched him, and his brain struggled with an impossible concept. He heard the engines and remembered the ocean on two sides; on four sides had he bothered to check south and east; on all sides if that fence continued to curve inward. Ocean, and there was no ocean in Iowa.
And this wasn't Iowa.
The explosions had ripped the world, and he'd tried to get to town to save Davie, and there'd been no town and there'd been no people and there'd been only death and poison in the air and even those few people left had begun to die, and then the truck with the huge trailer had come, the gleaming trailer with the little man and his trembling wife and his two sons....
Suddenly, he understood. And understanding brought not peace but the greatest terror he'd ever known. He screamed, "We're on...." but the switch was thrown and there was no more speech. For an hour. Then he got out of the chair and said, "Sure glad I took my wife's advice and came to see you, Doctor Hamming. I feel better already, and after only one.... What do you call these treatments?"
"Diathermy," the little doctor muttered.
Harry gave him a five-dollar bill. The doctor gave him two singles in change. "That's certainly reasonable enough," Harry said.
The doctor nodded. "There's a police officer in the hall. He'll drive you home so there won't be any trouble with the travel regulations."
Harry said, "Thanks. Think we'll ever see the end of travel regulations and rationing and all the rest of the emergency?"
"You will, Mr. Burr."
Harry walked to the door.
"We're on an ark," the doctor said.
Harry turned around, smiling. "What?"
"A test, Mr. Burr. You passed it. Goodbye."
Harry went home. He told Edna he felt just great! She said she'd been worried when an officer found Plum wandering on the road; she thought maybe Harry had gone off somewhere and broken travel regulations.
"Me?" he exclaimed, amazed. "Break travel regulations? I'd as soon kill a pig!"
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
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[
"Harry Burr is begged by his wife Edna to go see a doctor because she believes that he is sick in the head. He refuses to believe that anything is wrong, but he does admit that there are times where he lies in fear over nothing and mixes up his memories. The story then jumps to the present, where he begins to think about a blond boy named Davie. Edna is confused because they have no children. Edna brings up seeing a doctor again, he angrily responds that it will only be Timkins who brought their son into the world. Edna tells him they had no son, and Timkins died a while ago. The scene cuts to breakfast, where Harry complains about a lack of meat. Edna explains that there is only multi-pro because of the current crisis in the country. Harry begins to go walk outside, but he experiences more strange memories that don’t add up. He picks up the delivery that Edna ordered. Edna asks if there is anything good on television this week because there is only one channel. After a late lunch, Harry goes to check on the animals again and wonders what happened to the rest of the livestock. Edna tells him that they got the same as everyone else, and he goes upstairs again. When he awakes again, Gloria and Walt have arrived. He asks about Penny and Frances. After they leave, He takes his mare Plum out for a ride, and they arrive at a barbed wire fence area up north. He gets over the wire and continues to walk north, until the earth changes to sand. Then, the sand becomes wooden flooring; there is also a loud roaring sound. When he reaches a waist-high metal railing, he runs back to Plum again. Harry has the idea to ride to town, even if the other neighbors tell him to stop and for somebody to call the police. Soon, two policemen come out to escort him to the doctor. Harry asks the doctor where his son is, and the doctor explains that he is dead like so many millions of others. The doctor tells him he has so many things to do, and he says there are a few remaining people who are still alive. Harry’s brain struggles with the impossible concept, and he thinks about how this is not Iowa. Just as Harry realizes what they are on, the switch is thrown, and he finds himself feeling better from the diathermy treatment. Before Harry leaves, the doctor tests him one last time by telling him that they are on an ark. Harry is confused, which means that the treatment works. He goes home to Edna and is happier than ever. ",
"This story follows Harry, a farmer living in Iowa. He and his wife, Edna, live in a time of crisis and so there are many government regulations to follow. Some of these regulations include food rationing, being restricting to farming vegetables, only being able to travel to the neighbors house, etc. While going about his day, Harry often has visions of a young boy named Davie, someone he understands to be his and Edna's son. He is also constantly discombobulated by the placement of things in the house as well as events that supposedly did or did not happen. This confusion leads Edna to be very worried about him, and she insists for him to visit Dr. Hamming, which he refuses. \n\nOne night, their neighbors Walt and Gloria visit. Harry mistakenly asks about their older daughter - who doesn't exist - and spends the rest of the dinner quiet. After the neighbors leave, Edna is furthermore distraught which prompts Harry to leave the house in hopes of clearing his mind. Outside, he creates a makeshift saddle over his horse, Plum, and rides off into the unplanted fields. After travelling for a while, he and Plum approach a fenced off property labelled \"Phineas Grotton Farm\". Trespassing nonetheless, he rides Plum forwards before pausing; he felt as if everything around him was wrong, including his supposed friend Pangborn putting up a massive fence. \n\nGoing over the fence, he noticed a roaring sound growing louder and the smell of the air changing. As he walked, the ground underneath him changed from earth to sand to wood. He came over to a metal railing and found that it overlooked an endless crashing water and salty air - the ocean. After a while, he rode Plum back to his farm, only to note that he had arrived without even needing to go through town. On the way back, he was spotted breaking travel regulations and was pulled over by the police, who take him to the doctor's office. \n\nAt the doctor's office, his confusion is finally explained away. While being prepped for treatment, Dr. Hamming reveals that his supposed son, Davie, and friend Pangborn, were indeed real and alive, but killed by the bombs. Only a few remain amongst the uninhabitable land, and so it was Dr. Hamming who brought them along to his inhabitable world. Dr. Hamming, his two sons, and his now late wife work together to wipe the bad memories from the townspeople and keep the community going as they, on board an ark, continually search for inhabitable land. As Harry begins to form his own conclusions, Dr. Hammings injects him with the treatment and his sane mind is restored. \n\nAt the end, Harry returns home to his wife. She expresses a worry that he may have taken Plum and broken regulations, to which he insists he would never do. ",
"Harry seems to have a memory problem. His wife, Edna, often begs him to see the doctor in the town, but he refuses. He often remembers memories that are mismatched with reality. For example, he thinks he has a son, Davie, but all the people, including Edna, deny the fact. He remembers that his fields were planted fully with crops such as wheat and corn, not wasting the land, but now he can only plant a patch of vegetables with all the other fields remaining fallow. He thinks Timkins, the doctor he used to go for, is still alive, but Timkins died a long while ago, based on Edna’s testimony. After eating the rationed food supplied by the government for breakfast, he checks his barn and farms around his house, which seem unfamiliar to him compared to his memory. He picks up the delivery of living supplies and sees the listed movies provided, having the same conversation with Edna as last week. The more he sees, the more he realizes that everything is wrong. When their neighbors visit them and eat with them, Harry has more mistakes in his memory and does not talk while eating. When Edna begs him to see the doctor again, he goes out to ride a mare called Plum.\n\nAt night, Harry rides Plum towards the north on the empty road. Soon after realizing he may be reported for breaking travel regulations, he cuts into an unplanted field. He faces a fenced farm where the owner’s name is unfamiliar with what he remembered to be; he opens it and keeps going northwards. When he reaches the end, he sees a tall metal mesh with barbed wire fence with no gates and climbs to the other side of the fence, seeing nothing but the ocean while standing on the wooden floor. He goes back to the fence, climbs it, and mounts Plum. He tries to find the town but fails. He rides on the road, passing his and his neighbor's houses. People living next to the road shout at him for breaking the regulation, but Harry gives no care to those unfamiliar faces and goes to the southern tip, seeing the extension of the metal fence, climbing through it, and the ocean is there again. When he returns to the fence, two men in police uniforms from a car catch him. He gets in the car, letting one man lead his horse back to his house. They arrive at the doctor’s house, where Harry is told by Doctor Hamming the truth that the people on the ark are the remaining humans in the world. All the other humans might have already died from the bombs, including his son Davie. Harry has those memory problems because his real memory is coming. As soon as Harry realizes what is going on, he forgets it again as the treatment is already applied to him. After the treatment, he returns home and chats with his wife carefreely.\n",
"Harry has mixed memories and forgets facts from his life. He wakes up in the morning, asking his wife about their son Davie but momentarily remembers that they have no children. He then suggests that he cooks bacon for breakfast but once again recalls that there is a meat ration. His wife Edna asks him to see Dr.Hamming, but Harry is adamant. During breakfast, Harry complains about rations. Edna tells him they will have multi-pro meat for dinner - he is not satisfied. While doing the chores, Harry realizes his barn seems different and unfamiliar. After picking up the delivery, he says that the TV program guide has old moves, but Edna has never seen them. Harry decides to take a nap and feels that everything around him is wrong. After lunch, he goes back to the barn and sees that they have fewer chickens than he remembers. Their neighbors, Walt and Gloria, come over. Harry makes some strange comments about the neighbors' children - he keeps silent for the rest of the evening. Walt and Gloria leave, and Edna asks Harry to go to the doctor again. He leaves for a walk, harnesses his horse, Plum, and heads north towards the town. He soon reaches Phineas Grotton Farm, which he has never seen before. He goes through the gate and continues riding to the north. The countryside seems wrong to him. Soon, he stumbles upon a ten-foot-high fence with a slight inward curve. He ties Plum to the fence, climbs over it, and walks on. The earth beneath his feet turns into the sand and then into wood flooring. He finally sees a metallic railing covered in saltwater. He sees waves beyond the railing - an ocean - and nervously runs back to Plum. He disregards the traveling regulations and rides along the road in the opposite direction - the citizens scream that he is breaking the law. Soon, he reaches the same high fence, railing, and ocean. A police car pulls over: one officer takes Plum, and the other drives Harry to Doctor Hamming. When entering the house, Harry hears some rumbling sound. The doctor, the officers' father, asks about the second son and starts working on Harry, who keeps asking about Davie. The doctor reveals that Harry’s son, just like millions of others, died during a bombing. The doctor claims that he, together with his two sons, is now running the world for the few hundred who survived after putting them on his world with the only uncontaminated soil left. He has to control the crops and livestock. He says he erased all the knowledge about these events to help people remain sane. Harry realizes Davie is dead, and he isn’t in Iowa. The doctor turns off the radio switch, and Harry immediately forgets this. He thanks Hamming for the treatment. Harry hears the doctor say that they are on an ark, but he doesn’t understand what it means and goes home in peace. \n\n\n"
] |
51662
|
BREAKDOWN
By HERBERT D. KASTLE
Illustrated by COWLES
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine June 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
He didn't know exactly when it had started, but it had been going on for weeks. Edna begged him to see the doctor living in that new house two miles past Dugan's farm, but he refused. He point-blank refused to admit he was sick that way—in the head!
Of course, a man could grow forgetful. He had to admit there were moments when he had all sorts of mixed-up memories and thoughts in his mind. And sometimes—like right now, lying in bed beside Edna, watching the first hint of light touch the windows—he began sweating with fear. A horrible, gut-wrenching fear, all the more horrible because it was based on nothing.
The chicken-run came alive; the barn followed minutes later. There were chores to do, the same chores he'd done all his forty-one years. Except that now, with the new regulations about wheat and corn, he had only a vegetable patch to farm. Sure, he got paid for letting the fields remain empty. But it just didn't seem right, all that land going to waste....
Davie. Blond hair and a round, tanned face and strong arms growing stronger each day from helping out after school.
He turned and shook Edna. "What happened to Davie?"
She cleared her throat, mumbled, "Huh? What happened to who?"
"I said, what...." But then it slipped away. Davie? No, that was part of a dream he'd had last week. He and Edna had no children.
He felt the fear again, and got up fast to escape it. Edna opened her eyes as soon as his weight left the bed. "Like hotcakes for breakfast?"
"Eggs," he said. "Bacon." And then, seeing her face change, he remembered. "Course," he muttered. "Can't have bacon. Rationed."
She was fully awake now. "If you'd only go see Dr. Hamming, Harry. Just for a checkup. Or let me call him so he could—"
"You stop that! You stop that right now, and for good! I don't want to hear no more about doctors. I get laid up, I'll call one. And it won't be that Hamming who I ain't never seen in my life! It'll be Timkins, who took care'n us and brought our son into the world and...."
She began to cry, and he realized he'd said something crazy again. They had no son, never had a son. And Timkins—he'd died and they'd gone to his funeral. Or so Edna said.
He himself just couldn't remember it.
He went to the bed and sat down beside her. "Sorry. That was just a dream I had. I'm still half asleep this morning. Couldn't fall off last night, not till real late. Guess I'm a little nervous, what with all the new regulations and not working regular. I never meant we had a son." He waited then, hoping she'd say they had had a son, and he'd died or gone away. But of course she didn't.
He went to the bathroom and washed. By the time he came to the kitchen, Edna had hotcakes on a plate and coffee in a cup. He sat down and ate. Part way through the meal, he paused. "Got an awful craving for meat," he said. "Goddam those rations! Man can't even butcher his own stock for his own table!"
"We're having meat for lunch," she said placatingly. "Nice cut of multi-pro."
"Multi-pro," he scoffed. "God knows what's in it. Like spam put through a grinder a hundred times and then baked into slabs. Can't hardly taste any meat there."
"Well, we got no choice. Country's on emergency rations. The current crisis, you know."
The way she said it irritated him. Like it was Scripture; like no one could question one word of it without being damned to Hell. He finished quickly and without speaking went on out to the barn.
He milked and curried and fed and cleaned, and still was done inside of two hours. Then he walked slowly, head down, across the hay-strewn floor. He stopped, put out his hand as if to find a pole or beam that was too familiar to require raising his eyes, and almost fell as he leaned in that direction. Regaining his balance after a sideward staggering shuffle, he looked around, startled. "Why, this ain't the way I had my barn...."
He heard his own voice, and stopped. He fought the flash of senseless panic. Of course this was the way he'd had his barn built, because it was his barn!
He rubbed his hard hands together and said aloud, "Get down to the patch. Them tomatoes need fertilizer for tang." He walked outside and took a deep breath. Air was different, wasn't it? Sweet and pure and clean, like country air always was and always would be; but still, different somehow. Maybe sharper. Or was sharp the word? Maybe....
He went quickly across the yard, past the pig-pen—he'd had twelve pigs, hadn't he? Now he had four—behind the house to where the half-acre truck farm lay greening in the sun. He got to work. Sometime later, Edna called to him. "Delivery last night, Harry. I took some. Pick up rest?"
"Yes," he shouted.
She disappeared.
He walked slowly back to the house. As he came into the front yard, moving toward the road and the supply bin, something occurred to him. The car. He hadn't seen the old Chevvy in ... how long? It'd be nice to take a ride to town, see a movie, maybe have a few beers.
No. It was against the travel regulations. He couldn't go further than Walt and Gloria Shanks' place. They couldn't go further than his. And the gas rationing. Besides, he'd sold the car, hadn't he? Because it was no use to him lying in the tractor shed.
He whirled, staring out across the fields to his left. Why, the tractor shed had stood just fifty feet from the house!
No, he'd torn it down. The tractor was in town, being overhauled and all. He was leaving it there until he had use for it.
He went on toward the road, his head beginning to throb. Why should a man his age, hardly sick at all since he was a kid, suddenly start losing hold this way? Edna was worried. The Shanks had noticed it too.
He was at the supply bin—like an old-fashioned wood bin; a box with a sloping flap lid. Deliveries of food and clothing and home medicines and other things were left here. You wrote down what you needed, and they left it—or whatever they allowed you—with a bill. You paid the bill by leaving money in the bin, and the next week you found a receipt and your new stuff and your new bill. And almost always you found some money from the government, for not planting wheat or not planting corn. It came out just about even.
He hauled out a sack of flour, half the amount of sugar Edna had ordered, some dried fruit, a new Homekit Medicine Shelf. He carried it into the house, and noticed a slip of paper pinned to the sugar bag. A television program guide.
Edna hustled over excitedly. "Anything good on this week, Harry?"
He looked down the listings, and frowned. "All old movies. Still only one channel. Still only from nine to eleven at night." He gave it to her, turned away; then stopped and waited. He'd said the same thing last week. And she had said the films were all new to her.
She said it now. "Why Harry, I've never seen this movie with Clark Gable. Nor the comedy with Red Skeleton. Nor the other five neither."
"I'm gonna lie down," he said flatly. He turned and stepped forward, and found himself facing the stove. Not the door to the hall; the stove. "But the door...." he began. He cut himself short. He turned and saw the door a few feet to the left, beside the table. He went there and out and up the stairs (they too had moved; they too weren't right) and into the bedroom and lay down. The bedroom was wrong. The bed was wrong. The windows were wrong.
The world was wrong! Lord, the whole damned world was wrong!
Edna didn't wake him, so they had a late lunch. Then he went back to the barn and let the four cows and four sheep and two horses into the pastures. Then he checked to see that Edna had fed the chickens right. They had only a dozen or so now.
When had he sold the rest? And when had he sold his other livestock?
Or had they died somehow? A rough winter? Disease?
He stood in the yard, a tall, husky man with pale brown hair and a face that had once been long, lean and strong and was now only long and lean. He blinked gray eyes and tried hard to remember, then turned and went to the house. Edna was soaking dishes in the sink, according to regulations—one sinkful of dishwater a day. And one tub of bath water twice a week.
She was looking at him. He realized his anger and confusion must be showing. He managed a smile. "You remember how much we got for our livestock, Edna?"
"Same as everyone else," she said. "Government agents paid flat rates."
He remembered then, or thought he did. The headache was back. He went upstairs and slept again, but this time he had dreams, many of them, and all confused and all frightening. He was glad to get up. And he was glad to hear Walt and Gloria talking to Edna downstairs.
He washed his face, combed his hair and went down. Walt and Gloria were sitting on the sofa, Edna in the blue armchair. Walt was saying he'd gotten the new TV picture tube he'd ordered. "Found it in the supply bin this morning. Spent the whole day installing it according to the book of directions."
Harry said hi and they all said hi and he sat down and they talked about TV and gardens and livestock. Then Harry said, "How's Penny?"
"Fine," Gloria answered. "I'm starting her on the kindergarten book next week."
"She's five already?" Harry asked.
"Almost six," Walt said. "Emergency Education Regulations state that the child should be five years nine months old before embarking on kindergarten book."
"And Frances?" Harry asked. "Your oldest? She must be starting high...." He stopped, because they were all staring at him, and because he couldn't remember Frances clearly. "Just a joke," he said, laughing and rising. "Let's eat. I'm starved."
They ate in the kitchen. They talked—or rather Edna, Gloria and Walt did. Harry nodded and said uh-huh and used his mouth for chewing.
Walt and Gloria went home at ten-fifteen. They said goodbye at the door and Harry walked away. He heard Gloria whispering something about Doctor Hamming.
He was sitting in the living room when Edna came in. She was crying.
"Harry, please see the doctor."
He got up. "I'm going out. I might even sleep out!"
"But why, Harry, why?"
He couldn't stand to see her crying. He went to her, kissed her wet cheek, spoke more softly. "It'll do me good, like when I was a kid."
"If you say so, Harry."
He left quickly. He went outside and across the yard to the road. He looked up it and down it, to the north and to the south. It was a bright night with moon and stars, but he saw nothing, no one. The road was empty. It was always empty, except when Walt and Gloria walked over from their place a mile or so south. But once it hadn't been empty. Once there'd been cars, people....
He had to do something. Just sitting and looking at the sky wouldn't help him. He had to go somewhere, see someone.
He went to the barn and looked for his saddle. There was no saddle. But he'd had one hanging right behind the door. Or had he?
He threw a blanket over Plum, the big mare, and tied it with a piece of wash line. He used another piece for a bridle, since he couldn't find that either, and didn't bother making a bit. He mounted, and Plum moved out of the barn and onto the road. He headed north, toward town.
Then he realized he couldn't go along the road this way. He'd be reported. Breaking travel regulations was a serious offense. He didn't know what they did to you, but it wasn't anything easy like a fine.
He cut into an unfenced, unplanted field.
His headache was back, worse now than it had ever been. His entire head throbbed, and he leaned forward and put his cheek against Plum's mane. The mare whinnied uneasily, but he kicked her sides and she moved forward. He lay there, just wanting to go somewhere, just wanting to leave his headache and confusion behind.
He didn't know how long it was, but Plum was moving cautiously now. He raised his head. They were approaching a fence. He noticed a gate off to the right, and pulled the rope so Plum went that way. They reached the gate and he got down to open it, and saw the sign. "Phineas Grotton Farm." He looked up at the sky, found the constellations, turned his head, and nodded. He'd started north, and Plum had continued north. He'd crossed land belonging both to himself and the Franklins. Now he was leaving the Franklin farm. North of the Franklins were the Bessers. Who was this Phineas Grotton? Had he bought out Lon Besser? But anything like that would've gotten around.
Was he forgetting again?
Well, no matter. Mr. Grotton would have to excuse his trespass. He opened the gate, led Plum through it, closed the gate. He mounted and rode forward, still north, toward the small Pangborn place and after the Pangborns the biggest farm in the county—old Wallace Elverton's place. The fields here, as everywhere in the county, lay fallow. Seemed as if the government had so much grain stored up they'd be able to get along without crops for years more.
He looked around. Somehow, the country bothered him. He wasn't sure why, but ... everything was wrong.
His head weighed an agonized ton. He put it down again. Plum went sedately forward. After a while she stopped. Harry looked up. Another fence. And what a fence! About ten feet of heavy steel mesh, topped by three feet of barbed-wire—five separate strands. What in the world had Sam Pangborn been thinking of to put up a monster like this?
He looked around. The gate should be further west. He rode that way. He found no gate. He turned back, heading east. No gate. Nothing but fence. And wasn't the fence gradually curving inward? He looked back. Yes, there was a slight inward curve.
He dismounted and tied Plum to the fence, then stepped back and figured the best way to get to the other side.
The best way, the only way, was to claw, clutch and clamber, as they used to say back when he was a kid.
It took some doing. He tore his shirt on the barbed wire, but he got over and began walking, straight ahead, due north. The earth changed beneath his feet. He stooped and touched it. Sand. Hard-packed sand. He'd never seen the like of it in this county.
He walked on. A sound came to him; a rising-falling whisper. He listened to it, and looked up every so often at the sky, to make sure he was heading in the right direction.
And the sand ended. His shoes plunked over flooring.
Flooring!
He knelt to make sure, and his hand felt wooden planks. He rose, and glanced up to see if he was still outdoors. Then he laughed. It was a sick laugh, so he stopped it.
He took another step. His shoes sounded against the wood. He walked. More wood. Wood that went on, as the sand had. And the roaring sound growing louder. And the air changing, smelling like air never had before in Cultwait County.
His entire body trembled. His mind trembled too. He walked, and came to a waist-high metal railing, and made a tiny sound deep in his throat. He looked out over water, endless water rolling in endless waves under the night sky. Crashing water, topped with reflected silver from the moon. Pounding water, filling the air with spray.
He put out his hands and grasped the railing. It was wet. He raised damp fingers to his mouth. Salt.
He stepped back, back, and turned and ran. He ran wildly, blindly, until he could run no more. Then he fell, feeling the sand beneath him, and shut his eyes and mind to everything.
Much later, he got up and went to the fence and climbed it. He came down on the other side and looked around and saw Plum. He walked to her, mounted her, sat still. The thoughts, or dreams, or whatever they were which had been torturing him these past few weeks began torturing him again.
It was getting light. His head was splitting.
Davie. His son Davie. Fourteen years old. Going to high school in town....
Town! He should've gone there in the first place! He would ride east, to the road, then head south, back toward home. That would bring him right down Main Street. Regulations or not, he'd talk to people, find out what was happening.
He kicked Plum's sides. The mare began to move. He kept kicking until she broke into a brisk canter. He held on with hands and legs.
Why hadn't he seen the Pangborns and Elvertons lately—a long time lately?
The ocean. He'd seen the ocean. Not a reservoir or lake made by flooding and by damming, but salt water and enormous. An ocean, where there could be no ocean. The Pangborns and Elvertons had been where that ocean was now. And after the Elvertons had come the Dobsons. And after them the new plastics plant. And after that the city of Crossville. And after that....
He was passing his own farm. He hadn't come through town, and yet here he was at his own farm. Could he have forgotten where town was? Could it be north of his home, not south? Could a man get so confused as to forget things he'd known all his life?
He reached the Shanks' place, and passed it at a trot. Then he was beyond their boundaries and breaking regulations again. He stayed on the road. He went by a small house and saw colored folks in the yard. There'd been no colored folks here. There'd been Eli Bergen and his family and his mother, in a bigger, newer house. The colored folks heard Plum's hooves and looked up and stared. Then a man raised his voice. "Mistah, you breakin' regulations! Mistah, the police gonnah get you!"
He rode on. He came to another house, neat and white, with three children playing on a grassy lawn. They saw him and ran inside. A moment later, adult voices yelled after him:
"You theah! Stop!"
"Call the sheriff! He's headin' foah Piney Woods!"
There was no place called Piney Woods in this county.
Was this how a man's mind went?
He came to another house, and another. He passed ten all told, and people shouted at him for breaking regulations, and the last three or four sounded like Easterners. And their houses looked like pictures of New England he'd seen in magazines.
He rode on. He never did come to town. He came to a ten-foot fence with a three-foot barbed-wire extension. He got off Plum and ripped his clothing climbing. He walked over hard-packed sand, and then wood, and came to a low metal railing. He looked out at the ocean, gleaming in bright sunlight, surging and seething endlessly. He felt the earth sway beneath him. He staggered, and dropped to his hands and knees, and shook his head like a fighter hit too many times. Then he got up and went back to the fence and heard a sound. It was a familiar sound, yet strange too. He shaded his eyes against the climbing sun. Then he saw it—a car. A car!
It was one of those tiny foreign jobs that run on practically no gas at all. It stopped beside him and two men got out. Young men with lined, tired faces; they wore policemen's uniforms. "You broke regulations, Mr. Burr. You'll have to come with us."
He nodded. He wanted to. He wanted to be taken care of. He turned toward Plum.
The other officer was walking around the horse. "Rode her hard," he said, and he sounded real worried. "Shouldn't have done that, Mr. Burr. We have so very few now...."
The officer holding Harry's arm said, "Pete."
The officer examining Plum said, "It won't make any difference in a while."
Harry looked at both of them, and felt sharp, personal fear.
"Take the horse back to his farm," the officer holding Harry said. He opened the door of the little car and pushed Harry inside. He went around to the driver's side and got behind the wheel and drove away. Harry looked back. Pete was leading Plum after them; not riding him, walking him. "He sure must like horses," he said.
"Yes."
"Am I going to jail?"
"No."
"Where then?"
"The doctor's place."
They stopped in front of the new house two miles past Dugan's farm. Except he'd never seen it before. Or had he? Everyone seemed to know about it—or was everyone only Edna and the Shanks?
He got out of the car. The officer took his arm and led him up the path. Harry noticed that the new house was big.
When they came inside, he knew it wasn't like any house he'd ever seen or heard of. There was this long central passageway, and dozens of doors branched off it on both sides, and stairways went down from it in at least three places that he could see, and at the far end—a good two hundred yards away—a big ramp led upward. And it was all gray plaster walls and dull black floors and cold white lighting, like a hospital, or a modern factory, or maybe a government building. Except that he didn't see or hear people.
He did hear something ; a low, rumbling noise. The further they came along the hall, the louder the rumbling grew. It seemed to be deep down somewhere.
They went through one of the doors on the right, into a windowless room. A thin little man with bald head and frameless glasses was there, putting on a white coat. His veiny hands shook. He looked a hundred years old. "Where's Petey?" he asked.
"Pete's all right, Dad. Just leading a horse back to Burr's farm."
The old man sighed. "I didn't know what form it would take. I expected one or two cases, but I couldn't predict whether it would be gradual or sudden, whether or not it would lead to violence."
"No violence, Dad."
"Fine, Stan." He looked at Harry. "I'm going to give you a little treatment, Mr. Burr. It'll settle your nerves and make everything...."
"What happened to Davie?" Harry asked, things pushing at his brain again.
Stan helped him up. "Just step this way, Mr. Burr."
He didn't resist. He went through the second door into the room with the big chair. He sat down and let them strap his arms and legs and let them lower the metal thing over his head. He felt needles pierce his scalp and the back of his neck. He let them do what they wanted; he would let them kill him if they wanted. All he asked was one answer so as to know whether or not he was insane.
"What happened to my son Davie?"
The old man walked across the room and examined what looked like the insides of a dozen big radios. He turned, his hand on a switch.
"Please," Harry whispered. "Just tell me about my son."
The doctor blinked behind his glasses, and then his hand left the switch. "Dead," he said, his voice a rustling of dried leaves. "Like so many millions of others. Dead, when the bombs fell. Dead, as everyone knew they would be and no one did anything to prevent. Dead. Perhaps the whole world is dead—except for us."
Harry stared at him.
"I can't take the time to explain it all. I have too much to do. Just three of us—myself and my two sons. My wife lost her mind. I should have helped her as I'm helping you."
"I don't understand," Harry said. "I remember people, and things, and where are they now? Dead? People can die, but farms, cities...."
"I haven't the time," the doctor repeated, voice rising. "I have to run a world. Three of us, to run a world! I built it as best I could, but how large could I make it? The money. The years and years of work. The people calling me insane when they found out ... but a few giving me more money, and the work going on. And those few caught like everyone else, unprepared when the holocaust started, unprepared and unable to reach my world. So they died. As I knew they would. As they should have known they would."
Harry felt the rumbling beneath him. Engines?
"You survived," the doctor said. "Your wife. A few hundred others in the rural areas. One other family in your area. I survived because I lived for survival, like a mole deep in the earth, expecting the catastrophe every minute. I survived because I gave up living to survive." He laughed, high and thin.
His son said, "Please, Dad...."
"No! I want to talk to someone sane ! You and Petey and I—we're all insane, you know. Three years now, playing God, waiting for some land, any land, to become habitable. And knowing everything, and surrounded by people who are sane only because I made sure they would know nothing." He stepped forward, glaring at Harry. "Now do you understand? I went across the country, picking up a few of the few left alive. Most were farmers, and even where some weren't I picked the farmers anyway. Because farmers are what we'll need, and all the rest can evolve later. I put you and the others, eighty-six all told, from every section of the country, on my world, the only uncontaminated land left. I gave you back your old lives. I couldn't give you big crops because we don't need big crops. We would only exhaust our limited soil with big crops. But I gave you vegetable gardens and livestock and, best of all, sanity ! I wiped the insane moments from your minds. I gave you peace and consigned myself, my sons, my own wife...."
He choked and stopped.
Stan ran across the room to the switch. Harry watched him, and his brain struggled with an impossible concept. He heard the engines and remembered the ocean on two sides; on four sides had he bothered to check south and east; on all sides if that fence continued to curve inward. Ocean, and there was no ocean in Iowa.
And this wasn't Iowa.
The explosions had ripped the world, and he'd tried to get to town to save Davie, and there'd been no town and there'd been no people and there'd been only death and poison in the air and even those few people left had begun to die, and then the truck with the huge trailer had come, the gleaming trailer with the little man and his trembling wife and his two sons....
Suddenly, he understood. And understanding brought not peace but the greatest terror he'd ever known. He screamed, "We're on...." but the switch was thrown and there was no more speech. For an hour. Then he got out of the chair and said, "Sure glad I took my wife's advice and came to see you, Doctor Hamming. I feel better already, and after only one.... What do you call these treatments?"
"Diathermy," the little doctor muttered.
Harry gave him a five-dollar bill. The doctor gave him two singles in change. "That's certainly reasonable enough," Harry said.
The doctor nodded. "There's a police officer in the hall. He'll drive you home so there won't be any trouble with the travel regulations."
Harry said, "Thanks. Think we'll ever see the end of travel regulations and rationing and all the rest of the emergency?"
"You will, Mr. Burr."
Harry walked to the door.
"We're on an ark," the doctor said.
Harry turned around, smiling. "What?"
"A test, Mr. Burr. You passed it. Goodbye."
Harry went home. He told Edna he felt just great! She said she'd been worried when an officer found Plum wandering on the road; she thought maybe Harry had gone off somewhere and broken travel regulations.
"Me?" he exclaimed, amazed. "Break travel regulations? I'd as soon kill a pig!"
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What is strange about the planet?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about THE CREATURES THAT TIME FORGOT by RAY BRADBURY.
Relevant chunks:
THE CREATURES THAT TIME FORGOT
By RAY BRADBURY
Mad, impossible world! Sun-blasted by day, cold-wracked by night—and life condensed by radiation into eight days! Sim eyed the Ship—if he only dared reach it and escape! ... but it was more than half an hour distant—the limit of life itself!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1946. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
During the night, Sim was born. He lay wailing upon the cold cave stones. His blood beat through him a thousand pulses each minute. He grew, steadily.
Into his mouth his mother with feverish hands put the food. The nightmare of living was begun. Almost instantly at birth his eyes grew alert, and then, without half understanding why, filled with bright, insistent terror. He gagged upon the food, choked and wailed. He looked about, blindly.
There was a thick fog. It cleared. The outlines of the cave appeared. And a man loomed up, insane and wild and terrible. A man with a dying face. Old, withered by winds, baked like adobe in the heat. The man was crouched in a far corner of the cave, his eyes whitening to one side of his face, listening to the far wind trumpeting up above on the frozen night planet.
Sim's mother, trembling, now and again, staring at the man, fed Sim pebble-fruits, valley-grasses and ice-nipples broken from the cavern entrances, and eating, eliminating, eating again, he grew larger, larger.
The man in the corner of the cave was his father! The man's eyes were all that was alive in his face. He held a crude stone dagger in his withered hands and his jaw hung loose and senseless.
Then, with a widening focus, Sim saw the old people sitting in the tunnel beyond this living quarter. And as he watched, they began to die.
Their agonies filled the cave. They melted like waxen images, their faces collapsed inward on their sharp bones, their teeth protruded. One minute their faces were mature, fairly smooth, alive, electric. The next minute a desication and burning away of their flesh occurred.
Sim thrashed in his mother's grasp. She held him. "No, no," she soothed him, quietly, earnestly, looking to see if this, too, would cause her husband to rise again.
With a soft swift padding of naked feet, Sim's father ran across the cave. Sim's mother screamed. Sim felt himself torn loose from her grasp. He fell upon the stones, rolling, shrieking with his new, moist lungs!
With a soft padding of naked feet Sim's father ran across the cave.
The webbed face of his father jerked over him, the knife was poised. It was like one of those prenatal nightmares he'd had while still in his mother's flesh. In the next few blazing, impossible instants questions flicked through his brain. The knife was high, suspended, ready to destroy him. But the whole question of life in this cave, the dying people, the withering and the insanity, surged through Sim's new, small head. How was it that he understood? A newborn child? Can a newborn child think, see, understand, interpret? No. It was wrong! It was impossible. Yet it was happening! To him. He had been alive an hour now. And in the next instant perhaps dead!
His mother flung herself upon the back of his father, and beat down the weapon. Sim caught the terrific backwash of emotion from both their conflicting minds. "Let me kill him!" shouted the father, breathing harshly, sobbingly. "What has he to live for?"
"No, no!" insisted the mother, and her body, frail and old as it was, stretched across the huge body of the father, tearing at his weapon.
"He must live! There may be a future for him! He may live longer than us, and be young!"
The father fell back against a stone crib. Lying there, staring, eyes glittering, Sim saw another figure inside that stone crib. A girl-child, quietly feeding itself, moving its delicate hands to procure food. His sister.
The mother wrenched the dagger from her husband's grasp, stood up, weeping and pushing back her cloud of stiffening gray hair. Her mouth trembled and jerked. "I'll kill you!" she said, glaring down at her husband. "Leave my children alone."
The old man spat tiredly, bitterly, and looked vacantly into the stone crib, at the little girl. "One-eighth of her life's over, already," he gasped. "And she doesn't know it. What's the use?"
As Sim watched, his own mother seemed to shift and take a tortured, smoke-like form. The thin bony face broke out into a maze of wrinkles. She was shaken with pain and had to sit by him, shuddering and cuddling the knife to her shriveled breasts. She, like the old people in the tunnel, was aging, dying.
Sim cried steadily. Everywhere he looked was horror. A mind came to meet his own. Instinctively he glanced toward the stone crib. Dark, his sister, returned his glance. Their minds brushed like straying fingers. He relaxed somewhat. He began to learn.
The father sighed, shut his lids down over his green eyes. "Feed the child," he said, exhaustedly. "Hurry. It is almost dawn and it is our last day of living, woman. Feed him. Make him grow."
Sim quieted, and images, out of the terror, floated to him.
This was a planet next to the sun. The nights burned with cold, the days were like torches of fire. It was a violent, impossible world. The people lived in the cliffs to escape the incredible ice and the day of flame. Only at dawn and sunset was the air breath-sweet, flower-strong, and then the cave peoples brought their children out into a stony, barren valley. At dawn the ice thawed into creeks and rivers, at sunset the day-fires died and cooled. In the intervals of even, livable temperature the people lived, ran, played, loved, free of the caverns; all life on the planet jumped, burst into life. Plants grew instantly, birds were flung like pellets across the sky. Smaller, legged animal life rushed frantically through the rocks; everything tried to get its living down in the brief hour of respite.
It was an unbearable planet. Sim understood this, a matter of hours after birth. Racial memory bloomed in him. He would live his entire life in the caves, with two hours a day outside. Here, in stone channels of air he would talk, talk incessantly with his people, sleep never, think, think and lie upon his back, dreaming; but never sleeping.
And he would live exactly eight days.
The violence of this thought evacuated his bowels. Eight days. Eight short days. It was wrong, impossible, but a fact. Even while in his mother's flesh some racial knowledge had told him he was being formed rapidly, shaped and propelled out swiftly.
Birth was quick as a knife. Childhood was over in a flash. Adolescence was a sheet of lightning. Manhood was a dream, maturity a myth, old age an inescapably quick reality, death a swift certainty.
Eight days from now he'd stand half-blind, withering, dying, as his father now stood, staring uselessly at his own wife and child.
This day was an eighth part of his total life! He must enjoy every second of it. He must search his parents' thoughts for knowledge.
Because in a few hours they'd be dead.
This was so impossibly unfair. Was this all of life? In his prenatal state hadn't he dreamed of long lives, valleys not of blasted stone but green foliage and temperate clime? Yes! And if he'd dreamed then there must be truth in the visions. How could he seek and find the long life? Where? And how could he accomplish a life mission that huge and depressing in eight short, vanishing days?
How had his people gotten into such a condition?
As if at a button pressed, he saw an image. Metal seeds, blown across space from a distant green world, fighting with long flames, crashing on this bleak planet. From their shattered hulls tumble men and women.
When? Long ago. Ten thousand days. The crash victims hid in the cliffs from the sun. Fire, ice and floods washed away the wreckage of the huge metal seeds. The victims were shaped and beaten like iron upon a forge. Solar radiations drenched them. Their pulses quickened, two hundred, five hundred, a thousand beats a minute. Their skins thickened, their blood changed. Old age came rushing. Children were born in the caves. Swifter, swifter, swifter the process. Like all this world's wild life, the men and women from the crash lived and died in a week, leaving children to do likewise.
So this is life, thought Sim. It was not spoken in his mind, for he knew no words, he knew only images, old memory, an awareness, a telepathy that could penetrate flesh, rock, metal. So I'm the five thousandth in a long line of futile sons? What can I do to save myself from dying eight days from now? Is there escape?
His eyes widened, another image came to focus.
Beyond this valley of cliffs, on a low mountain lay a perfect, unscarred metal seed. A metal ship, not rusted or touched by the avalanches. The ship was deserted, whole, intact. It was the only ship of all these that had crashed that was still a unit, still usable. But it was so far away. There was no one in it to help. This ship, then, on the far mountain, was the destiny toward which he would grow. There was his only hope of escape.
His mind flexed.
In this cliff, deep down in a confinement of solitude, worked a handful of scientists. To these men, when he was old enough and wise enough, he must go. They, too, dreamed of escape, of long life, of green valleys and temperate weathers. They, too, stared longingly at that distant ship upon its high mountain, its metal so perfect it did not rust or age.
The cliff groaned.
Sim's father lifted his eroded, lifeless face.
"Dawn's coming," he said.
II
Morning relaxed the mighty granite cliff muscles. It was the time of the Avalanche.
The tunnels echoed to running bare feet. Adults, children pushed with eager, hungry eyes toward the outside dawn. From far out, Sim heard a rumble of rock, a scream, a silence. Avalanches fell into valley. Stones that had been biding their time, not quite ready to fall, for a million years let go their bulks, and where they had begun their journey as single boulders they smashed upon the valley floor in a thousand shrapnels and friction-heated nuggets.
Every morning at least one person was caught in the downpour.
The cliff people dared the avalanches. It added one more excitement to their lives, already too short, too headlong, too dangerous.
Sim felt himself seized up by his father. He was carried brusquely down the tunnel for a thousand yards, to where the daylight appeared. There was a shining insane light in his father's eyes. Sim could not move. He sensed what was going to happen. Behind his father, his mother hurried, bringing with her the little sister, Dark. "Wait! Be careful!" she cried to her husband.
Sim felt his father crouch, listening.
High in the cliff was a tremor, a shivering.
"Now!" bellowed his father, and leaped out.
An avalanche fell down at them!
Sim had accelerated impressions of plunging walls, dust, confusion. His mother screamed! There was a jolting, a plunging.
With one last step, Sim's father hurried him forward into the day. The avalanche thundered behind him. The mouth of the cave, where mother and Dark stood back out of the way, was choked with rubble and two boulders that weighed a hundred pounds each.
The storm thunder of the avalanche passed away to a trickle of sand. Sim's father burst out into laughter. "Made it! By the Gods! Made it alive!" And he looked scornfully at the cliff and spat. "Pagh!"
Mother and sister Dark struggled through the rubble. She cursed her husband. "Fool! You might have killed Sim!"
"I may yet," retorted the father.
Sim was not listening. He was fascinated with the remains of an avalanche afront of the next tunnel. A blood stain trickled out from under a rise of boulders, soaking into the ground. There was nothing else to be seen. Someone else had lost the game.
Dark ran ahead on lithe, supple feet, naked and certain.
The valley air was like a wine filtered between mountains. The heaven was a restive blue; not the pale scorched atmosphere of full day, nor the bloated, bruised black-purple of night, a-riot with sickly shining stars.
This was a tide pool. A place where waves of varying and violent temperatures struck, receded. Now the tide pool was quiet, cool, and its life moved abroad.
Laughter! Far away, Sim heard it. Why laughter? How could any of his people find time for laughing? Perhaps later he would discover why.
The valley suddenly blushed with impulsive color. Plant-life, thawing in the precipitant dawn, shoved out from most unexpected sources. It flowered as you watched. Pale green tendrils appeared on scoured rocks. Seconds later, ripe globes of fruit twitched upon the blade-tips. Father gave Sim over to mother and harvested the momentary, volatile crop, thrust scarlet, blue, yellow fruits into a fur sack which hung at his waist. Mother tugged at the moist new grasses, laid them on Sim's tongue.
His senses were being honed to a fine edge. He stored knowledge thirstily. He understood love, marriage, customs, anger, pity, rage, selfishness, shadings and subtleties, realities and reflections. One thing suggested another. The sight of green plant life whirled his mind like a gyroscope, seeking balance in a world where lack of time for explanations made a mind seek and interpret on its own. The soft burden of food gave him knowledge of his system, of energy, of movement. Like a bird newly cracking its way from a shell, he was almost a unit, complete, all-knowing. Heredity had done all this for him. He grew excited with his ability.
They walked, mother, father and the two children, smelling the smells, watching the birds bounce from wall to wall of the valley like scurrying pebbles and suddenly the father said a strange thing:
"Remember?"
Remember what? Sim lay cradled. Was it any effort for them to remember when they'd lived only seven days!
The husband and wife looked at each other.
"Was it only three days ago?" said the woman, her body shaking, her eyes closing to think. "I can't believe it. It is so unfair." She sobbed, then drew her hand across her face and bit her parched lips. The wind played at her gray hair. "Now is my turn to cry. An hour ago it was you!"
"An hour is half a life."
"Come," she took her husband's arm. "Let us look at everything, because it will be our last looking."
"The sun'll be up in a few minutes," said the old man. "We must turn back now."
"Just one more moment," pleaded the woman.
"The sun will catch us."
"Let it catch me then!"
"You don't mean that."
"I mean nothing, nothing at all," cried the woman.
The sun was coming fast. The green in the valley burnt away. Searing wind blasted from over the cliffs. Far away where sun bolts hammered battlements of cliff, the huge stone faces shook their contents; those avalanches not already powdered down, were now released and fell like mantles.
"Dark!" shouted the father. The girl sprang over the warm floor of the valley, answering, her hair a black flag behind her. Hands full of green fruits, she joined them.
The sun rimmed the horizon with flame, the air convulsed dangerously with it, and whistled.
The cave people bolted, shouting, picking up their fallen children, bearing vast loads of fruit and grass with them back to their deep hideouts. In moments the valley was bare. Except for one small child someone had forgotten. He was running far out on the flatness, but he was not strong enough, and the engulfing heat was drifting down from the cliffs even as he was half across the valley.
Flowers were burnt into effigies, grasses sucked back into rocks like singed snakes, flower seeds whirled and fell in the sudden furnace blast of wind, sown far into gullies and crannies, ready to blossom at sunset tonight, and then go to seed and die again.
Sim's father watched that child running, alone, out on the floor of the valley. He and his wife and Dark and Sim were safe in the mouth of their tunnel.
"He'll never make it," said father. "Do not watch him, woman. It's not a good thing to watch."
They turned away. All except Sim, whose eyes had caught a glint of metal far away. His heart hammered in him, and his eyes blurred. Far away, atop a low mountain, one of those metal seeds from space reflected a dazzling ripple of light! It was like one of his intra-embryo dreams fulfilled! A metal space seed, intact, undamaged, lying on a mountain! There was his future! There was his hope for survival! There was where he would go in a few days, when he was—strange thought—a grown man!
The sun plunged into the valley like molten lava.
The little running child screamed, the sun burned, and the screaming stopped.
Sim's mother walked painfully, with sudden age, down the tunnel, paused, reached up, broke off two last icicles that had formed during the night. She handed one to her husband, kept the other. "We will drink one last toast. To you, to the children."
"To you ," he nodded to her. "To the children." They lifted the icicles. The warmth melted the ice down into their thirsty mouths.
All day the sun seemed to blaze and erupt into the valley. Sim could not see it, but the vivid pictorials in his parents' minds were sufficient evidence of the nature of the day fire. The light ran like mercury, sizzling and roasting the caves, poking inward, but never penetrating deeply enough. It lighted the caves. It made the hollows of the cliff comfortably warm.
Sim fought to keep his parents young. But no matter how hard he fought with mind and image, they became like mummies before him. His father seemed to dissolve from one stage of oldness to another. This is what will happen to me soon, though Sim in terror.
Sim grew upon himself. He felt the digestive-eliminatory movements of his body. He was fed every minute, he was continually swallowing, feeding. He began to fit words to images and processes. Such a word was love. It was not an abstraction, but a process, a stir of breath, a smell of morning air, a flutter of heart, the curve of arm holding him, the look in the suspended face of his mother. He saw the processes, then searched behind her suspended face and there was the word, in her brain, ready to use. His throat prepared to speak. Life was pushing him, rushing him along toward oblivion.
He sensed the expansion of his fingernails, the adjustments of his cells, the profusion of his hair, the multiplication of his bones and sinew, the grooving of the soft pale wax of his brain. His brain at birth as clear as a circle of ice, innocent, unmarked, was, an instant later, as if hit with a thrown rock, cracked and marked and patterned in a million crevices of thought and discovery.
His sister, Dark, ran in and out with other little hothouse children, forever eating. His mother trembled over him, not eating, she had no appetite, her eyes were webbed shut.
"Sunset," said his father, at last.
The day was over. The light faded, a wind sounded.
His mother arose. "I want to see the outside world once more ... just once more...." She stared blindly, shivering.
His father's eyes were shut, he lay against the wall.
"I cannot rise," he whispered faintly. "I cannot."
"Dark!" The mother croaked, the girl came running. "Here," and Sim was handed to the girl. "Hold to Sim, Dark, feed him, care for him." She gave Sim one last fondling touch.
Dark said not a word, holding Sim, her great green eyes shining wetly.
"Go now," said the mother. "Take him out into the sunset time. Enjoy yourselves. Pick foods, eat. Play."
Dark walked away without looking back. Sim twisted in her grasp, looking over her shoulder with unbelieving, tragic eyes. He cried out and somehow summoned from his lips the first word of his existence.
"Why...?"
He saw his mother stiffen. "The child spoke!"
"Aye," said his father. "Did you hear what he said?"
"I heard," said the mother quietly.
The last thing Sim saw of his living parents was his mother weakly, swayingly, slowly moving across the floor to lie beside her silent husband. That was the last time he ever saw them move.
IV
The night came and passed and then started the second day.
The bodies of all those who had died during the night were carried in a funeral procession to the top of a small hill. The procession was long, the bodies numerous.
Dark walked in the procession, holding the newly walking Sim by one hand. Only an hour before dawn Sim had learned to walk.
At the top of the hill, Sim saw once again the far off metal seed. Nobody ever looked at it, or spoke of it. Why? Was there some reason? Was it a mirage? Why did they not run toward it? Worship it? Try to get to it and fly away into space?
The funeral words were spoken. The bodies were placed upon the ground where the sun, in a few minutes, would cremate them.
The procession then turned and ran down the hill, eager to have their few minutes of free time running and playing and laughing in the sweet air.
Dark and Sim, chattering like birds, feeding among the rocks, exchanged what they knew of life. He was in his second day, she in her third. They were driven, as always, by the mercurial speed of their lives.
Another piece of his life opened wide.
Fifty young men ran down from the cliffs, holding sharp stones and rock daggers in their thick hands. Shouting, they ran off toward distant black, low lines of small rock cliffs.
"War!"
The thought stood in Sim's brain. It shocked and beat at him. These men were running to fight, to kill, over there in those small black cliffs where other people lived.
But why? Wasn't life short enough without fighting, killing?
From a great distance he heard the sound of conflict, and it made his stomach cold. "Why, Dark, why?"
Dark didn't know. Perhaps they would understand tomorrow. Now, there was the business of eating to sustain and support their lives. Watching Dark was like seeing a lizard forever flickering its pink tongue, forever hungry.
Pale children ran on all sides of them. One beetle-like boy scuttled up the rocks, knocking Sim aside, to take from him a particularly luscious red berry he had found growing under an outcrop.
The child ate hastily of the fruit before Sim could gain his feet. Then Sim hurled himself unsteadily, the two of them fell in a ridiculous jumble, rolling, until Dark pried them, squalling, apart.
Sim bled. A part of him stood off, like a god, and said, "This should not be. Children should not be this way. It is wrong!"
Dark slapped the little intruding boy away. "Get on!" she cried.
"What's your name, bad one?"
"Chion!" laughed the boy. "Chion, Chion, Chion!"
Sim glared at him with all the ferocity in his small, unskilled features. He choked. This was his enemy. It was as if he'd waited for an enemy of person as well as scene. He had already understood the avalanches, the heat, the cold, the shortness of life, but these were things of places, of scene—mute, extravagant manifestations of unthinking nature, not motivated save by gravity and radiation. Here, now, in this stridulent Chion he recognized a thinking enemy!
Chion darted off, turned at a distance, tauntingly crying:
"Tomorrow I will be big enough to kill you!"
And he vanished around a rock.
More children ran, giggling, by Sim. Which of them would be friends, enemies? How could friends and enemies come about in this impossible, quick life time? There was no time to make either, was there?
Dark, as if knowing his thoughts, drew him away. As they searched for desired foods, she whispered fiercely in his ear. "Enemies are made over things like stolen foods; gifts of long grasses make friends. Enemies come, too, from opinions and thoughts. In five seconds you've made an enemy for life. Life's so short enemies must be made quickly." And she laughed with an irony strange for one so young, who was growing older before her rightful time. "You must fight to protect yourself. Others, superstitious ones, will try killing you. There is a belief, a ridiculous belief, that if one kills another, the murderer partakes of the life energy of the slain, and therefore will live an extra day. You see? As long as that is believed, you're in danger."
But Sim was not listening. Bursting from a flock of delicate girls who tomorrow would be tall, quieter, and who day after that would gain breasts and the next day take husbands, Sim caught sight of one small girl whose hair was a violet blue flame.
She ran past, brushed Sim, their bodies touched. Her eyes, white as silver coins, shone at him. He knew then that he'd found a friend, a love, a wife, one who'd a week from now lie with him atop the funeral pyre as sunlight undressed their flesh from bone.
Only the glance, but it held them in mid-motion, one instant.
"Your name?" he shouted after her.
"Lyte!" she called laughingly back.
"I'm Sim," he answered, confused and bewildered.
"Sim!" she repeated it, flashing on. "I'll remember!"
Dark nudged his ribs. "Here, eat ," she said to the distracted boy.
"Eat or you'll never get big enough to catch her."
From nowhere, Chion appeared, running by. "Lyte!" he mocked, dancing malevolently along and away. "Lyte! I'll remember Lyte, too!"
Dark stood tall and reed slender, shaking her dark ebony clouds of hair, sadly. "I see your life before you, little Sim. You'll need weapons soon to fight for this Lyte one. Now, hurry—the sun's coming!"
They ran back to the caves.
Question:
What is strange about the planet?
Answer:
|
[
"The planet is strange because of its extremes. The people that live on the planet have to spend most of their time in the caves because during most of the day the sun is too powerful and kills everything that it touches. At night, there is a cold, burning sensation. There are about two hours during the day, dawn and sunset, where the people are able to venture into the valley. During this time, the rivers flow, the flowers bloom, and the people enjoy the livable temperatures outside. Even more strange on the planet is the extreme aging that people go through. People only live 8 days. As a result, they mature, understand, grow, and age at an incredible pace. ",
"The planet is unadapted for humans. Originally, there were no humans on it, but their ships crushed there, so they can't escape. The sun on the planet is so hot during the day that it causes flames, so every plant is burnt in a second. During the night everything is icy and the temperature are so low, that they make everything freeze in a second. Dawn and sunset are the only times when people can go outside, at these times the planet is beautiful, full of fruits and plants. The caves are the only places for escape as the temperatures there are normal. People grow really fast and the life-time is eight days. In hours children learn to speak, to walk and to understand various concepts. The knowledge is gained through food. ",
"The planet is located very close to the sun. Because of this, the land is scorching hot during the day, making it impossible to be outside without being burned alive. The nights, however, are extremely cold, only permitting dawn and sunset for humans to be outdoors. Humans, having to adapt to the strange conditions of the planet, reside in the caves to hide from the climate, and their bodies were adjusted due to the radiation on the planet. The planet causes every human to grow rapidly and live for only eight days.",
"The planet causes people to age much faster than normal. From his vision, Sim sees the people drenched in solar radiation, which causes their pulses to quicken to a thousand beats per minute. Their blood changes too, and old age comes very quickly. Instead of a normal human lifespan, these people all live and die within a week while being forced to hide in caves. Another strange thing about the planet is its weather. There are only two hours of the day where life can function as normal, and everything must go into hiding for the rest of the time. Even the plant life cannot sustain itself, being burned away or frozen whenever dawn and dusk are over. "
] |
63874
|
THE CREATURES THAT TIME FORGOT
By RAY BRADBURY
Mad, impossible world! Sun-blasted by day, cold-wracked by night—and life condensed by radiation into eight days! Sim eyed the Ship—if he only dared reach it and escape! ... but it was more than half an hour distant—the limit of life itself!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1946. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
During the night, Sim was born. He lay wailing upon the cold cave stones. His blood beat through him a thousand pulses each minute. He grew, steadily.
Into his mouth his mother with feverish hands put the food. The nightmare of living was begun. Almost instantly at birth his eyes grew alert, and then, without half understanding why, filled with bright, insistent terror. He gagged upon the food, choked and wailed. He looked about, blindly.
There was a thick fog. It cleared. The outlines of the cave appeared. And a man loomed up, insane and wild and terrible. A man with a dying face. Old, withered by winds, baked like adobe in the heat. The man was crouched in a far corner of the cave, his eyes whitening to one side of his face, listening to the far wind trumpeting up above on the frozen night planet.
Sim's mother, trembling, now and again, staring at the man, fed Sim pebble-fruits, valley-grasses and ice-nipples broken from the cavern entrances, and eating, eliminating, eating again, he grew larger, larger.
The man in the corner of the cave was his father! The man's eyes were all that was alive in his face. He held a crude stone dagger in his withered hands and his jaw hung loose and senseless.
Then, with a widening focus, Sim saw the old people sitting in the tunnel beyond this living quarter. And as he watched, they began to die.
Their agonies filled the cave. They melted like waxen images, their faces collapsed inward on their sharp bones, their teeth protruded. One minute their faces were mature, fairly smooth, alive, electric. The next minute a desication and burning away of their flesh occurred.
Sim thrashed in his mother's grasp. She held him. "No, no," she soothed him, quietly, earnestly, looking to see if this, too, would cause her husband to rise again.
With a soft swift padding of naked feet, Sim's father ran across the cave. Sim's mother screamed. Sim felt himself torn loose from her grasp. He fell upon the stones, rolling, shrieking with his new, moist lungs!
With a soft padding of naked feet Sim's father ran across the cave.
The webbed face of his father jerked over him, the knife was poised. It was like one of those prenatal nightmares he'd had while still in his mother's flesh. In the next few blazing, impossible instants questions flicked through his brain. The knife was high, suspended, ready to destroy him. But the whole question of life in this cave, the dying people, the withering and the insanity, surged through Sim's new, small head. How was it that he understood? A newborn child? Can a newborn child think, see, understand, interpret? No. It was wrong! It was impossible. Yet it was happening! To him. He had been alive an hour now. And in the next instant perhaps dead!
His mother flung herself upon the back of his father, and beat down the weapon. Sim caught the terrific backwash of emotion from both their conflicting minds. "Let me kill him!" shouted the father, breathing harshly, sobbingly. "What has he to live for?"
"No, no!" insisted the mother, and her body, frail and old as it was, stretched across the huge body of the father, tearing at his weapon.
"He must live! There may be a future for him! He may live longer than us, and be young!"
The father fell back against a stone crib. Lying there, staring, eyes glittering, Sim saw another figure inside that stone crib. A girl-child, quietly feeding itself, moving its delicate hands to procure food. His sister.
The mother wrenched the dagger from her husband's grasp, stood up, weeping and pushing back her cloud of stiffening gray hair. Her mouth trembled and jerked. "I'll kill you!" she said, glaring down at her husband. "Leave my children alone."
The old man spat tiredly, bitterly, and looked vacantly into the stone crib, at the little girl. "One-eighth of her life's over, already," he gasped. "And she doesn't know it. What's the use?"
As Sim watched, his own mother seemed to shift and take a tortured, smoke-like form. The thin bony face broke out into a maze of wrinkles. She was shaken with pain and had to sit by him, shuddering and cuddling the knife to her shriveled breasts. She, like the old people in the tunnel, was aging, dying.
Sim cried steadily. Everywhere he looked was horror. A mind came to meet his own. Instinctively he glanced toward the stone crib. Dark, his sister, returned his glance. Their minds brushed like straying fingers. He relaxed somewhat. He began to learn.
The father sighed, shut his lids down over his green eyes. "Feed the child," he said, exhaustedly. "Hurry. It is almost dawn and it is our last day of living, woman. Feed him. Make him grow."
Sim quieted, and images, out of the terror, floated to him.
This was a planet next to the sun. The nights burned with cold, the days were like torches of fire. It was a violent, impossible world. The people lived in the cliffs to escape the incredible ice and the day of flame. Only at dawn and sunset was the air breath-sweet, flower-strong, and then the cave peoples brought their children out into a stony, barren valley. At dawn the ice thawed into creeks and rivers, at sunset the day-fires died and cooled. In the intervals of even, livable temperature the people lived, ran, played, loved, free of the caverns; all life on the planet jumped, burst into life. Plants grew instantly, birds were flung like pellets across the sky. Smaller, legged animal life rushed frantically through the rocks; everything tried to get its living down in the brief hour of respite.
It was an unbearable planet. Sim understood this, a matter of hours after birth. Racial memory bloomed in him. He would live his entire life in the caves, with two hours a day outside. Here, in stone channels of air he would talk, talk incessantly with his people, sleep never, think, think and lie upon his back, dreaming; but never sleeping.
And he would live exactly eight days.
The violence of this thought evacuated his bowels. Eight days. Eight short days. It was wrong, impossible, but a fact. Even while in his mother's flesh some racial knowledge had told him he was being formed rapidly, shaped and propelled out swiftly.
Birth was quick as a knife. Childhood was over in a flash. Adolescence was a sheet of lightning. Manhood was a dream, maturity a myth, old age an inescapably quick reality, death a swift certainty.
Eight days from now he'd stand half-blind, withering, dying, as his father now stood, staring uselessly at his own wife and child.
This day was an eighth part of his total life! He must enjoy every second of it. He must search his parents' thoughts for knowledge.
Because in a few hours they'd be dead.
This was so impossibly unfair. Was this all of life? In his prenatal state hadn't he dreamed of long lives, valleys not of blasted stone but green foliage and temperate clime? Yes! And if he'd dreamed then there must be truth in the visions. How could he seek and find the long life? Where? And how could he accomplish a life mission that huge and depressing in eight short, vanishing days?
How had his people gotten into such a condition?
As if at a button pressed, he saw an image. Metal seeds, blown across space from a distant green world, fighting with long flames, crashing on this bleak planet. From their shattered hulls tumble men and women.
When? Long ago. Ten thousand days. The crash victims hid in the cliffs from the sun. Fire, ice and floods washed away the wreckage of the huge metal seeds. The victims were shaped and beaten like iron upon a forge. Solar radiations drenched them. Their pulses quickened, two hundred, five hundred, a thousand beats a minute. Their skins thickened, their blood changed. Old age came rushing. Children were born in the caves. Swifter, swifter, swifter the process. Like all this world's wild life, the men and women from the crash lived and died in a week, leaving children to do likewise.
So this is life, thought Sim. It was not spoken in his mind, for he knew no words, he knew only images, old memory, an awareness, a telepathy that could penetrate flesh, rock, metal. So I'm the five thousandth in a long line of futile sons? What can I do to save myself from dying eight days from now? Is there escape?
His eyes widened, another image came to focus.
Beyond this valley of cliffs, on a low mountain lay a perfect, unscarred metal seed. A metal ship, not rusted or touched by the avalanches. The ship was deserted, whole, intact. It was the only ship of all these that had crashed that was still a unit, still usable. But it was so far away. There was no one in it to help. This ship, then, on the far mountain, was the destiny toward which he would grow. There was his only hope of escape.
His mind flexed.
In this cliff, deep down in a confinement of solitude, worked a handful of scientists. To these men, when he was old enough and wise enough, he must go. They, too, dreamed of escape, of long life, of green valleys and temperate weathers. They, too, stared longingly at that distant ship upon its high mountain, its metal so perfect it did not rust or age.
The cliff groaned.
Sim's father lifted his eroded, lifeless face.
"Dawn's coming," he said.
II
Morning relaxed the mighty granite cliff muscles. It was the time of the Avalanche.
The tunnels echoed to running bare feet. Adults, children pushed with eager, hungry eyes toward the outside dawn. From far out, Sim heard a rumble of rock, a scream, a silence. Avalanches fell into valley. Stones that had been biding their time, not quite ready to fall, for a million years let go their bulks, and where they had begun their journey as single boulders they smashed upon the valley floor in a thousand shrapnels and friction-heated nuggets.
Every morning at least one person was caught in the downpour.
The cliff people dared the avalanches. It added one more excitement to their lives, already too short, too headlong, too dangerous.
Sim felt himself seized up by his father. He was carried brusquely down the tunnel for a thousand yards, to where the daylight appeared. There was a shining insane light in his father's eyes. Sim could not move. He sensed what was going to happen. Behind his father, his mother hurried, bringing with her the little sister, Dark. "Wait! Be careful!" she cried to her husband.
Sim felt his father crouch, listening.
High in the cliff was a tremor, a shivering.
"Now!" bellowed his father, and leaped out.
An avalanche fell down at them!
Sim had accelerated impressions of plunging walls, dust, confusion. His mother screamed! There was a jolting, a plunging.
With one last step, Sim's father hurried him forward into the day. The avalanche thundered behind him. The mouth of the cave, where mother and Dark stood back out of the way, was choked with rubble and two boulders that weighed a hundred pounds each.
The storm thunder of the avalanche passed away to a trickle of sand. Sim's father burst out into laughter. "Made it! By the Gods! Made it alive!" And he looked scornfully at the cliff and spat. "Pagh!"
Mother and sister Dark struggled through the rubble. She cursed her husband. "Fool! You might have killed Sim!"
"I may yet," retorted the father.
Sim was not listening. He was fascinated with the remains of an avalanche afront of the next tunnel. A blood stain trickled out from under a rise of boulders, soaking into the ground. There was nothing else to be seen. Someone else had lost the game.
Dark ran ahead on lithe, supple feet, naked and certain.
The valley air was like a wine filtered between mountains. The heaven was a restive blue; not the pale scorched atmosphere of full day, nor the bloated, bruised black-purple of night, a-riot with sickly shining stars.
This was a tide pool. A place where waves of varying and violent temperatures struck, receded. Now the tide pool was quiet, cool, and its life moved abroad.
Laughter! Far away, Sim heard it. Why laughter? How could any of his people find time for laughing? Perhaps later he would discover why.
The valley suddenly blushed with impulsive color. Plant-life, thawing in the precipitant dawn, shoved out from most unexpected sources. It flowered as you watched. Pale green tendrils appeared on scoured rocks. Seconds later, ripe globes of fruit twitched upon the blade-tips. Father gave Sim over to mother and harvested the momentary, volatile crop, thrust scarlet, blue, yellow fruits into a fur sack which hung at his waist. Mother tugged at the moist new grasses, laid them on Sim's tongue.
His senses were being honed to a fine edge. He stored knowledge thirstily. He understood love, marriage, customs, anger, pity, rage, selfishness, shadings and subtleties, realities and reflections. One thing suggested another. The sight of green plant life whirled his mind like a gyroscope, seeking balance in a world where lack of time for explanations made a mind seek and interpret on its own. The soft burden of food gave him knowledge of his system, of energy, of movement. Like a bird newly cracking its way from a shell, he was almost a unit, complete, all-knowing. Heredity had done all this for him. He grew excited with his ability.
They walked, mother, father and the two children, smelling the smells, watching the birds bounce from wall to wall of the valley like scurrying pebbles and suddenly the father said a strange thing:
"Remember?"
Remember what? Sim lay cradled. Was it any effort for them to remember when they'd lived only seven days!
The husband and wife looked at each other.
"Was it only three days ago?" said the woman, her body shaking, her eyes closing to think. "I can't believe it. It is so unfair." She sobbed, then drew her hand across her face and bit her parched lips. The wind played at her gray hair. "Now is my turn to cry. An hour ago it was you!"
"An hour is half a life."
"Come," she took her husband's arm. "Let us look at everything, because it will be our last looking."
"The sun'll be up in a few minutes," said the old man. "We must turn back now."
"Just one more moment," pleaded the woman.
"The sun will catch us."
"Let it catch me then!"
"You don't mean that."
"I mean nothing, nothing at all," cried the woman.
The sun was coming fast. The green in the valley burnt away. Searing wind blasted from over the cliffs. Far away where sun bolts hammered battlements of cliff, the huge stone faces shook their contents; those avalanches not already powdered down, were now released and fell like mantles.
"Dark!" shouted the father. The girl sprang over the warm floor of the valley, answering, her hair a black flag behind her. Hands full of green fruits, she joined them.
The sun rimmed the horizon with flame, the air convulsed dangerously with it, and whistled.
The cave people bolted, shouting, picking up their fallen children, bearing vast loads of fruit and grass with them back to their deep hideouts. In moments the valley was bare. Except for one small child someone had forgotten. He was running far out on the flatness, but he was not strong enough, and the engulfing heat was drifting down from the cliffs even as he was half across the valley.
Flowers were burnt into effigies, grasses sucked back into rocks like singed snakes, flower seeds whirled and fell in the sudden furnace blast of wind, sown far into gullies and crannies, ready to blossom at sunset tonight, and then go to seed and die again.
Sim's father watched that child running, alone, out on the floor of the valley. He and his wife and Dark and Sim were safe in the mouth of their tunnel.
"He'll never make it," said father. "Do not watch him, woman. It's not a good thing to watch."
They turned away. All except Sim, whose eyes had caught a glint of metal far away. His heart hammered in him, and his eyes blurred. Far away, atop a low mountain, one of those metal seeds from space reflected a dazzling ripple of light! It was like one of his intra-embryo dreams fulfilled! A metal space seed, intact, undamaged, lying on a mountain! There was his future! There was his hope for survival! There was where he would go in a few days, when he was—strange thought—a grown man!
The sun plunged into the valley like molten lava.
The little running child screamed, the sun burned, and the screaming stopped.
Sim's mother walked painfully, with sudden age, down the tunnel, paused, reached up, broke off two last icicles that had formed during the night. She handed one to her husband, kept the other. "We will drink one last toast. To you, to the children."
"To you ," he nodded to her. "To the children." They lifted the icicles. The warmth melted the ice down into their thirsty mouths.
All day the sun seemed to blaze and erupt into the valley. Sim could not see it, but the vivid pictorials in his parents' minds were sufficient evidence of the nature of the day fire. The light ran like mercury, sizzling and roasting the caves, poking inward, but never penetrating deeply enough. It lighted the caves. It made the hollows of the cliff comfortably warm.
Sim fought to keep his parents young. But no matter how hard he fought with mind and image, they became like mummies before him. His father seemed to dissolve from one stage of oldness to another. This is what will happen to me soon, though Sim in terror.
Sim grew upon himself. He felt the digestive-eliminatory movements of his body. He was fed every minute, he was continually swallowing, feeding. He began to fit words to images and processes. Such a word was love. It was not an abstraction, but a process, a stir of breath, a smell of morning air, a flutter of heart, the curve of arm holding him, the look in the suspended face of his mother. He saw the processes, then searched behind her suspended face and there was the word, in her brain, ready to use. His throat prepared to speak. Life was pushing him, rushing him along toward oblivion.
He sensed the expansion of his fingernails, the adjustments of his cells, the profusion of his hair, the multiplication of his bones and sinew, the grooving of the soft pale wax of his brain. His brain at birth as clear as a circle of ice, innocent, unmarked, was, an instant later, as if hit with a thrown rock, cracked and marked and patterned in a million crevices of thought and discovery.
His sister, Dark, ran in and out with other little hothouse children, forever eating. His mother trembled over him, not eating, she had no appetite, her eyes were webbed shut.
"Sunset," said his father, at last.
The day was over. The light faded, a wind sounded.
His mother arose. "I want to see the outside world once more ... just once more...." She stared blindly, shivering.
His father's eyes were shut, he lay against the wall.
"I cannot rise," he whispered faintly. "I cannot."
"Dark!" The mother croaked, the girl came running. "Here," and Sim was handed to the girl. "Hold to Sim, Dark, feed him, care for him." She gave Sim one last fondling touch.
Dark said not a word, holding Sim, her great green eyes shining wetly.
"Go now," said the mother. "Take him out into the sunset time. Enjoy yourselves. Pick foods, eat. Play."
Dark walked away without looking back. Sim twisted in her grasp, looking over her shoulder with unbelieving, tragic eyes. He cried out and somehow summoned from his lips the first word of his existence.
"Why...?"
He saw his mother stiffen. "The child spoke!"
"Aye," said his father. "Did you hear what he said?"
"I heard," said the mother quietly.
The last thing Sim saw of his living parents was his mother weakly, swayingly, slowly moving across the floor to lie beside her silent husband. That was the last time he ever saw them move.
IV
The night came and passed and then started the second day.
The bodies of all those who had died during the night were carried in a funeral procession to the top of a small hill. The procession was long, the bodies numerous.
Dark walked in the procession, holding the newly walking Sim by one hand. Only an hour before dawn Sim had learned to walk.
At the top of the hill, Sim saw once again the far off metal seed. Nobody ever looked at it, or spoke of it. Why? Was there some reason? Was it a mirage? Why did they not run toward it? Worship it? Try to get to it and fly away into space?
The funeral words were spoken. The bodies were placed upon the ground where the sun, in a few minutes, would cremate them.
The procession then turned and ran down the hill, eager to have their few minutes of free time running and playing and laughing in the sweet air.
Dark and Sim, chattering like birds, feeding among the rocks, exchanged what they knew of life. He was in his second day, she in her third. They were driven, as always, by the mercurial speed of their lives.
Another piece of his life opened wide.
Fifty young men ran down from the cliffs, holding sharp stones and rock daggers in their thick hands. Shouting, they ran off toward distant black, low lines of small rock cliffs.
"War!"
The thought stood in Sim's brain. It shocked and beat at him. These men were running to fight, to kill, over there in those small black cliffs where other people lived.
But why? Wasn't life short enough without fighting, killing?
From a great distance he heard the sound of conflict, and it made his stomach cold. "Why, Dark, why?"
Dark didn't know. Perhaps they would understand tomorrow. Now, there was the business of eating to sustain and support their lives. Watching Dark was like seeing a lizard forever flickering its pink tongue, forever hungry.
Pale children ran on all sides of them. One beetle-like boy scuttled up the rocks, knocking Sim aside, to take from him a particularly luscious red berry he had found growing under an outcrop.
The child ate hastily of the fruit before Sim could gain his feet. Then Sim hurled himself unsteadily, the two of them fell in a ridiculous jumble, rolling, until Dark pried them, squalling, apart.
Sim bled. A part of him stood off, like a god, and said, "This should not be. Children should not be this way. It is wrong!"
Dark slapped the little intruding boy away. "Get on!" she cried.
"What's your name, bad one?"
"Chion!" laughed the boy. "Chion, Chion, Chion!"
Sim glared at him with all the ferocity in his small, unskilled features. He choked. This was his enemy. It was as if he'd waited for an enemy of person as well as scene. He had already understood the avalanches, the heat, the cold, the shortness of life, but these were things of places, of scene—mute, extravagant manifestations of unthinking nature, not motivated save by gravity and radiation. Here, now, in this stridulent Chion he recognized a thinking enemy!
Chion darted off, turned at a distance, tauntingly crying:
"Tomorrow I will be big enough to kill you!"
And he vanished around a rock.
More children ran, giggling, by Sim. Which of them would be friends, enemies? How could friends and enemies come about in this impossible, quick life time? There was no time to make either, was there?
Dark, as if knowing his thoughts, drew him away. As they searched for desired foods, she whispered fiercely in his ear. "Enemies are made over things like stolen foods; gifts of long grasses make friends. Enemies come, too, from opinions and thoughts. In five seconds you've made an enemy for life. Life's so short enemies must be made quickly." And she laughed with an irony strange for one so young, who was growing older before her rightful time. "You must fight to protect yourself. Others, superstitious ones, will try killing you. There is a belief, a ridiculous belief, that if one kills another, the murderer partakes of the life energy of the slain, and therefore will live an extra day. You see? As long as that is believed, you're in danger."
But Sim was not listening. Bursting from a flock of delicate girls who tomorrow would be tall, quieter, and who day after that would gain breasts and the next day take husbands, Sim caught sight of one small girl whose hair was a violet blue flame.
She ran past, brushed Sim, their bodies touched. Her eyes, white as silver coins, shone at him. He knew then that he'd found a friend, a love, a wife, one who'd a week from now lie with him atop the funeral pyre as sunlight undressed their flesh from bone.
Only the glance, but it held them in mid-motion, one instant.
"Your name?" he shouted after her.
"Lyte!" she called laughingly back.
"I'm Sim," he answered, confused and bewildered.
"Sim!" she repeated it, flashing on. "I'll remember!"
Dark nudged his ribs. "Here, eat ," she said to the distracted boy.
"Eat or you'll never get big enough to catch her."
From nowhere, Chion appeared, running by. "Lyte!" he mocked, dancing malevolently along and away. "Lyte! I'll remember Lyte, too!"
Dark stood tall and reed slender, shaking her dark ebony clouds of hair, sadly. "I see your life before you, little Sim. You'll need weapons soon to fight for this Lyte one. Now, hurry—the sun's coming!"
They ran back to the caves.
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What is the plot of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about What is POSAT? by Phyllis Sterling Smith.
Relevant chunks:
What is POSAT?
By PHYLLIS STERLING SMITH
Illustrated by ED ALEXANDER
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Of course coming events cast their shadows before, but this shadow was 400 years long!
The following advertisement appeared in the July 1953 issue of several magazines:
MASTERY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE CAN BE YOURS!
What is the secret source of those profound principles that can solve the problems of life? Send for our FREE booklet of explanation.
Do not be a leaf in the wind! YOU can alter the course of your life!
Tap the treasury of Wisdom through the ages!
The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth
POSAT
an ancient secret society
Most readers passed it by with scarcely a glance. It was, after all, similar to the many that had appeared through the years under the name of that same society. Other readers, as their eyes slid over the familiar format of the ad, speculated idly about the persistent and mildly mysterious organization behind it. A few even resolved to clip the attached coupon and send for the booklet—sometime—when a pen or pencil was nearer at hand.
Bill Evans, an unemployed pharmacist, saw the ad in a copy of Your Life and Psychology that had been abandoned on his seat in the bus. He filled out the blanks on the coupon with a scrap of stubby pencil.
"You can alter the course of your life!" he read again. He particularly liked that thought, even though he had long since ceased to believe it. He actually took the trouble to mail the coupon. After all, he had, literally, nothing to lose, and nothing else to occupy his time.
Miss Elizabeth Arnable was one of the few to whom the advertisement was unfamiliar. As a matter of fact, she very seldom read a magazine. The radio in her room took the place of reading matter, and she always liked to think that it amused her cats as well as herself. Reading would be so selfish under the circumstances, wouldn't it? Not but what the cats weren't almost smart enough to read, she always said.
It just so happened, however, that she had bought a copy of the Antivivisectionist Gazette the day before. She pounced upon the POSAT ad as a trout might snap at a particularly attractive fly. Having filled out the coupon with violet ink, she invented an errand that would take her past the neighborhood post office so that she could post it as soon as possible.
Donald Alford, research physicist, came across the POSAT ad tucked at the bottom of a column in The Bulletin of Physical Research . He was engrossed in the latest paper by Dr. Crandon, a man whom he admired from the point of view of both a former student and a fellow research worker. Consequently, he was one of the many who passed over the POSAT ad with the disregard accorded to any common object.
He read with interest to the end of the article before he realized that some component of the advertisement had been noted by a region of his brain just beyond consciousness. It teased at him like a tickle that couldn't be scratched until he turned back to the page.
It was the symbol or emblem of POSAT, he realized, that had caught his attention. The perpendicularly crossed ellipses centered with a small black circle might almost be a conventionalized version of the Bohr atom of helium. He smiled with mild skepticism as he read through the printed matter that accompanied it.
"I wonder what their racket is," he mused. Then, because his typewriter was conveniently at hand, he carefully tore out the coupon and inserted it in the machine. The spacing of the typewriter didn't fit the dotted lines on the coupon, of course, but he didn't bother to correct it. He addressed an envelope, laid it with other mail to be posted, and promptly forgot all about it. Since he was a methodical man, it was entrusted to the U.S. mail early the next morning, together with his other letters.
Three identical forms accompanied the booklet which POSAT sent in response to the three inquiries. The booklet gave no more information than had the original advertisement, but with considerable more volubility. It promised the recipient the secrets of the Cosmos and the key that would unlock the hidden knowledge within himself—if he would merely fill out the enclosed form.
Bill Evans, the unemployed pharmacist, let the paper lie unanswered for several days. To be quite honest, he was disappointed. Although he had mentally disclaimed all belief in anything that POSAT might offer, he had watched the return mails with anticipation. His own resources were almost at an end, and he had reached the point where intervention by something supernatural, or at least superhuman, seemed the only hope.
He had hoped, unreasonably, that POSAT had an answer. But time lay heavily upon him, and he used it one evening to write the requested information—about his employment (ha!), his religious beliefs, his reason for inquiring about POSAT, his financial situation. Without quite knowing that he did so, he communicated in his terse answers some of his desperation and sense of futility.
Miss Arnable was delighted with the opportunity for autobiographical composition. It required five extra sheets of paper to convey all the information that she wished to give—all about her poor, dear father who had been a missionary to China, and the kinship that she felt toward the mystic cults of the East, her belief that her cats were reincarnations of her loved ones (which, she stated, derived from a religion of the Persians; or was it the Egyptians?) and in her complete and absolute acceptance of everything that POSAT had stated in their booklet. And what would the dues be? She wished to join immediately. Fortunately, dear father had left her in a comfortable financial situation.
To Donald Alford, the booklet seemed to confirm his suspicion that POSAT was a racket of some sort. Why else would they be interested in his employment or financial position? It also served to increase his curiosity.
"What do you suppose they're driving at?" he asked his wife Betty, handing her the booklet and questionnaire.
"I don't really know what to say," she answered, squinting a little as she usually did when puzzled. "I know one thing, though, and that's that you won't stop until you find out!"
"The scientific attitude," he acknowledged with a grin.
"Why don't you fill out this questionnaire incognito, though?" she suggested. "Pretend that we're wealthy and see if they try to get our money. Do they have anything yet except your name and address?"
Don was shocked. "If I send this back to them, it will have to be with correct answers!"
"The scientific attitude again," Betty sighed. "Don't you ever let your imagination run away with the facts a bit? What are you going to give for your reasons for asking about POSAT?"
"Curiosity," he replied, and, pulling his fountain pen from his vest pocket, he wrote exactly that, in small, neat script.
It was unfortunate for his curiosity that Don could not see the contents of the three envelopes that were mailed from the offices of POSAT the following week. For this time they differed.
Bill Evans was once again disappointed. The pamphlet that was enclosed gave what apparently meant to be final answers to life's problems. They were couched in vaguely metaphysical terms and offered absolutely no help to him.
His disappointment was tempered, however, by the knowledge that he had unexpectedly found a job. Or, rather, it had fallen into his lap. When he had thought that every avenue of employment had been tried, a position had been offered him in a wholesale pharmacy in the older industrial part of the city. It was not a particularly attractive place to work, located as it was next to a large warehouse, but to him it was hope for the future.
It amused him to discover that the offices of POSAT were located on the other side of the same warehouse, at the end of a blind alley. Blind alley indeed! He felt vaguely ashamed for having placed any confidence in them.
Miss Arnable was thrilled to discover that her envelope contained not only several pamphlets, (she scanned the titles rapidly and found that one of them concerned the sacred cats of ancient Egypt), but that it contained also a small pin with the symbol of POSAT wrought in gold and black enamel. The covering letter said that she had been accepted as an active member of POSAT and that the dues were five dollars per month; please remit by return mail. She wrote a check immediately, and settled contentedly into a chair to peruse the article on sacred cats.
After a while she began to read aloud so that her own cats could enjoy it, too.
Don Alford would not have been surprised if his envelope had shown contents similar to the ones that the others received. The folded sheets of paper that he pulled forth, however, made him stiffen with sharp surprise.
"Come here a minute, Betty," he called, spreading them out carefully on the dining room table. "What do you make of these?"
She came, dish cloth in hand, and thoughtfully examined them, one by one. "Multiple choice questions! It looks like a psychological test of some sort."
"This isn't the kind of thing I expected them to send me," worried Don. "Look at the type of thing they ask. 'If you had discovered a new and virulent poison that could be compounded from common household ingredients, would you (1) publish the information in a daily newspaper, (2) manufacture it secretly and sell it as rodent exterminator, (3) give the information to the armed forces for use as a secret weapon, or (4) withhold the information entirely as too dangerous to be passed on?'"
"Could they be a spy ring?" asked Betty. "Subversive agents? Anxious to find out your scientific secrets like that classified stuff that you're so careful of when you bring it home from the lab?"
Don scanned the papers quickly. "There's nothing here that looks like an attempt to get information. Besides, I've told them nothing about my work except that I do research in physics. They don't even know what company I work for. If this is a psychological test, it measures attitudes, nothing else. Why should they want to know my attitudes?"
"Do you suppose that POSAT is really what it claims to be—a secret society—and that they actually screen their applicants?"
He smiled wryly. "Wouldn't it be interesting if I didn't make the grade after starting out to expose their racket?"
He pulled out his pen and sat down to the task of resolving the dilemmas before him.
His next communication from POSAT came to his business address and, paradoxically, was more personal than its forerunners.
Dear Doctor Alford:
We have examined with interest the information that you have sent to us. We are happy to inform you that, thus far, you have satisfied the requirements for membership in the Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth. Before accepting new members into this ancient and honorable secret society, we find it desirable that they have a personal interview with the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
Accordingly, you are cordially invited to an audience with our Grand Chairman on Tuesday, July 10, at 2:30 P.M. Please let us know if this arrangement is acceptable to you. If not, we will attempt to make another appointment for you.
The time specified for the appointment was hardly a convenient one for Don. At 2:30 P.M. on most Tuesdays, he would be at work in the laboratory. And while his employers made no complaint if he took his research problems home with him and worried over them half the night, they were not equally enthusiastic when he used working hours for pursuing unrelated interests. Moreover, the headquarters of POSAT was in a town almost a hundred miles distant. Could he afford to take a whole day off for chasing will-o-wisps?
It hardly seemed worth the trouble. He wondered if Betty would be disappointed if he dropped the whole matter. Since the letter had been sent to the laboratory instead of his home, he couldn't consult her about it without telephoning.
Since the letter had been sent to the laboratory instead of his home! But it was impossible!
He searched feverishly through his pile of daily mail for the envelope in which the letter had come. The address stared up at him, unmistakably and fearfully legible. The name of his company. The number of the room he worked in. In short, the address that he had never given them!
"Get hold of yourself," he commanded his frightened mind. "There's some perfectly logical, easy explanation for this. They looked it up in the directory of the Institute of Physics. Or in the alumni directory of the university. Or—or—"
But the more he thought about it, the more sinister it seemed. His laboratory address was available, but why should POSAT take the trouble of looking it up? Some prudent impulse had led him to withhold that particular bit of information, yet now, for some reason of their own, POSAT had unearthed the information.
His wife's words echoed in his mind, "Could they be a spy ring? Subversive agents?"
Don shook his head as though to clear away the confusion. His conservative habit of thought made him reject that explanation as too melodramatic.
At least one decision was easier to reach because of his doubts. Now he knew he had to keep his appointment with the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
He scribbled a memo to the department office stating that he would not be at work on Tuesday.
At first Don Alford had some trouble locating the POSAT headquarters. It seemed to him that the block in which the street number would fall was occupied entirely by a huge sprawling warehouse, of concrete construction, and almost entirely windowless. It was recessed from the street in several places to make room for the small, shabby buildings of a wholesale pharmacy, a printer's plant, an upholstering shop, and was also indented by alleys lined with loading platforms.
It was at the back of one of the alleys that he finally found a door marked with the now familiar emblem of POSAT.
He opened the frosted glass door with a feeling of misgiving, and faced a dark flight of stairs leading to the upper floor. Somewhere above him a buzzer sounded, evidently indicating his arrival. He picked his way up through the murky stairwell.
The reception room was hardly a cheerful place, with its battered desk facing the view of the empty alley, and a film of dust obscuring the pattern of the gray-looking wallpaper and worn rug. But the light of the summer afternoon filtering through the window scattered the gloom somewhat, enough to help Don doubt that he would find the menace here that he had come to expect.
The girl addressing envelopes at the desk looked very ordinary. Not the Mata-Hari type , thought Don, with an inward chuckle at his own suspicions. He handed her the letter.
She smiled. "We've been expecting you, Dr. Alford. If you'll just step into the next room—"
She opened a door opposite the stairwell, and Don stepped through it.
The sight of the luxurious room before him struck his eyes with the shock of a dentist's drill, so great was the contrast between it and the shabby reception room. For a moment Don had difficulty breathing. The rug—Don had seen one like it before, but it had been in a museum. The paintings on the walls, ornately framed in gilt carving, were surely old masters—of the Renaissance period, he guessed. Although he recognized none of the pictures, he felt that he could almost name the artists. That glowing one near the corner would probably be a Titian. Or was it Tintorretto? He regretted for a moment the lost opportunities of his college days, when he had passed up Art History in favor of Operational Circuit Analysis.
The girl opened a filing cabinet, the front of which was set flush with the wall, and, selecting a folder from it, disappeared through another door.
Don sprang to examine the picture near the corner. It was hung at eye level—that is, at the eye level of the average person. Don had to bend over a bit to see it properly. He searched for a signature. Apparently there was none. But did artists sign their pictures back in those days? He wished he knew more about such things.
Each of the paintings was individually lighted by a fluorescent tube held on brackets directly above it. As Don straightened up from his scrutiny of the picture, he inadvertently hit his head against the light. The tube, dislodged from its brackets, fell to the rug with a muffled thud.
Now I've done it! thought Don with dismay. But at least the tube hadn't shattered.
In fact—it was still glowing brightly! His eyes registered the fact, even while his mind refused to believe it. He raised his eyes to the brackets. They were simple pieces of solid hardware designed to support the tube.
There were no wires!
Don picked up the slender, glowing cylinder and held it between trembling fingers. Although it was delivering as much light as a two or three hundred watt bulb, it was cool to the touch. He examined it minutely. There was no possibility of concealed batteries.
The thumping of his heart was caused not by the fact that he had never seen a similar tube before, but because he had. He had never held one in his hands, though. The ones which his company had produced as experimental models had been unsuccessful at converting all of the radioactivity into light, and had, of necessity, been heavily shielded.
Right now, two of his colleagues back in the laboratory would still be searching for the right combination of fluorescent material and radioactive salts with which to make the simple, efficient, self-contained lighting unit that he was holding in his hand at this moment!
But this is impossible! he thought. We're the only company that's working on this, and it's secret. There can't be any in actual production!
And even if one had actually been successfully produced, how would it have fallen into the possession of POSAT, an Ancient Secret Society, The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth?
The conviction grew in Don's mind that here was something much deeper and more sinister than he would be able to cope with. He should have asked for help, should have stated his suspicions to the police or the F.B.I. Even now—
With sudden decision, he thrust the lighting tube into his pocket and stepped swiftly to the outer door. He grasped the knob and shook it impatiently when it stuck and refused to turn. He yanked at it. His impatience changed to panic. It was locked!
A soft sound behind him made him whirl about. The secretary had entered again through the inner door. She glanced at the vacant light bracket, then significantly at his bulging pocket. Her gaze was still as bland and innocent as when he had entered, but to Don she no longer seemed ordinary. Her very calmness in the face of his odd actions was distressingly ominous.
"Our Grand Chairman will see you now," she said in a quiet voice.
Don realized that he was half crouched in the position of an animal expecting attack. He straightened up with what dignity he could manage to find.
She opened the inner door again and Don followed her into what he supposed to be the office of the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
Instead he found himself on a balcony along the side of a vast room, which must have been the interior of the warehouse that he had noted outside. The girl motioned him toward the far end of the balcony, where a frosted glass door marked the office of the Grand Chairman.
But Don could not will his legs to move. His heart beat at the sight of the room below him. It was a laboratory, but a laboratory the like of which he had never seen before. Most of the equipment was unfamiliar to him. Whatever he did recognize was of a different design than he had ever used, and there was something about it that convinced him that this was more advanced. The men who bent busily over their instruments did not raise their eyes to the figures on the balcony.
"Good Lord!" Don gasped. "That's an atomic reactor down there!" There could be no doubt about it, even though he could see it only obscurely through the bluish-green plastic shielding it.
His thoughts were so clamorous that he hardly realized that he had spoken aloud, or that the door at the end of the balcony had opened.
He was only dimly aware of the approaching footsteps as he speculated wildly on the nature of the shielding material. What could be so dense that only an inch would provide adequate shielding and yet remain semitransparent?
His scientist's mind applauded the genius who had developed it, even as the alarming conviction grew that he wouldn't—couldn't—be allowed to leave here any more. Surely no man would be allowed to leave this place alive to tell the fantastic story to the world!
"Hello, Don," said a quiet voice beside him. "It's good to see you again."
"Dr. Crandon!" he heard his own voice reply. " You're the Grand Chairman of POSAT?"
He felt betrayed and sick at heart. The very voice with which Crandon had spoken conjured up visions of quiet lecture halls and his own youthful excitement at the masterful and orderly disclosure of scientific facts. To find him here in this mad and treacherous place—didn't anything make sense any longer?
"I think we have rather abused you, Don," Dr. Crandon continued. His voice sounded so gentle that Don found it hard to think there was any evil in it. "I can see that you are suspicious of us, and—yes—afraid."
Don stared at the scene below him. After his initial glance to confirm his identification of Crandon, Don could not bear to look at him.
Crandon's voice suddenly hardened, became abrupt. "You're partly right about us, of course. I hate to think how many laws this organization has broken. Don't condemn us yet, though. You'll be a member yourself before the day is over."
Don was shocked by such confidence in his corruptibility.
"What do you use?" he asked bitterly. "Drugs? Hypnosis?"
Crandon sighed. "I forgot how little you know, Don. I have a long story to tell you. You'll find it hard to believe at first. But try to trust me. Try to believe me, as you once did. When I say that much of what POSAT does is illegal, I do not mean immoral. We're probably the most moral organization in the world. Get over the idea that you have stumbled into a den of thieves."
Crandon paused as though searching for words with which to continue.
"Did you notice the paintings in the waiting room as you entered?"
Don nodded, too bewildered to speak.
"They were donated by the founder of our Organization. They were part of his personal collection—which, incidentally, he bought from the artists themselves. He also designed the atomic reactor we use for power here in the laboratory."
"Then the pictures are modern," said Don, aware that his mouth was hanging open foolishly. "I thought one was a Titian—"
"It is," said Crandon. "We have several original Titians, although I really don't know too much about them."
"But how could a man alive today buy paintings from an artist of the Renaissance?"
"He is not alive today. POSAT is actually what our advertisements claim—an ancient secret society. Our founder has been dead for over four centuries."
"But you said that he designed your atomic reactor."
"Yes. This particular one has been in use for only twenty years, however."
Don's confusion was complete. Crandon looked at him kindly. "Let's start at the beginning," he said, and Don was back again in the classroom with the deep voice of Professor Crandon unfolding the pages of knowledge in clear and logical manner. "Four hundred years ago, in the time of the Italian Renaissance, a man lived who was a super-genius. His was the kind of incredible mentality that appears not in every generation, or even every century, but once in thousands of years.
"Probably the man who invented what we call the phonetic alphabet was one like him. That man lived seven thousand years ago in Mesopotamia, and his discovery was so original, so far from the natural course of man's thinking, that not once in the intervening seven thousand years has that device been rediscovered. It still exists only in the civilizations to which it has been passed on directly.
"The super-genius who was our founder was not a semanticist. He was a physical scientist and mathematician. Starting with the meager heritage that existed in these fields in his time, he began tackling physical puzzles one by one. Sitting in his study, using as his principal tool his own great mind, he invented calculus, developed the quantum theory of light, moved on to electromagnetic radiation and what we call Maxwell's equations—although, of course, he antedated Maxwell by centuries—developed the special and general theories of relativity, the tool of wave mechanics, and finally, toward the end of his life, he mathematically derived the packing fraction that describes the binding energy of nuclei—"
"But it can't be done," Don objected. "It's an observed phenomenon. It hasn't been derived." Every conservative instinct that he possessed cried out against this impossible fantasy. And yet—there sat the reactor, sheathed in its strange shield. Crandon watched the direction of Don's glance.
"Yes, the reactor," said Crandon. "He built one like it. It confirmed his theories. His calculations showed him something else too. He saw the destructive potentialities of an atomic explosion. He himself could not have built an atomic bomb; he didn't have the facilities. But his knowledge would have enabled other men to do so. He looked about him. He saw a political setup of warring principalities, rival states, intrigue, and squabbles over political power. Giving the men of his time atomic energy would have been like handing a baby a firecracker with a lighted fuse.
"What should he have done? Let his secrets die with him? He didn't think so. No one else in his age could have derived the knowledge that he did. But it was an age of brilliant men. Leonardo. Michelangelo. There were men capable of learning his science, even as men can learn it today. He gathered some of them together and founded this society. It served two purposes. It perpetuated his discoveries and at the same time it maintained the greatest secrecy about them. He urged that the secrets be kept until the time when men could use them safely. The other purpose was to make that time come about as soon as possible."
Crandon looked at Don's unbelieving face. "How can I make you see that it is the truth? Think of the eons that man or manlike creatures have walked the Earth. Think what a small fraction of that time is four hundred years. Is it so strange that atomic energy was discovered a little early, by this displacement in time that is so tiny after all?"
"But by one man," Don argued.
Crandon shrugged. "Compared with him, Don, you and I are stupid men. So are the scientists who slowly plodded down the same road he had come, stumbling first on one truth and then the succeeding one. We know that inventions and discoveries do not occur at random. Each is based on the one that preceded it. We are all aware of the phenomenon of simultaneous invention. The path to truth is a straight one. It is only our own stupidity that makes it seem slow and tortuous.
"He merely followed the straight path," Crandon finished simply.
Don's incredulity thawed a little. It was not entirely beyond the realm of possibility.
But if it were true! A vast panorama of possible achievements spread before him.
"Four hundred years!" he murmured with awe. "You've had four hundred years head-start on the rest of the world! What wonders you must have uncovered in that time!"
"Our technical achievements may disappoint you," warned Crandon.
"Oh, they're way beyond anything that you are familiar with. You've undoubtedly noticed the shielding material on the reactor. That's a fairly recent development of our metallurgical department. There are other things in the laboratory that I can't even explain to you until you have caught up on the technical basis for understanding them.
"Our emphasis has not been on physical sciences, however, except as they contribute to our central project. We want to change civilization so that it can use physical science without disaster."
For a moment Don had been fired with enthusiasm. But at these words his heart sank.
"Then you've failed," he said bitterly. "In spite of centuries of advance warning, you've failed to change the rest of us enough to prevent us from trying to blow ourselves off the Earth. Here we are, still snarling and snapping at our neighbors' throats—and we've caught up with you. We have the atomic bomb. What's POSAT been doing all that time? Or have you found that human nature really can't be changed?"
"Come with me," said Crandon.
He led the way along the narrow balcony to another door, then down a steep flight of stairs. He opened a door at the bottom, and Don saw what must have been the world's largest computing machine.
"This is our answer," said Crandon. "Oh, rather, it's the tool by which we find our answer. For two centuries we have been working on the newest of the sciences—that of human motivation. Soon we will be ready to put some of our new knowledge to work. But you are right in one respect, we are working now against time. We must hurry if we are to save our civilization. That's why you are here. We have work for you to do. Will you join us, Don?"
"But why the hocus-pocus?" asked Don. "Why do you hide behind such a weird front as POSAT? Why do you advertise in magazines and invite just anyone to join? Why didn't you approach me directly, if you have work for me to do? And if you really have the answers to our problems, why haven't you gathered together all the scientists in the world to work on this project—before it's too late?"
Crandon took a sighing breath. "How I wish that we could do just that! But you forget that one of the prime purposes of our organization is to maintain the secrecy of our discoveries until they can be safely disclosed. We must be absolutely certain that anyone who enters this building will have joined POSAT before he leaves. What if we approached the wrong scientist? Centuries of accomplishment might be wasted if they attempted either to reveal it or to exploit it!
"Do you recall the questionnaires that you answered before you were invited here? We fed the answers to this machine and, as a result, we know more about how you will react in any given situation than you do yourself. Even if you should fail to join us, our secrets would be safe with you. Of course, we miss a few of the scientists who might be perfect material for our organization. You'd be surprised, though, at how clever our advertisements are at attracting exactly the men we want. With the help of our new science, we have baited our ads well, and we know how to maintain interest. Curiosity is, to the men we want, a powerful motivator."
"But what about the others?" asked Don. "There must be hundreds of applicants who would be of no use to you at all."
"Oh, yes," replied Crandon. "There are the mild religious fanatics. We enroll them as members and keep them interested by sending pamphlets in line with their interests. We even let them contribute to our upkeep, if they seem to want to. They never get beyond the reception room if they come to call on us. But they are additional people through whom we can act when the time finally comes.
"There are also the desperate people who try POSAT as a last resort—lost ones who can't find their direction in life. For them we put into practice some of our newly won knowledge. We rehabilitate them—anonymously, of course. Even find jobs or patch up homes. It's good practice for us.
"I think I've answered most of your questions, Don. But you haven't answered mine. Will you join us?"
Don looked solemnly at the orderly array of the computer before him. He had one more question.
"Will it really work? Can it actually tell you how to motivate the stubborn, quarrelsome, opinionated people one finds on this Earth?"
Crandon smiled. "You're here, aren't you?"
Don nodded, his tense features relaxing.
"Enroll me as a member," he said.
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
|
[
"\nIn 1953, an advertisement for the Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth appears in magazines. The ad claims that POSAT is an ancient secret society looking for new members. Three individuals send away to receive a free booklet from them. Bill is a pharmacist who is down on his luck and out of a job. Elizabeth is a wealthy woman who lives with cats. Don is a research physicist who has a successful career and a wife, Betty. \n\nPOSAT sends Bill, Elizabeth, and Don three identical forms in the mail and asks for their responses. Bill is initially skeptical, but he hopes that POSAT will be able to turn his life around in some unexpected way. He answers the questions about his employment, religion, and finances. Elizabeth does the same enthusiastically. Although Don believes it’s a scam, he can’t squash his own curiosity, and he sends his answers in.\n\nIn return, Bill receives a pamphlet with vague descriptions for how to solve life’s problems. He finds the material useless, but he isn’t disappointed because he just landed a new job. Elizabeth discovers that she has been accepted into the society, and she must pay $5 a month. Lastly, Don receives a multiple choice exam, which he answers and sends back.\n\n\nDon receives a request to meet with the Grand Chairman at his work, and this surprises him because he never gave them his work address. He finds the warehouse and sees that it is windowless, rundown, and dirty. However, the waiting room contains beautiful rugs and paintings in ornate frames. He realizes that each painting is lit with a glowing tube that does not contain batteries, and he puts one of the lights in his pocket. It shocks him because his workplace is the only laboratory working on this exact product. He no longer trusts what is going on at POSAT and tries to leave, but the door is locked. \nDon is brought upstairs, and his fear increases when he looks into a high tech laboratory and sees scientists working on an atomic reactor. Dr. Crandon, Don’s former professor, appears and introduces himself as the Grand Chairman. He tells Don that POSAT has been around for over four hundred years, and its founder invented the atomic reactor. He did not have the technology to build it, and he realized that humanity was not ready for such a weapon. He decided to share his knowledge with other geniuses and keep it all a secret. Their goal was to get humanity to a point where information could be shared without the threat of violence and death. Crandon shows Don the world’s biggest computer, which is meant to learn humans’ motivation. Don’s test was put into the computer, and his responses indicate that he will join POSAT and be a valuable member. Bill was given a job to improve his life, and Elizabeth feels included and contributes financially. Don decides to join the secret society and work towards a more peaceful planet. \n",
"Various advertisements have gone through various magazines for POSAT, the \"Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth\", offering a booklet that can be requested in the mail. Various people sent for the booklet, including Bill Evans, a pharmacist currently without work, Miss Elizabeth Arnable, an eager woman excited to learn, and Donald Alford, a research physicist driven by curiosity. The three of them received an identical form in return, and each filled out the long questionnaire with a large amount of personal information. Donald's wife tried to convince him to fill the form out with false answers, but he was honest as the others were. A week after these questionnaires were sent, POSAT sent different envelopes to these three people. Bill Evans, for instance, received a standard pamphlet with metaphysical discussion. He was disappointed by this but was pleased to be starting a new job near the POSAT offices soon, which he did not realized was connected. Miss Arnable received several pamphlets and an offer to pay dues, which she did immediately. Donald Alford received a series of multiple choice questions about moral decisions surrounding potentially dangerous events. His answers got him an interview with the Grand Chairman of POSAT, but it would be in the middle of a work day, almost a hundred miles away. Although he was surprised to have received the letter at his lab, because he had only given POSAT his home address, his curiosity drove him to take the interview. It took him some time to find the POSAT headquarters, hidden in the back of an alley, and he was struck by the elegance of the first room he was invited into. He was slightly taller than the people the room was built for, hitting his head on a light and having to bend over to look at paintings. He found an impossible-seeming lightbulb, that resembled a secret project he was working on but in later stages. He was locked in the room, but eventually escorted to see the Grand Chairman, passing over an incredible laboratory with an atomic reactor. It turns out the Grand Chairman was Dr. Crandon, Donald's mentor, which made Donald confused, as he had trusted Dr. Crandon but could not trust what was happening in the laboratory he had seen. Dr. Crandon explained that although most of their work was illegal, he considered it some of the most moral work being done. Dr. Crandon walked Donald through the history of the organization, waxing poetic about the founder's genius as a physical scientist and mathematician. He did not have the technology to act on his theories, but left enough information for people in the future to develop technologies, following what Crandon called the path to truth. The primary goal was for science to be used without disaster, and Donald struggles accepting this knowing that atomic bombs exist. The machine with which they were studying human motivation is what read the entry questionnaires. His curiosity wins and Donald joins the research group.",
"Three people separately read and react to an advertisement for POSAT, the Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth, which promises secret truths that can alter the course of one's life. Bill Evans, an unemployed pharmacist, finds hope in the promise of superhuman intervention to help pull him from his desperate financial situation. Miss Elizabeth Arnable, a cat enthusiast who doesn’t read, connects with the advertisement's religious and mystical undertones since she believes her cats to be reincarnated family members. Donald Alford, a research physicist, is the most skeptical among them, and his interest in POSAT is purely scientific; he wants to determine POSAT’s true purpose, and so he completes the autobiographical form all three of them receive in response to their individual inquiries for more information. The impractical, metaphysical pamphlet Bill receives in response to his form disappoints him; however, he also receives a job offer at a pharmacy attached to the very warehouse that also houses POSAT's headquarters. Miss Arnable receives a membership pin, several pamphlets full of hidden truths of ancient wisdom, and information regarding membership fees. Don Alford receives a questionnaire that appears to be some kind of personality test catered to him specifically, despite the fact he has thus far revealed nothing of his life to them. Don's wife, Betty, wonders if POSAT might be some kind of spy society. In response to his questionnaire, POSAT invites Don to their headquarters to meet with their Grand Chairman in order to conduct an interview prior to his membership acceptance. Don struggles to decide whether or not to attend the meeting, considering the headquarters is nearly one-hundred miles from his home, and the lab where he works typically frowns upon using work time for personal matters. However, he decides to go anyway, and he finds the headquarters is part of a massive warehouse that is also home to a printer's plant, upholstering shop, and a pharmacy where Bill Evans now works. A receptionist guides him to a waiting room, where he discovers a number of brightly-lit Renaissance-style paintings. When he accidentally dislodges a light tube, he realizes the technology keeping it lit resembles his own research back at the lab--research that has not yet been released for public consumption. When he meets the Grand Chairman, he begins to make sense of the true purpose of POSAT; the Grand Chairman is actually Dr. Crandon, a physicist whose research Don has admired for several decades. Dr. Crandon explains POSAT is a society started four hundred years ago by a genius mathematician and physical scientist whose knowledge and discoveries were so advanced and powerful, he felt they must be kept secret until the world was ready to handle them in a responsible fashion. He shows Don a large computing machine used to determine human motivations and predict their reactions, which had been used to assess Don's suitability for membership, and which will be used to contribute to the advancement of a peaceful society. Don agrees to join Dr. Crandon's cause.",
"An ad was placed in the paper and several magazines throughout town, describing POSAT, the Pepetual Order of Seekers After Truth. It speaks vaguely about wisdom, changing your life, and mastering knowledge. Three people look at the ad in interest. The first is Bill Evans, a recently unemployed pharmacist, desperate for a miracle. He needs another job, a better life, so he responds to the ad as a last resort. The second is Miss Elizabeth Arnable, a cat-lady who loves the radio. And finally, Donald Alford, a physicist with a caring wife. He was reading a paper by Dr. Crandon, his former professor when he came across the advertisement. He responded simply because he was curious, and because their symbol piqued his interest. It looked almost like the Bohr atom of helium. \nThey all received identical booklets in the mail, promising the same stuff as the advertisement, but with a new form. All threw filled it out. Bill Evans took a while to do so, but he did so eventually with his desperation in tow. Miss Arnable wrote five pages, including the lives of her cats, and asked how much she would need to pay to be a member of POSAT. \nBut Alford was more skeptical, so he showed the booklet to his wife. She knew he was going to fill it out anyway because his curiosity would not be sated till he had an answer. He did just that.\nThe next mailings were completely different. Bill Evans’ pamphlet was filled with vague and metaphysical realizations. But, the same day, he was miraculously offered a job at a wholesale pharmacy. Miss Arnable was accepted, sent pamphlets about cats, and asked to pay $5/month. After filling out a multiple-choice questionnaire, Alford was asked to come in for an interview with the Grand Master during his workday. The letter was sent to his office; the address he never revealed. He took off the day to drive there and arrived at a small entrance down an alley near a wholesale pharmacy. He entered and climbed the stairs to the receptionist. She took his information then led him into the waiting room. Beautiful paintings lined the wall, lit up by radioactive, self-contained lights. He was in shock after making this discovery. His lab was working on such an invention, but failing at making the right material. He pocketed the light. \nThe receptionist led him across a balcony into the Grand Master’s office. Below the balcony was a highly advanced laboratory. Equipment that had yet to be invented. When Alford entered the office, he realized the man in front of him was Dr. Crandon, his professor, and fellow scientist. He explains the history of POSAT, how advanced they are, and their current mission: to find out more about human motivation to solve world issues. Dr. Crandon shows him a supercomputer that is on the path to making this huge discovery. Alford joins POSAT. \n"
] |
51336
|
What is POSAT?
By PHYLLIS STERLING SMITH
Illustrated by ED ALEXANDER
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Of course coming events cast their shadows before, but this shadow was 400 years long!
The following advertisement appeared in the July 1953 issue of several magazines:
MASTERY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE CAN BE YOURS!
What is the secret source of those profound principles that can solve the problems of life? Send for our FREE booklet of explanation.
Do not be a leaf in the wind! YOU can alter the course of your life!
Tap the treasury of Wisdom through the ages!
The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth
POSAT
an ancient secret society
Most readers passed it by with scarcely a glance. It was, after all, similar to the many that had appeared through the years under the name of that same society. Other readers, as their eyes slid over the familiar format of the ad, speculated idly about the persistent and mildly mysterious organization behind it. A few even resolved to clip the attached coupon and send for the booklet—sometime—when a pen or pencil was nearer at hand.
Bill Evans, an unemployed pharmacist, saw the ad in a copy of Your Life and Psychology that had been abandoned on his seat in the bus. He filled out the blanks on the coupon with a scrap of stubby pencil.
"You can alter the course of your life!" he read again. He particularly liked that thought, even though he had long since ceased to believe it. He actually took the trouble to mail the coupon. After all, he had, literally, nothing to lose, and nothing else to occupy his time.
Miss Elizabeth Arnable was one of the few to whom the advertisement was unfamiliar. As a matter of fact, she very seldom read a magazine. The radio in her room took the place of reading matter, and she always liked to think that it amused her cats as well as herself. Reading would be so selfish under the circumstances, wouldn't it? Not but what the cats weren't almost smart enough to read, she always said.
It just so happened, however, that she had bought a copy of the Antivivisectionist Gazette the day before. She pounced upon the POSAT ad as a trout might snap at a particularly attractive fly. Having filled out the coupon with violet ink, she invented an errand that would take her past the neighborhood post office so that she could post it as soon as possible.
Donald Alford, research physicist, came across the POSAT ad tucked at the bottom of a column in The Bulletin of Physical Research . He was engrossed in the latest paper by Dr. Crandon, a man whom he admired from the point of view of both a former student and a fellow research worker. Consequently, he was one of the many who passed over the POSAT ad with the disregard accorded to any common object.
He read with interest to the end of the article before he realized that some component of the advertisement had been noted by a region of his brain just beyond consciousness. It teased at him like a tickle that couldn't be scratched until he turned back to the page.
It was the symbol or emblem of POSAT, he realized, that had caught his attention. The perpendicularly crossed ellipses centered with a small black circle might almost be a conventionalized version of the Bohr atom of helium. He smiled with mild skepticism as he read through the printed matter that accompanied it.
"I wonder what their racket is," he mused. Then, because his typewriter was conveniently at hand, he carefully tore out the coupon and inserted it in the machine. The spacing of the typewriter didn't fit the dotted lines on the coupon, of course, but he didn't bother to correct it. He addressed an envelope, laid it with other mail to be posted, and promptly forgot all about it. Since he was a methodical man, it was entrusted to the U.S. mail early the next morning, together with his other letters.
Three identical forms accompanied the booklet which POSAT sent in response to the three inquiries. The booklet gave no more information than had the original advertisement, but with considerable more volubility. It promised the recipient the secrets of the Cosmos and the key that would unlock the hidden knowledge within himself—if he would merely fill out the enclosed form.
Bill Evans, the unemployed pharmacist, let the paper lie unanswered for several days. To be quite honest, he was disappointed. Although he had mentally disclaimed all belief in anything that POSAT might offer, he had watched the return mails with anticipation. His own resources were almost at an end, and he had reached the point where intervention by something supernatural, or at least superhuman, seemed the only hope.
He had hoped, unreasonably, that POSAT had an answer. But time lay heavily upon him, and he used it one evening to write the requested information—about his employment (ha!), his religious beliefs, his reason for inquiring about POSAT, his financial situation. Without quite knowing that he did so, he communicated in his terse answers some of his desperation and sense of futility.
Miss Arnable was delighted with the opportunity for autobiographical composition. It required five extra sheets of paper to convey all the information that she wished to give—all about her poor, dear father who had been a missionary to China, and the kinship that she felt toward the mystic cults of the East, her belief that her cats were reincarnations of her loved ones (which, she stated, derived from a religion of the Persians; or was it the Egyptians?) and in her complete and absolute acceptance of everything that POSAT had stated in their booklet. And what would the dues be? She wished to join immediately. Fortunately, dear father had left her in a comfortable financial situation.
To Donald Alford, the booklet seemed to confirm his suspicion that POSAT was a racket of some sort. Why else would they be interested in his employment or financial position? It also served to increase his curiosity.
"What do you suppose they're driving at?" he asked his wife Betty, handing her the booklet and questionnaire.
"I don't really know what to say," she answered, squinting a little as she usually did when puzzled. "I know one thing, though, and that's that you won't stop until you find out!"
"The scientific attitude," he acknowledged with a grin.
"Why don't you fill out this questionnaire incognito, though?" she suggested. "Pretend that we're wealthy and see if they try to get our money. Do they have anything yet except your name and address?"
Don was shocked. "If I send this back to them, it will have to be with correct answers!"
"The scientific attitude again," Betty sighed. "Don't you ever let your imagination run away with the facts a bit? What are you going to give for your reasons for asking about POSAT?"
"Curiosity," he replied, and, pulling his fountain pen from his vest pocket, he wrote exactly that, in small, neat script.
It was unfortunate for his curiosity that Don could not see the contents of the three envelopes that were mailed from the offices of POSAT the following week. For this time they differed.
Bill Evans was once again disappointed. The pamphlet that was enclosed gave what apparently meant to be final answers to life's problems. They were couched in vaguely metaphysical terms and offered absolutely no help to him.
His disappointment was tempered, however, by the knowledge that he had unexpectedly found a job. Or, rather, it had fallen into his lap. When he had thought that every avenue of employment had been tried, a position had been offered him in a wholesale pharmacy in the older industrial part of the city. It was not a particularly attractive place to work, located as it was next to a large warehouse, but to him it was hope for the future.
It amused him to discover that the offices of POSAT were located on the other side of the same warehouse, at the end of a blind alley. Blind alley indeed! He felt vaguely ashamed for having placed any confidence in them.
Miss Arnable was thrilled to discover that her envelope contained not only several pamphlets, (she scanned the titles rapidly and found that one of them concerned the sacred cats of ancient Egypt), but that it contained also a small pin with the symbol of POSAT wrought in gold and black enamel. The covering letter said that she had been accepted as an active member of POSAT and that the dues were five dollars per month; please remit by return mail. She wrote a check immediately, and settled contentedly into a chair to peruse the article on sacred cats.
After a while she began to read aloud so that her own cats could enjoy it, too.
Don Alford would not have been surprised if his envelope had shown contents similar to the ones that the others received. The folded sheets of paper that he pulled forth, however, made him stiffen with sharp surprise.
"Come here a minute, Betty," he called, spreading them out carefully on the dining room table. "What do you make of these?"
She came, dish cloth in hand, and thoughtfully examined them, one by one. "Multiple choice questions! It looks like a psychological test of some sort."
"This isn't the kind of thing I expected them to send me," worried Don. "Look at the type of thing they ask. 'If you had discovered a new and virulent poison that could be compounded from common household ingredients, would you (1) publish the information in a daily newspaper, (2) manufacture it secretly and sell it as rodent exterminator, (3) give the information to the armed forces for use as a secret weapon, or (4) withhold the information entirely as too dangerous to be passed on?'"
"Could they be a spy ring?" asked Betty. "Subversive agents? Anxious to find out your scientific secrets like that classified stuff that you're so careful of when you bring it home from the lab?"
Don scanned the papers quickly. "There's nothing here that looks like an attempt to get information. Besides, I've told them nothing about my work except that I do research in physics. They don't even know what company I work for. If this is a psychological test, it measures attitudes, nothing else. Why should they want to know my attitudes?"
"Do you suppose that POSAT is really what it claims to be—a secret society—and that they actually screen their applicants?"
He smiled wryly. "Wouldn't it be interesting if I didn't make the grade after starting out to expose their racket?"
He pulled out his pen and sat down to the task of resolving the dilemmas before him.
His next communication from POSAT came to his business address and, paradoxically, was more personal than its forerunners.
Dear Doctor Alford:
We have examined with interest the information that you have sent to us. We are happy to inform you that, thus far, you have satisfied the requirements for membership in the Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth. Before accepting new members into this ancient and honorable secret society, we find it desirable that they have a personal interview with the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
Accordingly, you are cordially invited to an audience with our Grand Chairman on Tuesday, July 10, at 2:30 P.M. Please let us know if this arrangement is acceptable to you. If not, we will attempt to make another appointment for you.
The time specified for the appointment was hardly a convenient one for Don. At 2:30 P.M. on most Tuesdays, he would be at work in the laboratory. And while his employers made no complaint if he took his research problems home with him and worried over them half the night, they were not equally enthusiastic when he used working hours for pursuing unrelated interests. Moreover, the headquarters of POSAT was in a town almost a hundred miles distant. Could he afford to take a whole day off for chasing will-o-wisps?
It hardly seemed worth the trouble. He wondered if Betty would be disappointed if he dropped the whole matter. Since the letter had been sent to the laboratory instead of his home, he couldn't consult her about it without telephoning.
Since the letter had been sent to the laboratory instead of his home! But it was impossible!
He searched feverishly through his pile of daily mail for the envelope in which the letter had come. The address stared up at him, unmistakably and fearfully legible. The name of his company. The number of the room he worked in. In short, the address that he had never given them!
"Get hold of yourself," he commanded his frightened mind. "There's some perfectly logical, easy explanation for this. They looked it up in the directory of the Institute of Physics. Or in the alumni directory of the university. Or—or—"
But the more he thought about it, the more sinister it seemed. His laboratory address was available, but why should POSAT take the trouble of looking it up? Some prudent impulse had led him to withhold that particular bit of information, yet now, for some reason of their own, POSAT had unearthed the information.
His wife's words echoed in his mind, "Could they be a spy ring? Subversive agents?"
Don shook his head as though to clear away the confusion. His conservative habit of thought made him reject that explanation as too melodramatic.
At least one decision was easier to reach because of his doubts. Now he knew he had to keep his appointment with the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
He scribbled a memo to the department office stating that he would not be at work on Tuesday.
At first Don Alford had some trouble locating the POSAT headquarters. It seemed to him that the block in which the street number would fall was occupied entirely by a huge sprawling warehouse, of concrete construction, and almost entirely windowless. It was recessed from the street in several places to make room for the small, shabby buildings of a wholesale pharmacy, a printer's plant, an upholstering shop, and was also indented by alleys lined with loading platforms.
It was at the back of one of the alleys that he finally found a door marked with the now familiar emblem of POSAT.
He opened the frosted glass door with a feeling of misgiving, and faced a dark flight of stairs leading to the upper floor. Somewhere above him a buzzer sounded, evidently indicating his arrival. He picked his way up through the murky stairwell.
The reception room was hardly a cheerful place, with its battered desk facing the view of the empty alley, and a film of dust obscuring the pattern of the gray-looking wallpaper and worn rug. But the light of the summer afternoon filtering through the window scattered the gloom somewhat, enough to help Don doubt that he would find the menace here that he had come to expect.
The girl addressing envelopes at the desk looked very ordinary. Not the Mata-Hari type , thought Don, with an inward chuckle at his own suspicions. He handed her the letter.
She smiled. "We've been expecting you, Dr. Alford. If you'll just step into the next room—"
She opened a door opposite the stairwell, and Don stepped through it.
The sight of the luxurious room before him struck his eyes with the shock of a dentist's drill, so great was the contrast between it and the shabby reception room. For a moment Don had difficulty breathing. The rug—Don had seen one like it before, but it had been in a museum. The paintings on the walls, ornately framed in gilt carving, were surely old masters—of the Renaissance period, he guessed. Although he recognized none of the pictures, he felt that he could almost name the artists. That glowing one near the corner would probably be a Titian. Or was it Tintorretto? He regretted for a moment the lost opportunities of his college days, when he had passed up Art History in favor of Operational Circuit Analysis.
The girl opened a filing cabinet, the front of which was set flush with the wall, and, selecting a folder from it, disappeared through another door.
Don sprang to examine the picture near the corner. It was hung at eye level—that is, at the eye level of the average person. Don had to bend over a bit to see it properly. He searched for a signature. Apparently there was none. But did artists sign their pictures back in those days? He wished he knew more about such things.
Each of the paintings was individually lighted by a fluorescent tube held on brackets directly above it. As Don straightened up from his scrutiny of the picture, he inadvertently hit his head against the light. The tube, dislodged from its brackets, fell to the rug with a muffled thud.
Now I've done it! thought Don with dismay. But at least the tube hadn't shattered.
In fact—it was still glowing brightly! His eyes registered the fact, even while his mind refused to believe it. He raised his eyes to the brackets. They were simple pieces of solid hardware designed to support the tube.
There were no wires!
Don picked up the slender, glowing cylinder and held it between trembling fingers. Although it was delivering as much light as a two or three hundred watt bulb, it was cool to the touch. He examined it minutely. There was no possibility of concealed batteries.
The thumping of his heart was caused not by the fact that he had never seen a similar tube before, but because he had. He had never held one in his hands, though. The ones which his company had produced as experimental models had been unsuccessful at converting all of the radioactivity into light, and had, of necessity, been heavily shielded.
Right now, two of his colleagues back in the laboratory would still be searching for the right combination of fluorescent material and radioactive salts with which to make the simple, efficient, self-contained lighting unit that he was holding in his hand at this moment!
But this is impossible! he thought. We're the only company that's working on this, and it's secret. There can't be any in actual production!
And even if one had actually been successfully produced, how would it have fallen into the possession of POSAT, an Ancient Secret Society, The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth?
The conviction grew in Don's mind that here was something much deeper and more sinister than he would be able to cope with. He should have asked for help, should have stated his suspicions to the police or the F.B.I. Even now—
With sudden decision, he thrust the lighting tube into his pocket and stepped swiftly to the outer door. He grasped the knob and shook it impatiently when it stuck and refused to turn. He yanked at it. His impatience changed to panic. It was locked!
A soft sound behind him made him whirl about. The secretary had entered again through the inner door. She glanced at the vacant light bracket, then significantly at his bulging pocket. Her gaze was still as bland and innocent as when he had entered, but to Don she no longer seemed ordinary. Her very calmness in the face of his odd actions was distressingly ominous.
"Our Grand Chairman will see you now," she said in a quiet voice.
Don realized that he was half crouched in the position of an animal expecting attack. He straightened up with what dignity he could manage to find.
She opened the inner door again and Don followed her into what he supposed to be the office of the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
Instead he found himself on a balcony along the side of a vast room, which must have been the interior of the warehouse that he had noted outside. The girl motioned him toward the far end of the balcony, where a frosted glass door marked the office of the Grand Chairman.
But Don could not will his legs to move. His heart beat at the sight of the room below him. It was a laboratory, but a laboratory the like of which he had never seen before. Most of the equipment was unfamiliar to him. Whatever he did recognize was of a different design than he had ever used, and there was something about it that convinced him that this was more advanced. The men who bent busily over their instruments did not raise their eyes to the figures on the balcony.
"Good Lord!" Don gasped. "That's an atomic reactor down there!" There could be no doubt about it, even though he could see it only obscurely through the bluish-green plastic shielding it.
His thoughts were so clamorous that he hardly realized that he had spoken aloud, or that the door at the end of the balcony had opened.
He was only dimly aware of the approaching footsteps as he speculated wildly on the nature of the shielding material. What could be so dense that only an inch would provide adequate shielding and yet remain semitransparent?
His scientist's mind applauded the genius who had developed it, even as the alarming conviction grew that he wouldn't—couldn't—be allowed to leave here any more. Surely no man would be allowed to leave this place alive to tell the fantastic story to the world!
"Hello, Don," said a quiet voice beside him. "It's good to see you again."
"Dr. Crandon!" he heard his own voice reply. " You're the Grand Chairman of POSAT?"
He felt betrayed and sick at heart. The very voice with which Crandon had spoken conjured up visions of quiet lecture halls and his own youthful excitement at the masterful and orderly disclosure of scientific facts. To find him here in this mad and treacherous place—didn't anything make sense any longer?
"I think we have rather abused you, Don," Dr. Crandon continued. His voice sounded so gentle that Don found it hard to think there was any evil in it. "I can see that you are suspicious of us, and—yes—afraid."
Don stared at the scene below him. After his initial glance to confirm his identification of Crandon, Don could not bear to look at him.
Crandon's voice suddenly hardened, became abrupt. "You're partly right about us, of course. I hate to think how many laws this organization has broken. Don't condemn us yet, though. You'll be a member yourself before the day is over."
Don was shocked by such confidence in his corruptibility.
"What do you use?" he asked bitterly. "Drugs? Hypnosis?"
Crandon sighed. "I forgot how little you know, Don. I have a long story to tell you. You'll find it hard to believe at first. But try to trust me. Try to believe me, as you once did. When I say that much of what POSAT does is illegal, I do not mean immoral. We're probably the most moral organization in the world. Get over the idea that you have stumbled into a den of thieves."
Crandon paused as though searching for words with which to continue.
"Did you notice the paintings in the waiting room as you entered?"
Don nodded, too bewildered to speak.
"They were donated by the founder of our Organization. They were part of his personal collection—which, incidentally, he bought from the artists themselves. He also designed the atomic reactor we use for power here in the laboratory."
"Then the pictures are modern," said Don, aware that his mouth was hanging open foolishly. "I thought one was a Titian—"
"It is," said Crandon. "We have several original Titians, although I really don't know too much about them."
"But how could a man alive today buy paintings from an artist of the Renaissance?"
"He is not alive today. POSAT is actually what our advertisements claim—an ancient secret society. Our founder has been dead for over four centuries."
"But you said that he designed your atomic reactor."
"Yes. This particular one has been in use for only twenty years, however."
Don's confusion was complete. Crandon looked at him kindly. "Let's start at the beginning," he said, and Don was back again in the classroom with the deep voice of Professor Crandon unfolding the pages of knowledge in clear and logical manner. "Four hundred years ago, in the time of the Italian Renaissance, a man lived who was a super-genius. His was the kind of incredible mentality that appears not in every generation, or even every century, but once in thousands of years.
"Probably the man who invented what we call the phonetic alphabet was one like him. That man lived seven thousand years ago in Mesopotamia, and his discovery was so original, so far from the natural course of man's thinking, that not once in the intervening seven thousand years has that device been rediscovered. It still exists only in the civilizations to which it has been passed on directly.
"The super-genius who was our founder was not a semanticist. He was a physical scientist and mathematician. Starting with the meager heritage that existed in these fields in his time, he began tackling physical puzzles one by one. Sitting in his study, using as his principal tool his own great mind, he invented calculus, developed the quantum theory of light, moved on to electromagnetic radiation and what we call Maxwell's equations—although, of course, he antedated Maxwell by centuries—developed the special and general theories of relativity, the tool of wave mechanics, and finally, toward the end of his life, he mathematically derived the packing fraction that describes the binding energy of nuclei—"
"But it can't be done," Don objected. "It's an observed phenomenon. It hasn't been derived." Every conservative instinct that he possessed cried out against this impossible fantasy. And yet—there sat the reactor, sheathed in its strange shield. Crandon watched the direction of Don's glance.
"Yes, the reactor," said Crandon. "He built one like it. It confirmed his theories. His calculations showed him something else too. He saw the destructive potentialities of an atomic explosion. He himself could not have built an atomic bomb; he didn't have the facilities. But his knowledge would have enabled other men to do so. He looked about him. He saw a political setup of warring principalities, rival states, intrigue, and squabbles over political power. Giving the men of his time atomic energy would have been like handing a baby a firecracker with a lighted fuse.
"What should he have done? Let his secrets die with him? He didn't think so. No one else in his age could have derived the knowledge that he did. But it was an age of brilliant men. Leonardo. Michelangelo. There were men capable of learning his science, even as men can learn it today. He gathered some of them together and founded this society. It served two purposes. It perpetuated his discoveries and at the same time it maintained the greatest secrecy about them. He urged that the secrets be kept until the time when men could use them safely. The other purpose was to make that time come about as soon as possible."
Crandon looked at Don's unbelieving face. "How can I make you see that it is the truth? Think of the eons that man or manlike creatures have walked the Earth. Think what a small fraction of that time is four hundred years. Is it so strange that atomic energy was discovered a little early, by this displacement in time that is so tiny after all?"
"But by one man," Don argued.
Crandon shrugged. "Compared with him, Don, you and I are stupid men. So are the scientists who slowly plodded down the same road he had come, stumbling first on one truth and then the succeeding one. We know that inventions and discoveries do not occur at random. Each is based on the one that preceded it. We are all aware of the phenomenon of simultaneous invention. The path to truth is a straight one. It is only our own stupidity that makes it seem slow and tortuous.
"He merely followed the straight path," Crandon finished simply.
Don's incredulity thawed a little. It was not entirely beyond the realm of possibility.
But if it were true! A vast panorama of possible achievements spread before him.
"Four hundred years!" he murmured with awe. "You've had four hundred years head-start on the rest of the world! What wonders you must have uncovered in that time!"
"Our technical achievements may disappoint you," warned Crandon.
"Oh, they're way beyond anything that you are familiar with. You've undoubtedly noticed the shielding material on the reactor. That's a fairly recent development of our metallurgical department. There are other things in the laboratory that I can't even explain to you until you have caught up on the technical basis for understanding them.
"Our emphasis has not been on physical sciences, however, except as they contribute to our central project. We want to change civilization so that it can use physical science without disaster."
For a moment Don had been fired with enthusiasm. But at these words his heart sank.
"Then you've failed," he said bitterly. "In spite of centuries of advance warning, you've failed to change the rest of us enough to prevent us from trying to blow ourselves off the Earth. Here we are, still snarling and snapping at our neighbors' throats—and we've caught up with you. We have the atomic bomb. What's POSAT been doing all that time? Or have you found that human nature really can't be changed?"
"Come with me," said Crandon.
He led the way along the narrow balcony to another door, then down a steep flight of stairs. He opened a door at the bottom, and Don saw what must have been the world's largest computing machine.
"This is our answer," said Crandon. "Oh, rather, it's the tool by which we find our answer. For two centuries we have been working on the newest of the sciences—that of human motivation. Soon we will be ready to put some of our new knowledge to work. But you are right in one respect, we are working now against time. We must hurry if we are to save our civilization. That's why you are here. We have work for you to do. Will you join us, Don?"
"But why the hocus-pocus?" asked Don. "Why do you hide behind such a weird front as POSAT? Why do you advertise in magazines and invite just anyone to join? Why didn't you approach me directly, if you have work for me to do? And if you really have the answers to our problems, why haven't you gathered together all the scientists in the world to work on this project—before it's too late?"
Crandon took a sighing breath. "How I wish that we could do just that! But you forget that one of the prime purposes of our organization is to maintain the secrecy of our discoveries until they can be safely disclosed. We must be absolutely certain that anyone who enters this building will have joined POSAT before he leaves. What if we approached the wrong scientist? Centuries of accomplishment might be wasted if they attempted either to reveal it or to exploit it!
"Do you recall the questionnaires that you answered before you were invited here? We fed the answers to this machine and, as a result, we know more about how you will react in any given situation than you do yourself. Even if you should fail to join us, our secrets would be safe with you. Of course, we miss a few of the scientists who might be perfect material for our organization. You'd be surprised, though, at how clever our advertisements are at attracting exactly the men we want. With the help of our new science, we have baited our ads well, and we know how to maintain interest. Curiosity is, to the men we want, a powerful motivator."
"But what about the others?" asked Don. "There must be hundreds of applicants who would be of no use to you at all."
"Oh, yes," replied Crandon. "There are the mild religious fanatics. We enroll them as members and keep them interested by sending pamphlets in line with their interests. We even let them contribute to our upkeep, if they seem to want to. They never get beyond the reception room if they come to call on us. But they are additional people through whom we can act when the time finally comes.
"There are also the desperate people who try POSAT as a last resort—lost ones who can't find their direction in life. For them we put into practice some of our newly won knowledge. We rehabilitate them—anonymously, of course. Even find jobs or patch up homes. It's good practice for us.
"I think I've answered most of your questions, Don. But you haven't answered mine. Will you join us?"
Don looked solemnly at the orderly array of the computer before him. He had one more question.
"Will it really work? Can it actually tell you how to motivate the stubborn, quarrelsome, opinionated people one finds on this Earth?"
Crandon smiled. "You're here, aren't you?"
Don nodded, his tense features relaxing.
"Enroll me as a member," he said.
|
Who is Nan, and what happens to her?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Desire No More by Algis Budrys.
Relevant chunks:
He had but one ambition, one desire: to pilot the first manned rocket to the moon. And he was prepared as no man had ever prepared himself before....
DESIRE NO MORE
by Algis Budrys
( illustrated by Milton Luros )
" Desire no more than to thy lot may fall.... "
—Chaucer
THE SMALL young man looked at his father, and shook his head.
"But you've got to learn a trade," his father said, exasperated. "I can't afford to send you to college; you know that."
"I've got a trade," he answered.
His father smiled thinly. "What?" he asked patronizingly.
"I'm a rocket pilot," the boy said, his thin jaw stretching the skin of his cheeks.
His father laughed in the way the boy had learned to anticipate and hate. "Yeah," he said. He leaned back in his chair and laughed so hard that the Sunday paper slipped off his wide lap and fell to the floor with an unnoticed stiff rustle.
"A rocket pilot!" His father's derision hooted through the quiet parlor. "A ro— oh, no! —a rocket pilot !"
The boy stared silently at the convulsed figure in the chair. His lips fell into a set white bar, and the corners of his jaws bulged with the tension in their muscles. Suddenly, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the parlor, through the hall, out the front door, to the porch. He stopped there, hesitating a little.
" Marty! " His father's shout followed him out of the parlor. It seemed to act like a hand between the shoulder-blades, because the boy almost ran as he got down the porch stairs.
"What is it, Howard?" Marty's mother asked in a worried voice as she came in from the kitchen, her damp hands rubbing themselves dry against the sides of her housedress.
"Crazy kid," Howard Isherwood muttered. He stared at the figure of his son as the boy reached the end of the walk and turned off into the street. " Come back here! " he shouted. "A rocket pilot," he cursed under his breath. "What's the kid been reading? Claiming he's a rocket pilot!"
Margaret Isherwood's brow furrowed into a faint, bewildered frown.
"But—isn't he a little young? I know they're teaching some very odd things in high schools these days, but it seems to me...."
"Oh, for Pete's sake, Marge, there aren't even any rockets yet! Come back here, you idiot! " Howard Isherwood was standing on his porch, his clenched fists trembling at the ends of his stiffly-held arms.
"Are you sure, Howard?" his wife asked faintly.
"Yes, I'm sure !"
"But, where's he going?"
" Stop that! Get off that bus! YOU hear me? Marty?"
" Howard! Stop acting like a child and talk to me! Where is that boy going?"
Howard Isherwood, stocky, red-faced, forty-seven, and defeated, turned away from the retreating bus and looked at his wife. "I don't know," he told her bitterly, between rushes of air into his jerkily heaving lungs.
"Maybe, the moon," he told her sarcastically.
Martin Isherwood, rocket pilot, weight 102, height 4', 11", had come of age at seventeen.
THE SMALL man looked at his faculty advisor. "No," he said. "I am not interested in working for a degree."
"But—" The faculty advisor unconsciously tapped the point of a yellow pencil against the fresh green of his desk blotter, leaving a rough arc of black flecks. "Look, Ish, you've got to either deliver or get off the basket. This program is just like the others you've followed for nine semesters; nothing but math and engineering. You've taken just about every undergrad course there is in those fields. How long are you going to keep this up?"
"I'm signed up for Astronomy 101," Isherwood pointed out.
The faculty advisor snorted. "A snap course. A breather, after you've studied the same stuff in Celestial Navigation. What's the matter, Ish? Scared of liberal arts?"
Isherwood shook his head. "Uh-unh. Not interested. No time. And that Astronomy course isn't a breather. Different slant from Cee Nav—they won't be talking about stars as check points, but as things in themselves." Something seemed to flicker across his face as he said it.
The advisor missed it; he was too engrossed in his argument. "Still a snap. What's the difference, how you look at a star?"
Isherwood almost winced. "Call it a hobby," he said. He looked down at his watch. "Come on, Dave. You're not going to convince me. You haven't convinced me any of the other times, either, so you might as well give up, don't you think? I've got a half hour before I go on the job. Let's go get some beer."
The advisor, not much older than Isherwood, shrugged, defeated. "Crazy," he muttered. But it was a hot day, and he was as thirsty as the next man.
The bar was air conditioned. The advisor shivered, half grinned, and softly quoted:
"Though I go bare, take ye no care, I am nothing a-cold; I stuff my skin so full within Of jolly good ale and old."
"Huh?" Ish was wearing the look with which he always reacted to the unfamiliar.
The advisor lifted two fingers to the bartender and shrugged. "It's a poem; about four hundred years old, as a matter of fact."
"Oh."
"Don't you give a damn?" the advisor asked, with some peevishness.
Ish laughed shortly, without embarrassment. "Sorry, Dave, but no. It's not my racket."
The advisor cramped his hand a little too tightly around his glass.
"Strictly a specialist, huh?"
Ish nodded. "Call it that."
"But what , for Pete's sake? What is this crazy specialty that blinds you to all the fine things that man has done?"
Ish took a swallow of his beer. "Well, now, if I was a poet, I'd say it was the finest thing that man has ever done."
The advisor's lips twisted in derision. "That's pretty fanatical, isn't it?"
"Uh-huh." Ish waved to the bartender for refills.
THE NAVION took a boiling thermal under its right wing and bucked upward suddenly, tilting at the same time, so that the pretty brunette girl in the other half of the side-by-side was thrown against him. Ish laughed, a sound that came out of his throat as turbulently as that sudden gust of heated air had shot up out of the Everglades, and corrected with a tilt of the wheel.
"Relax, Nan," he said, his words colored by the lingering laughter.
"It's only air; nasty old air."
The girl patted her short hair back into place. "I wish you wouldn't fly this low," she said, half-frightened.
" Low? Call this low?" Ish teased. "Here. Let's drop it a little, and you'll really get an idea of how fast we're going." He nudged the wheel forward, and the Navion dipped its nose in a shallow dive, flattening out thirty feet above the mangrove. The swamp howled with the chug of the dancing pistons and the claw of the propeller at the protesting air, and, from the cockpit, the Everglades resolved into a dirty-green blur that rocketed backward into the slipstream.
"Marty!"
Ish chuckled again. He couldn't have held the ship down much longer, anyway. He tugged back on the wheel suddenly, targeting a cumulous bank with his spinner. His lips peeled back from his teeth, and his jaw set. The Navion went up at the clouds, her engine turning over as fast as it could, her wings cushioned on the rising thrust of another thermal.
And, suddenly, it was as if there were no girl beside him, to be teased, and no air to rock the wings—there were no wings. His face lost all expression. Faint beads of sweat broke out above his eyes and under his nose. "Up," he grunted through his clenched teeth. His fists locked on the wheel. "Up!"
The Navion broke through the cloud, kept going. "Up." If he listened closely, in just the right way, he could almost hear ...
"Marty!"
... the rumble of a louder, prouder engine than the Earth had ever known. He sighed, the breath whispering through his parting teeth, and the aircraft leveled off as he pushed at the wheel with suddenly lax hands. Still half-lost, he turned and looked at the white-faced girl. "Scare you—?" he asked gently.
She nodded. Her fingertips were trembling on his forearm.
"Me too," he said. "Lost my head. Sorry."
"LOOK," HE told the girl, "You got any idea of what it costs to maintain a racing-plane? Everything I own is tied up in the Foo, my ground crew, my trailer, and that scrummy old Ryan that should have been salvaged ten years ago. I can't get married. Suppose I crack the Foo next week? You're dead broke, a widow, and with a funeral to pay for. The only smart thing to do is wait a while."
Nan's eyes clouded, and her lips trembled. "That's what I've been trying to say. Why do you have to win the Vandenberg Cup next week? Why can't you sell the Foo and go into some kind of business? You're a trained pilot."
He had been standing in front of her with his body unconsciously tense from the strain of trying to make her understand. Now he relaxed—more—he slumped—and something began to die in his face, and the first faint lines crept in to show that after it had died, it would not return to life, but would fossilize, leaving his features in the almost unreadable mask that the newspapers would come to know.
"I'm a good bit more than a trained pilot," he said quietly. "The Foo Is a means to an end. After I win the Vandenberg Cup, I can walk into any plant in the States—Douglas, North American, Boeing— any of them—and pick up the Chief Test Pilot's job for the asking. A few of them have as good as said so. After that—" His voice had regained some of its former animation from this new source. Now he broke off, and shrugged. "I've told you all this before."
The girl reached up, as if the physical touch could bring him back to her, and put her fingers around his wrist. "Darling!" she said. "If it's that rocket pilot business again...."
Somehow, his wrist was out of her encircling fingers. "It's always 'that rocket pilot business,'" he said, mimicking her voice. "Damn it, I'm the only trained rocket pilot in the world! I weigh a hundred and fifteen pounds, I'm five feet tall, and I know more navigation and math than anybody the Air Force or Navy have! I can use words like brennschluss and mass-ratio without running over to a copy of Colliers , and I—" He stopped himself, half-smiled, and shrugged again.
"I guess I was kidding myself. After the Cup, there'll be the test job, and after that, there'll be the rockets. You would have had to wait a long time."
All she could think of to say was, "But, Darling, there aren't any man-carrying rockets."
"That's not my fault," he said, and walked away from her.
A week later, he took his stripped-down F-110 across the last line with a scream like that of a hawk that brings its prey safely to its nest.
HE BROUGHT the Mark VII out of her orbit after two days of running rings around the spinning Earth, and the world loved him. He climbed out of the crackling, pinging ship, bearded and dirty, with oil on his face and in his hair, with food stains all over his whipcord, red-eyed, and huskily quiet as he said his few words into the network microphones. And he was not satisfied. There was no peace in his eyes, and his hands moved even more sharply in their expressive gestures as he gave an impromptu report to the technicians who were walking back to the personnel bunker with him.
Nan could see that. Four years ago, he had been different. Four years ago, if she had only known the right words, he wouldn't be so intent now on throwing himself away to the sky.
She was a woman scorned. She had to lie to herself. She broke out of the press section and ran over to him. "Marty!" She brushed past a technician.
He looked at her with faint surprise on his face. "Well, Nan!" he mumbled. But he did not put his hand over her own where it touched his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Marty," she said in a rush. "I didn't understand. I couldn't see how much it all meant." Her face was flushed, and she spoke as rapidly as she could, not noticing that Ish had already gestured away the guards she was afraid would interrupt her.
"But it's all right, now. You got your rockets. You've done it. You trained yourself for it, and now it's over. You've flown your rocket!"
He looked up at her face and shook his head in quiet pity. One of the shocked technicians was trying to pull her away, and Ish made no move to stop him.
Suddenly, he was tired, there was something in him that was trying to break out against his will, and his reaction was that of a child whose candy is being taken away from him after only one bite.
"Rocket!" he shouted into her terrified face. " Rocket! Call that pile of tin a rocket?" He pointed at the weary Mark VII with a trembling arm.
"Who cares about the bloody machines ! If I thought roller-skating would get me there, I would have gone to work in a rink when I was seventeen! It's getting there that counts! Who gives a good goddam how it's done, or what with!"
And he stood there, shaking like a leaf, outraged, while the guards came and got her.
"SIT DOWN, Ish," the Flight Surgeon said.
They always begin that way , Isherwood thought. The standard medical opening. Sit down. What for? Did somebody really believe that anything he might hear would make him faint? He smiled with as much expression as he ever did, and chose a comfortable chair, rolling the white cylinder of a cigarette between his fingers. He glanced at his watch. Fourteen hours, thirty-six minutes, and four days to go.
"How's it?" the FS asked.
Ish grinned and shrugged. "All right." But he didn't usually grin. The realization disquieted him a little.
"Think you'll make it?"
Deliberately, rather than automatically, he fell back into his usual response-pattern. "Don't know. That's what I'm being paid to find out."
"Uh- huh ." The FS tapped the eraser of his pencil against his teeth.
"Look—you want to talk to a man for a while?"
"What man?" It didn't really matter. He had a feeling that anything he said or did now would have a bearing, somehow, on the trip. If they wanted him to do something for them, he was bloody well going to do it.
"Fellow named MacKenzie. Big gun in the head-thumping racket." The Flight Surgeon was trying to be as casual as he could. "Air Force insisted on it, as a matter of fact," he said. "Can't really blame them. After all, it's their beast."
"Don't want any hole-heads denting it up on them, huh?" Ish lit the cigarette and flipped his lighter shut with a snap of the lid. "Sure. Bring him on."
The FS smiled. "Good. He's—uh—he's in the next room. Okay to ask him in right now?"
"Sure." Something flickered in Isherwood's eyes. Amusement at the Flight Surgeon's discomfort was part of it. Worry was some of the rest.
MacKENZIE didn't seem to be taking any notes, or paying any special attention to the answers Ish was giving to his casual questions. But the questions fell into a pattern that was far from casual, and Ish could see the small button-mike of a portable tape-recorder nestling under the man's lapel.
"Been working your own way for the last seventeen years, haven't you?" MacKenzie seemed to mumble in a perfectly clear voice.
Ish nodded.
"How's that?"
The corners of Isherwood's mouth twitched, and he said "Yes" for the recorder's benefit.
"Odd jobs, first of all?"
"Something like that. Anything I could get, the first few months. After I was halfway set up, I stuck to garages and repair shops."
"Out at the airports around Miami, mostly, wasn't it?"
"Ahuh."
"Took some of your pay in flying lessons."
"Right."
MacKenzie's face passed no judgements—he simply hunched in his chair, seemingly dwarfed by the shoulders of his perfectly tailored suit, his stubby fingers twiddling a Phi Beta Kappa key. He was a spare man—only a step or two away from emaciation. Occasionally, he pushed a tired strand of washed-out hair away from his forehead.
Ish answered him truthfully, without more than ordinary reservations. This was the man who could ground him He was dangerous—red-letter dangerous—because of it.
"No family."
Ish shrugged. "Not that I know of. Cut out at seventeen. My father was making good money. He had a pension plan, insurance policies. No need to worry about them."
Ish knew the normal reaction a statement like that should have brought. MacKenzie's face did not go into a blank of repression—but it still passed no judgements.
"How's things between you and the opposite sex?"
"About normal."
"No wife—no steady girl."
"Not a very good idea, in my racket."
MacKenzie grunted. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright in his chair, and swung toward Ish. His lean arm shot out, and his index finger was aimed between Isherwood's eyes. "You can't go!"
Ish was on his feet, his fists clenched, the blood throbbing in his temple veins. "What!" he roared.
MacKenzie seemed to collapse in his chair. The brief commanding burst was over, and his face was apologetic, "Sorry," he said. He seemed genuinely abashed. "Shotgun therapy. Works best, sometimes. You can go, all right; I just wanted to get a fast check on your reactions and drives."
Ish could feel the anger that still ran through him—anger, and more fear than he wanted to admit. "I'm due at a briefing," he said tautly.
"You through with me?"
MacKenzie nodded, still embarrassed. "Sorry."
Ish ignored the man's obvious feelings. He stopped at the door to send a parting stroke at the thing that had frightened him. "Big gun in the psychiatry racket, huh? Well, your professional lingo's slipping, Doc. They did put some learning in my head at college, you know. Therapy, hell! Testing maybe, but you sure didn't do anything to help me!"
"I don't know," MacKenzie said softly. "I wish I did."
Ish slammed the door behind him. He stood in the corridor, jamming a fresh cigarette in his mouth. He threw a glance at his watch. Twelve hours, twenty-two minutes, and four days to go.
Damn! He was late for the briefing. Odd—that fool psychiatrist hadn't seemed to take up that much of his time.
He shrugged. What difference did it make? As he strode down the hall, he lost his momentary puzzlement under the flood of realization that nothing could stop him now, that the last hurdle was beaten. He was going. He was going, and if there were faint echoes of "Marty!" ringing in the dark background of his mind, they only served to push him faster, as they always had. Nothing but death could stop him now.
ISH LOOKED up bitterly at the Receptionist. "No," he said.
"But everybody fills out an application," she protested.
"No. I've got a job," he said as he had been saying for the last half hour.
The Receptionist sighed. "If you'll only read the literature I've given you, you'll understand that all your previous commitments have been cancelled."
"Look, Honey, I've seen company poop sheets before. Now, let's cut this nonsense. I've got to get back."
"But nobody goes back."
"Goddam it, I don't know what kind of place this is, but—" He stopped at the Receptionist's wince, and looked around, his mouth open. The reception desk was solid enough. There were IN and OUT and HOLD baskets on the desk, and the Receptionist seemed to see nothing extraordinary about it. But the room—a big room, he realized—seemed to fade out at the edges, rather than stop at walls. The lighting, too....
"Let's see your back!" he rapped out, his voice high.
She sighed in exasperation. "If you'd read the literature ..." She swiveled her chair slowly.
"No wings," he said.
"Of course not!" she snapped. She brushed her hair away from her forehead without his telling her to. "No horns, either."
"Streamlined, huh?" he said bitterly.
"It's a little different for everybody," she said with unexpected gentleness. "It would have to be, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess so," he admitted slowly. Then he lost his momentary awe, and his posture grew tense again. He glanced down at his wrist. Six hours, forty-seven minutes, and no days to go.
"Who do I see?"
She stared at him, bewildered at the sudden change in his voice. "See?"
"About getting out of here! Come on, come on," he barked, snapping his fingers impatiently. "I haven't got much time."
She smiled sweetly. "Oh, but you do."
"Can it! Who's your Section boss? Get him down here. On the double. Come on!" His face was streaming with perspiration but his voice was firm with the purpose that drove him.
Her lips closed into an angry line, and she jabbed a finger at a desk button. "I'll call the Personnel Manager."
"Thanks," he said sarcastically, and waited impatiently. Odd, the way the Receptionist looked a little like Nan.
THE PERSONNEL Manager wore a perfectly-tailored suit. He strode across the lobby floor toward Ish, his hand outstretched.
"Martin Isherwood!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "I'm very glad to meet you!"
"I'll bet," Ish said dryly, giving the Personnel Manager's hand a short shake. "I've got other ideas. I want out."
"That's all he's been saying for the past forty-five minutes, Sir," the Receptionist said from behind her desk.
The Personnel Manager frowned. "Um. Yes. Well, that's not unprecedented."
"But hardly usual," he added.
Ish found himself liking the man. He had a job to do, and after the preliminary formality of the greeting had been passed, he was ready to buckle down to it. Oh, he—shucks?—the Receptionist wasn't such a bad girl, either. He smiled at her. "Sorry I lost my head," he said.
She smiled back. "It happens."
He took time to give her one more smile and a half-wink, and swung back to the Personnel Manager.
"Now. Let's get this thing straightened out. I've got—" He stopped to look at his watch. "Six hours and a few minutes. They're fueling the beast right now."
"Do you know how much red tape you'd have to cut?"
Ish shook his head. "I don't want to sound nasty, but that's your problem."
The Personnel Manager hesitated. "Look—you feel you've got a job unfinished. Or, anyway, that's the way you'd put it. But, let's face it—that's not really what's galling you. It's not really the job, is it? It's just that you think you've been cheated out of what you devoted your life to."
Ish could feel his jaw muscles bunching. "Don't put words in my mouth!" he snapped. "Just get me back, and we'll split hairs about it when I get around this way again." Suddenly, he found himself pleading. "All I need is a week," he said. "It'll be a rough week—no picnic, no pleasures of the flesh. No smoking, no liquor. I certainly won't be breaking any laws. One week. Get there, putter around for two days, and back again. Then, you can do anything you want to—as long as it doesn't look like the trip's responsible, of course."
The Personnel Manager hesitated. "Suppose—" he began, but Ish interrupted him.
"Look, they need it, down there. They've got to have a target, someplace to go. We're built for it. People have to have—but what am I telling you for. If you don't know, who does?"
The Personnel Manager smiled. "I was about to say something."
Ish stopped, abashed. "Sorry."
He waved the apology away with a short movement of his hand. "You've got to understand that what you've been saying isn't a valid claim. If it were, human history would be very different, wouldn't it?"
"Suppose I showed you something, first? Then, you could decide whether you want to stay, after all."
"How long's it going to take?" Ish flushed under the memory of having actually begged for something.
"Not long," the Personnel Manager said. He half-turned and pointed up at the Earth, hanging just beyond the wall of the crater in which they were suddenly standing.
"Earth," the Personnel Manager said.
Somehow, Ish was not astonished. He looked up at the Earth, touched by cloud and sunlight, marked with ocean and continent, crowned with ice. The unblinking stars filled the night.
He looked around him. The Moon was silent—quiet, patient, waiting. Somewhere, a metal glint against the planet above, if it were only large enough to be seen, was the Station, and the ship for which the Moon had waited.
Ish walked a short distance. He was leaving no tracks in the pumice the ages had sown. But it was the way he had thought of it, nevertheless. It was the way the image had slowly built up in his mind, through the years, through the training, through the work. It was what he had aimed the Navion at, that day over the Everglades.
"It's not the same," he said.
The Personnel Manager sighed.
"Don't you see," Ish said, "It can't be the same. I didn't push the beast up here. There wasn't any feel to it. There wasn't any sound of rockets."
The Personnel Manager sighed again. "There wouldn't be, you know. Taking off from the Station, landing here—vacuum."
Ish shook his head. "There'd still be a sound. Maybe not for anybody else to hear—and, maybe, maybe there would be. There'd be people, back on Earth, who'd hear it."
"All right," the Personnel Manager said. His face was grave, but his eyes were shining a little.
"ISH! HEY, Ish, wake up, will you!" There was a hand on his shoulder.
"Will you get a load of this guy!" the voice said to someone else. "An hour to go, and he's sleeping like the dead."
Ish willed his eyes to open. He felt his heart begin to move again, felt the blood sluggishly beginning to surge into his veins. His hands and feet were very cold.
"Come on, Ish," the Crew Chief said.
"All right," he mumbled. "Okay. I'm up." He sat on the edge of his bunk looking down at his hands. They were blue under the fingernails. He sighed, feeling the air moving down into his lungs.
Stiffly, he got to his feet and began to climb into his G suit.
The Moon opened its face to him. From where he lay, strapped into the control seat in the forward bubble, he looked at it emotionlessly, and began to brake for a landing.
He looked for footprints in the crater, though he knew he hadn't left any. Earth was a familiar sight over his right shoulder.
He brought the twin-bubble beast back to the station. They threw spotlights on it, for the TV pickups, and thrust microphones at him. He could see broad grins behind the faceplates of the suits the docking crew wore, and they were pounding his back. The interior of the Station was a babbling of voices, a tumult of congratulations. He looked at it all, dead-faced, his eyes empty.
"It was easy," he said over a world-wide network, and pushed the press representatives out of his way.
MacKENZIE was waiting for him in the crew section. Ish flicked his stolid eyes at him, shrugged, and stripped out of his clothes. He pulled a coverall out of a locker and climbed into it, then went over to his bunk and lay down on his side, facing the bulkhead.
"Ish."
It was MacKenzie, bending over him.
Ish grunted.
"It wasn't any good was it? You'd done it all before; you'd been there."
He was past emotions. "Yeah?"
"We couldn't take the chance." MacKenzie was trying desperately to explain. "You were the best there was—but you'd done something to yourself by becoming the best. You shut yourself off from your family. You had no close friends, no women. You had no other interests. You were a rocket pilot—nothing else. You've never read an adult book that wasn't a text; you've never listened to a symphony except by accident. You don't know Rembrandt from Norman Rockwell. Nothing. No ties, no props, nothing to sustain you if something went wrong. We couldn't take the chance, Ish! "
"So?"
"There was too much at stake. If we let you go, you might have forgotten to come back. You might have just kept going."
He remembered the time with the Navion , and nodded. "I might have."
"I hypnotized you," MacKenzie said. "You were never dead. I don't know what the details of your hallucination were, but the important part came through, all right. You thought you'd been to the Moon before. It took all the adventure out of the actual flight; it was just a workaday trip."
"I said it was easy," Ish said.
"There was no other way to do it! I had to cancel out the thrill that comes from challenging the unknown. You knew what death was like, and you knew what the Moon was like. Can you understand why I had to do it?"
"Yeah. Now get out before I kill you. "
He didn't live too long after that. He never entered a rocket again—he died on the Station, and was buried in space, while a grateful world mourned him. I wonder what it was like, in his mind, when he really died. But he spent the days he had, after the trip, just sitting at an observatory port, cursing the traitor stars with his dead and purposeless eyes.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected without note.
This etext was produced from Dynamic Science Fiction, January, 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
Question:
Who is Nan, and what happens to her?
Answer:
|
[
"Nan is a woman, who for a while is Martin Isherwood’s girlfriend. She owns a racing plane, which Ish uses to win a race and continue his plan to become a rocket pilot. When she and Ish go on a practice flight, Ish almost crashes them because for a second he wanted the plane all the way to the moon. For a while she wanted to get married to him, but he never reciprocated the feeling because he was too focused on flying to the moon, and ended up driving her away. The story insinuates that they broke up after Ish orbited the earth on a ship. ",
"Nan is Ish’s ex-lover and a pretty brunette girl. Initially, Ish takes her on his plane and often scares her because he is willing to do whatever it takes to become a rocket pilot. Nan finds it difficult to understand his obsession with winning the Vandenberg Cup, as he is already a trained pilot and can probably find even better employment somewhere else. However, Ish believes that it is his life and part of the reason why he cannot get married. She tries to explain that being a rocket pilot is unrealistic, but he only ignores her and is determined. Later, Nan comes to greet Ish four years later after he brings the Mark VII out of orbit. She congratulates him on flying the rocket and apologizes for not understanding earlier how much it all meant to him. One of the technicians tries to pull Nan away when Ish feels tired. He has an outburst at her about the rocket until the guards come. Later, Nan is not mentioned again as Ish explains that he has no woman anymore. However, it is noted that the receptionist he talks to resembles Nan. ",
"Nan was Martin’s girlfriend when he was a certified plane pilot. She’s on the board of the Navion when they go through the turbulence zone. Martin decides to tease her and dips the nose of the plane in a shallow dive, terrifying her even more. Seconds later, Martin seems to lose the connection with reality and starts bringing the plane higher in the air. Nan screams his name several times before he realizes what he’s doing and stops the rapid movement upwards. Martin then tells her he cannot marry her because he doesn’t have any stable source of income, and she might as well end up a poor widow. She asks him why he has to win the Vandenberg cup. Martin explains that the victory will allow him to get the Chief Test Pilot’s job, but becoming the first rocket pilot will take more than that. In reply, she can only remind him that there aren’t any man-carrying rockets yet. Next, we see Nan four years later when she breaks out of the press section and runs to Martin, who has just finished his orbital flight. She apologizes for not understanding how much this dream meant to him. She is glad he has flown his rocket - this phrase shocks Martin and makes him outraged. He angrily screams at her terrified face that he doesn’t care what takes him to the Moon, but he hasn’t been there yet. The guards pull her away from him. ",
"Nan is the girl who sits in the Navion, a racing plane owned by Ish. She has short dark hair and white skin. She is teased by Ish's flying skill when they ride on the Navion together. She seems to be his girlfriend. She tries to convince Ish that he may change his career, but her words rage Ish. She breaks up with him. After four years, she sees his success and realizes her immaturity beforehand, so she tries to redeem the relationship. She breaks through the press section, trying to apologize to Ish, but Ish is raged by her word. She is terrified. The security comes and gets her away."
] |
40968
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He had but one ambition, one desire: to pilot the first manned rocket to the moon. And he was prepared as no man had ever prepared himself before....
DESIRE NO MORE
by Algis Budrys
( illustrated by Milton Luros )
" Desire no more than to thy lot may fall.... "
—Chaucer
THE SMALL young man looked at his father, and shook his head.
"But you've got to learn a trade," his father said, exasperated. "I can't afford to send you to college; you know that."
"I've got a trade," he answered.
His father smiled thinly. "What?" he asked patronizingly.
"I'm a rocket pilot," the boy said, his thin jaw stretching the skin of his cheeks.
His father laughed in the way the boy had learned to anticipate and hate. "Yeah," he said. He leaned back in his chair and laughed so hard that the Sunday paper slipped off his wide lap and fell to the floor with an unnoticed stiff rustle.
"A rocket pilot!" His father's derision hooted through the quiet parlor. "A ro— oh, no! —a rocket pilot !"
The boy stared silently at the convulsed figure in the chair. His lips fell into a set white bar, and the corners of his jaws bulged with the tension in their muscles. Suddenly, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the parlor, through the hall, out the front door, to the porch. He stopped there, hesitating a little.
" Marty! " His father's shout followed him out of the parlor. It seemed to act like a hand between the shoulder-blades, because the boy almost ran as he got down the porch stairs.
"What is it, Howard?" Marty's mother asked in a worried voice as she came in from the kitchen, her damp hands rubbing themselves dry against the sides of her housedress.
"Crazy kid," Howard Isherwood muttered. He stared at the figure of his son as the boy reached the end of the walk and turned off into the street. " Come back here! " he shouted. "A rocket pilot," he cursed under his breath. "What's the kid been reading? Claiming he's a rocket pilot!"
Margaret Isherwood's brow furrowed into a faint, bewildered frown.
"But—isn't he a little young? I know they're teaching some very odd things in high schools these days, but it seems to me...."
"Oh, for Pete's sake, Marge, there aren't even any rockets yet! Come back here, you idiot! " Howard Isherwood was standing on his porch, his clenched fists trembling at the ends of his stiffly-held arms.
"Are you sure, Howard?" his wife asked faintly.
"Yes, I'm sure !"
"But, where's he going?"
" Stop that! Get off that bus! YOU hear me? Marty?"
" Howard! Stop acting like a child and talk to me! Where is that boy going?"
Howard Isherwood, stocky, red-faced, forty-seven, and defeated, turned away from the retreating bus and looked at his wife. "I don't know," he told her bitterly, between rushes of air into his jerkily heaving lungs.
"Maybe, the moon," he told her sarcastically.
Martin Isherwood, rocket pilot, weight 102, height 4', 11", had come of age at seventeen.
THE SMALL man looked at his faculty advisor. "No," he said. "I am not interested in working for a degree."
"But—" The faculty advisor unconsciously tapped the point of a yellow pencil against the fresh green of his desk blotter, leaving a rough arc of black flecks. "Look, Ish, you've got to either deliver or get off the basket. This program is just like the others you've followed for nine semesters; nothing but math and engineering. You've taken just about every undergrad course there is in those fields. How long are you going to keep this up?"
"I'm signed up for Astronomy 101," Isherwood pointed out.
The faculty advisor snorted. "A snap course. A breather, after you've studied the same stuff in Celestial Navigation. What's the matter, Ish? Scared of liberal arts?"
Isherwood shook his head. "Uh-unh. Not interested. No time. And that Astronomy course isn't a breather. Different slant from Cee Nav—they won't be talking about stars as check points, but as things in themselves." Something seemed to flicker across his face as he said it.
The advisor missed it; he was too engrossed in his argument. "Still a snap. What's the difference, how you look at a star?"
Isherwood almost winced. "Call it a hobby," he said. He looked down at his watch. "Come on, Dave. You're not going to convince me. You haven't convinced me any of the other times, either, so you might as well give up, don't you think? I've got a half hour before I go on the job. Let's go get some beer."
The advisor, not much older than Isherwood, shrugged, defeated. "Crazy," he muttered. But it was a hot day, and he was as thirsty as the next man.
The bar was air conditioned. The advisor shivered, half grinned, and softly quoted:
"Though I go bare, take ye no care, I am nothing a-cold; I stuff my skin so full within Of jolly good ale and old."
"Huh?" Ish was wearing the look with which he always reacted to the unfamiliar.
The advisor lifted two fingers to the bartender and shrugged. "It's a poem; about four hundred years old, as a matter of fact."
"Oh."
"Don't you give a damn?" the advisor asked, with some peevishness.
Ish laughed shortly, without embarrassment. "Sorry, Dave, but no. It's not my racket."
The advisor cramped his hand a little too tightly around his glass.
"Strictly a specialist, huh?"
Ish nodded. "Call it that."
"But what , for Pete's sake? What is this crazy specialty that blinds you to all the fine things that man has done?"
Ish took a swallow of his beer. "Well, now, if I was a poet, I'd say it was the finest thing that man has ever done."
The advisor's lips twisted in derision. "That's pretty fanatical, isn't it?"
"Uh-huh." Ish waved to the bartender for refills.
THE NAVION took a boiling thermal under its right wing and bucked upward suddenly, tilting at the same time, so that the pretty brunette girl in the other half of the side-by-side was thrown against him. Ish laughed, a sound that came out of his throat as turbulently as that sudden gust of heated air had shot up out of the Everglades, and corrected with a tilt of the wheel.
"Relax, Nan," he said, his words colored by the lingering laughter.
"It's only air; nasty old air."
The girl patted her short hair back into place. "I wish you wouldn't fly this low," she said, half-frightened.
" Low? Call this low?" Ish teased. "Here. Let's drop it a little, and you'll really get an idea of how fast we're going." He nudged the wheel forward, and the Navion dipped its nose in a shallow dive, flattening out thirty feet above the mangrove. The swamp howled with the chug of the dancing pistons and the claw of the propeller at the protesting air, and, from the cockpit, the Everglades resolved into a dirty-green blur that rocketed backward into the slipstream.
"Marty!"
Ish chuckled again. He couldn't have held the ship down much longer, anyway. He tugged back on the wheel suddenly, targeting a cumulous bank with his spinner. His lips peeled back from his teeth, and his jaw set. The Navion went up at the clouds, her engine turning over as fast as it could, her wings cushioned on the rising thrust of another thermal.
And, suddenly, it was as if there were no girl beside him, to be teased, and no air to rock the wings—there were no wings. His face lost all expression. Faint beads of sweat broke out above his eyes and under his nose. "Up," he grunted through his clenched teeth. His fists locked on the wheel. "Up!"
The Navion broke through the cloud, kept going. "Up." If he listened closely, in just the right way, he could almost hear ...
"Marty!"
... the rumble of a louder, prouder engine than the Earth had ever known. He sighed, the breath whispering through his parting teeth, and the aircraft leveled off as he pushed at the wheel with suddenly lax hands. Still half-lost, he turned and looked at the white-faced girl. "Scare you—?" he asked gently.
She nodded. Her fingertips were trembling on his forearm.
"Me too," he said. "Lost my head. Sorry."
"LOOK," HE told the girl, "You got any idea of what it costs to maintain a racing-plane? Everything I own is tied up in the Foo, my ground crew, my trailer, and that scrummy old Ryan that should have been salvaged ten years ago. I can't get married. Suppose I crack the Foo next week? You're dead broke, a widow, and with a funeral to pay for. The only smart thing to do is wait a while."
Nan's eyes clouded, and her lips trembled. "That's what I've been trying to say. Why do you have to win the Vandenberg Cup next week? Why can't you sell the Foo and go into some kind of business? You're a trained pilot."
He had been standing in front of her with his body unconsciously tense from the strain of trying to make her understand. Now he relaxed—more—he slumped—and something began to die in his face, and the first faint lines crept in to show that after it had died, it would not return to life, but would fossilize, leaving his features in the almost unreadable mask that the newspapers would come to know.
"I'm a good bit more than a trained pilot," he said quietly. "The Foo Is a means to an end. After I win the Vandenberg Cup, I can walk into any plant in the States—Douglas, North American, Boeing— any of them—and pick up the Chief Test Pilot's job for the asking. A few of them have as good as said so. After that—" His voice had regained some of its former animation from this new source. Now he broke off, and shrugged. "I've told you all this before."
The girl reached up, as if the physical touch could bring him back to her, and put her fingers around his wrist. "Darling!" she said. "If it's that rocket pilot business again...."
Somehow, his wrist was out of her encircling fingers. "It's always 'that rocket pilot business,'" he said, mimicking her voice. "Damn it, I'm the only trained rocket pilot in the world! I weigh a hundred and fifteen pounds, I'm five feet tall, and I know more navigation and math than anybody the Air Force or Navy have! I can use words like brennschluss and mass-ratio without running over to a copy of Colliers , and I—" He stopped himself, half-smiled, and shrugged again.
"I guess I was kidding myself. After the Cup, there'll be the test job, and after that, there'll be the rockets. You would have had to wait a long time."
All she could think of to say was, "But, Darling, there aren't any man-carrying rockets."
"That's not my fault," he said, and walked away from her.
A week later, he took his stripped-down F-110 across the last line with a scream like that of a hawk that brings its prey safely to its nest.
HE BROUGHT the Mark VII out of her orbit after two days of running rings around the spinning Earth, and the world loved him. He climbed out of the crackling, pinging ship, bearded and dirty, with oil on his face and in his hair, with food stains all over his whipcord, red-eyed, and huskily quiet as he said his few words into the network microphones. And he was not satisfied. There was no peace in his eyes, and his hands moved even more sharply in their expressive gestures as he gave an impromptu report to the technicians who were walking back to the personnel bunker with him.
Nan could see that. Four years ago, he had been different. Four years ago, if she had only known the right words, he wouldn't be so intent now on throwing himself away to the sky.
She was a woman scorned. She had to lie to herself. She broke out of the press section and ran over to him. "Marty!" She brushed past a technician.
He looked at her with faint surprise on his face. "Well, Nan!" he mumbled. But he did not put his hand over her own where it touched his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Marty," she said in a rush. "I didn't understand. I couldn't see how much it all meant." Her face was flushed, and she spoke as rapidly as she could, not noticing that Ish had already gestured away the guards she was afraid would interrupt her.
"But it's all right, now. You got your rockets. You've done it. You trained yourself for it, and now it's over. You've flown your rocket!"
He looked up at her face and shook his head in quiet pity. One of the shocked technicians was trying to pull her away, and Ish made no move to stop him.
Suddenly, he was tired, there was something in him that was trying to break out against his will, and his reaction was that of a child whose candy is being taken away from him after only one bite.
"Rocket!" he shouted into her terrified face. " Rocket! Call that pile of tin a rocket?" He pointed at the weary Mark VII with a trembling arm.
"Who cares about the bloody machines ! If I thought roller-skating would get me there, I would have gone to work in a rink when I was seventeen! It's getting there that counts! Who gives a good goddam how it's done, or what with!"
And he stood there, shaking like a leaf, outraged, while the guards came and got her.
"SIT DOWN, Ish," the Flight Surgeon said.
They always begin that way , Isherwood thought. The standard medical opening. Sit down. What for? Did somebody really believe that anything he might hear would make him faint? He smiled with as much expression as he ever did, and chose a comfortable chair, rolling the white cylinder of a cigarette between his fingers. He glanced at his watch. Fourteen hours, thirty-six minutes, and four days to go.
"How's it?" the FS asked.
Ish grinned and shrugged. "All right." But he didn't usually grin. The realization disquieted him a little.
"Think you'll make it?"
Deliberately, rather than automatically, he fell back into his usual response-pattern. "Don't know. That's what I'm being paid to find out."
"Uh- huh ." The FS tapped the eraser of his pencil against his teeth.
"Look—you want to talk to a man for a while?"
"What man?" It didn't really matter. He had a feeling that anything he said or did now would have a bearing, somehow, on the trip. If they wanted him to do something for them, he was bloody well going to do it.
"Fellow named MacKenzie. Big gun in the head-thumping racket." The Flight Surgeon was trying to be as casual as he could. "Air Force insisted on it, as a matter of fact," he said. "Can't really blame them. After all, it's their beast."
"Don't want any hole-heads denting it up on them, huh?" Ish lit the cigarette and flipped his lighter shut with a snap of the lid. "Sure. Bring him on."
The FS smiled. "Good. He's—uh—he's in the next room. Okay to ask him in right now?"
"Sure." Something flickered in Isherwood's eyes. Amusement at the Flight Surgeon's discomfort was part of it. Worry was some of the rest.
MacKENZIE didn't seem to be taking any notes, or paying any special attention to the answers Ish was giving to his casual questions. But the questions fell into a pattern that was far from casual, and Ish could see the small button-mike of a portable tape-recorder nestling under the man's lapel.
"Been working your own way for the last seventeen years, haven't you?" MacKenzie seemed to mumble in a perfectly clear voice.
Ish nodded.
"How's that?"
The corners of Isherwood's mouth twitched, and he said "Yes" for the recorder's benefit.
"Odd jobs, first of all?"
"Something like that. Anything I could get, the first few months. After I was halfway set up, I stuck to garages and repair shops."
"Out at the airports around Miami, mostly, wasn't it?"
"Ahuh."
"Took some of your pay in flying lessons."
"Right."
MacKenzie's face passed no judgements—he simply hunched in his chair, seemingly dwarfed by the shoulders of his perfectly tailored suit, his stubby fingers twiddling a Phi Beta Kappa key. He was a spare man—only a step or two away from emaciation. Occasionally, he pushed a tired strand of washed-out hair away from his forehead.
Ish answered him truthfully, without more than ordinary reservations. This was the man who could ground him He was dangerous—red-letter dangerous—because of it.
"No family."
Ish shrugged. "Not that I know of. Cut out at seventeen. My father was making good money. He had a pension plan, insurance policies. No need to worry about them."
Ish knew the normal reaction a statement like that should have brought. MacKenzie's face did not go into a blank of repression—but it still passed no judgements.
"How's things between you and the opposite sex?"
"About normal."
"No wife—no steady girl."
"Not a very good idea, in my racket."
MacKenzie grunted. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright in his chair, and swung toward Ish. His lean arm shot out, and his index finger was aimed between Isherwood's eyes. "You can't go!"
Ish was on his feet, his fists clenched, the blood throbbing in his temple veins. "What!" he roared.
MacKenzie seemed to collapse in his chair. The brief commanding burst was over, and his face was apologetic, "Sorry," he said. He seemed genuinely abashed. "Shotgun therapy. Works best, sometimes. You can go, all right; I just wanted to get a fast check on your reactions and drives."
Ish could feel the anger that still ran through him—anger, and more fear than he wanted to admit. "I'm due at a briefing," he said tautly.
"You through with me?"
MacKenzie nodded, still embarrassed. "Sorry."
Ish ignored the man's obvious feelings. He stopped at the door to send a parting stroke at the thing that had frightened him. "Big gun in the psychiatry racket, huh? Well, your professional lingo's slipping, Doc. They did put some learning in my head at college, you know. Therapy, hell! Testing maybe, but you sure didn't do anything to help me!"
"I don't know," MacKenzie said softly. "I wish I did."
Ish slammed the door behind him. He stood in the corridor, jamming a fresh cigarette in his mouth. He threw a glance at his watch. Twelve hours, twenty-two minutes, and four days to go.
Damn! He was late for the briefing. Odd—that fool psychiatrist hadn't seemed to take up that much of his time.
He shrugged. What difference did it make? As he strode down the hall, he lost his momentary puzzlement under the flood of realization that nothing could stop him now, that the last hurdle was beaten. He was going. He was going, and if there were faint echoes of "Marty!" ringing in the dark background of his mind, they only served to push him faster, as they always had. Nothing but death could stop him now.
ISH LOOKED up bitterly at the Receptionist. "No," he said.
"But everybody fills out an application," she protested.
"No. I've got a job," he said as he had been saying for the last half hour.
The Receptionist sighed. "If you'll only read the literature I've given you, you'll understand that all your previous commitments have been cancelled."
"Look, Honey, I've seen company poop sheets before. Now, let's cut this nonsense. I've got to get back."
"But nobody goes back."
"Goddam it, I don't know what kind of place this is, but—" He stopped at the Receptionist's wince, and looked around, his mouth open. The reception desk was solid enough. There were IN and OUT and HOLD baskets on the desk, and the Receptionist seemed to see nothing extraordinary about it. But the room—a big room, he realized—seemed to fade out at the edges, rather than stop at walls. The lighting, too....
"Let's see your back!" he rapped out, his voice high.
She sighed in exasperation. "If you'd read the literature ..." She swiveled her chair slowly.
"No wings," he said.
"Of course not!" she snapped. She brushed her hair away from her forehead without his telling her to. "No horns, either."
"Streamlined, huh?" he said bitterly.
"It's a little different for everybody," she said with unexpected gentleness. "It would have to be, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess so," he admitted slowly. Then he lost his momentary awe, and his posture grew tense again. He glanced down at his wrist. Six hours, forty-seven minutes, and no days to go.
"Who do I see?"
She stared at him, bewildered at the sudden change in his voice. "See?"
"About getting out of here! Come on, come on," he barked, snapping his fingers impatiently. "I haven't got much time."
She smiled sweetly. "Oh, but you do."
"Can it! Who's your Section boss? Get him down here. On the double. Come on!" His face was streaming with perspiration but his voice was firm with the purpose that drove him.
Her lips closed into an angry line, and she jabbed a finger at a desk button. "I'll call the Personnel Manager."
"Thanks," he said sarcastically, and waited impatiently. Odd, the way the Receptionist looked a little like Nan.
THE PERSONNEL Manager wore a perfectly-tailored suit. He strode across the lobby floor toward Ish, his hand outstretched.
"Martin Isherwood!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "I'm very glad to meet you!"
"I'll bet," Ish said dryly, giving the Personnel Manager's hand a short shake. "I've got other ideas. I want out."
"That's all he's been saying for the past forty-five minutes, Sir," the Receptionist said from behind her desk.
The Personnel Manager frowned. "Um. Yes. Well, that's not unprecedented."
"But hardly usual," he added.
Ish found himself liking the man. He had a job to do, and after the preliminary formality of the greeting had been passed, he was ready to buckle down to it. Oh, he—shucks?—the Receptionist wasn't such a bad girl, either. He smiled at her. "Sorry I lost my head," he said.
She smiled back. "It happens."
He took time to give her one more smile and a half-wink, and swung back to the Personnel Manager.
"Now. Let's get this thing straightened out. I've got—" He stopped to look at his watch. "Six hours and a few minutes. They're fueling the beast right now."
"Do you know how much red tape you'd have to cut?"
Ish shook his head. "I don't want to sound nasty, but that's your problem."
The Personnel Manager hesitated. "Look—you feel you've got a job unfinished. Or, anyway, that's the way you'd put it. But, let's face it—that's not really what's galling you. It's not really the job, is it? It's just that you think you've been cheated out of what you devoted your life to."
Ish could feel his jaw muscles bunching. "Don't put words in my mouth!" he snapped. "Just get me back, and we'll split hairs about it when I get around this way again." Suddenly, he found himself pleading. "All I need is a week," he said. "It'll be a rough week—no picnic, no pleasures of the flesh. No smoking, no liquor. I certainly won't be breaking any laws. One week. Get there, putter around for two days, and back again. Then, you can do anything you want to—as long as it doesn't look like the trip's responsible, of course."
The Personnel Manager hesitated. "Suppose—" he began, but Ish interrupted him.
"Look, they need it, down there. They've got to have a target, someplace to go. We're built for it. People have to have—but what am I telling you for. If you don't know, who does?"
The Personnel Manager smiled. "I was about to say something."
Ish stopped, abashed. "Sorry."
He waved the apology away with a short movement of his hand. "You've got to understand that what you've been saying isn't a valid claim. If it were, human history would be very different, wouldn't it?"
"Suppose I showed you something, first? Then, you could decide whether you want to stay, after all."
"How long's it going to take?" Ish flushed under the memory of having actually begged for something.
"Not long," the Personnel Manager said. He half-turned and pointed up at the Earth, hanging just beyond the wall of the crater in which they were suddenly standing.
"Earth," the Personnel Manager said.
Somehow, Ish was not astonished. He looked up at the Earth, touched by cloud and sunlight, marked with ocean and continent, crowned with ice. The unblinking stars filled the night.
He looked around him. The Moon was silent—quiet, patient, waiting. Somewhere, a metal glint against the planet above, if it were only large enough to be seen, was the Station, and the ship for which the Moon had waited.
Ish walked a short distance. He was leaving no tracks in the pumice the ages had sown. But it was the way he had thought of it, nevertheless. It was the way the image had slowly built up in his mind, through the years, through the training, through the work. It was what he had aimed the Navion at, that day over the Everglades.
"It's not the same," he said.
The Personnel Manager sighed.
"Don't you see," Ish said, "It can't be the same. I didn't push the beast up here. There wasn't any feel to it. There wasn't any sound of rockets."
The Personnel Manager sighed again. "There wouldn't be, you know. Taking off from the Station, landing here—vacuum."
Ish shook his head. "There'd still be a sound. Maybe not for anybody else to hear—and, maybe, maybe there would be. There'd be people, back on Earth, who'd hear it."
"All right," the Personnel Manager said. His face was grave, but his eyes were shining a little.
"ISH! HEY, Ish, wake up, will you!" There was a hand on his shoulder.
"Will you get a load of this guy!" the voice said to someone else. "An hour to go, and he's sleeping like the dead."
Ish willed his eyes to open. He felt his heart begin to move again, felt the blood sluggishly beginning to surge into his veins. His hands and feet were very cold.
"Come on, Ish," the Crew Chief said.
"All right," he mumbled. "Okay. I'm up." He sat on the edge of his bunk looking down at his hands. They were blue under the fingernails. He sighed, feeling the air moving down into his lungs.
Stiffly, he got to his feet and began to climb into his G suit.
The Moon opened its face to him. From where he lay, strapped into the control seat in the forward bubble, he looked at it emotionlessly, and began to brake for a landing.
He looked for footprints in the crater, though he knew he hadn't left any. Earth was a familiar sight over his right shoulder.
He brought the twin-bubble beast back to the station. They threw spotlights on it, for the TV pickups, and thrust microphones at him. He could see broad grins behind the faceplates of the suits the docking crew wore, and they were pounding his back. The interior of the Station was a babbling of voices, a tumult of congratulations. He looked at it all, dead-faced, his eyes empty.
"It was easy," he said over a world-wide network, and pushed the press representatives out of his way.
MacKENZIE was waiting for him in the crew section. Ish flicked his stolid eyes at him, shrugged, and stripped out of his clothes. He pulled a coverall out of a locker and climbed into it, then went over to his bunk and lay down on his side, facing the bulkhead.
"Ish."
It was MacKenzie, bending over him.
Ish grunted.
"It wasn't any good was it? You'd done it all before; you'd been there."
He was past emotions. "Yeah?"
"We couldn't take the chance." MacKenzie was trying desperately to explain. "You were the best there was—but you'd done something to yourself by becoming the best. You shut yourself off from your family. You had no close friends, no women. You had no other interests. You were a rocket pilot—nothing else. You've never read an adult book that wasn't a text; you've never listened to a symphony except by accident. You don't know Rembrandt from Norman Rockwell. Nothing. No ties, no props, nothing to sustain you if something went wrong. We couldn't take the chance, Ish! "
"So?"
"There was too much at stake. If we let you go, you might have forgotten to come back. You might have just kept going."
He remembered the time with the Navion , and nodded. "I might have."
"I hypnotized you," MacKenzie said. "You were never dead. I don't know what the details of your hallucination were, but the important part came through, all right. You thought you'd been to the Moon before. It took all the adventure out of the actual flight; it was just a workaday trip."
"I said it was easy," Ish said.
"There was no other way to do it! I had to cancel out the thrill that comes from challenging the unknown. You knew what death was like, and you knew what the Moon was like. Can you understand why I had to do it?"
"Yeah. Now get out before I kill you. "
He didn't live too long after that. He never entered a rocket again—he died on the Station, and was buried in space, while a grateful world mourned him. I wonder what it was like, in his mind, when he really died. But he spent the days he had, after the trip, just sitting at an observatory port, cursing the traitor stars with his dead and purposeless eyes.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected without note.
This etext was produced from Dynamic Science Fiction, January, 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
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Who is Harry Folsom and what role does he play in the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Prime Difference by Alan Edward Nourse.
Relevant chunks:
PRIME DIFFERENCE
By ALAN E. NOURSE
Illustrated by SCHOENHEER
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction June 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Being two men rolled out of one would solve my problems—but which one would I be?
I suppose that every guy reaches a point once in his lifetime when he gets one hundred and forty per cent fed up with his wife.
Understand now—I've got nothing against marriage or any thing like that. Marriage is great. It's a good old red-blooded American Institution. Except that it's got one defect in it big enough to throw a cat through, especially when you happen to be married to a woman like Marge—
It's so permanent .
Oh, I'd have divorced Marge in a minute if we'd been living in the Blissful 'Fifties—but with the Family Solidarity Amendment of 1968, and all the divorce taxes we have these days since the women got their teeth into politics, to say nothing of the Aggrieved Spouse Compensation Act, I'd have been a pauper for the rest of my life if I'd tried it. That's aside from the social repercussions involved.
You can't really blame me for looking for another way out. But a man has to be desperate to try to buy himself an Ego Prime.
So, all right, I was desperate. I'd spent eight years trying to keep Marge happy, which was exactly seven and a half years too long.
Marge was a dream to look at, with her tawny hair and her sulky eyes and a shape that could set your teeth chattering—but that was where the dream stopped.
She had a tongue like a #10 wood rasp and a list of grievances long enough to paper the bedroom wall. When she wasn't complaining, she was crying, and when she wasn't crying, she was pointing out in chilling detail exactly where George Faircloth fell short as a model husband, which happened to be everywhere. Half of the time she had a "beastly headache" (for which I was personally responsible) and the other half she was sore about something, so ninety-nine per cent of the time we got along like a couple of tomcats in a packing case.
Maybe we just weren't meant for each other. I don't know. I used to envy guys like Harry Folsom at the office. His wife is no joy to live with either, but at least he could take a spin down to Rio once in a while with one of the stenographers and get away with it.
I knew better than to try. Marge was already so jealous that I couldn't even smile at the company receptionist without a twinge of guilt. Give Marge something real to howl about, and I'd be ready for the Rehab Center in a week.
But I'd underestimated Marge. She didn't need anything real, as I found out when Jeree came along.
Business was booming and the secretaries at the office got shuffled around from time to time. Since I had an executive-type job, I got an executive-type secretary. Her name was Jeree and she was gorgeous. As a matter of fact, she was better than gorgeous. She was the sort of secretary every businessman ought to have in his office. Not to do any work—just to sit there.
Jeree was tall and dark, and she could convey more without saying anything than I ever dreamed was possible. The first day she was there, she conveyed to me very clearly that if I cared to supply the opportunity, she'd be glad to supply the motive.
That night, I could tell that Marge had been thinking something over during the day. She let me get the first bite of dinner halfway to my mouth, and then she said, "I hear you got a new secretary today."
I muttered something into my coffee cup and pretended not to hear.
Marge turned on her Accusing Look #7. "I also hear that she's five-foot-eight and tapes out at 38-25-36 and thinks you're handsome."
Marge had quite a spy system.
"She couldn't be much of a secretary," she added.
"She's a perfectly good secretary," I blurted, and kicked myself mentally. I should have known Marge's traps by then.
Marge exploded. I didn't get any supper, and she was still going strong at midnight. I tried to argue, but when Marge got going, there was no stopping her. I had my ultimatum, as far as Jeree was concerned.
Harry Folsom administered the coup de grace at coffee next morning.
"What you need is an Ego Prime," he said with a grin. "Solve all your problems. I hear they work like a charm."
I set my coffee cup down. Bells were ringing in my ears. "Don't be ridiculous. It's against the law. Anyway, I wouldn't think of such a thing. It's—it's indecent."
Harry shrugged. "Just joking, old man, just joking. Still, it's fun to think about, eh? Freedom from wife. Absolutely safe and harmless. Not even too expensive, if you've got the right contacts. And I've got a friend who knows a guy—"
Just then, Jeree walked past us and flashed me a big smile. I gripped my cup for dear life and still spilled coffee on my tie.
As I said, a guy gets fed up.
And maybe opportunity would only knock once.
And an Ego Prime would solve all my problems, as Harry had told me.
It was completely illegal, of course. The wonder was that Ego Prime, Inc., ever got to put their product on the market at all, once the nation's housewives got wind of just what their product was.
From the first, there was rigid Federal control and laws regulating the use of Primes right down to the local level. You could get a license for a Utility model Prime if you were a big business executive, or a high public official, or a movie star, or something like that; but even then his circuits had to be inspected every two months, and he had to have a thousand built-in Paralyzers, and you had to specify in advance exactly what you wanted your Prime to be able to do when, where, how, why, and under what circumstances.
The law didn't leave a man much leeway.
But everybody knew that if you really wanted a personal Prime with all his circuits open and no questions asked, you could get one. Black market prices were steep and you ran your own risk, but it could be done.
Harry Folsom told his friend who knew a guy, and a few greenbacks got lost somewhere, and I found myself looking at a greasy little man with a black mustache and a bald spot, up in a dingy fourth-story warehouse off lower Broadway.
"Ah, yes," the little man said. "Mr. Faircloth. We've been expecting you."
I didn't like the looks of the guy any more than the looks of the place. "I've been told you can supply me with a—"
He coughed. "Yes, yes. I understand. It might be possible." He fingered his mustache and regarded me from pouchy eyes. "Busy executives often come to us to avoid the—ah—unpleasantness of formal arrangements. Naturally, we only act as agents, you might say. We never see the merchandise ourselves—" He wiped his hands on his trousers. "Now were you interested in the ordinary Utility model, Mr. Faircloth?"
I assumed he was just being polite. You didn't come to the back door for Utility models.
"Or perhaps you'd require one of our Deluxe models. Very careful workmanship. Only a few key Paralyzers in operation and practically complete circuit duplication. Very useful for—ah—close contact work, you know. Social engagements, conferences—"
I was shaking my head. "I want a Super Deluxe model," I told him.
He grinned and winked. "Ah, indeed! You want perfect duplication. Yes, indeed. Domestic situations can be—awkward, shall we say. Very awkward—"
I gave him a cold stare. I couldn't see where my domestic problems were any affairs of his. He got the idea and hurried me back to a storeroom.
"We keep a few blanks here for the basic measurement. You'll go to our laboratory on 14th Street to have the minute impressions taken. But I can assure you you'll be delighted, simply delighted."
The blanks weren't very impressive—clay and putty and steel, faceless, brainless. He went over me like a tailor, checking measurements of all sorts. He was thorough—embarrassingly thorough, in fact—but finally he was finished. I went on to the laboratory.
And that was all there was to it.
Practical androids had been a pipe dream until Hunyadi invented the Neuro-pantograph. Hunyadi had no idea in the world what to do with it once he'd invented it, but a couple of enterprising engineers bought him body and soul, sub-contracted the problems of anatomy, design, artistry, audio and visio circuitry, and so forth, and ended up with the modern Ego Primes we have today.
I spent a busy two hours under the NP microprobes; the artists worked outside while the NP technicians worked inside. I came out of it pretty woozy, but a shot of Happy-O set that straight. Then I waited in the recovery room for another two hours, dreaming up ways to use my Prime when I got him. Finally the door opened and the head technician walked in, followed by a tall, sandy-haired man with worried blue eyes and a tired look on his face.
"Meet George Faircloth Prime," the technician said, grinning at me like a nursing mother.
I shook hands with myself. Good firm handshake, I thought admiringly. Nothing flabby about it.
I slapped George Prime on the shoulder happily. "Come on, Brother," I said. "You've got a job to do."
But, secretly, I was wondering what Jeree was doing that night.
George Prime had remote controls, as well as a completely recorded neurological analogue of his boss, who was me. George Prime thought what I thought about the same things I did in the same way I did. The only difference was that what I told George Prime to do, George Prime did.
If I told him to go to a business conference in San Francisco and make the smallest possible concessions for the largest possible orders, he would go there and do precisely that. His signature would be my signature. It would hold up in court.
And if I told him that my wife Marge was really a sweet, good-hearted girl and that he was to stay home and keep her quiet and happy any time I chose, he'd do that, too.
George Prime was a duplicate of me right down to the sandy hairs on the back of my hands. Our fingerprints were the same. We had the same mannerisms and used the same figures of speech. The only physical difference apparent even to an expert was the tiny finger-depression buried in the hair above his ear. A little pressure there would stop George Prime dead in his tracks.
He was so lifelike, even I kept forgetting that he was basically just a pile of gears.
I'd planned very carefully how I meant to use him, of course.
Every man who's been married eight years has a sanctuary. He builds it up and maintains it against assault in the very teeth of his wife's natural instinct to clean, poke, pry and rearrange things. Sometimes it takes him years of diligent work to establish his hideout and be confident that it will stay inviolate, but if he starts early enough, and sticks with it long enough, and is fierce enough and persistent enough and crafty enough, he'll probably win in the end. The girls hate him for it, but he'll win.
With some men, it's just a box on their dressers, or a desk, or a corner of an unused back room. But I had set my sights high early in the game. With me, it was the whole workshop in the garage.
At first, Marge tried open warfare. She had to clean the place up, she said. I told her I didn't want her to clean it up. She could clean the whole house as often as she chose, but I would clean up the workshop.
After a couple of sharp engagements on that field, Marge staged a strategic withdrawal and reorganized her attack. A little pile of wood shavings would be on the workshop floor one night and be gone the next. A wrench would be back on the rack—upside down, of course. An open paint can would have a cover on it.
I always knew. I screamed loudly and bitterly. I ranted and raved. I swore I'd rig up a booby-trap with a shotgun.
So she quit trying to clean in there and just went in once in a while to take a look around. I fixed that with the old toothpick-in-the-door routine. Every time she so much as set foot in that workshop, she had a battle on her hands for the next week or so. She could count on it. It was that predictable.
She never found out how I knew, and after seven years or so, it wore her down. She didn't go into the workshop any more.
As I said, you've got to be persistent, but you'll win.
Eventually.
If you're really persistent.
Now all my effort paid off. I got Marge out of the house for an hour or two that day and had George Prime delivered and stored in the big closet in the workshop. They hooked his controls up and left me a manual of instructions for running him. When I got home that night, there he was, just waiting to be put to work.
After supper, I went out to the workshop—to get the pipe I'd left there, I said. I pushed George Prime's button, winked at him and switched on the free-behavior circuits.
"Go to it, Brother," I said.
George Prime put my pipe in his mouth, lit it and walked back into the house.
Five minutes later, I heard them fighting.
It sounded so familiar that I laughed out loud. Then I caught a cab on the corner and headed uptown.
We had quite a night, Jeree and I. I got home just about time to start for work, and sure enough, there was George Prime starting my car, business suit on, briefcase under his arm.
I pushed the recall and George Prime got out of the car and walked into the workshop. He stepped into his cradle in the closet. I turned him off and then drove away in the car.
Bless his metallic soul, he'd even kissed Marge good-by for me!
Needless to say, the affairs of George Faircloth took on a new sparkle with George Prime on hand to cover the home front.
For the first week, I was hardly home at all. I must say I felt a little guilty, leaving poor old George Prime to cope with Marge all the time—he looked and acted so human, it was easy to forget that he literally couldn't care less. But I felt apologetic all the same whenever I took him out of his closet.
"She's really a sweet girl underneath it all," I'd say. "You'll learn to like her after a bit."
"Of course I like her," George Prime said. "You told me to, didn't you? Stop worrying. She's really a sweet girl underneath it all."
He sounded convincing enough, but still it bothered me. "You're sure you understand the exchange mechanism?" I asked. I didn't want any foul-ups there, as you can imagine.
"Perfectly," said George Prime. "When you buzz the recall, I wait for the first logical opportunity I can find to come out to the workshop, and you take over."
"But you might get nervous. You might inadvertently tip her off."
George Prime looked pained. "Really, old man! I'm a Super Deluxe model, remember? I don't have fourteen activated Hunyadi tubes up in this cranial vault of mine just for nothing. You're the one that's nervous. I'll take care of everything. Relax."
So I did.
Jeree made good all her tacit promises and then some. She had a very cozy little apartment on 34th Street where we went to relax after a hard day at the office. When we weren't doing the town, that is. As long as Jeree didn't try too much conversation, everything was wonderful.
And then, when Jeree got a little boring, there was Sybil in the accounting department. Or Dorothy in promotion. Or Jane. Or Ingrid.
I could go on at some length, but I won't. I was building quite a reputation for myself around the office.
Of course, it was like buying your first 3-V set. In a week or so, the novelty wears off a little and you start eating on schedule again. It took a little while, but I finally had things down to a reasonable program.
Tuesday and Thursday nights, I was informally "out" while formally
"in." Sometimes I took Sunday nights "out" if things got too sticky around the house over the weekend. The rest of the time, George Prime cooled his heels in his closet. Locked up, of course. Can't completely trust a wife to observe a taboo, no matter how well trained she is.
There, was an irreconcilable amount of risk. George Prime had to quick-step some questions about my work at the office—there was no way to supply him with current data until the time for his regular two-month refill and pattern-accommodation at the laboratory. In the meantime, George Prime had to make do with what he had.
But as he himself pointed out he was a Super Deluxe model.
Marge didn't suspect a thing. In fact, George Prime seemed to be having a remarkable effect on her. I didn't notice anything at first—I was hardly ever home. But one night I found my pipe and slippers laid out for me, and the evening paper neatly folded on my chair, and it brought me up short. Marge had been extremely docile lately. We hadn't had a good fight in days. Weeks, come to think of it.
I thought it over and shrugged. Old age, I figured. She was bound to mellow sometime.
But pretty soon I began to wonder if she wasn't mellowing a little too much.
One night when I got home, she kissed me almost as though she really meant it. There wasn't an unpleasant word all through dinner, which happened to be steak with mushrooms, served in the dining room (!) by candlelight (!!) with dinner music that Marge could never bear, chiefly because I liked it.
We sat over coffee and cigarettes, and it seemed almost like old times. Very old times, in fact I even caught myself looking at Marge again—really looking at her, watching the light catch in her hair, almost admiring the sparkle in her brown eyes. Sparkle, I said, not glint.
As I mentioned before, Marge was always easy to look at. That night, she was practically ravishing.
"What are you doing to her?" I asked George Prime later, out in the workshop.
"Why, nothing," said George Prime, looking innocent. He couldn't fool me with his look, though, because it was exactly the look I use when I'm guilty and pretending to be innocent.
"There must be something ."
George Prime shrugged. "Any woman will warm up if you spend enough time telling her all the things she wants to hear and pay all the attention to her that she wants paid to her. That's elemental psychology. I can give you page references."
I ought to mention that George Prime had a complete set of basic texts run into his circuits, at a slightly additional charge. Never can tell when an odd bit of information will come in useful.
"Well, you must be doing quite a job," I said. I'd never managed to warm Marge up much.
"I try," said George Prime.
"Oh, I'm not complaining," I hastened to add, forgetting that a Prime's feelings can't be hurt and that he was only acting like me because it was in character. "I was just curious."
"Of course, George."
"I'm really delighted that you're doing so well."
"Thank you, George."
But the next night when I was with Dawn, who happens to be a gorgeous redhead who could put Marge to shame on practically any field of battle except maybe brains, I kept thinking about Marge all evening long, and wondering if things weren't getting just a little out of hand.
The next evening I almost tripped over George Prime coming out of a liquor store. I ducked quickly into an alley and flagged him. " What are you doing out on the street? "
He gave me my martyred look. "Just buying some bourbon. You were out."
"But you're not supposed to be off the premises—"
"Marge asked me to come. I couldn't tell her I was sorry, but her husband wouldn't let me, could I?"
"Well, certainly not—"
"You want me to keep her happy, don't you? You don't want her to get suspicious."
"No, but suppose somebody saw us together! If she ever got a hint—"
"I'm sorry," George Prime said contritely. "It seemed the right thing to do. You would have done it. At least that's what my judgment center maintained. We had quite an argument."
"Well, tell your judgment center to use a little sense," I snapped. "I don't want it to happen again."
The next night, I stayed home, even though it was Tuesday night. I was beginning to get worried. Of course, I did have complete control—I could snap George Prime off any time I wanted, or even take him in for a complete recircuiting—but it seemed a pity. He was doing such a nice job.
Marge was docile as a kitten, even more so than before. She sympathized with my hard day at the office and agreed heartily that the boss, despite all appearances, was in reality a jabbering idiot. After dinner, I suggested a movie, but Marge gave me an odd sort of look and said she thought it would be much nicer to spend the evening at home by the fire.
I'd just gotten settled with the paper when she came into the living room and sat down beside me. She was wearing some sort of filmy affair I'd never laid eyes on before, and I caught a whiff of my favorite perfume.
"Georgie?" she said.
"Uh?"
"Do you still love me?"
I set the paper down and stared at her. "How's that? Of course I still—"
"Well, sometimes you don't act much like it."
"Mm. I guess I've—uh—got an awful headache tonight." Damn that perfume!
"Oh," said Marge.
"In fact, I thought I'd turn in early and get some sleep—"
"Sleep," said Marge. There was no mistaking the disappointment in her voice. Now I knew that things were out of hand.
The next evening, I activated George Prime and caught the taxi at the corner, but I called Ruby and broke my date with her. I took in an early movie alone and was back by ten o'clock. I left the cab at the corner and walked quietly up the path toward the garage.
Then I stopped. I could see Marge and George Prime through the living room windows.
George Prime was kissing my wife the way I hadn't kissed her in eight long years. It made my hair stand on end. And Marge wasn't exactly fighting him off, either. She was coming back for more. After a little, the lights went off.
George Prime was a Super Deluxe model, all right.
I dashed into the workshop and punched the recall button as hard as I could, swearing under my breath. How long had this been going on? I punched the button again, viciously, and waited.
George Prime didn't come out.
It was plenty cold out in the workshop that night and I didn't sleep a wink. About dawn, out came George Prime, looking like a man with a four-day hangover.
Our conversation got down to fundamentals. George Prime kept insisting blandly that, according to my own directions, he was to pick the first logical opportunity to come out when I buzzed, and that was exactly what he'd done.
I was furious all the way to work. I'd take care of this nonsense, all right. I'd have George Prime rewired from top to bottom as soon as the laboratory could take him.
But I never phoned the laboratory. The bank was calling me when I got to the office. They wanted to know what I planned to do about that check of mine that had just bounced.
"What check?" I asked.
"The one you wrote to cash yesterday—five hundred dollars—against your regular account, Mr. Faircloth."
The last I'd looked, I'd had about three thousand dollars in that account. I told the man so rather bluntly.
"Oh, no, sir. That is, you did until last week. But all these checks you've been cashing have emptied the account."
He flashed the checks on the desk screen. My signature was on every one of them.
"What about my special account?" I'd learned long before that an account Marge didn't know about was sound rear-guard strategy.
"That's been closed out for two weeks."
I hadn't written a check against that account for over a year! I glared at the ceiling and tried to think things through.
I came up with a horrible thought.
Marge had always had her heart set on a trip to Bermuda. Just to get away from it all, she'd say. A second honeymoon.
I got a list of travel agencies from the business directory and started down them. The third one I tried had a pleasant tenor voice. "No, sir, not Mrs. Faircloth. You bought two tickets. One way. Champagne flight to Bermuda."
"When?" I choked out.
"Why, today, as a matter of fact. It leaves Idlewild at eleven o'clock—"
I let him worry about my amnesia and started home fast. I didn't know what they'd given that Prime for circuits, but there was no question now that he was out of control— way out of control. And poor Marge, all worked up for a second honeymoon—
Then it struck me. Poor Marge? Poor sucker George! No Prime in his right circuits would behave this way without some human guidance and that meant only one thing: Marge had spotted him. It had happened before. Couple of nasty court battles I'd read about. And she'd known all about George Prime.
For how long?
When I got home, the house was empty. George Prime wasn't in his closet. And Marge wasn't in the house.
They were gone.
I started to call the police, but caught myself just in time. I couldn't very well complain to the cops that my wife had run off with an android.
Worse yet, I could get twenty years for having an illegal Prime wandering around.
I sat down and poured myself a stiff drink.
My own wife deserting me for a pile of bearings.
It was indecent.
Then I heard the front door open and there was Marge, her arms full of grocery bundles. "Why, darling! You're home early!"
I just blinked for a moment. Then I said, "You're still here!"
"Of course. Where did you think I'd be?"
"But I thought—I mean the ticket office—"
She set down the bundles and kissed me and looked up into my eyes, almost smiling, half reproachful. "You didn't really think I'd go running off with something out of a lab, did you?"
"Then—you knew?"
"Certainly I knew, silly. You didn't do a very good job of instructing him, either. You gave him far too much latitude. Let him have ideas of his own and all that. And next thing I knew, he was trying to get me to run off with him to Hawaii or someplace."
"Bermuda," I said.
And then Marge was in my arms, kissing me and snuggling her cheek against my chest.
"Even though he looked like you, I knew he couldn't be," she said. "He was like you, but he wasn't you , darling. And all I ever want is you. I just never appreciated you before...."
I held her close and tried to keep my hands from shaking. George Faircloth, Idiot, I thought. She'd never been more beautiful. "But what did you do with him?"
"I sent him back to the factory, naturally. They said they could blot him out and use him over again. But let's not talk about that any more. We've got more interesting things to discuss."
Maybe we had, but we didn't waste a lot of time talking. It was the Marge I'd once known and I was beginning to wonder how I could have been so wrong about her. In fact unless my memory was getting awfully porous, the old Marge was never like this—
I kissed her tenderly and ran my hands through her hair, and felt the depression with my fore-finger, and then I knew what had really happened.
That Marge always had been a sly one.
I wondered how she was liking things in Bermuda.
Marge probably thought she'd really put me where I belonged, but the laugh was on her, after all.
As I said, the old Marge was never like the new one. Marge Prime makes Jeree and Sybil and Dorothy and Dawn and Jane and Ruby all look pretty sad by comparison.
She cooks like a dream and she always brings me my pipe and slippers. As they say, there's nothing a man likes more than to be appreciated.
A hundred per cent appreciated, with a factory guarantee to correct any slippage, which would only be temporary, anyhow.
One of these days, we'll take that second honeymoon. But I think we'll go to Hawaii.
Question:
Who is Harry Folsom and what role does he play in the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Harry Folsom is a colleague of George Faircloth, a husband fed up with his wife. He also has a wife who is unbearable to him, but he gets the chance to escape from her once in a while. In addition, he has a friend who knows how to get the Ego Prime, a technology to produce duplicate people from natural human beings, from the black market. Harry is the person who inspires and provides the resource for George to get an illegal Ego Prime, which contributes to the whole story.",
"Harry Folsom is George’s colleague and friend. They work at the same office. George is envious of him because Folsom can leave his wife and go to Rio from time to time, and George doesn't have this opportunity. Harry is also the person who mentions purchasing the Ego Prime when he talks with George. During this conversation, he explains that getting the android is not very expensive and can solve all the family issues George has. Harry also gives him the contact details of a man from whom George can buy the deluxe model with open circuits. ",
"Harry Folsom is one of George’s friends and coworkers. After George complains to him about the state of his marriage, Harry is the one that offers George the solution of getting a prime android replica of himself. George seems to be jealous of Harry because Harry once in a while goes out with different women without his wife finding out. Harry helped George get the prime replica, as Harry knew people that sold them. Basically, it was Harry who steered George into buying the android and lying to his wife. ",
"Harry Folsom is George Faircloth’s co-worker who works at the same office. He is the individual who shows him the possibility of freedom from his wife and the actions to take to make it happen. In his unhappy marriage, George has always been envious of men like Harry. Harry’s wife is equally not easy to deal with but the difference was he would always get away with leaving to Rio every now and then with a stenographer. He plays an important role when Harry comes to him for advice the day after Marge finds out about Harry’s secretary, Jeree, and their affair. Over coffee the next morning, Harry is the person who jokingly suggests George to get an Ego Prime, selling him the idea of freedom from a wife, to which George initially declines because of how it is illegal. Still saying that he is joking, Harry confirms that with the right contact, George could get one of those androids at a decent price. After successfully convincing George, Harry recommends one of his contacts to him. Following his advice, George finds himself meeting an agent with a mustache from the black market for Primes, who from then took on the responsibility to create George’s Prime. Without Harry’s lifestyle and recommendations in the story, George may not have chosen to go on with creating his Prime.\n"
] |
51321
|
PRIME DIFFERENCE
By ALAN E. NOURSE
Illustrated by SCHOENHEER
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction June 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Being two men rolled out of one would solve my problems—but which one would I be?
I suppose that every guy reaches a point once in his lifetime when he gets one hundred and forty per cent fed up with his wife.
Understand now—I've got nothing against marriage or any thing like that. Marriage is great. It's a good old red-blooded American Institution. Except that it's got one defect in it big enough to throw a cat through, especially when you happen to be married to a woman like Marge—
It's so permanent .
Oh, I'd have divorced Marge in a minute if we'd been living in the Blissful 'Fifties—but with the Family Solidarity Amendment of 1968, and all the divorce taxes we have these days since the women got their teeth into politics, to say nothing of the Aggrieved Spouse Compensation Act, I'd have been a pauper for the rest of my life if I'd tried it. That's aside from the social repercussions involved.
You can't really blame me for looking for another way out. But a man has to be desperate to try to buy himself an Ego Prime.
So, all right, I was desperate. I'd spent eight years trying to keep Marge happy, which was exactly seven and a half years too long.
Marge was a dream to look at, with her tawny hair and her sulky eyes and a shape that could set your teeth chattering—but that was where the dream stopped.
She had a tongue like a #10 wood rasp and a list of grievances long enough to paper the bedroom wall. When she wasn't complaining, she was crying, and when she wasn't crying, she was pointing out in chilling detail exactly where George Faircloth fell short as a model husband, which happened to be everywhere. Half of the time she had a "beastly headache" (for which I was personally responsible) and the other half she was sore about something, so ninety-nine per cent of the time we got along like a couple of tomcats in a packing case.
Maybe we just weren't meant for each other. I don't know. I used to envy guys like Harry Folsom at the office. His wife is no joy to live with either, but at least he could take a spin down to Rio once in a while with one of the stenographers and get away with it.
I knew better than to try. Marge was already so jealous that I couldn't even smile at the company receptionist without a twinge of guilt. Give Marge something real to howl about, and I'd be ready for the Rehab Center in a week.
But I'd underestimated Marge. She didn't need anything real, as I found out when Jeree came along.
Business was booming and the secretaries at the office got shuffled around from time to time. Since I had an executive-type job, I got an executive-type secretary. Her name was Jeree and she was gorgeous. As a matter of fact, she was better than gorgeous. She was the sort of secretary every businessman ought to have in his office. Not to do any work—just to sit there.
Jeree was tall and dark, and she could convey more without saying anything than I ever dreamed was possible. The first day she was there, she conveyed to me very clearly that if I cared to supply the opportunity, she'd be glad to supply the motive.
That night, I could tell that Marge had been thinking something over during the day. She let me get the first bite of dinner halfway to my mouth, and then she said, "I hear you got a new secretary today."
I muttered something into my coffee cup and pretended not to hear.
Marge turned on her Accusing Look #7. "I also hear that she's five-foot-eight and tapes out at 38-25-36 and thinks you're handsome."
Marge had quite a spy system.
"She couldn't be much of a secretary," she added.
"She's a perfectly good secretary," I blurted, and kicked myself mentally. I should have known Marge's traps by then.
Marge exploded. I didn't get any supper, and she was still going strong at midnight. I tried to argue, but when Marge got going, there was no stopping her. I had my ultimatum, as far as Jeree was concerned.
Harry Folsom administered the coup de grace at coffee next morning.
"What you need is an Ego Prime," he said with a grin. "Solve all your problems. I hear they work like a charm."
I set my coffee cup down. Bells were ringing in my ears. "Don't be ridiculous. It's against the law. Anyway, I wouldn't think of such a thing. It's—it's indecent."
Harry shrugged. "Just joking, old man, just joking. Still, it's fun to think about, eh? Freedom from wife. Absolutely safe and harmless. Not even too expensive, if you've got the right contacts. And I've got a friend who knows a guy—"
Just then, Jeree walked past us and flashed me a big smile. I gripped my cup for dear life and still spilled coffee on my tie.
As I said, a guy gets fed up.
And maybe opportunity would only knock once.
And an Ego Prime would solve all my problems, as Harry had told me.
It was completely illegal, of course. The wonder was that Ego Prime, Inc., ever got to put their product on the market at all, once the nation's housewives got wind of just what their product was.
From the first, there was rigid Federal control and laws regulating the use of Primes right down to the local level. You could get a license for a Utility model Prime if you were a big business executive, or a high public official, or a movie star, or something like that; but even then his circuits had to be inspected every two months, and he had to have a thousand built-in Paralyzers, and you had to specify in advance exactly what you wanted your Prime to be able to do when, where, how, why, and under what circumstances.
The law didn't leave a man much leeway.
But everybody knew that if you really wanted a personal Prime with all his circuits open and no questions asked, you could get one. Black market prices were steep and you ran your own risk, but it could be done.
Harry Folsom told his friend who knew a guy, and a few greenbacks got lost somewhere, and I found myself looking at a greasy little man with a black mustache and a bald spot, up in a dingy fourth-story warehouse off lower Broadway.
"Ah, yes," the little man said. "Mr. Faircloth. We've been expecting you."
I didn't like the looks of the guy any more than the looks of the place. "I've been told you can supply me with a—"
He coughed. "Yes, yes. I understand. It might be possible." He fingered his mustache and regarded me from pouchy eyes. "Busy executives often come to us to avoid the—ah—unpleasantness of formal arrangements. Naturally, we only act as agents, you might say. We never see the merchandise ourselves—" He wiped his hands on his trousers. "Now were you interested in the ordinary Utility model, Mr. Faircloth?"
I assumed he was just being polite. You didn't come to the back door for Utility models.
"Or perhaps you'd require one of our Deluxe models. Very careful workmanship. Only a few key Paralyzers in operation and practically complete circuit duplication. Very useful for—ah—close contact work, you know. Social engagements, conferences—"
I was shaking my head. "I want a Super Deluxe model," I told him.
He grinned and winked. "Ah, indeed! You want perfect duplication. Yes, indeed. Domestic situations can be—awkward, shall we say. Very awkward—"
I gave him a cold stare. I couldn't see where my domestic problems were any affairs of his. He got the idea and hurried me back to a storeroom.
"We keep a few blanks here for the basic measurement. You'll go to our laboratory on 14th Street to have the minute impressions taken. But I can assure you you'll be delighted, simply delighted."
The blanks weren't very impressive—clay and putty and steel, faceless, brainless. He went over me like a tailor, checking measurements of all sorts. He was thorough—embarrassingly thorough, in fact—but finally he was finished. I went on to the laboratory.
And that was all there was to it.
Practical androids had been a pipe dream until Hunyadi invented the Neuro-pantograph. Hunyadi had no idea in the world what to do with it once he'd invented it, but a couple of enterprising engineers bought him body and soul, sub-contracted the problems of anatomy, design, artistry, audio and visio circuitry, and so forth, and ended up with the modern Ego Primes we have today.
I spent a busy two hours under the NP microprobes; the artists worked outside while the NP technicians worked inside. I came out of it pretty woozy, but a shot of Happy-O set that straight. Then I waited in the recovery room for another two hours, dreaming up ways to use my Prime when I got him. Finally the door opened and the head technician walked in, followed by a tall, sandy-haired man with worried blue eyes and a tired look on his face.
"Meet George Faircloth Prime," the technician said, grinning at me like a nursing mother.
I shook hands with myself. Good firm handshake, I thought admiringly. Nothing flabby about it.
I slapped George Prime on the shoulder happily. "Come on, Brother," I said. "You've got a job to do."
But, secretly, I was wondering what Jeree was doing that night.
George Prime had remote controls, as well as a completely recorded neurological analogue of his boss, who was me. George Prime thought what I thought about the same things I did in the same way I did. The only difference was that what I told George Prime to do, George Prime did.
If I told him to go to a business conference in San Francisco and make the smallest possible concessions for the largest possible orders, he would go there and do precisely that. His signature would be my signature. It would hold up in court.
And if I told him that my wife Marge was really a sweet, good-hearted girl and that he was to stay home and keep her quiet and happy any time I chose, he'd do that, too.
George Prime was a duplicate of me right down to the sandy hairs on the back of my hands. Our fingerprints were the same. We had the same mannerisms and used the same figures of speech. The only physical difference apparent even to an expert was the tiny finger-depression buried in the hair above his ear. A little pressure there would stop George Prime dead in his tracks.
He was so lifelike, even I kept forgetting that he was basically just a pile of gears.
I'd planned very carefully how I meant to use him, of course.
Every man who's been married eight years has a sanctuary. He builds it up and maintains it against assault in the very teeth of his wife's natural instinct to clean, poke, pry and rearrange things. Sometimes it takes him years of diligent work to establish his hideout and be confident that it will stay inviolate, but if he starts early enough, and sticks with it long enough, and is fierce enough and persistent enough and crafty enough, he'll probably win in the end. The girls hate him for it, but he'll win.
With some men, it's just a box on their dressers, or a desk, or a corner of an unused back room. But I had set my sights high early in the game. With me, it was the whole workshop in the garage.
At first, Marge tried open warfare. She had to clean the place up, she said. I told her I didn't want her to clean it up. She could clean the whole house as often as she chose, but I would clean up the workshop.
After a couple of sharp engagements on that field, Marge staged a strategic withdrawal and reorganized her attack. A little pile of wood shavings would be on the workshop floor one night and be gone the next. A wrench would be back on the rack—upside down, of course. An open paint can would have a cover on it.
I always knew. I screamed loudly and bitterly. I ranted and raved. I swore I'd rig up a booby-trap with a shotgun.
So she quit trying to clean in there and just went in once in a while to take a look around. I fixed that with the old toothpick-in-the-door routine. Every time she so much as set foot in that workshop, she had a battle on her hands for the next week or so. She could count on it. It was that predictable.
She never found out how I knew, and after seven years or so, it wore her down. She didn't go into the workshop any more.
As I said, you've got to be persistent, but you'll win.
Eventually.
If you're really persistent.
Now all my effort paid off. I got Marge out of the house for an hour or two that day and had George Prime delivered and stored in the big closet in the workshop. They hooked his controls up and left me a manual of instructions for running him. When I got home that night, there he was, just waiting to be put to work.
After supper, I went out to the workshop—to get the pipe I'd left there, I said. I pushed George Prime's button, winked at him and switched on the free-behavior circuits.
"Go to it, Brother," I said.
George Prime put my pipe in his mouth, lit it and walked back into the house.
Five minutes later, I heard them fighting.
It sounded so familiar that I laughed out loud. Then I caught a cab on the corner and headed uptown.
We had quite a night, Jeree and I. I got home just about time to start for work, and sure enough, there was George Prime starting my car, business suit on, briefcase under his arm.
I pushed the recall and George Prime got out of the car and walked into the workshop. He stepped into his cradle in the closet. I turned him off and then drove away in the car.
Bless his metallic soul, he'd even kissed Marge good-by for me!
Needless to say, the affairs of George Faircloth took on a new sparkle with George Prime on hand to cover the home front.
For the first week, I was hardly home at all. I must say I felt a little guilty, leaving poor old George Prime to cope with Marge all the time—he looked and acted so human, it was easy to forget that he literally couldn't care less. But I felt apologetic all the same whenever I took him out of his closet.
"She's really a sweet girl underneath it all," I'd say. "You'll learn to like her after a bit."
"Of course I like her," George Prime said. "You told me to, didn't you? Stop worrying. She's really a sweet girl underneath it all."
He sounded convincing enough, but still it bothered me. "You're sure you understand the exchange mechanism?" I asked. I didn't want any foul-ups there, as you can imagine.
"Perfectly," said George Prime. "When you buzz the recall, I wait for the first logical opportunity I can find to come out to the workshop, and you take over."
"But you might get nervous. You might inadvertently tip her off."
George Prime looked pained. "Really, old man! I'm a Super Deluxe model, remember? I don't have fourteen activated Hunyadi tubes up in this cranial vault of mine just for nothing. You're the one that's nervous. I'll take care of everything. Relax."
So I did.
Jeree made good all her tacit promises and then some. She had a very cozy little apartment on 34th Street where we went to relax after a hard day at the office. When we weren't doing the town, that is. As long as Jeree didn't try too much conversation, everything was wonderful.
And then, when Jeree got a little boring, there was Sybil in the accounting department. Or Dorothy in promotion. Or Jane. Or Ingrid.
I could go on at some length, but I won't. I was building quite a reputation for myself around the office.
Of course, it was like buying your first 3-V set. In a week or so, the novelty wears off a little and you start eating on schedule again. It took a little while, but I finally had things down to a reasonable program.
Tuesday and Thursday nights, I was informally "out" while formally
"in." Sometimes I took Sunday nights "out" if things got too sticky around the house over the weekend. The rest of the time, George Prime cooled his heels in his closet. Locked up, of course. Can't completely trust a wife to observe a taboo, no matter how well trained she is.
There, was an irreconcilable amount of risk. George Prime had to quick-step some questions about my work at the office—there was no way to supply him with current data until the time for his regular two-month refill and pattern-accommodation at the laboratory. In the meantime, George Prime had to make do with what he had.
But as he himself pointed out he was a Super Deluxe model.
Marge didn't suspect a thing. In fact, George Prime seemed to be having a remarkable effect on her. I didn't notice anything at first—I was hardly ever home. But one night I found my pipe and slippers laid out for me, and the evening paper neatly folded on my chair, and it brought me up short. Marge had been extremely docile lately. We hadn't had a good fight in days. Weeks, come to think of it.
I thought it over and shrugged. Old age, I figured. She was bound to mellow sometime.
But pretty soon I began to wonder if she wasn't mellowing a little too much.
One night when I got home, she kissed me almost as though she really meant it. There wasn't an unpleasant word all through dinner, which happened to be steak with mushrooms, served in the dining room (!) by candlelight (!!) with dinner music that Marge could never bear, chiefly because I liked it.
We sat over coffee and cigarettes, and it seemed almost like old times. Very old times, in fact I even caught myself looking at Marge again—really looking at her, watching the light catch in her hair, almost admiring the sparkle in her brown eyes. Sparkle, I said, not glint.
As I mentioned before, Marge was always easy to look at. That night, she was practically ravishing.
"What are you doing to her?" I asked George Prime later, out in the workshop.
"Why, nothing," said George Prime, looking innocent. He couldn't fool me with his look, though, because it was exactly the look I use when I'm guilty and pretending to be innocent.
"There must be something ."
George Prime shrugged. "Any woman will warm up if you spend enough time telling her all the things she wants to hear and pay all the attention to her that she wants paid to her. That's elemental psychology. I can give you page references."
I ought to mention that George Prime had a complete set of basic texts run into his circuits, at a slightly additional charge. Never can tell when an odd bit of information will come in useful.
"Well, you must be doing quite a job," I said. I'd never managed to warm Marge up much.
"I try," said George Prime.
"Oh, I'm not complaining," I hastened to add, forgetting that a Prime's feelings can't be hurt and that he was only acting like me because it was in character. "I was just curious."
"Of course, George."
"I'm really delighted that you're doing so well."
"Thank you, George."
But the next night when I was with Dawn, who happens to be a gorgeous redhead who could put Marge to shame on practically any field of battle except maybe brains, I kept thinking about Marge all evening long, and wondering if things weren't getting just a little out of hand.
The next evening I almost tripped over George Prime coming out of a liquor store. I ducked quickly into an alley and flagged him. " What are you doing out on the street? "
He gave me my martyred look. "Just buying some bourbon. You were out."
"But you're not supposed to be off the premises—"
"Marge asked me to come. I couldn't tell her I was sorry, but her husband wouldn't let me, could I?"
"Well, certainly not—"
"You want me to keep her happy, don't you? You don't want her to get suspicious."
"No, but suppose somebody saw us together! If she ever got a hint—"
"I'm sorry," George Prime said contritely. "It seemed the right thing to do. You would have done it. At least that's what my judgment center maintained. We had quite an argument."
"Well, tell your judgment center to use a little sense," I snapped. "I don't want it to happen again."
The next night, I stayed home, even though it was Tuesday night. I was beginning to get worried. Of course, I did have complete control—I could snap George Prime off any time I wanted, or even take him in for a complete recircuiting—but it seemed a pity. He was doing such a nice job.
Marge was docile as a kitten, even more so than before. She sympathized with my hard day at the office and agreed heartily that the boss, despite all appearances, was in reality a jabbering idiot. After dinner, I suggested a movie, but Marge gave me an odd sort of look and said she thought it would be much nicer to spend the evening at home by the fire.
I'd just gotten settled with the paper when she came into the living room and sat down beside me. She was wearing some sort of filmy affair I'd never laid eyes on before, and I caught a whiff of my favorite perfume.
"Georgie?" she said.
"Uh?"
"Do you still love me?"
I set the paper down and stared at her. "How's that? Of course I still—"
"Well, sometimes you don't act much like it."
"Mm. I guess I've—uh—got an awful headache tonight." Damn that perfume!
"Oh," said Marge.
"In fact, I thought I'd turn in early and get some sleep—"
"Sleep," said Marge. There was no mistaking the disappointment in her voice. Now I knew that things were out of hand.
The next evening, I activated George Prime and caught the taxi at the corner, but I called Ruby and broke my date with her. I took in an early movie alone and was back by ten o'clock. I left the cab at the corner and walked quietly up the path toward the garage.
Then I stopped. I could see Marge and George Prime through the living room windows.
George Prime was kissing my wife the way I hadn't kissed her in eight long years. It made my hair stand on end. And Marge wasn't exactly fighting him off, either. She was coming back for more. After a little, the lights went off.
George Prime was a Super Deluxe model, all right.
I dashed into the workshop and punched the recall button as hard as I could, swearing under my breath. How long had this been going on? I punched the button again, viciously, and waited.
George Prime didn't come out.
It was plenty cold out in the workshop that night and I didn't sleep a wink. About dawn, out came George Prime, looking like a man with a four-day hangover.
Our conversation got down to fundamentals. George Prime kept insisting blandly that, according to my own directions, he was to pick the first logical opportunity to come out when I buzzed, and that was exactly what he'd done.
I was furious all the way to work. I'd take care of this nonsense, all right. I'd have George Prime rewired from top to bottom as soon as the laboratory could take him.
But I never phoned the laboratory. The bank was calling me when I got to the office. They wanted to know what I planned to do about that check of mine that had just bounced.
"What check?" I asked.
"The one you wrote to cash yesterday—five hundred dollars—against your regular account, Mr. Faircloth."
The last I'd looked, I'd had about three thousand dollars in that account. I told the man so rather bluntly.
"Oh, no, sir. That is, you did until last week. But all these checks you've been cashing have emptied the account."
He flashed the checks on the desk screen. My signature was on every one of them.
"What about my special account?" I'd learned long before that an account Marge didn't know about was sound rear-guard strategy.
"That's been closed out for two weeks."
I hadn't written a check against that account for over a year! I glared at the ceiling and tried to think things through.
I came up with a horrible thought.
Marge had always had her heart set on a trip to Bermuda. Just to get away from it all, she'd say. A second honeymoon.
I got a list of travel agencies from the business directory and started down them. The third one I tried had a pleasant tenor voice. "No, sir, not Mrs. Faircloth. You bought two tickets. One way. Champagne flight to Bermuda."
"When?" I choked out.
"Why, today, as a matter of fact. It leaves Idlewild at eleven o'clock—"
I let him worry about my amnesia and started home fast. I didn't know what they'd given that Prime for circuits, but there was no question now that he was out of control— way out of control. And poor Marge, all worked up for a second honeymoon—
Then it struck me. Poor Marge? Poor sucker George! No Prime in his right circuits would behave this way without some human guidance and that meant only one thing: Marge had spotted him. It had happened before. Couple of nasty court battles I'd read about. And she'd known all about George Prime.
For how long?
When I got home, the house was empty. George Prime wasn't in his closet. And Marge wasn't in the house.
They were gone.
I started to call the police, but caught myself just in time. I couldn't very well complain to the cops that my wife had run off with an android.
Worse yet, I could get twenty years for having an illegal Prime wandering around.
I sat down and poured myself a stiff drink.
My own wife deserting me for a pile of bearings.
It was indecent.
Then I heard the front door open and there was Marge, her arms full of grocery bundles. "Why, darling! You're home early!"
I just blinked for a moment. Then I said, "You're still here!"
"Of course. Where did you think I'd be?"
"But I thought—I mean the ticket office—"
She set down the bundles and kissed me and looked up into my eyes, almost smiling, half reproachful. "You didn't really think I'd go running off with something out of a lab, did you?"
"Then—you knew?"
"Certainly I knew, silly. You didn't do a very good job of instructing him, either. You gave him far too much latitude. Let him have ideas of his own and all that. And next thing I knew, he was trying to get me to run off with him to Hawaii or someplace."
"Bermuda," I said.
And then Marge was in my arms, kissing me and snuggling her cheek against my chest.
"Even though he looked like you, I knew he couldn't be," she said. "He was like you, but he wasn't you , darling. And all I ever want is you. I just never appreciated you before...."
I held her close and tried to keep my hands from shaking. George Faircloth, Idiot, I thought. She'd never been more beautiful. "But what did you do with him?"
"I sent him back to the factory, naturally. They said they could blot him out and use him over again. But let's not talk about that any more. We've got more interesting things to discuss."
Maybe we had, but we didn't waste a lot of time talking. It was the Marge I'd once known and I was beginning to wonder how I could have been so wrong about her. In fact unless my memory was getting awfully porous, the old Marge was never like this—
I kissed her tenderly and ran my hands through her hair, and felt the depression with my fore-finger, and then I knew what had really happened.
That Marge always had been a sly one.
I wondered how she was liking things in Bermuda.
Marge probably thought she'd really put me where I belonged, but the laugh was on her, after all.
As I said, the old Marge was never like the new one. Marge Prime makes Jeree and Sybil and Dorothy and Dawn and Jane and Ruby all look pretty sad by comparison.
She cooks like a dream and she always brings me my pipe and slippers. As they say, there's nothing a man likes more than to be appreciated.
A hundred per cent appreciated, with a factory guarantee to correct any slippage, which would only be temporary, anyhow.
One of these days, we'll take that second honeymoon. But I think we'll go to Hawaii.
|
Describe the setting of the story
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Raiders of the Second Moon by Basil Wells.
Relevant chunks:
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Raiders of the Second Moon
By GENE ELLERMAN
A strange destiny had erased Noork's memory,
and had brought him to this tiny world—to
write an end to his first existence.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Summer 1945.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Beyond earth swings that airless pocked mass of fused rock and gray
volcanic dust that we know as Luna. Of this our naked eyes assure us.
But of the smaller satellite, hidden forever from the mundane view by
Luna's bulk, we know little.
Small is Sekk, that second moon, less than five hundred miles in
diameter, but the period of its revolution is thirty two hours, and its
meaner mass retains a breathable atmosphere. There is life on Sekk,
life that centers around the sunken star-shaped cavity where an oval
lake gleams softly in the depths. And the eleven radiating tips of the
starry abyss are valleys green with jungle growth.
In one of those green valleys the white savage that the Vasads called
Noork squatted in the ample crotch of a jungle giant and watched the
trail forty feet below. For down there moved alertly a golden skinned
girl, her only weapons a puny polished bow of yellow wood and a
sheathed dagger.
Sight of the girl's flowing brown hair and the graceful feminine
contours of her smooth-limbed body beneath its skin-halter and the
insignificant breech-clout, made his brow wrinkle with concentration.
Not forever had he lived in this jungle world of valleys and ragged
cliffs. Since he had learned the tongue of the hairy Vasads of forest,
and the tongue of their gold-skinned leader, Gurn, the renegade, he had
confirmed that belief.
For a huge gleaming bird had carried him in its talons to the top of
the cliff above their valley and from the rock fire had risen to devour
the great bird. Somehow he had been flung clear and escaped the death
of the mysterious bird-thing. And in his delirium he had babbled the
words that caused the apish Vasads to name him Noork. Now he repeated
them aloud.
"New York," he said, "good ol' New York."
The girl heard. She looked upward fearfully, her rounded bare arm going
back to the bow slung across her shoulder. Swiftly she fitted an arrow
and stepped back against the friendly bole of a shaggy barked jungle
giant. Noork grinned.
"Tako, woman," he greeted her.
"Tako," she replied fearfully. "Who speaks to Tholon Sarna? Be you
hunter or escaped slave?"
"A friend," said Noork simply. "It was I who killed the spotted
narl
last night when it attacked you."
Doubtfully the girl put away her bow. Her fingers, however, were never
far from the hilt of her hunting dagger.
Noork swung outward from his perch, and then downward along the ladder
of limbs to her side. The girl exclaimed at his brown skin.
"Your hair is the color of the sun!" she said. "Your garb is Vasad, yet
you speak the language of the true men." Her violet oddly slanting eyes
opened yet wider. "Who are you?"
"I am Noork," the man told her. "For many days have I dwelt among the
wild Vasads of the jungle with their golden-skinned chief, Gurn, for
my friend."
The girl impulsively took a step nearer. "Gurn!" she cried. "Is he tall
and strong? Has he a bracelet of golden discs linked together with
human hair? Does he talk with his own shadow when he thinks?"
"That is Gurn," admitted Noork shortly. "He is also an exile from the
walled city of Grath. The city rulers call him a traitor. He has told
me the reason. Perhaps you know it as well?"
"Indeed I do," cried Sarna. "My brother said that we should no longer
make slaves of the captured Zurans from the other valleys."
Noork smiled. "I am glad he is your brother," he said simply.
The girl's eyes fell before his admiring gaze and warm blood flooded
into her rounded neck and lovely cheeks.
"Brown-skinned one!" she cried with a stamp of her shapely little
sandalled foot. "I am displeased with the noises of your tongue. I will
listen to it no more."
But her eyes gave the provocative lie to her words. This brown-skinned
giant with the sunlit hair was very attractive....
The girl was still talking much later, as they walked together along
the game-trail. "When my captors were but one day's march from their
foul city of Bis the warriors of the city of Konto, through whose
fertile valley we had journeyed by night, fell upon the slavers.
"And in the confusion of the attack five of us escaped. We returned
toward the valley of Grath, but to avoid the intervening valley where
our enemies, the men of Konto, lived, we swung close to the Lake of
Uzdon. And the Misty Ones from the Temple of the Skull trailed us. I
alone escaped."
Noork lifted the short, broad-bladed sword that swung in its sheath
at his belt and let it drop back into place with a satisfying whisper
of flexible leather on steel. He looked toward the east where lay the
mysterious long lake of the Misty Ones.
"Some day," he said reflectively, "I am going to visit the island of
the unseen evil beings who stole away your friends. Perhaps after I
have taken you to your brother's hidden village, and from there to
your city of Grath...." He smiled.
The girl did not answer. His keen ears, now that he was no longer
speaking, caught the scuffing of feet into the jungle behind him. He
turned quickly to find the girl had vanished, and with an instinctive
reflex of motion he flung himself to one side into the dense wall of
the jungle. As it was the unseen club thudded down along his right arm,
numbing it so he felt nothing for some time.
One armed as he was temporarily, and with an unseen foe to reckon with,
Noork awkwardly swung up into the comparative safety of the trees. Once
there, perched in the crotch of a mighty jungle monarch, he peered down
at the apparently empty stretch of sunken trail beneath.
Noork
At first he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Apparently there was no
stir of life along that leaf-shadowed way. And then he caught a glimpse
of blurring shadowy shapes, blotches of cottony mist that blended all
too well with the foliage. One of the things from the island in the
Lake of Uzdon moved, and he saw briefly the bottom of a foot dirtied
with the mud of the trail.
Noork squinted. So the Misty Ones were not entirely invisible. Pain
was growing in his numbed arm now, but as it came so came strength. He
climbed further out on the great branch to where sticky and overripe
fruit hung heavy. With a grin he locked his legs upon the forking of
the great limb and filled his arms with fruit.
A barrage of the juicy fruit blanketed the misty shapes. Stains spread
and grew. Patchy outlines took on a new color and sharpness. Noork
found that he was pelting a half-dozen hooded and robed creatures whose
arms and legs numbered the same as his own, and the last remnant of
superstitious fear instilled in his bruised brain by the shaggy Vasads
vanished.
These Misty Ones were living breathing creatures like himself! They
were not gods, or demons, or even the ghostly servants of demons. He
strung his bow quickly, the short powerful bow that Gurn had given him,
and rained arrows down upon the cowering robed creatures.
And the monsters fled. They fled down the trail or faded away into the
jungle. All but one of them. The arrow had pierced a vital portion of
this Misty One's body. He fell and moved no more.
A moment later Noork was ripping the stained cloak and hood from the
fallen creature, curious to learn what ghastly brute-thing hid beneath
them. His lip curled at what he saw.
The Misty One was almost like himself. His skin was not so golden as
that of the other men of Zuran, and his forehead was low and retreating
in a bestial fashion. Upon his body there was more hair, and his face
was made hideous with swollen colored scars that formed an irregular
design. He wore a sleeveless tunic of light green and his only weapons
were two long knives and a club.
"So," said Noork, "the men of the island prey upon their own kind. And
the Temple of Uzdon in the lake is guarded by cowardly warriors like
this."
Noork shrugged his shoulders and set off at a mile-devouring pace down
the game trail toward the lake where the Temple of the Skull and its
unseen guardians lay. Once he stopped at a leaf-choked pool to wash the
stains from the dead man's foggy robe.
The jungle was thinning out. Noork's teeth flashed as he lifted the
drying fabric of the mantle and donned it.
Ud tasted the scent of a man and sluggishly rolled his bullet head from
shoulder to shoulder as he tried to catch sight of his ages-old enemy.
For between the hairy quarter-ton beast men of the jungles of Sekk and
the golden men of the valley cities who enslaved them there was eternal
war.
A growl rumbled deep in the hairy half-man's chest. He could see no
enemy and yet the scent grew stronger with every breath.
"You hunt too near the lake," called a voice. "The demons of the water
will trap you."
Ud's great nostrils quivered. He tasted the odor of a friend mingled
with that of a strange Zuran. He squatted.
"It's Noork," he grunted. "Why do I not see you?"
"I have stolen the skin of a demon," answered the invisible man. "Go to
Gurn. Tell him to fear the demons no longer. Tell him the Misty Ones
can be trapped and skinned."
"Why you want their skins?" Ud scratched his hairy gray skull.
"Go to save Gurn's ..." and here Noork was stumped for words. "To save
his father's woman woman," he managed at last. "Father's woman woman
called Sarna."
And the misty blob of nothingness was gone again, its goal now the
marshy lowlands that extended upward perhaps a thousand feet from the
jungle's ragged fringe to end at last in the muddy shallows of the Lake
of Uzdon.
To Noork it seemed that all the world must be like these savage jungle
fastnesses of the twelve valleys and their central lake. He knew that
the giant bird had carried him from some other place that his battered
brain could not remember, but to him it seemed incredible that men
could live elsewhere than in a jungle valley.
But Noork was wrong. The giant bird that he had ridden into the depths
of Sekk's fertile valleys had come from a far different world. And the
other bird, for which Noork had been searching when he came upon the
golden-skinned girl, was from another world also.
The other bird had come from space several days before that of Noork,
the Vasads had told him, and it had landed somewhere within the land
of sunken valleys. Perhaps, thought Noork, the bird had come from the
same valley that had once been his home. He would find the bird and
perhaps then he could remember better who he had been.
So it was, ironically enough, that Stephen Dietrich—whose memory was
gone completely—again took up the trail of Doctor Karl Von Mark, last
of the Axis criminals at large. The trail that had led the red-haired
young American flier from rebuilding Greece into Africa and the hidden
valley where Doctor Von Mark worked feverishly to restore the crumbled
structure of Nazidom, and then had sent him hurtling spaceward in the
second of the Doctor's crude space-ships was now drawing to an end.
The Doctor and the young American pilot were both trapped here on this
little blob of cosmic matter that hides beyond the Moon's cratered bulk.
The Doctor's ship had landed safely on Sekk, the wily scientist
preferring the lesser gravity of this fertile world to that of the
lifeless Moon in the event that he returned again to Earth, but
Dietrich's spacer had crashed.
Two words linked Noork with the past, the two words that the Vasads
had slurred into his name: New York. And the battered wrist watch, its
crystal and hands gone, were all that remained of his Earthly garb.
Noork paddled the long flat dugout strongly away from the twilight
shore toward the shadowy loom of the central island. Though he could
not remember ever having held a paddle before he handled the ungainly
blade well.
After a time the clumsy prow of the craft rammed into a yielding
cushion of mud, and Noork pulled the dugout out of the water into the
roofing shelter of a clump of drooping trees growing at the water's
edge.
Sword in hand he pushed inward from the shore and ended with a
smothered exclamation against an unseen wall. Trees grew close up to
the wall and a moment later he had climbed out along a horizontal
branch beyond the wall's top, and was lowering his body with the aid of
a braided leather rope to the ground beyond.
He was in a cultivated field his feet and hands told him. And perhaps
half a mile away, faintly illumined by torches and red clots of
bonfires, towered a huge weathered white skull!
Secure in the knowledge that he wore the invisible robes of a Misty
One he found a solitary tree growing within the wall and climbed to a
comfortable crotch. In less than a minute he was asleep.
"The new slave," a rough voice cut across his slumber abruptly, "is the
daughter of Tholon Dist the merchant."
Noork was fully awake now. They were speaking of Sarna. Her father's
name was Tholon Dist. It was early morning in the fields of the Misty
Ones and he could see the two golden-skinned slaves who talked together
beneath his tree.
"That matters not to the priests of Uzdon," the slighter of the
two slaves, his hair almost white, said. "If she be chosen for the
sacrifice to great Uzdon her blood will stain the altar no redder than
another's."
"But it is always the youngest and most beautiful," complained the
younger slave, "that the priests chose. I wish to mate with a beautiful
woman. Tholon Sarna is such a one."
The old man chuckled dryly. "If your wife be plain," he said, "neither
master nor fellow slave will steal her love. A slave should choose a
good woman—and ugly, my son."
"Some night," snarled the slave, "I'm going over the wall. Even the
Misty Ones will not catch me once I have crossed the lake."
"Silence," hissed the white-haired man. "Such talk is madness. We are
safe here from wild animals. There are no spotted narls on the island
of Manak. The priests of most holy Uzdon, and their invisible minions,
are not unkind.
"Get at your weeding of the field, Rold," he finished, "and I will
complete my checking of the gardens."
Noork waited until the old man was gone before he descended from the
tree. He walked along the row until he reached the slave's bent back,
and he knew by the sudden tightening of the man's shoulder muscles
that his presence was known. He looked down and saw that his feet made
clear-cut depressions in the soft rich soil of the field.
"Continue to work," he said to the young man. "Do not be too surprised
at what I am about to tell you, Rold." He paused and watched the golden
man's rather stupid face intently.
"I am not a Misty One," Noork said. "I killed the owner of this strange
garment I wear yesterday on the mainland. I have come to rescue the
girl, Tholon Sarna, of whom you spoke."
Rold's mouth hung open but his hard blunt fingers continued to work.
"The Misty Ones, then," he said slowly, "are not immortal demons!" He
nodded his long-haired head. "They are but men. They too can die."
"If you will help me, Rold," said Noork, "to rescue the girl and escape
from the island I will take you along."
Rold was slow in answering. He had been born on the island and yet his
people were from the valley city of Konto. He knew that they would
welcome the news that the Misty Ones were not demons. And the girl from
the enemy city of Grath was beautiful. Perhaps she would love him for
helping to rescue her and come willingly with him to Konto.
"I will help you, stranger," he agreed.
"Then tell me of the Skull, and of the priests, and of the prison where
Tholon Sarna is held."
The slave's fingers flew. "All the young female slaves are caged
together in the pit beneath the Skull. When the sun is directly
overhead the High Priest will choose one of them for sacrifice to
mighty Uzdon, most potent of all gods. And with the dawning of the
next day the chosen one will be bound across the altar before great
Uzdon's image and her heart torn from her living breast." The slave's
mismatched eyes, one blue and the other brown, lifted from his work.
"Tholon Sarna is in the pit beneath the Temple with the other female
slaves. And the Misty Ones stand guard over the entrance to the temple
pits."
"It is enough," said Noork. "I will go to rescue her now. Be prepared
to join us as we return. I will have a robe for you if all goes well."
"If you are captured," cried Rold nervously, "you will not tell them I
talked with you?"
Noork laughed. "You never saw me," he told the slave.
The skull was a gigantic dome of shaped white stone. Where the
eye-sockets and gaping nose-hole should have been, black squares of
rock gave the illusion of vacancy. Slitted apertures that served for
windows circled the grisly whiteness of the temple's curving walls at
three distinct levels.
Noork drifted slowly up the huge series of long bench-like steps
that led up to the gaping jaws of the Skull. He saw red and
purple-robed priests with nodding head-dresses of painted plumes and
feathers climbing and descending the stairs. Among them moved the
squatty gnarled shapes of burdened Vasads, their shaggy bowed legs
fettered together with heavy copper or bronze chains, and cringing
golden-skinned slaves slipped furtively through the press of the
brilliant-robed ones. The stale sweaty odor of the slaves and the beast
men mingled with the musky stench of the incense from the temple.
Other misty blobs, the invisible guards of the ghastly temple, were
stationed at regular intervals across the great entrance into the
Skull's interior, but they paid Noork no heed. To them he was another
of their number.
He moved swiftly to cross the wide stone-slabbed entry within the
jaws, and a moment later was looking down into a sunken bowl whose
rocky floor was a score of feet below where he stood. Now he saw the
central raised altar where the gleam of precious stones and cunningly
worked metal—gold, silver and brass—vied with the faded garish
colors of the draperies beneath it. And on the same dais there loomed
two beast-headed stone images, the lion-headed god a male and the
wolf-headed shape a female.
These then were the two blood hungry deities that the men of Zura
worshipped—mighty Uzdon and his mate, Lornu!
Noork joined the descending throng that walked slowly down the central
ramp toward the altar. As he searched for the entrance to the lower
pits his eyes took in the stone steps that led upward into the two
upper levels. Only priests and the vague shapelessness of the Misty
Ones climbed those steps. The upper levels, then, were forbidden to
the slaves and common citizens of the island.
As he circled the curving inner wall a foul dank odor reached his
sensitive nostrils, and his eyes searched for its origin. He found it
there just before him, the opening that gave way to a descending flight
of clammy stone steps. He darted toward the door and from nowhere two
short swords rose to bar his way.
"None are to pass save the priests," spoke a voice from nowhere
gruffly. "The High Priest knows that we of the temple guards covet the
most beautiful of the slave women, but we are not to see them until the
sacrifice is chosen."
Noork moved backward a pace. He grumbled something inaudible and drew
his sword. Before him the two swords slowly drew aside.
In that instant Noork attacked. His keen sword, whetted to razor
sharpness on abrasive bits of rock, bit through the hidden neck and
shoulder of the guard on his right hand, and with the same forward
impetus of attack he smashed into the body of the startled guard on his
left.
His sword had wrenched from his hand as it jammed into the bony
structure of the decapitated Misty One's shoulder, and now both his
hands sought the throat of the guard. The unseen man's cry of warning
gurgled and died in his throat as Noork clamped his fingers shut upon
it, and his shortened sword stabbed at Noork's back.
The struggle overbalanced them. They rolled over and over down the
shadowy stair, the stone smashing at their softer flesh unmercifully.
For a moment the battling men brought up with a jolt as the obstruction
of the first guard's corpse arrested their downward course, and then
they jolted and jarred onward again from blood-slippery step to
blood-slippery step.
The sword clattered from the guardian Misty One's clutch and in the
same instant Noork's steel fingers snapped the neck of the other man
with a pistol-like report. The limp body beneath him struggled no more.
He sprang to his feet and became aware of a torch-lighted doorway but a
half-dozen paces further down along the descending shaft of steps.
In a moment, he thought, the fellows of this guard would come charging
out, swords in hand. They could not have failed to hear the struggle
on the stairs of stone, he reasoned, for here the noise and confusion
of the upper temple was muted to a murmur.
So it was that he ran quickly to the door, in his hand the sword that
had dropped from the dead man's fingers, and sprang inside, prepared to
battle there the Misty Ones, lest one escape to give the alarm.
He looked about the narrow stone-walled room with puzzled eyes. Two
warriors lay on a pallet of straw, one of them emitting hideous
gurgling sounds that filled the little room with unpleasing echoes.
Noork grinned.
From the floor beside the fatter of the two men, the guard who did not
snore, he took a club. Twice he struck and the gurgling sound changed
to a steady deep breathing. Noork knew that now the two guards would
not give the alarm for several hours. Thoughtfully he looked about the
room. There were several of the hooded cloaks hanging from pegs wedged
into the crevices of the chamber's wall, their outlines much plainer
here in the artificial light of the flickering torch.
Noork shed his own blood-stained robe quickly and donned one of the
others. The cloaks were rather bulky and so he could carry but two
others, rolled up, beneath his own protective covering.
The matter of his disguise thus taken care of he dragged the two bodies
from the stairway and hid them beneath their own fouled robes in the
chamber of the sleeping guards. Not until then did he hurry on down the
stone steps toward the prison pit where Tholon Sarna, the golden girl,
was held prisoner.
The steps opened into a dimly lit cavern. Pools of foul black water
dotted the uneven floor and reflected back faintly the light of the two
sputtering torches beside the entrance. One corner of the cavern was
walled off, save for a narrow door of interlocking brass strips, and
toward this Noork made his way.
He stood beside the door. "Sarna," he called softly, "Tholon Sarna."
There were a score of young women, lately captured from the mainland
by the Misty Ones, sitting dejectedly upon the foul dampness of the
rotting grass that was their bed. Most of them were clad in the simple
skirt and brief jacket, reaching but to the lower ribs, that is the
mark of the golden people who dwell in the city-states of Zura's
valleys, but a few wore a simple band of cloth about their hips and
confined their breasts with a strip of well-cured leopard or antelope
hide.
One of the women now came to her feet and as she neared the
metal-barred entrance Noork saw that she was indeed Sarna. He examined
the outer lock of the door and found it to be barred with a massive
timber and the timber locked in place with a metal spike slipped into a
prepared cavity in the prison's rocky wall.
"It is Noork," he said softly as she came closer. He saw her eyes go
wide with fear and sudden hope, and then reached for the spike.
"The priest," hissed the girl.
Noork had already heard the sound of approaching feet. He dropped the
spike and whirled. His sword was in his hand as though by magic, as he
faced the burly priest of the Skull.
Across the forehead and upper half of the priest's face a curved shield
of transparent tinted material was fastened. Noork's eyes narrowed as
he saw the sword and shield of the gigantic holy man.
"So," he said, "to the priests of Uzdon we are not invisible. You do
not trust your guards, then."
The priest laughed. "We also have robes of invisibility," he said, "and
the sacred window of Uzdon before our eyes." He snarled suddenly at the
silent figure of the white man. "Down on your knees, guard, and show me
your face before I kill you!"
Noork raised his sword. "Take my hood off if you dare, priest," he
offered.
The burly priest's answer was a bellow of rage and a lunge forward of
his sword arm. Their swords clicked together and slid apart with the
velvety smoothness of bronze on bronze. Noork's blade bit a chunk from
the priest's conical shield, and in return received a slashing cut that
drew blood from left shoulder to elbow.
The fighting grew more furious as the priest pressed the attack. He
was a skilled swordsman and only the superior agility of the white
man's legs kept Noork away from that darting priestly blade. Even so
his robe was slashed in a dozen places and blood reddened his bronzed
body. Once he slipped in a puddle of foul cavern water and only by the
slightest of margins did he escape death by the priest's weapon.
The priest was tiring rapidly, however. The soft living of the temple,
and the rich wines and over-cooked meats that served to pad his paunch
so well with fat, now served to rob him of breath. He opened his
mouth to bawl for assistance from the guard, although it is doubtful
whether any sound could have penetrated up into the madhouse of the
main temple's floor, and in that instant Noork flipped his sword at his
enemy.
Between the shield and the transparent bit of curving material the
sword drove, and buried itself deep in the priest's thick neck. Noork
leaped forward; he snatched the tinted face shield and his sword, and a
moment later he had torn the great wooden timber from its sockets.
Tholon Sarna stumbled through the door and he caught her in his arms.
Hurriedly he loosed one of the two robes fastened about his waist and
slipped it around her slim shivering shoulders.
"Are there other priests hidden here in the pits?" Noork asked tensely.
"No," came the girl's low voice, "I do not think so. I did not know
that this priest was here until he appeared behind you." A slow smile
crossed Noork's hidden features. "His robe must be close by," he told
the girl. "He must have been stationed here because the priests feared
the guards might spirit away some of the prisoners."
Slowly he angled back and forth across the floor until his foot touched
the soft material of the priest's discarded robe near the stairway
entrance. He slipped the thongs of the transparent mask, called by the
priest "Uzdon's window" over his hood, and then proceeded to don the
new robe.
"My own robe is slit in a dozen places," he explained to the girl's
curious violet eyes—-all that was visible through the narrow vision
slot of her hood. He finished adjusting the outer robe and took the
girl's hand.
"Come," he said, "let us escape over the wall before the alarm is
given."
Without incident they reached the field where Rold toiled among the
rows of vegetables. Another slave was working in a nearby field,
his crude wooden plow pulled by two sweating Vasads, but he was not
watching when Rold abruptly faded from view.
Noork was sweating with the weight of two cloaks and the airlessness of
the vision shield as they crossed the field toward his rope, but he had
no wish to discard them yet. The tinted shield had revealed that dozens
of the Misty Ones were stationed about the wall to guard against the
escape of the slaves.
They came to the wall and to Noork's great joy found the rope hanging
as he had left it. He climbed the wall first and then with Rold helping
from below, drew Sarna to his side. A moment later saw the three of
them climbing along the limb to the bole of the tree and so to the
jungle matted ground outside the wall.
"Will we hide here in the trees until night?" asked the girl's full
voice.
Noork held aside a mossy creeper until the girl had passed. "I think
not," he said. "The Misty Ones are continually passing from the island
to the shore. We are Misty Ones to any that watch from the wall. So we
will paddle boldly across the water."
"That is good," agreed the slave, "unless they see us put out from the
shore. Their two landing stages are further along the beach, opposite
the Temple of Uzdon."
"Then we must hug to the shore until we pass the tip of the island,"
said Noork thoughtfully. "In that way even if they detect us we will
have put a safe distance between us."
Shortly after midday Noork felt the oozy slime of the marshy lowlands
of the mainland beneath his paddle and the dugout ran ashore in the
grassy inlet for which they had been heading. His palms were blistered
and the heavy robes he yet wore were soaked with sweat.
"Once we reach the jungle," he told the girl, "off come these robes. I
am broiled alive."
Suddenly Noork froze in his tracks. He thrust the girl behind him.
"Misty Ones!" he hissed to Rold. "They crouch among the reeds. They
carry nets and clubs to trap us."
Rold turned back toward the boat with Noork and Sarna close at his
heels. But the Misty Ones were upon them and by sheer numbers they bore
them to the ground. Noork's mightier muscles smashed more than one
hooded face but in the end he too lay smothered beneath the nets and
bodies of the enemy.
A misty shape came to stand beside these three new captives as they
were stripped of their robes. His foot nudged at Noork's head curiously
and a guttural voice commanded the shield be removed. Then his voice
changed—thickened—as he saw the features of Noork.
"So," he barked in a tongue that should have been strange to Noork but
was not, "it is the trapper's turn to be trapped, eh Captain Dietrich?"
A fat, square-jawed face, harsh lines paralleling the ugly blob of a
nose, showed through the opened robe of the leader. The face was that
of Doctor Von Mark the treacherous Nazi scientist that Stephen Dietrich
had trailed across space to Sekk! But Noork knew nothing of that chase.
The man's face seemed familiar, and hateful, but that was all he
remembered.
"I see you have come from the island," said the Doctor. "Perhaps you
can tell me the secret of this invisible material I wear. With the
secret of invisibility I, Karl Von Mark, can again conquer Earth and
make the Fatherland invincible."
"I do not understand too well," said Noork hesitantly. "Are we enemies?
There is so much I have forgotten." He regarded the brutal face
thoughtfully.
"Perhaps you know from what valley the great bird brought me," he said.
"Or perhaps the other bird brought you here."
Von Mark's blue eyes widened and then he roared with a great noise
that was intended to be mirth. His foot slammed harder into Noork's
defenseless ribs.
"Perhaps you have forgotten, swine of an American," he roared suddenly,
and in his hand was an ugly looking automatic. He flung back his robe
and Noork saw the dress uniform of a general. "Perhaps," the scientist
repeated, "but I will take no chances. The amnesia is often but a
pretense."
His lip curled. "This is something for you to remember, Captain
Dietrich," he said as the ugly black muzzle of the gun centered on
Noork's bronzed chest.
And then Doctor Von Mark cursed as the gun dropped from his nerveless
fingers and his hands clawed weakly at the arrow buried in his wide
belly. He stumbled backward.
Arrows rained from the mistiness that had closed in about Von Mark and
his men. The men from Wari, their faces unshielded, fell like flies.
In a moment those yet alive had taken to their heels, and Noork felt
invisible fingers tearing at the nets that bound him.
As he rose to his feet the robed figure let its misty covering drop
aside. A handsome golden-skinned warrior stood revealed.
"Gurn!" cried Noork.
A glad cry came from the throat of Tholon Sarna as she saw her brother.
And then she crept closer to Noork's side as the invisible mantles
of Gurn's loyal Vasads opened to reveal the hairy beast men they
concealed. Rold whimpered fearfully.
"The message that Ud carried to me was good," laughed Gurn. "The Misty
Ones skin easily. We were trapping the Misty Ones as they came across
the lake," he looked at the dying Von Mark, "as were these others. Soon
we would have come to your rescue, Noork, my friend."
"Lucky I escaped first," Noork told him. "The priests of Uzdon would
have trapped you. To them the Misty Ones are visible."
He picked up the fallen vision shield that lay beside their feet. His
chest expanded proudly.
"No longer," he told Gurn, "am I a man without a name. I am Captain
Dietrich from a distant valley called America. I was hunting this evil
man when my bird died."
He smiled and his brown arm tightened around Sarna's golden body. "The
evil man is dead. My native valley is safe. Now I can live in peace
with you, Gurn, and with your sister, here in the jungle."
"It is good, Noork," smiled Tholon Sarna.
End of Project Gutenberg's Raiders of the Second Moon, by Gene Ellerman
Question:
Describe the setting of the story
Answer:
|
[
"The story begins in thick jungle on Sekk, which we are told is a \"second moon\" which retains a \"breathable atmosphere\" around a lake surrounded by eleven jungled valleys. In this way, it is implied that Sekk is a second moon of Earth.\n\nIn the jungle, we meet Noork and a young woman named Sarna. They begin traveling together through the jungle, but soon Sarna disappears and Noork is attacked. This is our first encounter with the Misty Ones, who blend in with the jungle foliage. Noork defeats the Misty Ones and continues toward the lake and island where they make their home.\n\nNoork briefly encounters his friend Ud near the marshy lowlands that lie between the jungled valleys on Sekk and the central Lake of Uzdon, but this area is not described. When Noork reaches the central island in the lake, we encounter a non-jungle landscape for the first time. Noork finds himself in a cultivated field, and sees the shape of a huge white skull about half a mile away. After speaking with an enslaved man and learning where Sarna is being held, Noork continues toward the skull.\n\nThe skull is a dome of white stone, with black stone for eye-sockets and nose-holes. The interior contains a raised altar made of precious metals--gold, silver, and brass--and precious stones, as well as stone images of the two gods the Misty Ones worship. Below the altar is the caged area where the young women are held; Noork detects the entrance to this area by its foul odor. The room where the young women are kept is dimly lit by only two torches, very damp with pools of dirty water all around, and holds at least twenty young women. They have nothing to sit on but rotten grass mats. In contrast to the enslaved men who are out in the cultivated fields and open air, the young women are in a desperate situation indeed. They can only sit in their foul, rotting prison and wait to be sacrificed.",
"The story takes place sometime after World War II on a second moon that is obscured by the moon we know and is known as Sekk. The moon Sekk has a diameter of less than five-hundred miles and a thirty-two-hour revolution, and it has a breathable atmosphere that sustains life. Life on Sekk is concentrated within a star-shaped cavity that features a lake and eleven valleys branching out from it, all of which contain jungles. The action of the story happens in the jungle areas, the lake, a walled temple, and the cavern prison beneath it. \n",
"The story is set on Sekk, the second moon, beyond Luna and blocked from Earth’s view by Luna. Sekk is less than 500 miles in diameter and has a revolution period of 32 hours. It has a breathable atmosphere and features a star-shaped center surrounded by twelve valleys thick with jungle growth. Some trees are over forty feet tall; Noork uses these trees to surveil the area around him. Several groups live on Sekk in different villages, and there are dangerous wild animals called spotted narls. There is a mysterious group of beings, believed to be demons, called the Misty Ones because they are invisible. They live on an island in the middle of a lake and have a huge skull that represents their god, Uzdon. Female slaves are held captive in a pit beneath the skull. The story takes place after World War II, when the Allies were searching for Nazi officers to stand trial for their war crimes. Dr. Karl Von Mark is one of the Nazi officials, and he makes his way to Africa, pursued by the American Stephen Dietrich. They both fly into space and land on Sekk where Von Mark works on his scheme to return and take over the Earth, and Dietrich loses his memory and becomes known as Noork.",
"The story takes place on a small moon called Sekk, five hundred miles wide with a thirty-two-hour day. The atmosphere on Sekk supports life, which exists in rich abundance within a star-like depression in its earth. Deep in this depression is a lake surrounded by twelve vast, green valleys and jungles. The jungles are dense and covered with massive trees that look like giants. Many of these trees have sticky fruits that Noork later uses to help him see the Misty Ones. Noork paddles across the lake in order to reach the island of Manak, which is home to the Temple of Skull where the Misty Ones make their sacrifices to the gods Uzdon and Lornu. The Temple is comprised mostly of stone, and the sacrificial altar is made of brass, gold, and silver. After navigating through the Temple to find Tholon Sarna, he eventually ends up in “the pit”—a cavern dimly lit with torches and peppered with dark standing water. After their escape from the Temple, they are once again stopped by Misty Ones in a grassy inlet back on the mainland. This is where Dr. Von Mark reveals Noork’s true identity to him and is killed by Gurn and the Vasads."
] |
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Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Raiders of the Second Moon
By GENE ELLERMAN
A strange destiny had erased Noork's memory,
and had brought him to this tiny world—to
write an end to his first existence.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Summer 1945.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Beyond earth swings that airless pocked mass of fused rock and gray
volcanic dust that we know as Luna. Of this our naked eyes assure us.
But of the smaller satellite, hidden forever from the mundane view by
Luna's bulk, we know little.
Small is Sekk, that second moon, less than five hundred miles in
diameter, but the period of its revolution is thirty two hours, and its
meaner mass retains a breathable atmosphere. There is life on Sekk,
life that centers around the sunken star-shaped cavity where an oval
lake gleams softly in the depths. And the eleven radiating tips of the
starry abyss are valleys green with jungle growth.
In one of those green valleys the white savage that the Vasads called
Noork squatted in the ample crotch of a jungle giant and watched the
trail forty feet below. For down there moved alertly a golden skinned
girl, her only weapons a puny polished bow of yellow wood and a
sheathed dagger.
Sight of the girl's flowing brown hair and the graceful feminine
contours of her smooth-limbed body beneath its skin-halter and the
insignificant breech-clout, made his brow wrinkle with concentration.
Not forever had he lived in this jungle world of valleys and ragged
cliffs. Since he had learned the tongue of the hairy Vasads of forest,
and the tongue of their gold-skinned leader, Gurn, the renegade, he had
confirmed that belief.
For a huge gleaming bird had carried him in its talons to the top of
the cliff above their valley and from the rock fire had risen to devour
the great bird. Somehow he had been flung clear and escaped the death
of the mysterious bird-thing. And in his delirium he had babbled the
words that caused the apish Vasads to name him Noork. Now he repeated
them aloud.
"New York," he said, "good ol' New York."
The girl heard. She looked upward fearfully, her rounded bare arm going
back to the bow slung across her shoulder. Swiftly she fitted an arrow
and stepped back against the friendly bole of a shaggy barked jungle
giant. Noork grinned.
"Tako, woman," he greeted her.
"Tako," she replied fearfully. "Who speaks to Tholon Sarna? Be you
hunter or escaped slave?"
"A friend," said Noork simply. "It was I who killed the spotted
narl
last night when it attacked you."
Doubtfully the girl put away her bow. Her fingers, however, were never
far from the hilt of her hunting dagger.
Noork swung outward from his perch, and then downward along the ladder
of limbs to her side. The girl exclaimed at his brown skin.
"Your hair is the color of the sun!" she said. "Your garb is Vasad, yet
you speak the language of the true men." Her violet oddly slanting eyes
opened yet wider. "Who are you?"
"I am Noork," the man told her. "For many days have I dwelt among the
wild Vasads of the jungle with their golden-skinned chief, Gurn, for
my friend."
The girl impulsively took a step nearer. "Gurn!" she cried. "Is he tall
and strong? Has he a bracelet of golden discs linked together with
human hair? Does he talk with his own shadow when he thinks?"
"That is Gurn," admitted Noork shortly. "He is also an exile from the
walled city of Grath. The city rulers call him a traitor. He has told
me the reason. Perhaps you know it as well?"
"Indeed I do," cried Sarna. "My brother said that we should no longer
make slaves of the captured Zurans from the other valleys."
Noork smiled. "I am glad he is your brother," he said simply.
The girl's eyes fell before his admiring gaze and warm blood flooded
into her rounded neck and lovely cheeks.
"Brown-skinned one!" she cried with a stamp of her shapely little
sandalled foot. "I am displeased with the noises of your tongue. I will
listen to it no more."
But her eyes gave the provocative lie to her words. This brown-skinned
giant with the sunlit hair was very attractive....
The girl was still talking much later, as they walked together along
the game-trail. "When my captors were but one day's march from their
foul city of Bis the warriors of the city of Konto, through whose
fertile valley we had journeyed by night, fell upon the slavers.
"And in the confusion of the attack five of us escaped. We returned
toward the valley of Grath, but to avoid the intervening valley where
our enemies, the men of Konto, lived, we swung close to the Lake of
Uzdon. And the Misty Ones from the Temple of the Skull trailed us. I
alone escaped."
Noork lifted the short, broad-bladed sword that swung in its sheath
at his belt and let it drop back into place with a satisfying whisper
of flexible leather on steel. He looked toward the east where lay the
mysterious long lake of the Misty Ones.
"Some day," he said reflectively, "I am going to visit the island of
the unseen evil beings who stole away your friends. Perhaps after I
have taken you to your brother's hidden village, and from there to
your city of Grath...." He smiled.
The girl did not answer. His keen ears, now that he was no longer
speaking, caught the scuffing of feet into the jungle behind him. He
turned quickly to find the girl had vanished, and with an instinctive
reflex of motion he flung himself to one side into the dense wall of
the jungle. As it was the unseen club thudded down along his right arm,
numbing it so he felt nothing for some time.
One armed as he was temporarily, and with an unseen foe to reckon with,
Noork awkwardly swung up into the comparative safety of the trees. Once
there, perched in the crotch of a mighty jungle monarch, he peered down
at the apparently empty stretch of sunken trail beneath.
Noork
At first he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Apparently there was no
stir of life along that leaf-shadowed way. And then he caught a glimpse
of blurring shadowy shapes, blotches of cottony mist that blended all
too well with the foliage. One of the things from the island in the
Lake of Uzdon moved, and he saw briefly the bottom of a foot dirtied
with the mud of the trail.
Noork squinted. So the Misty Ones were not entirely invisible. Pain
was growing in his numbed arm now, but as it came so came strength. He
climbed further out on the great branch to where sticky and overripe
fruit hung heavy. With a grin he locked his legs upon the forking of
the great limb and filled his arms with fruit.
A barrage of the juicy fruit blanketed the misty shapes. Stains spread
and grew. Patchy outlines took on a new color and sharpness. Noork
found that he was pelting a half-dozen hooded and robed creatures whose
arms and legs numbered the same as his own, and the last remnant of
superstitious fear instilled in his bruised brain by the shaggy Vasads
vanished.
These Misty Ones were living breathing creatures like himself! They
were not gods, or demons, or even the ghostly servants of demons. He
strung his bow quickly, the short powerful bow that Gurn had given him,
and rained arrows down upon the cowering robed creatures.
And the monsters fled. They fled down the trail or faded away into the
jungle. All but one of them. The arrow had pierced a vital portion of
this Misty One's body. He fell and moved no more.
A moment later Noork was ripping the stained cloak and hood from the
fallen creature, curious to learn what ghastly brute-thing hid beneath
them. His lip curled at what he saw.
The Misty One was almost like himself. His skin was not so golden as
that of the other men of Zuran, and his forehead was low and retreating
in a bestial fashion. Upon his body there was more hair, and his face
was made hideous with swollen colored scars that formed an irregular
design. He wore a sleeveless tunic of light green and his only weapons
were two long knives and a club.
"So," said Noork, "the men of the island prey upon their own kind. And
the Temple of Uzdon in the lake is guarded by cowardly warriors like
this."
Noork shrugged his shoulders and set off at a mile-devouring pace down
the game trail toward the lake where the Temple of the Skull and its
unseen guardians lay. Once he stopped at a leaf-choked pool to wash the
stains from the dead man's foggy robe.
The jungle was thinning out. Noork's teeth flashed as he lifted the
drying fabric of the mantle and donned it.
Ud tasted the scent of a man and sluggishly rolled his bullet head from
shoulder to shoulder as he tried to catch sight of his ages-old enemy.
For between the hairy quarter-ton beast men of the jungles of Sekk and
the golden men of the valley cities who enslaved them there was eternal
war.
A growl rumbled deep in the hairy half-man's chest. He could see no
enemy and yet the scent grew stronger with every breath.
"You hunt too near the lake," called a voice. "The demons of the water
will trap you."
Ud's great nostrils quivered. He tasted the odor of a friend mingled
with that of a strange Zuran. He squatted.
"It's Noork," he grunted. "Why do I not see you?"
"I have stolen the skin of a demon," answered the invisible man. "Go to
Gurn. Tell him to fear the demons no longer. Tell him the Misty Ones
can be trapped and skinned."
"Why you want their skins?" Ud scratched his hairy gray skull.
"Go to save Gurn's ..." and here Noork was stumped for words. "To save
his father's woman woman," he managed at last. "Father's woman woman
called Sarna."
And the misty blob of nothingness was gone again, its goal now the
marshy lowlands that extended upward perhaps a thousand feet from the
jungle's ragged fringe to end at last in the muddy shallows of the Lake
of Uzdon.
To Noork it seemed that all the world must be like these savage jungle
fastnesses of the twelve valleys and their central lake. He knew that
the giant bird had carried him from some other place that his battered
brain could not remember, but to him it seemed incredible that men
could live elsewhere than in a jungle valley.
But Noork was wrong. The giant bird that he had ridden into the depths
of Sekk's fertile valleys had come from a far different world. And the
other bird, for which Noork had been searching when he came upon the
golden-skinned girl, was from another world also.
The other bird had come from space several days before that of Noork,
the Vasads had told him, and it had landed somewhere within the land
of sunken valleys. Perhaps, thought Noork, the bird had come from the
same valley that had once been his home. He would find the bird and
perhaps then he could remember better who he had been.
So it was, ironically enough, that Stephen Dietrich—whose memory was
gone completely—again took up the trail of Doctor Karl Von Mark, last
of the Axis criminals at large. The trail that had led the red-haired
young American flier from rebuilding Greece into Africa and the hidden
valley where Doctor Von Mark worked feverishly to restore the crumbled
structure of Nazidom, and then had sent him hurtling spaceward in the
second of the Doctor's crude space-ships was now drawing to an end.
The Doctor and the young American pilot were both trapped here on this
little blob of cosmic matter that hides beyond the Moon's cratered bulk.
The Doctor's ship had landed safely on Sekk, the wily scientist
preferring the lesser gravity of this fertile world to that of the
lifeless Moon in the event that he returned again to Earth, but
Dietrich's spacer had crashed.
Two words linked Noork with the past, the two words that the Vasads
had slurred into his name: New York. And the battered wrist watch, its
crystal and hands gone, were all that remained of his Earthly garb.
Noork paddled the long flat dugout strongly away from the twilight
shore toward the shadowy loom of the central island. Though he could
not remember ever having held a paddle before he handled the ungainly
blade well.
After a time the clumsy prow of the craft rammed into a yielding
cushion of mud, and Noork pulled the dugout out of the water into the
roofing shelter of a clump of drooping trees growing at the water's
edge.
Sword in hand he pushed inward from the shore and ended with a
smothered exclamation against an unseen wall. Trees grew close up to
the wall and a moment later he had climbed out along a horizontal
branch beyond the wall's top, and was lowering his body with the aid of
a braided leather rope to the ground beyond.
He was in a cultivated field his feet and hands told him. And perhaps
half a mile away, faintly illumined by torches and red clots of
bonfires, towered a huge weathered white skull!
Secure in the knowledge that he wore the invisible robes of a Misty
One he found a solitary tree growing within the wall and climbed to a
comfortable crotch. In less than a minute he was asleep.
"The new slave," a rough voice cut across his slumber abruptly, "is the
daughter of Tholon Dist the merchant."
Noork was fully awake now. They were speaking of Sarna. Her father's
name was Tholon Dist. It was early morning in the fields of the Misty
Ones and he could see the two golden-skinned slaves who talked together
beneath his tree.
"That matters not to the priests of Uzdon," the slighter of the
two slaves, his hair almost white, said. "If she be chosen for the
sacrifice to great Uzdon her blood will stain the altar no redder than
another's."
"But it is always the youngest and most beautiful," complained the
younger slave, "that the priests chose. I wish to mate with a beautiful
woman. Tholon Sarna is such a one."
The old man chuckled dryly. "If your wife be plain," he said, "neither
master nor fellow slave will steal her love. A slave should choose a
good woman—and ugly, my son."
"Some night," snarled the slave, "I'm going over the wall. Even the
Misty Ones will not catch me once I have crossed the lake."
"Silence," hissed the white-haired man. "Such talk is madness. We are
safe here from wild animals. There are no spotted narls on the island
of Manak. The priests of most holy Uzdon, and their invisible minions,
are not unkind.
"Get at your weeding of the field, Rold," he finished, "and I will
complete my checking of the gardens."
Noork waited until the old man was gone before he descended from the
tree. He walked along the row until he reached the slave's bent back,
and he knew by the sudden tightening of the man's shoulder muscles
that his presence was known. He looked down and saw that his feet made
clear-cut depressions in the soft rich soil of the field.
"Continue to work," he said to the young man. "Do not be too surprised
at what I am about to tell you, Rold." He paused and watched the golden
man's rather stupid face intently.
"I am not a Misty One," Noork said. "I killed the owner of this strange
garment I wear yesterday on the mainland. I have come to rescue the
girl, Tholon Sarna, of whom you spoke."
Rold's mouth hung open but his hard blunt fingers continued to work.
"The Misty Ones, then," he said slowly, "are not immortal demons!" He
nodded his long-haired head. "They are but men. They too can die."
"If you will help me, Rold," said Noork, "to rescue the girl and escape
from the island I will take you along."
Rold was slow in answering. He had been born on the island and yet his
people were from the valley city of Konto. He knew that they would
welcome the news that the Misty Ones were not demons. And the girl from
the enemy city of Grath was beautiful. Perhaps she would love him for
helping to rescue her and come willingly with him to Konto.
"I will help you, stranger," he agreed.
"Then tell me of the Skull, and of the priests, and of the prison where
Tholon Sarna is held."
The slave's fingers flew. "All the young female slaves are caged
together in the pit beneath the Skull. When the sun is directly
overhead the High Priest will choose one of them for sacrifice to
mighty Uzdon, most potent of all gods. And with the dawning of the
next day the chosen one will be bound across the altar before great
Uzdon's image and her heart torn from her living breast." The slave's
mismatched eyes, one blue and the other brown, lifted from his work.
"Tholon Sarna is in the pit beneath the Temple with the other female
slaves. And the Misty Ones stand guard over the entrance to the temple
pits."
"It is enough," said Noork. "I will go to rescue her now. Be prepared
to join us as we return. I will have a robe for you if all goes well."
"If you are captured," cried Rold nervously, "you will not tell them I
talked with you?"
Noork laughed. "You never saw me," he told the slave.
The skull was a gigantic dome of shaped white stone. Where the
eye-sockets and gaping nose-hole should have been, black squares of
rock gave the illusion of vacancy. Slitted apertures that served for
windows circled the grisly whiteness of the temple's curving walls at
three distinct levels.
Noork drifted slowly up the huge series of long bench-like steps
that led up to the gaping jaws of the Skull. He saw red and
purple-robed priests with nodding head-dresses of painted plumes and
feathers climbing and descending the stairs. Among them moved the
squatty gnarled shapes of burdened Vasads, their shaggy bowed legs
fettered together with heavy copper or bronze chains, and cringing
golden-skinned slaves slipped furtively through the press of the
brilliant-robed ones. The stale sweaty odor of the slaves and the beast
men mingled with the musky stench of the incense from the temple.
Other misty blobs, the invisible guards of the ghastly temple, were
stationed at regular intervals across the great entrance into the
Skull's interior, but they paid Noork no heed. To them he was another
of their number.
He moved swiftly to cross the wide stone-slabbed entry within the
jaws, and a moment later was looking down into a sunken bowl whose
rocky floor was a score of feet below where he stood. Now he saw the
central raised altar where the gleam of precious stones and cunningly
worked metal—gold, silver and brass—vied with the faded garish
colors of the draperies beneath it. And on the same dais there loomed
two beast-headed stone images, the lion-headed god a male and the
wolf-headed shape a female.
These then were the two blood hungry deities that the men of Zura
worshipped—mighty Uzdon and his mate, Lornu!
Noork joined the descending throng that walked slowly down the central
ramp toward the altar. As he searched for the entrance to the lower
pits his eyes took in the stone steps that led upward into the two
upper levels. Only priests and the vague shapelessness of the Misty
Ones climbed those steps. The upper levels, then, were forbidden to
the slaves and common citizens of the island.
As he circled the curving inner wall a foul dank odor reached his
sensitive nostrils, and his eyes searched for its origin. He found it
there just before him, the opening that gave way to a descending flight
of clammy stone steps. He darted toward the door and from nowhere two
short swords rose to bar his way.
"None are to pass save the priests," spoke a voice from nowhere
gruffly. "The High Priest knows that we of the temple guards covet the
most beautiful of the slave women, but we are not to see them until the
sacrifice is chosen."
Noork moved backward a pace. He grumbled something inaudible and drew
his sword. Before him the two swords slowly drew aside.
In that instant Noork attacked. His keen sword, whetted to razor
sharpness on abrasive bits of rock, bit through the hidden neck and
shoulder of the guard on his right hand, and with the same forward
impetus of attack he smashed into the body of the startled guard on his
left.
His sword had wrenched from his hand as it jammed into the bony
structure of the decapitated Misty One's shoulder, and now both his
hands sought the throat of the guard. The unseen man's cry of warning
gurgled and died in his throat as Noork clamped his fingers shut upon
it, and his shortened sword stabbed at Noork's back.
The struggle overbalanced them. They rolled over and over down the
shadowy stair, the stone smashing at their softer flesh unmercifully.
For a moment the battling men brought up with a jolt as the obstruction
of the first guard's corpse arrested their downward course, and then
they jolted and jarred onward again from blood-slippery step to
blood-slippery step.
The sword clattered from the guardian Misty One's clutch and in the
same instant Noork's steel fingers snapped the neck of the other man
with a pistol-like report. The limp body beneath him struggled no more.
He sprang to his feet and became aware of a torch-lighted doorway but a
half-dozen paces further down along the descending shaft of steps.
In a moment, he thought, the fellows of this guard would come charging
out, swords in hand. They could not have failed to hear the struggle
on the stairs of stone, he reasoned, for here the noise and confusion
of the upper temple was muted to a murmur.
So it was that he ran quickly to the door, in his hand the sword that
had dropped from the dead man's fingers, and sprang inside, prepared to
battle there the Misty Ones, lest one escape to give the alarm.
He looked about the narrow stone-walled room with puzzled eyes. Two
warriors lay on a pallet of straw, one of them emitting hideous
gurgling sounds that filled the little room with unpleasing echoes.
Noork grinned.
From the floor beside the fatter of the two men, the guard who did not
snore, he took a club. Twice he struck and the gurgling sound changed
to a steady deep breathing. Noork knew that now the two guards would
not give the alarm for several hours. Thoughtfully he looked about the
room. There were several of the hooded cloaks hanging from pegs wedged
into the crevices of the chamber's wall, their outlines much plainer
here in the artificial light of the flickering torch.
Noork shed his own blood-stained robe quickly and donned one of the
others. The cloaks were rather bulky and so he could carry but two
others, rolled up, beneath his own protective covering.
The matter of his disguise thus taken care of he dragged the two bodies
from the stairway and hid them beneath their own fouled robes in the
chamber of the sleeping guards. Not until then did he hurry on down the
stone steps toward the prison pit where Tholon Sarna, the golden girl,
was held prisoner.
The steps opened into a dimly lit cavern. Pools of foul black water
dotted the uneven floor and reflected back faintly the light of the two
sputtering torches beside the entrance. One corner of the cavern was
walled off, save for a narrow door of interlocking brass strips, and
toward this Noork made his way.
He stood beside the door. "Sarna," he called softly, "Tholon Sarna."
There were a score of young women, lately captured from the mainland
by the Misty Ones, sitting dejectedly upon the foul dampness of the
rotting grass that was their bed. Most of them were clad in the simple
skirt and brief jacket, reaching but to the lower ribs, that is the
mark of the golden people who dwell in the city-states of Zura's
valleys, but a few wore a simple band of cloth about their hips and
confined their breasts with a strip of well-cured leopard or antelope
hide.
One of the women now came to her feet and as she neared the
metal-barred entrance Noork saw that she was indeed Sarna. He examined
the outer lock of the door and found it to be barred with a massive
timber and the timber locked in place with a metal spike slipped into a
prepared cavity in the prison's rocky wall.
"It is Noork," he said softly as she came closer. He saw her eyes go
wide with fear and sudden hope, and then reached for the spike.
"The priest," hissed the girl.
Noork had already heard the sound of approaching feet. He dropped the
spike and whirled. His sword was in his hand as though by magic, as he
faced the burly priest of the Skull.
Across the forehead and upper half of the priest's face a curved shield
of transparent tinted material was fastened. Noork's eyes narrowed as
he saw the sword and shield of the gigantic holy man.
"So," he said, "to the priests of Uzdon we are not invisible. You do
not trust your guards, then."
The priest laughed. "We also have robes of invisibility," he said, "and
the sacred window of Uzdon before our eyes." He snarled suddenly at the
silent figure of the white man. "Down on your knees, guard, and show me
your face before I kill you!"
Noork raised his sword. "Take my hood off if you dare, priest," he
offered.
The burly priest's answer was a bellow of rage and a lunge forward of
his sword arm. Their swords clicked together and slid apart with the
velvety smoothness of bronze on bronze. Noork's blade bit a chunk from
the priest's conical shield, and in return received a slashing cut that
drew blood from left shoulder to elbow.
The fighting grew more furious as the priest pressed the attack. He
was a skilled swordsman and only the superior agility of the white
man's legs kept Noork away from that darting priestly blade. Even so
his robe was slashed in a dozen places and blood reddened his bronzed
body. Once he slipped in a puddle of foul cavern water and only by the
slightest of margins did he escape death by the priest's weapon.
The priest was tiring rapidly, however. The soft living of the temple,
and the rich wines and over-cooked meats that served to pad his paunch
so well with fat, now served to rob him of breath. He opened his
mouth to bawl for assistance from the guard, although it is doubtful
whether any sound could have penetrated up into the madhouse of the
main temple's floor, and in that instant Noork flipped his sword at his
enemy.
Between the shield and the transparent bit of curving material the
sword drove, and buried itself deep in the priest's thick neck. Noork
leaped forward; he snatched the tinted face shield and his sword, and a
moment later he had torn the great wooden timber from its sockets.
Tholon Sarna stumbled through the door and he caught her in his arms.
Hurriedly he loosed one of the two robes fastened about his waist and
slipped it around her slim shivering shoulders.
"Are there other priests hidden here in the pits?" Noork asked tensely.
"No," came the girl's low voice, "I do not think so. I did not know
that this priest was here until he appeared behind you." A slow smile
crossed Noork's hidden features. "His robe must be close by," he told
the girl. "He must have been stationed here because the priests feared
the guards might spirit away some of the prisoners."
Slowly he angled back and forth across the floor until his foot touched
the soft material of the priest's discarded robe near the stairway
entrance. He slipped the thongs of the transparent mask, called by the
priest "Uzdon's window" over his hood, and then proceeded to don the
new robe.
"My own robe is slit in a dozen places," he explained to the girl's
curious violet eyes—-all that was visible through the narrow vision
slot of her hood. He finished adjusting the outer robe and took the
girl's hand.
"Come," he said, "let us escape over the wall before the alarm is
given."
Without incident they reached the field where Rold toiled among the
rows of vegetables. Another slave was working in a nearby field,
his crude wooden plow pulled by two sweating Vasads, but he was not
watching when Rold abruptly faded from view.
Noork was sweating with the weight of two cloaks and the airlessness of
the vision shield as they crossed the field toward his rope, but he had
no wish to discard them yet. The tinted shield had revealed that dozens
of the Misty Ones were stationed about the wall to guard against the
escape of the slaves.
They came to the wall and to Noork's great joy found the rope hanging
as he had left it. He climbed the wall first and then with Rold helping
from below, drew Sarna to his side. A moment later saw the three of
them climbing along the limb to the bole of the tree and so to the
jungle matted ground outside the wall.
"Will we hide here in the trees until night?" asked the girl's full
voice.
Noork held aside a mossy creeper until the girl had passed. "I think
not," he said. "The Misty Ones are continually passing from the island
to the shore. We are Misty Ones to any that watch from the wall. So we
will paddle boldly across the water."
"That is good," agreed the slave, "unless they see us put out from the
shore. Their two landing stages are further along the beach, opposite
the Temple of Uzdon."
"Then we must hug to the shore until we pass the tip of the island,"
said Noork thoughtfully. "In that way even if they detect us we will
have put a safe distance between us."
Shortly after midday Noork felt the oozy slime of the marshy lowlands
of the mainland beneath his paddle and the dugout ran ashore in the
grassy inlet for which they had been heading. His palms were blistered
and the heavy robes he yet wore were soaked with sweat.
"Once we reach the jungle," he told the girl, "off come these robes. I
am broiled alive."
Suddenly Noork froze in his tracks. He thrust the girl behind him.
"Misty Ones!" he hissed to Rold. "They crouch among the reeds. They
carry nets and clubs to trap us."
Rold turned back toward the boat with Noork and Sarna close at his
heels. But the Misty Ones were upon them and by sheer numbers they bore
them to the ground. Noork's mightier muscles smashed more than one
hooded face but in the end he too lay smothered beneath the nets and
bodies of the enemy.
A misty shape came to stand beside these three new captives as they
were stripped of their robes. His foot nudged at Noork's head curiously
and a guttural voice commanded the shield be removed. Then his voice
changed—thickened—as he saw the features of Noork.
"So," he barked in a tongue that should have been strange to Noork but
was not, "it is the trapper's turn to be trapped, eh Captain Dietrich?"
A fat, square-jawed face, harsh lines paralleling the ugly blob of a
nose, showed through the opened robe of the leader. The face was that
of Doctor Von Mark the treacherous Nazi scientist that Stephen Dietrich
had trailed across space to Sekk! But Noork knew nothing of that chase.
The man's face seemed familiar, and hateful, but that was all he
remembered.
"I see you have come from the island," said the Doctor. "Perhaps you
can tell me the secret of this invisible material I wear. With the
secret of invisibility I, Karl Von Mark, can again conquer Earth and
make the Fatherland invincible."
"I do not understand too well," said Noork hesitantly. "Are we enemies?
There is so much I have forgotten." He regarded the brutal face
thoughtfully.
"Perhaps you know from what valley the great bird brought me," he said.
"Or perhaps the other bird brought you here."
Von Mark's blue eyes widened and then he roared with a great noise
that was intended to be mirth. His foot slammed harder into Noork's
defenseless ribs.
"Perhaps you have forgotten, swine of an American," he roared suddenly,
and in his hand was an ugly looking automatic. He flung back his robe
and Noork saw the dress uniform of a general. "Perhaps," the scientist
repeated, "but I will take no chances. The amnesia is often but a
pretense."
His lip curled. "This is something for you to remember, Captain
Dietrich," he said as the ugly black muzzle of the gun centered on
Noork's bronzed chest.
And then Doctor Von Mark cursed as the gun dropped from his nerveless
fingers and his hands clawed weakly at the arrow buried in his wide
belly. He stumbled backward.
Arrows rained from the mistiness that had closed in about Von Mark and
his men. The men from Wari, their faces unshielded, fell like flies.
In a moment those yet alive had taken to their heels, and Noork felt
invisible fingers tearing at the nets that bound him.
As he rose to his feet the robed figure let its misty covering drop
aside. A handsome golden-skinned warrior stood revealed.
"Gurn!" cried Noork.
A glad cry came from the throat of Tholon Sarna as she saw her brother.
And then she crept closer to Noork's side as the invisible mantles
of Gurn's loyal Vasads opened to reveal the hairy beast men they
concealed. Rold whimpered fearfully.
"The message that Ud carried to me was good," laughed Gurn. "The Misty
Ones skin easily. We were trapping the Misty Ones as they came across
the lake," he looked at the dying Von Mark, "as were these others. Soon
we would have come to your rescue, Noork, my friend."
"Lucky I escaped first," Noork told him. "The priests of Uzdon would
have trapped you. To them the Misty Ones are visible."
He picked up the fallen vision shield that lay beside their feet. His
chest expanded proudly.
"No longer," he told Gurn, "am I a man without a name. I am Captain
Dietrich from a distant valley called America. I was hunting this evil
man when my bird died."
He smiled and his brown arm tightened around Sarna's golden body. "The
evil man is dead. My native valley is safe. Now I can live in peace
with you, Gurn, and with your sister, here in the jungle."
"It is good, Noork," smiled Tholon Sarna.
End of Project Gutenberg's Raiders of the Second Moon, by Gene Ellerman
|
How do the other humans (hoofers) help Hogey get home?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Hoofer by Walter M. Miller.
Relevant chunks:
A wayfarer's return from a far country to his wife and family may be a
shining experience, a kind of second honeymoon. Or it may be so shadowed
by Time's relentless tyranny that the changes which have occurred in his
absence can lead only to tragedy and despair. This rarely discerning, warmly
human story by a brilliant newcomer to the science fantasy field is told
with no pulling of punches, and its adroit unfolding will astound you.
the hoofer
by ... Walter M. Miller, Jr.
A space rover has no business with a family. But what can a man
in the full vigor of youth do—if his heart cries out for a home?
They all
knew he was a spacer
because of the white goggle marks
on his sun-scorched face, and so
they tolerated him and helped him.
They even made allowances for him
when he staggered and fell in the
aisle of the bus while pursuing the
harassed little housewife from seat
to seat and cajoling her to sit and
talk with him.
Having fallen, he decided to
sleep in the aisle. Two men helped
him to the back of the bus, dumped
him on the rear seat, and tucked his
gin bottle safely out of sight. After
all, he had not seen Earth for nine
months, and judging by the crusted
matter about his eyelids, he couldn't
have seen it too well now, even if
he had been sober. Glare-blindness,
gravity-legs, and agoraphobia were
excuses for a lot of things, when a
man was just back from Big Bottomless.
And who could blame a
man for acting strangely?
Minutes later, he was back up the
aisle and swaying giddily over the
little housewife. "How!" he said.
"Me Chief Broken Wing. You
wanta Indian wrestle?"
The girl, who sat nervously staring
at him, smiled wanly, and
shook her head.
"Quiet li'l pigeon, aren'tcha?" he
burbled affectionately, crashing into
the seat beside her.
The two men slid out of their
seats, and a hand clamped his shoulder.
"Come on, Broken Wing, let's
go back to bed."
"My name's Hogey," he said.
"Big Hogey Parker. I was just kidding
about being a Indian."
"Yeah. Come on, let's go have a
drink." They got him on his feet,
and led him stumbling back down
the aisle.
"My ma was half Cherokee, see?
That's how come I said it. You
wanta hear a war whoop? Real
stuff."
"Never mind."
He cupped his hands to his
mouth and favored them with a
blood-curdling proof of his ancestry,
while the female passengers
stirred restlessly and hunched in
their seats. The driver stopped the
bus and went back to warn him
against any further display. The
driver flashed a deputy's badge and
threatened to turn him over to a
constable.
"I gotta get home," Big Hogey
told him. "I got me a son now,
that's why. You know? A little
baby pigeon of a son. Haven't seen
him yet."
"Will you just sit still and be
quiet then, eh?"
Big Hogey nodded emphatically.
"Shorry, officer, I didn't mean to
make any trouble."
When the bus started again, he
fell on his side and lay still. He
made retching sounds for a time,
then rested, snoring softly. The bus
driver woke him again at Caine's
junction, retrieved his gin bottle
from behind the seat, and helped
him down the aisle and out of the
bus.
Big Hogey stumbled about for a
moment, then sat down hard in the
gravel at the shoulder of the road.
The driver paused with one foot on
the step, looking around. There was
not even a store at the road junction,
but only a freight building
next to the railroad track, a couple
of farmhouses at the edge of a side-road,
and, just across the way, a deserted
filling station with a sagging
roof. The land was Great Plains
country, treeless, barren, and rolling.
Big Hogey got up and staggered
around in front of the bus, clutching
at it for support, losing his
duffle bag.
"Hey, watch the traffic!" The
driver warned. With a surge of unwelcome
compassion he trotted
around after his troublesome passenger,
taking his arm as he sagged
again. "You crossing?"
"Yah," Hogey muttered. "Lemme
alone, I'm okay."
The driver started across the
highway with him. The traffic was
sparse, but fast and dangerous in
the central ninety-mile lane.
"I'm okay," Hogey kept protesting.
"I'm a tumbler, ya know?
Gravity's got me. Damn gravity.
I'm not used to gravity, ya know? I
used to be a tumbler— huk! —only
now I gotta be a hoofer. 'Count
of li'l Hogey. You know about li'l
Hogey?"
"Yeah. Your son. Come on."
"Say, you gotta son? I bet you
gotta son."
"Two kids," said the driver,
catching Hogey's bag as it slipped
from his shoulder. "Both girls."
"Say, you oughta be home with
them kids. Man oughta stick with
his family. You oughta get another
job." Hogey eyed him owlishly,
waggled a moralistic finger, skidded
on the gravel as they stepped
onto the opposite shoulder, and
sprawled again.
The driver blew a weary breath,
looked down at him, and shook his
head. Maybe it'd be kinder to find
a constable after all. This guy could
get himself killed, wandering
around loose.
"Somebody supposed to meet
you?" he asked, squinting around
at the dusty hills.
" Huk! —who, me?" Hogey giggled,
belched, and shook his head.
"Nope. Nobody knows I'm coming.
S'prise. I'm supposed to be here a
week ago." He looked up at the
driver with a pained expression.
"Week late, ya know? Marie's
gonna be sore—woo- hoo !—is she
gonna be sore!" He waggled his
head severely at the ground.
"Which way are you going?" the
driver grunted impatiently.
Hogey pointed down the side-road
that led back into the hills.
"Marie's pop's place. You know
where? 'Bout three miles from
here. Gotta walk, I guess."
"Don't," the driver warned.
"You sit there by the culvert till
you get a ride. Okay?"
Hogey nodded forlornly.
"Now stay out of the road," the
driver warned, then hurried back
across the highway. Moments later,
the atomic battery-driven motors
droned mournfully, and the bus
pulled away.
Big Hogey blinked after it, rubbing
the back of his neck. "Nice
people," he said. "Nice buncha people.
All hoofers."
With a grunt and a lurch, he got
to his feet, but his legs wouldn't
work right. With his tumbler's reflexes,
he fought to right himself
with frantic arm motions, but gravity
claimed him, and he went stumbling
into the ditch.
"Damn legs, damn crazy legs!"
he cried.
The bottom of the ditch was wet,
and he crawled up the embankment
with mud-soaked knees, and sat on
the shoulder again. The gin bottle
was still intact. He had himself a
long fiery drink, and it warmed him
deep down. He blinked around at
the gaunt and treeless land.
The sun was almost down, forge-red
on a dusty horizon. The blood-streaked
sky faded into sulphurous
yellow toward the zenith, and the
very air that hung over the land
seemed full of yellow smoke, the
omnipresent dust of the plains.
A farm truck turned onto the
side-road and moaned away, its
driver hardly glancing at the dark
young man who sat swaying on his
duffle bag near the culvert. Hogey
scarcely noticed the vehicle. He just
kept staring at the crazy sun.
He shook his head. It wasn't really
the sun. The sun, the real sun,
was a hateful eye-sizzling horror in
the dead black pit. It painted everything
with pure white pain, and you
saw things by the reflected pain-light.
The fat red sun was strictly a
phoney, and it didn't fool him any.
He hated it for what he knew it was
behind the gory mask, and for what
it had done to his eyes.
With a grunt, he got to his feet,
managed to shoulder the duffle bag,
and started off down the middle of
the farm road, lurching from side
to side, and keeping his eyes on the
rolling distances. Another car turned
onto the side-road, honking angrily.
Hogey tried to turn around to
look at it, but he forgot to shift his
footing. He staggered and went
down on the pavement. The car's
tires screeched on the hot asphalt.
Hogey lay there for a moment,
groaning. That one had hurt his
hip. A car door slammed and a big
man with a florid face got out and
stalked toward him, looking angry.
"What the hell's the matter with
you, fella?" he drawled. "You
soused? Man, you've really got a
load."
Hogey got up doggedly, shaking
his head to clear it. "Space legs," he
prevaricated. "Got space legs. Can't
stand the gravity."
The burly farmer retrieved his
gin bottle for him, still miraculously
unbroken. "Here's your gravity,"
he grunted. "Listen, fella, you better
get home pronto."
"Pronto? Hey, I'm no Mex. Honest,
I'm just space burned. You
know?"
"Yeah. Say, who are you, anyway?
Do you live around here?"
It was obvious that the big man
had taken him for a hobo or a
tramp. Hogey pulled himself together.
"Goin' to the Hauptman's
place. Marie. You know Marie?"
The farmer's eyebrows went up.
"Marie Hauptman? Sure I know
her. Only she's Marie Parker now.
Has been, nigh on six years. Say—"
He paused, then gaped. "You ain't
her husband by any chance?"
"Hogey, that's me. Big Hogey
Parker."
"Well, I'll be—! Get in the car.
I'm going right past John Hauptman's
place. Boy, you're in no
shape to walk it."
He grinned wryly, waggled his
head, and helped Hogey and his
bag into the back seat. A woman
with a sun-wrinkled neck sat rigidly
beside the farmer in the front,
and she neither greeted the passenger
nor looked around.
"They don't make cars like this
anymore," the farmer called over
the growl of the ancient gasoline
engine and the grind of gears.
"You can have them new atomics
with their loads of hot isotopes
under the seat. Ain't safe, I say—eh,
Martha?"
The woman with the sun-baked
neck quivered her head slightly.
"A car like this was good enough
for Pa, an' I reckon it's good
enough for us," she drawled mournfully.
Five minutes later the car drew
in to the side of the road. "Reckon
you can walk it from here," the
farmer said. "That's Hauptman's
road just up ahead."
He helped Hogey out of the car
and drove away without looking
back to see if Hogey stayed on his
feet. The woman with the sun-baked
neck was suddenly talking
garrulously in his direction.
It was twilight. The sun had set,
and the yellow sky was turning
gray. Hogey was too tired to go on,
and his legs would no longer hold
him. He blinked around at the land,
got his eyes focused, and found
what looked like Hauptman's place
on a distant hillside. It was a big
frame house surrounded by a wheatfield,
and a few scrawny trees. Having
located it, he stretched out in
the tall grass beyond the ditch to
take a little rest.
Somewhere dogs were barking,
and a cricket sang creaking monotony
in the grass. Once there was the
distant thunder of a rocket blast
from the launching station six miles
to the west, but it faded quickly. An
A-motored convertible whined past
on the road, but Hogey went unseen.
When he awoke, it was night,
and he was shivering. His stomach
was screeching, and his nerves dancing
with high voltages. He sat up
and groped for his watch, then remembered
he had pawned it after
the poker game. Remembering the
game and the results of the game
made him wince and bite his lip
and grope for the bottle again.
He sat breathing heavily for a
moment after the stiff drink. Equating
time to position had become
second nature with him, but he had
to think for a moment because his
defective vision prevented him from
seeing the Earth-crescent.
Vega was almost straight above
him in the late August sky, so he
knew it wasn't much after sundown—probably
about eight o'clock. He
braced himself with another swallow
of gin, picked himself up and
got back to the road, feeling a little
sobered after the nap.
He limped on up the pavement
and turned left at the narrow drive
that led between barbed-wire fences
toward the Hauptman farmhouse,
five hundred yards or so from the
farm road. The fields on his left
belonged to Marie's father, he
knew. He was getting close—close
to home and woman and child.
He dropped the bag suddenly
and leaned against a fence post,
rolling his head on his forearms
and choking in spasms of air. He
was shaking all over, and his belly
writhed. He wanted to turn and
run. He wanted to crawl out in the
grass and hide.
What were they going to say?
And Marie, Marie most of all.
How was he going to tell her about
the money?
Six hitches in space, and every
time the promise had been the
same: One more tour, baby, and
we'll have enough dough, and then
I'll quit for good. One more time,
and we'll have our stake—enough
to open a little business, or buy a
house with a mortgage and get a
job.
And she had waited, but the
money had never been quite enough
until this time. This time the tour
had lasted nine months, and he had
signed on for every run from station
to moon-base to pick up the
bonuses. And this time he'd made
it. Two weeks ago, there had been
forty-eight hundred in the bank.
And now ...
" Why? " he groaned, striking his
forehead against his forearms. His
arm slipped, and his head hit the
top of the fencepost, and the pain
blinded him for a moment. He staggered
back into the road with a
low roar, wiped blood from his
forehead, and savagely kicked his
bag.
It rolled a couple of yards up the
road. He leaped after it and kicked
it again. When he had finished
with it, he stood panting and angry,
but feeling better. He shouldered
the bag and hiked on toward the
farmhouse.
They're hoofers, that's all—just
an Earth-chained bunch of hoofers,
even Marie. And I'm a tumbler. A
born tumbler. Know what that
means? It means—God, what does
it mean? It means out in Big Bottomless,
where Earth's like a fat
moon with fuzzy mold growing on
it. Mold, that's all you are, just
mold.
A dog barked, and he wondered
if he had been muttering aloud. He
came to a fence-gap and paused in
the darkness. The road wound
around and came up the hill in
front of the house. Maybe they were
sitting on the porch. Maybe they'd
already heard him coming. Maybe ...
He was trembling again. He
fished the fifth of gin out of his
coat pocket and sloshed it. Still over
half a pint. He decided to kill it. It
wouldn't do to go home with a
bottle sticking out of his pocket.
He stood there in the night wind,
sipping at it, and watching the reddish
moon come up in the east. The
moon looked as phoney as the
setting sun.
He straightened in sudden determination.
It had to be sometime.
Get it over with, get it over with
now. He opened the fence-gap, slipped
through, and closed it firmly
behind him. He retrieved his bag,
and waded quietly through the tall
grass until he reached the hedge
which divided an area of sickly
peach trees from the field. He got
over the hedge somehow, and started
through the trees toward the
house. He stumbled over some old
boards, and they clattered.
" Shhh! " he hissed, and moved
on.
The dogs were barking angrily,
and he heard a screen door slam.
He stopped.
"Ho there!" a male voice called
experimentally from the house.
One of Marie's brothers. Hogey
stood frozen in the shadow of a
peach tree, waiting.
"Anybody out there?" the man
called again.
Hogey waited, then heard the
man muttering, "Sic 'im, boy, sic
'im."
The hound's bark became eager.
The animal came chasing down the
slope, and stopped ten feet away to
crouch and bark frantically at the
shadow in the gloom. He knew the
dog.
"Hooky!" he whispered. "Hooky
boy—here!"
The dog stopped barking, sniffed,
trotted closer, and went
" Rrrooff! " Then he started sniffing
suspiciously again.
"Easy, Hooky, here boy!" he
whispered.
The dog came forward silently,
sniffed his hand, and whined in
recognition. Then he trotted around
Hogey, panting doggy affection and
dancing an invitation to romp. The
man whistled from the porch. The
dog froze, then trotted quickly back
up the slope.
"Nothing, eh, Hooky?" the
man on the porch said. "Chasin'
armadillos again, eh?"
The screen door slammed again,
and the porch light went out.
Hogey stood there staring, unable
to think. Somewhere beyond the
window lights were—his woman,
his son.
What the hell was a tumbler doing
with a woman and a son?
After perhaps a minute, he stepped
forward again. He tripped over
a shovel, and his foot plunged into
something that went squelch and
swallowed the foot past the ankle.
He fell forward into a heap of
sand, and his foot went deeper into
the sloppy wetness.
He lay there with his stinging
forehead on his arms, cursing softly
and crying. Finally he rolled
over, pulled his foot out of the
mess, and took off his shoes. They
were full of mud—sticky sandy
mud.
The dark world was reeling
about him, and the wind was dragging
at his breath. He fell back
against the sand pile and let his
feet sink in the mud hole and wriggled
his toes. He was laughing
soundlessly, and his face was wet
in the wind. He couldn't think. He
couldn't remember where he was
and why, and he stopped caring,
and after a while he felt better.
The stars were swimming over
him, dancing crazily, and the mud
cooled his feet, and the sand was
soft behind him. He saw a rocket
go up on a tail of flame from the
station, and waited for the sound of
its blast, but he was already asleep
when it came.
It was far past midnight when he
became conscious of the dog licking
wetly at his ear and cheek. He
pushed the animal away with a low
curse and mopped at the side of his
face. He stirred, and groaned. His
feet were burning up! He tried to
pull them toward him, but they
wouldn't budge. There was something
wrong with his legs.
For an instant he stared wildly
around in the night. Then he remembered
where he was, closed his
eyes and shuddered. When he
opened them again, the moon had
emerged from behind a cloud, and
he could see clearly the cruel trap
into which he had accidentally
stumbled. A pile of old boards, a
careful stack of new lumber, a
pick and shovel, a sand-pile, heaps
of fresh-turned earth, and a concrete
mixer—well, it added up.
He gripped his ankles and pulled,
but his feet wouldn't budge. In
sudden terror, he tried to stand up,
but his ankles were clutched by the
concrete too, and he fell back in
the sand with a low moan. He lay
still for several minutes, considering
carefully.
He pulled at his left foot. It was
locked in a vise. He tugged even
more desperately at his right foot.
It was equally immovable.
He sat up with a whimper and
clawed at the rough concrete until
his nails tore and his fingertips
bled. The surface still felt damp,
but it had hardened while he slept.
He sat there stunned until Hooky
began licking at his scuffed fingers.
He shouldered the dog away, and
dug his hands into the sand-pile to
stop the bleeding. Hooky licked at
his face, panting love.
"Get away!" he croaked savagely.
The dog whined softly, trotted
a short distance away, circled, and
came back to crouch down in the
sand directly before Hogey, inching
forward experimentally.
Hogey gripped fistfuls of the dry
sand and cursed between his teeth,
while his eyes wandered over the
sky. They came to rest on the sliver
of light—the space station—rising
in the west, floating out in Big Bottomless
where the gang was—Nichols
and Guerrera and Lavrenti
and Fats. And he wasn't forgetting
Keesey, the rookie who'd replaced
him.
Keesey would have a rough time
for a while—rough as a cob. The pit
was no playground. The first time
you went out of the station in a
suit, the pit got you. Everything
was falling, and you fell, with it.
Everything. The skeletons of steel,
the tire-shaped station, the spheres
and docks and nightmare shapes—all
tied together by umbilical cables
and flexible tubes. Like some crazy
sea-thing they seemed, floating in a
black ocean with its tentacles bound
together by drifting strands in the
dark tide that bore it.
Everything was pain-bright or
dead black, and it wheeled around
you, and you went nuts trying to
figure which way was down. In fact,
it took you months to teach your
body that all ways were down and
that the pit was bottomless.
He became conscious of a plaintive
sound in the wind, and froze to
listen.
It was a baby crying.
It was nearly a minute before he
got the significance of it. It hit him
where he lived, and he began jerking
frantically at his encased feet
and sobbing low in his throat.
They'd hear him if he kept that up.
He stopped and covered his ears to
close out the cry of his firstborn. A
light went on in the house, and
when it went off again, the infant's
cry had ceased.
Another rocket went up from the
station, and he cursed it. Space was
a disease, and he had it.
"Help!" he cried out suddenly.
"I'm stuck! Help me, help me!"
He knew he was yelling hysterically
at the sky and fighting the relentless
concrete that clutched his
feet, and after a moment he stopped.
The light was on in the house
again, and he heard faint sounds.
The stirring-about woke the baby
again, and once more the infant's
wail came on the breeze.
Make the kid shut up, make the
kid shut up ...
But that was no good. It wasn't
the kid's fault. It wasn't Marie's
fault. No fathers allowed in space,
they said, but it wasn't their fault
either. They were right, and he had
only himself to blame. The kid was
an accident, but that didn't change
anything. Not a thing in the world.
It remained a tragedy.
A tumbler had no business with a
family, but what was a man going
to do? Take a skinning knife, boy,
and make yourself a eunuch. But
that was no good either. They needed
bulls out there in the pit, not
steers. And when a man came down
from a year's hitch, what was he
going to do? Live in a lonely shack
and read books for kicks? Because
you were a man, you sought out a
woman. And because she was a
woman, she got a kid, and that was
the end of it. It was nobody's fault,
nobody's at all.
He stared at the red eye of Mars
low in the southwest. They were
running out there now, and next
year he would have been on the
long long run ...
But there was no use thinking
about it. Next year and the years
after belonged to little Hogey.
He sat there with his feet locked
in the solid concrete of the footing,
staring out into Big Bottomless
while his son's cry came from the
house and the Hauptman menfolk
came wading through the tall grass
in search of someone who had cried
out. His feet were stuck tight, and
he wouldn't ever get them out. He
was sobbing softly when they found
him.
Question:
How do the other humans (hoofers) help Hogey get home?
Answer:
|
[
"Hogey gets home through the kindness of the hoofers, who all know him to be a spacer due to the white marks on his face. As such, when Hogey becomes rowdy and drunk on the bus, they gracefully pick him up and seat him down at the back of the bus. After getting off the bus, Hogey has trouble crossing the highway with all the passing cars and the bus driver compassionately helps him across the road. The driver even inquired about someone picking him up, before warning Hogey not to traipse through the hills alone and instead, wait for someone to come along. \n\nAs Hogey staggers down the pavement, he stumbles in front of a farmer’s truck. Since the farmer recognizes Hogey’s residence and identity, he helps Hogey get closer to his destination and drops him off right on the road in front of Hauptman’s place. \n",
"The bus driver helps Hogey get out of the bus and cross the road safely when Hogey staggers around the bus. He also asks Hogey’s about his plan of getting home, warning him not to walk home but wait until a car comes for the safety reason. A farmer, who picks Hogey up in the middle of the road, drives Hogey to a place near Marie’s house. The farmer helps Hogey get in and out of the car when Hogey can hardly hold himself straight. The farmer does not check if Hogey can stand upright after leaving him alone by the road.",
"Throughout his journey, Hogey needs help from others in order to get back to his house. First, he is helped while he is on a bus. Here Hogey was very drunk and annoying the bus passengers, so some men put him in the back rows so that Hogey could sleep through the journey. After Hogey arrives at his stop, the bus driver helps him get off the bus and helps him cross the street. He also makes sure that Hogey waits for someone at the entrance of his side road instead of walking the 3 miles that divide the highway and Hogey's house. Lastly, Hogey gets help from a couple who give him a ride to the house. They seemed to be very familiar with his wife and her new husband. ",
"On the bus, the other humans help him by tolerating his presence and helping him get back to his seat. They make allowances when he staggers around the bus, and the other people even try to get the housewife that he was harassing to sit and talk to him. Two men help him to the back of the bus, and they dump him in the rear seat to tuck his gin bottle safely out of sight. When Big Hogey falls asleep, the driver wakes him up at Caine’s junction and retrieves his gin bottle to give to him. Even though the driver is annoyed, he does help Big Hogey to go sit at the culvert until he gets a ride. Later, one of the farmers drives by and is initially angry at him. However, once he realizes that Hogey is married to Marie, he offers to give him a ride. They drop him off near Hauptman’s road so that he can return home safely. "
] |
29170
|
A wayfarer's return from a far country to his wife and family may be a
shining experience, a kind of second honeymoon. Or it may be so shadowed
by Time's relentless tyranny that the changes which have occurred in his
absence can lead only to tragedy and despair. This rarely discerning, warmly
human story by a brilliant newcomer to the science fantasy field is told
with no pulling of punches, and its adroit unfolding will astound you.
the hoofer
by ... Walter M. Miller, Jr.
A space rover has no business with a family. But what can a man
in the full vigor of youth do—if his heart cries out for a home?
They all
knew he was a spacer
because of the white goggle marks
on his sun-scorched face, and so
they tolerated him and helped him.
They even made allowances for him
when he staggered and fell in the
aisle of the bus while pursuing the
harassed little housewife from seat
to seat and cajoling her to sit and
talk with him.
Having fallen, he decided to
sleep in the aisle. Two men helped
him to the back of the bus, dumped
him on the rear seat, and tucked his
gin bottle safely out of sight. After
all, he had not seen Earth for nine
months, and judging by the crusted
matter about his eyelids, he couldn't
have seen it too well now, even if
he had been sober. Glare-blindness,
gravity-legs, and agoraphobia were
excuses for a lot of things, when a
man was just back from Big Bottomless.
And who could blame a
man for acting strangely?
Minutes later, he was back up the
aisle and swaying giddily over the
little housewife. "How!" he said.
"Me Chief Broken Wing. You
wanta Indian wrestle?"
The girl, who sat nervously staring
at him, smiled wanly, and
shook her head.
"Quiet li'l pigeon, aren'tcha?" he
burbled affectionately, crashing into
the seat beside her.
The two men slid out of their
seats, and a hand clamped his shoulder.
"Come on, Broken Wing, let's
go back to bed."
"My name's Hogey," he said.
"Big Hogey Parker. I was just kidding
about being a Indian."
"Yeah. Come on, let's go have a
drink." They got him on his feet,
and led him stumbling back down
the aisle.
"My ma was half Cherokee, see?
That's how come I said it. You
wanta hear a war whoop? Real
stuff."
"Never mind."
He cupped his hands to his
mouth and favored them with a
blood-curdling proof of his ancestry,
while the female passengers
stirred restlessly and hunched in
their seats. The driver stopped the
bus and went back to warn him
against any further display. The
driver flashed a deputy's badge and
threatened to turn him over to a
constable.
"I gotta get home," Big Hogey
told him. "I got me a son now,
that's why. You know? A little
baby pigeon of a son. Haven't seen
him yet."
"Will you just sit still and be
quiet then, eh?"
Big Hogey nodded emphatically.
"Shorry, officer, I didn't mean to
make any trouble."
When the bus started again, he
fell on his side and lay still. He
made retching sounds for a time,
then rested, snoring softly. The bus
driver woke him again at Caine's
junction, retrieved his gin bottle
from behind the seat, and helped
him down the aisle and out of the
bus.
Big Hogey stumbled about for a
moment, then sat down hard in the
gravel at the shoulder of the road.
The driver paused with one foot on
the step, looking around. There was
not even a store at the road junction,
but only a freight building
next to the railroad track, a couple
of farmhouses at the edge of a side-road,
and, just across the way, a deserted
filling station with a sagging
roof. The land was Great Plains
country, treeless, barren, and rolling.
Big Hogey got up and staggered
around in front of the bus, clutching
at it for support, losing his
duffle bag.
"Hey, watch the traffic!" The
driver warned. With a surge of unwelcome
compassion he trotted
around after his troublesome passenger,
taking his arm as he sagged
again. "You crossing?"
"Yah," Hogey muttered. "Lemme
alone, I'm okay."
The driver started across the
highway with him. The traffic was
sparse, but fast and dangerous in
the central ninety-mile lane.
"I'm okay," Hogey kept protesting.
"I'm a tumbler, ya know?
Gravity's got me. Damn gravity.
I'm not used to gravity, ya know? I
used to be a tumbler— huk! —only
now I gotta be a hoofer. 'Count
of li'l Hogey. You know about li'l
Hogey?"
"Yeah. Your son. Come on."
"Say, you gotta son? I bet you
gotta son."
"Two kids," said the driver,
catching Hogey's bag as it slipped
from his shoulder. "Both girls."
"Say, you oughta be home with
them kids. Man oughta stick with
his family. You oughta get another
job." Hogey eyed him owlishly,
waggled a moralistic finger, skidded
on the gravel as they stepped
onto the opposite shoulder, and
sprawled again.
The driver blew a weary breath,
looked down at him, and shook his
head. Maybe it'd be kinder to find
a constable after all. This guy could
get himself killed, wandering
around loose.
"Somebody supposed to meet
you?" he asked, squinting around
at the dusty hills.
" Huk! —who, me?" Hogey giggled,
belched, and shook his head.
"Nope. Nobody knows I'm coming.
S'prise. I'm supposed to be here a
week ago." He looked up at the
driver with a pained expression.
"Week late, ya know? Marie's
gonna be sore—woo- hoo !—is she
gonna be sore!" He waggled his
head severely at the ground.
"Which way are you going?" the
driver grunted impatiently.
Hogey pointed down the side-road
that led back into the hills.
"Marie's pop's place. You know
where? 'Bout three miles from
here. Gotta walk, I guess."
"Don't," the driver warned.
"You sit there by the culvert till
you get a ride. Okay?"
Hogey nodded forlornly.
"Now stay out of the road," the
driver warned, then hurried back
across the highway. Moments later,
the atomic battery-driven motors
droned mournfully, and the bus
pulled away.
Big Hogey blinked after it, rubbing
the back of his neck. "Nice
people," he said. "Nice buncha people.
All hoofers."
With a grunt and a lurch, he got
to his feet, but his legs wouldn't
work right. With his tumbler's reflexes,
he fought to right himself
with frantic arm motions, but gravity
claimed him, and he went stumbling
into the ditch.
"Damn legs, damn crazy legs!"
he cried.
The bottom of the ditch was wet,
and he crawled up the embankment
with mud-soaked knees, and sat on
the shoulder again. The gin bottle
was still intact. He had himself a
long fiery drink, and it warmed him
deep down. He blinked around at
the gaunt and treeless land.
The sun was almost down, forge-red
on a dusty horizon. The blood-streaked
sky faded into sulphurous
yellow toward the zenith, and the
very air that hung over the land
seemed full of yellow smoke, the
omnipresent dust of the plains.
A farm truck turned onto the
side-road and moaned away, its
driver hardly glancing at the dark
young man who sat swaying on his
duffle bag near the culvert. Hogey
scarcely noticed the vehicle. He just
kept staring at the crazy sun.
He shook his head. It wasn't really
the sun. The sun, the real sun,
was a hateful eye-sizzling horror in
the dead black pit. It painted everything
with pure white pain, and you
saw things by the reflected pain-light.
The fat red sun was strictly a
phoney, and it didn't fool him any.
He hated it for what he knew it was
behind the gory mask, and for what
it had done to his eyes.
With a grunt, he got to his feet,
managed to shoulder the duffle bag,
and started off down the middle of
the farm road, lurching from side
to side, and keeping his eyes on the
rolling distances. Another car turned
onto the side-road, honking angrily.
Hogey tried to turn around to
look at it, but he forgot to shift his
footing. He staggered and went
down on the pavement. The car's
tires screeched on the hot asphalt.
Hogey lay there for a moment,
groaning. That one had hurt his
hip. A car door slammed and a big
man with a florid face got out and
stalked toward him, looking angry.
"What the hell's the matter with
you, fella?" he drawled. "You
soused? Man, you've really got a
load."
Hogey got up doggedly, shaking
his head to clear it. "Space legs," he
prevaricated. "Got space legs. Can't
stand the gravity."
The burly farmer retrieved his
gin bottle for him, still miraculously
unbroken. "Here's your gravity,"
he grunted. "Listen, fella, you better
get home pronto."
"Pronto? Hey, I'm no Mex. Honest,
I'm just space burned. You
know?"
"Yeah. Say, who are you, anyway?
Do you live around here?"
It was obvious that the big man
had taken him for a hobo or a
tramp. Hogey pulled himself together.
"Goin' to the Hauptman's
place. Marie. You know Marie?"
The farmer's eyebrows went up.
"Marie Hauptman? Sure I know
her. Only she's Marie Parker now.
Has been, nigh on six years. Say—"
He paused, then gaped. "You ain't
her husband by any chance?"
"Hogey, that's me. Big Hogey
Parker."
"Well, I'll be—! Get in the car.
I'm going right past John Hauptman's
place. Boy, you're in no
shape to walk it."
He grinned wryly, waggled his
head, and helped Hogey and his
bag into the back seat. A woman
with a sun-wrinkled neck sat rigidly
beside the farmer in the front,
and she neither greeted the passenger
nor looked around.
"They don't make cars like this
anymore," the farmer called over
the growl of the ancient gasoline
engine and the grind of gears.
"You can have them new atomics
with their loads of hot isotopes
under the seat. Ain't safe, I say—eh,
Martha?"
The woman with the sun-baked
neck quivered her head slightly.
"A car like this was good enough
for Pa, an' I reckon it's good
enough for us," she drawled mournfully.
Five minutes later the car drew
in to the side of the road. "Reckon
you can walk it from here," the
farmer said. "That's Hauptman's
road just up ahead."
He helped Hogey out of the car
and drove away without looking
back to see if Hogey stayed on his
feet. The woman with the sun-baked
neck was suddenly talking
garrulously in his direction.
It was twilight. The sun had set,
and the yellow sky was turning
gray. Hogey was too tired to go on,
and his legs would no longer hold
him. He blinked around at the land,
got his eyes focused, and found
what looked like Hauptman's place
on a distant hillside. It was a big
frame house surrounded by a wheatfield,
and a few scrawny trees. Having
located it, he stretched out in
the tall grass beyond the ditch to
take a little rest.
Somewhere dogs were barking,
and a cricket sang creaking monotony
in the grass. Once there was the
distant thunder of a rocket blast
from the launching station six miles
to the west, but it faded quickly. An
A-motored convertible whined past
on the road, but Hogey went unseen.
When he awoke, it was night,
and he was shivering. His stomach
was screeching, and his nerves dancing
with high voltages. He sat up
and groped for his watch, then remembered
he had pawned it after
the poker game. Remembering the
game and the results of the game
made him wince and bite his lip
and grope for the bottle again.
He sat breathing heavily for a
moment after the stiff drink. Equating
time to position had become
second nature with him, but he had
to think for a moment because his
defective vision prevented him from
seeing the Earth-crescent.
Vega was almost straight above
him in the late August sky, so he
knew it wasn't much after sundown—probably
about eight o'clock. He
braced himself with another swallow
of gin, picked himself up and
got back to the road, feeling a little
sobered after the nap.
He limped on up the pavement
and turned left at the narrow drive
that led between barbed-wire fences
toward the Hauptman farmhouse,
five hundred yards or so from the
farm road. The fields on his left
belonged to Marie's father, he
knew. He was getting close—close
to home and woman and child.
He dropped the bag suddenly
and leaned against a fence post,
rolling his head on his forearms
and choking in spasms of air. He
was shaking all over, and his belly
writhed. He wanted to turn and
run. He wanted to crawl out in the
grass and hide.
What were they going to say?
And Marie, Marie most of all.
How was he going to tell her about
the money?
Six hitches in space, and every
time the promise had been the
same: One more tour, baby, and
we'll have enough dough, and then
I'll quit for good. One more time,
and we'll have our stake—enough
to open a little business, or buy a
house with a mortgage and get a
job.
And she had waited, but the
money had never been quite enough
until this time. This time the tour
had lasted nine months, and he had
signed on for every run from station
to moon-base to pick up the
bonuses. And this time he'd made
it. Two weeks ago, there had been
forty-eight hundred in the bank.
And now ...
" Why? " he groaned, striking his
forehead against his forearms. His
arm slipped, and his head hit the
top of the fencepost, and the pain
blinded him for a moment. He staggered
back into the road with a
low roar, wiped blood from his
forehead, and savagely kicked his
bag.
It rolled a couple of yards up the
road. He leaped after it and kicked
it again. When he had finished
with it, he stood panting and angry,
but feeling better. He shouldered
the bag and hiked on toward the
farmhouse.
They're hoofers, that's all—just
an Earth-chained bunch of hoofers,
even Marie. And I'm a tumbler. A
born tumbler. Know what that
means? It means—God, what does
it mean? It means out in Big Bottomless,
where Earth's like a fat
moon with fuzzy mold growing on
it. Mold, that's all you are, just
mold.
A dog barked, and he wondered
if he had been muttering aloud. He
came to a fence-gap and paused in
the darkness. The road wound
around and came up the hill in
front of the house. Maybe they were
sitting on the porch. Maybe they'd
already heard him coming. Maybe ...
He was trembling again. He
fished the fifth of gin out of his
coat pocket and sloshed it. Still over
half a pint. He decided to kill it. It
wouldn't do to go home with a
bottle sticking out of his pocket.
He stood there in the night wind,
sipping at it, and watching the reddish
moon come up in the east. The
moon looked as phoney as the
setting sun.
He straightened in sudden determination.
It had to be sometime.
Get it over with, get it over with
now. He opened the fence-gap, slipped
through, and closed it firmly
behind him. He retrieved his bag,
and waded quietly through the tall
grass until he reached the hedge
which divided an area of sickly
peach trees from the field. He got
over the hedge somehow, and started
through the trees toward the
house. He stumbled over some old
boards, and they clattered.
" Shhh! " he hissed, and moved
on.
The dogs were barking angrily,
and he heard a screen door slam.
He stopped.
"Ho there!" a male voice called
experimentally from the house.
One of Marie's brothers. Hogey
stood frozen in the shadow of a
peach tree, waiting.
"Anybody out there?" the man
called again.
Hogey waited, then heard the
man muttering, "Sic 'im, boy, sic
'im."
The hound's bark became eager.
The animal came chasing down the
slope, and stopped ten feet away to
crouch and bark frantically at the
shadow in the gloom. He knew the
dog.
"Hooky!" he whispered. "Hooky
boy—here!"
The dog stopped barking, sniffed,
trotted closer, and went
" Rrrooff! " Then he started sniffing
suspiciously again.
"Easy, Hooky, here boy!" he
whispered.
The dog came forward silently,
sniffed his hand, and whined in
recognition. Then he trotted around
Hogey, panting doggy affection and
dancing an invitation to romp. The
man whistled from the porch. The
dog froze, then trotted quickly back
up the slope.
"Nothing, eh, Hooky?" the
man on the porch said. "Chasin'
armadillos again, eh?"
The screen door slammed again,
and the porch light went out.
Hogey stood there staring, unable
to think. Somewhere beyond the
window lights were—his woman,
his son.
What the hell was a tumbler doing
with a woman and a son?
After perhaps a minute, he stepped
forward again. He tripped over
a shovel, and his foot plunged into
something that went squelch and
swallowed the foot past the ankle.
He fell forward into a heap of
sand, and his foot went deeper into
the sloppy wetness.
He lay there with his stinging
forehead on his arms, cursing softly
and crying. Finally he rolled
over, pulled his foot out of the
mess, and took off his shoes. They
were full of mud—sticky sandy
mud.
The dark world was reeling
about him, and the wind was dragging
at his breath. He fell back
against the sand pile and let his
feet sink in the mud hole and wriggled
his toes. He was laughing
soundlessly, and his face was wet
in the wind. He couldn't think. He
couldn't remember where he was
and why, and he stopped caring,
and after a while he felt better.
The stars were swimming over
him, dancing crazily, and the mud
cooled his feet, and the sand was
soft behind him. He saw a rocket
go up on a tail of flame from the
station, and waited for the sound of
its blast, but he was already asleep
when it came.
It was far past midnight when he
became conscious of the dog licking
wetly at his ear and cheek. He
pushed the animal away with a low
curse and mopped at the side of his
face. He stirred, and groaned. His
feet were burning up! He tried to
pull them toward him, but they
wouldn't budge. There was something
wrong with his legs.
For an instant he stared wildly
around in the night. Then he remembered
where he was, closed his
eyes and shuddered. When he
opened them again, the moon had
emerged from behind a cloud, and
he could see clearly the cruel trap
into which he had accidentally
stumbled. A pile of old boards, a
careful stack of new lumber, a
pick and shovel, a sand-pile, heaps
of fresh-turned earth, and a concrete
mixer—well, it added up.
He gripped his ankles and pulled,
but his feet wouldn't budge. In
sudden terror, he tried to stand up,
but his ankles were clutched by the
concrete too, and he fell back in
the sand with a low moan. He lay
still for several minutes, considering
carefully.
He pulled at his left foot. It was
locked in a vise. He tugged even
more desperately at his right foot.
It was equally immovable.
He sat up with a whimper and
clawed at the rough concrete until
his nails tore and his fingertips
bled. The surface still felt damp,
but it had hardened while he slept.
He sat there stunned until Hooky
began licking at his scuffed fingers.
He shouldered the dog away, and
dug his hands into the sand-pile to
stop the bleeding. Hooky licked at
his face, panting love.
"Get away!" he croaked savagely.
The dog whined softly, trotted
a short distance away, circled, and
came back to crouch down in the
sand directly before Hogey, inching
forward experimentally.
Hogey gripped fistfuls of the dry
sand and cursed between his teeth,
while his eyes wandered over the
sky. They came to rest on the sliver
of light—the space station—rising
in the west, floating out in Big Bottomless
where the gang was—Nichols
and Guerrera and Lavrenti
and Fats. And he wasn't forgetting
Keesey, the rookie who'd replaced
him.
Keesey would have a rough time
for a while—rough as a cob. The pit
was no playground. The first time
you went out of the station in a
suit, the pit got you. Everything
was falling, and you fell, with it.
Everything. The skeletons of steel,
the tire-shaped station, the spheres
and docks and nightmare shapes—all
tied together by umbilical cables
and flexible tubes. Like some crazy
sea-thing they seemed, floating in a
black ocean with its tentacles bound
together by drifting strands in the
dark tide that bore it.
Everything was pain-bright or
dead black, and it wheeled around
you, and you went nuts trying to
figure which way was down. In fact,
it took you months to teach your
body that all ways were down and
that the pit was bottomless.
He became conscious of a plaintive
sound in the wind, and froze to
listen.
It was a baby crying.
It was nearly a minute before he
got the significance of it. It hit him
where he lived, and he began jerking
frantically at his encased feet
and sobbing low in his throat.
They'd hear him if he kept that up.
He stopped and covered his ears to
close out the cry of his firstborn. A
light went on in the house, and
when it went off again, the infant's
cry had ceased.
Another rocket went up from the
station, and he cursed it. Space was
a disease, and he had it.
"Help!" he cried out suddenly.
"I'm stuck! Help me, help me!"
He knew he was yelling hysterically
at the sky and fighting the relentless
concrete that clutched his
feet, and after a moment he stopped.
The light was on in the house
again, and he heard faint sounds.
The stirring-about woke the baby
again, and once more the infant's
wail came on the breeze.
Make the kid shut up, make the
kid shut up ...
But that was no good. It wasn't
the kid's fault. It wasn't Marie's
fault. No fathers allowed in space,
they said, but it wasn't their fault
either. They were right, and he had
only himself to blame. The kid was
an accident, but that didn't change
anything. Not a thing in the world.
It remained a tragedy.
A tumbler had no business with a
family, but what was a man going
to do? Take a skinning knife, boy,
and make yourself a eunuch. But
that was no good either. They needed
bulls out there in the pit, not
steers. And when a man came down
from a year's hitch, what was he
going to do? Live in a lonely shack
and read books for kicks? Because
you were a man, you sought out a
woman. And because she was a
woman, she got a kid, and that was
the end of it. It was nobody's fault,
nobody's at all.
He stared at the red eye of Mars
low in the southwest. They were
running out there now, and next
year he would have been on the
long long run ...
But there was no use thinking
about it. Next year and the years
after belonged to little Hogey.
He sat there with his feet locked
in the solid concrete of the footing,
staring out into Big Bottomless
while his son's cry came from the
house and the Hauptman menfolk
came wading through the tall grass
in search of someone who had cried
out. His feet were stuck tight, and
he wouldn't ever get them out. He
was sobbing softly when they found
him.
|
Who is Martin Isherwood, and what are his characteristics?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Desire No More by Algis Budrys.
Relevant chunks:
He had but one ambition, one desire: to pilot the first manned rocket to the moon. And he was prepared as no man had ever prepared himself before....
DESIRE NO MORE
by Algis Budrys
( illustrated by Milton Luros )
" Desire no more than to thy lot may fall.... "
—Chaucer
THE SMALL young man looked at his father, and shook his head.
"But you've got to learn a trade," his father said, exasperated. "I can't afford to send you to college; you know that."
"I've got a trade," he answered.
His father smiled thinly. "What?" he asked patronizingly.
"I'm a rocket pilot," the boy said, his thin jaw stretching the skin of his cheeks.
His father laughed in the way the boy had learned to anticipate and hate. "Yeah," he said. He leaned back in his chair and laughed so hard that the Sunday paper slipped off his wide lap and fell to the floor with an unnoticed stiff rustle.
"A rocket pilot!" His father's derision hooted through the quiet parlor. "A ro— oh, no! —a rocket pilot !"
The boy stared silently at the convulsed figure in the chair. His lips fell into a set white bar, and the corners of his jaws bulged with the tension in their muscles. Suddenly, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the parlor, through the hall, out the front door, to the porch. He stopped there, hesitating a little.
" Marty! " His father's shout followed him out of the parlor. It seemed to act like a hand between the shoulder-blades, because the boy almost ran as he got down the porch stairs.
"What is it, Howard?" Marty's mother asked in a worried voice as she came in from the kitchen, her damp hands rubbing themselves dry against the sides of her housedress.
"Crazy kid," Howard Isherwood muttered. He stared at the figure of his son as the boy reached the end of the walk and turned off into the street. " Come back here! " he shouted. "A rocket pilot," he cursed under his breath. "What's the kid been reading? Claiming he's a rocket pilot!"
Margaret Isherwood's brow furrowed into a faint, bewildered frown.
"But—isn't he a little young? I know they're teaching some very odd things in high schools these days, but it seems to me...."
"Oh, for Pete's sake, Marge, there aren't even any rockets yet! Come back here, you idiot! " Howard Isherwood was standing on his porch, his clenched fists trembling at the ends of his stiffly-held arms.
"Are you sure, Howard?" his wife asked faintly.
"Yes, I'm sure !"
"But, where's he going?"
" Stop that! Get off that bus! YOU hear me? Marty?"
" Howard! Stop acting like a child and talk to me! Where is that boy going?"
Howard Isherwood, stocky, red-faced, forty-seven, and defeated, turned away from the retreating bus and looked at his wife. "I don't know," he told her bitterly, between rushes of air into his jerkily heaving lungs.
"Maybe, the moon," he told her sarcastically.
Martin Isherwood, rocket pilot, weight 102, height 4', 11", had come of age at seventeen.
THE SMALL man looked at his faculty advisor. "No," he said. "I am not interested in working for a degree."
"But—" The faculty advisor unconsciously tapped the point of a yellow pencil against the fresh green of his desk blotter, leaving a rough arc of black flecks. "Look, Ish, you've got to either deliver or get off the basket. This program is just like the others you've followed for nine semesters; nothing but math and engineering. You've taken just about every undergrad course there is in those fields. How long are you going to keep this up?"
"I'm signed up for Astronomy 101," Isherwood pointed out.
The faculty advisor snorted. "A snap course. A breather, after you've studied the same stuff in Celestial Navigation. What's the matter, Ish? Scared of liberal arts?"
Isherwood shook his head. "Uh-unh. Not interested. No time. And that Astronomy course isn't a breather. Different slant from Cee Nav—they won't be talking about stars as check points, but as things in themselves." Something seemed to flicker across his face as he said it.
The advisor missed it; he was too engrossed in his argument. "Still a snap. What's the difference, how you look at a star?"
Isherwood almost winced. "Call it a hobby," he said. He looked down at his watch. "Come on, Dave. You're not going to convince me. You haven't convinced me any of the other times, either, so you might as well give up, don't you think? I've got a half hour before I go on the job. Let's go get some beer."
The advisor, not much older than Isherwood, shrugged, defeated. "Crazy," he muttered. But it was a hot day, and he was as thirsty as the next man.
The bar was air conditioned. The advisor shivered, half grinned, and softly quoted:
"Though I go bare, take ye no care, I am nothing a-cold; I stuff my skin so full within Of jolly good ale and old."
"Huh?" Ish was wearing the look with which he always reacted to the unfamiliar.
The advisor lifted two fingers to the bartender and shrugged. "It's a poem; about four hundred years old, as a matter of fact."
"Oh."
"Don't you give a damn?" the advisor asked, with some peevishness.
Ish laughed shortly, without embarrassment. "Sorry, Dave, but no. It's not my racket."
The advisor cramped his hand a little too tightly around his glass.
"Strictly a specialist, huh?"
Ish nodded. "Call it that."
"But what , for Pete's sake? What is this crazy specialty that blinds you to all the fine things that man has done?"
Ish took a swallow of his beer. "Well, now, if I was a poet, I'd say it was the finest thing that man has ever done."
The advisor's lips twisted in derision. "That's pretty fanatical, isn't it?"
"Uh-huh." Ish waved to the bartender for refills.
THE NAVION took a boiling thermal under its right wing and bucked upward suddenly, tilting at the same time, so that the pretty brunette girl in the other half of the side-by-side was thrown against him. Ish laughed, a sound that came out of his throat as turbulently as that sudden gust of heated air had shot up out of the Everglades, and corrected with a tilt of the wheel.
"Relax, Nan," he said, his words colored by the lingering laughter.
"It's only air; nasty old air."
The girl patted her short hair back into place. "I wish you wouldn't fly this low," she said, half-frightened.
" Low? Call this low?" Ish teased. "Here. Let's drop it a little, and you'll really get an idea of how fast we're going." He nudged the wheel forward, and the Navion dipped its nose in a shallow dive, flattening out thirty feet above the mangrove. The swamp howled with the chug of the dancing pistons and the claw of the propeller at the protesting air, and, from the cockpit, the Everglades resolved into a dirty-green blur that rocketed backward into the slipstream.
"Marty!"
Ish chuckled again. He couldn't have held the ship down much longer, anyway. He tugged back on the wheel suddenly, targeting a cumulous bank with his spinner. His lips peeled back from his teeth, and his jaw set. The Navion went up at the clouds, her engine turning over as fast as it could, her wings cushioned on the rising thrust of another thermal.
And, suddenly, it was as if there were no girl beside him, to be teased, and no air to rock the wings—there were no wings. His face lost all expression. Faint beads of sweat broke out above his eyes and under his nose. "Up," he grunted through his clenched teeth. His fists locked on the wheel. "Up!"
The Navion broke through the cloud, kept going. "Up." If he listened closely, in just the right way, he could almost hear ...
"Marty!"
... the rumble of a louder, prouder engine than the Earth had ever known. He sighed, the breath whispering through his parting teeth, and the aircraft leveled off as he pushed at the wheel with suddenly lax hands. Still half-lost, he turned and looked at the white-faced girl. "Scare you—?" he asked gently.
She nodded. Her fingertips were trembling on his forearm.
"Me too," he said. "Lost my head. Sorry."
"LOOK," HE told the girl, "You got any idea of what it costs to maintain a racing-plane? Everything I own is tied up in the Foo, my ground crew, my trailer, and that scrummy old Ryan that should have been salvaged ten years ago. I can't get married. Suppose I crack the Foo next week? You're dead broke, a widow, and with a funeral to pay for. The only smart thing to do is wait a while."
Nan's eyes clouded, and her lips trembled. "That's what I've been trying to say. Why do you have to win the Vandenberg Cup next week? Why can't you sell the Foo and go into some kind of business? You're a trained pilot."
He had been standing in front of her with his body unconsciously tense from the strain of trying to make her understand. Now he relaxed—more—he slumped—and something began to die in his face, and the first faint lines crept in to show that after it had died, it would not return to life, but would fossilize, leaving his features in the almost unreadable mask that the newspapers would come to know.
"I'm a good bit more than a trained pilot," he said quietly. "The Foo Is a means to an end. After I win the Vandenberg Cup, I can walk into any plant in the States—Douglas, North American, Boeing— any of them—and pick up the Chief Test Pilot's job for the asking. A few of them have as good as said so. After that—" His voice had regained some of its former animation from this new source. Now he broke off, and shrugged. "I've told you all this before."
The girl reached up, as if the physical touch could bring him back to her, and put her fingers around his wrist. "Darling!" she said. "If it's that rocket pilot business again...."
Somehow, his wrist was out of her encircling fingers. "It's always 'that rocket pilot business,'" he said, mimicking her voice. "Damn it, I'm the only trained rocket pilot in the world! I weigh a hundred and fifteen pounds, I'm five feet tall, and I know more navigation and math than anybody the Air Force or Navy have! I can use words like brennschluss and mass-ratio without running over to a copy of Colliers , and I—" He stopped himself, half-smiled, and shrugged again.
"I guess I was kidding myself. After the Cup, there'll be the test job, and after that, there'll be the rockets. You would have had to wait a long time."
All she could think of to say was, "But, Darling, there aren't any man-carrying rockets."
"That's not my fault," he said, and walked away from her.
A week later, he took his stripped-down F-110 across the last line with a scream like that of a hawk that brings its prey safely to its nest.
HE BROUGHT the Mark VII out of her orbit after two days of running rings around the spinning Earth, and the world loved him. He climbed out of the crackling, pinging ship, bearded and dirty, with oil on his face and in his hair, with food stains all over his whipcord, red-eyed, and huskily quiet as he said his few words into the network microphones. And he was not satisfied. There was no peace in his eyes, and his hands moved even more sharply in their expressive gestures as he gave an impromptu report to the technicians who were walking back to the personnel bunker with him.
Nan could see that. Four years ago, he had been different. Four years ago, if she had only known the right words, he wouldn't be so intent now on throwing himself away to the sky.
She was a woman scorned. She had to lie to herself. She broke out of the press section and ran over to him. "Marty!" She brushed past a technician.
He looked at her with faint surprise on his face. "Well, Nan!" he mumbled. But he did not put his hand over her own where it touched his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Marty," she said in a rush. "I didn't understand. I couldn't see how much it all meant." Her face was flushed, and she spoke as rapidly as she could, not noticing that Ish had already gestured away the guards she was afraid would interrupt her.
"But it's all right, now. You got your rockets. You've done it. You trained yourself for it, and now it's over. You've flown your rocket!"
He looked up at her face and shook his head in quiet pity. One of the shocked technicians was trying to pull her away, and Ish made no move to stop him.
Suddenly, he was tired, there was something in him that was trying to break out against his will, and his reaction was that of a child whose candy is being taken away from him after only one bite.
"Rocket!" he shouted into her terrified face. " Rocket! Call that pile of tin a rocket?" He pointed at the weary Mark VII with a trembling arm.
"Who cares about the bloody machines ! If I thought roller-skating would get me there, I would have gone to work in a rink when I was seventeen! It's getting there that counts! Who gives a good goddam how it's done, or what with!"
And he stood there, shaking like a leaf, outraged, while the guards came and got her.
"SIT DOWN, Ish," the Flight Surgeon said.
They always begin that way , Isherwood thought. The standard medical opening. Sit down. What for? Did somebody really believe that anything he might hear would make him faint? He smiled with as much expression as he ever did, and chose a comfortable chair, rolling the white cylinder of a cigarette between his fingers. He glanced at his watch. Fourteen hours, thirty-six minutes, and four days to go.
"How's it?" the FS asked.
Ish grinned and shrugged. "All right." But he didn't usually grin. The realization disquieted him a little.
"Think you'll make it?"
Deliberately, rather than automatically, he fell back into his usual response-pattern. "Don't know. That's what I'm being paid to find out."
"Uh- huh ." The FS tapped the eraser of his pencil against his teeth.
"Look—you want to talk to a man for a while?"
"What man?" It didn't really matter. He had a feeling that anything he said or did now would have a bearing, somehow, on the trip. If they wanted him to do something for them, he was bloody well going to do it.
"Fellow named MacKenzie. Big gun in the head-thumping racket." The Flight Surgeon was trying to be as casual as he could. "Air Force insisted on it, as a matter of fact," he said. "Can't really blame them. After all, it's their beast."
"Don't want any hole-heads denting it up on them, huh?" Ish lit the cigarette and flipped his lighter shut with a snap of the lid. "Sure. Bring him on."
The FS smiled. "Good. He's—uh—he's in the next room. Okay to ask him in right now?"
"Sure." Something flickered in Isherwood's eyes. Amusement at the Flight Surgeon's discomfort was part of it. Worry was some of the rest.
MacKENZIE didn't seem to be taking any notes, or paying any special attention to the answers Ish was giving to his casual questions. But the questions fell into a pattern that was far from casual, and Ish could see the small button-mike of a portable tape-recorder nestling under the man's lapel.
"Been working your own way for the last seventeen years, haven't you?" MacKenzie seemed to mumble in a perfectly clear voice.
Ish nodded.
"How's that?"
The corners of Isherwood's mouth twitched, and he said "Yes" for the recorder's benefit.
"Odd jobs, first of all?"
"Something like that. Anything I could get, the first few months. After I was halfway set up, I stuck to garages and repair shops."
"Out at the airports around Miami, mostly, wasn't it?"
"Ahuh."
"Took some of your pay in flying lessons."
"Right."
MacKenzie's face passed no judgements—he simply hunched in his chair, seemingly dwarfed by the shoulders of his perfectly tailored suit, his stubby fingers twiddling a Phi Beta Kappa key. He was a spare man—only a step or two away from emaciation. Occasionally, he pushed a tired strand of washed-out hair away from his forehead.
Ish answered him truthfully, without more than ordinary reservations. This was the man who could ground him He was dangerous—red-letter dangerous—because of it.
"No family."
Ish shrugged. "Not that I know of. Cut out at seventeen. My father was making good money. He had a pension plan, insurance policies. No need to worry about them."
Ish knew the normal reaction a statement like that should have brought. MacKenzie's face did not go into a blank of repression—but it still passed no judgements.
"How's things between you and the opposite sex?"
"About normal."
"No wife—no steady girl."
"Not a very good idea, in my racket."
MacKenzie grunted. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright in his chair, and swung toward Ish. His lean arm shot out, and his index finger was aimed between Isherwood's eyes. "You can't go!"
Ish was on his feet, his fists clenched, the blood throbbing in his temple veins. "What!" he roared.
MacKenzie seemed to collapse in his chair. The brief commanding burst was over, and his face was apologetic, "Sorry," he said. He seemed genuinely abashed. "Shotgun therapy. Works best, sometimes. You can go, all right; I just wanted to get a fast check on your reactions and drives."
Ish could feel the anger that still ran through him—anger, and more fear than he wanted to admit. "I'm due at a briefing," he said tautly.
"You through with me?"
MacKenzie nodded, still embarrassed. "Sorry."
Ish ignored the man's obvious feelings. He stopped at the door to send a parting stroke at the thing that had frightened him. "Big gun in the psychiatry racket, huh? Well, your professional lingo's slipping, Doc. They did put some learning in my head at college, you know. Therapy, hell! Testing maybe, but you sure didn't do anything to help me!"
"I don't know," MacKenzie said softly. "I wish I did."
Ish slammed the door behind him. He stood in the corridor, jamming a fresh cigarette in his mouth. He threw a glance at his watch. Twelve hours, twenty-two minutes, and four days to go.
Damn! He was late for the briefing. Odd—that fool psychiatrist hadn't seemed to take up that much of his time.
He shrugged. What difference did it make? As he strode down the hall, he lost his momentary puzzlement under the flood of realization that nothing could stop him now, that the last hurdle was beaten. He was going. He was going, and if there were faint echoes of "Marty!" ringing in the dark background of his mind, they only served to push him faster, as they always had. Nothing but death could stop him now.
ISH LOOKED up bitterly at the Receptionist. "No," he said.
"But everybody fills out an application," she protested.
"No. I've got a job," he said as he had been saying for the last half hour.
The Receptionist sighed. "If you'll only read the literature I've given you, you'll understand that all your previous commitments have been cancelled."
"Look, Honey, I've seen company poop sheets before. Now, let's cut this nonsense. I've got to get back."
"But nobody goes back."
"Goddam it, I don't know what kind of place this is, but—" He stopped at the Receptionist's wince, and looked around, his mouth open. The reception desk was solid enough. There were IN and OUT and HOLD baskets on the desk, and the Receptionist seemed to see nothing extraordinary about it. But the room—a big room, he realized—seemed to fade out at the edges, rather than stop at walls. The lighting, too....
"Let's see your back!" he rapped out, his voice high.
She sighed in exasperation. "If you'd read the literature ..." She swiveled her chair slowly.
"No wings," he said.
"Of course not!" she snapped. She brushed her hair away from her forehead without his telling her to. "No horns, either."
"Streamlined, huh?" he said bitterly.
"It's a little different for everybody," she said with unexpected gentleness. "It would have to be, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess so," he admitted slowly. Then he lost his momentary awe, and his posture grew tense again. He glanced down at his wrist. Six hours, forty-seven minutes, and no days to go.
"Who do I see?"
She stared at him, bewildered at the sudden change in his voice. "See?"
"About getting out of here! Come on, come on," he barked, snapping his fingers impatiently. "I haven't got much time."
She smiled sweetly. "Oh, but you do."
"Can it! Who's your Section boss? Get him down here. On the double. Come on!" His face was streaming with perspiration but his voice was firm with the purpose that drove him.
Her lips closed into an angry line, and she jabbed a finger at a desk button. "I'll call the Personnel Manager."
"Thanks," he said sarcastically, and waited impatiently. Odd, the way the Receptionist looked a little like Nan.
THE PERSONNEL Manager wore a perfectly-tailored suit. He strode across the lobby floor toward Ish, his hand outstretched.
"Martin Isherwood!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "I'm very glad to meet you!"
"I'll bet," Ish said dryly, giving the Personnel Manager's hand a short shake. "I've got other ideas. I want out."
"That's all he's been saying for the past forty-five minutes, Sir," the Receptionist said from behind her desk.
The Personnel Manager frowned. "Um. Yes. Well, that's not unprecedented."
"But hardly usual," he added.
Ish found himself liking the man. He had a job to do, and after the preliminary formality of the greeting had been passed, he was ready to buckle down to it. Oh, he—shucks?—the Receptionist wasn't such a bad girl, either. He smiled at her. "Sorry I lost my head," he said.
She smiled back. "It happens."
He took time to give her one more smile and a half-wink, and swung back to the Personnel Manager.
"Now. Let's get this thing straightened out. I've got—" He stopped to look at his watch. "Six hours and a few minutes. They're fueling the beast right now."
"Do you know how much red tape you'd have to cut?"
Ish shook his head. "I don't want to sound nasty, but that's your problem."
The Personnel Manager hesitated. "Look—you feel you've got a job unfinished. Or, anyway, that's the way you'd put it. But, let's face it—that's not really what's galling you. It's not really the job, is it? It's just that you think you've been cheated out of what you devoted your life to."
Ish could feel his jaw muscles bunching. "Don't put words in my mouth!" he snapped. "Just get me back, and we'll split hairs about it when I get around this way again." Suddenly, he found himself pleading. "All I need is a week," he said. "It'll be a rough week—no picnic, no pleasures of the flesh. No smoking, no liquor. I certainly won't be breaking any laws. One week. Get there, putter around for two days, and back again. Then, you can do anything you want to—as long as it doesn't look like the trip's responsible, of course."
The Personnel Manager hesitated. "Suppose—" he began, but Ish interrupted him.
"Look, they need it, down there. They've got to have a target, someplace to go. We're built for it. People have to have—but what am I telling you for. If you don't know, who does?"
The Personnel Manager smiled. "I was about to say something."
Ish stopped, abashed. "Sorry."
He waved the apology away with a short movement of his hand. "You've got to understand that what you've been saying isn't a valid claim. If it were, human history would be very different, wouldn't it?"
"Suppose I showed you something, first? Then, you could decide whether you want to stay, after all."
"How long's it going to take?" Ish flushed under the memory of having actually begged for something.
"Not long," the Personnel Manager said. He half-turned and pointed up at the Earth, hanging just beyond the wall of the crater in which they were suddenly standing.
"Earth," the Personnel Manager said.
Somehow, Ish was not astonished. He looked up at the Earth, touched by cloud and sunlight, marked with ocean and continent, crowned with ice. The unblinking stars filled the night.
He looked around him. The Moon was silent—quiet, patient, waiting. Somewhere, a metal glint against the planet above, if it were only large enough to be seen, was the Station, and the ship for which the Moon had waited.
Ish walked a short distance. He was leaving no tracks in the pumice the ages had sown. But it was the way he had thought of it, nevertheless. It was the way the image had slowly built up in his mind, through the years, through the training, through the work. It was what he had aimed the Navion at, that day over the Everglades.
"It's not the same," he said.
The Personnel Manager sighed.
"Don't you see," Ish said, "It can't be the same. I didn't push the beast up here. There wasn't any feel to it. There wasn't any sound of rockets."
The Personnel Manager sighed again. "There wouldn't be, you know. Taking off from the Station, landing here—vacuum."
Ish shook his head. "There'd still be a sound. Maybe not for anybody else to hear—and, maybe, maybe there would be. There'd be people, back on Earth, who'd hear it."
"All right," the Personnel Manager said. His face was grave, but his eyes were shining a little.
"ISH! HEY, Ish, wake up, will you!" There was a hand on his shoulder.
"Will you get a load of this guy!" the voice said to someone else. "An hour to go, and he's sleeping like the dead."
Ish willed his eyes to open. He felt his heart begin to move again, felt the blood sluggishly beginning to surge into his veins. His hands and feet were very cold.
"Come on, Ish," the Crew Chief said.
"All right," he mumbled. "Okay. I'm up." He sat on the edge of his bunk looking down at his hands. They were blue under the fingernails. He sighed, feeling the air moving down into his lungs.
Stiffly, he got to his feet and began to climb into his G suit.
The Moon opened its face to him. From where he lay, strapped into the control seat in the forward bubble, he looked at it emotionlessly, and began to brake for a landing.
He looked for footprints in the crater, though he knew he hadn't left any. Earth was a familiar sight over his right shoulder.
He brought the twin-bubble beast back to the station. They threw spotlights on it, for the TV pickups, and thrust microphones at him. He could see broad grins behind the faceplates of the suits the docking crew wore, and they were pounding his back. The interior of the Station was a babbling of voices, a tumult of congratulations. He looked at it all, dead-faced, his eyes empty.
"It was easy," he said over a world-wide network, and pushed the press representatives out of his way.
MacKENZIE was waiting for him in the crew section. Ish flicked his stolid eyes at him, shrugged, and stripped out of his clothes. He pulled a coverall out of a locker and climbed into it, then went over to his bunk and lay down on his side, facing the bulkhead.
"Ish."
It was MacKenzie, bending over him.
Ish grunted.
"It wasn't any good was it? You'd done it all before; you'd been there."
He was past emotions. "Yeah?"
"We couldn't take the chance." MacKenzie was trying desperately to explain. "You were the best there was—but you'd done something to yourself by becoming the best. You shut yourself off from your family. You had no close friends, no women. You had no other interests. You were a rocket pilot—nothing else. You've never read an adult book that wasn't a text; you've never listened to a symphony except by accident. You don't know Rembrandt from Norman Rockwell. Nothing. No ties, no props, nothing to sustain you if something went wrong. We couldn't take the chance, Ish! "
"So?"
"There was too much at stake. If we let you go, you might have forgotten to come back. You might have just kept going."
He remembered the time with the Navion , and nodded. "I might have."
"I hypnotized you," MacKenzie said. "You were never dead. I don't know what the details of your hallucination were, but the important part came through, all right. You thought you'd been to the Moon before. It took all the adventure out of the actual flight; it was just a workaday trip."
"I said it was easy," Ish said.
"There was no other way to do it! I had to cancel out the thrill that comes from challenging the unknown. You knew what death was like, and you knew what the Moon was like. Can you understand why I had to do it?"
"Yeah. Now get out before I kill you. "
He didn't live too long after that. He never entered a rocket again—he died on the Station, and was buried in space, while a grateful world mourned him. I wonder what it was like, in his mind, when he really died. But he spent the days he had, after the trip, just sitting at an observatory port, cursing the traitor stars with his dead and purposeless eyes.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected without note.
This etext was produced from Dynamic Science Fiction, January, 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
Question:
Who is Martin Isherwood, and what are his characteristics?
Answer:
|
[
"Martin Isherwood is the main character of the story. He only wants one thing in life, which is to drive a rocket to the moon. Everything he does in his life is to reach that goal, he pushes everyone away. He pushes away his parents and his girlfriend because they didn’t understand the dream he was trying to accomplish. He is described as very determined, as he only has one thing in mind. He is also very stubborn, doesn’t heed the advice of others and also is described as irritable. ",
"Martin Isherwood starts off as a boy who wants to become a rocket pilot. At age seventeen, he is one hundred and two pounds, four feet eleven, and had just run away from home. Ish is very stubborn, refusing to take any other class that is not math or engineering. Even when his advisor tries to make him change his mind, he refuses until the very end. Ish is very clueless outside of rocket piloting, completely unaware of how the advisor references poetry or any forms of literature. He later grows to around five feet and also becomes somewhat of a daredevil. When Nan and him are in the plane, he purposely does tricks that he knows will scare her. He, however, becomes obsessed with being a rocket pilot to the point where he abandons his family and has no friends. Ish eventually becomes very impatient and snappy too, refusing to believe anything else that does not involve rockets or piloting. He is so passionate about his dream that he is willing to disregard everything else that makes him human. It is so dangerous that MacKenzie has to have him hypnotized in order for him to stay grounded. ",
"Martin Isherwood is a trained rocket pilot who has been dreaming of harnessing space since early childhood. He is very determined and ambitious. We can see that even when he is just a child who is ready to oppose his father’s opinion. He seems fearless and playful when he’s on the Navion with Nan. He teases her and talks about the possibility of marriage in the distant future. But eventually, his fanaticism replaces all the other emotions. When he meets her again, he can only think about his flight, his space dream, not her. Martin doesn't talk to his family, has no romantic partner, and there is no mention of any of his friends. He becomes obsessed with space, with the flight to the Moon. Space travel becomes the main reason why Martin is alive. And when the illusion takes the thrill out of his flight, he dies from dissatisfaction, a lack of a real purpose in life. \n",
"Martin Isherwood is the son of Howard Isherwood and Margaret Isherwood. He is a rocket pilot who has set his dream since his childhood. His pursuit of being a rocket pilot is very perseverant and does not allow any doubts or unsupported. Due to this persistence and stubbornness, he shuts himself off from any relationships or entertainment in life, leading that the meaning of his life is only to be a rocket pilot. He is easily outraged by the words or actions of questioning or misunderstanding his ambition. Until the end of the story, where he learns that he has been hypnotized to imagine landing on the moon, he finally gives up the rocket pilot dream and feels betrayed by it."
] |
40968
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He had but one ambition, one desire: to pilot the first manned rocket to the moon. And he was prepared as no man had ever prepared himself before....
DESIRE NO MORE
by Algis Budrys
( illustrated by Milton Luros )
" Desire no more than to thy lot may fall.... "
—Chaucer
THE SMALL young man looked at his father, and shook his head.
"But you've got to learn a trade," his father said, exasperated. "I can't afford to send you to college; you know that."
"I've got a trade," he answered.
His father smiled thinly. "What?" he asked patronizingly.
"I'm a rocket pilot," the boy said, his thin jaw stretching the skin of his cheeks.
His father laughed in the way the boy had learned to anticipate and hate. "Yeah," he said. He leaned back in his chair and laughed so hard that the Sunday paper slipped off his wide lap and fell to the floor with an unnoticed stiff rustle.
"A rocket pilot!" His father's derision hooted through the quiet parlor. "A ro— oh, no! —a rocket pilot !"
The boy stared silently at the convulsed figure in the chair. His lips fell into a set white bar, and the corners of his jaws bulged with the tension in their muscles. Suddenly, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the parlor, through the hall, out the front door, to the porch. He stopped there, hesitating a little.
" Marty! " His father's shout followed him out of the parlor. It seemed to act like a hand between the shoulder-blades, because the boy almost ran as he got down the porch stairs.
"What is it, Howard?" Marty's mother asked in a worried voice as she came in from the kitchen, her damp hands rubbing themselves dry against the sides of her housedress.
"Crazy kid," Howard Isherwood muttered. He stared at the figure of his son as the boy reached the end of the walk and turned off into the street. " Come back here! " he shouted. "A rocket pilot," he cursed under his breath. "What's the kid been reading? Claiming he's a rocket pilot!"
Margaret Isherwood's brow furrowed into a faint, bewildered frown.
"But—isn't he a little young? I know they're teaching some very odd things in high schools these days, but it seems to me...."
"Oh, for Pete's sake, Marge, there aren't even any rockets yet! Come back here, you idiot! " Howard Isherwood was standing on his porch, his clenched fists trembling at the ends of his stiffly-held arms.
"Are you sure, Howard?" his wife asked faintly.
"Yes, I'm sure !"
"But, where's he going?"
" Stop that! Get off that bus! YOU hear me? Marty?"
" Howard! Stop acting like a child and talk to me! Where is that boy going?"
Howard Isherwood, stocky, red-faced, forty-seven, and defeated, turned away from the retreating bus and looked at his wife. "I don't know," he told her bitterly, between rushes of air into his jerkily heaving lungs.
"Maybe, the moon," he told her sarcastically.
Martin Isherwood, rocket pilot, weight 102, height 4', 11", had come of age at seventeen.
THE SMALL man looked at his faculty advisor. "No," he said. "I am not interested in working for a degree."
"But—" The faculty advisor unconsciously tapped the point of a yellow pencil against the fresh green of his desk blotter, leaving a rough arc of black flecks. "Look, Ish, you've got to either deliver or get off the basket. This program is just like the others you've followed for nine semesters; nothing but math and engineering. You've taken just about every undergrad course there is in those fields. How long are you going to keep this up?"
"I'm signed up for Astronomy 101," Isherwood pointed out.
The faculty advisor snorted. "A snap course. A breather, after you've studied the same stuff in Celestial Navigation. What's the matter, Ish? Scared of liberal arts?"
Isherwood shook his head. "Uh-unh. Not interested. No time. And that Astronomy course isn't a breather. Different slant from Cee Nav—they won't be talking about stars as check points, but as things in themselves." Something seemed to flicker across his face as he said it.
The advisor missed it; he was too engrossed in his argument. "Still a snap. What's the difference, how you look at a star?"
Isherwood almost winced. "Call it a hobby," he said. He looked down at his watch. "Come on, Dave. You're not going to convince me. You haven't convinced me any of the other times, either, so you might as well give up, don't you think? I've got a half hour before I go on the job. Let's go get some beer."
The advisor, not much older than Isherwood, shrugged, defeated. "Crazy," he muttered. But it was a hot day, and he was as thirsty as the next man.
The bar was air conditioned. The advisor shivered, half grinned, and softly quoted:
"Though I go bare, take ye no care, I am nothing a-cold; I stuff my skin so full within Of jolly good ale and old."
"Huh?" Ish was wearing the look with which he always reacted to the unfamiliar.
The advisor lifted two fingers to the bartender and shrugged. "It's a poem; about four hundred years old, as a matter of fact."
"Oh."
"Don't you give a damn?" the advisor asked, with some peevishness.
Ish laughed shortly, without embarrassment. "Sorry, Dave, but no. It's not my racket."
The advisor cramped his hand a little too tightly around his glass.
"Strictly a specialist, huh?"
Ish nodded. "Call it that."
"But what , for Pete's sake? What is this crazy specialty that blinds you to all the fine things that man has done?"
Ish took a swallow of his beer. "Well, now, if I was a poet, I'd say it was the finest thing that man has ever done."
The advisor's lips twisted in derision. "That's pretty fanatical, isn't it?"
"Uh-huh." Ish waved to the bartender for refills.
THE NAVION took a boiling thermal under its right wing and bucked upward suddenly, tilting at the same time, so that the pretty brunette girl in the other half of the side-by-side was thrown against him. Ish laughed, a sound that came out of his throat as turbulently as that sudden gust of heated air had shot up out of the Everglades, and corrected with a tilt of the wheel.
"Relax, Nan," he said, his words colored by the lingering laughter.
"It's only air; nasty old air."
The girl patted her short hair back into place. "I wish you wouldn't fly this low," she said, half-frightened.
" Low? Call this low?" Ish teased. "Here. Let's drop it a little, and you'll really get an idea of how fast we're going." He nudged the wheel forward, and the Navion dipped its nose in a shallow dive, flattening out thirty feet above the mangrove. The swamp howled with the chug of the dancing pistons and the claw of the propeller at the protesting air, and, from the cockpit, the Everglades resolved into a dirty-green blur that rocketed backward into the slipstream.
"Marty!"
Ish chuckled again. He couldn't have held the ship down much longer, anyway. He tugged back on the wheel suddenly, targeting a cumulous bank with his spinner. His lips peeled back from his teeth, and his jaw set. The Navion went up at the clouds, her engine turning over as fast as it could, her wings cushioned on the rising thrust of another thermal.
And, suddenly, it was as if there were no girl beside him, to be teased, and no air to rock the wings—there were no wings. His face lost all expression. Faint beads of sweat broke out above his eyes and under his nose. "Up," he grunted through his clenched teeth. His fists locked on the wheel. "Up!"
The Navion broke through the cloud, kept going. "Up." If he listened closely, in just the right way, he could almost hear ...
"Marty!"
... the rumble of a louder, prouder engine than the Earth had ever known. He sighed, the breath whispering through his parting teeth, and the aircraft leveled off as he pushed at the wheel with suddenly lax hands. Still half-lost, he turned and looked at the white-faced girl. "Scare you—?" he asked gently.
She nodded. Her fingertips were trembling on his forearm.
"Me too," he said. "Lost my head. Sorry."
"LOOK," HE told the girl, "You got any idea of what it costs to maintain a racing-plane? Everything I own is tied up in the Foo, my ground crew, my trailer, and that scrummy old Ryan that should have been salvaged ten years ago. I can't get married. Suppose I crack the Foo next week? You're dead broke, a widow, and with a funeral to pay for. The only smart thing to do is wait a while."
Nan's eyes clouded, and her lips trembled. "That's what I've been trying to say. Why do you have to win the Vandenberg Cup next week? Why can't you sell the Foo and go into some kind of business? You're a trained pilot."
He had been standing in front of her with his body unconsciously tense from the strain of trying to make her understand. Now he relaxed—more—he slumped—and something began to die in his face, and the first faint lines crept in to show that after it had died, it would not return to life, but would fossilize, leaving his features in the almost unreadable mask that the newspapers would come to know.
"I'm a good bit more than a trained pilot," he said quietly. "The Foo Is a means to an end. After I win the Vandenberg Cup, I can walk into any plant in the States—Douglas, North American, Boeing— any of them—and pick up the Chief Test Pilot's job for the asking. A few of them have as good as said so. After that—" His voice had regained some of its former animation from this new source. Now he broke off, and shrugged. "I've told you all this before."
The girl reached up, as if the physical touch could bring him back to her, and put her fingers around his wrist. "Darling!" she said. "If it's that rocket pilot business again...."
Somehow, his wrist was out of her encircling fingers. "It's always 'that rocket pilot business,'" he said, mimicking her voice. "Damn it, I'm the only trained rocket pilot in the world! I weigh a hundred and fifteen pounds, I'm five feet tall, and I know more navigation and math than anybody the Air Force or Navy have! I can use words like brennschluss and mass-ratio without running over to a copy of Colliers , and I—" He stopped himself, half-smiled, and shrugged again.
"I guess I was kidding myself. After the Cup, there'll be the test job, and after that, there'll be the rockets. You would have had to wait a long time."
All she could think of to say was, "But, Darling, there aren't any man-carrying rockets."
"That's not my fault," he said, and walked away from her.
A week later, he took his stripped-down F-110 across the last line with a scream like that of a hawk that brings its prey safely to its nest.
HE BROUGHT the Mark VII out of her orbit after two days of running rings around the spinning Earth, and the world loved him. He climbed out of the crackling, pinging ship, bearded and dirty, with oil on his face and in his hair, with food stains all over his whipcord, red-eyed, and huskily quiet as he said his few words into the network microphones. And he was not satisfied. There was no peace in his eyes, and his hands moved even more sharply in their expressive gestures as he gave an impromptu report to the technicians who were walking back to the personnel bunker with him.
Nan could see that. Four years ago, he had been different. Four years ago, if she had only known the right words, he wouldn't be so intent now on throwing himself away to the sky.
She was a woman scorned. She had to lie to herself. She broke out of the press section and ran over to him. "Marty!" She brushed past a technician.
He looked at her with faint surprise on his face. "Well, Nan!" he mumbled. But he did not put his hand over her own where it touched his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Marty," she said in a rush. "I didn't understand. I couldn't see how much it all meant." Her face was flushed, and she spoke as rapidly as she could, not noticing that Ish had already gestured away the guards she was afraid would interrupt her.
"But it's all right, now. You got your rockets. You've done it. You trained yourself for it, and now it's over. You've flown your rocket!"
He looked up at her face and shook his head in quiet pity. One of the shocked technicians was trying to pull her away, and Ish made no move to stop him.
Suddenly, he was tired, there was something in him that was trying to break out against his will, and his reaction was that of a child whose candy is being taken away from him after only one bite.
"Rocket!" he shouted into her terrified face. " Rocket! Call that pile of tin a rocket?" He pointed at the weary Mark VII with a trembling arm.
"Who cares about the bloody machines ! If I thought roller-skating would get me there, I would have gone to work in a rink when I was seventeen! It's getting there that counts! Who gives a good goddam how it's done, or what with!"
And he stood there, shaking like a leaf, outraged, while the guards came and got her.
"SIT DOWN, Ish," the Flight Surgeon said.
They always begin that way , Isherwood thought. The standard medical opening. Sit down. What for? Did somebody really believe that anything he might hear would make him faint? He smiled with as much expression as he ever did, and chose a comfortable chair, rolling the white cylinder of a cigarette between his fingers. He glanced at his watch. Fourteen hours, thirty-six minutes, and four days to go.
"How's it?" the FS asked.
Ish grinned and shrugged. "All right." But he didn't usually grin. The realization disquieted him a little.
"Think you'll make it?"
Deliberately, rather than automatically, he fell back into his usual response-pattern. "Don't know. That's what I'm being paid to find out."
"Uh- huh ." The FS tapped the eraser of his pencil against his teeth.
"Look—you want to talk to a man for a while?"
"What man?" It didn't really matter. He had a feeling that anything he said or did now would have a bearing, somehow, on the trip. If they wanted him to do something for them, he was bloody well going to do it.
"Fellow named MacKenzie. Big gun in the head-thumping racket." The Flight Surgeon was trying to be as casual as he could. "Air Force insisted on it, as a matter of fact," he said. "Can't really blame them. After all, it's their beast."
"Don't want any hole-heads denting it up on them, huh?" Ish lit the cigarette and flipped his lighter shut with a snap of the lid. "Sure. Bring him on."
The FS smiled. "Good. He's—uh—he's in the next room. Okay to ask him in right now?"
"Sure." Something flickered in Isherwood's eyes. Amusement at the Flight Surgeon's discomfort was part of it. Worry was some of the rest.
MacKENZIE didn't seem to be taking any notes, or paying any special attention to the answers Ish was giving to his casual questions. But the questions fell into a pattern that was far from casual, and Ish could see the small button-mike of a portable tape-recorder nestling under the man's lapel.
"Been working your own way for the last seventeen years, haven't you?" MacKenzie seemed to mumble in a perfectly clear voice.
Ish nodded.
"How's that?"
The corners of Isherwood's mouth twitched, and he said "Yes" for the recorder's benefit.
"Odd jobs, first of all?"
"Something like that. Anything I could get, the first few months. After I was halfway set up, I stuck to garages and repair shops."
"Out at the airports around Miami, mostly, wasn't it?"
"Ahuh."
"Took some of your pay in flying lessons."
"Right."
MacKenzie's face passed no judgements—he simply hunched in his chair, seemingly dwarfed by the shoulders of his perfectly tailored suit, his stubby fingers twiddling a Phi Beta Kappa key. He was a spare man—only a step or two away from emaciation. Occasionally, he pushed a tired strand of washed-out hair away from his forehead.
Ish answered him truthfully, without more than ordinary reservations. This was the man who could ground him He was dangerous—red-letter dangerous—because of it.
"No family."
Ish shrugged. "Not that I know of. Cut out at seventeen. My father was making good money. He had a pension plan, insurance policies. No need to worry about them."
Ish knew the normal reaction a statement like that should have brought. MacKenzie's face did not go into a blank of repression—but it still passed no judgements.
"How's things between you and the opposite sex?"
"About normal."
"No wife—no steady girl."
"Not a very good idea, in my racket."
MacKenzie grunted. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright in his chair, and swung toward Ish. His lean arm shot out, and his index finger was aimed between Isherwood's eyes. "You can't go!"
Ish was on his feet, his fists clenched, the blood throbbing in his temple veins. "What!" he roared.
MacKenzie seemed to collapse in his chair. The brief commanding burst was over, and his face was apologetic, "Sorry," he said. He seemed genuinely abashed. "Shotgun therapy. Works best, sometimes. You can go, all right; I just wanted to get a fast check on your reactions and drives."
Ish could feel the anger that still ran through him—anger, and more fear than he wanted to admit. "I'm due at a briefing," he said tautly.
"You through with me?"
MacKenzie nodded, still embarrassed. "Sorry."
Ish ignored the man's obvious feelings. He stopped at the door to send a parting stroke at the thing that had frightened him. "Big gun in the psychiatry racket, huh? Well, your professional lingo's slipping, Doc. They did put some learning in my head at college, you know. Therapy, hell! Testing maybe, but you sure didn't do anything to help me!"
"I don't know," MacKenzie said softly. "I wish I did."
Ish slammed the door behind him. He stood in the corridor, jamming a fresh cigarette in his mouth. He threw a glance at his watch. Twelve hours, twenty-two minutes, and four days to go.
Damn! He was late for the briefing. Odd—that fool psychiatrist hadn't seemed to take up that much of his time.
He shrugged. What difference did it make? As he strode down the hall, he lost his momentary puzzlement under the flood of realization that nothing could stop him now, that the last hurdle was beaten. He was going. He was going, and if there were faint echoes of "Marty!" ringing in the dark background of his mind, they only served to push him faster, as they always had. Nothing but death could stop him now.
ISH LOOKED up bitterly at the Receptionist. "No," he said.
"But everybody fills out an application," she protested.
"No. I've got a job," he said as he had been saying for the last half hour.
The Receptionist sighed. "If you'll only read the literature I've given you, you'll understand that all your previous commitments have been cancelled."
"Look, Honey, I've seen company poop sheets before. Now, let's cut this nonsense. I've got to get back."
"But nobody goes back."
"Goddam it, I don't know what kind of place this is, but—" He stopped at the Receptionist's wince, and looked around, his mouth open. The reception desk was solid enough. There were IN and OUT and HOLD baskets on the desk, and the Receptionist seemed to see nothing extraordinary about it. But the room—a big room, he realized—seemed to fade out at the edges, rather than stop at walls. The lighting, too....
"Let's see your back!" he rapped out, his voice high.
She sighed in exasperation. "If you'd read the literature ..." She swiveled her chair slowly.
"No wings," he said.
"Of course not!" she snapped. She brushed her hair away from her forehead without his telling her to. "No horns, either."
"Streamlined, huh?" he said bitterly.
"It's a little different for everybody," she said with unexpected gentleness. "It would have to be, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess so," he admitted slowly. Then he lost his momentary awe, and his posture grew tense again. He glanced down at his wrist. Six hours, forty-seven minutes, and no days to go.
"Who do I see?"
She stared at him, bewildered at the sudden change in his voice. "See?"
"About getting out of here! Come on, come on," he barked, snapping his fingers impatiently. "I haven't got much time."
She smiled sweetly. "Oh, but you do."
"Can it! Who's your Section boss? Get him down here. On the double. Come on!" His face was streaming with perspiration but his voice was firm with the purpose that drove him.
Her lips closed into an angry line, and she jabbed a finger at a desk button. "I'll call the Personnel Manager."
"Thanks," he said sarcastically, and waited impatiently. Odd, the way the Receptionist looked a little like Nan.
THE PERSONNEL Manager wore a perfectly-tailored suit. He strode across the lobby floor toward Ish, his hand outstretched.
"Martin Isherwood!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "I'm very glad to meet you!"
"I'll bet," Ish said dryly, giving the Personnel Manager's hand a short shake. "I've got other ideas. I want out."
"That's all he's been saying for the past forty-five minutes, Sir," the Receptionist said from behind her desk.
The Personnel Manager frowned. "Um. Yes. Well, that's not unprecedented."
"But hardly usual," he added.
Ish found himself liking the man. He had a job to do, and after the preliminary formality of the greeting had been passed, he was ready to buckle down to it. Oh, he—shucks?—the Receptionist wasn't such a bad girl, either. He smiled at her. "Sorry I lost my head," he said.
She smiled back. "It happens."
He took time to give her one more smile and a half-wink, and swung back to the Personnel Manager.
"Now. Let's get this thing straightened out. I've got—" He stopped to look at his watch. "Six hours and a few minutes. They're fueling the beast right now."
"Do you know how much red tape you'd have to cut?"
Ish shook his head. "I don't want to sound nasty, but that's your problem."
The Personnel Manager hesitated. "Look—you feel you've got a job unfinished. Or, anyway, that's the way you'd put it. But, let's face it—that's not really what's galling you. It's not really the job, is it? It's just that you think you've been cheated out of what you devoted your life to."
Ish could feel his jaw muscles bunching. "Don't put words in my mouth!" he snapped. "Just get me back, and we'll split hairs about it when I get around this way again." Suddenly, he found himself pleading. "All I need is a week," he said. "It'll be a rough week—no picnic, no pleasures of the flesh. No smoking, no liquor. I certainly won't be breaking any laws. One week. Get there, putter around for two days, and back again. Then, you can do anything you want to—as long as it doesn't look like the trip's responsible, of course."
The Personnel Manager hesitated. "Suppose—" he began, but Ish interrupted him.
"Look, they need it, down there. They've got to have a target, someplace to go. We're built for it. People have to have—but what am I telling you for. If you don't know, who does?"
The Personnel Manager smiled. "I was about to say something."
Ish stopped, abashed. "Sorry."
He waved the apology away with a short movement of his hand. "You've got to understand that what you've been saying isn't a valid claim. If it were, human history would be very different, wouldn't it?"
"Suppose I showed you something, first? Then, you could decide whether you want to stay, after all."
"How long's it going to take?" Ish flushed under the memory of having actually begged for something.
"Not long," the Personnel Manager said. He half-turned and pointed up at the Earth, hanging just beyond the wall of the crater in which they were suddenly standing.
"Earth," the Personnel Manager said.
Somehow, Ish was not astonished. He looked up at the Earth, touched by cloud and sunlight, marked with ocean and continent, crowned with ice. The unblinking stars filled the night.
He looked around him. The Moon was silent—quiet, patient, waiting. Somewhere, a metal glint against the planet above, if it were only large enough to be seen, was the Station, and the ship for which the Moon had waited.
Ish walked a short distance. He was leaving no tracks in the pumice the ages had sown. But it was the way he had thought of it, nevertheless. It was the way the image had slowly built up in his mind, through the years, through the training, through the work. It was what he had aimed the Navion at, that day over the Everglades.
"It's not the same," he said.
The Personnel Manager sighed.
"Don't you see," Ish said, "It can't be the same. I didn't push the beast up here. There wasn't any feel to it. There wasn't any sound of rockets."
The Personnel Manager sighed again. "There wouldn't be, you know. Taking off from the Station, landing here—vacuum."
Ish shook his head. "There'd still be a sound. Maybe not for anybody else to hear—and, maybe, maybe there would be. There'd be people, back on Earth, who'd hear it."
"All right," the Personnel Manager said. His face was grave, but his eyes were shining a little.
"ISH! HEY, Ish, wake up, will you!" There was a hand on his shoulder.
"Will you get a load of this guy!" the voice said to someone else. "An hour to go, and he's sleeping like the dead."
Ish willed his eyes to open. He felt his heart begin to move again, felt the blood sluggishly beginning to surge into his veins. His hands and feet were very cold.
"Come on, Ish," the Crew Chief said.
"All right," he mumbled. "Okay. I'm up." He sat on the edge of his bunk looking down at his hands. They were blue under the fingernails. He sighed, feeling the air moving down into his lungs.
Stiffly, he got to his feet and began to climb into his G suit.
The Moon opened its face to him. From where he lay, strapped into the control seat in the forward bubble, he looked at it emotionlessly, and began to brake for a landing.
He looked for footprints in the crater, though he knew he hadn't left any. Earth was a familiar sight over his right shoulder.
He brought the twin-bubble beast back to the station. They threw spotlights on it, for the TV pickups, and thrust microphones at him. He could see broad grins behind the faceplates of the suits the docking crew wore, and they were pounding his back. The interior of the Station was a babbling of voices, a tumult of congratulations. He looked at it all, dead-faced, his eyes empty.
"It was easy," he said over a world-wide network, and pushed the press representatives out of his way.
MacKENZIE was waiting for him in the crew section. Ish flicked his stolid eyes at him, shrugged, and stripped out of his clothes. He pulled a coverall out of a locker and climbed into it, then went over to his bunk and lay down on his side, facing the bulkhead.
"Ish."
It was MacKenzie, bending over him.
Ish grunted.
"It wasn't any good was it? You'd done it all before; you'd been there."
He was past emotions. "Yeah?"
"We couldn't take the chance." MacKenzie was trying desperately to explain. "You were the best there was—but you'd done something to yourself by becoming the best. You shut yourself off from your family. You had no close friends, no women. You had no other interests. You were a rocket pilot—nothing else. You've never read an adult book that wasn't a text; you've never listened to a symphony except by accident. You don't know Rembrandt from Norman Rockwell. Nothing. No ties, no props, nothing to sustain you if something went wrong. We couldn't take the chance, Ish! "
"So?"
"There was too much at stake. If we let you go, you might have forgotten to come back. You might have just kept going."
He remembered the time with the Navion , and nodded. "I might have."
"I hypnotized you," MacKenzie said. "You were never dead. I don't know what the details of your hallucination were, but the important part came through, all right. You thought you'd been to the Moon before. It took all the adventure out of the actual flight; it was just a workaday trip."
"I said it was easy," Ish said.
"There was no other way to do it! I had to cancel out the thrill that comes from challenging the unknown. You knew what death was like, and you knew what the Moon was like. Can you understand why I had to do it?"
"Yeah. Now get out before I kill you. "
He didn't live too long after that. He never entered a rocket again—he died on the Station, and was buried in space, while a grateful world mourned him. I wonder what it was like, in his mind, when he really died. But he spent the days he had, after the trip, just sitting at an observatory port, cursing the traitor stars with his dead and purposeless eyes.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected without note.
This etext was produced from Dynamic Science Fiction, January, 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
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Who is Garrett and what happens to him in the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about DEATH STAR by TOM PACE.
Relevant chunks:
DEATH STAR
By TOM PACE
Trapped by the most feared of space pirates Devil Garrett, Starrett Blade was fighting for his life. Weaponless, his ship gone, he was pinning his hopes on a girl—who wanted him dead.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1945. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Starrett Blade crouched in the rocks by the tiny Centaurian lake. It was only about two or three hundred feet across, but probably thousands of feet deep. This lake, and hundreds of others like it, were the only things to break the monotony of the flat, rocky surface of Alpha Centauri III—called the most barren planet in space.
Ten minutes ago, Star Blade's ship had spun into the stagnant waters before him. An emergency release had flung the air-lock doors open, and the air pressure had flung Star out. And now he was waiting for Devil Garrett to come down to the water's edge to search for him.
For eight years, Devil Garrett had been the top space pirate in the void. For a year, Star himself had personally been hunting him. And on a tour over Alpha III, a Barden energy-beam had stabbed up at Blade's ship, and Star Blade had crashed into the lake.
That Barden Beam had Star worried and puzzled. It took a million volts of power for a split-second flash of the beam. Garrett didn't have an atomics plant on Alpha III—if he had, escaping rays would point it out, no matter how well it was camouflaged. There was no water power, for there was no running water. There were only the lakes ... and tidal power was out, for Alpha III had no moon.
However, that could wait. Star slid the electron knife from his water-proof sheath, gripped it firmly. He could hear quick footsteps as a man came down the trail that led directly past his hiding place.
It wasn't Garrett, which was disappointing. But it was one of his men, and he was heavily armed. That didn't worry Star.
His fighting had earned Starrett Blade the nickname of "Death Star."
The man walked to the water's edge, and peered out over the pool. He saw the bubbles that were coming up from the sinking ship, and he nodded, grunted in satisfaction, and started to turn back.
Star landed on him, knocking him sprawling on the rock. The pirate jerked up an arm, holding the jet-gun.
The stabbing lance of blue fire cracked from the electron knife, dug into the man's heart.
Star tossed the dead pirate's cloak over his shoulders, and thrust both electron blade and jet-gun into his belt. He straightened, and saw the leveled gun from the corner of his eye.
He got the jet in his right hand, the knife in his left, and went into a dive that flipped him behind a rock. The three actions took only a split-second, and the blast from the jet-gun flaked rock where he had been standing.
While a jet-gun is the most deadly weapon known, you have to press a loading stud to slide another blast-capsule into place. Death Star knew this very well. So he knew he was safe in coming up from behind the spur of stone to fire his own gun.
If his reflexes hadn't been as quick as they were, he would have blasted the girl.
He stopped, and stood for a second, staring at the girl. She was something to invite stares, too. In the moment that lasted between her next move, he had time to register that she was about five feet five tall, black-haired—the kind of black hair that looks like silken spun darkness—dark-eyed, and possessing both a face and a form that would make anyone stop and gulp.
Then the moment of half-awed survey was over, and she leveled the jet on him, and said in a trembling voice, "Drop those weapons, or I'll blast you ... pirate !"
Death Star said, "That jet-gun is empty. I can see the register on the magazine. And I'm not a pirate. I'm Starrett Blade."
The useless jet-gun slid out of the girl's hand, and she gave a half-gasp. "Starrett Blade! I—I don't believe ..." she broke off abruptly. "So you're Death Star! A fine story for a hired killer, a pirate."
Star reddened. "Look," he snapped, "I don't know who's been talking to you, but ..." he whirled, and his hand whipped the jet-gun from his belt. As he did so, the girl jerked up the jet-gun she had dropped, and flung it with all her strength. The blow landed on his arm and side, and paralyzed him long enough for the man who had leaped out behind him to land a stunning blow against his head. As Star went down, he dizzily cursed himself for becoming interested in the argument with the girl, so that he did not heed his reflexes in time ... and dimly, he wondered why it had seemed so important to convince the lovely dark-haired girl.
Then a bit of the cosmos seemed to fall on Star's head, and he was hurled into blackness.
An eternity seemed to pass.
Deep in the blackness, a light was born. It leaped toward him, a far-away comet rocketing along, coming from some far, unknown corner of the galaxy. It became a flaming sun in a gray-green space, and strangely, there seemed to be several odd planets circling about the sun. Some of them were vast pieces of queer electronic machinery. Some were vague, villainous-looking men. One was the dark-haired girl, and there was lovely contempt in her dark-star pools of eyes.
Then into the midst of this queer universe, there swam a new planet. It was the face of a man, and the man was Devil Garrett.
That brought Star up, out of his daze, onto his feet as though he had been doused with cold water. He stood there, not staring, just looking at Garrett.
The most famous killer in the void was big. He was six feet three, and twice as strong as he looked. He wore a huge high-velocity jet-gun, and a set of electron knives, all of the finest workmanship. He was sitting on a laboratory chair of steel, and the chair bent slightly under his great weight.
He smiled at Star, and there was a touch of hell in the smile. He said,
"Ah, Mr. Garrett."
Star's jaw dropped. "Garrett? What do you—" he broke off. A glance at the girl told him what the purpose was.
"Look, Mr. Devil Garrett," said the pirate, still smiling softly, "Miss Hinton is aware of your identity. There is no need to attempt to fool us.... I've known it was you ever since I flashed that beam at your ship. And you needn't flatter yourself that the Devil's luck is going to hold out as far as you are concerned. For in a very short while, I'm going to have you executed ... before a stellar vision screen, connected with Section Void Headquarters! I wish the authorities to see Devil Garrett die, so that I might collect the reward that is offered on you!"
Star stood quiet, and looked straight into Garrett's eyes. After a minute of silence, Garrett's lips twisted into a smile, and he said mockingly, "Well, pirate? What are you thinking of?"
Star said, in a low, cold voice, "I'm thinking of putting an electron fire-blade into your face, Devil Garrett!"
Garrett laughed ... huge, rather evil, bluff laughter. The mirth of a person who is both powerful and dangerous. And then the girl leaped forward, shaking with rage.
"You beast! Murderer! To accuse this man ... you fool, you might have been able to complete any scheme of escape you had, if you hadn't called yourself Starrett Blade! Mr. Blade...." She gestured toward Garrett, who made a mocking, sardonic bow. "... has given me ample proof that he is who he says! And this long before you came. He's shown me papers giving a description and showing a tri-dimension picture of you...."
Fire leaped in Star's eyes. "Listen ..." he snapped furiously, as he started to step forward. Then Garrett made a signal with his hand, and someone drove a fist against the base of Star's skull.
When Star came to, he was in a cell of sorts. A man standing by the door told him that he was to be executed, "... after Mr. Blade and the lady have eaten." Starrett swore at him, and the man went out, with a mocking "Goodbye, Mr. Garrett!"
Star got up. His head spun, and he almost fell at first, but the daze left in his head from the two blows quickly cleared away. He felt for various weapons which he had hidden about him ... and found them gone. Garrett's men had searched carefully.
Star sat down, his head spinning more now from mystery than from physical pain. He had to keep himself in a whole skin, of course. That was most important right now. But other things were bothering him, tugging at his mind like waves slapping around a swamped ship, each trying to shove it in a different direction.
There was the girl. Star wondered why she always leaped into his mind first. And there was the way Garrett was trying to leave the impression that he was Blade, so that he could kill Blade as Garrett.
Obviously, the reason for that was the girl, Miss Hinton, Garrett had called her. She had been shown faked papers by Garrett, papers proving that the two were ... were whatever Garrett had twisted the story into!
Star clutched at his head. He was in a mess. He was going to be killed, and he was going to die without knowing the score. And he didn't like that. Nor did he like dying as Star Blade shouldn't die; executed as a "wolf's-head" pirate. The girl would be watching, and he felt as if that would make it far worse.
His head came up, and he smiled flintily. He still had an ace card! One hand felt for it, and he shook his head slowly. It was a gamble ... but all the others had been found.
Blade looked up quickly, as the door opened. Two men came into the cell, carrying jet-guns. They motioned Blade to his feet. "Come on, Blade." One began, when the other hit him across the mouth.
"You fool!" he hissed. "You better not call him that; suppose that girl was to hear it? Until the boss gets what he wants on Earth, that girl has got to think that he's Blade! We're killing this guy as Devil Garrett! And a loud-mouthed fool like you ... look out!"
Blade had landed on the bickering men, and was grappling with the one who had called him by name. As the other leaped forward, swinging a clubbing blow with a jet-gun, Star tripped one man into the corner, and ducked under the gun. He hit the man in the stomach, drove a shoulder up under his arms, and smashed the man's face in with a series of sharp blows. The man went reeling backward across the room, and Star's hand leaped toward that "ace card" which he still held.
Devil Garrett stepped in the door, and made a mock out of a courteous bow. As he did so, Star snarled in rage, but stood very still, for the electron knife in Garrett's hand did not waver.
Garrett gestured silently toward the door, and Star, equally silent, walked over and out, at the point of the weapon.
Star Blade stood before a transmitter, and thought about death.
He was very close to it. Garrett stood five yards away, a gun in his hand, and the muzzle trained on Blade's chest. The gun was the universally used weapon of execution, an old projectile-firing weapon.
Star did not doubt that Devil Garrett was an excellent shot with it.
The girl, very round-eyed and nervous, sat by Garrett. He had explained to her that Garrett was the type of pirate that it is law to kill, or have executed, by anyone. Which was very true.
A man stepped away from the transmitter, and nodded to Garrett. Star felt a surge of hope, as he saw that it was a two-way transmitter. If the image of an Interstellar Command headquarters was tuned in—Garrett would undoubtedly do it, if only to show the police that he had killed Starrett Blade—then Garrett could not kill him and cut the beam in time to prevent one of the police from giving a cry that would echo over the sub-space beam arriving almost instantly in this room, and let the girl know that she had been tricked. And Garrett would not want that. Not that it would matter to Starrett Blade.
Then Star saw what kind of a transmitter it was, and he groaned. It was not a Hineson Sub-space beamer ... it was an old-style transmitter which had different wave speeds, because of the different space-bridger units in it.
The visual image would arrive many seconds before the sound did. Thus the girl would not hear Garrett revealed, but would see only Blade's death. And then ... whatever Garrett had planned, Blade wished heartily that he could have the chance to interfere.
The beam was coming in. Star saw the mists swimming on the screen change, solidify into a figure ... the figure of District Commander Weddel seated at a desk. He saw Weddel's eyebrows rise, saw his lips move—then Garrett stepped over a pace, and Weddel saw him, saw the gun in his hand....
The police officer yelled, silently, and came to his feet, an expression of shocked surprise on his face—surprise, Blade thought desperately, that the girl might interpret as shock at seeing Devil Garrett.
Which was right, in a way.
Then, as Commander Weddel leapt to his feet, as Devil Garrett's finger tightened on the trigger, as the girl sucked in her breath involuntarily, Star Blade scooped up a bit of metal—a fork—and flung it at the vision transmitter.
Not at the screen. But at the equipment behind the dial-board. At a certain small unit, which was almost covered by wires and braces for the large tubes. And the fork struck it, bit deep, and caused result.
Result in the form of a burned-out set. If television equipment can curse, that set cursed them. Its spitting of sparks and blue electric flame mingled with a strange, high-pitched whine.
It was the diversion that caused Garrett to miss Star, which gave him time to pull three or four of Garrett's men onto the floor with him. One of the men drove the butt of a jet-gun into the side of Star's head, and for the third time, he went very limp. The last thing he saw was the girl.
Somehow, the expression on her face was different from what it had been. He was searching for the difference, when the blow struck him. Somewhere in the space that lies between consciousness and unconsciousness, he reflected bitterly that if he kept staring at the girl when he should be fighting, he might not recover some day. This was the third time that he had been knocked out that way. It was not getting monotonous. He still felt it a novelty.
Star awoke in the same prison cell, facing the wall away from the door. He wondered if he were still alive, tried to move his head, and decided that he wasn't. He didn't even get up or look around when he dimly heard the door being opened.
But when he heard the girl's voice, he came up and around very swiftly, despite his head.
It was the girl all right. Even through the tumbled mists of his brain, he could see that she was not a dream. And as he reeled and fell against the wall, she was beside him in a flash, her arm supporting him.
At first he tried to push himself erect, his head whirling with sick dizziness, and bewilderment. Through a twisting haze, he peered up at the girl's face. It reflected a look that, amazingly, was one of—with no other phrase to do—compassion. Star half-sighed, and laid his head on the girl's breast, and closed his eyes.
In a minute or two, she said tensely, "Are you all right?" Star looked up at her.
"I guess so. Here—give a hand while I get my balance." She held him as he tried a step or two, and then he straightened. "I guess I'll be all right, now," he smiled. "My head feels like—say! How come you're doing this? What made you change your mind? And who are you?"
She said quickly, breathlessly, "I know you're Star Blade, now. That transmission set.... I can read lips! I knew what that officer was saying! It was just as if I had heard him say that ... that you were Starrett Blade and that man out there is Devil Garrett!" she made a choking sound. "And I've been here, alone, for a month! For a month!"
"A month? Huh—please—you...?"
Star took a breath, and started over. "You.... Who are you? What are you doing here?"
She said, "I'm Anne Hinton. My father is Old John Hinton. Have you heard of him?"
"Of course!" said Star. "He manufactures most of the equipment ' Blade Cosmian ' uses. Weapons, Hineson Sub-Spacers, Star-Traveler craft ... the ship I was in when Garrett brought me down was a Hinton craft. I should have recognized the name. But go on. What—"
"Garrett communicated with dad, secretly. He posed as Starrett Blade, as you, and told dad that he was developing certain new power processes. And he is! He has a new—or maybe it isn't so new—way of electrolyzing water to liberate hydrogen and oxygen."
"I think I understand," said Star quickly. "When the oxygen and hydrogen are allowed to combine, and produce an explosion which drive a turbine-generator. Then that could be hitched up to a cyclotron, and even the most barren of Alpha's lake-rock planets could be...."
"No," she shook her head puzzledly. "It's just electric power. He said that atomics would release stray rays that would attract pirates."
"I know," Star nodded, abstractedly. "I was thinking of another application of it ... hmm. But say! What was Garrett after? I know that he wouldn't do this just to get a secret process sold. He must have had another plan behind it. Got any idea?"
Anne shook her head slowly. "I don't know. I can't see...."
"Perhaps I could help you?" Devil Garrett asked smoothly from the door.
Star whirled, thrust Anne behind him, but there was no way out. Garrett stood in the door, and there were men behind him. The jet in his hand could kill both of the two at one shot. And they had no weapons to resist with.
Devil Garrett stepped them out of the room, and down the corridor, through a large door Star had noticed at the end of the passage, and into a huge room.
It must have been a thousand feet long, and half that wide. It was at least a hundred yards deep. And it was almost filled with gigantic machines.
Between the machinery, the spaces were almost filled with steel ladders and cat-walks. Crews of men swarmed over them. It was the largest mass of equipment Starrett had ever seen.
His eyes began to pick out details. Those huge vat-like things down at the far end, with the large cables running into them, and the mighty pumps connected to them ... they were probably the electrolysis chambers.
And those great pipes, they must carry the hydrogen and oxygen from the electro chambers to the large replicas of engines, which could be nothing else but the explosion chambers, where the gases were allowed to re-unite, and explode. And there by the giant engines, those must be turbines, which in turn connected with the vast-sized generators just under the platforms on which they stood.
Star Blade whistled softly through his teeth. A huge enterprise! It could be ... but for a moment he had forgotten Devil Garrett.
The girl standing by his side, Star turned toward Garrett. "Well?"
Garrett smiled his mocking grin. "You grasp the principle, of course. But let me show you ... you see those pipes that run from the turbines after the wheels?"
"Yes. They carry the gases off. Where do they lead?"
"Into giant subterranean caverns beneath the surface!" Garrett said.
"Now look over there, on the platforms across from us. Can you recognize a Barden energy-beamer, Blade? Run by power from my little plant here, which is run by water from a thousand lakes!
"Just imagine, if you can, hundreds of those plants all over Alpha III. And each one with dozens of high-powered Barden beams to protect it! And Hinton ray screens to protect us from radio-controlled rocket shells from space, or Barden Rays, or any other weapon of offence, or to warn if anyone lands on this planet!" Garrett leaned forward, his eyes aglow.
"Blade, I'll take over the few governing posts on this little planet, and I'll rule an entire world, a whole planet to myself! It'll be the first time in history! And it won't be the last. With the Hinton secret patents, the plans of all John Hinton's inventions and processes...."
Star twisted, and got his "ace card" out of its hiding place.
It was a jet weapon, little more than a jet-blast capsule for a jet-gun. The sides were thicker and stronger, and there was a device fixed on it so it could be fired. Altogether, it was somewhat smaller than an old-style fountain pen.
He twisted up from the floor, and moved faster than he had moved ever before. Star was famous for his speed and the quickness and alertness of his reflexes. He earned his fame a score of times over in that one instant.
And Devil Garrett died.
There was perhaps an eighth of a second between the staff of blue white fire from the tiny jet in Star's hand and the huge broadsword of fire from Garrett's gun. But in the split-second Star's fire knifed into Garrett's vitals, and Garrett gave a convulsive jerk, and fired even as his muscles started the jerking movement.
And the flame went over Star's head, singeing his scalp.
Of the four men with Garrett, one let go of the struggling Anne, and swore as he snatched at an electron knife in his belt. Anne's hand had already whipped the knife out, and without bothering to press the electron stud, she buried the knife in his back.
Two of the remaining men whirled, and went for the door as though a devil was after them. The other tried to get a jet-gun out. It was his final mistake. A blue lance from Anne's knife whipped close enough to him to make him dodge, and then Star got his hand on Garrett's jet.
The other two men had, in their flight, taken a door which led, not into the large corridor, but into a small room at one side, a room filled with instruments and recording devices for the machinery in the room below. Star leaped to the side of the door, and called, "Are you going to come out, or am I coming in to get you?"
There was a short silence, in which Anne heard one say hoarsely, "He can't get us ... we could get him if he came in the door."
"Oh, yes?" was the answer. "Do you know who that guy is? He's the one they call 'Death Star.' I'm not facing Starrett Blade in a gun fight. You can do what you like, but I'm leaving." Then he lifted his voice.
"Hey, Blade! I'm coming out. Don't shoot."
"Okay," threw back Star and the man appeared in the doorway, empty hands held high. After a second, the other joined him.
Anne turned to Star. "Now I know why they call you 'Death Star' Blade," she said, and gestured toward the men who had surrendered, and the two whom Starrett had shot down.
He mused there for a minute. Then Anne broke the silence with, "Star, what are we going to do now? Garrett's men will be up here in a little while. We can't get to a sub-space beam. What are we going to do when they come up to investigate?"
Starrett Blade laughed. "Do? Well, we could turn them over to Commander Weddel!"
" What? "
Grinning broadly, Star pointed, with a flourish, at the door. Anne spun about, and found Commander Weddel grinning in the door from the corridor.
"Very simple," said Star across the lounge to Anne. "When I smashed the vision set with that dinner fork, I broke a small unit which is included in all sets. You know, a direction finder doesn't work, except in the liner-beam principle, in space, because of the diffusing effect of unrestricted cosmic rays."
"Yes, I knew that," said Anne. "But how—"
Starrett grinned again. "A type of beam has been found which it is impossible for cosmics to disturb. But you can't send messages on it, so it is made in a little unit on every set. If that unit is broken, the set automatically releases a signal beam. This is a distress signal, and the location of the set that sent out the signal is recorded at the Section Headquarters. When Commander Weddel saw me throw something at the set, and it went dead, he looked at the automatic record, and found out that a signal had been sent in from a location on Alpha Cen's third planet. Then he had a high-velocity cruiser brought out and dropped in, in time to pick up some pieces." He stopped, and idly toyed with a sheaf of papers, then held them up. "See these papers?"
"Uh-huh. What are they, Star?"
"They are the main plans of Devil Garrett's power plant, and they're the one good thing he's ever done. These plans are going to bring the barren, rocky Centauri planets to life!"
He got up, and paced to the window, and stood there, looking out, and up through the plastic port. "The planets of Centauri!" he murmured softly. "Seven circling Alpha alone. And all seven are barren, rocky, level except for the thousands of lakes ... lakes that are going to be the life of Centauri!"
He turned back to the window. "And all because a pirate named Devil Garrett built a vast power plant to use to garner more power!"
"You know, Anne, as a mockery, and a warning, I think I'll propose that this planet be officially named ... 'Garrett'!"
She looked up at him, and there was laughter bright in her eyes, and tugging at her mouth. "Yes, there ought to be a reason," she murmured. Star wavered. She was so darn close.
After a minute, she turned her head, and looked up at him. "Star, how soon will there be those gardens and woods you described? I mean, how long before Garrett can be turned into that kind of world you described?"
"Why ... under pressure, we can do it in six months. Why?"
"Not half quick enough," she murmured happily, "but it'll have to do, Star." Laughing, she turned her face up to his. "Have you ever thought that planet Garrett will be wonderful for a honeymoon?"
Question:
Who is Garrett and what happens to him in the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Devil Garrett had been the top space pirate for many years, and Star is currently trying to hunt him down. We learn that Garrett has been secretly building machines on Alpha III which, if combine with Hinton ray screens, gives Garrett the power to rule the entire world. A month ago, Garrett captured Anne Hinton and started to pretend that he is Star. He was communicating with Anna’s father about new power processes. Then a month later, Star’s ship gets hit by the energy-beam. However, he survives after his ship fells into the lake, instead he is captured and Garrett wants to execute him. Luckily, he is able to divert Garret’s attention when he is shooting Star, leading him to miss it. Also, since the girl is able to read lips, she realizes that Garrett has been lying to her. She learns Garrett’s true identity as well as Star’s. In the end, as Garrett is showing them his great enterprise and explaining how he will be able to rule the world, he gets careless and Anna takes his weapon. Even though he tries to run, Star is quicker and has better reflexes. Without his weapons, Star easily had him killed.",
"Devil Garrett is the top space pirate, and has been for eight years. Prior to the start of the story, Garrett fires a high-powered Barden energy beam at Starrett Blade’s ship, causing it to crash into a lake on the planet Alpha Centauri III. \nHe confronts the captured Star in the cell, alongside Anne Hinton, the woman responsible for subduing Star. Garrett has been posing as Star and accuses Star of being him, going so far as to forge documents in order to complete his deception of Anne. He plans on executing Star in front of a transmission to Commander Weddel, a police commander. However, the transmission is disrupted when Star throws a piece of metal at the dial board. Star is rendered unconscious once again and returned to his cell.\nAs Star awakens in his cell, Anna reveals that she no longer believes that Garrett is Star. Garrett suddenly enters the room, and, having been found out, leads Star and Anna away to a cavernous chamber housing industrial equipment. He reveals that he is able to hydrolyze water into oxygen and hydrogen, and recombine the two to form massive amounts of energy. Garrett plans on exploiting the vast lakes on Alpha Centauri III to perform these reactions, and to build multiple Barden beams which he will use to take over the planet. \nAs Garrett is revealing his plan however, Star unsheathes a hidden jet weapon and kills him. \n",
"Garrett is an infamous space pirate, wanted by the authorities at a high reward. He is being hunted by Starrett Blade. At the beginning of the story, Garrett shoots down Star's ship and captures him. He is able to convince Anne Hinton and her father that he is actually Starrett Blade, and that the man he captured is actually Garrett. Garrett plans to execute Star, and gets his men to place Star in a cell until then. Once it is time for execution, Garrett is diverted by Star's damage to the transmitter. He admits his plan to Star, confident in his ability to harness power over the planet, but is then killed by Star.",
"Devil Garrett was the number one space pirate for eight years in the void. He has hunted Starrett Blade for the past year. He was infamous because he was a killer. He stood tall at six feet three inches and had incredible strength. He used a high-velocity jet-gun and a set of electron knives as his weapons. \n\nGarrett has Star Blade captured and brought to him. He pretends to the girl on the planet that he is Star Blade and that Star Blade is actually Garrett. He imprisons Star to prevent him from ruining his plans. He tells the real Star that he will be executed. Garrett takes Star on a tour to show him the work that he is accomplishing. He tells Star that he plans to rule the entire world with his work. As he is detailing his plan to Star, Star pulls out a weapon and kills Garrett. As Garrett is dying, he fires his jet-gun at Star but does not kill Star. \n"
] |
63419
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DEATH STAR
By TOM PACE
Trapped by the most feared of space pirates Devil Garrett, Starrett Blade was fighting for his life. Weaponless, his ship gone, he was pinning his hopes on a girl—who wanted him dead.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1945. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Starrett Blade crouched in the rocks by the tiny Centaurian lake. It was only about two or three hundred feet across, but probably thousands of feet deep. This lake, and hundreds of others like it, were the only things to break the monotony of the flat, rocky surface of Alpha Centauri III—called the most barren planet in space.
Ten minutes ago, Star Blade's ship had spun into the stagnant waters before him. An emergency release had flung the air-lock doors open, and the air pressure had flung Star out. And now he was waiting for Devil Garrett to come down to the water's edge to search for him.
For eight years, Devil Garrett had been the top space pirate in the void. For a year, Star himself had personally been hunting him. And on a tour over Alpha III, a Barden energy-beam had stabbed up at Blade's ship, and Star Blade had crashed into the lake.
That Barden Beam had Star worried and puzzled. It took a million volts of power for a split-second flash of the beam. Garrett didn't have an atomics plant on Alpha III—if he had, escaping rays would point it out, no matter how well it was camouflaged. There was no water power, for there was no running water. There were only the lakes ... and tidal power was out, for Alpha III had no moon.
However, that could wait. Star slid the electron knife from his water-proof sheath, gripped it firmly. He could hear quick footsteps as a man came down the trail that led directly past his hiding place.
It wasn't Garrett, which was disappointing. But it was one of his men, and he was heavily armed. That didn't worry Star.
His fighting had earned Starrett Blade the nickname of "Death Star."
The man walked to the water's edge, and peered out over the pool. He saw the bubbles that were coming up from the sinking ship, and he nodded, grunted in satisfaction, and started to turn back.
Star landed on him, knocking him sprawling on the rock. The pirate jerked up an arm, holding the jet-gun.
The stabbing lance of blue fire cracked from the electron knife, dug into the man's heart.
Star tossed the dead pirate's cloak over his shoulders, and thrust both electron blade and jet-gun into his belt. He straightened, and saw the leveled gun from the corner of his eye.
He got the jet in his right hand, the knife in his left, and went into a dive that flipped him behind a rock. The three actions took only a split-second, and the blast from the jet-gun flaked rock where he had been standing.
While a jet-gun is the most deadly weapon known, you have to press a loading stud to slide another blast-capsule into place. Death Star knew this very well. So he knew he was safe in coming up from behind the spur of stone to fire his own gun.
If his reflexes hadn't been as quick as they were, he would have blasted the girl.
He stopped, and stood for a second, staring at the girl. She was something to invite stares, too. In the moment that lasted between her next move, he had time to register that she was about five feet five tall, black-haired—the kind of black hair that looks like silken spun darkness—dark-eyed, and possessing both a face and a form that would make anyone stop and gulp.
Then the moment of half-awed survey was over, and she leveled the jet on him, and said in a trembling voice, "Drop those weapons, or I'll blast you ... pirate !"
Death Star said, "That jet-gun is empty. I can see the register on the magazine. And I'm not a pirate. I'm Starrett Blade."
The useless jet-gun slid out of the girl's hand, and she gave a half-gasp. "Starrett Blade! I—I don't believe ..." she broke off abruptly. "So you're Death Star! A fine story for a hired killer, a pirate."
Star reddened. "Look," he snapped, "I don't know who's been talking to you, but ..." he whirled, and his hand whipped the jet-gun from his belt. As he did so, the girl jerked up the jet-gun she had dropped, and flung it with all her strength. The blow landed on his arm and side, and paralyzed him long enough for the man who had leaped out behind him to land a stunning blow against his head. As Star went down, he dizzily cursed himself for becoming interested in the argument with the girl, so that he did not heed his reflexes in time ... and dimly, he wondered why it had seemed so important to convince the lovely dark-haired girl.
Then a bit of the cosmos seemed to fall on Star's head, and he was hurled into blackness.
An eternity seemed to pass.
Deep in the blackness, a light was born. It leaped toward him, a far-away comet rocketing along, coming from some far, unknown corner of the galaxy. It became a flaming sun in a gray-green space, and strangely, there seemed to be several odd planets circling about the sun. Some of them were vast pieces of queer electronic machinery. Some were vague, villainous-looking men. One was the dark-haired girl, and there was lovely contempt in her dark-star pools of eyes.
Then into the midst of this queer universe, there swam a new planet. It was the face of a man, and the man was Devil Garrett.
That brought Star up, out of his daze, onto his feet as though he had been doused with cold water. He stood there, not staring, just looking at Garrett.
The most famous killer in the void was big. He was six feet three, and twice as strong as he looked. He wore a huge high-velocity jet-gun, and a set of electron knives, all of the finest workmanship. He was sitting on a laboratory chair of steel, and the chair bent slightly under his great weight.
He smiled at Star, and there was a touch of hell in the smile. He said,
"Ah, Mr. Garrett."
Star's jaw dropped. "Garrett? What do you—" he broke off. A glance at the girl told him what the purpose was.
"Look, Mr. Devil Garrett," said the pirate, still smiling softly, "Miss Hinton is aware of your identity. There is no need to attempt to fool us.... I've known it was you ever since I flashed that beam at your ship. And you needn't flatter yourself that the Devil's luck is going to hold out as far as you are concerned. For in a very short while, I'm going to have you executed ... before a stellar vision screen, connected with Section Void Headquarters! I wish the authorities to see Devil Garrett die, so that I might collect the reward that is offered on you!"
Star stood quiet, and looked straight into Garrett's eyes. After a minute of silence, Garrett's lips twisted into a smile, and he said mockingly, "Well, pirate? What are you thinking of?"
Star said, in a low, cold voice, "I'm thinking of putting an electron fire-blade into your face, Devil Garrett!"
Garrett laughed ... huge, rather evil, bluff laughter. The mirth of a person who is both powerful and dangerous. And then the girl leaped forward, shaking with rage.
"You beast! Murderer! To accuse this man ... you fool, you might have been able to complete any scheme of escape you had, if you hadn't called yourself Starrett Blade! Mr. Blade...." She gestured toward Garrett, who made a mocking, sardonic bow. "... has given me ample proof that he is who he says! And this long before you came. He's shown me papers giving a description and showing a tri-dimension picture of you...."
Fire leaped in Star's eyes. "Listen ..." he snapped furiously, as he started to step forward. Then Garrett made a signal with his hand, and someone drove a fist against the base of Star's skull.
When Star came to, he was in a cell of sorts. A man standing by the door told him that he was to be executed, "... after Mr. Blade and the lady have eaten." Starrett swore at him, and the man went out, with a mocking "Goodbye, Mr. Garrett!"
Star got up. His head spun, and he almost fell at first, but the daze left in his head from the two blows quickly cleared away. He felt for various weapons which he had hidden about him ... and found them gone. Garrett's men had searched carefully.
Star sat down, his head spinning more now from mystery than from physical pain. He had to keep himself in a whole skin, of course. That was most important right now. But other things were bothering him, tugging at his mind like waves slapping around a swamped ship, each trying to shove it in a different direction.
There was the girl. Star wondered why she always leaped into his mind first. And there was the way Garrett was trying to leave the impression that he was Blade, so that he could kill Blade as Garrett.
Obviously, the reason for that was the girl, Miss Hinton, Garrett had called her. She had been shown faked papers by Garrett, papers proving that the two were ... were whatever Garrett had twisted the story into!
Star clutched at his head. He was in a mess. He was going to be killed, and he was going to die without knowing the score. And he didn't like that. Nor did he like dying as Star Blade shouldn't die; executed as a "wolf's-head" pirate. The girl would be watching, and he felt as if that would make it far worse.
His head came up, and he smiled flintily. He still had an ace card! One hand felt for it, and he shook his head slowly. It was a gamble ... but all the others had been found.
Blade looked up quickly, as the door opened. Two men came into the cell, carrying jet-guns. They motioned Blade to his feet. "Come on, Blade." One began, when the other hit him across the mouth.
"You fool!" he hissed. "You better not call him that; suppose that girl was to hear it? Until the boss gets what he wants on Earth, that girl has got to think that he's Blade! We're killing this guy as Devil Garrett! And a loud-mouthed fool like you ... look out!"
Blade had landed on the bickering men, and was grappling with the one who had called him by name. As the other leaped forward, swinging a clubbing blow with a jet-gun, Star tripped one man into the corner, and ducked under the gun. He hit the man in the stomach, drove a shoulder up under his arms, and smashed the man's face in with a series of sharp blows. The man went reeling backward across the room, and Star's hand leaped toward that "ace card" which he still held.
Devil Garrett stepped in the door, and made a mock out of a courteous bow. As he did so, Star snarled in rage, but stood very still, for the electron knife in Garrett's hand did not waver.
Garrett gestured silently toward the door, and Star, equally silent, walked over and out, at the point of the weapon.
Star Blade stood before a transmitter, and thought about death.
He was very close to it. Garrett stood five yards away, a gun in his hand, and the muzzle trained on Blade's chest. The gun was the universally used weapon of execution, an old projectile-firing weapon.
Star did not doubt that Devil Garrett was an excellent shot with it.
The girl, very round-eyed and nervous, sat by Garrett. He had explained to her that Garrett was the type of pirate that it is law to kill, or have executed, by anyone. Which was very true.
A man stepped away from the transmitter, and nodded to Garrett. Star felt a surge of hope, as he saw that it was a two-way transmitter. If the image of an Interstellar Command headquarters was tuned in—Garrett would undoubtedly do it, if only to show the police that he had killed Starrett Blade—then Garrett could not kill him and cut the beam in time to prevent one of the police from giving a cry that would echo over the sub-space beam arriving almost instantly in this room, and let the girl know that she had been tricked. And Garrett would not want that. Not that it would matter to Starrett Blade.
Then Star saw what kind of a transmitter it was, and he groaned. It was not a Hineson Sub-space beamer ... it was an old-style transmitter which had different wave speeds, because of the different space-bridger units in it.
The visual image would arrive many seconds before the sound did. Thus the girl would not hear Garrett revealed, but would see only Blade's death. And then ... whatever Garrett had planned, Blade wished heartily that he could have the chance to interfere.
The beam was coming in. Star saw the mists swimming on the screen change, solidify into a figure ... the figure of District Commander Weddel seated at a desk. He saw Weddel's eyebrows rise, saw his lips move—then Garrett stepped over a pace, and Weddel saw him, saw the gun in his hand....
The police officer yelled, silently, and came to his feet, an expression of shocked surprise on his face—surprise, Blade thought desperately, that the girl might interpret as shock at seeing Devil Garrett.
Which was right, in a way.
Then, as Commander Weddel leapt to his feet, as Devil Garrett's finger tightened on the trigger, as the girl sucked in her breath involuntarily, Star Blade scooped up a bit of metal—a fork—and flung it at the vision transmitter.
Not at the screen. But at the equipment behind the dial-board. At a certain small unit, which was almost covered by wires and braces for the large tubes. And the fork struck it, bit deep, and caused result.
Result in the form of a burned-out set. If television equipment can curse, that set cursed them. Its spitting of sparks and blue electric flame mingled with a strange, high-pitched whine.
It was the diversion that caused Garrett to miss Star, which gave him time to pull three or four of Garrett's men onto the floor with him. One of the men drove the butt of a jet-gun into the side of Star's head, and for the third time, he went very limp. The last thing he saw was the girl.
Somehow, the expression on her face was different from what it had been. He was searching for the difference, when the blow struck him. Somewhere in the space that lies between consciousness and unconsciousness, he reflected bitterly that if he kept staring at the girl when he should be fighting, he might not recover some day. This was the third time that he had been knocked out that way. It was not getting monotonous. He still felt it a novelty.
Star awoke in the same prison cell, facing the wall away from the door. He wondered if he were still alive, tried to move his head, and decided that he wasn't. He didn't even get up or look around when he dimly heard the door being opened.
But when he heard the girl's voice, he came up and around very swiftly, despite his head.
It was the girl all right. Even through the tumbled mists of his brain, he could see that she was not a dream. And as he reeled and fell against the wall, she was beside him in a flash, her arm supporting him.
At first he tried to push himself erect, his head whirling with sick dizziness, and bewilderment. Through a twisting haze, he peered up at the girl's face. It reflected a look that, amazingly, was one of—with no other phrase to do—compassion. Star half-sighed, and laid his head on the girl's breast, and closed his eyes.
In a minute or two, she said tensely, "Are you all right?" Star looked up at her.
"I guess so. Here—give a hand while I get my balance." She held him as he tried a step or two, and then he straightened. "I guess I'll be all right, now," he smiled. "My head feels like—say! How come you're doing this? What made you change your mind? And who are you?"
She said quickly, breathlessly, "I know you're Star Blade, now. That transmission set.... I can read lips! I knew what that officer was saying! It was just as if I had heard him say that ... that you were Starrett Blade and that man out there is Devil Garrett!" she made a choking sound. "And I've been here, alone, for a month! For a month!"
"A month? Huh—please—you...?"
Star took a breath, and started over. "You.... Who are you? What are you doing here?"
She said, "I'm Anne Hinton. My father is Old John Hinton. Have you heard of him?"
"Of course!" said Star. "He manufactures most of the equipment ' Blade Cosmian ' uses. Weapons, Hineson Sub-Spacers, Star-Traveler craft ... the ship I was in when Garrett brought me down was a Hinton craft. I should have recognized the name. But go on. What—"
"Garrett communicated with dad, secretly. He posed as Starrett Blade, as you, and told dad that he was developing certain new power processes. And he is! He has a new—or maybe it isn't so new—way of electrolyzing water to liberate hydrogen and oxygen."
"I think I understand," said Star quickly. "When the oxygen and hydrogen are allowed to combine, and produce an explosion which drive a turbine-generator. Then that could be hitched up to a cyclotron, and even the most barren of Alpha's lake-rock planets could be...."
"No," she shook her head puzzledly. "It's just electric power. He said that atomics would release stray rays that would attract pirates."
"I know," Star nodded, abstractedly. "I was thinking of another application of it ... hmm. But say! What was Garrett after? I know that he wouldn't do this just to get a secret process sold. He must have had another plan behind it. Got any idea?"
Anne shook her head slowly. "I don't know. I can't see...."
"Perhaps I could help you?" Devil Garrett asked smoothly from the door.
Star whirled, thrust Anne behind him, but there was no way out. Garrett stood in the door, and there were men behind him. The jet in his hand could kill both of the two at one shot. And they had no weapons to resist with.
Devil Garrett stepped them out of the room, and down the corridor, through a large door Star had noticed at the end of the passage, and into a huge room.
It must have been a thousand feet long, and half that wide. It was at least a hundred yards deep. And it was almost filled with gigantic machines.
Between the machinery, the spaces were almost filled with steel ladders and cat-walks. Crews of men swarmed over them. It was the largest mass of equipment Starrett had ever seen.
His eyes began to pick out details. Those huge vat-like things down at the far end, with the large cables running into them, and the mighty pumps connected to them ... they were probably the electrolysis chambers.
And those great pipes, they must carry the hydrogen and oxygen from the electro chambers to the large replicas of engines, which could be nothing else but the explosion chambers, where the gases were allowed to re-unite, and explode. And there by the giant engines, those must be turbines, which in turn connected with the vast-sized generators just under the platforms on which they stood.
Star Blade whistled softly through his teeth. A huge enterprise! It could be ... but for a moment he had forgotten Devil Garrett.
The girl standing by his side, Star turned toward Garrett. "Well?"
Garrett smiled his mocking grin. "You grasp the principle, of course. But let me show you ... you see those pipes that run from the turbines after the wheels?"
"Yes. They carry the gases off. Where do they lead?"
"Into giant subterranean caverns beneath the surface!" Garrett said.
"Now look over there, on the platforms across from us. Can you recognize a Barden energy-beamer, Blade? Run by power from my little plant here, which is run by water from a thousand lakes!
"Just imagine, if you can, hundreds of those plants all over Alpha III. And each one with dozens of high-powered Barden beams to protect it! And Hinton ray screens to protect us from radio-controlled rocket shells from space, or Barden Rays, or any other weapon of offence, or to warn if anyone lands on this planet!" Garrett leaned forward, his eyes aglow.
"Blade, I'll take over the few governing posts on this little planet, and I'll rule an entire world, a whole planet to myself! It'll be the first time in history! And it won't be the last. With the Hinton secret patents, the plans of all John Hinton's inventions and processes...."
Star twisted, and got his "ace card" out of its hiding place.
It was a jet weapon, little more than a jet-blast capsule for a jet-gun. The sides were thicker and stronger, and there was a device fixed on it so it could be fired. Altogether, it was somewhat smaller than an old-style fountain pen.
He twisted up from the floor, and moved faster than he had moved ever before. Star was famous for his speed and the quickness and alertness of his reflexes. He earned his fame a score of times over in that one instant.
And Devil Garrett died.
There was perhaps an eighth of a second between the staff of blue white fire from the tiny jet in Star's hand and the huge broadsword of fire from Garrett's gun. But in the split-second Star's fire knifed into Garrett's vitals, and Garrett gave a convulsive jerk, and fired even as his muscles started the jerking movement.
And the flame went over Star's head, singeing his scalp.
Of the four men with Garrett, one let go of the struggling Anne, and swore as he snatched at an electron knife in his belt. Anne's hand had already whipped the knife out, and without bothering to press the electron stud, she buried the knife in his back.
Two of the remaining men whirled, and went for the door as though a devil was after them. The other tried to get a jet-gun out. It was his final mistake. A blue lance from Anne's knife whipped close enough to him to make him dodge, and then Star got his hand on Garrett's jet.
The other two men had, in their flight, taken a door which led, not into the large corridor, but into a small room at one side, a room filled with instruments and recording devices for the machinery in the room below. Star leaped to the side of the door, and called, "Are you going to come out, or am I coming in to get you?"
There was a short silence, in which Anne heard one say hoarsely, "He can't get us ... we could get him if he came in the door."
"Oh, yes?" was the answer. "Do you know who that guy is? He's the one they call 'Death Star.' I'm not facing Starrett Blade in a gun fight. You can do what you like, but I'm leaving." Then he lifted his voice.
"Hey, Blade! I'm coming out. Don't shoot."
"Okay," threw back Star and the man appeared in the doorway, empty hands held high. After a second, the other joined him.
Anne turned to Star. "Now I know why they call you 'Death Star' Blade," she said, and gestured toward the men who had surrendered, and the two whom Starrett had shot down.
He mused there for a minute. Then Anne broke the silence with, "Star, what are we going to do now? Garrett's men will be up here in a little while. We can't get to a sub-space beam. What are we going to do when they come up to investigate?"
Starrett Blade laughed. "Do? Well, we could turn them over to Commander Weddel!"
" What? "
Grinning broadly, Star pointed, with a flourish, at the door. Anne spun about, and found Commander Weddel grinning in the door from the corridor.
"Very simple," said Star across the lounge to Anne. "When I smashed the vision set with that dinner fork, I broke a small unit which is included in all sets. You know, a direction finder doesn't work, except in the liner-beam principle, in space, because of the diffusing effect of unrestricted cosmic rays."
"Yes, I knew that," said Anne. "But how—"
Starrett grinned again. "A type of beam has been found which it is impossible for cosmics to disturb. But you can't send messages on it, so it is made in a little unit on every set. If that unit is broken, the set automatically releases a signal beam. This is a distress signal, and the location of the set that sent out the signal is recorded at the Section Headquarters. When Commander Weddel saw me throw something at the set, and it went dead, he looked at the automatic record, and found out that a signal had been sent in from a location on Alpha Cen's third planet. Then he had a high-velocity cruiser brought out and dropped in, in time to pick up some pieces." He stopped, and idly toyed with a sheaf of papers, then held them up. "See these papers?"
"Uh-huh. What are they, Star?"
"They are the main plans of Devil Garrett's power plant, and they're the one good thing he's ever done. These plans are going to bring the barren, rocky Centauri planets to life!"
He got up, and paced to the window, and stood there, looking out, and up through the plastic port. "The planets of Centauri!" he murmured softly. "Seven circling Alpha alone. And all seven are barren, rocky, level except for the thousands of lakes ... lakes that are going to be the life of Centauri!"
He turned back to the window. "And all because a pirate named Devil Garrett built a vast power plant to use to garner more power!"
"You know, Anne, as a mockery, and a warning, I think I'll propose that this planet be officially named ... 'Garrett'!"
She looked up at him, and there was laughter bright in her eyes, and tugging at her mouth. "Yes, there ought to be a reason," she murmured. Star wavered. She was so darn close.
After a minute, she turned her head, and looked up at him. "Star, how soon will there be those gardens and woods you described? I mean, how long before Garrett can be turned into that kind of world you described?"
"Why ... under pressure, we can do it in six months. Why?"
"Not half quick enough," she murmured happily, "but it'll have to do, Star." Laughing, she turned her face up to his. "Have you ever thought that planet Garrett will be wonderful for a honeymoon?"
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What is the plot of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about A City Near Centaurus by William R. Doede.
Relevant chunks:
A CITY NEAR CENTAURUS
By BILL DOEDE
Illustrated by WEST
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine October 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The city was sacred, but not to its gods. Michaelson was a god—but far from sacred!
Crouched in the ancient doorway like an animal peering out from his burrow, Mr. Michaelson saw the native.
At first he was startled, thinking it might be someone else from the Earth settlement who had discovered the old city before him. Then he saw the glint of sun against the metallic skirt, and relaxed.
He chuckled to himself, wondering with amusement what a webfooted man was doing in an old dead city so far from his people. Some facts were known about the people of Alpha Centaurus II. They were not actually natives, he recalled. They were a colony from the fifth planet of the system. They were a curious people. Some were highly intelligent, though uneducated.
He decided to ignore the man for the moment. He was far down the ancient street, a mere speck against the sand. There would be plenty of time to wonder about him.
He gazed out from his position at the complex variety of buildings before him. Some were small, obviously homes. Others were huge with tall, frail spires standing against the pale blue sky. Square buildings, ellipsoid, spheroid. Beautiful, dream-stuff bridges connected tall, conical towers, bridges that still swung in the wind after half a million years. Late afternoon sunlight shone against ebony surfaces. The sands of many centuries had blown down the wide streets and filled the doorways. Desert plants grew from roofs of smaller buildings.
Ignoring the native, Mr. Michaelson poked about among the ruins happily, exclaiming to himself about some particular artifact, marveling at its state of preservation, holding it this way and that to catch the late afternoon sun, smiling, clucking gleefully. He crawled over the rubble through old doorways half filled with the accumulation of ages. He dug experimentally in the sand with his hands, like a dog, under a roof that had weathered half a million years of rain and sun. Then he crawled out again, covered with dust and cobwebs.
The native stood in the street less than a hundred feet away, waving his arms madly. "Mr. Earthgod," he cried. "It is sacred ground where you are trespassing!"
The archeologist smiled, watching the man hurry closer. He was short, even for a native. Long gray hair hung to his shoulders, bobbing up and down as he walked. He wore no shoes. The toes of his webbed feet dragged in the sand, making a deep trail behind him. He was an old man.
"You never told us about this old dead city," Michaelson said, chidingly. "Shame on you. But never mind. I've found it now. Isn't it beautiful?"
"Yes, beautiful. You will leave now."
"Leave?" Michaelson asked, acting surprised as if the man were a child. "I just got here a few hours ago."
"You must go."
"Why? Who are you?"
"I am keeper of the city."
"You?" Michaelson laughed. Then, seeing how serious the native was, said, "What makes you think a dead city needs a keeper?"
"The spirits may return."
Michaelson crawled out of the doorway and stood up. He brushed his trousers. He pointed. "See that wall? Built of some metal, I'd say, some alloy impervious to rust and wear."
"The spirits are angry."
"Notice the inscriptions? Wind has blown sand against them for eons, and rain and sleet. But their story is there, once we decipher it."
"Leave!"
The native's lined, weathered old face was working around the mouth in anger. Michaelson was almost sorry he had mocked him. He was deadly serious.
"Look," he said. "No spirits are ever coming back here. Don't you know that? And even if they did, spirits care nothing for old cities half covered with sand and dirt."
He walked away from the old man, heading for another building. The sun had already gone below the horizon, coloring the high clouds. He glanced backward. The webfoot was following.
"Mr. Earthgod!" the webfoot cried, so sharply that Michaelson stopped.
"You must not touch, not walk upon, not handle. Your step may destroy the home of some ancient spirit. Your breath may cause one iota of change and a spirit may lose his way in the darkness. Go quickly now, or be killed."
He turned and walked off, not looking back.
Michaelson stood in the ancient street, tall, gaunt, feet planted wide, hands in pockets, watching the webfoot until he was out of sight beyond a huge circular building. There was a man to watch. There was one of the intelligent ones. One look into the alert old eyes had told him that.
Michaelson shook his head, and went about satisfying his curiosity. He entered buildings without thought of roofs falling in, or decayed floors dropping from under his weight. He began to collect small items, making a pile of them in the street. An ancient bowl, metal untouched by the ages. A statue of a man, one foot high, correct to the minutest detail, showing how identical they had been to Earthmen. He found books still standing on ancient shelves but was afraid to touch them without tools.
Darkness came swiftly and he was forced out into the street.
He stood there alone feeling the age of the place. Even the smell of age was in the air. Silver moonlight from the two moons filtered through clear air down upon the ruins. The city lay now in darkness, dead and still, waiting for morning so it could lie dead and still in the sun.
There was no hurry to be going home, although he was alone, although this was Alpha Centaurus II with many unknowns, many dangers ... although home was a very great distance away. There was no one back there to worry about him.
His wife had died many years ago back on Earth. No children. His friends in the settlement would not look for him for another day at least. Anyway, the tiny cylinder, buried in flesh behind his ear, a thing of mystery and immense power, could take him home instantly, without effort save a flicker of thought.
"You did not leave, as I asked you."
Michaelson whirled around at the sound of the native's voice. Then he relaxed. He said, "You shouldn't sneak up on a man like that."
"You must leave, or I will be forced to kill you. I do not want to kill you, but if I must...." He made a clucking sound deep in the throat.
"The spirits are angry."
"Nonsense. Superstition! But never mind. You have been here longer than I. Tell me, what are those instruments in the rooms? It looks like a clock but I'm certain it had some other function."
"What rooms?"
"Oh, come now. The small rooms back there. Look like they were bedrooms."
"I do not know." The webfoot drew closer. Michaelson decided he was sixty or seventy years old, at least.
"You've been here a long time. You are intelligent, and you must be educated, the way you talk. That gadget looks like a time-piece of some sort. What is it? What does it measure?"
"I insist that you go." The webfoot held something in his hand.
"No." Michaelson looked off down the street, trying to ignore the native, trying to feel the life of the city as it might have been.
"You are sensitive," the native said in his ear. "It takes a sensitive god to feel the spirits moving in the houses and walking in these old streets."
"Say it any way you want to. This is the most fascinating thing I've ever seen. The Inca's treasure, the ruins of Pompeii, Egyptian tombs—none can hold a candle to this."
"Mr. Earthgod...."
"Don't call me that. I'm not a god, and you know it."
The old man shrugged. "It is not an item worthy of dispute. Those names you mention, are they the names of gods?"
He chuckled. "In a way, yes. What is your name?"
"Maota."
"You must help me, Maota. These things must be preserved. We'll build a museum, right here in the street. No, over there on the hill just outside the city. We'll collect all the old writings and perhaps we may decipher them. Think of it, Maota! To read pages written so long ago and think their thoughts. We'll put everything under glass. Build and evacuate chambers to stop the decay. Catalogue, itemize...."
Michaelson was warming up to his subject, but Maota shook his head like a waving palm frond and stamped his feet.
"You will leave now."
"Can't you see? Look at the decay. These things are priceless. They must be preserved. Future generations will thank us."
"Do you mean," the old man asked, aghast, "that you want others to come here? You know the city abhors the sound of alien voices. Those who lived here may return one day! They must not find their city packaged and preserved and laid out on shelves for the curious to breathe their foul breaths upon. You will leave. Now!"
"No." Michaelson was adamant. The rock of Gibraltar.
Maota hit him, quickly, passionately, and dropped the weapon beside his body. He turned swiftly, making a swirling mark in the sand with his heel, and walked off toward the hills outside the city.
The weapon he had used was an ancient book. Its paper-thin pages rustled in the wind as if an unseen hand turned them, reading, while Michaelson's blood trickled out from the head wound upon the ancient street.
When he regained consciousness the two moons, bright sentinel orbs in the night sky, had moved to a new position down their sliding path. Old Maota's absence took some of the weirdness and fantasy away. It seemed a more practical place now.
The gash in his head was painful, throbbing with quick, short hammer-blows synchronized with his heart beats. But there was a new determination in him. If it was a fight that the old webfooted fool wanted, a fight he would get. The cylinder flicked him, at his command, across five hundred miles of desert and rocks to a small creek he remembered. Here he bathed his head in cool water until all the caked blood was dissolved from his hair. Feeling better, he went back.
The wind had turned cool. Michaelson shivered, wishing he had brought a coat. The city was absolutely still except for small gusts of wind sighing through the frail spires. The ancient book still lay in the sand beside the dark spot of blood. He stooped over and picked it up.
It was light, much lighter than most Earth books. He ran a hand over the binding. Smooth it was, untouched by time or climate. He squinted at the pages, tilting the book to catch the bright moonlight, but the writing was alien. He touched the page, ran his forefinger over the writing.
Suddenly he sprang back. The book fell from his hands.
"God in heaven!" he exclaimed.
He had heard a voice. He looked around at the old buildings, down the length of the ancient street. Something strange about the voice. Not Maota. Not his tones. Not his words. Satisfied that no one was near, he stooped and picked up the book again.
"Good God!" he said aloud. It was the book talking. His fingers had touched the writing again. It was not a voice, exactly, but a stirring in his mind, like a strange language heard for the first time.
A talking book. What other surprises were in the city? Tall, fragile buildings laughing at time and weather. A clock measuring God-knows-what. If such wonders remained, what about those already destroyed? One could only guess at the machines, the gadgets, the artistry already decayed and blown away to mix forever with the sand.
I must preserve it, he thought, whether Maota likes it or not. They say these people lived half a million years ago. A long time. Let's see, now. A man lives one hundred years on the average. Five thousand lifetimes.
And all you do is touch a book, and a voice jumps across all those years!
He started off toward the tall building he had examined upon discovery of the city. His left eyelid began to twitch and he laid his forefinger against the eye, pressing until it stopped. Then he stooped and entered the building. He laid the book down and tried to take the "clock" off the wall. It was dark in the building and his fingers felt along the wall, looking for it. Then he touched it. His fingers moved over its smooth surface. Then suddenly he jerked his hand back with an exclamation of amazement. Fear ran up his spine.
The clock was warm.
He felt like running, like flicking back to the settlement where there were people and familiar voices, for here was a thing that should not be. Half a million years—and here was warmth!
He touched it again, curiosity overwhelming his fear. It was warm. No mistake. And there was a faint vibration, a suggestion of power. He stood there in the darkness staring off into the darkness, trembling. Fear built up in him until it was a monstrous thing, drowning reason. He forgot the power of the cylinder behind his ear. He scrambled through the doorway. He got up and ran down the ancient sandy street until he came to the edge of the city. Here he stopped, gasping for air, feeling the pain throb in his head.
Common sense said that he should go home, that nothing worthwhile could be accomplished at night, that he was tired, that he was weak from loss of blood and fright and running. But when Michaelson was on the trail of important discoveries he had no common sense.
He sat down in the darkness, meaning to rest a moment.
When he awoke dawn was red against thin clouds in the east.
Old Maota stood in the street with webbed feet planted far apart in the sand, a weapon in the crook of his arm. It was a long tube affair, familiar to Michaelson.
Michaelson asked, "Did you sleep well?"
"No."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"How do you feel?"
"Fine, but my head aches a little."
"Sorry," Maota said.
"For what?"
"For hitting you. Pain is not for gods like you."
Michaelson relaxed somewhat. "What kind of man are you? First you try to break my skull, then you apologize."
"I abhor pain. I should have killed you outright."
He thought about that for a moment, eyeing the weapon.
It looked in good working order. Slim and shiny and innocent, it looked like a glorified African blowgun. But he was not deceived by its appearance. It was a deadly weapon.
"Well," he said, "before you kill me, tell me about the book." He held it up for Maota to see.
"What about the book?"
"What kind of book is it?"
"What does Mr. Earthgod mean, what kind of book? You have seen it. It is like any other book, except for the material and the fact that it talks."
"No, no. I mean, what's in it?"
"Poetry."
"Poetry? For God's sake, why poetry? Why not mathematics or history? Why not tell how to make the metal of the book itself? Now there is a subject worthy of a book."
Maota shook his head. "One does not study a dead culture to learn how they made things, but how they thought. But we are wasting time. I must kill you now, so I can get some rest."
The old man raised the gun.
"Wait! You forget that I also have a weapon." He pointed to the spot behind his ear where the cylinder was buried. "I can move faster than you can fire the gun."
Maota nodded. "I have heard how you travel. It does not matter. I will kill you anyway."
"I suggest we negotiate."
"No."
"Why not?"
Maota looked off toward the hills, old eyes filmed from years of sand and wind, leather skin lined and pitted. The hills stood immobile, brown-gray, already shimmering with heat, impotent.
"Why not?" Michaelson repeated.
"Why not what?" Maota dragged his eyes back.
"Negotiate."
"No." Maota's eyes grew hard as steel. They stood there in the sun, not twenty feet apart, hating each other. The two moons, very pale and far away on the western horizon, stared like two bottomless eyes.
"All right, then. At least it's a quick death. I hear that thing just disintegrates a man. Pfft! And that's that."
Michaelson prepared himself to move if the old man's finger slid closer toward the firing stud. The old man raised the gun.
"Wait!"
"Now what?"
"At least read some of the book to me before I die, then."
The gun wavered. "I am not an unreasonable man," the webfoot said.
Michaelson stepped forward, extending his arm with the book.
"No, stay where you are. Throw it."
"This book is priceless. You just don't go throwing such valuable items around."
"It won't break. Throw it."
Michaelson threw the book. It landed at Maota's feet, spouting sand against his leg. He shifted the weapon, picked up the book and leafed through it, raising his head in a listening attitude, searching for a suitable passage. Michaelson heard the thin, metallic pages rustle softly. He could have jumped and seized the weapon at that moment, but his desire to hear the book was strong.
Old Maota read, Michaelson listened. The cadence was different, the syntax confusing. But the thoughts were there. It might have been a professor back on Earth reading to his students. Keats, Shelley, Browning. These people were human, with human thoughts and aspirations.
The old man stopped reading. He squatted slowly, keeping Michaelson in sight, and laid the book face up in the sand. Wind moved the pages.
"See?" he said. "The spirits read. They must have been great readers, these people. They drink the book, as if it were an elixir. See how gentle! They lap at the pages like a new kitten tasting milk."
Michaelson laughed. "You certainly have an imagination."
"What difference does it make?" Maota cried, suddenly angry. "You want to close up all these things in boxes for a posterity who may have no slightest feeling or appreciation. I want to leave the city as it is, for spirits whose existence I cannot prove."
The old man's eyes were furious now, deadly. The gun came down directly in line with the Earthman's chest. The gnarled finger moved.
Michaelson, using the power of the cylinder behind his ear, jumped behind the old webfoot. To Maota it seemed that he had flicked out of existence like a match blown out. The next instant Michaelson spun him around and hit him. It was an inexpert fist, belonging to an archeologist, not a fighter. But Maota was an old man.
He dropped in the sand, momentarily stunned. Michaelson bent over to pick up the gun and the old man, feeling it slip from his fingers, hung on and was pulled to his feet.
They struggled for possession of the gun, silently, gasping, kicking sand. Faces grew red. Lips drew back over Michaelson's white teeth, over Maota's pink, toothless gums. The dead city's fragile spires threw impersonal shadows down where they fought.
Then quite suddenly a finger or hand—neither knew whose finger or hand—touched the firing stud.
There was a hollow, whooshing sound. Both stopped still, realizing the total destruction they might have caused.
"It only hit the ground," Michaelson said.
A black, charred hole, two feet in diameter and—they could not see how deep—stared at them.
Maota let go and sprawled in the sand. "The book!" he cried. "The book is gone!"
"No! We probably covered it with sand while we fought."
Both men began scooping sand in their cupped hands, digging frantically for the book. Saliva dripped from Maota's mouth, but he didn't know or care.
Finally they stopped, exhausted. They had covered a substantial area around the hole. They had covered the complete area where they had been.
"We killed it," the old man moaned.
"It was just a book. Not alive, you know."
"How do you know?" The old man's pale eyes were filled with tears. "It talked and it sang. In a way, it had a soul. Sometimes on long nights I used to imagine it loved me, for taking care of it."
"There are other books. We'll get another."
Maota shook his head. "There are no more."
"But I've seen them. Down there in the square building."
"Not poetry. Books, yes, but not poetry. That was the only book with songs."
"I'm sorry."
" You killed it!" Maota suddenly sprang for the weapon, lying forgotten in the sand. Michaelson put his foot on it and Maota was too weak to tear it loose. He could only weep out his rage.
When he could talk again, Maota said, "I am sorry, Mr. Earthgod. I've disgraced myself."
"Don't be sorry." Michaelson helped him to his feet. "We fight for some reasons, cry for others. A priceless book is a good reason for either."
"Not for that. For not winning. I should have killed you last night when I had the chance. The gods give us chances and if we don't take them we lose forever."
"I told you before! We are on the same side. Negotiate. Have you never heard of negotiation?"
"You are a god," Maota said. "One does not negotiate with gods. One either loves them, or kills them."
"That's another thing. I am not a god. Can't you understand?"
"Of course you are." Maota looked up, very sure. "Mortals cannot step from star to star like crossing a shallow brook."
"No, no. I don't step from one star to another. An invention does that. Just an invention. I carry it with me. It's a tiny thing. No one would ever guess it has such power. So you see, I'm human, just like you. Hit me and I hurt. Cut me and I bleed. I love. I hate. I was born. Some day I'll die. See? I'm human. Just a human with a machine. No more than that."
Maota laughed, then sobered quickly. "You lie."
"No."
"If I had this machine, could I travel as you?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll kill you and take yours."
"It would not work for you."
"Why?"
"Each machine is tailored for each person."
The old man hung his head. He looked down into the black, charred hole. He walked all around the hole. He kicked at the sand, looking half-heartedly again for the book.
"Look," Michaelson said. "I'm sure I've convinced you that I'm human. Why not have a try at negotiating our differences?"
He looked up. His expressive eyes, deep, resigned, studied Michaelson's face. Finally he shook his head sadly. "When we first met I hoped we could think the ancient thoughts together. But our paths diverge. We have finished, you and I."
He turned and started off, shoulders slumped dejectedly.
Michaelson caught up to him. "Are you leaving the city?"
"No."
"Where are you going?"
"Away. Far away." Maota looked off toward the hills, eyes distant.
"Don't be stupid, old man. How can you go far away and not leave the city?"
"There are many directions. You would not understand."
"East. West. North. South. Up. Down."
"No, no. There is another direction. Come, if you must see."
Michaelson followed him far down the street. They came to a section of the city he had not seen before. Buildings were smaller, spires dwarfed against larger structures. Here a path was packed in the sand, leading to a particular building.
Michaelson said, "This is where you live?"
"Yes."
Maota went inside. Michaelson stood in the entrance and looked around. The room was clean, furnished with hand made chairs and a bed. Who is this old man, he thought, far from his people, living alone, choosing a life of solitude among ancient ruins but not touching them? Above the bed a "clock" was fastened to the wall, Michaelson remembered his fright—thinking of the warmth where warmth should not be.
Maota pointed to it.
"You asked about this machine," he said. "Now I will tell you." He laid his hand against it. "Here is power to follow another direction."
Michaelson tested one of the chairs to see if it would hold his weight, then sat down. His curiosity about the instrument was colossal, but he forced a short laugh. "Maota, you are complex. Why not stop all this mystery nonsense and tell me about it? You know more about it than I."
"Of course." Maota smiled a toothless, superior smile. "What do you suppose happened to this race?"
"You tell me."
"They took the unknown direction. The books speak of it. I don't know how the instrument works, but one thing is certain. The race did not die out, as a species becomes extinct."
Michaelson was amused, but interested. "Something like a fourth dimension?"
"I don't know. I only know that with this instrument there is no death. I have read the books that speak of this race, this wonderful people who conquered all disease, who explored all the mysteries of science, who devised this machine to cheat death. See this button here on the face of the instrument? Press the button, and...."
"And what?"
"I don't know, exactly. But I have lived many years. I have walked the streets of this city and wondered, and wanted to press the button. Now I will do so."
Quickly the old man, still smiling, pressed the button. A high-pitched whine filled the air, just within audio range. Steady for a moment, it then rose in pitch passing beyond hearing quickly.
The old man's knees buckled. He sank down, fell over the bed, lay still. Michaelson touched him cautiously, then examined him more carefully. No question about it.
The old man was dead.
Feeling depressed and alone, Michaelson found a desert knoll outside the city overlooking the tall spires that shone in the sunlight and gleamed in the moonlight. He made a stretcher, rolled the old man's body on to it and dragged it down the long ancient street and up the knoll.
Here he buried him.
But it seemed a waste of time. Somehow he knew beyond any doubt that the old native and his body were completely disassociated in some sense more complete than death.
In the days that followed he gave much thought to the "clock." He came to the city every day. He spent long hours in the huge square building with the books. He learned the language by sheer bulldog determination. Then he searched the books for information about the instrument.
Finally after many weeks, long after the winds had obliterated all evidence of Maota's grave on the knoll, Michaelson made a decision. He had to know if the machine would work for him.
And so one afternoon when the ancient spires threw long shadows over the sand he walked down the long street and entered the old man's house. He stood before the instrument, trembling, afraid, but determined. He pinched his eyes shut tight like a child and pressed the button.
The high-pitched whine started.
Complete, utter silence. Void. Darkness. Awareness and memory, yes; nothing else. Then Maota's chuckle came. No sound, an impression only like the voice from the ancient book. Where was he? There was no left or right, up or down. Maota was everywhere, nowhere.
"Look!" Maota's thought was directed at him in this place of no direction. "Think of the city and you will see it."
Michaelson did, and he saw the city beyond, as if he were looking through a window. And yet he was in the city looking at his own body.
Maota's chuckle again. "The city will remain as it is. You did not win after all."
"Neither did you."
"But this existence has compensations," Maota said. "You can be anywhere, see anywhere on this planet. Even on your Earth."
Michaelson felt a great sadness, seeing his body lying across the old, home made bed. He looked closer. He sensed a vibration or life force—he didn't stop to define it—in his body. Why was his dead body different from Old Maota's? Could it be that there was some thread stretching from the reality of his body to his present state?
"I don't like your thoughts," Maota said. "No one can go back. I tried. I have discussed it with many who are not presently in communication with you. No one can go back."
Michaelson decided he try.
"No!" Maota's thought was prickled with fear and anger.
Michaelson did not know how to try, but he remembered the cylinder and gathered all the force of his mind in spite of Maota's protests, and gave his most violent command.
At first he thought it didn't work. He got up and looked around, then it struck him. He was standing up!
The cylinder. He knew it was the cylinder. That was the difference between himself and Maota. When he used the cylinder, that was where he went, the place where Maota was now. It was a door of some kind, leading to a path of some kind where distance was non-existent. But the
"clock" was a mechanism to transport only the mind to that place.
To be certain of it, he pressed the button again, with the same result as before. He saw his own body fall down. He felt Maota's presence.
"You devil!" Maota's thought-scream was a sword of hate and anger, irrational suddenly, like a person who knows his loss is irrevocable.
"I said you were a god. I said you were a god. I said you were a god...! "
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Stationed on the Earth base of Alpha Centaurus II, Mr. Michaelson, a tall, gaunt archeologist, explores the planet for historical artifacts. He is human, but has a special cylinder embedded in the flesh behind his ear that teleports him to a different location when touched.\nHe comes across an empty city in the desert, with the old buildings filling with blown sand, though he is not alone. He is approached by a short, gray-haired native with webbed bare feet (aka webfoot or Maota) that he spotted in a doorway, who introduces himself as the keeper of the city and implores him to leave because he angers the gods. Michaelson brushes aside that spirits exist, but notes that he must keep an eye on this intelligent native.\nAs Michaelson continues to explore the city and disobey what he was told, the native again demands he leave, calling him “Mr. Earthgod.” Michaelson learns his name is Maota, and tries to negotiate to preserve the artifacts and build a museum. Maota does not succumb to Michaelson’s tactics, and whacks him unconscious with a metal book.\nMichaelson awakes and teleports to a creek 500 miles away to clean his wound, then returns and opens the book to find voices talking to him. He is mystified that the civilization here said to have disappeared half a million years ago was communicating with him. In his wonder, he picks up another clock-like artifact he has been curious about, and is shocked to feel it is radiating heat.\nThe next day, Michaelson awakes in the dead city to find Maota pointing a gun-like weapon at him - apologizing for causing him pain instead of killing him. Maota reads from the talking poetry book, at Michaelson’s request. It moves them both, Michaelson feeling the humanity of the civilization, and Maota feeling the gentle spirits. Maota becomes furious that Michaelson wants to move things into a museum and begins to fire the weapon. Michaelson teleports behind him and in their struggle to take possession they discharge it - destroying the book. \nMaota has disgraced himself and the gods and becomes inconsolable. He has been wanting to try the “clock” device for some time - now with renewed determination because he doesn’t care if it kills him. He explains that he thinks the race of the dead city entered a fourth dimension. Pushing the button, Maota’s body collapses in death. Michaelson tries to bury him, but has the sense that his soul is elsewhere. Michaelson desperately studies the artifacts to understand the clock, then radically decides to just press the button too. Afterwards, he sees his dead body below him and communicates with Maota’s consciousness in a spiritual dimension. He discovers that he can will his cylinder with his mind to return to his physical body, traversing between the physical and spiritual realms. This infuriates Maota who can never return to his body and feels pushed and tricked by Michaelson. \n",
"Michaelson is an archeologist from Earth living on Alpha Centaurus II. He discovers an ancient, hidden city that is remarkably well preserved and half a million years old. He notices an older, webfooted man watching him as he explores the ancient city. The older man, named Maota, tells Michaelson that he is trespassing in the city, which is sacred ground where the spirits may one day return. Maota identifies himself as the city's keeper and warns Michaelson that he is angering the gods. Still, Michaelson pays him little attention because he is so wrapped up in his discovery. Maota warns Michaelson to leave or be killed, but Michaelson continues to ignore Maota and collect and inspect artifacts.\n\tMichaelson talks about building a museum there, showcasing the artifacts, and inviting people to come and see everything. Extremely angry and frustrated, Maota throws one of the ancient books at Michaelson, knocking him out. Later, Michaelson studies the book, opening it and running his finger over the writing, which creates the sound of a voice—the book talks! Inside a tall building, Michaelson observes a clock-like object, touching it and discovering it is warm and vibrating. Amazingly, the device is still operating.\n\tMaota returns in the morning, apologizes for hitting Michaelson, saying he should have killed him. He has brought a weapon with him. Michaelson asks Maota to read to him from the book before he kills him, and Maota agrees, telling Michaelson that it is a book of poetry. Michaelson dismisses the book as unimportant, wondering why the ancient ones didn’t leave books about history or mathematics instead, but he wants to hear it read and asks Maota to read some to him. Then, Maota prepares to shoot Michaelson, but Michaelson uses his cylinder to jump behind Maota before he fires. The two wrestle over the weapon, and it fires a shot into the sand near the book. Together they dig through the sand to find the book, but it is gone. Finally, Maota says he is giving up and going away but not leaving the city. Michaelson is perplexed by the paradoxical statement, but Maota says he doesn’t know enough to explain it. However, he tells Michaelson that he has read the ancient race’s books and knows they conquered all diseases, explored all the mysteries of science, and devised the clock-type machine to cheat death. \n\tMaota presses the button on the clock machine, and it makes noises. Then Maota’s knees buckle, and he is dead. Michaelson buries the body and continues his study of the city, learning the language and reading the books. Then he decides to use the clock device to see what it does. His body collapses, but his mind joins Maota’s. Sad to see his body, Michaelson touches it and feels a vibration of life. He suspects that his cylinder is responsible for his journey, and if that’s right, he should be able to use it to return. He tries, and it works.\n",
"Mr. Michaelson is an archeologist from Earth who visits the ruins of an unnamed, 500,000-year-old city on Alpha Centaurus II. He uses an implant behind his ear to transport himself there instantaneously, and he excitedly explores the sand-covered streets and complex varieties of buildings he discovers. Soon after his arrival, he encounters an old man he quickly identifies as one of the webfooted natives. As he continues exploring, the native man approaches him and orders him to leave since Mr. Michaelson is trespassing on sacred ground and making the spirits angry. Mr. Michaelson refuses, and the native man threatens to kill him if he does not leave. As night falls, Michaelson continues to uncover artifacts left behind by the city’s disappeared inhabitants. The native man returns to ask why Michaelson has not left as instructed, and he introduces himself as Maota; Maota believes Michaelson is a god because of his fascination with the city and its artifacts. Michaelson tries to recruit Maota into helping him preserve the city for posterity, but Maota refuses. Instead, he hits Michaelson in the head with an ancient book he is carrying. When Michaelson awakens, he uses his implant to beam to a small creek where he cleans his wound. When he returns, he discovers the book Maota had used to hit him. He believes he hears the book speaking to him in a strange language. Startled, he returns to a clock-like device he had seen earlier. When he touches the clock, he finds it warm, which frightens him. Michaelson leaves the building and falls asleep. When he awakens later, he finds Maota standing over him, who informs him the book is full of ancient poetry and then says he will kill Michaelson for not leaving the city. Michael asks Maota to read to him from the book before he dies, and Maota obliges. When the book's pages begin to blow in the wind, Maota takes this as proof of the existence of spirits. When Michaelson mocks Maota again, Maota rages and points his gun at him. Michaelson uses his implant to appear behind Maota; the two struggle for control of the gun. They accidentally shoot the book into oblivion. Because of Michaelson's implant, Maota once again believes he is a god, but Michaelson explains to him that it is artificial. Convinced that Michaelson is only human, Maota announces that he is going away, and he offers to show Michaelson how. Maota reveals that the ancient race had not died out; instead, they had used the clock-like device to transfer themselves to a kind of fourth dimension, where they could observe and communicate outside the constraints of a physical body. Maota triggers the device, and his body slumps over. Michaelson buries him and later triggers the device too, finding himself reunited with Maota in the fourth dimension. However, unlike Maota, Michaelson discovers he is able to zoom between dimensions thanks to his implant, which convinces Maota that Michaelson is a devil rather than a god.",
"Mr. Michaelson is a human archaeologist currently exploring Alpha Centaurus II. He comes across the ruins of an ancient city. He walks to it slowly, seeing someone in the distance, but is relieved when he realizes it’s just a webfoot. He explores the city, digging through the sand and rubble to find beautiful artifacts from half a million years ago. He is soon stopped by the webfoot, who explains that Michaelson must leave immediately lest he anger the spirits. He introduces himself as keeper of the city which Michaelson finds amusing. Maota believes that the city must remain untouched so the spirits would not be lost in the darkness. He tells Michaelson to leave quickly or else he will be killed. Michaelson does not leave but continues exploring. His cylinder, a contraption worn above the ear, could transport him back home in a heartbeat, but he decides not to use it yet. Maota approaches Michaelson again, scolding him for not leaving when asked. He calls him “Earthgod,” and says that no human could travel the way he does. They fight about the city and whether or not to leave it alone until Maota strikes Michaelson with a book, knocking him out. \nWhen Michaelson regains consciousness, he travels to a nearby river to wash the blood out of his hair, then pops back into the city. He leafs through the book and discovers that it talks. Entering a building, Michaelson decides to reach out and touch the object that confused him most. It almost looked like a clock, but it was clearly different. It’s warm to the touch. Running back outside, he passes out in the street. He wakes up to Maota standing over him with a gun. Michaelson convinces him to read some of the book aloud, which is the only poetry book in the city. Maota then attempts to kill him, but Michaelson simply travels behind Maota and punches him before he could fire. They fight for Maota’s weapon until it goes off, blasting a hole in the earth. The book was destroyed in the blast. \nMaota grieves the book, and Michaelson explains how he uses the cylinder to travel. Michaelson asks Maota where he’s going to go, and Maota decides to take him along. They travel to his house, and Maota points to the clock on the wall. He explains that he believes it allows people to travel to another dimension, and he has decided to use it. He pushes a button and slumps to the floor.\nMichaelson spends the next few weeks learning the ancient language and exploring the city before his curiosity got the better of him. He decides to press the button and travels through the darkness before hearing Maota’s voice. He sees his body below, and Maota reveals that no one can leave this other place. Michaelson decides to use his cylinder and travels back to Alpha Centaurus II. He pushes the button again, only to hear Maota’s screams. He can travel between dimensions. \n"
] |
50802
|
A CITY NEAR CENTAURUS
By BILL DOEDE
Illustrated by WEST
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine October 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The city was sacred, but not to its gods. Michaelson was a god—but far from sacred!
Crouched in the ancient doorway like an animal peering out from his burrow, Mr. Michaelson saw the native.
At first he was startled, thinking it might be someone else from the Earth settlement who had discovered the old city before him. Then he saw the glint of sun against the metallic skirt, and relaxed.
He chuckled to himself, wondering with amusement what a webfooted man was doing in an old dead city so far from his people. Some facts were known about the people of Alpha Centaurus II. They were not actually natives, he recalled. They were a colony from the fifth planet of the system. They were a curious people. Some were highly intelligent, though uneducated.
He decided to ignore the man for the moment. He was far down the ancient street, a mere speck against the sand. There would be plenty of time to wonder about him.
He gazed out from his position at the complex variety of buildings before him. Some were small, obviously homes. Others were huge with tall, frail spires standing against the pale blue sky. Square buildings, ellipsoid, spheroid. Beautiful, dream-stuff bridges connected tall, conical towers, bridges that still swung in the wind after half a million years. Late afternoon sunlight shone against ebony surfaces. The sands of many centuries had blown down the wide streets and filled the doorways. Desert plants grew from roofs of smaller buildings.
Ignoring the native, Mr. Michaelson poked about among the ruins happily, exclaiming to himself about some particular artifact, marveling at its state of preservation, holding it this way and that to catch the late afternoon sun, smiling, clucking gleefully. He crawled over the rubble through old doorways half filled with the accumulation of ages. He dug experimentally in the sand with his hands, like a dog, under a roof that had weathered half a million years of rain and sun. Then he crawled out again, covered with dust and cobwebs.
The native stood in the street less than a hundred feet away, waving his arms madly. "Mr. Earthgod," he cried. "It is sacred ground where you are trespassing!"
The archeologist smiled, watching the man hurry closer. He was short, even for a native. Long gray hair hung to his shoulders, bobbing up and down as he walked. He wore no shoes. The toes of his webbed feet dragged in the sand, making a deep trail behind him. He was an old man.
"You never told us about this old dead city," Michaelson said, chidingly. "Shame on you. But never mind. I've found it now. Isn't it beautiful?"
"Yes, beautiful. You will leave now."
"Leave?" Michaelson asked, acting surprised as if the man were a child. "I just got here a few hours ago."
"You must go."
"Why? Who are you?"
"I am keeper of the city."
"You?" Michaelson laughed. Then, seeing how serious the native was, said, "What makes you think a dead city needs a keeper?"
"The spirits may return."
Michaelson crawled out of the doorway and stood up. He brushed his trousers. He pointed. "See that wall? Built of some metal, I'd say, some alloy impervious to rust and wear."
"The spirits are angry."
"Notice the inscriptions? Wind has blown sand against them for eons, and rain and sleet. But their story is there, once we decipher it."
"Leave!"
The native's lined, weathered old face was working around the mouth in anger. Michaelson was almost sorry he had mocked him. He was deadly serious.
"Look," he said. "No spirits are ever coming back here. Don't you know that? And even if they did, spirits care nothing for old cities half covered with sand and dirt."
He walked away from the old man, heading for another building. The sun had already gone below the horizon, coloring the high clouds. He glanced backward. The webfoot was following.
"Mr. Earthgod!" the webfoot cried, so sharply that Michaelson stopped.
"You must not touch, not walk upon, not handle. Your step may destroy the home of some ancient spirit. Your breath may cause one iota of change and a spirit may lose his way in the darkness. Go quickly now, or be killed."
He turned and walked off, not looking back.
Michaelson stood in the ancient street, tall, gaunt, feet planted wide, hands in pockets, watching the webfoot until he was out of sight beyond a huge circular building. There was a man to watch. There was one of the intelligent ones. One look into the alert old eyes had told him that.
Michaelson shook his head, and went about satisfying his curiosity. He entered buildings without thought of roofs falling in, or decayed floors dropping from under his weight. He began to collect small items, making a pile of them in the street. An ancient bowl, metal untouched by the ages. A statue of a man, one foot high, correct to the minutest detail, showing how identical they had been to Earthmen. He found books still standing on ancient shelves but was afraid to touch them without tools.
Darkness came swiftly and he was forced out into the street.
He stood there alone feeling the age of the place. Even the smell of age was in the air. Silver moonlight from the two moons filtered through clear air down upon the ruins. The city lay now in darkness, dead and still, waiting for morning so it could lie dead and still in the sun.
There was no hurry to be going home, although he was alone, although this was Alpha Centaurus II with many unknowns, many dangers ... although home was a very great distance away. There was no one back there to worry about him.
His wife had died many years ago back on Earth. No children. His friends in the settlement would not look for him for another day at least. Anyway, the tiny cylinder, buried in flesh behind his ear, a thing of mystery and immense power, could take him home instantly, without effort save a flicker of thought.
"You did not leave, as I asked you."
Michaelson whirled around at the sound of the native's voice. Then he relaxed. He said, "You shouldn't sneak up on a man like that."
"You must leave, or I will be forced to kill you. I do not want to kill you, but if I must...." He made a clucking sound deep in the throat.
"The spirits are angry."
"Nonsense. Superstition! But never mind. You have been here longer than I. Tell me, what are those instruments in the rooms? It looks like a clock but I'm certain it had some other function."
"What rooms?"
"Oh, come now. The small rooms back there. Look like they were bedrooms."
"I do not know." The webfoot drew closer. Michaelson decided he was sixty or seventy years old, at least.
"You've been here a long time. You are intelligent, and you must be educated, the way you talk. That gadget looks like a time-piece of some sort. What is it? What does it measure?"
"I insist that you go." The webfoot held something in his hand.
"No." Michaelson looked off down the street, trying to ignore the native, trying to feel the life of the city as it might have been.
"You are sensitive," the native said in his ear. "It takes a sensitive god to feel the spirits moving in the houses and walking in these old streets."
"Say it any way you want to. This is the most fascinating thing I've ever seen. The Inca's treasure, the ruins of Pompeii, Egyptian tombs—none can hold a candle to this."
"Mr. Earthgod...."
"Don't call me that. I'm not a god, and you know it."
The old man shrugged. "It is not an item worthy of dispute. Those names you mention, are they the names of gods?"
He chuckled. "In a way, yes. What is your name?"
"Maota."
"You must help me, Maota. These things must be preserved. We'll build a museum, right here in the street. No, over there on the hill just outside the city. We'll collect all the old writings and perhaps we may decipher them. Think of it, Maota! To read pages written so long ago and think their thoughts. We'll put everything under glass. Build and evacuate chambers to stop the decay. Catalogue, itemize...."
Michaelson was warming up to his subject, but Maota shook his head like a waving palm frond and stamped his feet.
"You will leave now."
"Can't you see? Look at the decay. These things are priceless. They must be preserved. Future generations will thank us."
"Do you mean," the old man asked, aghast, "that you want others to come here? You know the city abhors the sound of alien voices. Those who lived here may return one day! They must not find their city packaged and preserved and laid out on shelves for the curious to breathe their foul breaths upon. You will leave. Now!"
"No." Michaelson was adamant. The rock of Gibraltar.
Maota hit him, quickly, passionately, and dropped the weapon beside his body. He turned swiftly, making a swirling mark in the sand with his heel, and walked off toward the hills outside the city.
The weapon he had used was an ancient book. Its paper-thin pages rustled in the wind as if an unseen hand turned them, reading, while Michaelson's blood trickled out from the head wound upon the ancient street.
When he regained consciousness the two moons, bright sentinel orbs in the night sky, had moved to a new position down their sliding path. Old Maota's absence took some of the weirdness and fantasy away. It seemed a more practical place now.
The gash in his head was painful, throbbing with quick, short hammer-blows synchronized with his heart beats. But there was a new determination in him. If it was a fight that the old webfooted fool wanted, a fight he would get. The cylinder flicked him, at his command, across five hundred miles of desert and rocks to a small creek he remembered. Here he bathed his head in cool water until all the caked blood was dissolved from his hair. Feeling better, he went back.
The wind had turned cool. Michaelson shivered, wishing he had brought a coat. The city was absolutely still except for small gusts of wind sighing through the frail spires. The ancient book still lay in the sand beside the dark spot of blood. He stooped over and picked it up.
It was light, much lighter than most Earth books. He ran a hand over the binding. Smooth it was, untouched by time or climate. He squinted at the pages, tilting the book to catch the bright moonlight, but the writing was alien. He touched the page, ran his forefinger over the writing.
Suddenly he sprang back. The book fell from his hands.
"God in heaven!" he exclaimed.
He had heard a voice. He looked around at the old buildings, down the length of the ancient street. Something strange about the voice. Not Maota. Not his tones. Not his words. Satisfied that no one was near, he stooped and picked up the book again.
"Good God!" he said aloud. It was the book talking. His fingers had touched the writing again. It was not a voice, exactly, but a stirring in his mind, like a strange language heard for the first time.
A talking book. What other surprises were in the city? Tall, fragile buildings laughing at time and weather. A clock measuring God-knows-what. If such wonders remained, what about those already destroyed? One could only guess at the machines, the gadgets, the artistry already decayed and blown away to mix forever with the sand.
I must preserve it, he thought, whether Maota likes it or not. They say these people lived half a million years ago. A long time. Let's see, now. A man lives one hundred years on the average. Five thousand lifetimes.
And all you do is touch a book, and a voice jumps across all those years!
He started off toward the tall building he had examined upon discovery of the city. His left eyelid began to twitch and he laid his forefinger against the eye, pressing until it stopped. Then he stooped and entered the building. He laid the book down and tried to take the "clock" off the wall. It was dark in the building and his fingers felt along the wall, looking for it. Then he touched it. His fingers moved over its smooth surface. Then suddenly he jerked his hand back with an exclamation of amazement. Fear ran up his spine.
The clock was warm.
He felt like running, like flicking back to the settlement where there were people and familiar voices, for here was a thing that should not be. Half a million years—and here was warmth!
He touched it again, curiosity overwhelming his fear. It was warm. No mistake. And there was a faint vibration, a suggestion of power. He stood there in the darkness staring off into the darkness, trembling. Fear built up in him until it was a monstrous thing, drowning reason. He forgot the power of the cylinder behind his ear. He scrambled through the doorway. He got up and ran down the ancient sandy street until he came to the edge of the city. Here he stopped, gasping for air, feeling the pain throb in his head.
Common sense said that he should go home, that nothing worthwhile could be accomplished at night, that he was tired, that he was weak from loss of blood and fright and running. But when Michaelson was on the trail of important discoveries he had no common sense.
He sat down in the darkness, meaning to rest a moment.
When he awoke dawn was red against thin clouds in the east.
Old Maota stood in the street with webbed feet planted far apart in the sand, a weapon in the crook of his arm. It was a long tube affair, familiar to Michaelson.
Michaelson asked, "Did you sleep well?"
"No."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"How do you feel?"
"Fine, but my head aches a little."
"Sorry," Maota said.
"For what?"
"For hitting you. Pain is not for gods like you."
Michaelson relaxed somewhat. "What kind of man are you? First you try to break my skull, then you apologize."
"I abhor pain. I should have killed you outright."
He thought about that for a moment, eyeing the weapon.
It looked in good working order. Slim and shiny and innocent, it looked like a glorified African blowgun. But he was not deceived by its appearance. It was a deadly weapon.
"Well," he said, "before you kill me, tell me about the book." He held it up for Maota to see.
"What about the book?"
"What kind of book is it?"
"What does Mr. Earthgod mean, what kind of book? You have seen it. It is like any other book, except for the material and the fact that it talks."
"No, no. I mean, what's in it?"
"Poetry."
"Poetry? For God's sake, why poetry? Why not mathematics or history? Why not tell how to make the metal of the book itself? Now there is a subject worthy of a book."
Maota shook his head. "One does not study a dead culture to learn how they made things, but how they thought. But we are wasting time. I must kill you now, so I can get some rest."
The old man raised the gun.
"Wait! You forget that I also have a weapon." He pointed to the spot behind his ear where the cylinder was buried. "I can move faster than you can fire the gun."
Maota nodded. "I have heard how you travel. It does not matter. I will kill you anyway."
"I suggest we negotiate."
"No."
"Why not?"
Maota looked off toward the hills, old eyes filmed from years of sand and wind, leather skin lined and pitted. The hills stood immobile, brown-gray, already shimmering with heat, impotent.
"Why not?" Michaelson repeated.
"Why not what?" Maota dragged his eyes back.
"Negotiate."
"No." Maota's eyes grew hard as steel. They stood there in the sun, not twenty feet apart, hating each other. The two moons, very pale and far away on the western horizon, stared like two bottomless eyes.
"All right, then. At least it's a quick death. I hear that thing just disintegrates a man. Pfft! And that's that."
Michaelson prepared himself to move if the old man's finger slid closer toward the firing stud. The old man raised the gun.
"Wait!"
"Now what?"
"At least read some of the book to me before I die, then."
The gun wavered. "I am not an unreasonable man," the webfoot said.
Michaelson stepped forward, extending his arm with the book.
"No, stay where you are. Throw it."
"This book is priceless. You just don't go throwing such valuable items around."
"It won't break. Throw it."
Michaelson threw the book. It landed at Maota's feet, spouting sand against his leg. He shifted the weapon, picked up the book and leafed through it, raising his head in a listening attitude, searching for a suitable passage. Michaelson heard the thin, metallic pages rustle softly. He could have jumped and seized the weapon at that moment, but his desire to hear the book was strong.
Old Maota read, Michaelson listened. The cadence was different, the syntax confusing. But the thoughts were there. It might have been a professor back on Earth reading to his students. Keats, Shelley, Browning. These people were human, with human thoughts and aspirations.
The old man stopped reading. He squatted slowly, keeping Michaelson in sight, and laid the book face up in the sand. Wind moved the pages.
"See?" he said. "The spirits read. They must have been great readers, these people. They drink the book, as if it were an elixir. See how gentle! They lap at the pages like a new kitten tasting milk."
Michaelson laughed. "You certainly have an imagination."
"What difference does it make?" Maota cried, suddenly angry. "You want to close up all these things in boxes for a posterity who may have no slightest feeling or appreciation. I want to leave the city as it is, for spirits whose existence I cannot prove."
The old man's eyes were furious now, deadly. The gun came down directly in line with the Earthman's chest. The gnarled finger moved.
Michaelson, using the power of the cylinder behind his ear, jumped behind the old webfoot. To Maota it seemed that he had flicked out of existence like a match blown out. The next instant Michaelson spun him around and hit him. It was an inexpert fist, belonging to an archeologist, not a fighter. But Maota was an old man.
He dropped in the sand, momentarily stunned. Michaelson bent over to pick up the gun and the old man, feeling it slip from his fingers, hung on and was pulled to his feet.
They struggled for possession of the gun, silently, gasping, kicking sand. Faces grew red. Lips drew back over Michaelson's white teeth, over Maota's pink, toothless gums. The dead city's fragile spires threw impersonal shadows down where they fought.
Then quite suddenly a finger or hand—neither knew whose finger or hand—touched the firing stud.
There was a hollow, whooshing sound. Both stopped still, realizing the total destruction they might have caused.
"It only hit the ground," Michaelson said.
A black, charred hole, two feet in diameter and—they could not see how deep—stared at them.
Maota let go and sprawled in the sand. "The book!" he cried. "The book is gone!"
"No! We probably covered it with sand while we fought."
Both men began scooping sand in their cupped hands, digging frantically for the book. Saliva dripped from Maota's mouth, but he didn't know or care.
Finally they stopped, exhausted. They had covered a substantial area around the hole. They had covered the complete area where they had been.
"We killed it," the old man moaned.
"It was just a book. Not alive, you know."
"How do you know?" The old man's pale eyes were filled with tears. "It talked and it sang. In a way, it had a soul. Sometimes on long nights I used to imagine it loved me, for taking care of it."
"There are other books. We'll get another."
Maota shook his head. "There are no more."
"But I've seen them. Down there in the square building."
"Not poetry. Books, yes, but not poetry. That was the only book with songs."
"I'm sorry."
" You killed it!" Maota suddenly sprang for the weapon, lying forgotten in the sand. Michaelson put his foot on it and Maota was too weak to tear it loose. He could only weep out his rage.
When he could talk again, Maota said, "I am sorry, Mr. Earthgod. I've disgraced myself."
"Don't be sorry." Michaelson helped him to his feet. "We fight for some reasons, cry for others. A priceless book is a good reason for either."
"Not for that. For not winning. I should have killed you last night when I had the chance. The gods give us chances and if we don't take them we lose forever."
"I told you before! We are on the same side. Negotiate. Have you never heard of negotiation?"
"You are a god," Maota said. "One does not negotiate with gods. One either loves them, or kills them."
"That's another thing. I am not a god. Can't you understand?"
"Of course you are." Maota looked up, very sure. "Mortals cannot step from star to star like crossing a shallow brook."
"No, no. I don't step from one star to another. An invention does that. Just an invention. I carry it with me. It's a tiny thing. No one would ever guess it has such power. So you see, I'm human, just like you. Hit me and I hurt. Cut me and I bleed. I love. I hate. I was born. Some day I'll die. See? I'm human. Just a human with a machine. No more than that."
Maota laughed, then sobered quickly. "You lie."
"No."
"If I had this machine, could I travel as you?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll kill you and take yours."
"It would not work for you."
"Why?"
"Each machine is tailored for each person."
The old man hung his head. He looked down into the black, charred hole. He walked all around the hole. He kicked at the sand, looking half-heartedly again for the book.
"Look," Michaelson said. "I'm sure I've convinced you that I'm human. Why not have a try at negotiating our differences?"
He looked up. His expressive eyes, deep, resigned, studied Michaelson's face. Finally he shook his head sadly. "When we first met I hoped we could think the ancient thoughts together. But our paths diverge. We have finished, you and I."
He turned and started off, shoulders slumped dejectedly.
Michaelson caught up to him. "Are you leaving the city?"
"No."
"Where are you going?"
"Away. Far away." Maota looked off toward the hills, eyes distant.
"Don't be stupid, old man. How can you go far away and not leave the city?"
"There are many directions. You would not understand."
"East. West. North. South. Up. Down."
"No, no. There is another direction. Come, if you must see."
Michaelson followed him far down the street. They came to a section of the city he had not seen before. Buildings were smaller, spires dwarfed against larger structures. Here a path was packed in the sand, leading to a particular building.
Michaelson said, "This is where you live?"
"Yes."
Maota went inside. Michaelson stood in the entrance and looked around. The room was clean, furnished with hand made chairs and a bed. Who is this old man, he thought, far from his people, living alone, choosing a life of solitude among ancient ruins but not touching them? Above the bed a "clock" was fastened to the wall, Michaelson remembered his fright—thinking of the warmth where warmth should not be.
Maota pointed to it.
"You asked about this machine," he said. "Now I will tell you." He laid his hand against it. "Here is power to follow another direction."
Michaelson tested one of the chairs to see if it would hold his weight, then sat down. His curiosity about the instrument was colossal, but he forced a short laugh. "Maota, you are complex. Why not stop all this mystery nonsense and tell me about it? You know more about it than I."
"Of course." Maota smiled a toothless, superior smile. "What do you suppose happened to this race?"
"You tell me."
"They took the unknown direction. The books speak of it. I don't know how the instrument works, but one thing is certain. The race did not die out, as a species becomes extinct."
Michaelson was amused, but interested. "Something like a fourth dimension?"
"I don't know. I only know that with this instrument there is no death. I have read the books that speak of this race, this wonderful people who conquered all disease, who explored all the mysteries of science, who devised this machine to cheat death. See this button here on the face of the instrument? Press the button, and...."
"And what?"
"I don't know, exactly. But I have lived many years. I have walked the streets of this city and wondered, and wanted to press the button. Now I will do so."
Quickly the old man, still smiling, pressed the button. A high-pitched whine filled the air, just within audio range. Steady for a moment, it then rose in pitch passing beyond hearing quickly.
The old man's knees buckled. He sank down, fell over the bed, lay still. Michaelson touched him cautiously, then examined him more carefully. No question about it.
The old man was dead.
Feeling depressed and alone, Michaelson found a desert knoll outside the city overlooking the tall spires that shone in the sunlight and gleamed in the moonlight. He made a stretcher, rolled the old man's body on to it and dragged it down the long ancient street and up the knoll.
Here he buried him.
But it seemed a waste of time. Somehow he knew beyond any doubt that the old native and his body were completely disassociated in some sense more complete than death.
In the days that followed he gave much thought to the "clock." He came to the city every day. He spent long hours in the huge square building with the books. He learned the language by sheer bulldog determination. Then he searched the books for information about the instrument.
Finally after many weeks, long after the winds had obliterated all evidence of Maota's grave on the knoll, Michaelson made a decision. He had to know if the machine would work for him.
And so one afternoon when the ancient spires threw long shadows over the sand he walked down the long street and entered the old man's house. He stood before the instrument, trembling, afraid, but determined. He pinched his eyes shut tight like a child and pressed the button.
The high-pitched whine started.
Complete, utter silence. Void. Darkness. Awareness and memory, yes; nothing else. Then Maota's chuckle came. No sound, an impression only like the voice from the ancient book. Where was he? There was no left or right, up or down. Maota was everywhere, nowhere.
"Look!" Maota's thought was directed at him in this place of no direction. "Think of the city and you will see it."
Michaelson did, and he saw the city beyond, as if he were looking through a window. And yet he was in the city looking at his own body.
Maota's chuckle again. "The city will remain as it is. You did not win after all."
"Neither did you."
"But this existence has compensations," Maota said. "You can be anywhere, see anywhere on this planet. Even on your Earth."
Michaelson felt a great sadness, seeing his body lying across the old, home made bed. He looked closer. He sensed a vibration or life force—he didn't stop to define it—in his body. Why was his dead body different from Old Maota's? Could it be that there was some thread stretching from the reality of his body to his present state?
"I don't like your thoughts," Maota said. "No one can go back. I tried. I have discussed it with many who are not presently in communication with you. No one can go back."
Michaelson decided he try.
"No!" Maota's thought was prickled with fear and anger.
Michaelson did not know how to try, but he remembered the cylinder and gathered all the force of his mind in spite of Maota's protests, and gave his most violent command.
At first he thought it didn't work. He got up and looked around, then it struck him. He was standing up!
The cylinder. He knew it was the cylinder. That was the difference between himself and Maota. When he used the cylinder, that was where he went, the place where Maota was now. It was a door of some kind, leading to a path of some kind where distance was non-existent. But the
"clock" was a mechanism to transport only the mind to that place.
To be certain of it, he pressed the button again, with the same result as before. He saw his own body fall down. He felt Maota's presence.
"You devil!" Maota's thought-scream was a sword of hate and anger, irrational suddenly, like a person who knows his loss is irrevocable.
"I said you were a god. I said you were a god. I said you were a god...! "
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What is the plot of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Captain Midas by Alfred Coppel.
Relevant chunks:
CAPTAIN MIDAS
By ALFRED COPPEL, JR.
The captain of the Martian Maid stared avidly at the torn derelict floating against the velvet void. Here was treasure beyond his wildest dreams! How could he know his dreams should have been nightmares?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1949. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Gold! A magic word, even today, isn't it? Lust and gold ... they go hand in hand. Like the horsemen of the Apocalypse. And, of course, there's another word needed to make up the trilogy. You don't get any thing for nothing. So add this: Cost. Or you might call it pain, sorrow, agony. Call it what you like. It's what you pay for great treasure....
These things were true when fabled Jason sailed the Argo beyond Colchis seeking the Fleece. They were true when men sailed the southern oceans in wooden ships. And the conquest of space hasn't changed us a bit. We're still a greedy lot....
I'm a queer one to be saying these things, but then, who has more right? Look at me. My hair is gray and my face ... my face is a mask. The flesh hangs on my bones like a yellow cloth on a rickety frame. I am old, old. And I wait here on my hospital cot—wait for the weight of years I never lived to drag me under and let me forget the awful things my eyes have seen.
I'm poor, too, or else I wouldn't be here in this place of dying for old spacemen. I haven't a dime except for the pittance the Holcomb Foundation calls a spaceman's pension. Yet I had millions in my hands. Treasure beyond your wildest dreams! Cursed treasure....
You smile. You are thinking that I'm just an old man, beached earthside, spinning tall tales to impress the youngsters. Maybe, thinking about the kind of spacemen my generation produced, you have the idea that if ever we'd so much as laid a hand on anything of value out in space we'd not let go until Hell froze over! Well, you're right about that. We didn't seek the spaceways for the advancement of civilization or any of that Foundation bushwah, you can be certain of that. We did it for us ... for Number One. That's the kind of men we were, and we were proud of it. We hung onto what we found because the risks were high and we were entitled to keep what we could out there. But there are strange things in the sky. Things that don't respond to all of our neat little Laws and Theories. There are things that are no part of the world of men, thick with danger—and horror.
If you doubt that—and I can see you do—just look at me. I suppose you've never heard of the Martian Maid, and so you don't know the story of what happened to her crew or her skipper. I can give you this much of an answer. I was her skipper. And her crew? They ride high in the sky ... dust by this time. And all because they were men, and men are greedy and hasty and full of an unreasoning, unthinking love for gold. They ride a golden ship that they paid for with all the years of their lives. It's all theirs now. Bought and paid for.
It wasn't too long ago that I lifted the Maid off Solis Lacus on that last flight. Not many of you will remember her class of ship, so many advances have been made in the last few years. The Maid was two hundred feet from tip to tail, and as sleek a spacer as ever came out of the Foundation Yards. Chemical fueled, she was nothing at all like the spherical hyperdrives we see today. She was armed, too. The Foundation still thought of space as a possible stamping ground for alien creatures though no evidence of any extra-terrestrial life had ever been found ... then.
My crew was a rough bunch, like all those early crews. I remember them so well. Lean, hungry men with hell in their eyes and a great lust for high pay and hard living. Spinelli, Shelley, Cohn, Marvin, Zaleski. There wasn't a man on board who wouldn't have traded his immortal soul for a few solar dollars, and I don't claim that I was any different. That's the kind of men that opened up the spaceways, too. Don't believe all this talk about the noble pioneering spirit of man. That's tripe. There never has been such a thing as a noble pioneer. Not in space or anywhere else. It is the malcontent and the adventuring mercenary that pushes the frontier outward.
I didn't know, that night as I stood in the valve of the Maid, watching the loading cranes pull away, that I was starting out on my last flight. I don't think any of the others could have guessed, either. It was the sort of night that you only see on Mars. The sort of night that makes a spaceman wonder why in hell he wants to leave the relative security of the Earth-Mars-Venus Triangle to go jetting across the belt into deep space and the drab desolation of the outer System.
I stood there, watching the lights of Canalopolis in the distance. For just a moment I was ... well, touched. It looked beautiful and unreal under the racing moons. The lights of the gin mills and houses made a sparkling filigree pattern on the dark waters of the ancient canal, and the moons cast their shifting shadows across the silted banks. I was too far away to see the space-fevered bums and smell the shanties, and for a little while I felt the wonder of standing on the soil of a world that man had made his own with his rapacity and his sheer guts and gimme.
I thought of our half empty cargo hold and the sweet payload we would pick up on Callisto. And I counted the extra cash my packets of snow would bring from those lonely men up there on the barren moonlets of the outer Systems. There were plenty of cargoes carried on the Maid that the Holcomb Foundation snoopers never heard about, you can be sure of that.
In those days the asteroid belt was the primary danger and menace to astrogation. For a long while it held men back from deep space, but as fuels improved a few ships were sent out over the top. A few million miles up out of the ecliptic plane brings you to a region of space that's pretty thinly strewn with asteroids, and that's the way we used to make the flight between the outer systems and the EMV Triangle. It took a long while for hyperdrives to be developed and of course atomics never panned out because of the weight problem.
So that's the orbit the Maid took on that last trip of mine. High and clear into the supra-solar void. And out there in that primeval blackness is where we found the derelict.
I didn't realize it was a derelict when Spinelli first reported it from the forward scope position. I assumed it was a Foundation ship. The Holcomb Foundation was founded for the purpose of developing spaceflight, and as the years went by it took on the whole responsibility for the building and dispatching of space ships. Never in history had there been any real evidence of extra-terrestrial intelligent life, and when the EMV Triangle proved barren, we all just assumed that the Universe was man's own particular oyster. That kind of unreasoning arrogance is as hard to explain as it is to correct.
There were plenty of ships being lost in space, and immediately that Spinelli's report from up forward got noised about the Maid every one of us started mentally counting up his share of the salvage money. All this before we were within ten thousand miles of the hulk!
All spaceships look pretty much alike, but as I sat at the telescope I saw that there was something different about this one. At such a distance I couldn't get too much detail in our small three inch glass, but I could see that the hulk was big—bigger than any ship I'd ever seen before. I had the radar fixed on her and then I retired with my slide rule to Control. It wasn't long before I discovered that the derelict ship was on a near collision course, but there was something about its orbit that was strange. I called Cohn, the Metering Officer, and showed him my figures.
"Mister Cohn," I said, chart in hand, "do these figures look right to you?"
Cohn's dark eyes lit up as they always did when he worked with figures. It didn't take him long to check me. "The math is quite correct, Captain," he said. I could see that he hadn't missed the inference of those figures on the chart.
"Assemble the ship's company, Mister Cohn," I ordered.
The assembly horn sounded throughout the Maid and I could feel the tug of the automatics taking over as the crew left their stations. Soon they were assembled in Control.
"You have all heard about Mister Spinelli's find," I said, "I have computed the orbit and inspected the object through the glass. It seems to be a spacer ... either abandoned or in distress...." Reaching into the book rack above my desk I took down a copy of the Foundation's Space Regulations and opened it to the section concerning salvage.
"Sections XVIII, Paragraph 8 of the Code Regulating Interplanetary Astrogation and Commerce," I read, "Any vessel or part of vessel found in an abandoned or totally disabled condition in any region of space not subject to the sovereignty of any planet of the Earth-Venus-Mars Triangle shall be considered to be the property of the crew of the vessel locating said abandoned or disabled vessel except in such cases as the ownership of said abandoned or disabled vessel may be readily ascertained...." I looked up and closed the book. "Simply stated, that means that if that thing ahead of us is a derelict we are entitled to claim it as salvage."
"Unless it already belongs to someone?" asked Spinelli.
"That's correct Mister Spinelli, but I don't think there is much danger of that," I replied quietly. "My figures show that hulk out there came in from the direction of Coma Berenices...."
There was a long silence before Zaleski shifted his two hundred pounds uneasily and gave a form to the muted fear inside me. "You think ... you think it came from the stars , Captain?"
"Maybe even from beyond the stars," Cohn said in a low voice.
Looking at that circle of faces I saw the beginnings of greed. The first impact of the Metering Officer's words wore off quickly and soon every man of my crew was thinking that anything from the stars would be worth money ... lots of money.
Spinelli said, "Do we look her over, Captain?"
They all looked at me, waiting for my answer. I knew it would be worth plenty, and money hunger was like a fever inside me.
"Certainly we look it over, Mister Spinelli," I said sharply.
"Certainly!"
The first thing about the derelict that struck us as we drew near was her size. No ship ever built in the Foundation Yards had ever attained such gargantuan proportions. She must have stretched a full thousand feet from bow to stern, a sleek torpedo shape of somehow unspeakable alienness. Against the backdrop of the Milky Way, she gleamed fitfully in the light of the faraway sun, the metal of her flanks grained with something like tiny, glittering whorls. It was as though the stuff were somehow unstable ... seeking balance ... maybe even alive in some strange and alien way.
It was readily apparent to all of us that she had never been built for inter-planetary flight. She was a starship. Origin unknown. An aura of mystery surrounded her like a shroud, protecting the world that gave her birth mutely but effectively. The distance she must have come was unthinkable. And the time it had taken...? Aeons. Millennia. For she was drifting, dead in space, slowly spinning end over end as she swung about Sol in a hyperbolic orbit that would soon take her out and away again into the inter-stellar deeps.
Something had wounded her ... perhaps ten million years ago ... perhaps yesterday. She was gashed deeply from stem to stern with a jagged rip that bared her mangled innards. A wandering asteroid? A meteor? We would never know. It gave me an uncomfortable feeling of things beyond the ken of men as I looked at her through the port. I would never know what killed her, or where she was going, or whence she came. Yet she was mine. It made me feel like an upstart. And it made me afraid ... but of what?
We should have reported her to the nearest EMV base, but that would have meant that we'd lose her. Scientists would be sent out. Men better equipped than we to investigate the first extrasolar artifact found by men. But I didn't report her. She was ours. She was money in the bank. Let the scientists take over after we'd put a prize crew aboard and brought her into Callisto for salvage.... That's the way I had things figured.
The Maid hove to about a hundred yards from her and hung there, dwarfed by the mighty glistening ship. I called for volunteers and we prepared a boarding party. I was thinking that her drives alone would be worth millions. Cohn took charge and he and three of the men suited up and crossed to her.
In an hour they were back, disappointment largely written on their faces.
"There's nothing left of her, Captain," Cohn reported, "Whatever hit her tore up the innards so badly we couldn't even find the drives. She's a mess inside. Nothing left but the hull and a few storage compartments that are still unbroken."
She was never built to carry humanoids he told us, and there was nothing that could give us a hint of where she had come from. The hull alone was left.
He dropped two chunks of metal on my desk. "I brought back some samples of her pressure hull," he said, "The whole thing is made of this stuff...."
"We'll still take her in," I said, hiding my disappointment. "The carcass will be worth money in Callisto. Have Mister Marvin and Zaleski assemble a spare pulse-jet. We'll jury-rig her and bring her down under her own power. You take charge of provisioning her. Check those compartments you found and install oxy-generators aboard. When it's done report to me in my quarters."
I picked up the two samples of gleaming metal and called for a metallurgical testing kit. "I'm going to try and find out if this stuff is worth anything...."
The metal was heavy—too heavy, it seemed to me, for spaceship construction. But then, who was to say what conditions existed on that distant world where this metal was made?
Under the bright fluorescent over my work-table, the chunks of metal torn from a random bulkhead of the starship gleamed like pale silver; those strange little whorls that I had noticed on the outer hull were there too, like tiny magnetic lines of force, making the surface of the metal seem to dance. I held the stuff in my bare hand. It had a yellowish tinge, and it was heavier ....
Even as I watched, the metal grew yellower, and the hand that held it grew bone weary, little tongues of fatigue licking up my forearm. Suddenly terrified, I dropped the chunk as though it were white hot. It struck the table with a dull thud and lay there, a rich yellow lump of metallic lustre.
For a long while I just sat and stared. Then I began testing, trying all the while to quiet the trembling of my hands. I weighed it on a balance. I tested it with acids. It had changed unquestionably. It was no longer the same as when I had carried it into my quarters. The whorls of force were gone. It was no longer alive with a questing vibrancy ... it was inert, stable. From somewhere, somehow, it had drawn the energy necessary for transmutation. The unknown metal—the stuff of which that whole mammoth spaceship from the stars was built—was now....
Gold!
I scarcely dared believe it, but there it was staring at me from my table-top. Gold!
I searched my mind for an explanation. Contra-terrene matter, perhaps, from some distant island universe where matter reacted differently ... drawing energy from somewhere, the energy it needed to find stability in its new environment. Stability as a terrene element—wonderfully, miraculously gold!
And outside, in the void beyond the Maid's ports there were tons of this metal that could be turned into treasure. My laughter must have been a wild sound in those moments of discovery....
A slight sound behind me made me spin around in my chair. Framed in the doorway was the heavy figure of my Third Officer, Spinelli. His black eyes were fastened hungrily on the lump of yellow metal on the table. He needed no explanation to tell him what it was, and it seemed to me that his very soul reached out for the stuff, so sharp and clear was the meaning of the expression on his heavy face.
"Mister Spinelli!" I snapped, "In the future knock before entering my quarters!"
Reluctantly his eyes left the lump of gold and met mine. "From the derelict, Captain?" There was an imperceptible pause between the last two words.
I ignored his question and made a mental note to keep a close hand on the rein with him. Spinelli was big and dangerous.
"Speak your piece, Mister," I ordered sharply.
"Mister Cohn reports the derelict ready to take aboard the prize crew ... sir," he said slowly. "I'd like to volunteer for that detail."
I might have let him go under ordinary circumstances, for he was a first class spaceman and the handling of a jury-rigged hulk would need good men. But the gold-hunger I had seen in his eyes warned me to beware. I shook my head. "You will stay on board the Maid with me, Spinelli. Cohn and Zaleski will handle the starship."
Stark suspicion leaped into his eyes. I could see the wheels turning slowly in his mind. Somehow, he was thinking, I was planning to cheat him of his rightful share of the derelict treasure ship.
"We will say nothing to the rest of the crew about the gold, Mister Spinelli," I said deliberately, "Or you'll go to Callisto in irons. Is that clear?"
"Aye, sir," murmured Spinelli. The black expression had left his face and there was a faintly scornful smile playing about his mouth as he turned away. I began wondering then what he had in mind. It wasn't like him to let it go at that.
Suddenly I became conscious of being very tired. My mind wasn't functioning quite clearly. And my arm and hand ached painfully. I rubbed the fingers to get some life back into them, still wondering about Spinelli.
Spinelli talked. I saw him murmuring something to big Zaleski, and after that there was tension in the air. Distrust.
For a few moments I pondered the advisability of making good my threat to clap Spinelli into irons, but I decided against it. In the first place I couldn't prove he had told Zaleski about the gold and in the second place I needed Spinelli to help run the Maid.
I felt that the Third Officer and Zaleski were planning something, and I was just as sure that Spinelli was watching Zaleski to see to it that there was no double-cross.
I figured that I could handle the Third Officer alone so I assigned the rest, Marvin and Chelly, to accompany Cohn and Zaleski onto the hulk. That way Zaleski would be outnumbered if he tried to skip with the treasure ship. But, of course, I couldn't risk telling them that they were to be handling a vessel practically made of gold.
I was in agony. I didn't want to let anyone get out of my sight with that starship, and at the same time I couldn't leave the Maid. Finally I had to let Cohn take command of the prize crew, but not before I had set the radar finder on the Maid's prow squarely on the derelict.
Together, Spinelli and I watched the Maid's crew vanish into the maw of the alien ship and get her under way. There was a flicker of bluish fire from her jury-rigged tubes astern, and then she was vanishing in a great arc toward the bright gleam of Jupiter, far below us. The Maid followed under a steady one G of acceleration with most of her controls on automatic.
Boats of the Martian Maid's class, you may remember, carried a six inch supersonic projector abaft the astrogation turret. These were nasty weapons for use against organic life only. They would reduce a man to jelly at fifty thousand yards. Let it be said to my credit that it wasn't I who thought of hooking the gun into the radar finder and keeping it aimed dead at the derelict. That was Spinelli's insurance against Zaleski.
When I discovered it I felt the rage mount in me. He was willing to blast every one of his shipmates into pulp should the hulk vary from the orbit we'd laid out for her. He wasn't letting anything come between him and that mountain of gold.
Then I began thinking about it. Suppose now, just suppose, that Zaleski told the rest of the crew about the gold. It wouldn't be too hard for the derelict to break away from the Maid, and there were plenty of places in the EMV Triangle where a renegade crew with a thousand tons of gold would be welcomed with open arms and no questions asked. Suspicion began to eat at me. Could Zaleski and Cohn have dreamed up a little switch to keep the treasure ship for themselves? It hadn't seemed likely before, but now—
The gun-pointer remained as it was.
As the days passed and we reached turn-over with the hulk still well within visual range, I noticed a definite decrease in the number of messages from Cohn. The Aldis Lamps no longer blinked back at the Maid eight or ten times a day, and I began to really regret not having taken the time to equip the starship with UHF radio communicators.
Each night I slept with a hunk of yellow gold under my bunk, and ridiculously I fondled the stuff and dreamed of all the things I would have when the starship was cut up and sold.
My weariness grew. It became almost chronic, and I soon wondered if I hadn't picked up a touch of space-radiation fever. The flesh of my hands seemed paler than it had been. My arms felt heavy. I determined to report myself to the Foundation medics on Callisto. There's no telling what can happen to a man in space....
Two days past turn-over the messages from the derelict came through garbled. Spinelli cursed and said that he couldn't read their signal. Taking the Aldis from him I tried to raise them and failed. Two hours later I was still failing and Spinelli's black eyes glittered with an animal suspicion.
"They're faking!"
"Like hell they are!" I snapped irritably, "Something's gone wrong...."
"Zaleski's gone wrong, that's what!"
I turned to face him, fury snapping inside of me. "Then you did disobey my orders. You told him about the gold!"
"Sure I did," he sneered. "Did you expect me to shut up and let you land the ship yourself and claim Captain's share? I found her, and she's mine!"
I fought to control my temper and said: "Let's see what's going on in her before deciding who gets what, Mister Spinelli."
Spinelli bit his thick lips and did not reply. His eyes were fixed on the image of the starship on the viewplate.
A light blinked erratically within the dark cut of its wounded side.
"Get this down, Spinelli!"
The habit of taking orders was still in him, and he muttered: "Aye ... sir."
The light was winking out a message, but feebly, as though the hand that held the lamp were shaking and the mind conceiving the words were failing.
"CONTROL ... LOST ... CAN'T ... NO ... STRENGTH ... LEFT ... SHIP ... WALLS ... ALL ... ALL GOLD ... GOLD ... SOMETHING ... HAPPENING ... CAN'T ... UNDERSTAND ... WHA...." The light stopped flashing, abruptly, in mid-word.
"What the hell?" demanded Spinelli thickly.
"Order them to heave to, Mister," I ordered.
He clicked the Aldis at them. The only response was a wild swerve in the star-ship's course. She left the orbit we had set for her as though the hands that guided her had fallen away from the control.
Spinelli dropped the Aldis and rushed to the control panel to make the corrections in the Maid's course that were needed to keep the hulk in sight.
"Those skunks! Double crossing rats!" he breathed furiously. "They won't shake loose that easy!" His hands started down for the firing console of the supersonic rifle.
I caught the movement from the corner of my eye.
" Spinelli! "
My shout hung in the still air of the control room as I knocked him away from the panel.
"Get to your quarters!" I cracked.
He didn't say a thing, but his big shoulders hunched angrily and he moved across the deck toward me, his hands opening and closing spasmodically. His eyes were wild with rage and avarice.
"You'll hang for mutiny, Spinelli!" I said.
He spat out a foul name and leaped for me. I side-stepped his charge and brought my joined fists down hard on the back of his neck. He stumbled against the bulkhead and his eyes were glazed. He charged again, roaring. I stepped aside and smashed him in the mouth with my right fist, then crossing with an open-handed left to the throat. He staggered, spun and came for me again. I sank a hard left into his stomach and nailed him on the point of the jaw with a right from my shoe-tops. He straightened up and sprawled heavily to the deck, still trying to get at me. I aimed a hard kick at his temple and let it go. My metal shod boot caught him squarely and he rolled over on his face and lay still.
I nailed him with a right from my shoe-tops.
Breathing heavily, I rolled him back face up. His eyes were open,
glassy with an implacable hate. I knelt at his side and listened for
his breathing. There was none. I knew then that I had killed him. I
felt sick inside, and dizzy.
I wasn't myself as I turned away from Spinelli's body there on the
steel deck. Some of the greed died out of me, and my exertions had
increased my sense of fatigue to an almost numbing weariness. My arms
ached terribly and my hands felt as though they had been sucked dry of
their substance. Like a man in a nightmare, I held them up before my
face and looked at them. They were wrinkled and grey, with the veins
standing out a sickly purple. And I could see that my arms were taking
on that same aged look.
I was suddenly fully aware of my fear. Nothing fought against the
flood of terror that welled through me. I was terrified of that yellow
gold in my cabin, and of that ship of devil's metal out there in space
that held my shipmates. There was something unnatural about that
contra-terrene thing ... something obscene.
I located the hulk in the radar finder and swung the Maid after it,
piling on acceleration until my vision flickered. We caught her, the
Maid and I. But we couldn't stop her short of using the rifle on her,
and I couldn't bring myself to add to my depravity by killing the rest
of my men. It would have been better if I had!
I laid the Maid alongside the thousand foot hull of the derelict and
set the controls on automatic. It was dangerous, but I was beyond
caring. Then I was struggling to get myself into a pressure suit with
my wrinkled, failing hands.... Then I was outside, headed for that dark
hole.
I sank down into the stillness of her interior, my helmet light casting
long, fey shadows across the littered decks. Decks that had a yellowish
cast ... decks that no longer danced with tiny questing force-whorls....
As I approached the airlock of the compartment set aside as living
quarters for the prize crew, the saffron of the walls deepened. Crazy
little thoughts began spinning around in my brain. Words out of the
distant past loomed up with a new and suddenly terrifying
perspective ... alchemy ... transmutation ... energy. I'm a spaceman,
not a scientist. But in those moments I think I was discovering what
had happened to my crew and why the walls were turning into yellow
metal.
The lock was closed, but I swung it open and let the pressure in the
chamber rise. I couldn't wait for it to reach fourteen pounds ...
at eleven, I swung the inner door and stumbled eagerly through. The
brilliant light, reflected from gleaming walls blinded me for a moment.
And then I saw them! They huddled, almost naked in a corner, skeletal
things with skull-like faces that leered at me with the vacuous
obscenity of old age. Even their voices were raw and cracked with the
rusty decay of years. They babbled stupidly, caressing the walls with
claw-like hands. They were old, old!
I understood then. I knew what my wrinkled aged hands meant. That
devil-metal from beyond the stars had drawn the energy it needed
from ... us !
My laughter was a crazy shriek inside my helmet. I looked wildly at the
gleaming walls that had sucked the youth and strength from these men.
The walls were stable, at rest. They were purest gold ... gold ... gold!
I ran from that place still screaming with the horror of it. My hands
burned like fire! Age was in them, creeping like molten lead through my
veins, ghastly and sure....
I reached the Maid and threw every scrap of that alien metal into space
as I streaked madly away from that golden terror in the sky and its
load of ancient evil....
On Callisto I was relieved of my command. The Admiralty Court acquitted
me of the charges of negligence, but the Foundation refused me another
ship. It was my ... illness. It spread from my hands, as you can see.
Slowly, very slowly. So what remains for me? A hospital cot and a
spaceman's pension. Those tons of gold in the sky are cursed, like most
great treasures. Somewhere, out in the deeps between the stars, the
dust of my crew guards that golden derelict. It belongs to them now ...
all of it.
But the price we pay for treasure is this. Look at me. I look eighty!
I'm thirty two. And the bitterest part of the story is that people
laugh at me when I tell what happened. They laugh and call me my
nickname. Have you heard it?
It's ... Captain Midas.
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
|
[
"This story follows the Martian Maid’s journey and features its crew members: a captain nicknamed ‘Captain Midas’, Mister Spinelli the Third Officer, and various other shipmates. It is revealed that many of the crew members have a lust for making money, and an apt opportunity to do so is discovered when Mister Spinelli spots a derelict ship amongst the asteroids that could be claimed by them. After a first exploration, Midas ends up with a mystery metal collected from the starship. In his further investigation, he finds that this mystery metal transforms into a heavier metal with a yellow tinge - gold. At the same time, he finds that holding the metal evokes fatigue in him, particularly in his arms. This initial investigation was interrupted by Spinelli barging into Midas’ quarters and spotting the gold. Fearful of the other shipmates knowing and hence collecting it for themselves, Midas threatens Spinelli’s silence. \n\nMidas continues the acquisition of this derelict ship by sending a crew, led by Cohn, to further investigate and take control of the ship. With Midas and Spinelli left behind, they watch their shipmates enter the alien ship. While waiting to hear back from the crew, Midas notices that Spinelli has arranged the Maid’s gun to point at the derelict ship and their crew mates. Initially enraged, Midas soon calms down as he begins to suspect that the rest of the crew knows about the gold and may be hatching an alternate plan. Two days past the check-in time, the pair receives a garbled message from the crew. Midas orders them to disembark and depart, but the starship begins to divert its course. In arguing between something being wrong and Spinelli telling the crew about the gold, Spinelli begins to inch towards the firing panel for the gun and a tussle emerges between the two with Midas killing him. \n\nAfter re-catching the derelict ship, Midas boards the ship to look for the rest of his crew mates. He finds the walls to turn into yellow metal and the decks to have a yellowish cast as well. Inside the ship, he sees skeletal and rusty versions of his crew, and comes to the horrifying realization that the transformation of the metal into gold comes at the expense of him and his crew member’s youth and strength. Running from the ship, Midas reboards the Maid and quickly throws the alien ship back into space. Back on Callisto, the Foundation relieves him of his command as the illness spreads to the rest of his body. \n",
"This story is about the last spatial flight of Captain Midas. He lives in a time when humans have explored and deemed safe the Earth-Mars-Venus Triangle. At the beginning, he talks about greedy human nature and what it can cause. Years ago, he was a skipper of the Martian Maid spaceship flying to Callisto. His crew - Spinelli, Shelley, Cohn, Marvin, Zaleski - people with love for money, not noble pioneers. They detected a derelict in the supra-solar void between the EMV Triangle and the outer systems. First, they thought it was The Holcomb Foundation ship, but this one was the largest craft they had ever seen. It was on a near-collision course and probably came in from the direction of Coma Berenices - the stars. He gathered the crew and informed them that they were entitled to claim this derelict as salvage. Everyone got excited and started thinking about the money they could get for this craft. The skipper was supposed to report their finding to the EMV base. But Midas decided to do that after receiving the money for its parts. When they got near the craft, Midas noticed that the metal of its flanks was grained with glittering whorls. They realized it was a starship, and it probably had been roaming through space for millennia. It was gashed deeply by something. Cohn and three other men came back disappointed, saying there was nothing valuable inside. He brought two samples of the ship’s metal. Midas examined the chunks at his work-table, and soon the metal grew yellower. He spent some time testing the sample, and it became stable, drawing the necessary energy from somewhere, and turned into gold. Spinelli unexpectedly came into his office and noticed the piece of gold. He volunteers to go onboard the derelict, but Midas refuses. He also orders Spinelli not to say anything about the precious stone. Captain then saw Spinelli murmuring something to Zaleski and also felt inexplicably tired. He assigned Marvin and Chelly to accompany Cohn and Zaleski onto the hulk in case of mutiny. With time, the number of messages from Cohn started decreasing, and they came through garbled. They sent a strange message that stated that they had lost control. Spinelli got infuriated and almost fired at the big ship from the supersonic rifle. Midas aggressively ordered him to stop, and Spinelli attacked him. After a short fight, Midas killed the officer and immediately noticed that his hands were sickly purple. He put on a pressure suit and decided to go onboard the derelict. Inside he saw his crewmates, their skeletal bodies, and old faces. The walls around them were gold. Midas realized that the ship’s metal was taking the energy required to make it stable from people who touched it. He ran and threw all the gold away. Midas landed on Callisto and was relieved of his command. The illness slowly spread from his hands to other body parts. Now he’s in a hospital and looks eighty though he’s thirty two. \n\n\n",
"Captain Midas lives on the spacemen’s pension from Holcomb Foundation. He starts a story about his experience of once having a tremendous amount of treasure. The story begins with him and the crew members on the spaceship Martian Maid when they find a massive derelict in the outer system of the Earth-Mars-Venus Triangle in space. Mister Spinelli is the first one to find the derelict. After he reports to the captain, and the captain measures the course of the derelict, they decide to search over the hulk based on the Space Regulation that any derelict belongs to the discoverer. They sense the chance of treasure in the derelict, searching over it without reporting to the nearest EMV base. At first, they do not find anything valuable inside the ship, so they decide to bring the whole derelict. Mister Cohn brings two pieces of the metal constituting the derelict to the captain. When the captain examines the metal, he finds his hand grows bony and old while the metal becomes gold. He realizes that the metal can somehow transmute the energy to the property of metal, stabilizing itself to become gold. Mister Spinelli witnesses this discovery when the captain is trying in his room. When Mister Spinelli asks the captain whether he can help take the derelict abroad, the captain denies his request and orders him not to leak the information about the metal. Mister Spinelli tells Zaleski, who will take care of the derelict, about the metal. The captain orders the rest of the members to help Zaleski, ensuring that he cannot take the derelict himself. The captain sets the radar finder to watch the derelict. While Spinelli and the captain watch over the derelict with a turret pointing toward it, the message from Mister Cohn, who takes charge of the crew on the derelict, starts to decrease. When they find the derelict begins to get out of sight, Spinelli suspects them of betraying and attacks the captain, while the captain senses the danger of the decreasing message and fights back. The captain kills Mister Spinelli. As the captain examines his hand’s condition, he realizes something goes wrong. The captain controls the Maid to catch up with the derelict, attempting to shoot it but fails. He wears the pressure suit and goes to the derelict, finding the prize crew aged and caress the metal. He realizes that the energy the metal draws comes from organic life, which in this situation is humans. He runs to the Maid, throws away any alien metals, and flees. And now, he lives on the spacemen’s pension, old and weary when he should be young and strong.",
"The captain of the Martian Maid starts off describing gold and the greatness of the treasure. He begins to mention how old he is, and he is also poor because he would not be here otherwise. The man goes further on to describe how people of his generation did not let anything go because they were entitled to keep whatever they found. He begins talking about how he is the skipper of the Martian Maid, and the rest of the crew ride a golden ship that they paid for with their lives. He begins to talk about the experience not too long ago, how none of the crew would have known that this was their last flight. He thinks about the sweet payload they would pick up in Callisto from delivering all of the cargo. The captain also mentions how dangerous the asteroid belt was for astrogation at the time. The story then cuts to Spinelli reporting a derelict to the rest of the crew. Once they are near the collision, an abandoned spacer is found. However, even though they have claim over the ship, the captain’s calculations show that it came from beyond the stars. Everybody becomes excited at the prospect of money; the derelict is much bigger than anything the Foundation Yards have ever built. It is also damaged too, as there is a gash from the stem to the stern with a jagged rip in its bare mangled innards. Some of the men are sent to go explore the ship, but they come back disappointed that there is nothing worthy left inside. The ship itself was never built to carry humans, but the crew still decides to take her along. When the captain puts the metal through the metallurgical testing kit, however, he discovers that it is gold. Spinelli tells him that the derelict is ready, but the captain makes him stay on the Maid with him. A few other members of the crew seem to be planning something, and the captain wonders if there is a chance that they will take off with the treasure ship. Spinelli reveals later that he did tell Zaleski about the gold, but they receive a message about losing control on the ship. Spinelli leaps at the captain, and the two of them fight. When the captain realizes that Spinelli is dead, he suddenly looks at his arms and sees how old he has become. He goes to the gold ship and sees the rest of the crew as almost skeletal beings. Realizing that the gold draws energy from them, he discards all of it and speeds away in the Maid. He is relieved of his duty on Callisto, and the Foundation refuses him another ship. The captain is thirty-two, but he looks eighty and is stuck on a hospital cot. The bitterest part is people laugh and call him Captain Midas when he tells this story. "
] |
63867
|
CAPTAIN MIDAS
By ALFRED COPPEL, JR.
The captain of the Martian Maid stared avidly at the torn derelict floating against the velvet void. Here was treasure beyond his wildest dreams! How could he know his dreams should have been nightmares?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1949. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Gold! A magic word, even today, isn't it? Lust and gold ... they go hand in hand. Like the horsemen of the Apocalypse. And, of course, there's another word needed to make up the trilogy. You don't get any thing for nothing. So add this: Cost. Or you might call it pain, sorrow, agony. Call it what you like. It's what you pay for great treasure....
These things were true when fabled Jason sailed the Argo beyond Colchis seeking the Fleece. They were true when men sailed the southern oceans in wooden ships. And the conquest of space hasn't changed us a bit. We're still a greedy lot....
I'm a queer one to be saying these things, but then, who has more right? Look at me. My hair is gray and my face ... my face is a mask. The flesh hangs on my bones like a yellow cloth on a rickety frame. I am old, old. And I wait here on my hospital cot—wait for the weight of years I never lived to drag me under and let me forget the awful things my eyes have seen.
I'm poor, too, or else I wouldn't be here in this place of dying for old spacemen. I haven't a dime except for the pittance the Holcomb Foundation calls a spaceman's pension. Yet I had millions in my hands. Treasure beyond your wildest dreams! Cursed treasure....
You smile. You are thinking that I'm just an old man, beached earthside, spinning tall tales to impress the youngsters. Maybe, thinking about the kind of spacemen my generation produced, you have the idea that if ever we'd so much as laid a hand on anything of value out in space we'd not let go until Hell froze over! Well, you're right about that. We didn't seek the spaceways for the advancement of civilization or any of that Foundation bushwah, you can be certain of that. We did it for us ... for Number One. That's the kind of men we were, and we were proud of it. We hung onto what we found because the risks were high and we were entitled to keep what we could out there. But there are strange things in the sky. Things that don't respond to all of our neat little Laws and Theories. There are things that are no part of the world of men, thick with danger—and horror.
If you doubt that—and I can see you do—just look at me. I suppose you've never heard of the Martian Maid, and so you don't know the story of what happened to her crew or her skipper. I can give you this much of an answer. I was her skipper. And her crew? They ride high in the sky ... dust by this time. And all because they were men, and men are greedy and hasty and full of an unreasoning, unthinking love for gold. They ride a golden ship that they paid for with all the years of their lives. It's all theirs now. Bought and paid for.
It wasn't too long ago that I lifted the Maid off Solis Lacus on that last flight. Not many of you will remember her class of ship, so many advances have been made in the last few years. The Maid was two hundred feet from tip to tail, and as sleek a spacer as ever came out of the Foundation Yards. Chemical fueled, she was nothing at all like the spherical hyperdrives we see today. She was armed, too. The Foundation still thought of space as a possible stamping ground for alien creatures though no evidence of any extra-terrestrial life had ever been found ... then.
My crew was a rough bunch, like all those early crews. I remember them so well. Lean, hungry men with hell in their eyes and a great lust for high pay and hard living. Spinelli, Shelley, Cohn, Marvin, Zaleski. There wasn't a man on board who wouldn't have traded his immortal soul for a few solar dollars, and I don't claim that I was any different. That's the kind of men that opened up the spaceways, too. Don't believe all this talk about the noble pioneering spirit of man. That's tripe. There never has been such a thing as a noble pioneer. Not in space or anywhere else. It is the malcontent and the adventuring mercenary that pushes the frontier outward.
I didn't know, that night as I stood in the valve of the Maid, watching the loading cranes pull away, that I was starting out on my last flight. I don't think any of the others could have guessed, either. It was the sort of night that you only see on Mars. The sort of night that makes a spaceman wonder why in hell he wants to leave the relative security of the Earth-Mars-Venus Triangle to go jetting across the belt into deep space and the drab desolation of the outer System.
I stood there, watching the lights of Canalopolis in the distance. For just a moment I was ... well, touched. It looked beautiful and unreal under the racing moons. The lights of the gin mills and houses made a sparkling filigree pattern on the dark waters of the ancient canal, and the moons cast their shifting shadows across the silted banks. I was too far away to see the space-fevered bums and smell the shanties, and for a little while I felt the wonder of standing on the soil of a world that man had made his own with his rapacity and his sheer guts and gimme.
I thought of our half empty cargo hold and the sweet payload we would pick up on Callisto. And I counted the extra cash my packets of snow would bring from those lonely men up there on the barren moonlets of the outer Systems. There were plenty of cargoes carried on the Maid that the Holcomb Foundation snoopers never heard about, you can be sure of that.
In those days the asteroid belt was the primary danger and menace to astrogation. For a long while it held men back from deep space, but as fuels improved a few ships were sent out over the top. A few million miles up out of the ecliptic plane brings you to a region of space that's pretty thinly strewn with asteroids, and that's the way we used to make the flight between the outer systems and the EMV Triangle. It took a long while for hyperdrives to be developed and of course atomics never panned out because of the weight problem.
So that's the orbit the Maid took on that last trip of mine. High and clear into the supra-solar void. And out there in that primeval blackness is where we found the derelict.
I didn't realize it was a derelict when Spinelli first reported it from the forward scope position. I assumed it was a Foundation ship. The Holcomb Foundation was founded for the purpose of developing spaceflight, and as the years went by it took on the whole responsibility for the building and dispatching of space ships. Never in history had there been any real evidence of extra-terrestrial intelligent life, and when the EMV Triangle proved barren, we all just assumed that the Universe was man's own particular oyster. That kind of unreasoning arrogance is as hard to explain as it is to correct.
There were plenty of ships being lost in space, and immediately that Spinelli's report from up forward got noised about the Maid every one of us started mentally counting up his share of the salvage money. All this before we were within ten thousand miles of the hulk!
All spaceships look pretty much alike, but as I sat at the telescope I saw that there was something different about this one. At such a distance I couldn't get too much detail in our small three inch glass, but I could see that the hulk was big—bigger than any ship I'd ever seen before. I had the radar fixed on her and then I retired with my slide rule to Control. It wasn't long before I discovered that the derelict ship was on a near collision course, but there was something about its orbit that was strange. I called Cohn, the Metering Officer, and showed him my figures.
"Mister Cohn," I said, chart in hand, "do these figures look right to you?"
Cohn's dark eyes lit up as they always did when he worked with figures. It didn't take him long to check me. "The math is quite correct, Captain," he said. I could see that he hadn't missed the inference of those figures on the chart.
"Assemble the ship's company, Mister Cohn," I ordered.
The assembly horn sounded throughout the Maid and I could feel the tug of the automatics taking over as the crew left their stations. Soon they were assembled in Control.
"You have all heard about Mister Spinelli's find," I said, "I have computed the orbit and inspected the object through the glass. It seems to be a spacer ... either abandoned or in distress...." Reaching into the book rack above my desk I took down a copy of the Foundation's Space Regulations and opened it to the section concerning salvage.
"Sections XVIII, Paragraph 8 of the Code Regulating Interplanetary Astrogation and Commerce," I read, "Any vessel or part of vessel found in an abandoned or totally disabled condition in any region of space not subject to the sovereignty of any planet of the Earth-Venus-Mars Triangle shall be considered to be the property of the crew of the vessel locating said abandoned or disabled vessel except in such cases as the ownership of said abandoned or disabled vessel may be readily ascertained...." I looked up and closed the book. "Simply stated, that means that if that thing ahead of us is a derelict we are entitled to claim it as salvage."
"Unless it already belongs to someone?" asked Spinelli.
"That's correct Mister Spinelli, but I don't think there is much danger of that," I replied quietly. "My figures show that hulk out there came in from the direction of Coma Berenices...."
There was a long silence before Zaleski shifted his two hundred pounds uneasily and gave a form to the muted fear inside me. "You think ... you think it came from the stars , Captain?"
"Maybe even from beyond the stars," Cohn said in a low voice.
Looking at that circle of faces I saw the beginnings of greed. The first impact of the Metering Officer's words wore off quickly and soon every man of my crew was thinking that anything from the stars would be worth money ... lots of money.
Spinelli said, "Do we look her over, Captain?"
They all looked at me, waiting for my answer. I knew it would be worth plenty, and money hunger was like a fever inside me.
"Certainly we look it over, Mister Spinelli," I said sharply.
"Certainly!"
The first thing about the derelict that struck us as we drew near was her size. No ship ever built in the Foundation Yards had ever attained such gargantuan proportions. She must have stretched a full thousand feet from bow to stern, a sleek torpedo shape of somehow unspeakable alienness. Against the backdrop of the Milky Way, she gleamed fitfully in the light of the faraway sun, the metal of her flanks grained with something like tiny, glittering whorls. It was as though the stuff were somehow unstable ... seeking balance ... maybe even alive in some strange and alien way.
It was readily apparent to all of us that she had never been built for inter-planetary flight. She was a starship. Origin unknown. An aura of mystery surrounded her like a shroud, protecting the world that gave her birth mutely but effectively. The distance she must have come was unthinkable. And the time it had taken...? Aeons. Millennia. For she was drifting, dead in space, slowly spinning end over end as she swung about Sol in a hyperbolic orbit that would soon take her out and away again into the inter-stellar deeps.
Something had wounded her ... perhaps ten million years ago ... perhaps yesterday. She was gashed deeply from stem to stern with a jagged rip that bared her mangled innards. A wandering asteroid? A meteor? We would never know. It gave me an uncomfortable feeling of things beyond the ken of men as I looked at her through the port. I would never know what killed her, or where she was going, or whence she came. Yet she was mine. It made me feel like an upstart. And it made me afraid ... but of what?
We should have reported her to the nearest EMV base, but that would have meant that we'd lose her. Scientists would be sent out. Men better equipped than we to investigate the first extrasolar artifact found by men. But I didn't report her. She was ours. She was money in the bank. Let the scientists take over after we'd put a prize crew aboard and brought her into Callisto for salvage.... That's the way I had things figured.
The Maid hove to about a hundred yards from her and hung there, dwarfed by the mighty glistening ship. I called for volunteers and we prepared a boarding party. I was thinking that her drives alone would be worth millions. Cohn took charge and he and three of the men suited up and crossed to her.
In an hour they were back, disappointment largely written on their faces.
"There's nothing left of her, Captain," Cohn reported, "Whatever hit her tore up the innards so badly we couldn't even find the drives. She's a mess inside. Nothing left but the hull and a few storage compartments that are still unbroken."
She was never built to carry humanoids he told us, and there was nothing that could give us a hint of where she had come from. The hull alone was left.
He dropped two chunks of metal on my desk. "I brought back some samples of her pressure hull," he said, "The whole thing is made of this stuff...."
"We'll still take her in," I said, hiding my disappointment. "The carcass will be worth money in Callisto. Have Mister Marvin and Zaleski assemble a spare pulse-jet. We'll jury-rig her and bring her down under her own power. You take charge of provisioning her. Check those compartments you found and install oxy-generators aboard. When it's done report to me in my quarters."
I picked up the two samples of gleaming metal and called for a metallurgical testing kit. "I'm going to try and find out if this stuff is worth anything...."
The metal was heavy—too heavy, it seemed to me, for spaceship construction. But then, who was to say what conditions existed on that distant world where this metal was made?
Under the bright fluorescent over my work-table, the chunks of metal torn from a random bulkhead of the starship gleamed like pale silver; those strange little whorls that I had noticed on the outer hull were there too, like tiny magnetic lines of force, making the surface of the metal seem to dance. I held the stuff in my bare hand. It had a yellowish tinge, and it was heavier ....
Even as I watched, the metal grew yellower, and the hand that held it grew bone weary, little tongues of fatigue licking up my forearm. Suddenly terrified, I dropped the chunk as though it were white hot. It struck the table with a dull thud and lay there, a rich yellow lump of metallic lustre.
For a long while I just sat and stared. Then I began testing, trying all the while to quiet the trembling of my hands. I weighed it on a balance. I tested it with acids. It had changed unquestionably. It was no longer the same as when I had carried it into my quarters. The whorls of force were gone. It was no longer alive with a questing vibrancy ... it was inert, stable. From somewhere, somehow, it had drawn the energy necessary for transmutation. The unknown metal—the stuff of which that whole mammoth spaceship from the stars was built—was now....
Gold!
I scarcely dared believe it, but there it was staring at me from my table-top. Gold!
I searched my mind for an explanation. Contra-terrene matter, perhaps, from some distant island universe where matter reacted differently ... drawing energy from somewhere, the energy it needed to find stability in its new environment. Stability as a terrene element—wonderfully, miraculously gold!
And outside, in the void beyond the Maid's ports there were tons of this metal that could be turned into treasure. My laughter must have been a wild sound in those moments of discovery....
A slight sound behind me made me spin around in my chair. Framed in the doorway was the heavy figure of my Third Officer, Spinelli. His black eyes were fastened hungrily on the lump of yellow metal on the table. He needed no explanation to tell him what it was, and it seemed to me that his very soul reached out for the stuff, so sharp and clear was the meaning of the expression on his heavy face.
"Mister Spinelli!" I snapped, "In the future knock before entering my quarters!"
Reluctantly his eyes left the lump of gold and met mine. "From the derelict, Captain?" There was an imperceptible pause between the last two words.
I ignored his question and made a mental note to keep a close hand on the rein with him. Spinelli was big and dangerous.
"Speak your piece, Mister," I ordered sharply.
"Mister Cohn reports the derelict ready to take aboard the prize crew ... sir," he said slowly. "I'd like to volunteer for that detail."
I might have let him go under ordinary circumstances, for he was a first class spaceman and the handling of a jury-rigged hulk would need good men. But the gold-hunger I had seen in his eyes warned me to beware. I shook my head. "You will stay on board the Maid with me, Spinelli. Cohn and Zaleski will handle the starship."
Stark suspicion leaped into his eyes. I could see the wheels turning slowly in his mind. Somehow, he was thinking, I was planning to cheat him of his rightful share of the derelict treasure ship.
"We will say nothing to the rest of the crew about the gold, Mister Spinelli," I said deliberately, "Or you'll go to Callisto in irons. Is that clear?"
"Aye, sir," murmured Spinelli. The black expression had left his face and there was a faintly scornful smile playing about his mouth as he turned away. I began wondering then what he had in mind. It wasn't like him to let it go at that.
Suddenly I became conscious of being very tired. My mind wasn't functioning quite clearly. And my arm and hand ached painfully. I rubbed the fingers to get some life back into them, still wondering about Spinelli.
Spinelli talked. I saw him murmuring something to big Zaleski, and after that there was tension in the air. Distrust.
For a few moments I pondered the advisability of making good my threat to clap Spinelli into irons, but I decided against it. In the first place I couldn't prove he had told Zaleski about the gold and in the second place I needed Spinelli to help run the Maid.
I felt that the Third Officer and Zaleski were planning something, and I was just as sure that Spinelli was watching Zaleski to see to it that there was no double-cross.
I figured that I could handle the Third Officer alone so I assigned the rest, Marvin and Chelly, to accompany Cohn and Zaleski onto the hulk. That way Zaleski would be outnumbered if he tried to skip with the treasure ship. But, of course, I couldn't risk telling them that they were to be handling a vessel practically made of gold.
I was in agony. I didn't want to let anyone get out of my sight with that starship, and at the same time I couldn't leave the Maid. Finally I had to let Cohn take command of the prize crew, but not before I had set the radar finder on the Maid's prow squarely on the derelict.
Together, Spinelli and I watched the Maid's crew vanish into the maw of the alien ship and get her under way. There was a flicker of bluish fire from her jury-rigged tubes astern, and then she was vanishing in a great arc toward the bright gleam of Jupiter, far below us. The Maid followed under a steady one G of acceleration with most of her controls on automatic.
Boats of the Martian Maid's class, you may remember, carried a six inch supersonic projector abaft the astrogation turret. These were nasty weapons for use against organic life only. They would reduce a man to jelly at fifty thousand yards. Let it be said to my credit that it wasn't I who thought of hooking the gun into the radar finder and keeping it aimed dead at the derelict. That was Spinelli's insurance against Zaleski.
When I discovered it I felt the rage mount in me. He was willing to blast every one of his shipmates into pulp should the hulk vary from the orbit we'd laid out for her. He wasn't letting anything come between him and that mountain of gold.
Then I began thinking about it. Suppose now, just suppose, that Zaleski told the rest of the crew about the gold. It wouldn't be too hard for the derelict to break away from the Maid, and there were plenty of places in the EMV Triangle where a renegade crew with a thousand tons of gold would be welcomed with open arms and no questions asked. Suspicion began to eat at me. Could Zaleski and Cohn have dreamed up a little switch to keep the treasure ship for themselves? It hadn't seemed likely before, but now—
The gun-pointer remained as it was.
As the days passed and we reached turn-over with the hulk still well within visual range, I noticed a definite decrease in the number of messages from Cohn. The Aldis Lamps no longer blinked back at the Maid eight or ten times a day, and I began to really regret not having taken the time to equip the starship with UHF radio communicators.
Each night I slept with a hunk of yellow gold under my bunk, and ridiculously I fondled the stuff and dreamed of all the things I would have when the starship was cut up and sold.
My weariness grew. It became almost chronic, and I soon wondered if I hadn't picked up a touch of space-radiation fever. The flesh of my hands seemed paler than it had been. My arms felt heavy. I determined to report myself to the Foundation medics on Callisto. There's no telling what can happen to a man in space....
Two days past turn-over the messages from the derelict came through garbled. Spinelli cursed and said that he couldn't read their signal. Taking the Aldis from him I tried to raise them and failed. Two hours later I was still failing and Spinelli's black eyes glittered with an animal suspicion.
"They're faking!"
"Like hell they are!" I snapped irritably, "Something's gone wrong...."
"Zaleski's gone wrong, that's what!"
I turned to face him, fury snapping inside of me. "Then you did disobey my orders. You told him about the gold!"
"Sure I did," he sneered. "Did you expect me to shut up and let you land the ship yourself and claim Captain's share? I found her, and she's mine!"
I fought to control my temper and said: "Let's see what's going on in her before deciding who gets what, Mister Spinelli."
Spinelli bit his thick lips and did not reply. His eyes were fixed on the image of the starship on the viewplate.
A light blinked erratically within the dark cut of its wounded side.
"Get this down, Spinelli!"
The habit of taking orders was still in him, and he muttered: "Aye ... sir."
The light was winking out a message, but feebly, as though the hand that held the lamp were shaking and the mind conceiving the words were failing.
"CONTROL ... LOST ... CAN'T ... NO ... STRENGTH ... LEFT ... SHIP ... WALLS ... ALL ... ALL GOLD ... GOLD ... SOMETHING ... HAPPENING ... CAN'T ... UNDERSTAND ... WHA...." The light stopped flashing, abruptly, in mid-word.
"What the hell?" demanded Spinelli thickly.
"Order them to heave to, Mister," I ordered.
He clicked the Aldis at them. The only response was a wild swerve in the star-ship's course. She left the orbit we had set for her as though the hands that guided her had fallen away from the control.
Spinelli dropped the Aldis and rushed to the control panel to make the corrections in the Maid's course that were needed to keep the hulk in sight.
"Those skunks! Double crossing rats!" he breathed furiously. "They won't shake loose that easy!" His hands started down for the firing console of the supersonic rifle.
I caught the movement from the corner of my eye.
" Spinelli! "
My shout hung in the still air of the control room as I knocked him away from the panel.
"Get to your quarters!" I cracked.
He didn't say a thing, but his big shoulders hunched angrily and he moved across the deck toward me, his hands opening and closing spasmodically. His eyes were wild with rage and avarice.
"You'll hang for mutiny, Spinelli!" I said.
He spat out a foul name and leaped for me. I side-stepped his charge and brought my joined fists down hard on the back of his neck. He stumbled against the bulkhead and his eyes were glazed. He charged again, roaring. I stepped aside and smashed him in the mouth with my right fist, then crossing with an open-handed left to the throat. He staggered, spun and came for me again. I sank a hard left into his stomach and nailed him on the point of the jaw with a right from my shoe-tops. He straightened up and sprawled heavily to the deck, still trying to get at me. I aimed a hard kick at his temple and let it go. My metal shod boot caught him squarely and he rolled over on his face and lay still.
I nailed him with a right from my shoe-tops.
Breathing heavily, I rolled him back face up. His eyes were open,
glassy with an implacable hate. I knelt at his side and listened for
his breathing. There was none. I knew then that I had killed him. I
felt sick inside, and dizzy.
I wasn't myself as I turned away from Spinelli's body there on the
steel deck. Some of the greed died out of me, and my exertions had
increased my sense of fatigue to an almost numbing weariness. My arms
ached terribly and my hands felt as though they had been sucked dry of
their substance. Like a man in a nightmare, I held them up before my
face and looked at them. They were wrinkled and grey, with the veins
standing out a sickly purple. And I could see that my arms were taking
on that same aged look.
I was suddenly fully aware of my fear. Nothing fought against the
flood of terror that welled through me. I was terrified of that yellow
gold in my cabin, and of that ship of devil's metal out there in space
that held my shipmates. There was something unnatural about that
contra-terrene thing ... something obscene.
I located the hulk in the radar finder and swung the Maid after it,
piling on acceleration until my vision flickered. We caught her, the
Maid and I. But we couldn't stop her short of using the rifle on her,
and I couldn't bring myself to add to my depravity by killing the rest
of my men. It would have been better if I had!
I laid the Maid alongside the thousand foot hull of the derelict and
set the controls on automatic. It was dangerous, but I was beyond
caring. Then I was struggling to get myself into a pressure suit with
my wrinkled, failing hands.... Then I was outside, headed for that dark
hole.
I sank down into the stillness of her interior, my helmet light casting
long, fey shadows across the littered decks. Decks that had a yellowish
cast ... decks that no longer danced with tiny questing force-whorls....
As I approached the airlock of the compartment set aside as living
quarters for the prize crew, the saffron of the walls deepened. Crazy
little thoughts began spinning around in my brain. Words out of the
distant past loomed up with a new and suddenly terrifying
perspective ... alchemy ... transmutation ... energy. I'm a spaceman,
not a scientist. But in those moments I think I was discovering what
had happened to my crew and why the walls were turning into yellow
metal.
The lock was closed, but I swung it open and let the pressure in the
chamber rise. I couldn't wait for it to reach fourteen pounds ...
at eleven, I swung the inner door and stumbled eagerly through. The
brilliant light, reflected from gleaming walls blinded me for a moment.
And then I saw them! They huddled, almost naked in a corner, skeletal
things with skull-like faces that leered at me with the vacuous
obscenity of old age. Even their voices were raw and cracked with the
rusty decay of years. They babbled stupidly, caressing the walls with
claw-like hands. They were old, old!
I understood then. I knew what my wrinkled aged hands meant. That
devil-metal from beyond the stars had drawn the energy it needed
from ... us !
My laughter was a crazy shriek inside my helmet. I looked wildly at the
gleaming walls that had sucked the youth and strength from these men.
The walls were stable, at rest. They were purest gold ... gold ... gold!
I ran from that place still screaming with the horror of it. My hands
burned like fire! Age was in them, creeping like molten lead through my
veins, ghastly and sure....
I reached the Maid and threw every scrap of that alien metal into space
as I streaked madly away from that golden terror in the sky and its
load of ancient evil....
On Callisto I was relieved of my command. The Admiralty Court acquitted
me of the charges of negligence, but the Foundation refused me another
ship. It was my ... illness. It spread from my hands, as you can see.
Slowly, very slowly. So what remains for me? A hospital cot and a
spaceman's pension. Those tons of gold in the sky are cursed, like most
great treasures. Somewhere, out in the deeps between the stars, the
dust of my crew guards that golden derelict. It belongs to them now ...
all of it.
But the price we pay for treasure is this. Look at me. I look eighty!
I'm thirty two. And the bitterest part of the story is that people
laugh at me when I tell what happened. They laugh and call me my
nickname. Have you heard it?
It's ... Captain Midas.
|
Who is Dimanche, and how is he used in the story?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Delay in Transit by F. L. (Floyd L.) Wallace.
Relevant chunks:
DELAY IN TRANSIT
By F. L. WALLACE
Illustrated by SIBLEY
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
An unprovoked, meaningless night attack is terrifying enough on your own home planet, worse on a world across the Galaxy. But the horror is the offer of help that cannot be accepted!
"Muscles tense," said Dimanche. "Neural index 1.76, unusually high. Adrenalin squirting through his system. In effect, he's stalking you. Intent: probably assault with a deadly weapon."
"Not interested," said Cassal firmly, his subvocalization inaudible to anyone but Dimanche. "I'm not the victim type. He was standing on the walkway near the brink of the thoroughfare. I'm going back to the habitat hotel and sit tight."
"First you have to get there," Dimanche pointed out. "I mean, is it safe for a stranger to walk through the city?"
"Now that you mention it, no," answered Cassal. He looked around apprehensively. "Where is he?"
"Behind you. At the moment he's pretending interest in a merchandise display."
A native stamped by, eyes brown and incurious. Apparently he was accustomed to the sight of an Earthman standing alone, Adam's apple bobbing up and down silently. It was a Godolphian axiom that all travelers were crazy.
Cassal looked up. Not an air taxi in sight; Godolph shut down at dusk. It would be pure luck if he found a taxi before morning. Of course he could walk back to the hotel, but was that such a good idea?
A Godolphian city was peculiar. And, though not intended, it was peculiarly suited to certain kinds of violence. A human pedestrian was at a definite disadvantage.
"Correction," said Dimanche. "Not simple assault. He has murder in mind."
"It still doesn't appeal to me," said Cassal. Striving to look unconcerned, he strolled toward the building side of the walkway and stared into the interior of a small cafe. Warm, bright and dry. Inside, he might find safety for a time.
Damn the man who was following him! It would be easy enough to elude him in a normal city. On Godolph, nothing was normal. In an hour the streets would be brightly lighted—for native eyes. A human would consider it dim.
"Why did he choose me?" asked Cassal plaintively. "There must be something he hopes to gain."
"I'm working on it," said Dimanche. "But remember, I have limitations. At short distances I can scan nervous systems, collect and interpret physiological data. I can't read minds. The best I can do is report what a person says or subvocalizes. If you're really interested in finding out why he wants to kill you, I suggest you turn the problem over to the godawful police."
"Godolph, not godawful," corrected Cassal absently.
That was advice he couldn't follow, good as it seemed. He could give the police no evidence save through Dimanche. There were various reasons, many of them involving the law, for leaving the device called Dimanche out of it. The police would act if they found a body. His own, say, floating face-down on some quiet street. That didn't seem the proper approach, either.
"Weapons?"
"The first thing I searched him for. Nothing very dangerous. A long knife, a hard striking object. Both concealed on his person."
Cassal strangled slightly. Dimanche needed a good stiff course in semantics. A knife was still the most silent of weapons. A man could die from it. His hand strayed toward his pocket. He had a measure of protection himself.
"Report," said Dimanche. "Not necessarily final. Based, perhaps, on tenuous evidence."
"Let's have it anyway."
"His motivation is connected somehow with your being marooned here. For some reason you can't get off this planet."
That was startling information, though not strictly true. A thousand star systems were waiting for him, and a ship to take him to each one.
Of course, the one ship he wanted hadn't come in. Godolph was a transfer point for stars nearer the center of the Galaxy. When he had left Earth, he had known he would have to wait a few days here. He hadn't expected a delay of nearly three weeks. Still, it wasn't unusual. Interstellar schedules over great distances were not as reliable as they might be.
Was this man, whoever and whatever he might be, connected with that delay? According to Dimanche, the man thought he was. He was self-deluded or did he have access to information that Cassal didn't?
Denton Cassal, sales engineer, paused for a mental survey of himself. He was a good engineer and, because he was exceptionally well matched to his instrument, the best salesman that Neuronics, Inc., had. On the basis of these qualifications, he had been selected to make a long journey, the first part of which already lay behind him. He had to go to Tunney 21 to see a man. That man wasn't important to anyone save the company that employed him, and possibly not even to them.
The thug trailing him wouldn't be interested in Cassal himself, his mission, which was a commercial one, nor the man on Tunney. And money wasn't the objective, if Dimanche's analysis was right. What did the thug want?
Secrets? Cassal had none, except, in a sense, Dimanche. And that was too well kept on Earth, where the instrument was invented and made, for anyone this far away to have learned about it.
And yet the thug wanted to kill him. Wanted to? Regarded him as good as dead. It might pay him to investigate the matter further, if it didn't involve too much risk.
"Better start moving." That was Dimanche. "He's getting suspicious."
Cassal went slowly along the narrow walkway that bordered each side of that boulevard, the transport tide. It was raining again. It usually was on Godolph, which was a weather-controlled planet where the natives like rain.
He adjusted the controls of the weak force field that repelled the rain. He widened the angle of the field until water slanted through it unhindered. He narrowed it around him until it approached visibility and the drops bounced away. He swore at the miserable climate and the near amphibians who created it.
A few hundred feet away, a Godolphian girl waded out of the transport tide and climbed to the walkway. It was this sort of thing that made life dangerous for a human—Venice revised, brought up to date in a faster-than-light age.
Water. It was a perfect engineering material. Simple, cheap, infinitely flexible. With a minimum of mechanism and at break-neck speed, the ribbon of the transport tide flowed at different levels throughout the city. The Godolphian merely plunged in and was carried swiftly and noiselessly to his destination. Whereas a human—Cassal shivered. If he were found drowned, it would be considered an accident. No investigation would be made. The thug who was trailing him had certainly picked the right place.
The Godolphian girl passed. She wore a sleek brown fur, her own. Cassal was almost positive she muttered a polite "Arf?" as she sloshed by. What she meant by that, he didn't know and didn't intend to find out.
"Follow her," instructed Dimanche. "We've got to investigate our man at closer range."
Obediently, Cassal turned and began walking after the girl. Attractive in an anthropomorphic, seal-like way, even from behind. Not graceful out of her element, though.
The would-be assassin was still looking at merchandise as Cassal retraced his steps. A man, or at least man type. A big fellow, physically quite capable of violence, if size had anything to do with it. The face, though, was out of character. Mild, almost meek. A scientist or scholar. It didn't fit with murder.
"Nothing," said Dimanche disgustedly. "His mind froze when we got close. I could feel his shoulderblades twitching as we passed. Anticipated guilt, of course. Projecting to you the action he plans. That makes the knife definite."
Well beyond the window at which the thug watched and waited, Cassal stopped. Shakily he produced a cigarette and fumbled for a lighter.
"Excellent thinking," commended Dimanche. "He won't attempt anything on this street. Too dangerous. Turn aside at the next deserted intersection and let him follow the glow of your cigarette."
The lighter flared in his hand. "That's one way of finding out," said Cassal. "But wouldn't I be a lot safer if I just concentrated on getting back to the hotel?"
"I'm curious. Turn here."
"Go to hell," said Cassal nervously. Nevertheless, when he came to that intersection, he turned there.
It was a Godolphian equivalent of an alley, narrow and dark, oily slow-moving water gurgling at one side, high cavernous walls looming on the other.
He would have to adjust the curiosity factor of Dimanche. It was all very well to be interested in the man who trailed him, but there was also the problem of coming out of this adventure alive. Dimanche, an electronic instrument, naturally wouldn't consider that.
"Easy," warned Dimanche. "He's at the entrance to the alley, walking fast. He's surprised and pleased that you took this route."
"I'm surprised, too," remarked Cassal. "But I wouldn't say I'm pleased. Not just now."
"Careful. Even subvocalized conversation is distracting." The mechanism concealed within his body was silent for an instant and then continued:
"His blood pressure is rising, breathing is faster. At a time like this, he may be ready to verbalize why he wants to murder you. This is critical."
"That's no lie," agreed Cassal bitterly. The lighter was in his hand. He clutched it grimly. It was difficult not to look back. The darkness assumed an even more sinister quality.
"Quiet," said Dimanche. "He's verbalizing about you."
"He's decided I'm a nice fellow after all. He's going to stop and ask me for a light."
"I don't think so," answered Dimanche. "He's whispering: 'Poor devil. I hate to do it. But it's really his life or mine'."
"He's more right than he knows. Why all this violence, though? Isn't there any clue?"
"None at all," admitted Dimanche. "He's very close. You'd better turn around."
Cassal turned, pressed the stud on the lighter. It should have made him feel more secure, but it didn't. He could see very little.
A dim shadow rushed at him. He jumped away from the water side of the alley, barely in time. He could feel the rush of air as the assailant shot by.
"Hey!" shouted Cassal.
Echoes answered; nothing else did. He had the uncomfortable feeling that no one was going to come to his assistance.
"He wasn't expecting that reaction," explained Dimanche. "That's why he missed. He's turned around and is coming back."
"I'm armed!" shouted Cassal.
"That won't stop him. He doesn't believe you."
Cassal grasped the lighter. That is, it had been a lighter a few seconds before. Now a needle-thin blade had snapped out and projected stiffly. Originally it had been designed as an emergency surgical instrument. A little imagination and a few changes had altered its function, converting it into a compact, efficient stiletto.
"Twenty feet away," advised Dimanche. "He knows you can't see him, but he can see your silhouette by the light from the main thoroughfare. What he doesn't know is that I can detect every move he makes and keep you posted below the level of his hearing."
"Stay on him," growled Cassal nervously. He flattened himself against the wall.
"To the right," whispered Dimanche. "Lunge forward. About five feet. Low."
Sickly, he did so. He didn't care to consider the possible effects of a miscalculation. In the darkness, how far was five feet? Fortunately, his estimate was correct. The rapier encountered yielding resistance, the soggy kind: flesh. The tough blade bent, but did not break. His opponent gasped and broke away.
"Attack!" howled Dimanche against the bone behind his ear. "You've got him. He can't imagine how you know where he is in the darkness. He's afraid."
Attack he did, slicing about wildly. Some of the thrusts landed; some didn't. The percentage was low, the total amount high. His opponent fell to the ground, gasped and was silent.
Cassal fumbled in his pockets and flipped on a light. The man lay near the water side of the alley. One leg was crumpled under him. He didn't move.
"Heartbeat slow," said Dimanche solemnly. "Breathing barely perceptible."
"Then he's not dead," said Cassal in relief.
Foam flecked from the still lips and ran down the chin. Blood oozed from cuts on the face.
"Respiration none, heartbeat absent," stated Dimanche.
Horrified, Cassal gazed at the body. Self-defense, of course, but would the police believe it? Assuming they did, they'd still have to investigate. The rapier was an illegal concealed weapon. And they would question him until they discovered Dimanche. Regrettable, but what could he do about it?
Suppose he were detained long enough to miss the ship bound for Tunney
21?
Grimly, he laid down the rapier. He might as well get to the bottom of this. Why had the man attacked? What did he want?
"I don't know," replied Dimanche irritably. "I can interpret body data—a live body. I can't work on a piece of meat."
Cassal searched the body thoroughly. Miscellaneous personal articles of no value in identifying the man. A clip with a startling amount of money in it. A small white card with something scribbled on it. A picture of a woman and a small child posed against a background which resembled no world Cassal had ever seen. That was all.
Cassal stood up in bewilderment. Dimanche to the contrary, there seemed to be no connection between this dead man and his own problem of getting to Tunney 21.
Right now, though, he had to dispose of the body. He glanced toward the boulevard. So far no one had been attracted by the violence.
He bent down to retrieve the lighter-rapier. Dimanche shouted at him. Before he could react, someone landed on him. He fell forward, vainly trying to grasp the weapon. Strong fingers felt for his throat as he was forced to the ground.
He threw the attacker off and staggered to his feet. He heard footsteps rushing away. A slight splash followed. Whoever it was, he was escaping by way of water.
Whoever it was. The man he had thought he had slain was no longer in sight.
"Interpret body data, do you?" muttered Cassal. "Liveliest dead man I've ever been strangled by."
"It's just possible there are some breeds of men who can control the basic functions of their body," said Dimanche defensively. "When I checked him, he had no heartbeat."
"Remind me not to accept your next evaluation so completely," grunted Cassal. Nevertheless, he was relieved, in a fashion. He hadn't wanted to kill the man. And now there was nothing he'd have to explain to the police.
He needed the cigarette he stuck between his lips. For the second time he attempted to pick up the rapier-lighter. This time he was successful. Smoke swirled into his lungs and quieted his nerves. He squeezed the weapon into the shape of a lighter and put it away.
Something, however, was missing—his wallet.
The thug had relieved him of it in the second round of the scuffle. Persistent fellow. Damned persistent.
It really didn't matter. He fingered the clip he had taken from the supposedly dead body. He had intended to turn it over to the police. Now he might as well keep it to reimburse him for his loss. It contained more money than his wallet had.
Except for the identification tab he always carried in his wallet, it was more than a fair exchange. The identification, a rectangular piece of plastic, was useful in establishing credit, but with the money he now had, he wouldn't need credit. If he did, he could always send for another tab.
A white card fluttered from the clip. He caught it as it fell. Curiously he examined it. Blank except for one crudely printed word, STAB. His unknown assailant certainly had tried.
The old man stared at the door, an obsolete visual projector wobbling precariously on his head. He closed his eyes and the lettering on the door disappeared. Cassal was too far away to see what it had been. The technician opened his eyes and concentrated. Slowly a new sign formed on the door.
TRAVELERS AID BUREAU Murra Foray, First Counselor
It was a drab sign, but, then, it was a dismal, backward planet. The old technician passed on to the next door and closed his eyes again.
With a sinking feeling, Cassal walked toward the entrance. He needed help and he had to find it in this dingy rathole.
Inside, though, it wasn't dingy and it wasn't a rathole. More like a maze, an approved scientific one. Efficient, though not comfortable. Travelers Aid was busier than he thought it would be. Eventually he managed to squeeze into one of the many small counseling rooms.
A woman appeared on the screen, crisp and cool. "Please answer everything the machine asks. When the tape is complete, I'll be available for consultation."
Cassal wasn't sure he was going to like her. "Is this necessary?" he asked. "It's merely a matter of information."
"We have certain regulations we abide by." The woman smiled frostily.
"I can't give you any information until you comply with them."
"Sometimes regulations are silly," said Cassal firmly. "Let me speak to the first counselor."
"You are speaking to her," she said. Her face disappeared from the screen.
Cassal sighed. So far he hadn't made a good impression.
Travelers Aid Bureau, in addition to regulations, was abundantly supplied with official curiosity. When the machine finished with him, Cassal had the feeling he could be recreated from the record it had of him. His individuality had been capsuled into a series of questions and answers. One thing he drew the line at—why he wanted to go to Tunney
21 was his own business.
The first counselor reappeared. Age, indeterminate. Not, he supposed, that anyone would be curious about it. Slightly taller than average, rather on the slender side. Face was broad at the brow, narrow at the chin and her eyes were enigmatic. A dangerous woman.
She glanced down at the data. "Denton Cassal, native of Earth. Destination, Tunney 21." She looked up at him. "Occupation, sales engineer. Isn't that an odd combination?" Her smile was quite superior.
"Not at all. Scientific training as an engineer. Special knowledge of customer relations."
"Special knowledge of a thousand races? How convenient." Her eyebrows arched.
"I think so," he agreed blandly. "Anything else you'd like to know?"
"Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."
He could believe that or not as he wished. He didn't.
"You refused to answer why you were going to Tunney 21. Perhaps I can guess. They're the best scientists in the Galaxy. You wish to study under them."
Close—but wrong on two counts. They were good scientists, though not necessarily the best. For instance, it was doubtful that they could build Dimanche, even if they had ever thought of it, which was even less likely.
There was, however, one relatively obscure research worker on Tunney 21 that Neuronics wanted on their staff. If the fragments of his studies that had reached Earth across the vast distance meant anything, he could help Neuronics perfect instantaneous radio. The company that could build a radio to span the reaches of the Galaxy with no time lag could set its own price, which could be control of all communications, transport, trade—a galactic monopoly. Cassal's share would be a cut of all that.
His part was simple, on the surface. He was to persuade that researcher to come to Earth, if he could . Literally, he had to guess the Tunnesian's price before the Tunnesian himself knew it. In addition, the reputation of Tunnesian scientists being exceeded only by their arrogance, Cassal had to convince him that he wouldn't be working for ignorant Earth savages. The existence of such an instrument as Dimanche was a key factor.
Her voice broke through his thoughts. "Now, then, what's your problem?"
"I was told on Earth I might have to wait a few days on Godolph. I've been here three weeks. I want information on the ship bound for Tunney
21."
"Just a moment." She glanced at something below the angle of the screen. She looked up and her eyes were grave. " Rickrock C arrived yesterday. Departed for Tunney early this morning."
"Departed?" He got up and sat down again, swallowing hard. "When will the next ship arrive?"
"Do you know how many stars there are in the Galaxy?" she asked.
He didn't answer.
"That's right," she said. "Billions. Tunney, according to the notation, is near the center of the Galaxy, inside the third ring. You've covered about a third of the distance to it. Local traffic, anything within a thousand light-years, is relatively easy to manage. At longer distances, you take a chance. You've had yours and missed it. Frankly, Cassal, I don't know when another ship bound for Tunney will show up on or near Godolph. Within the next five years—maybe."
He blanched. "How long would it take to get there using local transportation, star-hopping?"
"Take my advice: don't try it. Five years, if you're lucky."
"I don't need that kind of luck."
"I suppose not." She hesitated. "You're determined to go on?" At the emphatic nod, she sighed. "If that's your decision, we'll try to help you. To start things moving, we'll need a print of your identification tab."
"There's something funny about her," Dimanche decided. It was the usual speaking voice of the instrument, no louder than the noise the blood made in coursing through arteries and veins. Cassal could hear it plainly, because it was virtually inside his ear.
Cassal ignored his private voice. "Identification tab? I don't have it with me. In fact, I may have lost it."
She smiled in instant disbelief. "We're not trying to pry into any part of your past you may wish concealed. However, it's much easier for us to help you if you have your identification. Now if you can't remember your real name and where you put your identification—" She arose and left the screen. "Just a moment."
He glared uneasily at the spot where the first counselor wasn't. His real name!
"Relax," Dimanche suggested. "She didn't mean it as a personal insult."
Presently she returned.
"I have news for you, whoever you are."
"Cassal," he said firmly. "Denton Cassal, sales engineer, Earth. If you don't believe it, send back to—" He stopped. It had taken him four months to get to Godolph, non-stop, plus a six-month wait on Earth for a ship to show up that was bound in the right direction. Over distances such as these, it just wasn't practical to send back to Earth for anything.
"I see you understand." She glanced at the card in her hand. "The spaceport records indicate that when Rickrock C took off this morning, there was a Denton Cassal on board, bound for Tunney 21."
"It wasn't I," he said dazedly. He knew who it was, though. The man who had tried to kill him last night. The reason for the attack now became clear. The thug had wanted his identification tab. Worse, he had gotten it.
"No doubt it wasn't," she said wearily. "Outsiders don't seem to understand what galactic travel entails."
Outsiders? Evidently what she called those who lived beyond the second transfer ring. Were those who lived at the edge of the Galaxy, beyond the first ring, called Rimmers? Probably.
She was still speaking: "Ten years to cross the Galaxy, without stopping. At present, no ship is capable of that. Real scheduling is impossible. Populations shift and have to be supplied. A ship is taken off a run for repairs and is never put back on. It's more urgently needed elsewhere. The man who depended on it is left waiting; years pass before he learns it's never coming.
"If we had instantaneous radio, that would help. Confusion wouldn't vanish overnight, but it would diminish. We wouldn't have to depend on ships for all the news. Reservations could be made ahead of time, credit established, lost identification replaced—"
"I've traveled before," he interrupted stiffly. "I've never had any trouble."
She seemed to be exaggerating the difficulties. True, the center was more congested. Taking each star as the starting point for a limited number of ships and using statistical probability as a guide—why, no man would arrive at his predetermined destination.
But that wasn't the way it worked. Manifestly, you couldn't compare galactic transportation to the erratic paths of air molecules in a giant room. Or could you?
For the average man, anyone who didn't have his own inter-stellar ship, was the comparison too apt? It might be.
"You've traveled outside, where there are still free planets waiting to be settled. Where a man is welcome, if he's able to work." She paused.
"The center is different. Populations are excessive. Inside the third ring, no man is allowed off a ship without an identification tab. They don't encourage immigration."
In effect, that meant no ship bound for the center would take a passenger without identification. No ship owner would run the risk of having a permanent guest on board, someone who couldn't be rid of when his money was gone.
Cassal held his head in his hands. Tunney 21 was inside the third ring.
"Next time," she said, "don't let anyone take your identification."
"I won't," he promised grimly.
The woman looked directly at him. Her eyes were bright. He revised his estimate of her age drastically downward. She couldn't be as old as he. Nothing outward had happened, but she no longer seemed dowdy. Not that he was interested. Still, it might pay him to be friendly to the first counselor.
"We're a philanthropic agency," said Murra Foray. "Your case is special, though—"
"I understand," he said gruffly. "You accept contributions."
She nodded. "If the donor is able to give. We don't ask so much that you'll have to compromise your standard of living." But she named a sum that would force him to do just that if getting to Tunney 21 took any appreciable time.
He stared at her unhappily. "I suppose it's worth it. I can always work, if I have to."
"As a salesman?" she asked. "I'm afraid you'll find it difficult to do business with Godolphians."
Irony wasn't called for at a time like this, he thought reproachfully.
"Not just another salesman," he answered definitely. "I have special knowledge of customer reactions. I can tell exactly—"
He stopped abruptly. Was she baiting him? For what reason? The instrument he called Dimanche was not known to the Galaxy at large. From the business angle, it would be poor policy to hand out that information at random. Aside from that, he needed every advantage he could get. Dimanche was his special advantage.
"Anyway," he finished lamely, "I'm a first class engineer. I can always find something in that line."
"A scientist, maybe," murmured Murra Foray. "But in this part of the Milky Way, an engineer is regarded as merely a technician who hasn't yet gained practical experience." She shook her head. "You'll do better as a salesman."
He got up, glowering. "If that's all—"
"It is. We'll keep you informed. Drop your contribution in the slot provided for that purpose as you leave."
A door, which he hadn't noticed in entering the counselling cubicle, swung open. The agency was efficient.
"Remember," the counselor called out as he left, "identification is hard to work with. Don't accept a crude forgery."
He didn't answer, but it was an idea worth considering. The agency was also eminently practical.
The exit path guided him firmly to an inconspicuous and yet inescapable contribution station. He began to doubt the philanthropic aspect of the bureau.
"I've got it," said Dimanche as Cassal gloomily counted out the sum the first counselor had named.
"Got what?" asked Cassal. He rolled the currency into a neat bundle, attached his name, and dropped it into the chute.
"The woman, Murra Foray, the first counselor. She's a Huntner."
"What's a Huntner?"
"A sub-race of men on the other side of the Galaxy. She was vocalizing about her home planet when I managed to locate her."
"Any other information?"
"None. Electronic guards were sliding into place as soon as I reached her. I got out as fast as I could."
"I see." The significance of that, if any, escaped him. Nevertheless, it sounded depressing.
"What I want to know is," said Dimanche, "why such precautions as electronic guards? What does Travelers Aid have that's so secret?"
Cassal grunted and didn't answer. Dimanche could be annoyingly inquisitive at times.
Cassal had entered one side of a block-square building. He came out on the other side. The agency was larger than he had thought. The old man was staring at a door as Cassal came out. He had apparently changed every sign in the building. His work finished, the technician was removing the visual projector from his head as Cassal came up to him. He turned and peered.
"You stuck here, too?" he asked in the uneven voice of the aged.
"Stuck?" repeated Cassal. "I suppose you can call it that. I'm waiting for my ship." He frowned. He was the one who wanted to ask questions.
"Why all the redecoration? I thought Travelers Aid was an old agency. Why did you change so many signs? I could understand it if the agency were new."
The old man chuckled. "Re-organization. The previous first counselor resigned suddenly, in the middle of the night, they say. The new one didn't like the name of the agency, so she ordered it changed."
She would do just that, thought Cassal. "What about this Murra Foray?"
The old man winked mysteriously. He opened his mouth and then seemed overcome with senile fright. Hurriedly he shuffled away.
Cassal gazed after him, baffled. The old man was afraid for his job, afraid of the first counselor. Why he should be, Cassal didn't know. He shrugged and went on. The agency was now in motion in his behalf, but he didn't intend to depend on that alone.
Question:
Who is Dimanche, and how is he used in the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Dimanche is a device attached to Cassal's ear that is able to collect physiological data on a person, including nervous systems and physical reactions to stimuli. In addition, Dimanche is able to understand what people \"subvocalize\", or think to themselves in their subconscious. In the story, Dimanche's abilities are shown when he is able to read the thoughts of Cassal's attacker as well as his body's reactions to Cassal's movements, such as his heart rate and blood pressure. Dimanche's features also give Cassal an advantage in his work as a salesperson, as he is able to gauge people's thoughts, motives, and desires. Dimanche is a secret kept from the rest of the galaxy, and Cassal is hesitant to tell others about his abilities.",
"Dimanche is an electronic instrument that was invented on Earth. Cassal refers to Dimanche as a device. It is a secret instrument that very few know about. It has the ability to scan the nervous systems of individuals at short distances to collect and interpret data. He is used in the story to analyze the data that he collects from people nearby to complete a report of what a person says and thinks inside of their head. ",
"Dimanche is a device invented on Earth to help Cassal analyze people. Dimanche is first used to help Cassel notice a man that is stalking him, Dimanche gives his analysis and interpretations about that man, confirming his intention. Dimanche believes that there is some connection between the delay in the transit ship to Tunney 21 and the stalker. So Cassal decides to let the guy find him and see what he is trying to do. When the guy tries to hurt Cassal, Dimanche helps him to fight the man since Cassal cannot see the guy after dark. With Dimanche’s information, Cassal is able to stab the guy. Then he realizes that he has accidentally killed him after Dimanche found no heartbeat and he is not breathing. But neither Dimanche nor Cassal is aware of their ability to pretend to be dead. So before Cassal could react to Dimanche’s warning, he gets hit and his wallet is stolen by the guy. \n\nLater at the travelers aid bureau, we learn that Dimanche is quite crucial to bring the researcher back to Earth. Moreover, Dimanche thought there’s something weird about the Murra Foray, the first counselor of the travelers aid bureau, but he could not identify anything else before the electric guards slide into place. ",
"Dimanche is a device implanted next to the bone behind Denton Cassal’s ear which is able to detect various things about people in proximity to him. Among these things are heart rate, neural index, mental state, and motivation. An intelligent machine, Dimanche is also able to determine any concealed weapons, and can silently communicate with Cassal. Dimanche is an example of the advanced technology of Earth, and Cassal hopes to demonstrate it to a scientist on Tunney 21 to convince him to join Neuronics Inc., in developing instantaneous radio. \n\tCassal employs Dimanche’s capabilities several times throughout the story, often without giving explicit instructions. It is first employed in assessing the mental states and likely motivations of Cassal’s assailant. Dimanche is able to locate the assailant when Cassal’s eyes, in virtue of the poor lighting, could not, and is able to communicate his location to Cassal. Later, Dimanche is used in the Traveler’s Aid Bureau to gather information about Murra Fora, but, as it reaches her, electronic guards prevent it from gathering any information other than her planet of origin. \n"
] |
50998
|
DELAY IN TRANSIT
By F. L. WALLACE
Illustrated by SIBLEY
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
An unprovoked, meaningless night attack is terrifying enough on your own home planet, worse on a world across the Galaxy. But the horror is the offer of help that cannot be accepted!
"Muscles tense," said Dimanche. "Neural index 1.76, unusually high. Adrenalin squirting through his system. In effect, he's stalking you. Intent: probably assault with a deadly weapon."
"Not interested," said Cassal firmly, his subvocalization inaudible to anyone but Dimanche. "I'm not the victim type. He was standing on the walkway near the brink of the thoroughfare. I'm going back to the habitat hotel and sit tight."
"First you have to get there," Dimanche pointed out. "I mean, is it safe for a stranger to walk through the city?"
"Now that you mention it, no," answered Cassal. He looked around apprehensively. "Where is he?"
"Behind you. At the moment he's pretending interest in a merchandise display."
A native stamped by, eyes brown and incurious. Apparently he was accustomed to the sight of an Earthman standing alone, Adam's apple bobbing up and down silently. It was a Godolphian axiom that all travelers were crazy.
Cassal looked up. Not an air taxi in sight; Godolph shut down at dusk. It would be pure luck if he found a taxi before morning. Of course he could walk back to the hotel, but was that such a good idea?
A Godolphian city was peculiar. And, though not intended, it was peculiarly suited to certain kinds of violence. A human pedestrian was at a definite disadvantage.
"Correction," said Dimanche. "Not simple assault. He has murder in mind."
"It still doesn't appeal to me," said Cassal. Striving to look unconcerned, he strolled toward the building side of the walkway and stared into the interior of a small cafe. Warm, bright and dry. Inside, he might find safety for a time.
Damn the man who was following him! It would be easy enough to elude him in a normal city. On Godolph, nothing was normal. In an hour the streets would be brightly lighted—for native eyes. A human would consider it dim.
"Why did he choose me?" asked Cassal plaintively. "There must be something he hopes to gain."
"I'm working on it," said Dimanche. "But remember, I have limitations. At short distances I can scan nervous systems, collect and interpret physiological data. I can't read minds. The best I can do is report what a person says or subvocalizes. If you're really interested in finding out why he wants to kill you, I suggest you turn the problem over to the godawful police."
"Godolph, not godawful," corrected Cassal absently.
That was advice he couldn't follow, good as it seemed. He could give the police no evidence save through Dimanche. There were various reasons, many of them involving the law, for leaving the device called Dimanche out of it. The police would act if they found a body. His own, say, floating face-down on some quiet street. That didn't seem the proper approach, either.
"Weapons?"
"The first thing I searched him for. Nothing very dangerous. A long knife, a hard striking object. Both concealed on his person."
Cassal strangled slightly. Dimanche needed a good stiff course in semantics. A knife was still the most silent of weapons. A man could die from it. His hand strayed toward his pocket. He had a measure of protection himself.
"Report," said Dimanche. "Not necessarily final. Based, perhaps, on tenuous evidence."
"Let's have it anyway."
"His motivation is connected somehow with your being marooned here. For some reason you can't get off this planet."
That was startling information, though not strictly true. A thousand star systems were waiting for him, and a ship to take him to each one.
Of course, the one ship he wanted hadn't come in. Godolph was a transfer point for stars nearer the center of the Galaxy. When he had left Earth, he had known he would have to wait a few days here. He hadn't expected a delay of nearly three weeks. Still, it wasn't unusual. Interstellar schedules over great distances were not as reliable as they might be.
Was this man, whoever and whatever he might be, connected with that delay? According to Dimanche, the man thought he was. He was self-deluded or did he have access to information that Cassal didn't?
Denton Cassal, sales engineer, paused for a mental survey of himself. He was a good engineer and, because he was exceptionally well matched to his instrument, the best salesman that Neuronics, Inc., had. On the basis of these qualifications, he had been selected to make a long journey, the first part of which already lay behind him. He had to go to Tunney 21 to see a man. That man wasn't important to anyone save the company that employed him, and possibly not even to them.
The thug trailing him wouldn't be interested in Cassal himself, his mission, which was a commercial one, nor the man on Tunney. And money wasn't the objective, if Dimanche's analysis was right. What did the thug want?
Secrets? Cassal had none, except, in a sense, Dimanche. And that was too well kept on Earth, where the instrument was invented and made, for anyone this far away to have learned about it.
And yet the thug wanted to kill him. Wanted to? Regarded him as good as dead. It might pay him to investigate the matter further, if it didn't involve too much risk.
"Better start moving." That was Dimanche. "He's getting suspicious."
Cassal went slowly along the narrow walkway that bordered each side of that boulevard, the transport tide. It was raining again. It usually was on Godolph, which was a weather-controlled planet where the natives like rain.
He adjusted the controls of the weak force field that repelled the rain. He widened the angle of the field until water slanted through it unhindered. He narrowed it around him until it approached visibility and the drops bounced away. He swore at the miserable climate and the near amphibians who created it.
A few hundred feet away, a Godolphian girl waded out of the transport tide and climbed to the walkway. It was this sort of thing that made life dangerous for a human—Venice revised, brought up to date in a faster-than-light age.
Water. It was a perfect engineering material. Simple, cheap, infinitely flexible. With a minimum of mechanism and at break-neck speed, the ribbon of the transport tide flowed at different levels throughout the city. The Godolphian merely plunged in and was carried swiftly and noiselessly to his destination. Whereas a human—Cassal shivered. If he were found drowned, it would be considered an accident. No investigation would be made. The thug who was trailing him had certainly picked the right place.
The Godolphian girl passed. She wore a sleek brown fur, her own. Cassal was almost positive she muttered a polite "Arf?" as she sloshed by. What she meant by that, he didn't know and didn't intend to find out.
"Follow her," instructed Dimanche. "We've got to investigate our man at closer range."
Obediently, Cassal turned and began walking after the girl. Attractive in an anthropomorphic, seal-like way, even from behind. Not graceful out of her element, though.
The would-be assassin was still looking at merchandise as Cassal retraced his steps. A man, or at least man type. A big fellow, physically quite capable of violence, if size had anything to do with it. The face, though, was out of character. Mild, almost meek. A scientist or scholar. It didn't fit with murder.
"Nothing," said Dimanche disgustedly. "His mind froze when we got close. I could feel his shoulderblades twitching as we passed. Anticipated guilt, of course. Projecting to you the action he plans. That makes the knife definite."
Well beyond the window at which the thug watched and waited, Cassal stopped. Shakily he produced a cigarette and fumbled for a lighter.
"Excellent thinking," commended Dimanche. "He won't attempt anything on this street. Too dangerous. Turn aside at the next deserted intersection and let him follow the glow of your cigarette."
The lighter flared in his hand. "That's one way of finding out," said Cassal. "But wouldn't I be a lot safer if I just concentrated on getting back to the hotel?"
"I'm curious. Turn here."
"Go to hell," said Cassal nervously. Nevertheless, when he came to that intersection, he turned there.
It was a Godolphian equivalent of an alley, narrow and dark, oily slow-moving water gurgling at one side, high cavernous walls looming on the other.
He would have to adjust the curiosity factor of Dimanche. It was all very well to be interested in the man who trailed him, but there was also the problem of coming out of this adventure alive. Dimanche, an electronic instrument, naturally wouldn't consider that.
"Easy," warned Dimanche. "He's at the entrance to the alley, walking fast. He's surprised and pleased that you took this route."
"I'm surprised, too," remarked Cassal. "But I wouldn't say I'm pleased. Not just now."
"Careful. Even subvocalized conversation is distracting." The mechanism concealed within his body was silent for an instant and then continued:
"His blood pressure is rising, breathing is faster. At a time like this, he may be ready to verbalize why he wants to murder you. This is critical."
"That's no lie," agreed Cassal bitterly. The lighter was in his hand. He clutched it grimly. It was difficult not to look back. The darkness assumed an even more sinister quality.
"Quiet," said Dimanche. "He's verbalizing about you."
"He's decided I'm a nice fellow after all. He's going to stop and ask me for a light."
"I don't think so," answered Dimanche. "He's whispering: 'Poor devil. I hate to do it. But it's really his life or mine'."
"He's more right than he knows. Why all this violence, though? Isn't there any clue?"
"None at all," admitted Dimanche. "He's very close. You'd better turn around."
Cassal turned, pressed the stud on the lighter. It should have made him feel more secure, but it didn't. He could see very little.
A dim shadow rushed at him. He jumped away from the water side of the alley, barely in time. He could feel the rush of air as the assailant shot by.
"Hey!" shouted Cassal.
Echoes answered; nothing else did. He had the uncomfortable feeling that no one was going to come to his assistance.
"He wasn't expecting that reaction," explained Dimanche. "That's why he missed. He's turned around and is coming back."
"I'm armed!" shouted Cassal.
"That won't stop him. He doesn't believe you."
Cassal grasped the lighter. That is, it had been a lighter a few seconds before. Now a needle-thin blade had snapped out and projected stiffly. Originally it had been designed as an emergency surgical instrument. A little imagination and a few changes had altered its function, converting it into a compact, efficient stiletto.
"Twenty feet away," advised Dimanche. "He knows you can't see him, but he can see your silhouette by the light from the main thoroughfare. What he doesn't know is that I can detect every move he makes and keep you posted below the level of his hearing."
"Stay on him," growled Cassal nervously. He flattened himself against the wall.
"To the right," whispered Dimanche. "Lunge forward. About five feet. Low."
Sickly, he did so. He didn't care to consider the possible effects of a miscalculation. In the darkness, how far was five feet? Fortunately, his estimate was correct. The rapier encountered yielding resistance, the soggy kind: flesh. The tough blade bent, but did not break. His opponent gasped and broke away.
"Attack!" howled Dimanche against the bone behind his ear. "You've got him. He can't imagine how you know where he is in the darkness. He's afraid."
Attack he did, slicing about wildly. Some of the thrusts landed; some didn't. The percentage was low, the total amount high. His opponent fell to the ground, gasped and was silent.
Cassal fumbled in his pockets and flipped on a light. The man lay near the water side of the alley. One leg was crumpled under him. He didn't move.
"Heartbeat slow," said Dimanche solemnly. "Breathing barely perceptible."
"Then he's not dead," said Cassal in relief.
Foam flecked from the still lips and ran down the chin. Blood oozed from cuts on the face.
"Respiration none, heartbeat absent," stated Dimanche.
Horrified, Cassal gazed at the body. Self-defense, of course, but would the police believe it? Assuming they did, they'd still have to investigate. The rapier was an illegal concealed weapon. And they would question him until they discovered Dimanche. Regrettable, but what could he do about it?
Suppose he were detained long enough to miss the ship bound for Tunney
21?
Grimly, he laid down the rapier. He might as well get to the bottom of this. Why had the man attacked? What did he want?
"I don't know," replied Dimanche irritably. "I can interpret body data—a live body. I can't work on a piece of meat."
Cassal searched the body thoroughly. Miscellaneous personal articles of no value in identifying the man. A clip with a startling amount of money in it. A small white card with something scribbled on it. A picture of a woman and a small child posed against a background which resembled no world Cassal had ever seen. That was all.
Cassal stood up in bewilderment. Dimanche to the contrary, there seemed to be no connection between this dead man and his own problem of getting to Tunney 21.
Right now, though, he had to dispose of the body. He glanced toward the boulevard. So far no one had been attracted by the violence.
He bent down to retrieve the lighter-rapier. Dimanche shouted at him. Before he could react, someone landed on him. He fell forward, vainly trying to grasp the weapon. Strong fingers felt for his throat as he was forced to the ground.
He threw the attacker off and staggered to his feet. He heard footsteps rushing away. A slight splash followed. Whoever it was, he was escaping by way of water.
Whoever it was. The man he had thought he had slain was no longer in sight.
"Interpret body data, do you?" muttered Cassal. "Liveliest dead man I've ever been strangled by."
"It's just possible there are some breeds of men who can control the basic functions of their body," said Dimanche defensively. "When I checked him, he had no heartbeat."
"Remind me not to accept your next evaluation so completely," grunted Cassal. Nevertheless, he was relieved, in a fashion. He hadn't wanted to kill the man. And now there was nothing he'd have to explain to the police.
He needed the cigarette he stuck between his lips. For the second time he attempted to pick up the rapier-lighter. This time he was successful. Smoke swirled into his lungs and quieted his nerves. He squeezed the weapon into the shape of a lighter and put it away.
Something, however, was missing—his wallet.
The thug had relieved him of it in the second round of the scuffle. Persistent fellow. Damned persistent.
It really didn't matter. He fingered the clip he had taken from the supposedly dead body. He had intended to turn it over to the police. Now he might as well keep it to reimburse him for his loss. It contained more money than his wallet had.
Except for the identification tab he always carried in his wallet, it was more than a fair exchange. The identification, a rectangular piece of plastic, was useful in establishing credit, but with the money he now had, he wouldn't need credit. If he did, he could always send for another tab.
A white card fluttered from the clip. He caught it as it fell. Curiously he examined it. Blank except for one crudely printed word, STAB. His unknown assailant certainly had tried.
The old man stared at the door, an obsolete visual projector wobbling precariously on his head. He closed his eyes and the lettering on the door disappeared. Cassal was too far away to see what it had been. The technician opened his eyes and concentrated. Slowly a new sign formed on the door.
TRAVELERS AID BUREAU Murra Foray, First Counselor
It was a drab sign, but, then, it was a dismal, backward planet. The old technician passed on to the next door and closed his eyes again.
With a sinking feeling, Cassal walked toward the entrance. He needed help and he had to find it in this dingy rathole.
Inside, though, it wasn't dingy and it wasn't a rathole. More like a maze, an approved scientific one. Efficient, though not comfortable. Travelers Aid was busier than he thought it would be. Eventually he managed to squeeze into one of the many small counseling rooms.
A woman appeared on the screen, crisp and cool. "Please answer everything the machine asks. When the tape is complete, I'll be available for consultation."
Cassal wasn't sure he was going to like her. "Is this necessary?" he asked. "It's merely a matter of information."
"We have certain regulations we abide by." The woman smiled frostily.
"I can't give you any information until you comply with them."
"Sometimes regulations are silly," said Cassal firmly. "Let me speak to the first counselor."
"You are speaking to her," she said. Her face disappeared from the screen.
Cassal sighed. So far he hadn't made a good impression.
Travelers Aid Bureau, in addition to regulations, was abundantly supplied with official curiosity. When the machine finished with him, Cassal had the feeling he could be recreated from the record it had of him. His individuality had been capsuled into a series of questions and answers. One thing he drew the line at—why he wanted to go to Tunney
21 was his own business.
The first counselor reappeared. Age, indeterminate. Not, he supposed, that anyone would be curious about it. Slightly taller than average, rather on the slender side. Face was broad at the brow, narrow at the chin and her eyes were enigmatic. A dangerous woman.
She glanced down at the data. "Denton Cassal, native of Earth. Destination, Tunney 21." She looked up at him. "Occupation, sales engineer. Isn't that an odd combination?" Her smile was quite superior.
"Not at all. Scientific training as an engineer. Special knowledge of customer relations."
"Special knowledge of a thousand races? How convenient." Her eyebrows arched.
"I think so," he agreed blandly. "Anything else you'd like to know?"
"Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."
He could believe that or not as he wished. He didn't.
"You refused to answer why you were going to Tunney 21. Perhaps I can guess. They're the best scientists in the Galaxy. You wish to study under them."
Close—but wrong on two counts. They were good scientists, though not necessarily the best. For instance, it was doubtful that they could build Dimanche, even if they had ever thought of it, which was even less likely.
There was, however, one relatively obscure research worker on Tunney 21 that Neuronics wanted on their staff. If the fragments of his studies that had reached Earth across the vast distance meant anything, he could help Neuronics perfect instantaneous radio. The company that could build a radio to span the reaches of the Galaxy with no time lag could set its own price, which could be control of all communications, transport, trade—a galactic monopoly. Cassal's share would be a cut of all that.
His part was simple, on the surface. He was to persuade that researcher to come to Earth, if he could . Literally, he had to guess the Tunnesian's price before the Tunnesian himself knew it. In addition, the reputation of Tunnesian scientists being exceeded only by their arrogance, Cassal had to convince him that he wouldn't be working for ignorant Earth savages. The existence of such an instrument as Dimanche was a key factor.
Her voice broke through his thoughts. "Now, then, what's your problem?"
"I was told on Earth I might have to wait a few days on Godolph. I've been here three weeks. I want information on the ship bound for Tunney
21."
"Just a moment." She glanced at something below the angle of the screen. She looked up and her eyes were grave. " Rickrock C arrived yesterday. Departed for Tunney early this morning."
"Departed?" He got up and sat down again, swallowing hard. "When will the next ship arrive?"
"Do you know how many stars there are in the Galaxy?" she asked.
He didn't answer.
"That's right," she said. "Billions. Tunney, according to the notation, is near the center of the Galaxy, inside the third ring. You've covered about a third of the distance to it. Local traffic, anything within a thousand light-years, is relatively easy to manage. At longer distances, you take a chance. You've had yours and missed it. Frankly, Cassal, I don't know when another ship bound for Tunney will show up on or near Godolph. Within the next five years—maybe."
He blanched. "How long would it take to get there using local transportation, star-hopping?"
"Take my advice: don't try it. Five years, if you're lucky."
"I don't need that kind of luck."
"I suppose not." She hesitated. "You're determined to go on?" At the emphatic nod, she sighed. "If that's your decision, we'll try to help you. To start things moving, we'll need a print of your identification tab."
"There's something funny about her," Dimanche decided. It was the usual speaking voice of the instrument, no louder than the noise the blood made in coursing through arteries and veins. Cassal could hear it plainly, because it was virtually inside his ear.
Cassal ignored his private voice. "Identification tab? I don't have it with me. In fact, I may have lost it."
She smiled in instant disbelief. "We're not trying to pry into any part of your past you may wish concealed. However, it's much easier for us to help you if you have your identification. Now if you can't remember your real name and where you put your identification—" She arose and left the screen. "Just a moment."
He glared uneasily at the spot where the first counselor wasn't. His real name!
"Relax," Dimanche suggested. "She didn't mean it as a personal insult."
Presently she returned.
"I have news for you, whoever you are."
"Cassal," he said firmly. "Denton Cassal, sales engineer, Earth. If you don't believe it, send back to—" He stopped. It had taken him four months to get to Godolph, non-stop, plus a six-month wait on Earth for a ship to show up that was bound in the right direction. Over distances such as these, it just wasn't practical to send back to Earth for anything.
"I see you understand." She glanced at the card in her hand. "The spaceport records indicate that when Rickrock C took off this morning, there was a Denton Cassal on board, bound for Tunney 21."
"It wasn't I," he said dazedly. He knew who it was, though. The man who had tried to kill him last night. The reason for the attack now became clear. The thug had wanted his identification tab. Worse, he had gotten it.
"No doubt it wasn't," she said wearily. "Outsiders don't seem to understand what galactic travel entails."
Outsiders? Evidently what she called those who lived beyond the second transfer ring. Were those who lived at the edge of the Galaxy, beyond the first ring, called Rimmers? Probably.
She was still speaking: "Ten years to cross the Galaxy, without stopping. At present, no ship is capable of that. Real scheduling is impossible. Populations shift and have to be supplied. A ship is taken off a run for repairs and is never put back on. It's more urgently needed elsewhere. The man who depended on it is left waiting; years pass before he learns it's never coming.
"If we had instantaneous radio, that would help. Confusion wouldn't vanish overnight, but it would diminish. We wouldn't have to depend on ships for all the news. Reservations could be made ahead of time, credit established, lost identification replaced—"
"I've traveled before," he interrupted stiffly. "I've never had any trouble."
She seemed to be exaggerating the difficulties. True, the center was more congested. Taking each star as the starting point for a limited number of ships and using statistical probability as a guide—why, no man would arrive at his predetermined destination.
But that wasn't the way it worked. Manifestly, you couldn't compare galactic transportation to the erratic paths of air molecules in a giant room. Or could you?
For the average man, anyone who didn't have his own inter-stellar ship, was the comparison too apt? It might be.
"You've traveled outside, where there are still free planets waiting to be settled. Where a man is welcome, if he's able to work." She paused.
"The center is different. Populations are excessive. Inside the third ring, no man is allowed off a ship without an identification tab. They don't encourage immigration."
In effect, that meant no ship bound for the center would take a passenger without identification. No ship owner would run the risk of having a permanent guest on board, someone who couldn't be rid of when his money was gone.
Cassal held his head in his hands. Tunney 21 was inside the third ring.
"Next time," she said, "don't let anyone take your identification."
"I won't," he promised grimly.
The woman looked directly at him. Her eyes were bright. He revised his estimate of her age drastically downward. She couldn't be as old as he. Nothing outward had happened, but she no longer seemed dowdy. Not that he was interested. Still, it might pay him to be friendly to the first counselor.
"We're a philanthropic agency," said Murra Foray. "Your case is special, though—"
"I understand," he said gruffly. "You accept contributions."
She nodded. "If the donor is able to give. We don't ask so much that you'll have to compromise your standard of living." But she named a sum that would force him to do just that if getting to Tunney 21 took any appreciable time.
He stared at her unhappily. "I suppose it's worth it. I can always work, if I have to."
"As a salesman?" she asked. "I'm afraid you'll find it difficult to do business with Godolphians."
Irony wasn't called for at a time like this, he thought reproachfully.
"Not just another salesman," he answered definitely. "I have special knowledge of customer reactions. I can tell exactly—"
He stopped abruptly. Was she baiting him? For what reason? The instrument he called Dimanche was not known to the Galaxy at large. From the business angle, it would be poor policy to hand out that information at random. Aside from that, he needed every advantage he could get. Dimanche was his special advantage.
"Anyway," he finished lamely, "I'm a first class engineer. I can always find something in that line."
"A scientist, maybe," murmured Murra Foray. "But in this part of the Milky Way, an engineer is regarded as merely a technician who hasn't yet gained practical experience." She shook her head. "You'll do better as a salesman."
He got up, glowering. "If that's all—"
"It is. We'll keep you informed. Drop your contribution in the slot provided for that purpose as you leave."
A door, which he hadn't noticed in entering the counselling cubicle, swung open. The agency was efficient.
"Remember," the counselor called out as he left, "identification is hard to work with. Don't accept a crude forgery."
He didn't answer, but it was an idea worth considering. The agency was also eminently practical.
The exit path guided him firmly to an inconspicuous and yet inescapable contribution station. He began to doubt the philanthropic aspect of the bureau.
"I've got it," said Dimanche as Cassal gloomily counted out the sum the first counselor had named.
"Got what?" asked Cassal. He rolled the currency into a neat bundle, attached his name, and dropped it into the chute.
"The woman, Murra Foray, the first counselor. She's a Huntner."
"What's a Huntner?"
"A sub-race of men on the other side of the Galaxy. She was vocalizing about her home planet when I managed to locate her."
"Any other information?"
"None. Electronic guards were sliding into place as soon as I reached her. I got out as fast as I could."
"I see." The significance of that, if any, escaped him. Nevertheless, it sounded depressing.
"What I want to know is," said Dimanche, "why such precautions as electronic guards? What does Travelers Aid have that's so secret?"
Cassal grunted and didn't answer. Dimanche could be annoyingly inquisitive at times.
Cassal had entered one side of a block-square building. He came out on the other side. The agency was larger than he had thought. The old man was staring at a door as Cassal came out. He had apparently changed every sign in the building. His work finished, the technician was removing the visual projector from his head as Cassal came up to him. He turned and peered.
"You stuck here, too?" he asked in the uneven voice of the aged.
"Stuck?" repeated Cassal. "I suppose you can call it that. I'm waiting for my ship." He frowned. He was the one who wanted to ask questions.
"Why all the redecoration? I thought Travelers Aid was an old agency. Why did you change so many signs? I could understand it if the agency were new."
The old man chuckled. "Re-organization. The previous first counselor resigned suddenly, in the middle of the night, they say. The new one didn't like the name of the agency, so she ordered it changed."
She would do just that, thought Cassal. "What about this Murra Foray?"
The old man winked mysteriously. He opened his mouth and then seemed overcome with senile fright. Hurriedly he shuffled away.
Cassal gazed after him, baffled. The old man was afraid for his job, afraid of the first counselor. Why he should be, Cassal didn't know. He shrugged and went on. The agency was now in motion in his behalf, but he didn't intend to depend on that alone.
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What is the relationship between Rat and Patti Gray?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Prison Planet by Wilson Tucker.
Relevant chunks:
PRISON PLANET
By BOB TUCKER
To remain on Mars meant death from agonizing space-sickness, but Earth-surgery lay days of flight away. And there was only a surface rocket in which to escape—with a traitorous Ganymedean for its pilot.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"Listen, Rat!" Roberds said, "what I say goes around here. It doesn't happen to be any of your business. I'm still in possession of my wits, and I know Peterson can't handle that ship. Furthermore Gladney will be in it too, right along side of that sick girl in there! And Rat, get this: I'm going to pilot that ship. Understand? Consulate or no Consulate, job or no job, I'm wheeling that crate to Earth because this is an emergency. And the emergency happens to be bigger than my position, to me at any rate." His tone dropped to a deadly softness.
"Now will you kindly remove your stinking carcass from this office?"
Unheeding, Rat swung his eyes around in the gloom and discovered the woman, a nurse in uniform. He blinked at her and she returned the look, wavering. She bit her lip and determination flowed back. She met the stare of his boring, off-colored eyes. Rat grinned suddenly. Nurse Gray almost smiled back, stopped before the others could see it.
"Won't go!" The Centaurian resumed his fight. "You not go, lose job, black-listed. Never get another. Look at me. I know." He retreated a precious step to escape a rolled up fist. "Little ship carry four nice. Rip out lockers and bunks. Swing hammocks. Put fuel in water tanks. Live on concentrates. Earth hospital fix bellyache afterwards, allright. I pilot ship. Yes?"
"No!" Roberds screamed.
Almost in answer, a moan issued from a small side room. The men in the office froze as Nurse Gray ran across the room. She disappeared through the narrow door.
"Peterson," the field manager ordered, "come over here and help me throw this rat out...." He went for Rat. Peterson swung up out of his chair with balled fist. The outlander backed rapidly.
"No need, no need, no need!" he said quickly. "I go." Still backing, he blindly kicked at the door and stepped into the night.
When the door slammed shut Roberds locked it. Peterson slumped in the chair.
"Do you mean that, Chief? About taking the ship yourself?"
"True enough." Roberds cast an anxious glance at the partly closed door, lowered his voice. "It'll cost me my job, but that girl in there has to be taken to a hospital quickly! And it's her luck to be landed on a planet that doesn't boast even one! So it's Earth ... or she dies. I'd feel a lot better too if we could get Gladney to a hospital, I'm not too confident of that patching job." He pulled a pipe from a jacket pocket. "So, might as well kill two birds with one stone ... and that wasn't meant to be funny!"
Peterson said nothing, sat watching the door.
"Rat has the right idea," Roberds continued, "but I had already thought of it. About the bunks and lockers. Greaseball has been out there all night tearing them out. We just might be able to hop by dawn ... and hell of a long, grinding hop it will be!"
The nurse came out of the door.
"How is she?" Roberds asked.
"Sleeping," Gray whispered. "But sinking...."
"We can take off at dawn, I think." He filled the pipe and didn't look at her. "You'll have to spend most of the trip in a hammock."
"I can take it." Suddenly she smiled, wanly. "I was with the Fleet. How long will it take?"
"Eight days, in that ship."
Roberds lit his pipe, and carefully hid his emotions. He knew Peterson was harboring the same thoughts. Eight days in space, in a small ship meant for two, and built for planetary surface flights. Eight days in that untrustworthy crate, hurtling to save the lives of that girl and Gladney.
"Who was that ... man? The one you put out?" Gray asked.
"We call him Rat," Roberds said.
She didn't ask why. She said: "Why couldn't he pilot the ship, I mean? What is his record?"
Peterson opened his mouth.
"Shut up, Peterson!" the Chief snapped. "We don't talk about his record around here, Miss Gray. It's not a pretty thing to tell."
"Stow it, Chief," said Peterson. "Miss Gray is no pantywaist." He turned to the nurse. "Ever hear of the Sansan massacre?"
Patti Gray paled. "Yes," she whispered. "Was Rat in that?"
Roberds shook his head. "He didn't take part in it. But Rat was attached to a very important office at the time, the outpost watch. And when Mad Barry Sansan and his gang of thugs swooped down on the Ganymedean colony, there was no warning. Our friend Rat was AWOL.
"As to who he is ... well, just one of those freaks from up around Centauria somewhere. He's been hanging around all the fields and dumps on Mars a long time, finally landed up here."
"But," protested Miss Gray, "I don't understand? I always thought that leaving one's post under such circumstances meant execution."
The Chief Consul nodded. "It does, usually. But this was a freak case. It would take hours to explain. However, I'll just sum it up in one word: politics. Politics, with which Rat had no connection saved him."
The girl shook her head, more in sympathy than condemnation.
"Are you expecting the others in soon?" she asked. "It wouldn't be right to leave Peterson."
"They will be in, in a day or two. Peterson will beat it over to Base station for repairs, and to notify Earth we're coming. He'll be all right."
Abruptly she stood up. "Goodnight gentlemen. Call me if I'm needed."
Roberds nodded acknowledgement. The door to the side room closed behind her. Peterson hauled his chair over to the desk. He sniffed the air.
"Damned rat!" he whispered harshly. "They ought to make a law forcing him to wear dark glasses!"
Roberds smiled wearily. "His eyes do get a man, don't they?"
"I'd like to burn 'em out!" Peterson snarled.
Rat helped Greaseball fill the water tanks to capacity with fuel, checked the concentrated rations and grunted.
Greaseball looked over the interior and chuckled. "The boss said strip her, and strip her I did. All right, Rat, outside." He followed the Centaurian out, and pulled the ladder away from the lip of the lock. The two walked across the strip of sandy soil to the office building. On tiptoes, Greaseball poked his head through the door panel. "All set."
Roberds nodded at him. "Stick with it!" and jerked a thumb at Rat outside. Grease nodded understanding.
"Okay, Rat, you can go to bed now." He dropped the ladder against the wall and sat on it. "Good night." He watched Rat walk slowly away.
Swinging down the path towards his own rambling shack, Rat caught a sibilant whisper. Pausing, undecided, he heard it again.
"Here ... can you see me?" A white clad arm waved in the gloom. Rat regarded the arm in the window. Another impatient gesture, and he stepped to the sill.
"Yes?"—in the softest of whispers. The voices of the men in droning conversation drifted in. "What you want?"
Nothing but silence for a few hanging seconds, and then: "Can you pilot that ship?" Her voice was shaky.
He didn't answer, stared at her confused. He felt her fear as clearly as he detected it in her words.
"Well, can you?" she demanded.
"Damn yes!" he stated simply. "It now necessary?"
"Very! She is becoming worse. I'm afraid to wait until daylight. And ... well, we want you to pilot it! She refuses to risk Mr. Roberds' job. She favors you."
Rat stepped back, astonished. "She?"
Nurse Gray moved from the window and Rat saw the second form in the room, a slight, quiet figure on a small cot. "My patient," Nurse Gray explained. "She overheard our conversation awhile ago. Quick, please, can you?"
Rat looked at her and then at the girl on the cot. He vanished from the window. Almost immediately, he was back again.
"When?" he whispered.
"As soon as possible. Yes. Do you know...?" but he had gone again. Nurse Gray found herself addressing blackness. On the point of turning, she saw him back again.
"Blankets," he instructed. "Wrap in blankets. Cold—hot too. Wrap good!" And he was gone again. Gray blinked away the illusion he disappeared upwards.
She ran over to the girl. "Judith, if you want to back down, now is the time. He'll be back in a moment."
"No!" Judith moaned. "No!" Gray smiled in the darkness and began wrapping the blankets around her. A light tapping at the window announced the return of Rat. The nurse pushed open the window wide, saw him out there with arms upstretched.
"Grit your teeth and hold on! Here we go." She picked up the blanketed girl in both arms and walked to the window. Rat took the girl easily as she was swung out, the blackness hid them both. But he appeared again instantly.
"Better lock window," he cautioned. "Stall, if Boss call. Back soon...." and he was gone.
To Nurse Gray the fifteen minute wait seemed like hours, impatient agonizing hours of tight-lipped anxiety.
Feet first, she swung through the window, clutching a small bag in her hands. She never touched ground. Rat whispered "Hold tight!" in her ear and the wind was abruptly yanked from her! The ground fell away in a dizzy rush, unseen but felt, in the night! Her feet scraped on some projection, and she felt herself being lifted still higher. Wind returned to her throat, and she breathed again.
"I'm sorry," she managed to get out, gaspingly. "I wasn't expecting that. I had forgotten you—"
"—had wings," he finished and chuckled. "So likewise Greaseball." The pale office lights dropped away as they sped over the field. On the far horizon, a tinge of dawn crept along the uneven terrain.
"Oh, the bag!" she gasped. "I've dropped it."
He chuckled again. "Have got. You scare, I catch."
She didn't see the ship because of the wind in her eyes, but without warning she plummeted down and her feet jarred on the lip of the lock.
"Inside. No noise, no light. Easy." But in spite of his warning she tripped in the darkness. He helped her from the floor and guided her to the hammocks.
"Judith?" she asked.
"Here. Beside you, trussed up so tight I can hardly breathe."
"No talk!" Rat insisted. "Much hush-hush needed. Other girl shipshape. You make likewise." Forcibly he shoved her into a hammock. "Wrap up tight. Straps tight. When we go, we go fast. Bang!" And he left her.
"Hey! Where are you going now?"
"To get Gladney. He sick too. Hush hush!" His voice floated back.
"Where has he gone?" Judith called.
"Back for another man. Remember the two miners who found us when we crashed? The burly one fell off a rock-bank as they were bringing us in. Stove in his ribs pretty badly. The other has a broken arm ... happened once while you were out. They wouldn't let me say anything for fear of worrying you."
The girl did not answer then and a hushed expectancy fell over the ship. Somewhere aft a small motor was running. Wind whistled past the open lock.
"I've caused plenty of trouble haven't I?" she asked aloud, finally.
"This was certainly a fool stunt, and I'm guilty of a lot of fool stunts! I just didn't realize until now the why of that law."
"Don't talk so much," the nurse admonished. "A lot of people have found out the why of that law the hard way, just as you are doing, and lived to remember it. Until hospitals are built on this forlorn world, humans like you who haven't been properly conditioned will have to stay right at home."
"How about these men that live and work here?"
"They never get here until they've been through the mill first. Adenoids, appendix', all the extra parts they can get along without."
"Well," Judith said. "I've certainly learned my lesson!"
Gray didn't answer, but from out of the darkness surrounding her came a sound remarkably resembling a snort.
"Gray?" Judith asked fearfully.
"Yes?"
"Hasn't the pilot been gone an awfully long time?"
Rat himself provided the answer by alighting at the lip with a jar that shook the ship. He was breathing heavily and lugging something in his arms. The burden groaned.
"Gladney!" Nurse Gray exclaimed.
"I got." Rat confirmed. "Yes, Gladney. Damn heavy, Gladney."
"But how?" she demanded. "What of Roberds and Peterson?"
"Trick," he sniggered. "I burn down my shack. Boss run out. I run in. Very simple." He packed Gladney into the remaining hammock and snapped buckles.
"And Peterson?" she prompted.
"Oh yes. Peterson. So sorry about Peterson. Had to fan him."
" Fan him? I don't understand."
"Fan. With chair. Everything all right. I apologized." Rat finished up and was walking back to the lock. They heard a slight rustling of wings as he padded away.
He was back instantly, duplicating his feat of a short time ago. Cursing shouts were slung on the night air, and the deadly spang of bullets bounced on the hull! Some entered the lock. The Centaurian snapped it shut. Chunks of lead continued to pound the ship. Rat leaped for the pilot's chair, heavily, a wing drooping.
"You've been hurt!" Gray cried. A small panel light outlined his features. She tried to struggle up.
"Lie still! We go. Boss get wise." With lightning fingers he flicked several switches on the panel, turned to her. "Hold belly. Zoom!"
Gray folded her hands across her stomach and closed her eyes.
Rat unlocked the master level and shoved!
"Whew!" Nurse Gray came back to throbbing awareness, the all too familiar feeling of a misplaced stomach attempting to force its crowded way into her boots plaguing her. Rockets roared in the rear. She loosened a few straps and twisted over. Judith was still out, her face tensed in pain. Gray bit her lip and twisted the other way. The Centaurian was grinning at her.
"Do you always leave in a hurry?" she demanded, and instantly wished she hadn't said it. He gave no outward sign.
"Long-time sleep," he announced. "Four, five hours maybe." The chest strap was lying loose at his side.
"That long!" she was incredulous. "I'm never out more than three hours!" Unloosening more straps, she sat up, glanced at the control panel.
"Not taking time," he stated simply and pointed to a dial. Gray shook her head and looked at the others.
"That isn't doing either of them any good!"
Rat nodded unhappily. "What's her matter—?" pointing.
"Appendix. Something about this atmosphere sends it haywire. The thing itself isn't diseased, but it starts manufacturing poison. Patient dies in a week unless it is taken out."
"Don't know it," he said briefly.
"Do you mean to say you don't have an appendix?" she demanded.
Rat folded his arms and considered this. "Don't know. Maybe yes, maybe no. Where's it hurt?"
Gray pointed out the location. The Centaurian considered this further and drifted into long contemplation. Watching him, Gray remembered his eyes that night ... only last night ... in the office. Peterson had refused to meet them. After awhile Rat came out of it.
"No," he waved. "No appendix. Never nowhere appendix."
"Then Mother Nature has finally woke up!" she exclaimed. "But why do Centaurians rate it exclusively?"
Rat ignored this and asked one of her. "What you and her doing up there?" He pointed back and up, to where Mars obliterated the stars.
"You might call it a pleasure jaunt. She's only seventeen. We came over in a cruiser belonging to her father; it was rather large and easy to handle. But the cruise ended when she lost control of the ship because of an attack of space-appendicitis. The rest you know."
"So you?"
"So I'm a combination nurse, governess, guard and what have you. Or will be until we get back. After this, I'll probably be looking for work." She shivered.
"Cold?" he inquired concernedly.
"On the contrary, I'm too warm." She started to remove the blanket. Rat threw up a hand to stop her.
"Leave on! Hot out here."
"But I'm too hot now. I want to take it off!"
"No. Leave on. Wool blanket. Keep in body heat, yes. Keep out cold, yes. Keep in, keep out, likewise. See?"
Gray stared at him. "I never thought of it that way before. Why of course! If it protects from one temperature, it will protect from another. Isn't it silly of me not to know that?" Heat pressing on her face accented the fact.
"What is your name?" she asked. "Your real one I mean."
He grinned. "Big. You couldn't say it. Sound like Christmas and bottlenose together real fast. Just say Rat. Everybody does." His eyes swept the panel and flashed back to her. "Your name Gray. Have a front name?"
"Patti."
"Pretty, Patti."
"No, just Patti. Say, what's the matter with the cooling system?"
"Damn punk," he said. "This crate for surface work. No space. Cooling system groan, damn punk. Won't keep cool here."
"And ..." she followed up, "it will get warmer as we go out?"
Rat turned back to his board in a brown study and carefully ignored her. Gray grasped an inkling of what the coming week could bring.
"But how about water?" she demanded next. "Is there enough?"
He faced about. "For her—" nodding to Judith, "and him—" to Gladney,
"yes. Sparingly. Four hours every time, maybe." Back to Gray. "You, me ... twice a day. Too bad." His eyes drifted aft to the tank of water. She followed. "One tank water. All the rest fuel. Too bad, too bad. We get thirsty I think."
They did get thirsty, soon. A damnable hot thirst accented by the knowledge that water was precious, a thirst increased by a dried-up-in-the-mouth sensation. Their first drink was strangely bitter; tragically disappointing. Patti Gray suddenly swung upright in the hammock and kicked her legs. She massaged her throat with a nervous hand, wiped damp hair from about her face.
"I have to have a drink."
Rat stared at her without answer.
"I said, I have to have a drink!"
"Heard you."
"Well...?"
"Well, nothing. Stall. Keep water longer."
She swung a vicious boot and missed by inches. Rat grinned, and made his way aft, hand over hand. He treaded cautiously along the deck. "Do like this," he called over his shoulder. "Gravity punk too. Back and under, gravity." He waited until she joined him at the water tap.
They stood there glaring idiotically at each other.
She burst out laughing. "They even threw the drinking cups out!" Rat inched the handle grudgingly and she applied lips to the faucet.
"Faugh!" Gray sprang back, forgot herself and lost her balance, sat down on the deck and spat out the water. "It's hot! It tastes like hell and it's hot! It must be fuel!"
Rat applied his lips to the tap and sampled. Coming up with a mouthful he swished it around on his tongue like mouthwash. Abruptly he contrived a facial contortion between a grin and a grimace, and let some of the water trickle from the edges of his mouth. He swallowed and it cost him something.
"No. I mean yes, I think. Water, no doubt. Yes. Fuel out, water in. Swish-swush. Dammit, Greaseball forget to wash tank!"
"But what makes it so hot?" She worked her mouth to dry-rinse the taste of the fuel.
"Ship get hot. Water on sun side. H-m-m-m-m-m-m."
"H-m-m-m-m-m-m-m what?"
"Flip-flop." He could talk with his hands as well. "Hot side over like pancake." Rat hobbled over to the board and sat down. An experimental flick on a lever produced nothing. Another flick, this time followed by a quivering jar. He contemplated the panel board while fastening his belt.
"H-m-m-m-m-m-m," the lower lip protruded.
Gray protested. "Oh, stop humming and do something! That wa—" the word was queerly torn from her throat, and a scream magically filled the vacancy. Nurse Gray sat up and rubbed a painful spot that had suddenly appeared on her arm. She found her nose bleeding and another new, swelling bruise on the side of her head. Around her the place was empty. Bare.
No, not quite. A wispy something was hanging just out of sight in the corner of the eye; the water tap was now moulded upward , beads glistening on its handle. The wispy thing caught her attention again and she looked up.
Two people, tightly wrapped and bound in hammocks, were staring down at her, amazed, swinging on their stomachs. Craning further, she saw Rat. He was hanging upside down in the chair, grinning at her in reverse.
"Flip-flop," he laconically explained.
"For cripes sakes, Jehosaphat!" Gladney groaned. "Turn me over on my back! Do something!" Gray stood on tiptoes and just could pivot the hammocks on their rope-axis.
"And now, please, just how do I get into mine?" she bit at Rat.
Existence dragged. Paradoxically, time dropped away like a cloak as the sense of individual hours and minutes vanished, and into its place crept a slow-torturing substitute. As the ship revolved, monotonously, first the ceiling and then the floor took on dullish, maddening aspects, eyes ached continuously from staring at them time and again without surcease. The steady, drumming rockets crashed into the mind and the walls shrieked malevolently on the eyeballs. Dull, throbbing sameness of the poorly filtered air, a growing taint in the nostrils. Damp warm skin, reeking blankets. The taste of fuel in the mouth for refreshment. Slowly mounting mental duress. And above all the drumming of the rockets.
Once, a sudden, frightening change of pitch in the rockets and a wild, sickening lurch. Meteor rain. Maddening, plunging swings to the far right and left, made without warning. A torn lip as a sudden lurch tears the faucet from her mouth. A shattered tooth.
"Sorry!" Rat whispered.
"Shut up and drive!" she cried.
"Patti ..." Judith called out, in pain.
Peace of mind followed peace of body into a forgotten limbo of lost things, a slyly climbing madness directed at one another. Waspish words uttered in pain, fatigue and temper. Fractiousness. A hot, confined, stale hell. Sleep became a hollow mockery, as bad water and concentrated tablets brought on stomach pains to plague them. Consciousness punctured only by spasms of lethargy, shared to some extent by the invalids. Above all, crawling lassitude and incalescent tempers.
Rat watched the white, drawn face swing in the hammock beside him. And his hands never faltered on the controls.
Never a slackening of the terrific pace; abnormal speed, gruelling drive ... drive ... drive. Fear. Tantalizing fear made worse because Rat couldn't understand. Smothered moaning that ate at his nerves. Grim-faced, sleep-wracked, belted to the chair, driving!
"How many days? How many days!" Gray begged of him thousands of times until the very repetition grated on her eardrums. "How many days?" His only answer was an inhuman snarl, and the cruel blazing of those inhuman eyes.
She fell face first to the floor. "I can't keep it up!" she cried. The sound of her voice rolled along the hot steel deck. "I cant! I cant!"
A double handful of tepid water was thrown in her face. "Get up!" Rat stood over her, face twisted, his body hunched. "Get up!" She stared at him, dazed. He kicked her. "Get up!" The tepid water ran off her face and far away she heard Judith calling.... She forced herself up. Rat was back in the chair.
Gladney unexpectedly exploded. He had been awake for a long time, watching Rat at the board. Wrenching loose a chest strap he attempted to sit up.
"Rat! Damn you Rat, listen to me! When're you going to start braking , Rat?"
"I hear you." He turned on Gladney with dulled eyes. "Lie down. You sick."
"I'll be damned if I'm going to lie here and let you drive us to Orion! We must be near the half-way line! When are you going to start braking?"
"Not brake," Rat answered sullenly. "No, not brake."
" Not brake? " Gladney screamed and sat bolt upright. Nurse Gray jumped for him. "Are you crazy, you skinny rat?" Gray secured a hold on his shoulders and forced him down. "You gotta brake! Don't you understand that? You have to, you vacuum-skull!" Gray was pleading with him to shut-up like a good fellow. He appealed to her. "He's gotta brake! Make him!"
"He has a good point there, Rat," she spoke up. "What about this half-way line?"
He turned to her with a weary ghost of the old smile on his face. "We passed line. Three days ago, maybe." A shrug of shoulders.
"Passed!" Gray and Gladney exclaimed in unison.
"You catch on quick," Rat nodded. "This six day, don't you know?"
Gladney sank back, exhausted. The nurse crept over to the pilot.
"Getting your figures mixed, aren't you?"
Rat shook his head and said nothing.
"But Roberds said eight days, and he—"
"—he on Mars. I here. Boss nuts, too sad. He drive, it be eight days. Now only six." He cast a glance at Judith and found her eyes closed.
"Six days, no brake. No."
"I see your point, and appreciate it," Gray cut in. "But now what? This deceleration business ... there is a whole lot I don't know, but some things I do!"
Rat refused the expected answer. "Land tonight, I think. Never been to Earth before. Somebody meet us, I think."
"You can bet your leather boots somebody will meet us!" Gladney cried. Gray turned to him. "The Chief'll have the whole planet waiting for you !" He laughed with real satisfaction. "Oh yes, Rat, they'll be somebody waiting for us all right." And then he added: "If we land."
"Oh, we land." Rat confided, glad to share a secret.
"Yeah," Gladney grated. "But in how many little pieces?"
"I've never been to Earth before. Nice, I think." Patti Gray caught something new in the tone and stared at him. Gladney must have noticed it, too.
The Centaurian moved sideways and pointed. Gray placed her eyes in the vacated position.
"Earth!" she shouted.
"Quite. Nice. Do me a favor?"
"Just name it!"
"Not drink long time. Some water?"
Gray nodded and went to the faucet. The drumming seemed remote, the tension vanished. She was an uncommonly long time in returning, at last she appeared beside him, outstretched hands dry.
"There isn't any left, Rat."
Rat batted his tired eyes expressively. "Tasted punk," he grinned at her.
She sat down on the floor suddenly and buried her face.
"Rat," she said presently, "I want to ask you something, rather personal? Your ... name. 'Rat'? Roberds told me something about your record. But ... please tell me, Rat. You didn't know the attack was coming, did you?"
He grinned again and waggled his head at her. "No. Who tell Rat?" Suddenly he was deadly serious as he spoke to her. "Rat a.w.o.l., go out to help sick man alone in desert. Rat leave post. Not time send call through. Come back with man, find horrible thing happen."
"But why didn't you explain?"
He grinned again. "Who believe? Sick man die soon after."
Gladney sat up. He had heard the conversation between the two. "You're right, Rat. No one would have believed you then, and no one will now. You've been safe enough on Mars, but the police will nab you as soon as you get out of the ship."
"They can't!" cried Patti Gray. "They can't hurt him after what he's done now."
The Centaurian grinned in a cynical way.
"Police not get me, Gladney. Gladney's memory damn punk, I think. Earth pretty nice place, maybe. But not for Rat."
Gladney stared at him for minutes. Then: "Say, I get it ... you're—"
"Shut up!" Rat cut him off sharply. "You talk too much." He cast a glance at Nurse Gray and then threw a meaning look at Gladney.
Question:
What is the relationship between Rat and Patti Gray?
Answer:
|
[
"From the very beginning Patti is keen one Rat. When their gazes first meet she almost smiles back. She has to hide her goodwill as Rat is despised by the crew of the ship. The nurse is interested in his background and asks Roberds and Peterson. After learning about him leaving the post she wonders why he wasn't executed and feel sympathy for Rat. She visits him in secret to ask to pilot the ship, because her and the sick girl need to get to Earth as fast as possible and believe he can help. Rat does everything in a fast and well-organized way and plans to reach Earth in six days without brakes. He instructs Patti to cover herself in blankets not to get too hot and decides how the water will be distributed. He also tells about trying to save a man being the reason for him leaving the post and Patti feels even more sympathy. Nevertheless, during the journey they have a fight when she starts panicking and demanding water and Rat beats her. He tries to enforce his rules on the ship and others ask him to brake, Patti hurts herself during Rat's manoeuvres between the meteorites but she stands it. ",
"Rat and Patti Gray first meet when Rat is being yelled at by Roberds. They exchange short glances and small smiles during this initial meeting. Patti asks for Rat’s help to get to Earth quicker instead of waiting for Roberds to take them. Rat agrees to help them readily accepts the request, quickly putting into action an escape plan. When Patti wakes up on the ship after the abrupt take off, she and Rat have a friendly conversation. Rat continuously smiles throughout the conversation and appears to be very friendly and happy to help Judith. ",
"Patti Gray is initially curious about Rat, prompting her to ask Roberds about his past. Once she asks Rat to pilot the ship, she is hesitant of him as a pilot. The two of them eventually converse once the ship takes off. They discuss the illness that Gladney and Judith are suffering from. She is curious about Rat's name, but he does not tell her because it is too long. He is also helpful, instructing Gray to keep the wool blanket on to preserve body heat and keep out the cold. Even when she swings a boot at him, he takes her to the water faucet and explains why the water is so hot. However, despite being helpful, Rat is quite rough towards Gray too. When she rolls along the deck and has a breakdown about not being able to keep up, he throws a handful of water into her face. He then kicks her to get up too. When he points out Earth to them, she is extremely grateful towards him for getting them to the planet so fast. Rat and Patti Gray do not share a very personal relationship. However, she learns more about him throughout their trip, and the two of them support each other in their own ways. \n",
"Patti Gray is wary of Rat and his history. She first asks Roberds and the Chief about Rat's name, and learns the story of Rat and his betrayal during the Sansan massacre. Despite being aware of this, Patti still reaches out to Rat and asks him to pilot the ship to Earth, at the request of Judith. Patti, being unknowledgeable of piloting ships, must listen to Rat's orders reluctantly. However, she still asks him about his life and eventually his side of the story at the massacre. Patti Gray becomes increasingly frustrated with Rat due to the conditions on the ship, particularly with the water supply. She maintains a respectful relationship with Rat despite her suspicions remaining."
] |
62212
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PRISON PLANET
By BOB TUCKER
To remain on Mars meant death from agonizing space-sickness, but Earth-surgery lay days of flight away. And there was only a surface rocket in which to escape—with a traitorous Ganymedean for its pilot.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"Listen, Rat!" Roberds said, "what I say goes around here. It doesn't happen to be any of your business. I'm still in possession of my wits, and I know Peterson can't handle that ship. Furthermore Gladney will be in it too, right along side of that sick girl in there! And Rat, get this: I'm going to pilot that ship. Understand? Consulate or no Consulate, job or no job, I'm wheeling that crate to Earth because this is an emergency. And the emergency happens to be bigger than my position, to me at any rate." His tone dropped to a deadly softness.
"Now will you kindly remove your stinking carcass from this office?"
Unheeding, Rat swung his eyes around in the gloom and discovered the woman, a nurse in uniform. He blinked at her and she returned the look, wavering. She bit her lip and determination flowed back. She met the stare of his boring, off-colored eyes. Rat grinned suddenly. Nurse Gray almost smiled back, stopped before the others could see it.
"Won't go!" The Centaurian resumed his fight. "You not go, lose job, black-listed. Never get another. Look at me. I know." He retreated a precious step to escape a rolled up fist. "Little ship carry four nice. Rip out lockers and bunks. Swing hammocks. Put fuel in water tanks. Live on concentrates. Earth hospital fix bellyache afterwards, allright. I pilot ship. Yes?"
"No!" Roberds screamed.
Almost in answer, a moan issued from a small side room. The men in the office froze as Nurse Gray ran across the room. She disappeared through the narrow door.
"Peterson," the field manager ordered, "come over here and help me throw this rat out...." He went for Rat. Peterson swung up out of his chair with balled fist. The outlander backed rapidly.
"No need, no need, no need!" he said quickly. "I go." Still backing, he blindly kicked at the door and stepped into the night.
When the door slammed shut Roberds locked it. Peterson slumped in the chair.
"Do you mean that, Chief? About taking the ship yourself?"
"True enough." Roberds cast an anxious glance at the partly closed door, lowered his voice. "It'll cost me my job, but that girl in there has to be taken to a hospital quickly! And it's her luck to be landed on a planet that doesn't boast even one! So it's Earth ... or she dies. I'd feel a lot better too if we could get Gladney to a hospital, I'm not too confident of that patching job." He pulled a pipe from a jacket pocket. "So, might as well kill two birds with one stone ... and that wasn't meant to be funny!"
Peterson said nothing, sat watching the door.
"Rat has the right idea," Roberds continued, "but I had already thought of it. About the bunks and lockers. Greaseball has been out there all night tearing them out. We just might be able to hop by dawn ... and hell of a long, grinding hop it will be!"
The nurse came out of the door.
"How is she?" Roberds asked.
"Sleeping," Gray whispered. "But sinking...."
"We can take off at dawn, I think." He filled the pipe and didn't look at her. "You'll have to spend most of the trip in a hammock."
"I can take it." Suddenly she smiled, wanly. "I was with the Fleet. How long will it take?"
"Eight days, in that ship."
Roberds lit his pipe, and carefully hid his emotions. He knew Peterson was harboring the same thoughts. Eight days in space, in a small ship meant for two, and built for planetary surface flights. Eight days in that untrustworthy crate, hurtling to save the lives of that girl and Gladney.
"Who was that ... man? The one you put out?" Gray asked.
"We call him Rat," Roberds said.
She didn't ask why. She said: "Why couldn't he pilot the ship, I mean? What is his record?"
Peterson opened his mouth.
"Shut up, Peterson!" the Chief snapped. "We don't talk about his record around here, Miss Gray. It's not a pretty thing to tell."
"Stow it, Chief," said Peterson. "Miss Gray is no pantywaist." He turned to the nurse. "Ever hear of the Sansan massacre?"
Patti Gray paled. "Yes," she whispered. "Was Rat in that?"
Roberds shook his head. "He didn't take part in it. But Rat was attached to a very important office at the time, the outpost watch. And when Mad Barry Sansan and his gang of thugs swooped down on the Ganymedean colony, there was no warning. Our friend Rat was AWOL.
"As to who he is ... well, just one of those freaks from up around Centauria somewhere. He's been hanging around all the fields and dumps on Mars a long time, finally landed up here."
"But," protested Miss Gray, "I don't understand? I always thought that leaving one's post under such circumstances meant execution."
The Chief Consul nodded. "It does, usually. But this was a freak case. It would take hours to explain. However, I'll just sum it up in one word: politics. Politics, with which Rat had no connection saved him."
The girl shook her head, more in sympathy than condemnation.
"Are you expecting the others in soon?" she asked. "It wouldn't be right to leave Peterson."
"They will be in, in a day or two. Peterson will beat it over to Base station for repairs, and to notify Earth we're coming. He'll be all right."
Abruptly she stood up. "Goodnight gentlemen. Call me if I'm needed."
Roberds nodded acknowledgement. The door to the side room closed behind her. Peterson hauled his chair over to the desk. He sniffed the air.
"Damned rat!" he whispered harshly. "They ought to make a law forcing him to wear dark glasses!"
Roberds smiled wearily. "His eyes do get a man, don't they?"
"I'd like to burn 'em out!" Peterson snarled.
Rat helped Greaseball fill the water tanks to capacity with fuel, checked the concentrated rations and grunted.
Greaseball looked over the interior and chuckled. "The boss said strip her, and strip her I did. All right, Rat, outside." He followed the Centaurian out, and pulled the ladder away from the lip of the lock. The two walked across the strip of sandy soil to the office building. On tiptoes, Greaseball poked his head through the door panel. "All set."
Roberds nodded at him. "Stick with it!" and jerked a thumb at Rat outside. Grease nodded understanding.
"Okay, Rat, you can go to bed now." He dropped the ladder against the wall and sat on it. "Good night." He watched Rat walk slowly away.
Swinging down the path towards his own rambling shack, Rat caught a sibilant whisper. Pausing, undecided, he heard it again.
"Here ... can you see me?" A white clad arm waved in the gloom. Rat regarded the arm in the window. Another impatient gesture, and he stepped to the sill.
"Yes?"—in the softest of whispers. The voices of the men in droning conversation drifted in. "What you want?"
Nothing but silence for a few hanging seconds, and then: "Can you pilot that ship?" Her voice was shaky.
He didn't answer, stared at her confused. He felt her fear as clearly as he detected it in her words.
"Well, can you?" she demanded.
"Damn yes!" he stated simply. "It now necessary?"
"Very! She is becoming worse. I'm afraid to wait until daylight. And ... well, we want you to pilot it! She refuses to risk Mr. Roberds' job. She favors you."
Rat stepped back, astonished. "She?"
Nurse Gray moved from the window and Rat saw the second form in the room, a slight, quiet figure on a small cot. "My patient," Nurse Gray explained. "She overheard our conversation awhile ago. Quick, please, can you?"
Rat looked at her and then at the girl on the cot. He vanished from the window. Almost immediately, he was back again.
"When?" he whispered.
"As soon as possible. Yes. Do you know...?" but he had gone again. Nurse Gray found herself addressing blackness. On the point of turning, she saw him back again.
"Blankets," he instructed. "Wrap in blankets. Cold—hot too. Wrap good!" And he was gone again. Gray blinked away the illusion he disappeared upwards.
She ran over to the girl. "Judith, if you want to back down, now is the time. He'll be back in a moment."
"No!" Judith moaned. "No!" Gray smiled in the darkness and began wrapping the blankets around her. A light tapping at the window announced the return of Rat. The nurse pushed open the window wide, saw him out there with arms upstretched.
"Grit your teeth and hold on! Here we go." She picked up the blanketed girl in both arms and walked to the window. Rat took the girl easily as she was swung out, the blackness hid them both. But he appeared again instantly.
"Better lock window," he cautioned. "Stall, if Boss call. Back soon...." and he was gone.
To Nurse Gray the fifteen minute wait seemed like hours, impatient agonizing hours of tight-lipped anxiety.
Feet first, she swung through the window, clutching a small bag in her hands. She never touched ground. Rat whispered "Hold tight!" in her ear and the wind was abruptly yanked from her! The ground fell away in a dizzy rush, unseen but felt, in the night! Her feet scraped on some projection, and she felt herself being lifted still higher. Wind returned to her throat, and she breathed again.
"I'm sorry," she managed to get out, gaspingly. "I wasn't expecting that. I had forgotten you—"
"—had wings," he finished and chuckled. "So likewise Greaseball." The pale office lights dropped away as they sped over the field. On the far horizon, a tinge of dawn crept along the uneven terrain.
"Oh, the bag!" she gasped. "I've dropped it."
He chuckled again. "Have got. You scare, I catch."
She didn't see the ship because of the wind in her eyes, but without warning she plummeted down and her feet jarred on the lip of the lock.
"Inside. No noise, no light. Easy." But in spite of his warning she tripped in the darkness. He helped her from the floor and guided her to the hammocks.
"Judith?" she asked.
"Here. Beside you, trussed up so tight I can hardly breathe."
"No talk!" Rat insisted. "Much hush-hush needed. Other girl shipshape. You make likewise." Forcibly he shoved her into a hammock. "Wrap up tight. Straps tight. When we go, we go fast. Bang!" And he left her.
"Hey! Where are you going now?"
"To get Gladney. He sick too. Hush hush!" His voice floated back.
"Where has he gone?" Judith called.
"Back for another man. Remember the two miners who found us when we crashed? The burly one fell off a rock-bank as they were bringing us in. Stove in his ribs pretty badly. The other has a broken arm ... happened once while you were out. They wouldn't let me say anything for fear of worrying you."
The girl did not answer then and a hushed expectancy fell over the ship. Somewhere aft a small motor was running. Wind whistled past the open lock.
"I've caused plenty of trouble haven't I?" she asked aloud, finally.
"This was certainly a fool stunt, and I'm guilty of a lot of fool stunts! I just didn't realize until now the why of that law."
"Don't talk so much," the nurse admonished. "A lot of people have found out the why of that law the hard way, just as you are doing, and lived to remember it. Until hospitals are built on this forlorn world, humans like you who haven't been properly conditioned will have to stay right at home."
"How about these men that live and work here?"
"They never get here until they've been through the mill first. Adenoids, appendix', all the extra parts they can get along without."
"Well," Judith said. "I've certainly learned my lesson!"
Gray didn't answer, but from out of the darkness surrounding her came a sound remarkably resembling a snort.
"Gray?" Judith asked fearfully.
"Yes?"
"Hasn't the pilot been gone an awfully long time?"
Rat himself provided the answer by alighting at the lip with a jar that shook the ship. He was breathing heavily and lugging something in his arms. The burden groaned.
"Gladney!" Nurse Gray exclaimed.
"I got." Rat confirmed. "Yes, Gladney. Damn heavy, Gladney."
"But how?" she demanded. "What of Roberds and Peterson?"
"Trick," he sniggered. "I burn down my shack. Boss run out. I run in. Very simple." He packed Gladney into the remaining hammock and snapped buckles.
"And Peterson?" she prompted.
"Oh yes. Peterson. So sorry about Peterson. Had to fan him."
" Fan him? I don't understand."
"Fan. With chair. Everything all right. I apologized." Rat finished up and was walking back to the lock. They heard a slight rustling of wings as he padded away.
He was back instantly, duplicating his feat of a short time ago. Cursing shouts were slung on the night air, and the deadly spang of bullets bounced on the hull! Some entered the lock. The Centaurian snapped it shut. Chunks of lead continued to pound the ship. Rat leaped for the pilot's chair, heavily, a wing drooping.
"You've been hurt!" Gray cried. A small panel light outlined his features. She tried to struggle up.
"Lie still! We go. Boss get wise." With lightning fingers he flicked several switches on the panel, turned to her. "Hold belly. Zoom!"
Gray folded her hands across her stomach and closed her eyes.
Rat unlocked the master level and shoved!
"Whew!" Nurse Gray came back to throbbing awareness, the all too familiar feeling of a misplaced stomach attempting to force its crowded way into her boots plaguing her. Rockets roared in the rear. She loosened a few straps and twisted over. Judith was still out, her face tensed in pain. Gray bit her lip and twisted the other way. The Centaurian was grinning at her.
"Do you always leave in a hurry?" she demanded, and instantly wished she hadn't said it. He gave no outward sign.
"Long-time sleep," he announced. "Four, five hours maybe." The chest strap was lying loose at his side.
"That long!" she was incredulous. "I'm never out more than three hours!" Unloosening more straps, she sat up, glanced at the control panel.
"Not taking time," he stated simply and pointed to a dial. Gray shook her head and looked at the others.
"That isn't doing either of them any good!"
Rat nodded unhappily. "What's her matter—?" pointing.
"Appendix. Something about this atmosphere sends it haywire. The thing itself isn't diseased, but it starts manufacturing poison. Patient dies in a week unless it is taken out."
"Don't know it," he said briefly.
"Do you mean to say you don't have an appendix?" she demanded.
Rat folded his arms and considered this. "Don't know. Maybe yes, maybe no. Where's it hurt?"
Gray pointed out the location. The Centaurian considered this further and drifted into long contemplation. Watching him, Gray remembered his eyes that night ... only last night ... in the office. Peterson had refused to meet them. After awhile Rat came out of it.
"No," he waved. "No appendix. Never nowhere appendix."
"Then Mother Nature has finally woke up!" she exclaimed. "But why do Centaurians rate it exclusively?"
Rat ignored this and asked one of her. "What you and her doing up there?" He pointed back and up, to where Mars obliterated the stars.
"You might call it a pleasure jaunt. She's only seventeen. We came over in a cruiser belonging to her father; it was rather large and easy to handle. But the cruise ended when she lost control of the ship because of an attack of space-appendicitis. The rest you know."
"So you?"
"So I'm a combination nurse, governess, guard and what have you. Or will be until we get back. After this, I'll probably be looking for work." She shivered.
"Cold?" he inquired concernedly.
"On the contrary, I'm too warm." She started to remove the blanket. Rat threw up a hand to stop her.
"Leave on! Hot out here."
"But I'm too hot now. I want to take it off!"
"No. Leave on. Wool blanket. Keep in body heat, yes. Keep out cold, yes. Keep in, keep out, likewise. See?"
Gray stared at him. "I never thought of it that way before. Why of course! If it protects from one temperature, it will protect from another. Isn't it silly of me not to know that?" Heat pressing on her face accented the fact.
"What is your name?" she asked. "Your real one I mean."
He grinned. "Big. You couldn't say it. Sound like Christmas and bottlenose together real fast. Just say Rat. Everybody does." His eyes swept the panel and flashed back to her. "Your name Gray. Have a front name?"
"Patti."
"Pretty, Patti."
"No, just Patti. Say, what's the matter with the cooling system?"
"Damn punk," he said. "This crate for surface work. No space. Cooling system groan, damn punk. Won't keep cool here."
"And ..." she followed up, "it will get warmer as we go out?"
Rat turned back to his board in a brown study and carefully ignored her. Gray grasped an inkling of what the coming week could bring.
"But how about water?" she demanded next. "Is there enough?"
He faced about. "For her—" nodding to Judith, "and him—" to Gladney,
"yes. Sparingly. Four hours every time, maybe." Back to Gray. "You, me ... twice a day. Too bad." His eyes drifted aft to the tank of water. She followed. "One tank water. All the rest fuel. Too bad, too bad. We get thirsty I think."
They did get thirsty, soon. A damnable hot thirst accented by the knowledge that water was precious, a thirst increased by a dried-up-in-the-mouth sensation. Their first drink was strangely bitter; tragically disappointing. Patti Gray suddenly swung upright in the hammock and kicked her legs. She massaged her throat with a nervous hand, wiped damp hair from about her face.
"I have to have a drink."
Rat stared at her without answer.
"I said, I have to have a drink!"
"Heard you."
"Well...?"
"Well, nothing. Stall. Keep water longer."
She swung a vicious boot and missed by inches. Rat grinned, and made his way aft, hand over hand. He treaded cautiously along the deck. "Do like this," he called over his shoulder. "Gravity punk too. Back and under, gravity." He waited until she joined him at the water tap.
They stood there glaring idiotically at each other.
She burst out laughing. "They even threw the drinking cups out!" Rat inched the handle grudgingly and she applied lips to the faucet.
"Faugh!" Gray sprang back, forgot herself and lost her balance, sat down on the deck and spat out the water. "It's hot! It tastes like hell and it's hot! It must be fuel!"
Rat applied his lips to the tap and sampled. Coming up with a mouthful he swished it around on his tongue like mouthwash. Abruptly he contrived a facial contortion between a grin and a grimace, and let some of the water trickle from the edges of his mouth. He swallowed and it cost him something.
"No. I mean yes, I think. Water, no doubt. Yes. Fuel out, water in. Swish-swush. Dammit, Greaseball forget to wash tank!"
"But what makes it so hot?" She worked her mouth to dry-rinse the taste of the fuel.
"Ship get hot. Water on sun side. H-m-m-m-m-m-m."
"H-m-m-m-m-m-m-m what?"
"Flip-flop." He could talk with his hands as well. "Hot side over like pancake." Rat hobbled over to the board and sat down. An experimental flick on a lever produced nothing. Another flick, this time followed by a quivering jar. He contemplated the panel board while fastening his belt.
"H-m-m-m-m-m-m," the lower lip protruded.
Gray protested. "Oh, stop humming and do something! That wa—" the word was queerly torn from her throat, and a scream magically filled the vacancy. Nurse Gray sat up and rubbed a painful spot that had suddenly appeared on her arm. She found her nose bleeding and another new, swelling bruise on the side of her head. Around her the place was empty. Bare.
No, not quite. A wispy something was hanging just out of sight in the corner of the eye; the water tap was now moulded upward , beads glistening on its handle. The wispy thing caught her attention again and she looked up.
Two people, tightly wrapped and bound in hammocks, were staring down at her, amazed, swinging on their stomachs. Craning further, she saw Rat. He was hanging upside down in the chair, grinning at her in reverse.
"Flip-flop," he laconically explained.
"For cripes sakes, Jehosaphat!" Gladney groaned. "Turn me over on my back! Do something!" Gray stood on tiptoes and just could pivot the hammocks on their rope-axis.
"And now, please, just how do I get into mine?" she bit at Rat.
Existence dragged. Paradoxically, time dropped away like a cloak as the sense of individual hours and minutes vanished, and into its place crept a slow-torturing substitute. As the ship revolved, monotonously, first the ceiling and then the floor took on dullish, maddening aspects, eyes ached continuously from staring at them time and again without surcease. The steady, drumming rockets crashed into the mind and the walls shrieked malevolently on the eyeballs. Dull, throbbing sameness of the poorly filtered air, a growing taint in the nostrils. Damp warm skin, reeking blankets. The taste of fuel in the mouth for refreshment. Slowly mounting mental duress. And above all the drumming of the rockets.
Once, a sudden, frightening change of pitch in the rockets and a wild, sickening lurch. Meteor rain. Maddening, plunging swings to the far right and left, made without warning. A torn lip as a sudden lurch tears the faucet from her mouth. A shattered tooth.
"Sorry!" Rat whispered.
"Shut up and drive!" she cried.
"Patti ..." Judith called out, in pain.
Peace of mind followed peace of body into a forgotten limbo of lost things, a slyly climbing madness directed at one another. Waspish words uttered in pain, fatigue and temper. Fractiousness. A hot, confined, stale hell. Sleep became a hollow mockery, as bad water and concentrated tablets brought on stomach pains to plague them. Consciousness punctured only by spasms of lethargy, shared to some extent by the invalids. Above all, crawling lassitude and incalescent tempers.
Rat watched the white, drawn face swing in the hammock beside him. And his hands never faltered on the controls.
Never a slackening of the terrific pace; abnormal speed, gruelling drive ... drive ... drive. Fear. Tantalizing fear made worse because Rat couldn't understand. Smothered moaning that ate at his nerves. Grim-faced, sleep-wracked, belted to the chair, driving!
"How many days? How many days!" Gray begged of him thousands of times until the very repetition grated on her eardrums. "How many days?" His only answer was an inhuman snarl, and the cruel blazing of those inhuman eyes.
She fell face first to the floor. "I can't keep it up!" she cried. The sound of her voice rolled along the hot steel deck. "I cant! I cant!"
A double handful of tepid water was thrown in her face. "Get up!" Rat stood over her, face twisted, his body hunched. "Get up!" She stared at him, dazed. He kicked her. "Get up!" The tepid water ran off her face and far away she heard Judith calling.... She forced herself up. Rat was back in the chair.
Gladney unexpectedly exploded. He had been awake for a long time, watching Rat at the board. Wrenching loose a chest strap he attempted to sit up.
"Rat! Damn you Rat, listen to me! When're you going to start braking , Rat?"
"I hear you." He turned on Gladney with dulled eyes. "Lie down. You sick."
"I'll be damned if I'm going to lie here and let you drive us to Orion! We must be near the half-way line! When are you going to start braking?"
"Not brake," Rat answered sullenly. "No, not brake."
" Not brake? " Gladney screamed and sat bolt upright. Nurse Gray jumped for him. "Are you crazy, you skinny rat?" Gray secured a hold on his shoulders and forced him down. "You gotta brake! Don't you understand that? You have to, you vacuum-skull!" Gray was pleading with him to shut-up like a good fellow. He appealed to her. "He's gotta brake! Make him!"
"He has a good point there, Rat," she spoke up. "What about this half-way line?"
He turned to her with a weary ghost of the old smile on his face. "We passed line. Three days ago, maybe." A shrug of shoulders.
"Passed!" Gray and Gladney exclaimed in unison.
"You catch on quick," Rat nodded. "This six day, don't you know?"
Gladney sank back, exhausted. The nurse crept over to the pilot.
"Getting your figures mixed, aren't you?"
Rat shook his head and said nothing.
"But Roberds said eight days, and he—"
"—he on Mars. I here. Boss nuts, too sad. He drive, it be eight days. Now only six." He cast a glance at Judith and found her eyes closed.
"Six days, no brake. No."
"I see your point, and appreciate it," Gray cut in. "But now what? This deceleration business ... there is a whole lot I don't know, but some things I do!"
Rat refused the expected answer. "Land tonight, I think. Never been to Earth before. Somebody meet us, I think."
"You can bet your leather boots somebody will meet us!" Gladney cried. Gray turned to him. "The Chief'll have the whole planet waiting for you !" He laughed with real satisfaction. "Oh yes, Rat, they'll be somebody waiting for us all right." And then he added: "If we land."
"Oh, we land." Rat confided, glad to share a secret.
"Yeah," Gladney grated. "But in how many little pieces?"
"I've never been to Earth before. Nice, I think." Patti Gray caught something new in the tone and stared at him. Gladney must have noticed it, too.
The Centaurian moved sideways and pointed. Gray placed her eyes in the vacated position.
"Earth!" she shouted.
"Quite. Nice. Do me a favor?"
"Just name it!"
"Not drink long time. Some water?"
Gray nodded and went to the faucet. The drumming seemed remote, the tension vanished. She was an uncommonly long time in returning, at last she appeared beside him, outstretched hands dry.
"There isn't any left, Rat."
Rat batted his tired eyes expressively. "Tasted punk," he grinned at her.
She sat down on the floor suddenly and buried her face.
"Rat," she said presently, "I want to ask you something, rather personal? Your ... name. 'Rat'? Roberds told me something about your record. But ... please tell me, Rat. You didn't know the attack was coming, did you?"
He grinned again and waggled his head at her. "No. Who tell Rat?" Suddenly he was deadly serious as he spoke to her. "Rat a.w.o.l., go out to help sick man alone in desert. Rat leave post. Not time send call through. Come back with man, find horrible thing happen."
"But why didn't you explain?"
He grinned again. "Who believe? Sick man die soon after."
Gladney sat up. He had heard the conversation between the two. "You're right, Rat. No one would have believed you then, and no one will now. You've been safe enough on Mars, but the police will nab you as soon as you get out of the ship."
"They can't!" cried Patti Gray. "They can't hurt him after what he's done now."
The Centaurian grinned in a cynical way.
"Police not get me, Gladney. Gladney's memory damn punk, I think. Earth pretty nice place, maybe. But not for Rat."
Gladney stared at him for minutes. Then: "Say, I get it ... you're—"
"Shut up!" Rat cut him off sharply. "You talk too much." He cast a glance at Nurse Gray and then threw a meaning look at Gladney.
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Describe the setting of the story.
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Breakdown by Herbert D. Kastle.
Relevant chunks:
BREAKDOWN
By HERBERT D. KASTLE
Illustrated by COWLES
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine June 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
He didn't know exactly when it had started, but it had been going on for weeks. Edna begged him to see the doctor living in that new house two miles past Dugan's farm, but he refused. He point-blank refused to admit he was sick that way—in the head!
Of course, a man could grow forgetful. He had to admit there were moments when he had all sorts of mixed-up memories and thoughts in his mind. And sometimes—like right now, lying in bed beside Edna, watching the first hint of light touch the windows—he began sweating with fear. A horrible, gut-wrenching fear, all the more horrible because it was based on nothing.
The chicken-run came alive; the barn followed minutes later. There were chores to do, the same chores he'd done all his forty-one years. Except that now, with the new regulations about wheat and corn, he had only a vegetable patch to farm. Sure, he got paid for letting the fields remain empty. But it just didn't seem right, all that land going to waste....
Davie. Blond hair and a round, tanned face and strong arms growing stronger each day from helping out after school.
He turned and shook Edna. "What happened to Davie?"
She cleared her throat, mumbled, "Huh? What happened to who?"
"I said, what...." But then it slipped away. Davie? No, that was part of a dream he'd had last week. He and Edna had no children.
He felt the fear again, and got up fast to escape it. Edna opened her eyes as soon as his weight left the bed. "Like hotcakes for breakfast?"
"Eggs," he said. "Bacon." And then, seeing her face change, he remembered. "Course," he muttered. "Can't have bacon. Rationed."
She was fully awake now. "If you'd only go see Dr. Hamming, Harry. Just for a checkup. Or let me call him so he could—"
"You stop that! You stop that right now, and for good! I don't want to hear no more about doctors. I get laid up, I'll call one. And it won't be that Hamming who I ain't never seen in my life! It'll be Timkins, who took care'n us and brought our son into the world and...."
She began to cry, and he realized he'd said something crazy again. They had no son, never had a son. And Timkins—he'd died and they'd gone to his funeral. Or so Edna said.
He himself just couldn't remember it.
He went to the bed and sat down beside her. "Sorry. That was just a dream I had. I'm still half asleep this morning. Couldn't fall off last night, not till real late. Guess I'm a little nervous, what with all the new regulations and not working regular. I never meant we had a son." He waited then, hoping she'd say they had had a son, and he'd died or gone away. But of course she didn't.
He went to the bathroom and washed. By the time he came to the kitchen, Edna had hotcakes on a plate and coffee in a cup. He sat down and ate. Part way through the meal, he paused. "Got an awful craving for meat," he said. "Goddam those rations! Man can't even butcher his own stock for his own table!"
"We're having meat for lunch," she said placatingly. "Nice cut of multi-pro."
"Multi-pro," he scoffed. "God knows what's in it. Like spam put through a grinder a hundred times and then baked into slabs. Can't hardly taste any meat there."
"Well, we got no choice. Country's on emergency rations. The current crisis, you know."
The way she said it irritated him. Like it was Scripture; like no one could question one word of it without being damned to Hell. He finished quickly and without speaking went on out to the barn.
He milked and curried and fed and cleaned, and still was done inside of two hours. Then he walked slowly, head down, across the hay-strewn floor. He stopped, put out his hand as if to find a pole or beam that was too familiar to require raising his eyes, and almost fell as he leaned in that direction. Regaining his balance after a sideward staggering shuffle, he looked around, startled. "Why, this ain't the way I had my barn...."
He heard his own voice, and stopped. He fought the flash of senseless panic. Of course this was the way he'd had his barn built, because it was his barn!
He rubbed his hard hands together and said aloud, "Get down to the patch. Them tomatoes need fertilizer for tang." He walked outside and took a deep breath. Air was different, wasn't it? Sweet and pure and clean, like country air always was and always would be; but still, different somehow. Maybe sharper. Or was sharp the word? Maybe....
He went quickly across the yard, past the pig-pen—he'd had twelve pigs, hadn't he? Now he had four—behind the house to where the half-acre truck farm lay greening in the sun. He got to work. Sometime later, Edna called to him. "Delivery last night, Harry. I took some. Pick up rest?"
"Yes," he shouted.
She disappeared.
He walked slowly back to the house. As he came into the front yard, moving toward the road and the supply bin, something occurred to him. The car. He hadn't seen the old Chevvy in ... how long? It'd be nice to take a ride to town, see a movie, maybe have a few beers.
No. It was against the travel regulations. He couldn't go further than Walt and Gloria Shanks' place. They couldn't go further than his. And the gas rationing. Besides, he'd sold the car, hadn't he? Because it was no use to him lying in the tractor shed.
He whirled, staring out across the fields to his left. Why, the tractor shed had stood just fifty feet from the house!
No, he'd torn it down. The tractor was in town, being overhauled and all. He was leaving it there until he had use for it.
He went on toward the road, his head beginning to throb. Why should a man his age, hardly sick at all since he was a kid, suddenly start losing hold this way? Edna was worried. The Shanks had noticed it too.
He was at the supply bin—like an old-fashioned wood bin; a box with a sloping flap lid. Deliveries of food and clothing and home medicines and other things were left here. You wrote down what you needed, and they left it—or whatever they allowed you—with a bill. You paid the bill by leaving money in the bin, and the next week you found a receipt and your new stuff and your new bill. And almost always you found some money from the government, for not planting wheat or not planting corn. It came out just about even.
He hauled out a sack of flour, half the amount of sugar Edna had ordered, some dried fruit, a new Homekit Medicine Shelf. He carried it into the house, and noticed a slip of paper pinned to the sugar bag. A television program guide.
Edna hustled over excitedly. "Anything good on this week, Harry?"
He looked down the listings, and frowned. "All old movies. Still only one channel. Still only from nine to eleven at night." He gave it to her, turned away; then stopped and waited. He'd said the same thing last week. And she had said the films were all new to her.
She said it now. "Why Harry, I've never seen this movie with Clark Gable. Nor the comedy with Red Skeleton. Nor the other five neither."
"I'm gonna lie down," he said flatly. He turned and stepped forward, and found himself facing the stove. Not the door to the hall; the stove. "But the door...." he began. He cut himself short. He turned and saw the door a few feet to the left, beside the table. He went there and out and up the stairs (they too had moved; they too weren't right) and into the bedroom and lay down. The bedroom was wrong. The bed was wrong. The windows were wrong.
The world was wrong! Lord, the whole damned world was wrong!
Edna didn't wake him, so they had a late lunch. Then he went back to the barn and let the four cows and four sheep and two horses into the pastures. Then he checked to see that Edna had fed the chickens right. They had only a dozen or so now.
When had he sold the rest? And when had he sold his other livestock?
Or had they died somehow? A rough winter? Disease?
He stood in the yard, a tall, husky man with pale brown hair and a face that had once been long, lean and strong and was now only long and lean. He blinked gray eyes and tried hard to remember, then turned and went to the house. Edna was soaking dishes in the sink, according to regulations—one sinkful of dishwater a day. And one tub of bath water twice a week.
She was looking at him. He realized his anger and confusion must be showing. He managed a smile. "You remember how much we got for our livestock, Edna?"
"Same as everyone else," she said. "Government agents paid flat rates."
He remembered then, or thought he did. The headache was back. He went upstairs and slept again, but this time he had dreams, many of them, and all confused and all frightening. He was glad to get up. And he was glad to hear Walt and Gloria talking to Edna downstairs.
He washed his face, combed his hair and went down. Walt and Gloria were sitting on the sofa, Edna in the blue armchair. Walt was saying he'd gotten the new TV picture tube he'd ordered. "Found it in the supply bin this morning. Spent the whole day installing it according to the book of directions."
Harry said hi and they all said hi and he sat down and they talked about TV and gardens and livestock. Then Harry said, "How's Penny?"
"Fine," Gloria answered. "I'm starting her on the kindergarten book next week."
"She's five already?" Harry asked.
"Almost six," Walt said. "Emergency Education Regulations state that the child should be five years nine months old before embarking on kindergarten book."
"And Frances?" Harry asked. "Your oldest? She must be starting high...." He stopped, because they were all staring at him, and because he couldn't remember Frances clearly. "Just a joke," he said, laughing and rising. "Let's eat. I'm starved."
They ate in the kitchen. They talked—or rather Edna, Gloria and Walt did. Harry nodded and said uh-huh and used his mouth for chewing.
Walt and Gloria went home at ten-fifteen. They said goodbye at the door and Harry walked away. He heard Gloria whispering something about Doctor Hamming.
He was sitting in the living room when Edna came in. She was crying.
"Harry, please see the doctor."
He got up. "I'm going out. I might even sleep out!"
"But why, Harry, why?"
He couldn't stand to see her crying. He went to her, kissed her wet cheek, spoke more softly. "It'll do me good, like when I was a kid."
"If you say so, Harry."
He left quickly. He went outside and across the yard to the road. He looked up it and down it, to the north and to the south. It was a bright night with moon and stars, but he saw nothing, no one. The road was empty. It was always empty, except when Walt and Gloria walked over from their place a mile or so south. But once it hadn't been empty. Once there'd been cars, people....
He had to do something. Just sitting and looking at the sky wouldn't help him. He had to go somewhere, see someone.
He went to the barn and looked for his saddle. There was no saddle. But he'd had one hanging right behind the door. Or had he?
He threw a blanket over Plum, the big mare, and tied it with a piece of wash line. He used another piece for a bridle, since he couldn't find that either, and didn't bother making a bit. He mounted, and Plum moved out of the barn and onto the road. He headed north, toward town.
Then he realized he couldn't go along the road this way. He'd be reported. Breaking travel regulations was a serious offense. He didn't know what they did to you, but it wasn't anything easy like a fine.
He cut into an unfenced, unplanted field.
His headache was back, worse now than it had ever been. His entire head throbbed, and he leaned forward and put his cheek against Plum's mane. The mare whinnied uneasily, but he kicked her sides and she moved forward. He lay there, just wanting to go somewhere, just wanting to leave his headache and confusion behind.
He didn't know how long it was, but Plum was moving cautiously now. He raised his head. They were approaching a fence. He noticed a gate off to the right, and pulled the rope so Plum went that way. They reached the gate and he got down to open it, and saw the sign. "Phineas Grotton Farm." He looked up at the sky, found the constellations, turned his head, and nodded. He'd started north, and Plum had continued north. He'd crossed land belonging both to himself and the Franklins. Now he was leaving the Franklin farm. North of the Franklins were the Bessers. Who was this Phineas Grotton? Had he bought out Lon Besser? But anything like that would've gotten around.
Was he forgetting again?
Well, no matter. Mr. Grotton would have to excuse his trespass. He opened the gate, led Plum through it, closed the gate. He mounted and rode forward, still north, toward the small Pangborn place and after the Pangborns the biggest farm in the county—old Wallace Elverton's place. The fields here, as everywhere in the county, lay fallow. Seemed as if the government had so much grain stored up they'd be able to get along without crops for years more.
He looked around. Somehow, the country bothered him. He wasn't sure why, but ... everything was wrong.
His head weighed an agonized ton. He put it down again. Plum went sedately forward. After a while she stopped. Harry looked up. Another fence. And what a fence! About ten feet of heavy steel mesh, topped by three feet of barbed-wire—five separate strands. What in the world had Sam Pangborn been thinking of to put up a monster like this?
He looked around. The gate should be further west. He rode that way. He found no gate. He turned back, heading east. No gate. Nothing but fence. And wasn't the fence gradually curving inward? He looked back. Yes, there was a slight inward curve.
He dismounted and tied Plum to the fence, then stepped back and figured the best way to get to the other side.
The best way, the only way, was to claw, clutch and clamber, as they used to say back when he was a kid.
It took some doing. He tore his shirt on the barbed wire, but he got over and began walking, straight ahead, due north. The earth changed beneath his feet. He stooped and touched it. Sand. Hard-packed sand. He'd never seen the like of it in this county.
He walked on. A sound came to him; a rising-falling whisper. He listened to it, and looked up every so often at the sky, to make sure he was heading in the right direction.
And the sand ended. His shoes plunked over flooring.
Flooring!
He knelt to make sure, and his hand felt wooden planks. He rose, and glanced up to see if he was still outdoors. Then he laughed. It was a sick laugh, so he stopped it.
He took another step. His shoes sounded against the wood. He walked. More wood. Wood that went on, as the sand had. And the roaring sound growing louder. And the air changing, smelling like air never had before in Cultwait County.
His entire body trembled. His mind trembled too. He walked, and came to a waist-high metal railing, and made a tiny sound deep in his throat. He looked out over water, endless water rolling in endless waves under the night sky. Crashing water, topped with reflected silver from the moon. Pounding water, filling the air with spray.
He put out his hands and grasped the railing. It was wet. He raised damp fingers to his mouth. Salt.
He stepped back, back, and turned and ran. He ran wildly, blindly, until he could run no more. Then he fell, feeling the sand beneath him, and shut his eyes and mind to everything.
Much later, he got up and went to the fence and climbed it. He came down on the other side and looked around and saw Plum. He walked to her, mounted her, sat still. The thoughts, or dreams, or whatever they were which had been torturing him these past few weeks began torturing him again.
It was getting light. His head was splitting.
Davie. His son Davie. Fourteen years old. Going to high school in town....
Town! He should've gone there in the first place! He would ride east, to the road, then head south, back toward home. That would bring him right down Main Street. Regulations or not, he'd talk to people, find out what was happening.
He kicked Plum's sides. The mare began to move. He kept kicking until she broke into a brisk canter. He held on with hands and legs.
Why hadn't he seen the Pangborns and Elvertons lately—a long time lately?
The ocean. He'd seen the ocean. Not a reservoir or lake made by flooding and by damming, but salt water and enormous. An ocean, where there could be no ocean. The Pangborns and Elvertons had been where that ocean was now. And after the Elvertons had come the Dobsons. And after them the new plastics plant. And after that the city of Crossville. And after that....
He was passing his own farm. He hadn't come through town, and yet here he was at his own farm. Could he have forgotten where town was? Could it be north of his home, not south? Could a man get so confused as to forget things he'd known all his life?
He reached the Shanks' place, and passed it at a trot. Then he was beyond their boundaries and breaking regulations again. He stayed on the road. He went by a small house and saw colored folks in the yard. There'd been no colored folks here. There'd been Eli Bergen and his family and his mother, in a bigger, newer house. The colored folks heard Plum's hooves and looked up and stared. Then a man raised his voice. "Mistah, you breakin' regulations! Mistah, the police gonnah get you!"
He rode on. He came to another house, neat and white, with three children playing on a grassy lawn. They saw him and ran inside. A moment later, adult voices yelled after him:
"You theah! Stop!"
"Call the sheriff! He's headin' foah Piney Woods!"
There was no place called Piney Woods in this county.
Was this how a man's mind went?
He came to another house, and another. He passed ten all told, and people shouted at him for breaking regulations, and the last three or four sounded like Easterners. And their houses looked like pictures of New England he'd seen in magazines.
He rode on. He never did come to town. He came to a ten-foot fence with a three-foot barbed-wire extension. He got off Plum and ripped his clothing climbing. He walked over hard-packed sand, and then wood, and came to a low metal railing. He looked out at the ocean, gleaming in bright sunlight, surging and seething endlessly. He felt the earth sway beneath him. He staggered, and dropped to his hands and knees, and shook his head like a fighter hit too many times. Then he got up and went back to the fence and heard a sound. It was a familiar sound, yet strange too. He shaded his eyes against the climbing sun. Then he saw it—a car. A car!
It was one of those tiny foreign jobs that run on practically no gas at all. It stopped beside him and two men got out. Young men with lined, tired faces; they wore policemen's uniforms. "You broke regulations, Mr. Burr. You'll have to come with us."
He nodded. He wanted to. He wanted to be taken care of. He turned toward Plum.
The other officer was walking around the horse. "Rode her hard," he said, and he sounded real worried. "Shouldn't have done that, Mr. Burr. We have so very few now...."
The officer holding Harry's arm said, "Pete."
The officer examining Plum said, "It won't make any difference in a while."
Harry looked at both of them, and felt sharp, personal fear.
"Take the horse back to his farm," the officer holding Harry said. He opened the door of the little car and pushed Harry inside. He went around to the driver's side and got behind the wheel and drove away. Harry looked back. Pete was leading Plum after them; not riding him, walking him. "He sure must like horses," he said.
"Yes."
"Am I going to jail?"
"No."
"Where then?"
"The doctor's place."
They stopped in front of the new house two miles past Dugan's farm. Except he'd never seen it before. Or had he? Everyone seemed to know about it—or was everyone only Edna and the Shanks?
He got out of the car. The officer took his arm and led him up the path. Harry noticed that the new house was big.
When they came inside, he knew it wasn't like any house he'd ever seen or heard of. There was this long central passageway, and dozens of doors branched off it on both sides, and stairways went down from it in at least three places that he could see, and at the far end—a good two hundred yards away—a big ramp led upward. And it was all gray plaster walls and dull black floors and cold white lighting, like a hospital, or a modern factory, or maybe a government building. Except that he didn't see or hear people.
He did hear something ; a low, rumbling noise. The further they came along the hall, the louder the rumbling grew. It seemed to be deep down somewhere.
They went through one of the doors on the right, into a windowless room. A thin little man with bald head and frameless glasses was there, putting on a white coat. His veiny hands shook. He looked a hundred years old. "Where's Petey?" he asked.
"Pete's all right, Dad. Just leading a horse back to Burr's farm."
The old man sighed. "I didn't know what form it would take. I expected one or two cases, but I couldn't predict whether it would be gradual or sudden, whether or not it would lead to violence."
"No violence, Dad."
"Fine, Stan." He looked at Harry. "I'm going to give you a little treatment, Mr. Burr. It'll settle your nerves and make everything...."
"What happened to Davie?" Harry asked, things pushing at his brain again.
Stan helped him up. "Just step this way, Mr. Burr."
He didn't resist. He went through the second door into the room with the big chair. He sat down and let them strap his arms and legs and let them lower the metal thing over his head. He felt needles pierce his scalp and the back of his neck. He let them do what they wanted; he would let them kill him if they wanted. All he asked was one answer so as to know whether or not he was insane.
"What happened to my son Davie?"
The old man walked across the room and examined what looked like the insides of a dozen big radios. He turned, his hand on a switch.
"Please," Harry whispered. "Just tell me about my son."
The doctor blinked behind his glasses, and then his hand left the switch. "Dead," he said, his voice a rustling of dried leaves. "Like so many millions of others. Dead, when the bombs fell. Dead, as everyone knew they would be and no one did anything to prevent. Dead. Perhaps the whole world is dead—except for us."
Harry stared at him.
"I can't take the time to explain it all. I have too much to do. Just three of us—myself and my two sons. My wife lost her mind. I should have helped her as I'm helping you."
"I don't understand," Harry said. "I remember people, and things, and where are they now? Dead? People can die, but farms, cities...."
"I haven't the time," the doctor repeated, voice rising. "I have to run a world. Three of us, to run a world! I built it as best I could, but how large could I make it? The money. The years and years of work. The people calling me insane when they found out ... but a few giving me more money, and the work going on. And those few caught like everyone else, unprepared when the holocaust started, unprepared and unable to reach my world. So they died. As I knew they would. As they should have known they would."
Harry felt the rumbling beneath him. Engines?
"You survived," the doctor said. "Your wife. A few hundred others in the rural areas. One other family in your area. I survived because I lived for survival, like a mole deep in the earth, expecting the catastrophe every minute. I survived because I gave up living to survive." He laughed, high and thin.
His son said, "Please, Dad...."
"No! I want to talk to someone sane ! You and Petey and I—we're all insane, you know. Three years now, playing God, waiting for some land, any land, to become habitable. And knowing everything, and surrounded by people who are sane only because I made sure they would know nothing." He stepped forward, glaring at Harry. "Now do you understand? I went across the country, picking up a few of the few left alive. Most were farmers, and even where some weren't I picked the farmers anyway. Because farmers are what we'll need, and all the rest can evolve later. I put you and the others, eighty-six all told, from every section of the country, on my world, the only uncontaminated land left. I gave you back your old lives. I couldn't give you big crops because we don't need big crops. We would only exhaust our limited soil with big crops. But I gave you vegetable gardens and livestock and, best of all, sanity ! I wiped the insane moments from your minds. I gave you peace and consigned myself, my sons, my own wife...."
He choked and stopped.
Stan ran across the room to the switch. Harry watched him, and his brain struggled with an impossible concept. He heard the engines and remembered the ocean on two sides; on four sides had he bothered to check south and east; on all sides if that fence continued to curve inward. Ocean, and there was no ocean in Iowa.
And this wasn't Iowa.
The explosions had ripped the world, and he'd tried to get to town to save Davie, and there'd been no town and there'd been no people and there'd been only death and poison in the air and even those few people left had begun to die, and then the truck with the huge trailer had come, the gleaming trailer with the little man and his trembling wife and his two sons....
Suddenly, he understood. And understanding brought not peace but the greatest terror he'd ever known. He screamed, "We're on...." but the switch was thrown and there was no more speech. For an hour. Then he got out of the chair and said, "Sure glad I took my wife's advice and came to see you, Doctor Hamming. I feel better already, and after only one.... What do you call these treatments?"
"Diathermy," the little doctor muttered.
Harry gave him a five-dollar bill. The doctor gave him two singles in change. "That's certainly reasonable enough," Harry said.
The doctor nodded. "There's a police officer in the hall. He'll drive you home so there won't be any trouble with the travel regulations."
Harry said, "Thanks. Think we'll ever see the end of travel regulations and rationing and all the rest of the emergency?"
"You will, Mr. Burr."
Harry walked to the door.
"We're on an ark," the doctor said.
Harry turned around, smiling. "What?"
"A test, Mr. Burr. You passed it. Goodbye."
Harry went home. He told Edna he felt just great! She said she'd been worried when an officer found Plum wandering on the road; she thought maybe Harry had gone off somewhere and broken travel regulations.
"Me?" he exclaimed, amazed. "Break travel regulations? I'd as soon kill a pig!"
Question:
Describe the setting of the story.
Answer:
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"The story is set on an ark that Doctor Hamming put money into creating. Although it resembles Iowa, the residents are fooled to believe that it is indeed Iowa. Each of the residents have their own farm and land area, and they are restricted to only staying inside a certain area. For the Burrs, they cannot go beyond the Shanks’ place. Harry’s farm area has his house, an area for the livestock, and a tractor shed that was supposed to be torn off. Their area also has a supply bin that is shaped like an old-fashioned wood bin for deliveries from the government. The land they live on is also shared with the Franklins. When Harry takes Plum out for a ride, they go up north past the Franklins to where the Bessers should be. Then, they reach a small Pangborn farm. Beyond Pangborn, there lies old Wallace Elverton’s place, which is known as the biggest farm in the country. There is barbed wire in this area, and he walks past it. Slowly, the earth becomes sand and then wood. There are also colored folks living here, when there shouldn’t have been, and a place called Piney Woods exists as well. The place where Doctor Hamming lives is two miles past Dugan’s farm. It resembles a hospital, but there is nobody else inside of it. ",
"This story is set in Iowa, perhaps a town, specifically, the farmhouse of Edna and Harry. This farmhouse had fields of land, a thriving vegetable patch, and a barn. Towards the road, there is a wooden supply in for deliveries and payment by the government. \n\nWhile on the horse, Harry encounters a farm fenced off with barbed wire. As he walked, the ground changed from beneath him. It went from earth to sand to wood. Here, he found a waist-high metal that when overlooked, revealed endless salty water - the ocean. \n\nAt the end of the story, Harry visits the doctor's place which is located in a new house past Dugan's farm. The house had long passageways and many. stairways, with gray walls and cold lighting. In there, there were windowless rooms. ",
"The story happens on a wooden ark floating on the ocean. The first scene is in Harry’s two-floor house. There are bedrooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom in his house. There is a blue armchair, a sofa, and a TV in the living room. Outside the house is the barn with the floor strewn with hay. Across the yard, there is a pigpen with four pigs inside. Behind the house, there is a half-acre truck farm. Across the front yard, there lies a wooden supply bin by the road. The road is empty, along which are unplanted fields. Ten-foot heavy steel mesh on top with three-foot barbed wire surrounds all the houses on the wooden ark. Near the edge of the ark, the floor is covered with hard-packed sand. On the edge of the ark is a metal railing circling the ark. The doctor’s house is big. Inside the house, at the end of a central passage and dozens of doors on both sides, a stairway downwards to at least two hundred yards depth, where the end leads to a ramp going upward. The grey plaster walls, black floors, and white lighting set a dull tone. An engine for the ark to move lies in the most central and deepest part of the house.",
"Harry and Edna think that they live in Iowa’s countryside. In the morning, they have a small conversation in the bedroom. Then Harry goes to the bathroom to wash, then to the kitchen. After eating, he spends some time in the barn and goes to the truck behind the house. Later, harry picks up a delivery in the front yard. He takes a nap and then eats in the kitchen. In the evening, their guests are seated on the sofa, and Edna is in the blue armchair. Later, Harry rides to the north. He trespasses on Phineas Grotton Farm. Then, he climbs over a high fence, and soon notices sand and later wood flooring beneath his feet. Finally, he sees the ocean. He runs back to his horse and decides to ride in the opposite direction along a residential road. He again reaches the railing and the ocean. The police officer gets him to doctor Hamming. This building is big: they go along the central passageway and see dozens of doors branched off it on both sides, and stairways go down from it in at least three places that Harry can see, and at the far end—a good two hundred yards away—a big ramp led upward. And it was all gray plaster walls, black floors, and cold white lighting, like a hospital, or a modern factory, or maybe a government building. He comes into a windowless room with a medical chair and a set of radios. At the end, after learning that he lives on an ark and immediately forgetting this, Harry comes back home.\n\n\n "
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51662
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BREAKDOWN
By HERBERT D. KASTLE
Illustrated by COWLES
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine June 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
He didn't know exactly when it had started, but it had been going on for weeks. Edna begged him to see the doctor living in that new house two miles past Dugan's farm, but he refused. He point-blank refused to admit he was sick that way—in the head!
Of course, a man could grow forgetful. He had to admit there were moments when he had all sorts of mixed-up memories and thoughts in his mind. And sometimes—like right now, lying in bed beside Edna, watching the first hint of light touch the windows—he began sweating with fear. A horrible, gut-wrenching fear, all the more horrible because it was based on nothing.
The chicken-run came alive; the barn followed minutes later. There were chores to do, the same chores he'd done all his forty-one years. Except that now, with the new regulations about wheat and corn, he had only a vegetable patch to farm. Sure, he got paid for letting the fields remain empty. But it just didn't seem right, all that land going to waste....
Davie. Blond hair and a round, tanned face and strong arms growing stronger each day from helping out after school.
He turned and shook Edna. "What happened to Davie?"
She cleared her throat, mumbled, "Huh? What happened to who?"
"I said, what...." But then it slipped away. Davie? No, that was part of a dream he'd had last week. He and Edna had no children.
He felt the fear again, and got up fast to escape it. Edna opened her eyes as soon as his weight left the bed. "Like hotcakes for breakfast?"
"Eggs," he said. "Bacon." And then, seeing her face change, he remembered. "Course," he muttered. "Can't have bacon. Rationed."
She was fully awake now. "If you'd only go see Dr. Hamming, Harry. Just for a checkup. Or let me call him so he could—"
"You stop that! You stop that right now, and for good! I don't want to hear no more about doctors. I get laid up, I'll call one. And it won't be that Hamming who I ain't never seen in my life! It'll be Timkins, who took care'n us and brought our son into the world and...."
She began to cry, and he realized he'd said something crazy again. They had no son, never had a son. And Timkins—he'd died and they'd gone to his funeral. Or so Edna said.
He himself just couldn't remember it.
He went to the bed and sat down beside her. "Sorry. That was just a dream I had. I'm still half asleep this morning. Couldn't fall off last night, not till real late. Guess I'm a little nervous, what with all the new regulations and not working regular. I never meant we had a son." He waited then, hoping she'd say they had had a son, and he'd died or gone away. But of course she didn't.
He went to the bathroom and washed. By the time he came to the kitchen, Edna had hotcakes on a plate and coffee in a cup. He sat down and ate. Part way through the meal, he paused. "Got an awful craving for meat," he said. "Goddam those rations! Man can't even butcher his own stock for his own table!"
"We're having meat for lunch," she said placatingly. "Nice cut of multi-pro."
"Multi-pro," he scoffed. "God knows what's in it. Like spam put through a grinder a hundred times and then baked into slabs. Can't hardly taste any meat there."
"Well, we got no choice. Country's on emergency rations. The current crisis, you know."
The way she said it irritated him. Like it was Scripture; like no one could question one word of it without being damned to Hell. He finished quickly and without speaking went on out to the barn.
He milked and curried and fed and cleaned, and still was done inside of two hours. Then he walked slowly, head down, across the hay-strewn floor. He stopped, put out his hand as if to find a pole or beam that was too familiar to require raising his eyes, and almost fell as he leaned in that direction. Regaining his balance after a sideward staggering shuffle, he looked around, startled. "Why, this ain't the way I had my barn...."
He heard his own voice, and stopped. He fought the flash of senseless panic. Of course this was the way he'd had his barn built, because it was his barn!
He rubbed his hard hands together and said aloud, "Get down to the patch. Them tomatoes need fertilizer for tang." He walked outside and took a deep breath. Air was different, wasn't it? Sweet and pure and clean, like country air always was and always would be; but still, different somehow. Maybe sharper. Or was sharp the word? Maybe....
He went quickly across the yard, past the pig-pen—he'd had twelve pigs, hadn't he? Now he had four—behind the house to where the half-acre truck farm lay greening in the sun. He got to work. Sometime later, Edna called to him. "Delivery last night, Harry. I took some. Pick up rest?"
"Yes," he shouted.
She disappeared.
He walked slowly back to the house. As he came into the front yard, moving toward the road and the supply bin, something occurred to him. The car. He hadn't seen the old Chevvy in ... how long? It'd be nice to take a ride to town, see a movie, maybe have a few beers.
No. It was against the travel regulations. He couldn't go further than Walt and Gloria Shanks' place. They couldn't go further than his. And the gas rationing. Besides, he'd sold the car, hadn't he? Because it was no use to him lying in the tractor shed.
He whirled, staring out across the fields to his left. Why, the tractor shed had stood just fifty feet from the house!
No, he'd torn it down. The tractor was in town, being overhauled and all. He was leaving it there until he had use for it.
He went on toward the road, his head beginning to throb. Why should a man his age, hardly sick at all since he was a kid, suddenly start losing hold this way? Edna was worried. The Shanks had noticed it too.
He was at the supply bin—like an old-fashioned wood bin; a box with a sloping flap lid. Deliveries of food and clothing and home medicines and other things were left here. You wrote down what you needed, and they left it—or whatever they allowed you—with a bill. You paid the bill by leaving money in the bin, and the next week you found a receipt and your new stuff and your new bill. And almost always you found some money from the government, for not planting wheat or not planting corn. It came out just about even.
He hauled out a sack of flour, half the amount of sugar Edna had ordered, some dried fruit, a new Homekit Medicine Shelf. He carried it into the house, and noticed a slip of paper pinned to the sugar bag. A television program guide.
Edna hustled over excitedly. "Anything good on this week, Harry?"
He looked down the listings, and frowned. "All old movies. Still only one channel. Still only from nine to eleven at night." He gave it to her, turned away; then stopped and waited. He'd said the same thing last week. And she had said the films were all new to her.
She said it now. "Why Harry, I've never seen this movie with Clark Gable. Nor the comedy with Red Skeleton. Nor the other five neither."
"I'm gonna lie down," he said flatly. He turned and stepped forward, and found himself facing the stove. Not the door to the hall; the stove. "But the door...." he began. He cut himself short. He turned and saw the door a few feet to the left, beside the table. He went there and out and up the stairs (they too had moved; they too weren't right) and into the bedroom and lay down. The bedroom was wrong. The bed was wrong. The windows were wrong.
The world was wrong! Lord, the whole damned world was wrong!
Edna didn't wake him, so they had a late lunch. Then he went back to the barn and let the four cows and four sheep and two horses into the pastures. Then he checked to see that Edna had fed the chickens right. They had only a dozen or so now.
When had he sold the rest? And when had he sold his other livestock?
Or had they died somehow? A rough winter? Disease?
He stood in the yard, a tall, husky man with pale brown hair and a face that had once been long, lean and strong and was now only long and lean. He blinked gray eyes and tried hard to remember, then turned and went to the house. Edna was soaking dishes in the sink, according to regulations—one sinkful of dishwater a day. And one tub of bath water twice a week.
She was looking at him. He realized his anger and confusion must be showing. He managed a smile. "You remember how much we got for our livestock, Edna?"
"Same as everyone else," she said. "Government agents paid flat rates."
He remembered then, or thought he did. The headache was back. He went upstairs and slept again, but this time he had dreams, many of them, and all confused and all frightening. He was glad to get up. And he was glad to hear Walt and Gloria talking to Edna downstairs.
He washed his face, combed his hair and went down. Walt and Gloria were sitting on the sofa, Edna in the blue armchair. Walt was saying he'd gotten the new TV picture tube he'd ordered. "Found it in the supply bin this morning. Spent the whole day installing it according to the book of directions."
Harry said hi and they all said hi and he sat down and they talked about TV and gardens and livestock. Then Harry said, "How's Penny?"
"Fine," Gloria answered. "I'm starting her on the kindergarten book next week."
"She's five already?" Harry asked.
"Almost six," Walt said. "Emergency Education Regulations state that the child should be five years nine months old before embarking on kindergarten book."
"And Frances?" Harry asked. "Your oldest? She must be starting high...." He stopped, because they were all staring at him, and because he couldn't remember Frances clearly. "Just a joke," he said, laughing and rising. "Let's eat. I'm starved."
They ate in the kitchen. They talked—or rather Edna, Gloria and Walt did. Harry nodded and said uh-huh and used his mouth for chewing.
Walt and Gloria went home at ten-fifteen. They said goodbye at the door and Harry walked away. He heard Gloria whispering something about Doctor Hamming.
He was sitting in the living room when Edna came in. She was crying.
"Harry, please see the doctor."
He got up. "I'm going out. I might even sleep out!"
"But why, Harry, why?"
He couldn't stand to see her crying. He went to her, kissed her wet cheek, spoke more softly. "It'll do me good, like when I was a kid."
"If you say so, Harry."
He left quickly. He went outside and across the yard to the road. He looked up it and down it, to the north and to the south. It was a bright night with moon and stars, but he saw nothing, no one. The road was empty. It was always empty, except when Walt and Gloria walked over from their place a mile or so south. But once it hadn't been empty. Once there'd been cars, people....
He had to do something. Just sitting and looking at the sky wouldn't help him. He had to go somewhere, see someone.
He went to the barn and looked for his saddle. There was no saddle. But he'd had one hanging right behind the door. Or had he?
He threw a blanket over Plum, the big mare, and tied it with a piece of wash line. He used another piece for a bridle, since he couldn't find that either, and didn't bother making a bit. He mounted, and Plum moved out of the barn and onto the road. He headed north, toward town.
Then he realized he couldn't go along the road this way. He'd be reported. Breaking travel regulations was a serious offense. He didn't know what they did to you, but it wasn't anything easy like a fine.
He cut into an unfenced, unplanted field.
His headache was back, worse now than it had ever been. His entire head throbbed, and he leaned forward and put his cheek against Plum's mane. The mare whinnied uneasily, but he kicked her sides and she moved forward. He lay there, just wanting to go somewhere, just wanting to leave his headache and confusion behind.
He didn't know how long it was, but Plum was moving cautiously now. He raised his head. They were approaching a fence. He noticed a gate off to the right, and pulled the rope so Plum went that way. They reached the gate and he got down to open it, and saw the sign. "Phineas Grotton Farm." He looked up at the sky, found the constellations, turned his head, and nodded. He'd started north, and Plum had continued north. He'd crossed land belonging both to himself and the Franklins. Now he was leaving the Franklin farm. North of the Franklins were the Bessers. Who was this Phineas Grotton? Had he bought out Lon Besser? But anything like that would've gotten around.
Was he forgetting again?
Well, no matter. Mr. Grotton would have to excuse his trespass. He opened the gate, led Plum through it, closed the gate. He mounted and rode forward, still north, toward the small Pangborn place and after the Pangborns the biggest farm in the county—old Wallace Elverton's place. The fields here, as everywhere in the county, lay fallow. Seemed as if the government had so much grain stored up they'd be able to get along without crops for years more.
He looked around. Somehow, the country bothered him. He wasn't sure why, but ... everything was wrong.
His head weighed an agonized ton. He put it down again. Plum went sedately forward. After a while she stopped. Harry looked up. Another fence. And what a fence! About ten feet of heavy steel mesh, topped by three feet of barbed-wire—five separate strands. What in the world had Sam Pangborn been thinking of to put up a monster like this?
He looked around. The gate should be further west. He rode that way. He found no gate. He turned back, heading east. No gate. Nothing but fence. And wasn't the fence gradually curving inward? He looked back. Yes, there was a slight inward curve.
He dismounted and tied Plum to the fence, then stepped back and figured the best way to get to the other side.
The best way, the only way, was to claw, clutch and clamber, as they used to say back when he was a kid.
It took some doing. He tore his shirt on the barbed wire, but he got over and began walking, straight ahead, due north. The earth changed beneath his feet. He stooped and touched it. Sand. Hard-packed sand. He'd never seen the like of it in this county.
He walked on. A sound came to him; a rising-falling whisper. He listened to it, and looked up every so often at the sky, to make sure he was heading in the right direction.
And the sand ended. His shoes plunked over flooring.
Flooring!
He knelt to make sure, and his hand felt wooden planks. He rose, and glanced up to see if he was still outdoors. Then he laughed. It was a sick laugh, so he stopped it.
He took another step. His shoes sounded against the wood. He walked. More wood. Wood that went on, as the sand had. And the roaring sound growing louder. And the air changing, smelling like air never had before in Cultwait County.
His entire body trembled. His mind trembled too. He walked, and came to a waist-high metal railing, and made a tiny sound deep in his throat. He looked out over water, endless water rolling in endless waves under the night sky. Crashing water, topped with reflected silver from the moon. Pounding water, filling the air with spray.
He put out his hands and grasped the railing. It was wet. He raised damp fingers to his mouth. Salt.
He stepped back, back, and turned and ran. He ran wildly, blindly, until he could run no more. Then he fell, feeling the sand beneath him, and shut his eyes and mind to everything.
Much later, he got up and went to the fence and climbed it. He came down on the other side and looked around and saw Plum. He walked to her, mounted her, sat still. The thoughts, or dreams, or whatever they were which had been torturing him these past few weeks began torturing him again.
It was getting light. His head was splitting.
Davie. His son Davie. Fourteen years old. Going to high school in town....
Town! He should've gone there in the first place! He would ride east, to the road, then head south, back toward home. That would bring him right down Main Street. Regulations or not, he'd talk to people, find out what was happening.
He kicked Plum's sides. The mare began to move. He kept kicking until she broke into a brisk canter. He held on with hands and legs.
Why hadn't he seen the Pangborns and Elvertons lately—a long time lately?
The ocean. He'd seen the ocean. Not a reservoir or lake made by flooding and by damming, but salt water and enormous. An ocean, where there could be no ocean. The Pangborns and Elvertons had been where that ocean was now. And after the Elvertons had come the Dobsons. And after them the new plastics plant. And after that the city of Crossville. And after that....
He was passing his own farm. He hadn't come through town, and yet here he was at his own farm. Could he have forgotten where town was? Could it be north of his home, not south? Could a man get so confused as to forget things he'd known all his life?
He reached the Shanks' place, and passed it at a trot. Then he was beyond their boundaries and breaking regulations again. He stayed on the road. He went by a small house and saw colored folks in the yard. There'd been no colored folks here. There'd been Eli Bergen and his family and his mother, in a bigger, newer house. The colored folks heard Plum's hooves and looked up and stared. Then a man raised his voice. "Mistah, you breakin' regulations! Mistah, the police gonnah get you!"
He rode on. He came to another house, neat and white, with three children playing on a grassy lawn. They saw him and ran inside. A moment later, adult voices yelled after him:
"You theah! Stop!"
"Call the sheriff! He's headin' foah Piney Woods!"
There was no place called Piney Woods in this county.
Was this how a man's mind went?
He came to another house, and another. He passed ten all told, and people shouted at him for breaking regulations, and the last three or four sounded like Easterners. And their houses looked like pictures of New England he'd seen in magazines.
He rode on. He never did come to town. He came to a ten-foot fence with a three-foot barbed-wire extension. He got off Plum and ripped his clothing climbing. He walked over hard-packed sand, and then wood, and came to a low metal railing. He looked out at the ocean, gleaming in bright sunlight, surging and seething endlessly. He felt the earth sway beneath him. He staggered, and dropped to his hands and knees, and shook his head like a fighter hit too many times. Then he got up and went back to the fence and heard a sound. It was a familiar sound, yet strange too. He shaded his eyes against the climbing sun. Then he saw it—a car. A car!
It was one of those tiny foreign jobs that run on practically no gas at all. It stopped beside him and two men got out. Young men with lined, tired faces; they wore policemen's uniforms. "You broke regulations, Mr. Burr. You'll have to come with us."
He nodded. He wanted to. He wanted to be taken care of. He turned toward Plum.
The other officer was walking around the horse. "Rode her hard," he said, and he sounded real worried. "Shouldn't have done that, Mr. Burr. We have so very few now...."
The officer holding Harry's arm said, "Pete."
The officer examining Plum said, "It won't make any difference in a while."
Harry looked at both of them, and felt sharp, personal fear.
"Take the horse back to his farm," the officer holding Harry said. He opened the door of the little car and pushed Harry inside. He went around to the driver's side and got behind the wheel and drove away. Harry looked back. Pete was leading Plum after them; not riding him, walking him. "He sure must like horses," he said.
"Yes."
"Am I going to jail?"
"No."
"Where then?"
"The doctor's place."
They stopped in front of the new house two miles past Dugan's farm. Except he'd never seen it before. Or had he? Everyone seemed to know about it—or was everyone only Edna and the Shanks?
He got out of the car. The officer took his arm and led him up the path. Harry noticed that the new house was big.
When they came inside, he knew it wasn't like any house he'd ever seen or heard of. There was this long central passageway, and dozens of doors branched off it on both sides, and stairways went down from it in at least three places that he could see, and at the far end—a good two hundred yards away—a big ramp led upward. And it was all gray plaster walls and dull black floors and cold white lighting, like a hospital, or a modern factory, or maybe a government building. Except that he didn't see or hear people.
He did hear something ; a low, rumbling noise. The further they came along the hall, the louder the rumbling grew. It seemed to be deep down somewhere.
They went through one of the doors on the right, into a windowless room. A thin little man with bald head and frameless glasses was there, putting on a white coat. His veiny hands shook. He looked a hundred years old. "Where's Petey?" he asked.
"Pete's all right, Dad. Just leading a horse back to Burr's farm."
The old man sighed. "I didn't know what form it would take. I expected one or two cases, but I couldn't predict whether it would be gradual or sudden, whether or not it would lead to violence."
"No violence, Dad."
"Fine, Stan." He looked at Harry. "I'm going to give you a little treatment, Mr. Burr. It'll settle your nerves and make everything...."
"What happened to Davie?" Harry asked, things pushing at his brain again.
Stan helped him up. "Just step this way, Mr. Burr."
He didn't resist. He went through the second door into the room with the big chair. He sat down and let them strap his arms and legs and let them lower the metal thing over his head. He felt needles pierce his scalp and the back of his neck. He let them do what they wanted; he would let them kill him if they wanted. All he asked was one answer so as to know whether or not he was insane.
"What happened to my son Davie?"
The old man walked across the room and examined what looked like the insides of a dozen big radios. He turned, his hand on a switch.
"Please," Harry whispered. "Just tell me about my son."
The doctor blinked behind his glasses, and then his hand left the switch. "Dead," he said, his voice a rustling of dried leaves. "Like so many millions of others. Dead, when the bombs fell. Dead, as everyone knew they would be and no one did anything to prevent. Dead. Perhaps the whole world is dead—except for us."
Harry stared at him.
"I can't take the time to explain it all. I have too much to do. Just three of us—myself and my two sons. My wife lost her mind. I should have helped her as I'm helping you."
"I don't understand," Harry said. "I remember people, and things, and where are they now? Dead? People can die, but farms, cities...."
"I haven't the time," the doctor repeated, voice rising. "I have to run a world. Three of us, to run a world! I built it as best I could, but how large could I make it? The money. The years and years of work. The people calling me insane when they found out ... but a few giving me more money, and the work going on. And those few caught like everyone else, unprepared when the holocaust started, unprepared and unable to reach my world. So they died. As I knew they would. As they should have known they would."
Harry felt the rumbling beneath him. Engines?
"You survived," the doctor said. "Your wife. A few hundred others in the rural areas. One other family in your area. I survived because I lived for survival, like a mole deep in the earth, expecting the catastrophe every minute. I survived because I gave up living to survive." He laughed, high and thin.
His son said, "Please, Dad...."
"No! I want to talk to someone sane ! You and Petey and I—we're all insane, you know. Three years now, playing God, waiting for some land, any land, to become habitable. And knowing everything, and surrounded by people who are sane only because I made sure they would know nothing." He stepped forward, glaring at Harry. "Now do you understand? I went across the country, picking up a few of the few left alive. Most were farmers, and even where some weren't I picked the farmers anyway. Because farmers are what we'll need, and all the rest can evolve later. I put you and the others, eighty-six all told, from every section of the country, on my world, the only uncontaminated land left. I gave you back your old lives. I couldn't give you big crops because we don't need big crops. We would only exhaust our limited soil with big crops. But I gave you vegetable gardens and livestock and, best of all, sanity ! I wiped the insane moments from your minds. I gave you peace and consigned myself, my sons, my own wife...."
He choked and stopped.
Stan ran across the room to the switch. Harry watched him, and his brain struggled with an impossible concept. He heard the engines and remembered the ocean on two sides; on four sides had he bothered to check south and east; on all sides if that fence continued to curve inward. Ocean, and there was no ocean in Iowa.
And this wasn't Iowa.
The explosions had ripped the world, and he'd tried to get to town to save Davie, and there'd been no town and there'd been no people and there'd been only death and poison in the air and even those few people left had begun to die, and then the truck with the huge trailer had come, the gleaming trailer with the little man and his trembling wife and his two sons....
Suddenly, he understood. And understanding brought not peace but the greatest terror he'd ever known. He screamed, "We're on...." but the switch was thrown and there was no more speech. For an hour. Then he got out of the chair and said, "Sure glad I took my wife's advice and came to see you, Doctor Hamming. I feel better already, and after only one.... What do you call these treatments?"
"Diathermy," the little doctor muttered.
Harry gave him a five-dollar bill. The doctor gave him two singles in change. "That's certainly reasonable enough," Harry said.
The doctor nodded. "There's a police officer in the hall. He'll drive you home so there won't be any trouble with the travel regulations."
Harry said, "Thanks. Think we'll ever see the end of travel regulations and rationing and all the rest of the emergency?"
"You will, Mr. Burr."
Harry walked to the door.
"We're on an ark," the doctor said.
Harry turned around, smiling. "What?"
"A test, Mr. Burr. You passed it. Goodbye."
Harry went home. He told Edna he felt just great! She said she'd been worried when an officer found Plum wandering on the road; she thought maybe Harry had gone off somewhere and broken travel regulations.
"Me?" he exclaimed, amazed. "Break travel regulations? I'd as soon kill a pig!"
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How does Sim gain his knowledge and absorb his surroundings?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about THE CREATURES THAT TIME FORGOT by RAY BRADBURY.
Relevant chunks:
THE CREATURES THAT TIME FORGOT
By RAY BRADBURY
Mad, impossible world! Sun-blasted by day, cold-wracked by night—and life condensed by radiation into eight days! Sim eyed the Ship—if he only dared reach it and escape! ... but it was more than half an hour distant—the limit of life itself!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1946. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
During the night, Sim was born. He lay wailing upon the cold cave stones. His blood beat through him a thousand pulses each minute. He grew, steadily.
Into his mouth his mother with feverish hands put the food. The nightmare of living was begun. Almost instantly at birth his eyes grew alert, and then, without half understanding why, filled with bright, insistent terror. He gagged upon the food, choked and wailed. He looked about, blindly.
There was a thick fog. It cleared. The outlines of the cave appeared. And a man loomed up, insane and wild and terrible. A man with a dying face. Old, withered by winds, baked like adobe in the heat. The man was crouched in a far corner of the cave, his eyes whitening to one side of his face, listening to the far wind trumpeting up above on the frozen night planet.
Sim's mother, trembling, now and again, staring at the man, fed Sim pebble-fruits, valley-grasses and ice-nipples broken from the cavern entrances, and eating, eliminating, eating again, he grew larger, larger.
The man in the corner of the cave was his father! The man's eyes were all that was alive in his face. He held a crude stone dagger in his withered hands and his jaw hung loose and senseless.
Then, with a widening focus, Sim saw the old people sitting in the tunnel beyond this living quarter. And as he watched, they began to die.
Their agonies filled the cave. They melted like waxen images, their faces collapsed inward on their sharp bones, their teeth protruded. One minute their faces were mature, fairly smooth, alive, electric. The next minute a desication and burning away of their flesh occurred.
Sim thrashed in his mother's grasp. She held him. "No, no," she soothed him, quietly, earnestly, looking to see if this, too, would cause her husband to rise again.
With a soft swift padding of naked feet, Sim's father ran across the cave. Sim's mother screamed. Sim felt himself torn loose from her grasp. He fell upon the stones, rolling, shrieking with his new, moist lungs!
With a soft padding of naked feet Sim's father ran across the cave.
The webbed face of his father jerked over him, the knife was poised. It was like one of those prenatal nightmares he'd had while still in his mother's flesh. In the next few blazing, impossible instants questions flicked through his brain. The knife was high, suspended, ready to destroy him. But the whole question of life in this cave, the dying people, the withering and the insanity, surged through Sim's new, small head. How was it that he understood? A newborn child? Can a newborn child think, see, understand, interpret? No. It was wrong! It was impossible. Yet it was happening! To him. He had been alive an hour now. And in the next instant perhaps dead!
His mother flung herself upon the back of his father, and beat down the weapon. Sim caught the terrific backwash of emotion from both their conflicting minds. "Let me kill him!" shouted the father, breathing harshly, sobbingly. "What has he to live for?"
"No, no!" insisted the mother, and her body, frail and old as it was, stretched across the huge body of the father, tearing at his weapon.
"He must live! There may be a future for him! He may live longer than us, and be young!"
The father fell back against a stone crib. Lying there, staring, eyes glittering, Sim saw another figure inside that stone crib. A girl-child, quietly feeding itself, moving its delicate hands to procure food. His sister.
The mother wrenched the dagger from her husband's grasp, stood up, weeping and pushing back her cloud of stiffening gray hair. Her mouth trembled and jerked. "I'll kill you!" she said, glaring down at her husband. "Leave my children alone."
The old man spat tiredly, bitterly, and looked vacantly into the stone crib, at the little girl. "One-eighth of her life's over, already," he gasped. "And she doesn't know it. What's the use?"
As Sim watched, his own mother seemed to shift and take a tortured, smoke-like form. The thin bony face broke out into a maze of wrinkles. She was shaken with pain and had to sit by him, shuddering and cuddling the knife to her shriveled breasts. She, like the old people in the tunnel, was aging, dying.
Sim cried steadily. Everywhere he looked was horror. A mind came to meet his own. Instinctively he glanced toward the stone crib. Dark, his sister, returned his glance. Their minds brushed like straying fingers. He relaxed somewhat. He began to learn.
The father sighed, shut his lids down over his green eyes. "Feed the child," he said, exhaustedly. "Hurry. It is almost dawn and it is our last day of living, woman. Feed him. Make him grow."
Sim quieted, and images, out of the terror, floated to him.
This was a planet next to the sun. The nights burned with cold, the days were like torches of fire. It was a violent, impossible world. The people lived in the cliffs to escape the incredible ice and the day of flame. Only at dawn and sunset was the air breath-sweet, flower-strong, and then the cave peoples brought their children out into a stony, barren valley. At dawn the ice thawed into creeks and rivers, at sunset the day-fires died and cooled. In the intervals of even, livable temperature the people lived, ran, played, loved, free of the caverns; all life on the planet jumped, burst into life. Plants grew instantly, birds were flung like pellets across the sky. Smaller, legged animal life rushed frantically through the rocks; everything tried to get its living down in the brief hour of respite.
It was an unbearable planet. Sim understood this, a matter of hours after birth. Racial memory bloomed in him. He would live his entire life in the caves, with two hours a day outside. Here, in stone channels of air he would talk, talk incessantly with his people, sleep never, think, think and lie upon his back, dreaming; but never sleeping.
And he would live exactly eight days.
The violence of this thought evacuated his bowels. Eight days. Eight short days. It was wrong, impossible, but a fact. Even while in his mother's flesh some racial knowledge had told him he was being formed rapidly, shaped and propelled out swiftly.
Birth was quick as a knife. Childhood was over in a flash. Adolescence was a sheet of lightning. Manhood was a dream, maturity a myth, old age an inescapably quick reality, death a swift certainty.
Eight days from now he'd stand half-blind, withering, dying, as his father now stood, staring uselessly at his own wife and child.
This day was an eighth part of his total life! He must enjoy every second of it. He must search his parents' thoughts for knowledge.
Because in a few hours they'd be dead.
This was so impossibly unfair. Was this all of life? In his prenatal state hadn't he dreamed of long lives, valleys not of blasted stone but green foliage and temperate clime? Yes! And if he'd dreamed then there must be truth in the visions. How could he seek and find the long life? Where? And how could he accomplish a life mission that huge and depressing in eight short, vanishing days?
How had his people gotten into such a condition?
As if at a button pressed, he saw an image. Metal seeds, blown across space from a distant green world, fighting with long flames, crashing on this bleak planet. From their shattered hulls tumble men and women.
When? Long ago. Ten thousand days. The crash victims hid in the cliffs from the sun. Fire, ice and floods washed away the wreckage of the huge metal seeds. The victims were shaped and beaten like iron upon a forge. Solar radiations drenched them. Their pulses quickened, two hundred, five hundred, a thousand beats a minute. Their skins thickened, their blood changed. Old age came rushing. Children were born in the caves. Swifter, swifter, swifter the process. Like all this world's wild life, the men and women from the crash lived and died in a week, leaving children to do likewise.
So this is life, thought Sim. It was not spoken in his mind, for he knew no words, he knew only images, old memory, an awareness, a telepathy that could penetrate flesh, rock, metal. So I'm the five thousandth in a long line of futile sons? What can I do to save myself from dying eight days from now? Is there escape?
His eyes widened, another image came to focus.
Beyond this valley of cliffs, on a low mountain lay a perfect, unscarred metal seed. A metal ship, not rusted or touched by the avalanches. The ship was deserted, whole, intact. It was the only ship of all these that had crashed that was still a unit, still usable. But it was so far away. There was no one in it to help. This ship, then, on the far mountain, was the destiny toward which he would grow. There was his only hope of escape.
His mind flexed.
In this cliff, deep down in a confinement of solitude, worked a handful of scientists. To these men, when he was old enough and wise enough, he must go. They, too, dreamed of escape, of long life, of green valleys and temperate weathers. They, too, stared longingly at that distant ship upon its high mountain, its metal so perfect it did not rust or age.
The cliff groaned.
Sim's father lifted his eroded, lifeless face.
"Dawn's coming," he said.
II
Morning relaxed the mighty granite cliff muscles. It was the time of the Avalanche.
The tunnels echoed to running bare feet. Adults, children pushed with eager, hungry eyes toward the outside dawn. From far out, Sim heard a rumble of rock, a scream, a silence. Avalanches fell into valley. Stones that had been biding their time, not quite ready to fall, for a million years let go their bulks, and where they had begun their journey as single boulders they smashed upon the valley floor in a thousand shrapnels and friction-heated nuggets.
Every morning at least one person was caught in the downpour.
The cliff people dared the avalanches. It added one more excitement to their lives, already too short, too headlong, too dangerous.
Sim felt himself seized up by his father. He was carried brusquely down the tunnel for a thousand yards, to where the daylight appeared. There was a shining insane light in his father's eyes. Sim could not move. He sensed what was going to happen. Behind his father, his mother hurried, bringing with her the little sister, Dark. "Wait! Be careful!" she cried to her husband.
Sim felt his father crouch, listening.
High in the cliff was a tremor, a shivering.
"Now!" bellowed his father, and leaped out.
An avalanche fell down at them!
Sim had accelerated impressions of plunging walls, dust, confusion. His mother screamed! There was a jolting, a plunging.
With one last step, Sim's father hurried him forward into the day. The avalanche thundered behind him. The mouth of the cave, where mother and Dark stood back out of the way, was choked with rubble and two boulders that weighed a hundred pounds each.
The storm thunder of the avalanche passed away to a trickle of sand. Sim's father burst out into laughter. "Made it! By the Gods! Made it alive!" And he looked scornfully at the cliff and spat. "Pagh!"
Mother and sister Dark struggled through the rubble. She cursed her husband. "Fool! You might have killed Sim!"
"I may yet," retorted the father.
Sim was not listening. He was fascinated with the remains of an avalanche afront of the next tunnel. A blood stain trickled out from under a rise of boulders, soaking into the ground. There was nothing else to be seen. Someone else had lost the game.
Dark ran ahead on lithe, supple feet, naked and certain.
The valley air was like a wine filtered between mountains. The heaven was a restive blue; not the pale scorched atmosphere of full day, nor the bloated, bruised black-purple of night, a-riot with sickly shining stars.
This was a tide pool. A place where waves of varying and violent temperatures struck, receded. Now the tide pool was quiet, cool, and its life moved abroad.
Laughter! Far away, Sim heard it. Why laughter? How could any of his people find time for laughing? Perhaps later he would discover why.
The valley suddenly blushed with impulsive color. Plant-life, thawing in the precipitant dawn, shoved out from most unexpected sources. It flowered as you watched. Pale green tendrils appeared on scoured rocks. Seconds later, ripe globes of fruit twitched upon the blade-tips. Father gave Sim over to mother and harvested the momentary, volatile crop, thrust scarlet, blue, yellow fruits into a fur sack which hung at his waist. Mother tugged at the moist new grasses, laid them on Sim's tongue.
His senses were being honed to a fine edge. He stored knowledge thirstily. He understood love, marriage, customs, anger, pity, rage, selfishness, shadings and subtleties, realities and reflections. One thing suggested another. The sight of green plant life whirled his mind like a gyroscope, seeking balance in a world where lack of time for explanations made a mind seek and interpret on its own. The soft burden of food gave him knowledge of his system, of energy, of movement. Like a bird newly cracking its way from a shell, he was almost a unit, complete, all-knowing. Heredity had done all this for him. He grew excited with his ability.
They walked, mother, father and the two children, smelling the smells, watching the birds bounce from wall to wall of the valley like scurrying pebbles and suddenly the father said a strange thing:
"Remember?"
Remember what? Sim lay cradled. Was it any effort for them to remember when they'd lived only seven days!
The husband and wife looked at each other.
"Was it only three days ago?" said the woman, her body shaking, her eyes closing to think. "I can't believe it. It is so unfair." She sobbed, then drew her hand across her face and bit her parched lips. The wind played at her gray hair. "Now is my turn to cry. An hour ago it was you!"
"An hour is half a life."
"Come," she took her husband's arm. "Let us look at everything, because it will be our last looking."
"The sun'll be up in a few minutes," said the old man. "We must turn back now."
"Just one more moment," pleaded the woman.
"The sun will catch us."
"Let it catch me then!"
"You don't mean that."
"I mean nothing, nothing at all," cried the woman.
The sun was coming fast. The green in the valley burnt away. Searing wind blasted from over the cliffs. Far away where sun bolts hammered battlements of cliff, the huge stone faces shook their contents; those avalanches not already powdered down, were now released and fell like mantles.
"Dark!" shouted the father. The girl sprang over the warm floor of the valley, answering, her hair a black flag behind her. Hands full of green fruits, she joined them.
The sun rimmed the horizon with flame, the air convulsed dangerously with it, and whistled.
The cave people bolted, shouting, picking up their fallen children, bearing vast loads of fruit and grass with them back to their deep hideouts. In moments the valley was bare. Except for one small child someone had forgotten. He was running far out on the flatness, but he was not strong enough, and the engulfing heat was drifting down from the cliffs even as he was half across the valley.
Flowers were burnt into effigies, grasses sucked back into rocks like singed snakes, flower seeds whirled and fell in the sudden furnace blast of wind, sown far into gullies and crannies, ready to blossom at sunset tonight, and then go to seed and die again.
Sim's father watched that child running, alone, out on the floor of the valley. He and his wife and Dark and Sim were safe in the mouth of their tunnel.
"He'll never make it," said father. "Do not watch him, woman. It's not a good thing to watch."
They turned away. All except Sim, whose eyes had caught a glint of metal far away. His heart hammered in him, and his eyes blurred. Far away, atop a low mountain, one of those metal seeds from space reflected a dazzling ripple of light! It was like one of his intra-embryo dreams fulfilled! A metal space seed, intact, undamaged, lying on a mountain! There was his future! There was his hope for survival! There was where he would go in a few days, when he was—strange thought—a grown man!
The sun plunged into the valley like molten lava.
The little running child screamed, the sun burned, and the screaming stopped.
Sim's mother walked painfully, with sudden age, down the tunnel, paused, reached up, broke off two last icicles that had formed during the night. She handed one to her husband, kept the other. "We will drink one last toast. To you, to the children."
"To you ," he nodded to her. "To the children." They lifted the icicles. The warmth melted the ice down into their thirsty mouths.
All day the sun seemed to blaze and erupt into the valley. Sim could not see it, but the vivid pictorials in his parents' minds were sufficient evidence of the nature of the day fire. The light ran like mercury, sizzling and roasting the caves, poking inward, but never penetrating deeply enough. It lighted the caves. It made the hollows of the cliff comfortably warm.
Sim fought to keep his parents young. But no matter how hard he fought with mind and image, they became like mummies before him. His father seemed to dissolve from one stage of oldness to another. This is what will happen to me soon, though Sim in terror.
Sim grew upon himself. He felt the digestive-eliminatory movements of his body. He was fed every minute, he was continually swallowing, feeding. He began to fit words to images and processes. Such a word was love. It was not an abstraction, but a process, a stir of breath, a smell of morning air, a flutter of heart, the curve of arm holding him, the look in the suspended face of his mother. He saw the processes, then searched behind her suspended face and there was the word, in her brain, ready to use. His throat prepared to speak. Life was pushing him, rushing him along toward oblivion.
He sensed the expansion of his fingernails, the adjustments of his cells, the profusion of his hair, the multiplication of his bones and sinew, the grooving of the soft pale wax of his brain. His brain at birth as clear as a circle of ice, innocent, unmarked, was, an instant later, as if hit with a thrown rock, cracked and marked and patterned in a million crevices of thought and discovery.
His sister, Dark, ran in and out with other little hothouse children, forever eating. His mother trembled over him, not eating, she had no appetite, her eyes were webbed shut.
"Sunset," said his father, at last.
The day was over. The light faded, a wind sounded.
His mother arose. "I want to see the outside world once more ... just once more...." She stared blindly, shivering.
His father's eyes were shut, he lay against the wall.
"I cannot rise," he whispered faintly. "I cannot."
"Dark!" The mother croaked, the girl came running. "Here," and Sim was handed to the girl. "Hold to Sim, Dark, feed him, care for him." She gave Sim one last fondling touch.
Dark said not a word, holding Sim, her great green eyes shining wetly.
"Go now," said the mother. "Take him out into the sunset time. Enjoy yourselves. Pick foods, eat. Play."
Dark walked away without looking back. Sim twisted in her grasp, looking over her shoulder with unbelieving, tragic eyes. He cried out and somehow summoned from his lips the first word of his existence.
"Why...?"
He saw his mother stiffen. "The child spoke!"
"Aye," said his father. "Did you hear what he said?"
"I heard," said the mother quietly.
The last thing Sim saw of his living parents was his mother weakly, swayingly, slowly moving across the floor to lie beside her silent husband. That was the last time he ever saw them move.
IV
The night came and passed and then started the second day.
The bodies of all those who had died during the night were carried in a funeral procession to the top of a small hill. The procession was long, the bodies numerous.
Dark walked in the procession, holding the newly walking Sim by one hand. Only an hour before dawn Sim had learned to walk.
At the top of the hill, Sim saw once again the far off metal seed. Nobody ever looked at it, or spoke of it. Why? Was there some reason? Was it a mirage? Why did they not run toward it? Worship it? Try to get to it and fly away into space?
The funeral words were spoken. The bodies were placed upon the ground where the sun, in a few minutes, would cremate them.
The procession then turned and ran down the hill, eager to have their few minutes of free time running and playing and laughing in the sweet air.
Dark and Sim, chattering like birds, feeding among the rocks, exchanged what they knew of life. He was in his second day, she in her third. They were driven, as always, by the mercurial speed of their lives.
Another piece of his life opened wide.
Fifty young men ran down from the cliffs, holding sharp stones and rock daggers in their thick hands. Shouting, they ran off toward distant black, low lines of small rock cliffs.
"War!"
The thought stood in Sim's brain. It shocked and beat at him. These men were running to fight, to kill, over there in those small black cliffs where other people lived.
But why? Wasn't life short enough without fighting, killing?
From a great distance he heard the sound of conflict, and it made his stomach cold. "Why, Dark, why?"
Dark didn't know. Perhaps they would understand tomorrow. Now, there was the business of eating to sustain and support their lives. Watching Dark was like seeing a lizard forever flickering its pink tongue, forever hungry.
Pale children ran on all sides of them. One beetle-like boy scuttled up the rocks, knocking Sim aside, to take from him a particularly luscious red berry he had found growing under an outcrop.
The child ate hastily of the fruit before Sim could gain his feet. Then Sim hurled himself unsteadily, the two of them fell in a ridiculous jumble, rolling, until Dark pried them, squalling, apart.
Sim bled. A part of him stood off, like a god, and said, "This should not be. Children should not be this way. It is wrong!"
Dark slapped the little intruding boy away. "Get on!" she cried.
"What's your name, bad one?"
"Chion!" laughed the boy. "Chion, Chion, Chion!"
Sim glared at him with all the ferocity in his small, unskilled features. He choked. This was his enemy. It was as if he'd waited for an enemy of person as well as scene. He had already understood the avalanches, the heat, the cold, the shortness of life, but these were things of places, of scene—mute, extravagant manifestations of unthinking nature, not motivated save by gravity and radiation. Here, now, in this stridulent Chion he recognized a thinking enemy!
Chion darted off, turned at a distance, tauntingly crying:
"Tomorrow I will be big enough to kill you!"
And he vanished around a rock.
More children ran, giggling, by Sim. Which of them would be friends, enemies? How could friends and enemies come about in this impossible, quick life time? There was no time to make either, was there?
Dark, as if knowing his thoughts, drew him away. As they searched for desired foods, she whispered fiercely in his ear. "Enemies are made over things like stolen foods; gifts of long grasses make friends. Enemies come, too, from opinions and thoughts. In five seconds you've made an enemy for life. Life's so short enemies must be made quickly." And she laughed with an irony strange for one so young, who was growing older before her rightful time. "You must fight to protect yourself. Others, superstitious ones, will try killing you. There is a belief, a ridiculous belief, that if one kills another, the murderer partakes of the life energy of the slain, and therefore will live an extra day. You see? As long as that is believed, you're in danger."
But Sim was not listening. Bursting from a flock of delicate girls who tomorrow would be tall, quieter, and who day after that would gain breasts and the next day take husbands, Sim caught sight of one small girl whose hair was a violet blue flame.
She ran past, brushed Sim, their bodies touched. Her eyes, white as silver coins, shone at him. He knew then that he'd found a friend, a love, a wife, one who'd a week from now lie with him atop the funeral pyre as sunlight undressed their flesh from bone.
Only the glance, but it held them in mid-motion, one instant.
"Your name?" he shouted after her.
"Lyte!" she called laughingly back.
"I'm Sim," he answered, confused and bewildered.
"Sim!" she repeated it, flashing on. "I'll remember!"
Dark nudged his ribs. "Here, eat ," she said to the distracted boy.
"Eat or you'll never get big enough to catch her."
From nowhere, Chion appeared, running by. "Lyte!" he mocked, dancing malevolently along and away. "Lyte! I'll remember Lyte, too!"
Dark stood tall and reed slender, shaking her dark ebony clouds of hair, sadly. "I see your life before you, little Sim. You'll need weapons soon to fight for this Lyte one. Now, hurry—the sun's coming!"
They ran back to the caves.
Question:
How does Sim gain his knowledge and absorb his surroundings?
Answer:
|
[
"During his first day, Sim knows no words and has not yet spoken. Yet, he gains a lot of knowledge from images, old memories, and a telepathic type of awareness that seems to penetrate everything. He observes much of his surroundings and is upset by his analysis of the horror that occurs every day on the planet. On the second day of his existence, Sim readily and eagerly acquires more knowledge about social customs and how his society worked. ",
"Children on the planet are constantly eating as food is the source of knowledge. People grow every minute and the length of life is eight days. Sim gains initial knowledge while he is in the womb. When he can't even move, he already understands basic concepts like family, danger, etc. Every minute he gains some new knowledge. He says his first word in a day. He walks the next morning. He starts talking to his sister and she shares her knowledge as she is older. He makes friends and enemies the next day and fall in love. People are constantly dying before him. He sees the ship and dreams to reach it and escape. ",
"Despite Sim's young age, he is quickly conscious of the images around him, as soon as an hour after he is born. He is able to recognize his mother and father, and he soon watches as people in the cave die around him. Sim quickly grows accustomed to the concept of death and picks up on the idea that people only live for eight days. He learns by observing the people around him, watching as they go outside at certain parts of the day. Sim is also able to understand things through inherited memory, which allows him to comprehend ideas such as life. He learns to understand emotions such as love through his relationship with his family, and after his parents die, his sister Dark acts as his mentor.",
"Sim gains knowledge as the days go by. The moment he is born, he begins to start learning about the world around him. Since humans only live for eight days, he is able to learn how to walk only one to two days after his birth. Despite being a baby for the first part of the story, he already has very intricate thoughts about wanting to live longer and how it is not fair that all the people will die so fast. When his parents take Dark and him out, his senses are honed, and he begins storing knowledge intensely. Sim begins to understand love, marriage, customs, anger, pity, rage, selfishness, shadings, subtleties, realities, and reflections. Because of the lack of time, his mind seeks and interprets material on its own instead of having to wait for somebody to teach it new concepts. Just as his parents die, he learns how to speak. All of these changes seem to be the process of his short life. \n"
] |
63874
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THE CREATURES THAT TIME FORGOT
By RAY BRADBURY
Mad, impossible world! Sun-blasted by day, cold-wracked by night—and life condensed by radiation into eight days! Sim eyed the Ship—if he only dared reach it and escape! ... but it was more than half an hour distant—the limit of life itself!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1946. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
During the night, Sim was born. He lay wailing upon the cold cave stones. His blood beat through him a thousand pulses each minute. He grew, steadily.
Into his mouth his mother with feverish hands put the food. The nightmare of living was begun. Almost instantly at birth his eyes grew alert, and then, without half understanding why, filled with bright, insistent terror. He gagged upon the food, choked and wailed. He looked about, blindly.
There was a thick fog. It cleared. The outlines of the cave appeared. And a man loomed up, insane and wild and terrible. A man with a dying face. Old, withered by winds, baked like adobe in the heat. The man was crouched in a far corner of the cave, his eyes whitening to one side of his face, listening to the far wind trumpeting up above on the frozen night planet.
Sim's mother, trembling, now and again, staring at the man, fed Sim pebble-fruits, valley-grasses and ice-nipples broken from the cavern entrances, and eating, eliminating, eating again, he grew larger, larger.
The man in the corner of the cave was his father! The man's eyes were all that was alive in his face. He held a crude stone dagger in his withered hands and his jaw hung loose and senseless.
Then, with a widening focus, Sim saw the old people sitting in the tunnel beyond this living quarter. And as he watched, they began to die.
Their agonies filled the cave. They melted like waxen images, their faces collapsed inward on their sharp bones, their teeth protruded. One minute their faces were mature, fairly smooth, alive, electric. The next minute a desication and burning away of their flesh occurred.
Sim thrashed in his mother's grasp. She held him. "No, no," she soothed him, quietly, earnestly, looking to see if this, too, would cause her husband to rise again.
With a soft swift padding of naked feet, Sim's father ran across the cave. Sim's mother screamed. Sim felt himself torn loose from her grasp. He fell upon the stones, rolling, shrieking with his new, moist lungs!
With a soft padding of naked feet Sim's father ran across the cave.
The webbed face of his father jerked over him, the knife was poised. It was like one of those prenatal nightmares he'd had while still in his mother's flesh. In the next few blazing, impossible instants questions flicked through his brain. The knife was high, suspended, ready to destroy him. But the whole question of life in this cave, the dying people, the withering and the insanity, surged through Sim's new, small head. How was it that he understood? A newborn child? Can a newborn child think, see, understand, interpret? No. It was wrong! It was impossible. Yet it was happening! To him. He had been alive an hour now. And in the next instant perhaps dead!
His mother flung herself upon the back of his father, and beat down the weapon. Sim caught the terrific backwash of emotion from both their conflicting minds. "Let me kill him!" shouted the father, breathing harshly, sobbingly. "What has he to live for?"
"No, no!" insisted the mother, and her body, frail and old as it was, stretched across the huge body of the father, tearing at his weapon.
"He must live! There may be a future for him! He may live longer than us, and be young!"
The father fell back against a stone crib. Lying there, staring, eyes glittering, Sim saw another figure inside that stone crib. A girl-child, quietly feeding itself, moving its delicate hands to procure food. His sister.
The mother wrenched the dagger from her husband's grasp, stood up, weeping and pushing back her cloud of stiffening gray hair. Her mouth trembled and jerked. "I'll kill you!" she said, glaring down at her husband. "Leave my children alone."
The old man spat tiredly, bitterly, and looked vacantly into the stone crib, at the little girl. "One-eighth of her life's over, already," he gasped. "And she doesn't know it. What's the use?"
As Sim watched, his own mother seemed to shift and take a tortured, smoke-like form. The thin bony face broke out into a maze of wrinkles. She was shaken with pain and had to sit by him, shuddering and cuddling the knife to her shriveled breasts. She, like the old people in the tunnel, was aging, dying.
Sim cried steadily. Everywhere he looked was horror. A mind came to meet his own. Instinctively he glanced toward the stone crib. Dark, his sister, returned his glance. Their minds brushed like straying fingers. He relaxed somewhat. He began to learn.
The father sighed, shut his lids down over his green eyes. "Feed the child," he said, exhaustedly. "Hurry. It is almost dawn and it is our last day of living, woman. Feed him. Make him grow."
Sim quieted, and images, out of the terror, floated to him.
This was a planet next to the sun. The nights burned with cold, the days were like torches of fire. It was a violent, impossible world. The people lived in the cliffs to escape the incredible ice and the day of flame. Only at dawn and sunset was the air breath-sweet, flower-strong, and then the cave peoples brought their children out into a stony, barren valley. At dawn the ice thawed into creeks and rivers, at sunset the day-fires died and cooled. In the intervals of even, livable temperature the people lived, ran, played, loved, free of the caverns; all life on the planet jumped, burst into life. Plants grew instantly, birds were flung like pellets across the sky. Smaller, legged animal life rushed frantically through the rocks; everything tried to get its living down in the brief hour of respite.
It was an unbearable planet. Sim understood this, a matter of hours after birth. Racial memory bloomed in him. He would live his entire life in the caves, with two hours a day outside. Here, in stone channels of air he would talk, talk incessantly with his people, sleep never, think, think and lie upon his back, dreaming; but never sleeping.
And he would live exactly eight days.
The violence of this thought evacuated his bowels. Eight days. Eight short days. It was wrong, impossible, but a fact. Even while in his mother's flesh some racial knowledge had told him he was being formed rapidly, shaped and propelled out swiftly.
Birth was quick as a knife. Childhood was over in a flash. Adolescence was a sheet of lightning. Manhood was a dream, maturity a myth, old age an inescapably quick reality, death a swift certainty.
Eight days from now he'd stand half-blind, withering, dying, as his father now stood, staring uselessly at his own wife and child.
This day was an eighth part of his total life! He must enjoy every second of it. He must search his parents' thoughts for knowledge.
Because in a few hours they'd be dead.
This was so impossibly unfair. Was this all of life? In his prenatal state hadn't he dreamed of long lives, valleys not of blasted stone but green foliage and temperate clime? Yes! And if he'd dreamed then there must be truth in the visions. How could he seek and find the long life? Where? And how could he accomplish a life mission that huge and depressing in eight short, vanishing days?
How had his people gotten into such a condition?
As if at a button pressed, he saw an image. Metal seeds, blown across space from a distant green world, fighting with long flames, crashing on this bleak planet. From their shattered hulls tumble men and women.
When? Long ago. Ten thousand days. The crash victims hid in the cliffs from the sun. Fire, ice and floods washed away the wreckage of the huge metal seeds. The victims were shaped and beaten like iron upon a forge. Solar radiations drenched them. Their pulses quickened, two hundred, five hundred, a thousand beats a minute. Their skins thickened, their blood changed. Old age came rushing. Children were born in the caves. Swifter, swifter, swifter the process. Like all this world's wild life, the men and women from the crash lived and died in a week, leaving children to do likewise.
So this is life, thought Sim. It was not spoken in his mind, for he knew no words, he knew only images, old memory, an awareness, a telepathy that could penetrate flesh, rock, metal. So I'm the five thousandth in a long line of futile sons? What can I do to save myself from dying eight days from now? Is there escape?
His eyes widened, another image came to focus.
Beyond this valley of cliffs, on a low mountain lay a perfect, unscarred metal seed. A metal ship, not rusted or touched by the avalanches. The ship was deserted, whole, intact. It was the only ship of all these that had crashed that was still a unit, still usable. But it was so far away. There was no one in it to help. This ship, then, on the far mountain, was the destiny toward which he would grow. There was his only hope of escape.
His mind flexed.
In this cliff, deep down in a confinement of solitude, worked a handful of scientists. To these men, when he was old enough and wise enough, he must go. They, too, dreamed of escape, of long life, of green valleys and temperate weathers. They, too, stared longingly at that distant ship upon its high mountain, its metal so perfect it did not rust or age.
The cliff groaned.
Sim's father lifted his eroded, lifeless face.
"Dawn's coming," he said.
II
Morning relaxed the mighty granite cliff muscles. It was the time of the Avalanche.
The tunnels echoed to running bare feet. Adults, children pushed with eager, hungry eyes toward the outside dawn. From far out, Sim heard a rumble of rock, a scream, a silence. Avalanches fell into valley. Stones that had been biding their time, not quite ready to fall, for a million years let go their bulks, and where they had begun their journey as single boulders they smashed upon the valley floor in a thousand shrapnels and friction-heated nuggets.
Every morning at least one person was caught in the downpour.
The cliff people dared the avalanches. It added one more excitement to their lives, already too short, too headlong, too dangerous.
Sim felt himself seized up by his father. He was carried brusquely down the tunnel for a thousand yards, to where the daylight appeared. There was a shining insane light in his father's eyes. Sim could not move. He sensed what was going to happen. Behind his father, his mother hurried, bringing with her the little sister, Dark. "Wait! Be careful!" she cried to her husband.
Sim felt his father crouch, listening.
High in the cliff was a tremor, a shivering.
"Now!" bellowed his father, and leaped out.
An avalanche fell down at them!
Sim had accelerated impressions of plunging walls, dust, confusion. His mother screamed! There was a jolting, a plunging.
With one last step, Sim's father hurried him forward into the day. The avalanche thundered behind him. The mouth of the cave, where mother and Dark stood back out of the way, was choked with rubble and two boulders that weighed a hundred pounds each.
The storm thunder of the avalanche passed away to a trickle of sand. Sim's father burst out into laughter. "Made it! By the Gods! Made it alive!" And he looked scornfully at the cliff and spat. "Pagh!"
Mother and sister Dark struggled through the rubble. She cursed her husband. "Fool! You might have killed Sim!"
"I may yet," retorted the father.
Sim was not listening. He was fascinated with the remains of an avalanche afront of the next tunnel. A blood stain trickled out from under a rise of boulders, soaking into the ground. There was nothing else to be seen. Someone else had lost the game.
Dark ran ahead on lithe, supple feet, naked and certain.
The valley air was like a wine filtered between mountains. The heaven was a restive blue; not the pale scorched atmosphere of full day, nor the bloated, bruised black-purple of night, a-riot with sickly shining stars.
This was a tide pool. A place where waves of varying and violent temperatures struck, receded. Now the tide pool was quiet, cool, and its life moved abroad.
Laughter! Far away, Sim heard it. Why laughter? How could any of his people find time for laughing? Perhaps later he would discover why.
The valley suddenly blushed with impulsive color. Plant-life, thawing in the precipitant dawn, shoved out from most unexpected sources. It flowered as you watched. Pale green tendrils appeared on scoured rocks. Seconds later, ripe globes of fruit twitched upon the blade-tips. Father gave Sim over to mother and harvested the momentary, volatile crop, thrust scarlet, blue, yellow fruits into a fur sack which hung at his waist. Mother tugged at the moist new grasses, laid them on Sim's tongue.
His senses were being honed to a fine edge. He stored knowledge thirstily. He understood love, marriage, customs, anger, pity, rage, selfishness, shadings and subtleties, realities and reflections. One thing suggested another. The sight of green plant life whirled his mind like a gyroscope, seeking balance in a world where lack of time for explanations made a mind seek and interpret on its own. The soft burden of food gave him knowledge of his system, of energy, of movement. Like a bird newly cracking its way from a shell, he was almost a unit, complete, all-knowing. Heredity had done all this for him. He grew excited with his ability.
They walked, mother, father and the two children, smelling the smells, watching the birds bounce from wall to wall of the valley like scurrying pebbles and suddenly the father said a strange thing:
"Remember?"
Remember what? Sim lay cradled. Was it any effort for them to remember when they'd lived only seven days!
The husband and wife looked at each other.
"Was it only three days ago?" said the woman, her body shaking, her eyes closing to think. "I can't believe it. It is so unfair." She sobbed, then drew her hand across her face and bit her parched lips. The wind played at her gray hair. "Now is my turn to cry. An hour ago it was you!"
"An hour is half a life."
"Come," she took her husband's arm. "Let us look at everything, because it will be our last looking."
"The sun'll be up in a few minutes," said the old man. "We must turn back now."
"Just one more moment," pleaded the woman.
"The sun will catch us."
"Let it catch me then!"
"You don't mean that."
"I mean nothing, nothing at all," cried the woman.
The sun was coming fast. The green in the valley burnt away. Searing wind blasted from over the cliffs. Far away where sun bolts hammered battlements of cliff, the huge stone faces shook their contents; those avalanches not already powdered down, were now released and fell like mantles.
"Dark!" shouted the father. The girl sprang over the warm floor of the valley, answering, her hair a black flag behind her. Hands full of green fruits, she joined them.
The sun rimmed the horizon with flame, the air convulsed dangerously with it, and whistled.
The cave people bolted, shouting, picking up their fallen children, bearing vast loads of fruit and grass with them back to their deep hideouts. In moments the valley was bare. Except for one small child someone had forgotten. He was running far out on the flatness, but he was not strong enough, and the engulfing heat was drifting down from the cliffs even as he was half across the valley.
Flowers were burnt into effigies, grasses sucked back into rocks like singed snakes, flower seeds whirled and fell in the sudden furnace blast of wind, sown far into gullies and crannies, ready to blossom at sunset tonight, and then go to seed and die again.
Sim's father watched that child running, alone, out on the floor of the valley. He and his wife and Dark and Sim were safe in the mouth of their tunnel.
"He'll never make it," said father. "Do not watch him, woman. It's not a good thing to watch."
They turned away. All except Sim, whose eyes had caught a glint of metal far away. His heart hammered in him, and his eyes blurred. Far away, atop a low mountain, one of those metal seeds from space reflected a dazzling ripple of light! It was like one of his intra-embryo dreams fulfilled! A metal space seed, intact, undamaged, lying on a mountain! There was his future! There was his hope for survival! There was where he would go in a few days, when he was—strange thought—a grown man!
The sun plunged into the valley like molten lava.
The little running child screamed, the sun burned, and the screaming stopped.
Sim's mother walked painfully, with sudden age, down the tunnel, paused, reached up, broke off two last icicles that had formed during the night. She handed one to her husband, kept the other. "We will drink one last toast. To you, to the children."
"To you ," he nodded to her. "To the children." They lifted the icicles. The warmth melted the ice down into their thirsty mouths.
All day the sun seemed to blaze and erupt into the valley. Sim could not see it, but the vivid pictorials in his parents' minds were sufficient evidence of the nature of the day fire. The light ran like mercury, sizzling and roasting the caves, poking inward, but never penetrating deeply enough. It lighted the caves. It made the hollows of the cliff comfortably warm.
Sim fought to keep his parents young. But no matter how hard he fought with mind and image, they became like mummies before him. His father seemed to dissolve from one stage of oldness to another. This is what will happen to me soon, though Sim in terror.
Sim grew upon himself. He felt the digestive-eliminatory movements of his body. He was fed every minute, he was continually swallowing, feeding. He began to fit words to images and processes. Such a word was love. It was not an abstraction, but a process, a stir of breath, a smell of morning air, a flutter of heart, the curve of arm holding him, the look in the suspended face of his mother. He saw the processes, then searched behind her suspended face and there was the word, in her brain, ready to use. His throat prepared to speak. Life was pushing him, rushing him along toward oblivion.
He sensed the expansion of his fingernails, the adjustments of his cells, the profusion of his hair, the multiplication of his bones and sinew, the grooving of the soft pale wax of his brain. His brain at birth as clear as a circle of ice, innocent, unmarked, was, an instant later, as if hit with a thrown rock, cracked and marked and patterned in a million crevices of thought and discovery.
His sister, Dark, ran in and out with other little hothouse children, forever eating. His mother trembled over him, not eating, she had no appetite, her eyes were webbed shut.
"Sunset," said his father, at last.
The day was over. The light faded, a wind sounded.
His mother arose. "I want to see the outside world once more ... just once more...." She stared blindly, shivering.
His father's eyes were shut, he lay against the wall.
"I cannot rise," he whispered faintly. "I cannot."
"Dark!" The mother croaked, the girl came running. "Here," and Sim was handed to the girl. "Hold to Sim, Dark, feed him, care for him." She gave Sim one last fondling touch.
Dark said not a word, holding Sim, her great green eyes shining wetly.
"Go now," said the mother. "Take him out into the sunset time. Enjoy yourselves. Pick foods, eat. Play."
Dark walked away without looking back. Sim twisted in her grasp, looking over her shoulder with unbelieving, tragic eyes. He cried out and somehow summoned from his lips the first word of his existence.
"Why...?"
He saw his mother stiffen. "The child spoke!"
"Aye," said his father. "Did you hear what he said?"
"I heard," said the mother quietly.
The last thing Sim saw of his living parents was his mother weakly, swayingly, slowly moving across the floor to lie beside her silent husband. That was the last time he ever saw them move.
IV
The night came and passed and then started the second day.
The bodies of all those who had died during the night were carried in a funeral procession to the top of a small hill. The procession was long, the bodies numerous.
Dark walked in the procession, holding the newly walking Sim by one hand. Only an hour before dawn Sim had learned to walk.
At the top of the hill, Sim saw once again the far off metal seed. Nobody ever looked at it, or spoke of it. Why? Was there some reason? Was it a mirage? Why did they not run toward it? Worship it? Try to get to it and fly away into space?
The funeral words were spoken. The bodies were placed upon the ground where the sun, in a few minutes, would cremate them.
The procession then turned and ran down the hill, eager to have their few minutes of free time running and playing and laughing in the sweet air.
Dark and Sim, chattering like birds, feeding among the rocks, exchanged what they knew of life. He was in his second day, she in her third. They were driven, as always, by the mercurial speed of their lives.
Another piece of his life opened wide.
Fifty young men ran down from the cliffs, holding sharp stones and rock daggers in their thick hands. Shouting, they ran off toward distant black, low lines of small rock cliffs.
"War!"
The thought stood in Sim's brain. It shocked and beat at him. These men were running to fight, to kill, over there in those small black cliffs where other people lived.
But why? Wasn't life short enough without fighting, killing?
From a great distance he heard the sound of conflict, and it made his stomach cold. "Why, Dark, why?"
Dark didn't know. Perhaps they would understand tomorrow. Now, there was the business of eating to sustain and support their lives. Watching Dark was like seeing a lizard forever flickering its pink tongue, forever hungry.
Pale children ran on all sides of them. One beetle-like boy scuttled up the rocks, knocking Sim aside, to take from him a particularly luscious red berry he had found growing under an outcrop.
The child ate hastily of the fruit before Sim could gain his feet. Then Sim hurled himself unsteadily, the two of them fell in a ridiculous jumble, rolling, until Dark pried them, squalling, apart.
Sim bled. A part of him stood off, like a god, and said, "This should not be. Children should not be this way. It is wrong!"
Dark slapped the little intruding boy away. "Get on!" she cried.
"What's your name, bad one?"
"Chion!" laughed the boy. "Chion, Chion, Chion!"
Sim glared at him with all the ferocity in his small, unskilled features. He choked. This was his enemy. It was as if he'd waited for an enemy of person as well as scene. He had already understood the avalanches, the heat, the cold, the shortness of life, but these were things of places, of scene—mute, extravagant manifestations of unthinking nature, not motivated save by gravity and radiation. Here, now, in this stridulent Chion he recognized a thinking enemy!
Chion darted off, turned at a distance, tauntingly crying:
"Tomorrow I will be big enough to kill you!"
And he vanished around a rock.
More children ran, giggling, by Sim. Which of them would be friends, enemies? How could friends and enemies come about in this impossible, quick life time? There was no time to make either, was there?
Dark, as if knowing his thoughts, drew him away. As they searched for desired foods, she whispered fiercely in his ear. "Enemies are made over things like stolen foods; gifts of long grasses make friends. Enemies come, too, from opinions and thoughts. In five seconds you've made an enemy for life. Life's so short enemies must be made quickly." And she laughed with an irony strange for one so young, who was growing older before her rightful time. "You must fight to protect yourself. Others, superstitious ones, will try killing you. There is a belief, a ridiculous belief, that if one kills another, the murderer partakes of the life energy of the slain, and therefore will live an extra day. You see? As long as that is believed, you're in danger."
But Sim was not listening. Bursting from a flock of delicate girls who tomorrow would be tall, quieter, and who day after that would gain breasts and the next day take husbands, Sim caught sight of one small girl whose hair was a violet blue flame.
She ran past, brushed Sim, their bodies touched. Her eyes, white as silver coins, shone at him. He knew then that he'd found a friend, a love, a wife, one who'd a week from now lie with him atop the funeral pyre as sunlight undressed their flesh from bone.
Only the glance, but it held them in mid-motion, one instant.
"Your name?" he shouted after her.
"Lyte!" she called laughingly back.
"I'm Sim," he answered, confused and bewildered.
"Sim!" she repeated it, flashing on. "I'll remember!"
Dark nudged his ribs. "Here, eat ," she said to the distracted boy.
"Eat or you'll never get big enough to catch her."
From nowhere, Chion appeared, running by. "Lyte!" he mocked, dancing malevolently along and away. "Lyte! I'll remember Lyte, too!"
Dark stood tall and reed slender, shaking her dark ebony clouds of hair, sadly. "I see your life before you, little Sim. You'll need weapons soon to fight for this Lyte one. Now, hurry—the sun's coming!"
They ran back to the caves.
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Who or what is the Lorelei?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Lorelei Death by Nelson S. Bond.
Relevant chunks:
THE LORELEI DEATH
by NELSON S. BOND
Far out in limitless Space she plied her deadly trade ... a Lorelei of the void, beckoning spacemen to death and destruction with her beautiful siren lure.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1941. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Chip Warren stood before an oblong of glass set into one wall of the spaceship Chickadee II , stared at what he saw reflected therefrom—and frowned. He didn't like it. Not a bit! It was too—too—
He turned away angrily, ripped the offending article from about his neck, and chose another necktie from the rack. This one was brighter, gaudier, much more in keeping with the gaiety of his mood. He emitted a grunt of satisfaction, spun from the mirror to face his two companions triumphantly.
"There! How do you like that ?"
Syd Palmer, short and chubby, tow-headed and liquid-blue of eye, always languid save when engaged in the solution of some engineering problem concerned with the space vessel he mothered like a brooding hen, moaned insultingly and forced a shudder.
"Sunspots! Novae! Flying comets! And he wears 'em around his neck!"
"You," Chip told him serenely, "have no appreciation of beauty. What do you think of it, Padre?"
"Salvation" Smith, a tall, gangling scarecrow garbed in rusty black, a lean-jawed, hawkeyed man with tumbled locks of silver framing his weathered cheeks like a halo, concealed his grin poorly. "Well, my boy," he admitted, "there is some Biblical precedent for your—ahem!—clamorous raiment. 'So Joseph made for himself a coat which was of many colors—'"
"Both of you," declared Chip, "give me a pain in the pants! Stick-in-the-muds! Here we are in port for the first time in months, cargo-bins loaded to the gunwales with enough ekalastron to make us rich for life—and you sit here like a pair of stuffed owls!
"Well, not me! I'm going to take a night off, throw myself a party the likes of which was never seen around these parts. Put a candle in the window, chilluns, 'cause li'l' Chip won't be home till the wee, sma' hours!"
Syd chuckled.
"O.Q., big shot. But don't get too cozy with any of those joy-joint entertainers. Remember what happened to poor old Dougal MacNeer!"
Salvation said soberly, "Syd's just fooling, my boy. But I would be careful if I were you. We're in the Belt, you know. The forces of law and order do not always govern these wild outposts of civilization as well as might be hoped. The planetoids are dens of iniquity, violent and unheeding the words of Him who rules all—"
The old man's lips etched a straight line, reminding Chip that Salvation Smith was not one of those milk-and-water missionaries who espoused the principle of "turning the other cheek" to evildoers. Salvation was not the ordained emissary of any church. A devoutly religious man with the heart of an adventurer, he had taken upon himself the mission of carrying to outland tribes the story of the God he worshipped.
That his God was the fierce Yahveh of the Old Testament, a God of anger and retribution, was made evident by the methods Salvation sometimes employed in winning his converts. For not only was Salvation acknowledged the most pious man in space; he was also conceded to be the best hand with a gun!
Now Chip gave quiet answer. "I know, Padre: I'll be careful. Well, Syd—sure you won't change your mind and come along?"
"No can do, chum. The spaceport repair crew's still smearing this jalopy with ek. Got to stay and watch 'em."
"O.Q. I'm off alone, then. See you later!"
And, whistling, Chip Warren stepped through the lock of the Chickadee onto the soil of the asteroid Danae.
Danae was, thought Chip as he strolled along briskly toward the town beyond the spaceport, a most presentable hunk of rock. Nice lucentite Dome ... good atmo ... a fine artificial grav system based on Terra normal. It seemed to be a popular little fueling-stop, too, for its cradle-bins were laden with vessels from every planet in the System, and as he gained the main drag he found himself rubbing shoulders with citizens of every known world. Lumbering, albino Venusians, petal-headed Martians, Jovian runts, greenies from far Uranus, Earthman—all were here.
Quite a likely place, he thought happily, to chuck a brawl. A brilliantly gleaming xenon sign before him welcomed visitors to:
XU'UL'S SOLAREST Barroom—Casino—Dancing 100—Lovely Hostesses—100
He entered, and was immediately deluged by a bevy of charm-gals vying for the privilege of: (1) helping him beat the roulette wheel; (2) helping him drink the house dry, and/or (3) separating him as swiftly as possible from the credits in his money belt.
Chip shook them off, gently but firmly. He wanted a good time, true; but he wanted it solo. The main cabaret was too crowded; he passed through it and another equally blatant room wherein twoscore Venusians were straining the structure with a native "sing-stomp," and ended up finally, with a sigh of relief, in a small, dimly-lighted private bar unfrequented by anyone save a bored and listless Martian bartender.
The chrysanthemum-pated son of the desertland roused himself as Chip entered, rustled his petals and piped a ready greeting.
"Welcoom, ssirr! Trrink, pleasse?"
This was more like it! Chip grinned.
"Scotch," he said. " Old Spaceman. And let's have a new bottle, Curly. None of that doctored swill."
"Of courrsse, ssirr!" piped the bar-keep aggrievedly. He pushed a bottle across the mahogany; Chip flipped a golden credit-token back at him.
"Tell me when I've guzzled this, and I'll start work on another." He took a deep, appreciative sniff. "And don't let any of those dizzy dolls in here," he ordered. "I've got a lot of back drinking to catch up on, and I don't want to be disturbed— Hey! "
In his alarm, he almost dropped the bottle. For the door suddenly burst open, and in its frame loomed a figure in Space Patrol blues. A finger pointed in Chip's direction and a bull-o'-Bashan voice roared:
" Stop! Bartender—grab that man! He's a desperate criminal, wanted on four planets for murder!"
Shock momentarily immobilized Chip. Not so the bartender. He was, it seemed, an ardent pacifist. With a bleat of panic fear he scampered from his post, his metallic stilts clattering off in the distance. Chip's accuser moved forward from the shadows; dim light illumined his features. And—
" Johnny! " Chip's voice lifted in a note of jubilant surprise.
"Johnny Haldane—you old scoundrel! Where in the void did you drop from?"
The S.S.P. man chuckled and returned Chip's greeting with a bone-grinding handclasp.
"I might ask the same of you, chum! Lord, it's been ages since we've crossed 'jectory! When I saw you meandering across the Casino, you could have knocked me down with a jetblast! What's new? Is old Syd still with you?"
"We're still shipmates. But he's back at the spaceport. The jerry-crew is plating our crate with ek, and—"
"Ek! Plating a private cruiser!" Haldane stared at him in astonishment, then whistled. "Sweet Sacred Stars, you must be filthy with credits to be able to coat an entire ship with ekalastron!"
"You," boasted Chip, "ain't heard nothing yet!" And he told him how they had discovered an entire mountain of the previous new element, No.
97 in the periodic table, on frigid Titania, satellite of far Uranus.
"It was touch-and-go for a while," he admitted, "whether we'd be the luckiest three guys in space—or the deadest! But we passed through the flaming caverns like old Shadrach in the Bible—remember?—and here we are!"
[1]
Haldane was exuberant. "A mountain of ekalastron!" he gloated.
"That's the greatest contribution to spaceflight since Biggs' velocity-intensifier!" It was no overstatement. "Element No. 97 was a metal so light that a man could carry in one hand enough to coat the entire hull of a battleship—yet so adamant that a gossamer film of it would deflect a meteor! A metal strong enough to crush diamonds to ash—but so resilient that, when properly treated, it would rebound like rubber! What are you going to do with it, Chip? Put it on the open market?"
Warren shook his head.
"Not exactly. We talked it over carefully—Syd and Salvation and I—and we decided there are some space-rats to whom it shouldn't be made available. Privateers and outlaws, you know. So we turned control of the mines over to the Space Patrol at Uranus, and visiphoned the Earth authorities we were bringing in one cargo—"
"Visiphoned!" interrupted Haldane sharply. "Did you say visiphoned?"
"Why—why, yes."
"From where?"
"Oh, just before we reached the Belt. We don't have a very strong transmitter, you know. Sa-a-ay, what's all the excitement, pal? Did we do something that was wrong?"
Haldane frowned worriedly. "I don't know, Chip. It wasn't anything wrong , but what you did was damned dangerous. For if your message was intercepted, you may have played into the very hands of—the Lorelei!"
Chip stared at his friend bewilderedly for a moment. Then he grinned.
"Hey—I must be getting slightly whacky in my old age. I stand here with an unopened bottle in my hands and hear things! For a minute I thought you said 'Lorelei.' The Lorelei, my space-cop friend, is a myth. An old Teutonic myth about a beautiful damsel who sits out in the middle of a sea on a treacherous rock, combing her golden locks, warbling and luring her fascinated admirers to destruction."
He grunted. "A dirty trick, if you ask me. Catch a snort of this alleged Scotch, pal, and I'll torture your eardrums with the whole, sad story." He started to sing. "' Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten —'"
The Patrolman laid a hand on his arm, silenced him.
"It's not funny, Chip. You've described the Lorelei exactly. That's how she got her name. An incredibly beautiful woman who wantonly lures space-mariners to their death.
"The only difference is that her 'rock' is an asteroid somewhere in the Belt—and she does not sing, she calls! She began exercising her vicious appeal about two months ago, Earth reckoning. Since then, no less than a dozen spacecraft—freighters, liners, even one Patrolship—have fallen prey to her wiles. Their crews have been brutally murdered, their cargos stolen."
"Wait a minute!" interrupted Chip shrewdly. "How do you know about her if the crews have been murdered?"
"She has a habit of locking the controls," explained Haldane, "and setting ravaged ships adrift. Apparently there is no room on her hideout—wherever it is—for empty hulks. One of these ships was salvaged by a courageous cabin-boy who hid from the Lorelei and her pirate band beneath a closetful of soiled linens in the laundry. He described her. His description goes perfectly with less accurate glimpses seen over the visiphones of several score spacecraft!"
Chip said soberly, "So it's no joke, eh, pal? Sorry I popped off. I thought you were pulling my leg. Where do I come into this mess, though?"
"Ekalastron!" grunted Johnny succinctly. "A jackpot prize for any corsair! And you advertised a cargo of it over the etherwaves! The Lorelei will be waiting for you with her tongue hanging out. The only thing for you to do, kid, is go back to Jupiter or Io as fast as you can get there. Make the Patrol give you a convoy—"
A sudden light danced in Chip Warren's eyes. It was a light Syd Palmer would have groaned to see—for it usually presaged trouble. It was a bright, hard, reckless light.
"Hold your jets, Johnny!" drawled Chip. "Aren't you forgetting one thing? In a couple more hours, I can face the Lorelei and her whole mob—and be damned to them! She can't touch the Chickadee , because it's being plated right now!"
Haldane snapped his fingers in quick remembrance.
"By thunder, you're right! Her shells will ricochet off the Chickadee's hull like hail off a tin roof. Chip, are you in any hurry to reach Earth? I thought not. What do you say we go after the Lorelei together ! I'll swear you in as a Deputy Patrolman; we'll take the Chickadee and—"
"It's a deal!" declared Chip promptly. "You got any idea where this Lorelei's hangout is?"
"That's why I'm here on Danae. I got a tip that one of the Lorelei's men put in here for supplies. I hoped maybe I could single him out somehow, follow him when he jetted for his base, and in that way— Chip! Look out! "
Haldane shouted and moved at the same time. His arm lashed out wildly, thrusting, smashing Chip to the floor in a sprawling heap. The as-yet unopened bottle was now violently opened; it splintered into a thousand shards against a wall.
Bruised and shaken, Chip lifted his head to see what had caused Johnny's alarm. Even as he did so, the dull gloom of the bar was blazoned with searing effulgence. A lancet of flame leaped from the dark, rearward doorway, burst in Johnny Haldane's face!
The Patrolman cried once, a choking cry that died in a mewling whimper. His unused pistol slipped from slackening fingers, and he sagged to the floor. Again crimson lightning laced the shadows; Haldane's body jerked, and the air was raw with the hot, sickening stench of charred flesh.
With an instinct born of bitter years, Chip had come to his knees behind the shelter of the mahogany bar. But now his own flame-pistol was in his hand, and a dreadful rage was mingled with the agony in his heart. Reckless of results, he sprang to his feet, gun spewing livid death into the shadows.
His blast found a mark. For an instant flame haloed a human face drawn in inhuman pain. A heavy, sultry, bestial face, already puckered with one long, ugly scar that ran from right temple to jawbone, now newly scarred with the red brand of Chip's marksmanship.
Then, before Chip could fire again, came the rasp of pounding footsteps. The man turned and fled. Chip bent over his fallen friend, seeking, with hands that did not even feel the heat, fluttering life beneath still smoldering cloth.
He felt—nothing. Johnny was dead.
A snarl of sheer animal rage burst from Chip's lips. Someone would pay for this; pay dearly! Help was coming now. He himself would lead the hue-and-cry that would track a foul murderer to his lair. He spun as the footsteps drew nearer.
"Hurry!" he cried. "This way! Follow me—"
In a bound, he hurdled the bar, lingered at the door only long enough to let the others mark his course. For they had burst into the room, now, a full score of them. Excited, hard-bitten dogs of space, quick-triggered and willing. Once more he cried for help.
"After him! Come on! He—"
And then—disaster struck! For a reedy voice broke from the van of the mob. The voice of the Martian bartender.
"That's him!" he piped sibilantly. "That's the man! He's a desperate criminal, wanted on four planets for murder! The Patrolman came to arrest him— and now he's murdered the Spacie !"
II
The stunning injustice of that accusation came close to costing Chip Warren his life. For a split second he stood motionless in the doorway, gaping lips forming denial. Words which were never to be uttered, for suddenly a raw-boned miner wrenched a Moeller from its holster, leveled and fired.
The hot tongue of death licked hungrily at the young spaceman's cheek, scorched air crackled in his eardrums. Now was no time to squander in vain argument. Chip ducked, spun, and hurled himself through the doorway. There still remained one hope. That he might catch the real murderer, and in that way clear himself....
But the door led to a small, deserted vestibule, and it to an alleyway behind Xu'ul's Solarest. Viewing that maze of byways and passages, Chip knew his hope was futile. There remained but one thing to do. Get out of here. But quick!
It was no hard task. The labyrinth swallowed him as it had engulfed the scarred killer; in a few minutes even the footsteps of his pursuers could no longer be heard. And Chip worked his cautious way back to the spaceport, and to the bin wherein was cradled the Chickadee .
Syd Palmer looked up in surprise as Chip let himself in the electro-lock. The chubby engineer gasped, "Salvation, look what the cat drug in! His high-flying Nibs! What's the matter, Chip? Night-life too much for you?"
"Never mind that now!" panted Chip. "Is this tin can ready to roll? Warm the hypos. We're lifting gravs—"
Palmer said anxiously, "Now, wait a minute! The men haven't quite finished plating the hull, Chip!"
"Can't help that! We've got important business. In a very few minutes— Ahh! There he goes now!" Chip had gone to the perilens the moment he entered the ship; now he saw in its reflector that which he had expected. The gushing orange spume of a spaceship roaring from its cradle. "Hurry, Syd!"
There were a lot of things Syd Palmer wanted to ask. He wanted to know who went where ; he was bursting with curiosity about the "important business" which had brought his pal back from town in such a rush; his keen eye also had detected a needle-gun burn on Chip's coat-sleeve. But he was too good a companion to waste time now on such trivia.
"O.Q.," he snapped. "It's your pigeon!"
And he disappeared. They heard his voice calling to the workmen, the scuff of equipment being disengaged from the Chickadee's hull, the thin, high whine of warming hypatomics. Salvation looked at Warren quizzically.
"It smells," he ventured gently, "like trouble."
"It is trouble," Chip told him. "Plenty trouble!"
"In that case—" said the old man mildly—"I guess I'd better get the rotor stripped for action." He stepped to the gunnery turret, dropped the fore-irons and stripped their weapon for action. "'Be ye men of peace,'" he intoned, "'but gird firmly thy loins for righteous battle!' Thus saith the Lord God which is Jehovah. Selah!"
Then came Syd's cry from the depths of the hyporoom.
"All set, Chip! Lift gravs!"
Warren's finger found a stud. And with a gusty roar the Chickadee rocketed into space on a pillar of flame.
Two hours later, Chip was still following the bright pinpoint of scarlet which marked the course of his quarry.
In the time that had elapsed since their take-off, he had told his friends the whole story. When he told about the Lorelei, Salvation Smith's seamy old features screwed up in a perplexed grimace. "A woman pirate in the Belt, son? I find it hard to believe. Yet—" And when he described the death of Johnny Haldane, anger smoldered in the missionary's eyes, and Syd Palmer's hands knotted into tight, white fists. Said Syd, "A man with a scar, eh? Well, we'll catch him sooner or later. And when we do—" His tone boded no good to the man who had slain an old and loved friend.
"As a matter of fact," offered Salvation, "we've got him now. Any time you say the word, Chip. We're faster than he is. We can close in on him in five minutes."
"I know," nodded Warren grimly. "But we won't do it—yet. I'm borrowing a bit of Johnny's strategy. I've been plotting his course. As soon as I'm sure of his destination, we'll take care of him . But our first and most vital problem is to locate the Lorelei's hideaway."
Syd said, "That's all right with me, chum. I like a good scrap as much as the next guy. Better, maybe. But this isn't our concern, strictly speaking. What we ought to do is report this matter to the Space Patrol, let them take care of it."
Salvation shook his head.
"That's where you're mistaken, Sydney. This is very much our concern. So much so, in fact, that we dare not make port again until it's cleared up. I think you have forgotten that it is not the scar-faced man who is wanted for the killing of Haldane—but Chip!"
"B-but—" gasped Palmer—"b-but that's ridiculous! Chip and Johnny were old buddies. Lifelong friends!"
"Nevertheless, the circumstantial evidence indicates Chip's guilt. Twenty men saw him standing over Johnny's dead body, with a flame-pistol in his hand. And the barkeep heard Johnny 'arrest' Chip and accuse him of murder!"
Chip said ruefully, "That's right, Syd. It was only a joke, but it backfired. The bartender thought Johnny meant it. He scooted out of there like a bat out of Hades. I'm in it up to my neck unless we can bring back evidence that Scarface actually did the killing. And that may not be so easy."
He stirred restlessly. "But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now our job is to keep this rat in sight. We've gone farther already than I expected we would." He turned to the old preacher.
"Where do you think we're going, Padre? Out of the Belt entirely?"
"I've been wondering that myself, son. I don't know for sure, of course, but it looks to me as if we're going for the Bog. If so, you'd better keep a weather-eye peeled."
"The Bog!" Chip had never penetrated the planetoids so deeply before, but he knew of the Bog by hearsay. All men did. A treacherous region of tightly packed asteroids, a mad and whirling scramble of the gigantic rocks which, aeons ago, had been a planet. Few spacemen dared penetrate the Bog. Of those who did dare, few returned to tell the tale. "The Bog! Say! I'd better keep a sharp lookout!"
He turned to the perilens once more, fastened an eye to its lens. And then—
"Syd!" he cried. "Salvation! Look! She—she—!"
He pressed the plunger that transferred the perilens image to the central viewscreen. And as he did so, a phantom filled the area which should have revealed yawning space, gay with the spangles of a myriad glowing orbs. The vision of an unbelievably beautiful girl, the golden-crowned embodiment of a man's fondest dreaming, eyes wide with an indistinguishable emotion, arms stretched wide in mute appeal.
And from the throats of all came simultaneous recognition.
" The Lorelei! "
At the same moment came a plea from the enchantress of space through a second medium. For no reason anyone could explain, the ship's telaudio wakened to life; over it came to their ears the actual words of the girl:
" Help! Oh, help! Can anyone hear me? Help —"
Even though he knew this to be only a ruse, a deliberate, dastardly trap set for the unwary, Chip Warren's pulse leaped in hot response to that desperate plea. Even with the warning of Johnny Haldane fresh in his memory, some gallantry deep within him spurred him to the aid of this lovely vision. Here was a woman a man could live for, fight for, die for! A woman like no other in the universe.
Then common sense came to his rescue. He wrenched his gaze from the tempting shadow, cried: "Kill that wavelength! Tune the lens on another beam, Syd!"
Palmer, bedazzled but obedient, spun the dial of the perilens . Despite his vastly improved science Man had never yet succeeded in devising a transparent medium through which to view the void wherein he soared; the perilens was a device which translated impinging light-waves into a picture of that which lay outside the ship's hull. When or where electrical disturbances existed in space, its frequency could be changed for greater clarity. This was what Syd now attempted.
But to no avail! For it mattered not which cycle he tuned to—the image persisted. Still on the viewscreen that pleading figure beckoned piteously. And still the cabin rang to the prayers of that heart-tugging voice:
" Help! Oh, help! Can anyone hear me? Help —"
Gone, now, was any fascination that thrilling vision might previously have held for Chip Warren. Understanding of their plight dawned coldly upon him, and his brow became dark with anger.
" We're blanketed! Flying blind! Salvation, radio a general alarm! Syd, jazz the hypos to max. Shift trajectory to fourteen-oh-three North and loft ... fire No. 3 jet...."
He had hurled himself into the bucket-shaped pilot's seat; now his fingers played the controls like those of a mad organist. The Chickadee groaned from prow to stern, trembled like a tortured thing as he thrust it into a rising spiral.
It was a desperate chance he was taking. Increasing his speed thus, it was certain he would be spotted by the man he had been following; the flaming jets of the Chickadee must form a crimson arch against black space visible for hundreds—thousands!—of miles. Nor was there any way of knowing what lay in the path Chip thus blindly chose. Titanic death might loom on every side. But they had to fight clear of this spot of blindness, clear their instruments....
And then it came! A jarring concussion that smashed against the prow of the Chickadee like a battering ram. Chip flew headlong out of his bucket to spreadeagle on the heaving iron floor. He heard, above the grinding plaint of shattered steel the bellowing prayer of Salvation Smith:
"We've crashed! 'Into Thy hands, O Lord of old—'"
Then Syd's angry cry, "Crashed, hell! He's smashed us with a tractor-blast!"
Chip stared at his companion numbly.
"But—but that's impossible! We're plated with ek! A tractor-cannon couldn't hurt us—"
" Half-plated! " howled Syd savagely. "And those damn fools started working from the stern of the Chickadee ! We're vulnerable up front, and that's where he got us! In a minute this can will be leaking like a sieve. I'll get out bulgers. Hold 'er to her course, Chip!"
He dove for the lockers wherein were hung the space-suits, tore them hastily from their hangers. Chip again spun the perilens vernier. No good! No space ... no stars ... just a beautiful phantom crying them to certain doom. By now he was aware that from a dozen sprung plates air was seeping, but he fought down despair. While there remained hope, a man had to keep on fighting.
He scrambled back into the bucket-seat, experimented with controls that answered sluggishly. Salvation had sprung to the rotor-gun, was now angrily jerking its lanyard, lacing the void with death-dealing bursts that had no mark. The old man's eyes were brands of fire, his white hair clung wetly to his forehead. His rage was terrible to behold.
"'Yes, truly shall I destroy them!'" he cried, "'who loose their stealth upon me like a thief from the night—'"
Then suddenly there came a second and more frightful blow. The straining Chickadee stopped as though pole-axed by a gigantic fist. Stopped and shuddered and screamed in metal agony. This time inertia flung Chip headlong, helpless, into the control racks. Brazen studs took the impact of his body; crushing pain banded about his temples, and a red wetness ran into his eyes, blurring and blinding him, burning.
For an instant there flamed before him a universe of incandescent stars, weaving, shimmering, merging. The vision of a woman whose hair was a golden glory....
After that—nothing!
III
From a billion miles away, from a bourne unguessable thousands of light-years distant, came the faint, far whisper of a voice. Nearer and nearer it came, and ever faster, till it throbbed upon Chip's eardrums with booming savagery.
"—coming to, now. Good! We'll soon find out—"
Chip opened his eyes, too dazed, at first, to understand the situation in which he found himself. Gone was the familiar control-turret of the Chickadee , gone the bulger into which he had so hastily clambered. He lay on the parched, rocky soil of a—a something. A planetoid, perhaps. And he was surrounded by a motley crew of strangers: scum of all the planets that circle the Sun....
Then recollection flooded back upon him, sudden and complete. The chase ... the call of the fateful Lorelei ... the crash! New strength, born of anger, surged through him. He lifted his head.
"My—my companions?" he demanded weakly.
The leader of those who encircled him, a mighty hulk of a man, massive of shoulder and thigh, black-haired, with an unshaven blue jaw, raven-bright eyes and a jutting, aquiline nose like the beak of a hawk, loosed a satisfied grunt.
"Ah! Back to normal, eh, sailor? Damn near time!"
Climbing to his feet sent a swift wave of giddiness through Chip—but he managed it. He fought down the vertigo which threatened to overwhelm him, and confronted the big man boldly.
"What," he stormed, "is the meaning of this?"
The giant stared at him for a moment, his jaw slack. Then his raven-bright eyes glittered; he slapped a trunklike thigh and guffawed in boisterous mirth.
"Hear that?" he roared to his companions. "Quite a guy, ain't he?
'What's the meanin' o' this?' he asks! Game little fightin' cock, hey?" Then he sobered abruptly, and a grim light replaced the amusement in his eyes. Here was not a man to be trifled with, Chip realized. His tone assumed a biting edge. "The meanin' is, my bucko," he answered mirthlessly, "that you've run afoul o' your last reef. Unless you have a sane head on your shoulders, and you're willing to talk fast and straight!"
"Talk?"
"Don't stall. We've already unloaded your bins. We found it. And a nice haul, too. Thanks for lettin' us know it was on the way." The burly one chuckled coarsely. "We'd have took it, anyway, but you helped matters out by comin' to us."
Johnny Haldane had been right, then. Chip remembered his friend's ominous warning. "—if your message was intercepted, you may have played into the hands of—" He said slowly, "Then you are the Lorelei's men?"
"The who? Never mind that, bucko, just talk. That ekalastron—where did it come from?"
And it occurred to Warren suddenly that although the big man did hold the whip hand, he was still not in possession of the most important secret of all! While the location of the ekalastron mine remained a secret, a deadlock existed.
"And if I won't tell—?" he countered shrewdly.
"Why, then, sailor—" The pirate leader's hamlike fists tightened, and a cold light glinted in his eyes—"why, then I guess maybe I'll have to beat it out o' you!"
Question:
Who or what is the Lorelei?
Answer:
|
[
"The Lorelei was first an ancient myth that plagued all spacemen. It was a Teutonic myth, similar to the sirens of ancient Greece, about a gorgeous blonde woman who combed her hair and sang to those around her. Her position on the rock lured all the men to their doom, as they would crash around her. That is where the Lorelei originated. In this turn of events, the story has evolved into a present-day pirating crew using the original myth to draw spacemen in. For the past two months, according to Space Patrolman Johnny Haldane, a pirate crew has a beautiful blonde woman calling for help to lure at least a dozen spaceships in before they kill the crew and capture all of their cargo. The pirates then turn on all of the control locks and send the empty ships back out, as they have no space for them in their current base. The Lorelei and her crew intercepted Chip’s message about the ekalastron and set their sights on his ship as their next target. ",
"The Lorelei is what Chip refers to as a myth, which his friend Johnny insists is true. According to the original stories, there was a woman who sat on a rock in the middle of a sea distracting people who went by, like the classic siren myths. Johnny had been tracking some of the related crewmen and was investigating a lead when he ran into Chip. Johnny explained the two months of destruction that had occured, including the testimony of the one survivor found in the wreckage of a ship. This myth was being tied to a lot of pirating in the area, with particularly powerful ships. This is why Johnny didn't dare try to attack the Lorelei until he learned the Chip's ship had special plating on it that could protect them. In some sense, the Lorelei is both a myth and also a symbol representing a specific cluster of pirating. ",
"In literature, the Lorelei is an old Teutonic myth about a beautiful woman on a rock in the middle of the sea. She sings and uses her beauty to lure sailors to her where their ships are then destroyed on the rock. In the story, the Lorelei is a trap created by a group of pirates. They manage to fill spaceships’ perilenses with the image of a beautiful young woman with a “come hither” look about her, motioning for the ship to approach her. Her voice is projected through the ships’ audio systems, and she entreats the space sailors to come to her aid. In the past two months, a dozen ships have fallen prey to the trap; the crews were murdered, the cargo stolen, and the empty vessels set adrift back into space. On one ship, however, a cabin boy avoided detection and lived to describe the Lorelei’s appearance and the attack. When the Lorelei image appears in the Chickadee’s perilens, Chip changes to a different frequency, but her image is on all of them; thus, the ship is flying blindly through space. This makes the Chickadee an easy target for the pirates to hit with their tractor-blast and take over. For Chip, though, the pirates know about his discovery of ek, so in addition to taking his cargo, they want to know the location of the remaining ek and plan to beat him until he gives them the information they want.",
"According to Chip, Lorelei is an old Teutonic myth about a beautiful, golden-haired damsel who sits on a rock in the middle of the sea, drawing in admirers to their ultimate doom. However, his space-cop friend Johnny informs Chip that the myth of Lorelei is very real, but instead of the middle of the sea, she makes her perch on an unknown asteroid in the middle of the Belt where she lures space-mariners to their death. Since she and her crew of pirates began attacking from the Belt, they have destroyed a dozen freighters, liners, and Patrolships, murdered their crew and stolen their cargo. Because she has no room on her hideout for ravaged ships, she locks the controls and sends them back into space as a kind of calling card. Johnny warns Chip that Lorelei and her crew will likely be waiting to ambush the Chickadee II as it passes through the Belt, and that is why they plan to join forces against her. However, one of Lorelei's men kills Johnny before they can, leading Chip to chase him down. During the chase, Lorelei appears on the Chickadee's perilens and entrances the men."
] |
62039
|
THE LORELEI DEATH
by NELSON S. BOND
Far out in limitless Space she plied her deadly trade ... a Lorelei of the void, beckoning spacemen to death and destruction with her beautiful siren lure.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1941. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Chip Warren stood before an oblong of glass set into one wall of the spaceship Chickadee II , stared at what he saw reflected therefrom—and frowned. He didn't like it. Not a bit! It was too—too—
He turned away angrily, ripped the offending article from about his neck, and chose another necktie from the rack. This one was brighter, gaudier, much more in keeping with the gaiety of his mood. He emitted a grunt of satisfaction, spun from the mirror to face his two companions triumphantly.
"There! How do you like that ?"
Syd Palmer, short and chubby, tow-headed and liquid-blue of eye, always languid save when engaged in the solution of some engineering problem concerned with the space vessel he mothered like a brooding hen, moaned insultingly and forced a shudder.
"Sunspots! Novae! Flying comets! And he wears 'em around his neck!"
"You," Chip told him serenely, "have no appreciation of beauty. What do you think of it, Padre?"
"Salvation" Smith, a tall, gangling scarecrow garbed in rusty black, a lean-jawed, hawkeyed man with tumbled locks of silver framing his weathered cheeks like a halo, concealed his grin poorly. "Well, my boy," he admitted, "there is some Biblical precedent for your—ahem!—clamorous raiment. 'So Joseph made for himself a coat which was of many colors—'"
"Both of you," declared Chip, "give me a pain in the pants! Stick-in-the-muds! Here we are in port for the first time in months, cargo-bins loaded to the gunwales with enough ekalastron to make us rich for life—and you sit here like a pair of stuffed owls!
"Well, not me! I'm going to take a night off, throw myself a party the likes of which was never seen around these parts. Put a candle in the window, chilluns, 'cause li'l' Chip won't be home till the wee, sma' hours!"
Syd chuckled.
"O.Q., big shot. But don't get too cozy with any of those joy-joint entertainers. Remember what happened to poor old Dougal MacNeer!"
Salvation said soberly, "Syd's just fooling, my boy. But I would be careful if I were you. We're in the Belt, you know. The forces of law and order do not always govern these wild outposts of civilization as well as might be hoped. The planetoids are dens of iniquity, violent and unheeding the words of Him who rules all—"
The old man's lips etched a straight line, reminding Chip that Salvation Smith was not one of those milk-and-water missionaries who espoused the principle of "turning the other cheek" to evildoers. Salvation was not the ordained emissary of any church. A devoutly religious man with the heart of an adventurer, he had taken upon himself the mission of carrying to outland tribes the story of the God he worshipped.
That his God was the fierce Yahveh of the Old Testament, a God of anger and retribution, was made evident by the methods Salvation sometimes employed in winning his converts. For not only was Salvation acknowledged the most pious man in space; he was also conceded to be the best hand with a gun!
Now Chip gave quiet answer. "I know, Padre: I'll be careful. Well, Syd—sure you won't change your mind and come along?"
"No can do, chum. The spaceport repair crew's still smearing this jalopy with ek. Got to stay and watch 'em."
"O.Q. I'm off alone, then. See you later!"
And, whistling, Chip Warren stepped through the lock of the Chickadee onto the soil of the asteroid Danae.
Danae was, thought Chip as he strolled along briskly toward the town beyond the spaceport, a most presentable hunk of rock. Nice lucentite Dome ... good atmo ... a fine artificial grav system based on Terra normal. It seemed to be a popular little fueling-stop, too, for its cradle-bins were laden with vessels from every planet in the System, and as he gained the main drag he found himself rubbing shoulders with citizens of every known world. Lumbering, albino Venusians, petal-headed Martians, Jovian runts, greenies from far Uranus, Earthman—all were here.
Quite a likely place, he thought happily, to chuck a brawl. A brilliantly gleaming xenon sign before him welcomed visitors to:
XU'UL'S SOLAREST Barroom—Casino—Dancing 100—Lovely Hostesses—100
He entered, and was immediately deluged by a bevy of charm-gals vying for the privilege of: (1) helping him beat the roulette wheel; (2) helping him drink the house dry, and/or (3) separating him as swiftly as possible from the credits in his money belt.
Chip shook them off, gently but firmly. He wanted a good time, true; but he wanted it solo. The main cabaret was too crowded; he passed through it and another equally blatant room wherein twoscore Venusians were straining the structure with a native "sing-stomp," and ended up finally, with a sigh of relief, in a small, dimly-lighted private bar unfrequented by anyone save a bored and listless Martian bartender.
The chrysanthemum-pated son of the desertland roused himself as Chip entered, rustled his petals and piped a ready greeting.
"Welcoom, ssirr! Trrink, pleasse?"
This was more like it! Chip grinned.
"Scotch," he said. " Old Spaceman. And let's have a new bottle, Curly. None of that doctored swill."
"Of courrsse, ssirr!" piped the bar-keep aggrievedly. He pushed a bottle across the mahogany; Chip flipped a golden credit-token back at him.
"Tell me when I've guzzled this, and I'll start work on another." He took a deep, appreciative sniff. "And don't let any of those dizzy dolls in here," he ordered. "I've got a lot of back drinking to catch up on, and I don't want to be disturbed— Hey! "
In his alarm, he almost dropped the bottle. For the door suddenly burst open, and in its frame loomed a figure in Space Patrol blues. A finger pointed in Chip's direction and a bull-o'-Bashan voice roared:
" Stop! Bartender—grab that man! He's a desperate criminal, wanted on four planets for murder!"
Shock momentarily immobilized Chip. Not so the bartender. He was, it seemed, an ardent pacifist. With a bleat of panic fear he scampered from his post, his metallic stilts clattering off in the distance. Chip's accuser moved forward from the shadows; dim light illumined his features. And—
" Johnny! " Chip's voice lifted in a note of jubilant surprise.
"Johnny Haldane—you old scoundrel! Where in the void did you drop from?"
The S.S.P. man chuckled and returned Chip's greeting with a bone-grinding handclasp.
"I might ask the same of you, chum! Lord, it's been ages since we've crossed 'jectory! When I saw you meandering across the Casino, you could have knocked me down with a jetblast! What's new? Is old Syd still with you?"
"We're still shipmates. But he's back at the spaceport. The jerry-crew is plating our crate with ek, and—"
"Ek! Plating a private cruiser!" Haldane stared at him in astonishment, then whistled. "Sweet Sacred Stars, you must be filthy with credits to be able to coat an entire ship with ekalastron!"
"You," boasted Chip, "ain't heard nothing yet!" And he told him how they had discovered an entire mountain of the previous new element, No.
97 in the periodic table, on frigid Titania, satellite of far Uranus.
"It was touch-and-go for a while," he admitted, "whether we'd be the luckiest three guys in space—or the deadest! But we passed through the flaming caverns like old Shadrach in the Bible—remember?—and here we are!"
[1]
Haldane was exuberant. "A mountain of ekalastron!" he gloated.
"That's the greatest contribution to spaceflight since Biggs' velocity-intensifier!" It was no overstatement. "Element No. 97 was a metal so light that a man could carry in one hand enough to coat the entire hull of a battleship—yet so adamant that a gossamer film of it would deflect a meteor! A metal strong enough to crush diamonds to ash—but so resilient that, when properly treated, it would rebound like rubber! What are you going to do with it, Chip? Put it on the open market?"
Warren shook his head.
"Not exactly. We talked it over carefully—Syd and Salvation and I—and we decided there are some space-rats to whom it shouldn't be made available. Privateers and outlaws, you know. So we turned control of the mines over to the Space Patrol at Uranus, and visiphoned the Earth authorities we were bringing in one cargo—"
"Visiphoned!" interrupted Haldane sharply. "Did you say visiphoned?"
"Why—why, yes."
"From where?"
"Oh, just before we reached the Belt. We don't have a very strong transmitter, you know. Sa-a-ay, what's all the excitement, pal? Did we do something that was wrong?"
Haldane frowned worriedly. "I don't know, Chip. It wasn't anything wrong , but what you did was damned dangerous. For if your message was intercepted, you may have played into the very hands of—the Lorelei!"
Chip stared at his friend bewilderedly for a moment. Then he grinned.
"Hey—I must be getting slightly whacky in my old age. I stand here with an unopened bottle in my hands and hear things! For a minute I thought you said 'Lorelei.' The Lorelei, my space-cop friend, is a myth. An old Teutonic myth about a beautiful damsel who sits out in the middle of a sea on a treacherous rock, combing her golden locks, warbling and luring her fascinated admirers to destruction."
He grunted. "A dirty trick, if you ask me. Catch a snort of this alleged Scotch, pal, and I'll torture your eardrums with the whole, sad story." He started to sing. "' Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten —'"
The Patrolman laid a hand on his arm, silenced him.
"It's not funny, Chip. You've described the Lorelei exactly. That's how she got her name. An incredibly beautiful woman who wantonly lures space-mariners to their death.
"The only difference is that her 'rock' is an asteroid somewhere in the Belt—and she does not sing, she calls! She began exercising her vicious appeal about two months ago, Earth reckoning. Since then, no less than a dozen spacecraft—freighters, liners, even one Patrolship—have fallen prey to her wiles. Their crews have been brutally murdered, their cargos stolen."
"Wait a minute!" interrupted Chip shrewdly. "How do you know about her if the crews have been murdered?"
"She has a habit of locking the controls," explained Haldane, "and setting ravaged ships adrift. Apparently there is no room on her hideout—wherever it is—for empty hulks. One of these ships was salvaged by a courageous cabin-boy who hid from the Lorelei and her pirate band beneath a closetful of soiled linens in the laundry. He described her. His description goes perfectly with less accurate glimpses seen over the visiphones of several score spacecraft!"
Chip said soberly, "So it's no joke, eh, pal? Sorry I popped off. I thought you were pulling my leg. Where do I come into this mess, though?"
"Ekalastron!" grunted Johnny succinctly. "A jackpot prize for any corsair! And you advertised a cargo of it over the etherwaves! The Lorelei will be waiting for you with her tongue hanging out. The only thing for you to do, kid, is go back to Jupiter or Io as fast as you can get there. Make the Patrol give you a convoy—"
A sudden light danced in Chip Warren's eyes. It was a light Syd Palmer would have groaned to see—for it usually presaged trouble. It was a bright, hard, reckless light.
"Hold your jets, Johnny!" drawled Chip. "Aren't you forgetting one thing? In a couple more hours, I can face the Lorelei and her whole mob—and be damned to them! She can't touch the Chickadee , because it's being plated right now!"
Haldane snapped his fingers in quick remembrance.
"By thunder, you're right! Her shells will ricochet off the Chickadee's hull like hail off a tin roof. Chip, are you in any hurry to reach Earth? I thought not. What do you say we go after the Lorelei together ! I'll swear you in as a Deputy Patrolman; we'll take the Chickadee and—"
"It's a deal!" declared Chip promptly. "You got any idea where this Lorelei's hangout is?"
"That's why I'm here on Danae. I got a tip that one of the Lorelei's men put in here for supplies. I hoped maybe I could single him out somehow, follow him when he jetted for his base, and in that way— Chip! Look out! "
Haldane shouted and moved at the same time. His arm lashed out wildly, thrusting, smashing Chip to the floor in a sprawling heap. The as-yet unopened bottle was now violently opened; it splintered into a thousand shards against a wall.
Bruised and shaken, Chip lifted his head to see what had caused Johnny's alarm. Even as he did so, the dull gloom of the bar was blazoned with searing effulgence. A lancet of flame leaped from the dark, rearward doorway, burst in Johnny Haldane's face!
The Patrolman cried once, a choking cry that died in a mewling whimper. His unused pistol slipped from slackening fingers, and he sagged to the floor. Again crimson lightning laced the shadows; Haldane's body jerked, and the air was raw with the hot, sickening stench of charred flesh.
With an instinct born of bitter years, Chip had come to his knees behind the shelter of the mahogany bar. But now his own flame-pistol was in his hand, and a dreadful rage was mingled with the agony in his heart. Reckless of results, he sprang to his feet, gun spewing livid death into the shadows.
His blast found a mark. For an instant flame haloed a human face drawn in inhuman pain. A heavy, sultry, bestial face, already puckered with one long, ugly scar that ran from right temple to jawbone, now newly scarred with the red brand of Chip's marksmanship.
Then, before Chip could fire again, came the rasp of pounding footsteps. The man turned and fled. Chip bent over his fallen friend, seeking, with hands that did not even feel the heat, fluttering life beneath still smoldering cloth.
He felt—nothing. Johnny was dead.
A snarl of sheer animal rage burst from Chip's lips. Someone would pay for this; pay dearly! Help was coming now. He himself would lead the hue-and-cry that would track a foul murderer to his lair. He spun as the footsteps drew nearer.
"Hurry!" he cried. "This way! Follow me—"
In a bound, he hurdled the bar, lingered at the door only long enough to let the others mark his course. For they had burst into the room, now, a full score of them. Excited, hard-bitten dogs of space, quick-triggered and willing. Once more he cried for help.
"After him! Come on! He—"
And then—disaster struck! For a reedy voice broke from the van of the mob. The voice of the Martian bartender.
"That's him!" he piped sibilantly. "That's the man! He's a desperate criminal, wanted on four planets for murder! The Patrolman came to arrest him— and now he's murdered the Spacie !"
II
The stunning injustice of that accusation came close to costing Chip Warren his life. For a split second he stood motionless in the doorway, gaping lips forming denial. Words which were never to be uttered, for suddenly a raw-boned miner wrenched a Moeller from its holster, leveled and fired.
The hot tongue of death licked hungrily at the young spaceman's cheek, scorched air crackled in his eardrums. Now was no time to squander in vain argument. Chip ducked, spun, and hurled himself through the doorway. There still remained one hope. That he might catch the real murderer, and in that way clear himself....
But the door led to a small, deserted vestibule, and it to an alleyway behind Xu'ul's Solarest. Viewing that maze of byways and passages, Chip knew his hope was futile. There remained but one thing to do. Get out of here. But quick!
It was no hard task. The labyrinth swallowed him as it had engulfed the scarred killer; in a few minutes even the footsteps of his pursuers could no longer be heard. And Chip worked his cautious way back to the spaceport, and to the bin wherein was cradled the Chickadee .
Syd Palmer looked up in surprise as Chip let himself in the electro-lock. The chubby engineer gasped, "Salvation, look what the cat drug in! His high-flying Nibs! What's the matter, Chip? Night-life too much for you?"
"Never mind that now!" panted Chip. "Is this tin can ready to roll? Warm the hypos. We're lifting gravs—"
Palmer said anxiously, "Now, wait a minute! The men haven't quite finished plating the hull, Chip!"
"Can't help that! We've got important business. In a very few minutes— Ahh! There he goes now!" Chip had gone to the perilens the moment he entered the ship; now he saw in its reflector that which he had expected. The gushing orange spume of a spaceship roaring from its cradle. "Hurry, Syd!"
There were a lot of things Syd Palmer wanted to ask. He wanted to know who went where ; he was bursting with curiosity about the "important business" which had brought his pal back from town in such a rush; his keen eye also had detected a needle-gun burn on Chip's coat-sleeve. But he was too good a companion to waste time now on such trivia.
"O.Q.," he snapped. "It's your pigeon!"
And he disappeared. They heard his voice calling to the workmen, the scuff of equipment being disengaged from the Chickadee's hull, the thin, high whine of warming hypatomics. Salvation looked at Warren quizzically.
"It smells," he ventured gently, "like trouble."
"It is trouble," Chip told him. "Plenty trouble!"
"In that case—" said the old man mildly—"I guess I'd better get the rotor stripped for action." He stepped to the gunnery turret, dropped the fore-irons and stripped their weapon for action. "'Be ye men of peace,'" he intoned, "'but gird firmly thy loins for righteous battle!' Thus saith the Lord God which is Jehovah. Selah!"
Then came Syd's cry from the depths of the hyporoom.
"All set, Chip! Lift gravs!"
Warren's finger found a stud. And with a gusty roar the Chickadee rocketed into space on a pillar of flame.
Two hours later, Chip was still following the bright pinpoint of scarlet which marked the course of his quarry.
In the time that had elapsed since their take-off, he had told his friends the whole story. When he told about the Lorelei, Salvation Smith's seamy old features screwed up in a perplexed grimace. "A woman pirate in the Belt, son? I find it hard to believe. Yet—" And when he described the death of Johnny Haldane, anger smoldered in the missionary's eyes, and Syd Palmer's hands knotted into tight, white fists. Said Syd, "A man with a scar, eh? Well, we'll catch him sooner or later. And when we do—" His tone boded no good to the man who had slain an old and loved friend.
"As a matter of fact," offered Salvation, "we've got him now. Any time you say the word, Chip. We're faster than he is. We can close in on him in five minutes."
"I know," nodded Warren grimly. "But we won't do it—yet. I'm borrowing a bit of Johnny's strategy. I've been plotting his course. As soon as I'm sure of his destination, we'll take care of him . But our first and most vital problem is to locate the Lorelei's hideaway."
Syd said, "That's all right with me, chum. I like a good scrap as much as the next guy. Better, maybe. But this isn't our concern, strictly speaking. What we ought to do is report this matter to the Space Patrol, let them take care of it."
Salvation shook his head.
"That's where you're mistaken, Sydney. This is very much our concern. So much so, in fact, that we dare not make port again until it's cleared up. I think you have forgotten that it is not the scar-faced man who is wanted for the killing of Haldane—but Chip!"
"B-but—" gasped Palmer—"b-but that's ridiculous! Chip and Johnny were old buddies. Lifelong friends!"
"Nevertheless, the circumstantial evidence indicates Chip's guilt. Twenty men saw him standing over Johnny's dead body, with a flame-pistol in his hand. And the barkeep heard Johnny 'arrest' Chip and accuse him of murder!"
Chip said ruefully, "That's right, Syd. It was only a joke, but it backfired. The bartender thought Johnny meant it. He scooted out of there like a bat out of Hades. I'm in it up to my neck unless we can bring back evidence that Scarface actually did the killing. And that may not be so easy."
He stirred restlessly. "But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now our job is to keep this rat in sight. We've gone farther already than I expected we would." He turned to the old preacher.
"Where do you think we're going, Padre? Out of the Belt entirely?"
"I've been wondering that myself, son. I don't know for sure, of course, but it looks to me as if we're going for the Bog. If so, you'd better keep a weather-eye peeled."
"The Bog!" Chip had never penetrated the planetoids so deeply before, but he knew of the Bog by hearsay. All men did. A treacherous region of tightly packed asteroids, a mad and whirling scramble of the gigantic rocks which, aeons ago, had been a planet. Few spacemen dared penetrate the Bog. Of those who did dare, few returned to tell the tale. "The Bog! Say! I'd better keep a sharp lookout!"
He turned to the perilens once more, fastened an eye to its lens. And then—
"Syd!" he cried. "Salvation! Look! She—she—!"
He pressed the plunger that transferred the perilens image to the central viewscreen. And as he did so, a phantom filled the area which should have revealed yawning space, gay with the spangles of a myriad glowing orbs. The vision of an unbelievably beautiful girl, the golden-crowned embodiment of a man's fondest dreaming, eyes wide with an indistinguishable emotion, arms stretched wide in mute appeal.
And from the throats of all came simultaneous recognition.
" The Lorelei! "
At the same moment came a plea from the enchantress of space through a second medium. For no reason anyone could explain, the ship's telaudio wakened to life; over it came to their ears the actual words of the girl:
" Help! Oh, help! Can anyone hear me? Help —"
Even though he knew this to be only a ruse, a deliberate, dastardly trap set for the unwary, Chip Warren's pulse leaped in hot response to that desperate plea. Even with the warning of Johnny Haldane fresh in his memory, some gallantry deep within him spurred him to the aid of this lovely vision. Here was a woman a man could live for, fight for, die for! A woman like no other in the universe.
Then common sense came to his rescue. He wrenched his gaze from the tempting shadow, cried: "Kill that wavelength! Tune the lens on another beam, Syd!"
Palmer, bedazzled but obedient, spun the dial of the perilens . Despite his vastly improved science Man had never yet succeeded in devising a transparent medium through which to view the void wherein he soared; the perilens was a device which translated impinging light-waves into a picture of that which lay outside the ship's hull. When or where electrical disturbances existed in space, its frequency could be changed for greater clarity. This was what Syd now attempted.
But to no avail! For it mattered not which cycle he tuned to—the image persisted. Still on the viewscreen that pleading figure beckoned piteously. And still the cabin rang to the prayers of that heart-tugging voice:
" Help! Oh, help! Can anyone hear me? Help —"
Gone, now, was any fascination that thrilling vision might previously have held for Chip Warren. Understanding of their plight dawned coldly upon him, and his brow became dark with anger.
" We're blanketed! Flying blind! Salvation, radio a general alarm! Syd, jazz the hypos to max. Shift trajectory to fourteen-oh-three North and loft ... fire No. 3 jet...."
He had hurled himself into the bucket-shaped pilot's seat; now his fingers played the controls like those of a mad organist. The Chickadee groaned from prow to stern, trembled like a tortured thing as he thrust it into a rising spiral.
It was a desperate chance he was taking. Increasing his speed thus, it was certain he would be spotted by the man he had been following; the flaming jets of the Chickadee must form a crimson arch against black space visible for hundreds—thousands!—of miles. Nor was there any way of knowing what lay in the path Chip thus blindly chose. Titanic death might loom on every side. But they had to fight clear of this spot of blindness, clear their instruments....
And then it came! A jarring concussion that smashed against the prow of the Chickadee like a battering ram. Chip flew headlong out of his bucket to spreadeagle on the heaving iron floor. He heard, above the grinding plaint of shattered steel the bellowing prayer of Salvation Smith:
"We've crashed! 'Into Thy hands, O Lord of old—'"
Then Syd's angry cry, "Crashed, hell! He's smashed us with a tractor-blast!"
Chip stared at his companion numbly.
"But—but that's impossible! We're plated with ek! A tractor-cannon couldn't hurt us—"
" Half-plated! " howled Syd savagely. "And those damn fools started working from the stern of the Chickadee ! We're vulnerable up front, and that's where he got us! In a minute this can will be leaking like a sieve. I'll get out bulgers. Hold 'er to her course, Chip!"
He dove for the lockers wherein were hung the space-suits, tore them hastily from their hangers. Chip again spun the perilens vernier. No good! No space ... no stars ... just a beautiful phantom crying them to certain doom. By now he was aware that from a dozen sprung plates air was seeping, but he fought down despair. While there remained hope, a man had to keep on fighting.
He scrambled back into the bucket-seat, experimented with controls that answered sluggishly. Salvation had sprung to the rotor-gun, was now angrily jerking its lanyard, lacing the void with death-dealing bursts that had no mark. The old man's eyes were brands of fire, his white hair clung wetly to his forehead. His rage was terrible to behold.
"'Yes, truly shall I destroy them!'" he cried, "'who loose their stealth upon me like a thief from the night—'"
Then suddenly there came a second and more frightful blow. The straining Chickadee stopped as though pole-axed by a gigantic fist. Stopped and shuddered and screamed in metal agony. This time inertia flung Chip headlong, helpless, into the control racks. Brazen studs took the impact of his body; crushing pain banded about his temples, and a red wetness ran into his eyes, blurring and blinding him, burning.
For an instant there flamed before him a universe of incandescent stars, weaving, shimmering, merging. The vision of a woman whose hair was a golden glory....
After that—nothing!
III
From a billion miles away, from a bourne unguessable thousands of light-years distant, came the faint, far whisper of a voice. Nearer and nearer it came, and ever faster, till it throbbed upon Chip's eardrums with booming savagery.
"—coming to, now. Good! We'll soon find out—"
Chip opened his eyes, too dazed, at first, to understand the situation in which he found himself. Gone was the familiar control-turret of the Chickadee , gone the bulger into which he had so hastily clambered. He lay on the parched, rocky soil of a—a something. A planetoid, perhaps. And he was surrounded by a motley crew of strangers: scum of all the planets that circle the Sun....
Then recollection flooded back upon him, sudden and complete. The chase ... the call of the fateful Lorelei ... the crash! New strength, born of anger, surged through him. He lifted his head.
"My—my companions?" he demanded weakly.
The leader of those who encircled him, a mighty hulk of a man, massive of shoulder and thigh, black-haired, with an unshaven blue jaw, raven-bright eyes and a jutting, aquiline nose like the beak of a hawk, loosed a satisfied grunt.
"Ah! Back to normal, eh, sailor? Damn near time!"
Climbing to his feet sent a swift wave of giddiness through Chip—but he managed it. He fought down the vertigo which threatened to overwhelm him, and confronted the big man boldly.
"What," he stormed, "is the meaning of this?"
The giant stared at him for a moment, his jaw slack. Then his raven-bright eyes glittered; he slapped a trunklike thigh and guffawed in boisterous mirth.
"Hear that?" he roared to his companions. "Quite a guy, ain't he?
'What's the meanin' o' this?' he asks! Game little fightin' cock, hey?" Then he sobered abruptly, and a grim light replaced the amusement in his eyes. Here was not a man to be trifled with, Chip realized. His tone assumed a biting edge. "The meanin' is, my bucko," he answered mirthlessly, "that you've run afoul o' your last reef. Unless you have a sane head on your shoulders, and you're willing to talk fast and straight!"
"Talk?"
"Don't stall. We've already unloaded your bins. We found it. And a nice haul, too. Thanks for lettin' us know it was on the way." The burly one chuckled coarsely. "We'd have took it, anyway, but you helped matters out by comin' to us."
Johnny Haldane had been right, then. Chip remembered his friend's ominous warning. "—if your message was intercepted, you may have played into the hands of—" He said slowly, "Then you are the Lorelei's men?"
"The who? Never mind that, bucko, just talk. That ekalastron—where did it come from?"
And it occurred to Warren suddenly that although the big man did hold the whip hand, he was still not in possession of the most important secret of all! While the location of the ekalastron mine remained a secret, a deadlock existed.
"And if I won't tell—?" he countered shrewdly.
"Why, then, sailor—" The pirate leader's hamlike fists tightened, and a cold light glinted in his eyes—"why, then I guess maybe I'll have to beat it out o' you!"
|
What is the significance of the Kumaji's in the story?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Home is Where You Left It by Stephen Marlowe.
Relevant chunks:
HOME IS WHERE YOU LEFT IT
By ADAM CHASE
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories February
1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The chance of mass slaughter was their eternal nightmare.
How black is the blackest treachery? Is the most callous
traitor entitled to mercy? Steve pondered these questions. His decision?
That at times the villain should possibly be spoken of as a hero.
Only the shells of deserted mud-brick houses greeted Steve Cantwell when
he reached the village.
He poked around in them for a while. The desert heat was searing,
parching, and the Sirian sun gleamed balefully off the blades of Steve's
unicopter, which had brought him from Oasis City, almost five hundred
miles away. He had remembered heat from his childhood here on Sirius'
second planet with the Earth colony, but not heat like this. It was like
a magnet drawing all the moisture out of his body.
He walked among the buildings, surprise and perhaps sadness etched on
his gaunt, weather-beaten face. Childhood memories flooded back: the
single well from which all the families drew their water, the mud-brick
house, hardly different from the others and just four walls and a roof
now, in which he'd lived with his aunt after his parents had been killed
in a Kumaji raid, the community center where he'd spent his happiest
time as a boy.
He went to the well and hoisted up a pailful of water. The winch creaked
as he remembered. He ladled out the water, suddenly very thirsty, and
brought the ladle to his lips.
He hurled the ladle away. The water was bitter. Not brackish.
Poisoned.
He spat with fury, then kneeled and stuffed his mouth with sand, almost
gagging. After a while he spat out the sand too and opened his canteen
and rinsed his mouth. His lips and mouth were paralyzed by contact with
the poison. He walked quickly across the well-square to his aunt's
house. Inside, it was dim but hardly cooler. Steve was sweating, the
saline sweat making him blink. He scowled, not understanding. The table
was set in his aunt's house. A coffeepot was on the stove and last
night's partially-consumed dinner still on the table.
The well had been poisoned, the town had been deserted on the spur of
the moment, and Steve had returned to his boyhood home from Earth—too
late for anything.
He went outside into the square. A lizard was sunning itself and staring
at him with lidless eyes. When he moved across the square, the lizard
scurried away.
"Earthman!" a quavering voice called.
Steve ran toward the sound. In the scant shadow of the community center,
a Kumaji was resting. He was a withered old man, all skin and bones and
sweat-stiffened tunic, with enormous red-rimmed eyes. His purple skin,
which had been blasted by the merciless sun, was almost black.
Steve held the canteen to his lips and watched his throat working almost
spasmodically to get the water down. After a while Steve withdrew the
canteen and said:
"What happened here?"
"They're gone. All gone."
"Yes, but what happened?"
"The Kumaji—"
"You're Kumaji."
"This is my town," the old man said. "I lived with the Earthmen. Now
they're gone."
"But you stayed here—"
"To die," the old man said, without self-pity. "I'm too old to flee, too
old to fight, too old for anything but death. More water."
Steve gave him another drink. "You still haven't told me what happened."
Actually, though, Steve could guess. With the twenty-second century
Earth population hovering at the eleven billion mark, colonies were
sought everywhere. Even on a parched desert wasteland like this. The
Kumaji tribesmen had never accepted the colony as a fact of their life
on the desert, and in a way Steve could not blame them. It meant one
oasis less for their own nomadic sustenance. When Steve was a boy,
Kumaji raids were frequent. At school on Earth and Luna he'd read about
the raids, how they'd increased in violence, how the Earth government,
so far away and utterly unable to protect its distant colony, had
suggested withdrawal from the Kumaji desert settlement, especially since
a colony could exist there under only the most primitive conditions,
almost like the purple-skinned Kumaji natives themselves.
"When did it happen?" Steve demanded.
"Last night." It was now midafternoon. "Three folks died," the Kumaji
said in his almost perfect English, "from the poisoning of the well. The
well was the last straw. The colonists had no choice. They had to go,
and go fast, taking what little water they had left in the houses."
"Will they try to walk all the way through to Oasis City?" Oasis City,
built at the confluence of two underground rivers which came to the
surface there and flowed the rest of the way to the sea above ground,
was almost five hundred miles from the colony. Five hundred miles of
trackless sands and hundred-and-thirty-degree heat....
"They have to," the old man said. "And they have to hurry. Men, women
and children. The Kumaji are after them."
Steve felt irrational hatred then. He thought it would help if he could
find some of the nomadic tribesmen and kill them. It might help the way
he felt, he knew, but it certainly wouldn't help the fleeing colonists,
trekking across a parched wilderness—to the safety of Oasis City—or
death.
"Come on," Steve said, making up his mind. "The unicopter can hold two
in a pinch."
"You're going after them?"
"I've got to. They're my people. I've been away too long."
"Say, you're young Cantwell, aren't you? Now I remember."
"Yes, I'm Steve Cantwell."
"I'm not going anyplace, young fellow."
"But you can't stay here, without any good water to drink, without—"
"I'm staying," the old man said, still without self-pity, just
matter-of-factly. "The Earth folks have no room for me and I can't blame
'em. The Kumaji'll kill me for a renegade, I figure. I lived a good,
long life. I've no regrets. Go after your people, young fellow. They'll
need every extra strong right arm they can get. You got any weapons?"
"No," Steve said.
"Too bad. Well, good-bye and good luck."
"But you can't—"
"Oh, I'm staying. I want to stay. This is my home. It's the only home
I'll ever have. Good luck, young fellow."
Slowly, Steve walked to his unicopter. It was nothing more than a small
metal disk on which to stand, and a shaft with four turbo-blades. It
could do sixty miles an hour at an elevation of two thousand feet.
Steve turned the little turbo-jet engine over, then on impulse ran back
to the old man and gave him his canteen, turning away before it could be
refused and striding quickly back to the unicopter and getting himself
airborne without looking at the deserted village or the old man again.
The old man's voice called after him: "Tell the people ... hurry ...
Kumaji looking for them to kill ... desert wind ought to wipe out their
trail ... but hurry...."
The voice faded into the faint rushing sound of the hot desert wind.
Steve gazed down on bare sun-blasted rock, on rippled dunes, on
hate-haze. He circled wider and wider, seeking his people.
Hours later he spotted the caravan in the immensity of sand and
wasteland. He brought the unicopter down quickly, with a rush of air and
a whine of turbojets. He alighted in the sand in front of the
slow-moving column. It was like something out of Earth's Middle
East—and Middle Ages. They had even imported camels for their life here
on the Sirian desert, deciding the Earth camel was a better beast of
burden than anything the Sirius II wastelands had to offer. They walked
beside the great-humped beasts of burden, the animals piled high with
the swaying baggage of their belongings. They moved through the sands
with agonizing slowness. Already, after only one day's travel, Steve
could see that some of the people were spent and exhausted and had to
ride on camelback. They had gone perhaps fifteen miles, with almost five
hundred to go across searing desert, the Kumaji seeking them....
"Hullo!" Steve shouted, and a man armed with an atorifle came striding
clumsily through the sand toward him. "Cantwell's the name," Steve said.
"I'm one of you."
Bleak hostility in his face, the man approached. "Cantwell. Yeah, I
remember you. Colony wasn't good enough for young Steve Cantwell. Oh,
no. Had to go off to Earth to get himself educated. What are you doing
here now on that fancy aircraft of yours, coming to crow at our wake?"
The bitterness surprised Steve. He recognized the man now as Tobias
Whiting, who had been the Colony's most successful man when Steve was a
boy. Except for his bitterness and for the bleak self-pity and defeat in
his eyes, the years had been good to Tobias Whiting. He was probably in
his mid-forties now, twenty years Steve's senior, but he was
well-muscled, his flesh was solid, his step bold and strong. He was a
big muscular man with a craggy, handsome face. In ten years he had
hardly changed at all, while Steve Cantwell, the boy, had become Steve
Cantwell the man. He had been the Colony's official trader with the
Kumajis, and had grown rich—by colony standards—at his business. Now,
Steve realized, all that was behind him, and he could only flee with the
others—either back to the terribly crowded Earth or on in search of a
new colony on some other outworld, if they could get the transportation.
Perhaps that explained his bitterness.
"So you've come back, eh? You sure picked a time, Cantwell."
The refugees were still about a quarter of a mile off, coming up slowly.
They hardly seemed to be moving at all. "Is my aunt all right?" Steve
said. She was the only family he remembered.
Tobias Whiting shook his head slowly. "I hate to be the one to tell you
this. Brace yourself for a shock. Your aunt was one of those who died
from the poisoned water last night."
For a long moment, Steve said nothing. The only emotion he felt was
pity—pity for the hard life his aunt had lived, and the hard death.
Sadness would come later, if there was to be a time for sadness.
The caravan reached them then. The first person Steve saw was a girl.
She wore the shroud-like desert garment and her face—it would be a
pretty face under other circumstances, Steve realized—was etched with
lines of fatigue. Steve did not recognize her. "Who is he, Dad?" the
girl said.
"Young Cantwell. Remember?"
So this was Mary Whiting, Steve thought. Why, she'd been a moppet ten
years ago! How old? Ten years old maybe. The years crowded him suddenly.
She was a woman now....
"Steve Cantwell?" Mary said. "Of course I remember. Hello, Steve. I—I'm
sorry you had to come back at a time like this. I'm sorry about your
aunt. If there's anything I can do...."
Steve shook his head, then shook the hand she offered him. She was a
slim, strong girl with a firm handshake. Her concern for him at a time
like this was little short of amazing, especially since it was
completely genuine.
He appreciated it.
Tobias Whiting said: "Shame of it is, Cantwell, some of us could get
along with the Kumaji. I had a pretty good business here, you know
that." He looked with bitterness at the dusty file of refugees. "But I
never got a credit out of it. Wherever we wind up, my girl and I will be
poor again. We could have been rich."
Steve asked, "What happened to all your profits?"
"Tied up with a Kumaji moneylender, but thanks to what happened I'll
never see it again."
Mary winced, as if her father's words and his self-pity were painful to
her. Then others came up and a few minutes were spent in back-pounding
and hand-shaking as some of the men who had been boys with Steve came up
to recognize and be recognized. Their greeting was warm, as Tobias
Whiting's had been cool. Despite the knowledge of what lay behind all of
them, and what still lay ahead, it was a little like homecoming.
But Steve liked Mary Whiting's warm, friendly smile best of all. It was
comforting and reassuring.
Three days later, Tobias Whiting disappeared.
The caravan had been making no more than ten or fifteen miles a day.
Their water supply was almost gone but on the fourth day they hoped to
reach an oasis in the desert. Two of the older folks had died of
fatigue. A third was critically ill and there was little that could be
done for him. The food supply was running short, but they could always
slaughter their camels for food and make their way to Oasis City, still
four hundred and some miles away, with nothing but the clothes on their
backs.
And then, during the fourth night, Tobias Whiting disappeared, taking
Steve's unicopter. A sentry had heard the low muffled whine of the
turbojets during the night and had seen the small craft take off, but
had assumed Steve had taken it up for some reason. Each day Steve had
done so, reconnoitering for signs of the Kumaji.
"But why?" someone asked. "Why?"
At first there was no answer. Then a woman whose husband had died the
day before said: "It's no secret Whiting has plenty of money—with the
Kumaji."
None of them looked at Mary. She stood there defiantly, not saying
anything, and Steve squeezed her hand.
"Now, wait a minute," one of Whiting's friends said.
"Wait, nothing." This was Jeremy Gort, who twice had been mayor of the
colony. "I know how Whiting's mind works. He slaved all his life for
that money, that's the way he'll see it. Cantwell, didn't you say the
Kumaji were looking for us, to kill us?"
"That's what I was told," Steve said.
"All right," Gort went on relentlessly. "Then this is what I figure must
have happened. Whiting got to brooding over his lost fortune and finally
decided he had to have it. So, he went off at night in Cantwell's
'copter, determined to get it. Only catch is, folks, if I know the
Kumaji, they won't just give it to him—not by a long sight."
"No?" someone asked.
"No sir. They'll trade. For our location. And if Whiting went off like
that without even saying good-bye to his girl here, my guess is he'll
make the trade." His voice reflected some bitterness.
Mary went to Gort and slapped his face. The elderly man did not even
blink. "Well," he asked her gently, "did your pa tell you he was going?"
"N-no," Mary said. There were tears in her eyes, but she did not cry.
Gort turned to Steve. "Cantwell, can he get far in that 'copter?"
Steve shook his head. "Ten or fifteen miles is all. Almost out of fuel,
Mr. Gort. You saw how I took her up for only a quick mile swing each
day. He won't get far."
"He'll crash in the desert?"
"Crash or crash-land," Steve said.
Mary sobbed, and bit her lip, and was silent.
"We've got to stop him," Gort said. "And fast. If he gets to the Kumaji,
they'll send down a raiding party and we'll be finished. We could never
fight them off without the protection of our village. Near as I can
figure, there's a Kumaji base fifty miles due north of here. Whiting
knows it too, so that's where he'll be going, I figure. Can't spare more
than a couple of men to look for him, though, in case the Kumaji find
us—or are led to us—and attack."
Steve said, "I should have taken something out of the 'copter every
night, so it couldn't start. I'll go."
Mary came forward boldly. "I have to go. He's my father. If he crashed
out there, he may be hurt. He may be—dying."
Gort looked at her. "And if he's trying to sell us out to the Kumajis?"
"Then—then I'll do whatever Steve asks me to. I promise."
"That's good enough for me," Steve said.
A few minutes later, armed with atorifles and their share of the food
and water that was left, Steve and Mary set out northward across the
sand while the caravan continued east. Fear of what they might find
mounted.
The first night, they camped in the lee of low sandhills. The second
night they found a small spring with brackish but drinkable water. On
the third day, having covered half the distance to the Kumaji
settlement, they began to encounter Kumaji patrols, on foot or thlotback , the six-legged desert animals running so swiftly over the
sands and so low to the ground that they almost seemed to be gliding.
Steve and Mary hardly spoke. Talk was unnecessary. But slowly a bond
grew between them. Steve liked this slim silent girl who had come out
here with him risking her life although she must have known deep in her
heart that her father had almost certainly decided to turn traitor in
order to regain his fortune.
On the fourth day, they spotted the unicopter from a long way off and
made their way toward it. It had come much further than Steve had
expected. With sinking heart he realized that Tobias Whiting, if he
escaped the crash-landing without injury, must surely have reached the
Kumaji encampment by now.
"It doesn't seem badly damaged," Mary said.
The platform had buckled slightly, the 'copter was tilted over, one of
the rotors twisted, its end buried in sand. Tobias Whiting wasn't there.
"No," Steve said. "It's hardly damaged at all. Your father got out of it
all right."
"To go—to them?"
"I think so, Mary. I don't want to pass judgment until we're sure. I'm
sorry."
"Oh, Steve! Steve! What will we do? What can we do?"
"Find him, if it isn't too late. Come on."
"North?"
"North."
"And if by some miracle we find him?"
Steve said nothing. The answer—capture or death—was obvious. But you
couldn't tell that to a traitor's daughter, could you?
As it turned out, they did not find Tobias Whiting through their own
efforts. Half an hour after setting out from the unicopter, they were
spotted by a roving band of Kumajis, who came streaking toward them on
their thlots . Mary raised her atorifle, but Steve struck the barrel
aside. "They'd kill us," he said. "We can only surrender."
They were hobbled and led painfully across the sand. They were taken
that way to a small Kumaji encampment, and thrust within a circular
tent.
Tobias Whiting was in there.
"Mary!" he cried. "My God! Mary...."
"We came for you, Dad," she said coldly. "To stop you. To ... to kill
you if necessary."
"Mary...."
"Oh, Dad, why did you do it? Why?"
"We couldn't start all over again, could we? You have a right to live
the sort of life I planned for you. You...."
"Whiting," Steve said, "did you tell them yet?"
"No. No, I haven't. I have information to trade, sure. But I want to
make sure it's going to the right people. I want to get our...."
"Dad! Our money, and all those deaths?"
"It doesn't matter now. I—I had changed my mind, Mary. Truly. But now,
now that you're a prisoner, what if I don't talk? Don't you see, they'll
torture you. They'll make you talk. And that way—we get nothing. I
couldn't stand to see them hurt you."
"They can do—what they think they have to do. I'll tell them nothing."
"You won't have to," Whiting said. "I'll tell them when we reach the
larger settlement. They're taking us there tomorrow, they told me."
"Then we've got to get out of here tonight," Steve said.
The low sun cast the shadow of their guard against the thlot skin wall
of their tent. He was a single man, armed with a long, pike-like weapon.
When darkness came, if the guard were not increased....
They were brought a pasty gruel for their supper, and ate in silence and
distaste, ate because they needed the strength. Mary said, "Dad, I don't
want you to tell them anything. Dad, please. If you thought you were
doing it for me...."
"I've made up my mind," Tobias Whiting said.
Mary turned to Steve, in despair. "Steve," she said. "Steve.
Do—whatever you have to do. I—I'll understand."
Steve didn't answer her. Wasn't Whiting right now? he thought. If Steve
silenced him, wouldn't the Kumaji torture them for the information?
Steve could stand up to it perhaps—but he couldn't stand to see them
hurt Mary. He'd talk if they did that....
Then silencing Whiting wasn't the answer. But the Kumajis had one
willing prisoner and two unwilling ones. They knew that. If the willing
one yelled for help but the yelling was kept to a minimum so only one
guard, the man outside, came....
Darkness in the Kumaji encampment.
Far off, a lone tribesman singing a chant old as the desert.
"Are you asleep?" Mary asked.
"No," Steve said.
"Dad is. Listen to the way he's breathing—like a baby. As if—as if he
wasn't going to betray all our people. Oh, I hate him, I hate him!"
Steve crawled to where the older man was sleeping. Tobias Whiting's
voice surprised him. "I'm not asleep. I was thinking. I—"
"I'm going to kill you," Steve said very softly, and sprang at Whiting.
He paused, though. It was a calculated pause, and Whiting cried out as
Steve had hoped he would. Then his hands found the older man's throat
and closed there—not to kill him but to keep him from crying out again.
Sand stirred, the tentflap lifted, and a bulky figure rushed inside.
Steve got up, met him halfway, felt the jarring contact of their bodies.
The pike came up dimly in the darkness, the point scraping against
Steve's ribs as the guard lunged awkwardly. Steve's fingers sought the
thick-muscled neck, clamped there—squeezing.
The guard writhed. His feet drummed the sand. With one hand he stabbed
out wildly with the unwieldy pike. There was a cry from Mary and the
guard managed a low squawking noise. Outside, the rest of the camp
seemed undisturbed. There was death in Steve's strong tightening
fingers. There had to be death there. Death for the Kumaji guard—or
death for the fleeing Earthmen, who had lost one colony and must seek
another.
They fell together on the sand, the guard still struggling. Steve
couldn't release his throat to grab the pike. The guard stabbed out
awkwardly, blindly with it, kicking up sand. Then Tobias Whiting moaned,
but Steve hardly heard him.
When the guard's legs stopped drumming, Steve released him. The man was
either dead or so close to death that he would be out for hours. Steve
had never killed a man before, had never in violence and with intent to
kill attacked a man....
"Steve!"
It was Mary, calling his name and crying.
"It's Dad. Dad was—hit. The pike, a wild stab. He's hit bad—"
Steve crawled over to them. It was very dark. He could barely make out
Tobias Whiting's pain-contorted face.
"My stomach," Whiting said, gasping for breath. "The pain...."
Steve probed with his hands, found the wound. Blood was rushing out. He
couldn't stop it and he knew it and he thought Whiting knew it too. He
touched Mary's hand, and held it. Mary sobbed against him, crying
softly.
"You two ..." Whiting gasped. "You two ... Mary, Mary girl. Is—he—what
you want?"
"Yes, Dad. Oh, yes!"
"You can get her out of here, Cantwell?"
"I think so," Steve said.
"Then go. Go while you can. I'll tell them—due south. The Earthmen are
heading due south. They'll go—south. They won't find the caravan.
You'll—all—get away. If it's—what you want, Mary."
She leaned away from Steve, kissing her father. She asked Steve: "Isn't
there anything we can do for him?"
Steve shook his head. "But he's got to live long enough to tell them, to
deceive them."
"I'll live long enough," Whiting said, and Steve knew then that he
would. "Luck to—all of you. From a—very foolish—man...."
Steve took Mary's hand and pulled her out into the hot, dark, wind-blown
night. He carried the dead Kumaji's pike and they slipped across the
sand to where the thlots were hobbled for the night. He hardly
remembered the rest of it. There was violence and death, but necessary
death. He killed a man with the pike, and unhobbled one of the thlots .
The animal screamed and two more Kumajis came sleepily through the night
to see what was the matter. With the long edge of the pike's blade he
decapitated one of them. He slammed the shaft of the weapon across the
other's face, probably breaking his jaw. The camp was in a turmoil. In
the darkness he flung Mary on the thlot's bare back in front of him,
and they glided off across the sand.
Pursuit was disorganized—and unsuccessful. It was too dark for
effective pursuit, as Steve had hoped it would be. They rode swiftly all
night and continued riding with the dawn. They could have gone in any
direction. The wind-driven sand would obliterate their trail.
Two days later they reached the caravan. As they rode up, Mary said,
"Steve, do you have to tell them?"
"We can tell them this," Steve said. "Your father died a hero's death,
sending the Kumajis off in the wrong direction."
"And not—not what he'd planned to do at first."
"No. We'll tell them that was his intention all the while. A man can
make a mistake, can't he?"
"I love you, Steve. I love you."
Then they rode down on the caravan. Somehow Steve knew they would all
reach Oasis City in safety.
With Mary he would find a new world out in the vastness of space.
Question:
What is the significance of the Kumaji's in the story?
Answer:
|
[
"The Kumaji are the native tribesmen, and they have been raiding the Colony for many years. They also killed Steve’s parents in the past. Now they poison the village’s well, and his aunt dies from this water. They practically force the citizens to leave their homes and walk through the desert. The Kumaji are looking for the caravan to kill everyone else who remains alive. They have Tobias’ money which upsets him and makes him initially betray his people and try to trade their location for his fortune. They take him, Steve, and Mary captive and then end up being unable to stop the last two from running away. ",
"The Kumaji’s in the story are the main enemies of the colonists. They are the ones behind the raids, one of which killed Steve’s parents. The Kumajis are also described to be significant because they are the reason why the caravan has to leave as quickly as they can. Even though the poisoned water is the last straw, the Kumaji are also out to hunt the colonists and kill them. They are also the reason why Tobias Whiting decides to go to their camp, in hopes of deceiving them so that the rest of the colony can reach Oasis City safely. Everybody mistakenly believes, however, that Tobias is planning to betray them for money. Even so, the Kumaji are the reason why Tobias can be regarded as a hero and have his moment to make the ultimate sacrifice.",
"In this story, the Kumajis are portrayed as the enemy. They prey on the defenceless villagers by poisoning the only water supply and doggedly chase after them in the arid desert. However, the presence of the Kumajis are significant because it could be interpreted that the Earthmen are the enemy instead, as we are told in the story that this planet was first inhabited by the Kumajis and the desert is actually a part of their land. This is attributed by the Kumajis' natural ability to survive in the desert, as well as their command over the thlotback desert animals. ",
"The Kumaji’s are the native species in the story. They are very violent creatures, and constantly raid the colonies of humans in their country. They are described to be of a purple color, and seem to be very similar to the humans, except for the skin color. The Kumaji’s are a very important part of the plot, as they are who drive the humans out of Steve’s village and into a desert trek. Even after the humans left the village, they still wanted to hunt them down in their path to Oasis City."
] |
32890
|
HOME IS WHERE YOU LEFT IT
By ADAM CHASE
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories February
1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The chance of mass slaughter was their eternal nightmare.
How black is the blackest treachery? Is the most callous
traitor entitled to mercy? Steve pondered these questions. His decision?
That at times the villain should possibly be spoken of as a hero.
Only the shells of deserted mud-brick houses greeted Steve Cantwell when
he reached the village.
He poked around in them for a while. The desert heat was searing,
parching, and the Sirian sun gleamed balefully off the blades of Steve's
unicopter, which had brought him from Oasis City, almost five hundred
miles away. He had remembered heat from his childhood here on Sirius'
second planet with the Earth colony, but not heat like this. It was like
a magnet drawing all the moisture out of his body.
He walked among the buildings, surprise and perhaps sadness etched on
his gaunt, weather-beaten face. Childhood memories flooded back: the
single well from which all the families drew their water, the mud-brick
house, hardly different from the others and just four walls and a roof
now, in which he'd lived with his aunt after his parents had been killed
in a Kumaji raid, the community center where he'd spent his happiest
time as a boy.
He went to the well and hoisted up a pailful of water. The winch creaked
as he remembered. He ladled out the water, suddenly very thirsty, and
brought the ladle to his lips.
He hurled the ladle away. The water was bitter. Not brackish.
Poisoned.
He spat with fury, then kneeled and stuffed his mouth with sand, almost
gagging. After a while he spat out the sand too and opened his canteen
and rinsed his mouth. His lips and mouth were paralyzed by contact with
the poison. He walked quickly across the well-square to his aunt's
house. Inside, it was dim but hardly cooler. Steve was sweating, the
saline sweat making him blink. He scowled, not understanding. The table
was set in his aunt's house. A coffeepot was on the stove and last
night's partially-consumed dinner still on the table.
The well had been poisoned, the town had been deserted on the spur of
the moment, and Steve had returned to his boyhood home from Earth—too
late for anything.
He went outside into the square. A lizard was sunning itself and staring
at him with lidless eyes. When he moved across the square, the lizard
scurried away.
"Earthman!" a quavering voice called.
Steve ran toward the sound. In the scant shadow of the community center,
a Kumaji was resting. He was a withered old man, all skin and bones and
sweat-stiffened tunic, with enormous red-rimmed eyes. His purple skin,
which had been blasted by the merciless sun, was almost black.
Steve held the canteen to his lips and watched his throat working almost
spasmodically to get the water down. After a while Steve withdrew the
canteen and said:
"What happened here?"
"They're gone. All gone."
"Yes, but what happened?"
"The Kumaji—"
"You're Kumaji."
"This is my town," the old man said. "I lived with the Earthmen. Now
they're gone."
"But you stayed here—"
"To die," the old man said, without self-pity. "I'm too old to flee, too
old to fight, too old for anything but death. More water."
Steve gave him another drink. "You still haven't told me what happened."
Actually, though, Steve could guess. With the twenty-second century
Earth population hovering at the eleven billion mark, colonies were
sought everywhere. Even on a parched desert wasteland like this. The
Kumaji tribesmen had never accepted the colony as a fact of their life
on the desert, and in a way Steve could not blame them. It meant one
oasis less for their own nomadic sustenance. When Steve was a boy,
Kumaji raids were frequent. At school on Earth and Luna he'd read about
the raids, how they'd increased in violence, how the Earth government,
so far away and utterly unable to protect its distant colony, had
suggested withdrawal from the Kumaji desert settlement, especially since
a colony could exist there under only the most primitive conditions,
almost like the purple-skinned Kumaji natives themselves.
"When did it happen?" Steve demanded.
"Last night." It was now midafternoon. "Three folks died," the Kumaji
said in his almost perfect English, "from the poisoning of the well. The
well was the last straw. The colonists had no choice. They had to go,
and go fast, taking what little water they had left in the houses."
"Will they try to walk all the way through to Oasis City?" Oasis City,
built at the confluence of two underground rivers which came to the
surface there and flowed the rest of the way to the sea above ground,
was almost five hundred miles from the colony. Five hundred miles of
trackless sands and hundred-and-thirty-degree heat....
"They have to," the old man said. "And they have to hurry. Men, women
and children. The Kumaji are after them."
Steve felt irrational hatred then. He thought it would help if he could
find some of the nomadic tribesmen and kill them. It might help the way
he felt, he knew, but it certainly wouldn't help the fleeing colonists,
trekking across a parched wilderness—to the safety of Oasis City—or
death.
"Come on," Steve said, making up his mind. "The unicopter can hold two
in a pinch."
"You're going after them?"
"I've got to. They're my people. I've been away too long."
"Say, you're young Cantwell, aren't you? Now I remember."
"Yes, I'm Steve Cantwell."
"I'm not going anyplace, young fellow."
"But you can't stay here, without any good water to drink, without—"
"I'm staying," the old man said, still without self-pity, just
matter-of-factly. "The Earth folks have no room for me and I can't blame
'em. The Kumaji'll kill me for a renegade, I figure. I lived a good,
long life. I've no regrets. Go after your people, young fellow. They'll
need every extra strong right arm they can get. You got any weapons?"
"No," Steve said.
"Too bad. Well, good-bye and good luck."
"But you can't—"
"Oh, I'm staying. I want to stay. This is my home. It's the only home
I'll ever have. Good luck, young fellow."
Slowly, Steve walked to his unicopter. It was nothing more than a small
metal disk on which to stand, and a shaft with four turbo-blades. It
could do sixty miles an hour at an elevation of two thousand feet.
Steve turned the little turbo-jet engine over, then on impulse ran back
to the old man and gave him his canteen, turning away before it could be
refused and striding quickly back to the unicopter and getting himself
airborne without looking at the deserted village or the old man again.
The old man's voice called after him: "Tell the people ... hurry ...
Kumaji looking for them to kill ... desert wind ought to wipe out their
trail ... but hurry...."
The voice faded into the faint rushing sound of the hot desert wind.
Steve gazed down on bare sun-blasted rock, on rippled dunes, on
hate-haze. He circled wider and wider, seeking his people.
Hours later he spotted the caravan in the immensity of sand and
wasteland. He brought the unicopter down quickly, with a rush of air and
a whine of turbojets. He alighted in the sand in front of the
slow-moving column. It was like something out of Earth's Middle
East—and Middle Ages. They had even imported camels for their life here
on the Sirian desert, deciding the Earth camel was a better beast of
burden than anything the Sirius II wastelands had to offer. They walked
beside the great-humped beasts of burden, the animals piled high with
the swaying baggage of their belongings. They moved through the sands
with agonizing slowness. Already, after only one day's travel, Steve
could see that some of the people were spent and exhausted and had to
ride on camelback. They had gone perhaps fifteen miles, with almost five
hundred to go across searing desert, the Kumaji seeking them....
"Hullo!" Steve shouted, and a man armed with an atorifle came striding
clumsily through the sand toward him. "Cantwell's the name," Steve said.
"I'm one of you."
Bleak hostility in his face, the man approached. "Cantwell. Yeah, I
remember you. Colony wasn't good enough for young Steve Cantwell. Oh,
no. Had to go off to Earth to get himself educated. What are you doing
here now on that fancy aircraft of yours, coming to crow at our wake?"
The bitterness surprised Steve. He recognized the man now as Tobias
Whiting, who had been the Colony's most successful man when Steve was a
boy. Except for his bitterness and for the bleak self-pity and defeat in
his eyes, the years had been good to Tobias Whiting. He was probably in
his mid-forties now, twenty years Steve's senior, but he was
well-muscled, his flesh was solid, his step bold and strong. He was a
big muscular man with a craggy, handsome face. In ten years he had
hardly changed at all, while Steve Cantwell, the boy, had become Steve
Cantwell the man. He had been the Colony's official trader with the
Kumajis, and had grown rich—by colony standards—at his business. Now,
Steve realized, all that was behind him, and he could only flee with the
others—either back to the terribly crowded Earth or on in search of a
new colony on some other outworld, if they could get the transportation.
Perhaps that explained his bitterness.
"So you've come back, eh? You sure picked a time, Cantwell."
The refugees were still about a quarter of a mile off, coming up slowly.
They hardly seemed to be moving at all. "Is my aunt all right?" Steve
said. She was the only family he remembered.
Tobias Whiting shook his head slowly. "I hate to be the one to tell you
this. Brace yourself for a shock. Your aunt was one of those who died
from the poisoned water last night."
For a long moment, Steve said nothing. The only emotion he felt was
pity—pity for the hard life his aunt had lived, and the hard death.
Sadness would come later, if there was to be a time for sadness.
The caravan reached them then. The first person Steve saw was a girl.
She wore the shroud-like desert garment and her face—it would be a
pretty face under other circumstances, Steve realized—was etched with
lines of fatigue. Steve did not recognize her. "Who is he, Dad?" the
girl said.
"Young Cantwell. Remember?"
So this was Mary Whiting, Steve thought. Why, she'd been a moppet ten
years ago! How old? Ten years old maybe. The years crowded him suddenly.
She was a woman now....
"Steve Cantwell?" Mary said. "Of course I remember. Hello, Steve. I—I'm
sorry you had to come back at a time like this. I'm sorry about your
aunt. If there's anything I can do...."
Steve shook his head, then shook the hand she offered him. She was a
slim, strong girl with a firm handshake. Her concern for him at a time
like this was little short of amazing, especially since it was
completely genuine.
He appreciated it.
Tobias Whiting said: "Shame of it is, Cantwell, some of us could get
along with the Kumaji. I had a pretty good business here, you know
that." He looked with bitterness at the dusty file of refugees. "But I
never got a credit out of it. Wherever we wind up, my girl and I will be
poor again. We could have been rich."
Steve asked, "What happened to all your profits?"
"Tied up with a Kumaji moneylender, but thanks to what happened I'll
never see it again."
Mary winced, as if her father's words and his self-pity were painful to
her. Then others came up and a few minutes were spent in back-pounding
and hand-shaking as some of the men who had been boys with Steve came up
to recognize and be recognized. Their greeting was warm, as Tobias
Whiting's had been cool. Despite the knowledge of what lay behind all of
them, and what still lay ahead, it was a little like homecoming.
But Steve liked Mary Whiting's warm, friendly smile best of all. It was
comforting and reassuring.
Three days later, Tobias Whiting disappeared.
The caravan had been making no more than ten or fifteen miles a day.
Their water supply was almost gone but on the fourth day they hoped to
reach an oasis in the desert. Two of the older folks had died of
fatigue. A third was critically ill and there was little that could be
done for him. The food supply was running short, but they could always
slaughter their camels for food and make their way to Oasis City, still
four hundred and some miles away, with nothing but the clothes on their
backs.
And then, during the fourth night, Tobias Whiting disappeared, taking
Steve's unicopter. A sentry had heard the low muffled whine of the
turbojets during the night and had seen the small craft take off, but
had assumed Steve had taken it up for some reason. Each day Steve had
done so, reconnoitering for signs of the Kumaji.
"But why?" someone asked. "Why?"
At first there was no answer. Then a woman whose husband had died the
day before said: "It's no secret Whiting has plenty of money—with the
Kumaji."
None of them looked at Mary. She stood there defiantly, not saying
anything, and Steve squeezed her hand.
"Now, wait a minute," one of Whiting's friends said.
"Wait, nothing." This was Jeremy Gort, who twice had been mayor of the
colony. "I know how Whiting's mind works. He slaved all his life for
that money, that's the way he'll see it. Cantwell, didn't you say the
Kumaji were looking for us, to kill us?"
"That's what I was told," Steve said.
"All right," Gort went on relentlessly. "Then this is what I figure must
have happened. Whiting got to brooding over his lost fortune and finally
decided he had to have it. So, he went off at night in Cantwell's
'copter, determined to get it. Only catch is, folks, if I know the
Kumaji, they won't just give it to him—not by a long sight."
"No?" someone asked.
"No sir. They'll trade. For our location. And if Whiting went off like
that without even saying good-bye to his girl here, my guess is he'll
make the trade." His voice reflected some bitterness.
Mary went to Gort and slapped his face. The elderly man did not even
blink. "Well," he asked her gently, "did your pa tell you he was going?"
"N-no," Mary said. There were tears in her eyes, but she did not cry.
Gort turned to Steve. "Cantwell, can he get far in that 'copter?"
Steve shook his head. "Ten or fifteen miles is all. Almost out of fuel,
Mr. Gort. You saw how I took her up for only a quick mile swing each
day. He won't get far."
"He'll crash in the desert?"
"Crash or crash-land," Steve said.
Mary sobbed, and bit her lip, and was silent.
"We've got to stop him," Gort said. "And fast. If he gets to the Kumaji,
they'll send down a raiding party and we'll be finished. We could never
fight them off without the protection of our village. Near as I can
figure, there's a Kumaji base fifty miles due north of here. Whiting
knows it too, so that's where he'll be going, I figure. Can't spare more
than a couple of men to look for him, though, in case the Kumaji find
us—or are led to us—and attack."
Steve said, "I should have taken something out of the 'copter every
night, so it couldn't start. I'll go."
Mary came forward boldly. "I have to go. He's my father. If he crashed
out there, he may be hurt. He may be—dying."
Gort looked at her. "And if he's trying to sell us out to the Kumajis?"
"Then—then I'll do whatever Steve asks me to. I promise."
"That's good enough for me," Steve said.
A few minutes later, armed with atorifles and their share of the food
and water that was left, Steve and Mary set out northward across the
sand while the caravan continued east. Fear of what they might find
mounted.
The first night, they camped in the lee of low sandhills. The second
night they found a small spring with brackish but drinkable water. On
the third day, having covered half the distance to the Kumaji
settlement, they began to encounter Kumaji patrols, on foot or thlotback , the six-legged desert animals running so swiftly over the
sands and so low to the ground that they almost seemed to be gliding.
Steve and Mary hardly spoke. Talk was unnecessary. But slowly a bond
grew between them. Steve liked this slim silent girl who had come out
here with him risking her life although she must have known deep in her
heart that her father had almost certainly decided to turn traitor in
order to regain his fortune.
On the fourth day, they spotted the unicopter from a long way off and
made their way toward it. It had come much further than Steve had
expected. With sinking heart he realized that Tobias Whiting, if he
escaped the crash-landing without injury, must surely have reached the
Kumaji encampment by now.
"It doesn't seem badly damaged," Mary said.
The platform had buckled slightly, the 'copter was tilted over, one of
the rotors twisted, its end buried in sand. Tobias Whiting wasn't there.
"No," Steve said. "It's hardly damaged at all. Your father got out of it
all right."
"To go—to them?"
"I think so, Mary. I don't want to pass judgment until we're sure. I'm
sorry."
"Oh, Steve! Steve! What will we do? What can we do?"
"Find him, if it isn't too late. Come on."
"North?"
"North."
"And if by some miracle we find him?"
Steve said nothing. The answer—capture or death—was obvious. But you
couldn't tell that to a traitor's daughter, could you?
As it turned out, they did not find Tobias Whiting through their own
efforts. Half an hour after setting out from the unicopter, they were
spotted by a roving band of Kumajis, who came streaking toward them on
their thlots . Mary raised her atorifle, but Steve struck the barrel
aside. "They'd kill us," he said. "We can only surrender."
They were hobbled and led painfully across the sand. They were taken
that way to a small Kumaji encampment, and thrust within a circular
tent.
Tobias Whiting was in there.
"Mary!" he cried. "My God! Mary...."
"We came for you, Dad," she said coldly. "To stop you. To ... to kill
you if necessary."
"Mary...."
"Oh, Dad, why did you do it? Why?"
"We couldn't start all over again, could we? You have a right to live
the sort of life I planned for you. You...."
"Whiting," Steve said, "did you tell them yet?"
"No. No, I haven't. I have information to trade, sure. But I want to
make sure it's going to the right people. I want to get our...."
"Dad! Our money, and all those deaths?"
"It doesn't matter now. I—I had changed my mind, Mary. Truly. But now,
now that you're a prisoner, what if I don't talk? Don't you see, they'll
torture you. They'll make you talk. And that way—we get nothing. I
couldn't stand to see them hurt you."
"They can do—what they think they have to do. I'll tell them nothing."
"You won't have to," Whiting said. "I'll tell them when we reach the
larger settlement. They're taking us there tomorrow, they told me."
"Then we've got to get out of here tonight," Steve said.
The low sun cast the shadow of their guard against the thlot skin wall
of their tent. He was a single man, armed with a long, pike-like weapon.
When darkness came, if the guard were not increased....
They were brought a pasty gruel for their supper, and ate in silence and
distaste, ate because they needed the strength. Mary said, "Dad, I don't
want you to tell them anything. Dad, please. If you thought you were
doing it for me...."
"I've made up my mind," Tobias Whiting said.
Mary turned to Steve, in despair. "Steve," she said. "Steve.
Do—whatever you have to do. I—I'll understand."
Steve didn't answer her. Wasn't Whiting right now? he thought. If Steve
silenced him, wouldn't the Kumaji torture them for the information?
Steve could stand up to it perhaps—but he couldn't stand to see them
hurt Mary. He'd talk if they did that....
Then silencing Whiting wasn't the answer. But the Kumajis had one
willing prisoner and two unwilling ones. They knew that. If the willing
one yelled for help but the yelling was kept to a minimum so only one
guard, the man outside, came....
Darkness in the Kumaji encampment.
Far off, a lone tribesman singing a chant old as the desert.
"Are you asleep?" Mary asked.
"No," Steve said.
"Dad is. Listen to the way he's breathing—like a baby. As if—as if he
wasn't going to betray all our people. Oh, I hate him, I hate him!"
Steve crawled to where the older man was sleeping. Tobias Whiting's
voice surprised him. "I'm not asleep. I was thinking. I—"
"I'm going to kill you," Steve said very softly, and sprang at Whiting.
He paused, though. It was a calculated pause, and Whiting cried out as
Steve had hoped he would. Then his hands found the older man's throat
and closed there—not to kill him but to keep him from crying out again.
Sand stirred, the tentflap lifted, and a bulky figure rushed inside.
Steve got up, met him halfway, felt the jarring contact of their bodies.
The pike came up dimly in the darkness, the point scraping against
Steve's ribs as the guard lunged awkwardly. Steve's fingers sought the
thick-muscled neck, clamped there—squeezing.
The guard writhed. His feet drummed the sand. With one hand he stabbed
out wildly with the unwieldy pike. There was a cry from Mary and the
guard managed a low squawking noise. Outside, the rest of the camp
seemed undisturbed. There was death in Steve's strong tightening
fingers. There had to be death there. Death for the Kumaji guard—or
death for the fleeing Earthmen, who had lost one colony and must seek
another.
They fell together on the sand, the guard still struggling. Steve
couldn't release his throat to grab the pike. The guard stabbed out
awkwardly, blindly with it, kicking up sand. Then Tobias Whiting moaned,
but Steve hardly heard him.
When the guard's legs stopped drumming, Steve released him. The man was
either dead or so close to death that he would be out for hours. Steve
had never killed a man before, had never in violence and with intent to
kill attacked a man....
"Steve!"
It was Mary, calling his name and crying.
"It's Dad. Dad was—hit. The pike, a wild stab. He's hit bad—"
Steve crawled over to them. It was very dark. He could barely make out
Tobias Whiting's pain-contorted face.
"My stomach," Whiting said, gasping for breath. "The pain...."
Steve probed with his hands, found the wound. Blood was rushing out. He
couldn't stop it and he knew it and he thought Whiting knew it too. He
touched Mary's hand, and held it. Mary sobbed against him, crying
softly.
"You two ..." Whiting gasped. "You two ... Mary, Mary girl. Is—he—what
you want?"
"Yes, Dad. Oh, yes!"
"You can get her out of here, Cantwell?"
"I think so," Steve said.
"Then go. Go while you can. I'll tell them—due south. The Earthmen are
heading due south. They'll go—south. They won't find the caravan.
You'll—all—get away. If it's—what you want, Mary."
She leaned away from Steve, kissing her father. She asked Steve: "Isn't
there anything we can do for him?"
Steve shook his head. "But he's got to live long enough to tell them, to
deceive them."
"I'll live long enough," Whiting said, and Steve knew then that he
would. "Luck to—all of you. From a—very foolish—man...."
Steve took Mary's hand and pulled her out into the hot, dark, wind-blown
night. He carried the dead Kumaji's pike and they slipped across the
sand to where the thlots were hobbled for the night. He hardly
remembered the rest of it. There was violence and death, but necessary
death. He killed a man with the pike, and unhobbled one of the thlots .
The animal screamed and two more Kumajis came sleepily through the night
to see what was the matter. With the long edge of the pike's blade he
decapitated one of them. He slammed the shaft of the weapon across the
other's face, probably breaking his jaw. The camp was in a turmoil. In
the darkness he flung Mary on the thlot's bare back in front of him,
and they glided off across the sand.
Pursuit was disorganized—and unsuccessful. It was too dark for
effective pursuit, as Steve had hoped it would be. They rode swiftly all
night and continued riding with the dawn. They could have gone in any
direction. The wind-driven sand would obliterate their trail.
Two days later they reached the caravan. As they rode up, Mary said,
"Steve, do you have to tell them?"
"We can tell them this," Steve said. "Your father died a hero's death,
sending the Kumajis off in the wrong direction."
"And not—not what he'd planned to do at first."
"No. We'll tell them that was his intention all the while. A man can
make a mistake, can't he?"
"I love you, Steve. I love you."
Then they rode down on the caravan. Somehow Steve knew they would all
reach Oasis City in safety.
With Mary he would find a new world out in the vastness of space.
|
What is the plot of the story?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Wanderers of the Wolf Moon by NELSON S. BOND.
Relevant chunks:
Wanderers of the Wolf Moon
By NELSON S. BOND
They were marooned on Titan, their ship wrecked, the radio smashed. Yet they had to exist, had to build a new life on a hostile world. And the man who assumed command was Gregory Malcolm, the bespectacled secretary—whose only adventures had come through the pages of a book.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Sparks snapped off the switches and followed him to the door of the radio turret. Sparks was a stunted, usually-grinning, little redhead named Hannigan. But he wasn't grinning now. He laid an anxious hand on Greg's arm. "If I was you," he said, "if I was you, Malcolm, I don't think I'd say nothing to the boss about this. Not just yet, anyhow."
Greg said, "Why not?"
Sparks spluttered and fussed and made heavy weather of answering.
"Well, for one thing, it ain't important. It would only worry him. And then there's the womenfolks, they scare easy. Which of course they ain't no cause to. Atmospherics don't mean nothing. I've rode out worse storms than this—plenty of times. And in worse crates than the Carefree ."
Greg studied him carefully from behind trim plasta-rimmed spectacles. He drew a deep breath. He said levelly, "So it's that bad, eh, Sparks?"
"What bad? I just told you—"
"I know. Sparks, I'm not a professional spaceman. But I've studied astrogation as few Earthlubbers have. It's been my hobby for years. And I think I know what we're up against.
"We hit a warp-eddy last night. We've been trapped in a vortex for more than eight hours. Lord only knows how many hundreds of thousands of miles we've been borne off our course. And now we've blasted into a super-ionized belt of atmospherics. Your radio signals are blanketed. You can't get signals in or out. We're a deaf-mute speck of metal being whirled headlong through space. Isn't that it?"
"I don't know what—" began Sparks hotly. Then he stopped, studied his companion thoughtfully, nodded. "O.Q.," he confessed, "that's it. But we ain't licked yet. We got three good men on the bridge. Townsend ... Graves ... Langhorn. They'll pull out of this if anybody can. And they ain't no sense in scaring the Old Man and his family."
"I won't tell them," said Greg. "I won't tell them unless I have to. But between you and me, what are the odds against us, Sparks?"
The radioman shrugged.
"Who knows? Vortices are unpredictable. Maybe the damn thing will toss us out on the very spot it picked us up. Maybe it will give us the old chuckeroo a million miles the other side of Pluto. Maybe it will crack us up on an asteroid or satellite. No way of telling till it happens."
"And the controls?"
"As useless," said Sparks, "as a cow in a cyclone."
"So?"
"We sit tight," said Sparks succinctly, "and hope."
Malcolm nodded quietly. He took off his spectacles, breathed on them, wiped them, replaced them. He was tall and fair; in his neat, crisply pressed business suit he appeared even slimmer than he was. But there was no nervousness in his movements. He moved measuredly. "Well," he said, "that appears to be that. I'm going up to the dining dome."
Sparks stared at him querulously.
"You're a queer duck, Malcolm. I don't think you've got a nerve in your body."
"Nerves are a luxury I can't afford," replied Greg. "If anything happens—and if there's time to do so—let me know." He paused at the door. "Good luck," he said.
"Clear ether!" said Sparks mechanically. He stared after the other man wonderingly for a long moment, then went back to his control banks, shaking his head and muttering.
Gregory Malcolm climbed down the Jacob's-ladder and strode briskly through the labyrinthine corridors that were the entrails of the space yacht Carefree . He paused once to peer through a perilens set into the ship's port plates. It was a weird sight that met his gaze. Not space, ebony-black and bejewelled with a myriad flaming splotches of color; not the old, familiar constellations treading their ever-lasting, inexorable paths about the perimeter of Sol's tiny universe, but a shimmering webwork of light, so tortured-violet that the eyes ached to look upon it. This was the mad typhoon of space-atmospherics through which the Carefree was now being twisted, topsy-turvy, toward a nameless goal.
He moved on, approaching at last the quartzite-paned observation rotunda which was the dining dome of the ship.
His footsteps slowed as he composed himself to face those within. As he hesitated in the dimly-lighted passage, a trick of lights on glass mirrored to him the room beyond. He could see the others while they were as yet unaware of his presence. Their voices reached him clearly.
J. Foster Andrews, his employer and the employer of the ten thousand or more men and women who worked for Galactic Metals Corporation, dominated the head of the table. He was a plump, impatient little Napoleon. Opposite him, calm, graceful, serene, tastefully garbed and elaborately coiffured even here in deep space, three weeks from the nearest beauty shop, sat his wife, Enid.
On Andrews' right sat his sister, Maud. Not young, features plain as a mud fence, but charming despite her age and homeliness simply because of her eyes; puckish, shrewdly intelligent eyes, constantly aglint with suppressed humor at—guessed Greg—the amusing foibles and frailties of those about her.
She gave her breakfast the enthusiastic attention of one too old and shapeless to be concerned with such folderol as calories and dietetics, pausing only from time to time to share smidgeons of food with a watery-eyed scrap of white, curly fluff beside her chair. Her pet poodle, whom she called by the opprobrious title of "Cuddles."
On J. Foster's left sat his daughter, Crystal. She it was who caused Gregory Malcolm's staid, respectable heart to give a little lurch as he glimpsed her reflected vision—all gold and crimson and cream—in the glistening walls. If Crystal was her name, so, too, was crystal her loveliness.
But—Greg shook his head—but she was not for him. She was already pledged to the young man seated beside her. Ralph Breadon. He turned to murmur something to her as Greg watched; Greg saw and admired and disliked his rangy height, his sturdy, well-knit strength, the rich brownness of his skin, his hair, his eyes.
The sound of his own name startled Greg.
"Malcolm!" called the man at the head of the table. "Malcolm! Now where in blazes is he, anyhow?" he demanded of no one in particular, everyone in general. He spooned a dab of liquid gold from a Limoges preserve jar, tongued it suspiciously, frowned. "Bitter!" he complained.
"It's the very best Martian honey," said his wife.
"Drylands clover," added Crystal.
"It's still bitter," said J. Foster petulantly.
His sister sniffed. "Nonsense! It's delightful."
"I say it's bitter," repeated Andrews sulkily. And lifted his voice again. " Malcolm! Where are you?"
"You called me, sir?" said Malcolm, moving into the room. He nodded politely to the others. "Good morning, Mrs. Andrews ... Miss Andrews ... Mr. Breadon...."
"Oh, sit down!" snapped J. Foster. "Sit down here and stop bobbing your head like a teetotum! Had your breakfast? The honey's no good; it's bitter." He glared at his sister challengingly. "Where have you been, anyway? What kind of secretary are you? Have you been up to the radio turret? How's the market today? Is Galactic up or down?"
Malcolm said, "I don't know, sir."
"Fine! Fine!" Andrews rattled on automatically before the words registered. Then he started, his face turning red. "Eh? What's that? Don't know! What do you mean, you don't know? I pay you to—"
"There's no transmission, sir," said Greg quietly.
"No trans—nonsense! Of course there's transmission! I put a million credits into this ship. Finest space-yacht ever built. Latest equipment throughout. Sparks is drunk, that's what you mean! Well, you hop right up there and—"
Maud Andrews put down her fork with a clatter. "Oh, for goodness sakes, Jonathan, shut up and give the boy time to explain! He's standing there with his mouth gaping like a rain-spout, trying to get a word in edgewise! What's the trouble, Gregory?" She turned to Greg, as Jonathan Foster Andrews wheezed into startled silence. " That? "
She glanced at the quartzite dome, beyond which the veil of iridescence wove and cross-wove and shimmered like a pallid aurora.
Greg nodded. "Yes, Miss Andrews."
Enid Andrews spoke languidly from the other end of the table.
"But what is it, Gregory? A local phenomenon?"
"You might call it that," said Greg, selecting his words cautiously.
"It's an ionized field into which we've blasted. It—it—shouldn't stay with us long. But while it persists, our radio will be blanketed out."
Breadon's chestnut head came up suddenly, sharply.
"Ionization! That means atmosphere!"
Greg said, "Yes."
"And an atmosphere means a body in space somewhere near—" Breadon stopped, bit his lip before the appeal in Malcolm's eyes, tried to pass it off easily. "Oh, well—a change of scenery, what?"
But the moment of alarm in his voice had not passed unnoticed. Crystal Andrews spoke for all of them, her voice preternaturally quiet.
"You're hiding something, Malcolm. What is it? Is there—danger?"
But Greg didn't have to answer that question. From the doorway a harsh, defiantly strident voice answered for him. The voice of Bert Andrews, Crystal's older brother.
"Danger? You're damn right there's danger! What's the matter with you folks—are you all deaf, dumb and blind? We've been caught in a space-vortex for hours. Now we're in the H-layer of a planet we can't even see—and in fifteen minutes or fifteen seconds we may all be smashed as flat as pancakes!"
The proclamation brought them out of their chairs. Greg's heart sank; his vain plea, "Mr. Andrews—" was lost in the medley of Crystal's sudden gasp, Enid Andrews' short, choking scream, J. Foster's bellowing roar at his only son.
"Bert—you're drunk!"
Bert weaved precariously from the doorway, laughed in his father's face.
"Sure I'm drunk! Why not? If you're smart you'll get drunk, too. The whole damn lot of you!" He flicked a derisive hand toward Greg. "You too, Boy Scout! What were you trying to do—hide the bad news from them? Well, it's no use. Everybody might as well know the worst. We're gone gooses ... geeses ... aw, what the hell! Dead ducks!" He fell into a chair, sprawled there laughing mirthlessly with fear riding the too-high notes of his laughter.
J. Foster turned to his secretary slowly. His ire had faded; there was only deep concern in his voice.
"Is he telling the truth, Malcolm?"
Greg said soberly, "Partly, sir. He's overstating the danger—but there is danger. We are caught in a space-vortex, and as Mr. Breadon realized, the presence of these ionics means we're in the Heaviside-layer of some heavenly body. But we may not crack up."
Maud Andrews glanced at him shrewdly.
"Is there anything we can do?"
"Not a thing. The officers on the bridge are doing everything possible."
"In that case," said the older woman, "we might as well finish our breakfast. Here, Cuddles! Come to momsy!" She sat down again. Greg looked at her admiringly. Ralph Breadon stroked his brown jaw. He said,
"The life-skiffs?"
"A last resort," said Greg. "Sparks promised he'd let me know if it were necessary. We'll hope it's not—"
But it was a vain hope, vainly spoken in the last, vain moment. For even as he phrased the hopeful words, came the sound of swift, racing footsteps up the corridor. Into the dining dome burst Hannigan, eyes hot with excitement. And his cry dispelled Greg's final hopes for safety.
"Everybody—the Number Four life-skiff— quick ! We've been caught in a grav-drag and we're going to crash!"
II
Those next hectic moments were never afterward very clear in Greg Malcolm's memory. He had a confused recollection of hearing Sparks' warning punctuated by a loud, shrill scream which he vaguely identified as emanating from Mrs. Andrews' throat ... he was conscious of feeling, suddenly, beneath his feet the sickening, quickening lurch of a ship out of control, gripped by gravitational forces beyond its power to allay ... he recalled his own voice dinning in his ears as, incredibly, with Sparks, he took command of the hasty flight from the dining dome down the corridor to the aft ramp, up the ramp, across girdered beams in the super-structure to the small, independently motored rocket-skiff cradled there.
He was aware, too, of strangely disconnected incidents happening around him, he being a part of them but seeming to be only a disinterested spectator to their strangeness. Of his forcing Maud Andrews toward the door of the dome ... of her pushing back against him with all the weight of her body ... of her irate voice, "Cuddles! I forgot him!" Then the shrill excited yapping of the poodle cradled against her as they charged on down the corridor.
J. Foster waddling beside him, tugging at his arm, panting, "The officers?" and his own unfelt assurance. "They can take care of themselves. It's a general 'bandon ship." Enid Andrews stumbling over the hem of a filmy peignoir ... himself bending to lift her boldly and bodily, sweating palms feeling the warm animal heat of her excited body hot beneath them ... Crystal Andrews stopping suddenly, crying,
"'Tina!" ... and Hannigan's reply, "Your maid? I woke her. She's in the life-skiff." Bert Andrews stopping suddenly, being sick in the middle of the corridor, his drunkenness losing itself in the thick, sure nausea of the ever-increasing unsteadiness beneath their feet.
Then the life-skiff, the clang of metal as Hannigan slammed the port behind the last of them, the fumbling for a lock-stud, the quick, grateful pant of the miniature hypos, and a weird feeling of weightlessness, rushingness, hurtlingness as his eardrums throbbed and his mouth tasted brassy and bloody with the fierce velocity of their escape.
Sense and meaning returned only when all this ended. As one waking from a nightmare dream, Greg Malcolm returned to a world he could recognize. A tiny world, encased within the walls of a forty-foot life-skiff. A world peopled too scantily. Andrews, his wife and sister, his son and daughter; 'Tina Laney, the maid; Breadon, Hannigan, young Tommy O'Doul, the cabin-boy (though where he had come from, or when, Greg did not know). And himself. In a life-skiff. In space.
Somewhere in space. He looked through the perilens . What he saw then he might better never have seen. For that shimmering pink-ochre veil had wisped away, now, and in the clean, cold, bitter-clear light of a distant sun he watched the death-dive of the yacht Carefree .
Like a vast silver top, spinning heedlessly, wildly, it streaked toward a mottled gray and green, brown and dun, hard and crushing-brutal terrain below. Still at its helm stood someone, for even in that last dreadful moment burst from its nose-jets a ruddy mushroom of flame that tried to, but could not, brake the dizzy fall.
For an instant Greg's eyes, stingingly blinded and wet, thought they glimpsed a wee black mote dancing from the bowels of the Carefree ; a mote that might be another skiff like their own. But he could not be sure, and then the Carefree was accelerating with such violence and speed that the eye could see it only as a flaming silver lance against the ugly earth-carcase beneath, and then it struck and a carmine bud of flame burst and flowered for an instant, and that was all....
And Greg Malcolm turned from the perilens , shaken.
Hannigan said, "It's over?" and Greg nodded.
Hannigan said, "The other skiffs? Did they break free, or were they caught?"
"I don't know. I couldn't see for sure."
"You must have seen. Are we the only ones?"
"I couldn't see for sure. Maybe. Maybe not."
Then a body scrambled forward, pressing through the tightness of other huddled bodies, and there was a hand upon his elbow. "I'll take over now, Malcolm."
It was Ralph Breadon. Gregory looked at him slowly, uncomprehendingly at first. His hand was reluctant to leave the guiding-gear of the small ship which was, now, all that remained to them of civilization and civilization's wondrous accomplishments. He had not realized until this moment that for a while ... for a short, eager, pulse-quickening while ... on his alertness, in his hands, had depended the destinies of ten men and women. But he knew, suddenly and completely, that it was for this single moment his whole lifetime had waited. It was for this brief moment of command that some intuition, some instinct greater than knowledge, had prepared him. This was why he, an Earthlubber, had studied astrogation, made a hobby of the empire of the stars. That he might be fitted to command when all others failed. And now—
And now the moment was past, and he was once again Gregory Malcolm, mild, lean, pale, bespectacled secretary to J. Foster Andrews. And the man at his side was Ralph Breadon, socialite and gentleman sportsman, trained pilot. And in Malcolm the habit of obedience was strong....
"Very well, sir," he said. And he turned over the controls.
What happened then was unfortunate. It might just as well have happened to Malcolm, though afterward no one could ever say with certainty. However that was, either by carelessness or malfortune or inefficiency, once-thwarted disaster struck again at the little party on the life-skiff. At the instant Breadon's hand seized the controls the skiff jerked suddenly as though struck with a ponderous fist, its throbbing motors choked and snarled in a high, rising crescendo of torment that lost itself in supersonic heights, and the ship that had been drifting easily and under control to the planet beneath now dipped viciously.
The misfortune was that too many huddled in the tiny space understood the operation of the life-skiff, and what must be done instantly. And that neither pilot was as yet in control of the ship. Breadon's hand leaped for the Dixie rod, so, too, did Malcolm's—and across both their bodies came the arm of Sparks Hannigan, searching the controls.
In the scramble someone's sleeve brushed the banks of control-keys. The motors, killed, soughed into silence. The ship rocked into a spin. Greg cried out, his voice a strange harshness in his ears; Breadon cursed; one of the women bleated fearfully.
Then Breadon, still cursing, fought all hands from the controls but his own. And the man was not without courage. For all could see plainly, in the illumined perilens , how near to swift death that moment of uncertainty had led them. The skiff, which an instant before had been high in the stratosphere of this unknown planet ... or satellite or whatever it might be ... was now flashing toward hard ground at lightning speed.
Only a miracle, Greg knew, could save them now. An impulse spun his head, he looked at Crystal Andrews. There was no fear in her eyes. Just a hotness and an inexplicable anger. Beside her was the other girl, the maid, 'Tina; she was frankly afraid. Her teeth were clenched in her nether lip, and her eyes were wide and anxious, but she did not cry out.
Only a miracle could save them now. But Breadon's hands performed that miracle; his quick, nerveless, trained hands. A stud here ... a lever there ... a swift wrenching toss of the shoulders. His face twisted back over his shoulder, and his straining lips pulled taut and bloodless away from his teeth. "Hold tight, folks! We're going to bounce—"
Then they struck!
But they struck glancingly, as Breadon had hoped, and planned for, and gambled on. They struck and bounced. The frail craft shivered and groaned in metal agony, jarred across harsh soil, bounced again, settled, nosed over and rocked to a standstill. Somewhere forward something snapped with a shrill, high ping! of stress; somewhere aft was the metallic flap-clanging of broken gear trailing behind them. But they were safe.
Breath, held so long that he could not remember its inhalation, escaped Greg's lungs in a long sigh. "Nice work, Mr. Breadon!" he cried. "Oh, nice work!"
But surprisingly, savagely, Breadon turned on him.
"It would have been better work, Malcolm, if you'd kept your damned hands off the controls! Now see what you've done? Smashed up our skiff! Our only—"
"He didn't do it!" piped the shrill voice of Tommy O'Doul. "You done it yourself, Mr. Breadon. Your sleeve. It caught the switch."
"Quiet!" Breadon, cheeks flushed, reached out smartly, stilled the youngster's defense with a swift, ungentle slap. "And you, Malcolm—after this, do as you're told, and don't try to assume responsibilities too great for you. All right, everybody. Let's get out and see how bad the damage is."
Instinctively Greg had surged a half step forward as Breadon silenced the cabin boy. Now old habit and common-sense halted him. He's overwrought, he reasoned. We're all excited and on edge. We've been to Bedlam. Our nerves are shot. In a little while we'll all be back to normal.
He said quietly, "Very well, Mr. Breadon." And he climbed from the broken skiff.
Hannigan said, "Looks bad, don't it?"
"Very," said Malcolm. He fingered a shard of loose metal flapping like a fin from the stern of the skiff. "Not hopeless, though. There should be an acetylene torch in the tool locker. With that—"
"You ought to of poked him," said Hannigan.
"What? Oh, you mean—?"
"Yeah. The kid was right, you know. He done it."
"His sleeve, you mean. Well, it was an accident," said Greg. "It could have happened to anyone. And he made a good landing. Considering everything. Anyhow—" Again he was Gregory Malcolm, serious-faced, efficient secretary. "Anyhow, we have been thrust into an extremely precarious circumstance. It would be silly to take umbrage at a man's nervous anger. We must have no quarreling, no bickering—"
"Umbrage!" snorted Sparks. "Bickering! They're big words. I ain't sure I know what they mean. I ain't exactly sure they mean anything ." He glanced at Greg oddly. "You're a queer jasper, Malcolm. Back there on the ship, I figured you for a sort of a stuffed-shirt. Yes-man to the boss. And then in the show-down, you come through like a movie hero—for a little while. Then you let that Breadon guy give you the spur without a squawk—"
Malcolm adjusted his plasta-rimmed spectacles. He said, almost stubbornly, "Our situation is grave. There must be no bickering."
"Bickering your Aunt Jenny! What do you call that?"
Sparks jerked a contemptuous thumb toward the group from which they were separated. Upon disembarking, only Greg and Sparks had moved to make a careful examination of their damaged craft. The others, more or less under the direction of Breadon, were making gestures toward removing certain necessaries from the skiff. Their efforts, slight and uncertain as they were, had already embroiled them in argument.
The gist of their argument, so far as Greg Malcolm could determine, was that everyone wanted "something" to be done, but no two could agree as to just what that something was, and no one seemed to have any bursting desire to participate in actual physical labor.
J. Foster Andrews, all traces of his former panic and confusion fled, was planted firmly, Napoleonically, some few yards from the open port of the life-skiff, barking impatient orders at little Tommy O'Doul who—as Greg watched—stumbled from the port bearing a huge armload of edibles.
'Tina, the maid, was in a frenzy of motion, trying to administer to the complaints and demands of Mrs. Andrews (whose immaculate hair-do had suffered in the frenetic minutes of their flight) and Crystal Andrews
(who knew perfectly well there were sweaters in the life-skiff) and Miss Maud (who wanted a can of prepared dog-food and a can-opener immediately, and look at poor Cuddles, momsy's 'ittle pet was so hungry)!
Bert Andrews was sulkily insisting that it was nonsense to leave the warmth and security of the skiff anyway, and he wished he had a drink, while the harassed, self-appointed commander of the refugee corps was shouting at whomever happened, at any given moment, to capture his divided and completely frantic attention. His orders were masterpieces of confusion, developing around one premise that the castaway crew should immediately set up a camp. Where, how, or with what nonexistent equipment, Breadon did not venture to say.
"You see what I mean?" demanded Sparks disgustedly.
Greg Malcolm saw. He also saw other things. That their landing-spot, while excellent for its purpose, was not by any manner of means an ideal campsite. It was a small, flat basin of sandy soil, rimmed by shallow mountains. His gaze sought these hills, looked approvingly on their greenness, upon the multitude of dark pock-marks dotting them. These caves, were they not the habitations of potential enemies, might well become the sanctuaries of spacewrecked men.
He saw, also, a thin ribbon of silver sheering the face of the northern hills. His gaze, rising still skyward, saw other things—
He nodded. He knew, now, where they were. Or approximately. There was but one planet in the solar system which boasted such a phenomenon. The apparent distance of the Sun, judged by its diminished disc, argued his judgment to be correct. The fact that they had surged through an atmospheric belt for some length of time before finally meeting with disaster.
"Titan," he said. "Hyperion possibly. But probably Titan."
Sparks' gaze, following Greg's upward, contracted in an expression of dismay.
"Dirty cow! You mean that's where we are?"
"I believe so. There's Saturn, our mother planet, looming above us as large as a dinner plate. And the grav-drag here is almost Earth norm. Titan has a 3,000 mile diameter. That, combined with the Saturnian tractile constant, would give us a strong pull."
Sparks wailed, "But Titan! Great morning, Malcolm, nobody ever comes to Titan! There ain't no mines here, no colonies, no—" He stopped suddenly, his eyes widening yet farther. "And, hey—this place is dangerous ! There are—"
"I know it," said Greg swiftly, quietly. "Shut up, Sparks. No use telling the others. If they don't guess it themselves, what they don't know won't alarm them. We've got to do something, though. Get ourselves organized into a defensive community. That's the only way—"
Ralph Breadon's sharp, dictatorial voice interrupted him. "Well, Malcolm, stop soldiering and make yourself useful!"
And J. Foster, not to have his authority usurped, supplemented the order. "Yes, Malcolm, let's get going! No time for day-dreaming, my man. We want action!"
Sparks said, "Maybe you'll get it now, fatty!" under his breath, and looked at Malcolm hopefully. But his companion merely nodded, moved forward toward the others, quietly obedient to the command.
"Yes, sir," he said.
Hannigan groaned and followed him.
III
Breadon said, "All right, Tommy, dump them here. I have a few words to say." He glanced about him pompously. "Now, folks, naturally we want to get away from here as soon as possible. Therefore I delegate you, Sparks, to immediately get a message off. An SOS to the nearest space cruiser."
Hannigan grinned. It was not a pleasant grin. He took his time answering. He spat thoughtfully on the ground before him, lifted his head. He said, "A message, huh?"
"That's what I said."
"And what'll I send it with?" drawled Sparks. "Tom-toms?"
Breadon flushed darkly.
"I believe the life-skiff was equipped with a radio? And theoretically you are a radio operator?"
"Finest radio money can buy!" interpolated J. Foster Andrews proudly.
"Put a million credits into the Carefree . Best equipment throughout."
Sparks looked from one to another of them, grinned insolently. "You're both right. I am a radio operator, and there was a radio. But we crashed, remember? On account of some dope's sleeve got caught in the master switch—"
"That will do!" snapped Breadon angrily. He stared at the bandy-legged little redhead. "You mean the radio was broken?"
"It wasn't helped none. The tubes was made out of glass, and glass don't bounce so good."
Greg Malcolm said thoughtfully, "Sparks, can't you fix it?"
"Well, mebbe. But not in five minutes. Maybe not in five years. I won't know till I get going on it."
Breadon frowned.
"I'll handle this, Malcolm," he crisped. Again to the radioman, "Well, you get to work on it immediately. And as soon as you get it fixed, send out an SOS advising the patrol where we are—"
"Speaking of which," insinuated Sparks, "where are we?"
Breadon glared at him wrathfully.
"Why—why on one of the satellites of Saturn, of course. Any fool can see that!"
"O.Q. But does any fool know which one? Or shall I tell you it's Titan? And when you know that, then what? Titan wasn't named that on account of it was a pimple. It's a big place. What'll I tell the Patrol? SOS. Stranded in the middle of we-don't-know-where, somewhere on Titan, maybe. They'll be hunting for us till we've got whiskers down to our knees."
Breadon's irate look vanished. He looked stricken. He said, "I—I don't know. We have a compass—"
Once again it was Gregory Malcolm who entered into the conversation. He had been toying, almost absentmindedly, with a funnel taken from the skiff's stores. Into this he had poured a small portion of water; his right forefinger was pressed to the bottom of the tube, closing it. He said, "I can answer part of that question now. Enough to cut the search in half, anyway. We're in the northern hemisphere of the satellite."
Maud Andrews looked at him sharply as if noticing him for the first time in her life.
"How," she asked, "did you know that, Malcolm?"
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Gregory Malcolm is a secretary to J. Foster Andrews, the wealthy leader of the Galactic Metals Corporation. In the control room of Andrews’s space yacht the Carefree, Sparks, the radioman, fails to downplay the seriousness of their situation to Malcolm: the Carefree has been sucked into an unpredictable vortex and the fate of the ship and its occupants is uncertain. \n\tMalcolm approaches the dining room, where Andrews and members of his family are enjoying breakfast. He is unnoticed by his employers, but takes note of Andrews’s beautiful daughter Crystal and her betrothed Ralph Breadon. Suddenly, Andrews calls Malcolm over to complain about the honey and to enquire about the state of the Galactic market. Malcolm, in virtue of the fact that the vortex has blocked communication to and from the Carefree, is unable to answer. Crystal asks Malcolm if they are in danger, but before he is able to answer the question, Crystal’s older brother Bert enters drunkenly and suggests that they are doomed. \nSparks abruptly enters the room and confirms Bert’s drunken suspicion: they have been caught in a gravitation downdraft and must evacuate to a life skiff. On the skiff with members of the Andrews family, Sparks, a cabin-boy, and Breadon, Malcolm navigates above a celestial body and observes the crash of the Carefree. Just as Malcolm surrenders control of the skiff to Breadon, its engines engage and they quickly fall towards the planet. Breadon deftly manipulates the controls, and they land safely. As Malcolm quickly congratulates Breadon on his landing, the latter blames and berates the secretary for the fall. The cabin-boy, however, points out that Breadon’s sleeve was responsible for their descent. \nMalcolm and Sparks examine the damage to the skiff, and Sparks shares his frustrations about Malcolm’s submissive, secretarial behaviour. Malcolm concludes that they are on a rarely-visited, unpopulated, vast, and dangerous moon of Saturn called Titan. Malcolm resolves not to tell the Andrews, fearing that the information would only make them panic. Meanwhile, the Andrews family are in disarray over how best to remove necessities from the skiff.\nBreadon delegates to Sparks the role of establishing communication. Sparks, however, responds poorly and reveals that they are on Titan, and that their chances of rescue are dim. \n",
"Gregory Malcolm is the secretary of J. Foster Andrews, a wealthy man in charge of the Galactic Metals Corporation. While aboard their ship, Hannigan, a radio operator and companion of Malcolm, discloses that they have entered a vortex and remain trapped with no transmission or radio signal. Hannigan advises that Malcolm doesn't tell the Andrews family and instead waits until there is more information. Malcolm enters the dining dome, where the Andrews family sits, including Crystal, their daughter who Malcolm admires, and Ralph Breadon, her suitor. J. Foster asks Malcolm for information about the corporation's business, to which Malcolm is unable to answer due to the lack of radio transmission. The Andrews family notices the odd situation outside the ship's port and questions Malcolm further, but a drunk Bert Andrews interrupts, panicking and revealing the dire situation at hand. Malcolm reassures the family that there is no immediate danger yet, but Hannigan then enters, urgently yelling at everyone to board the life skiff due to emergency. The team runs to the life skiff, where Malcolm and Hannigan frantically operate it until Breadon insists on taking over. Breadon gains control but the life skiff still faces danger, and as Malcolm and Hannigan scramble over the controls, Breadon steers the life skiff onto the ground; the team survives but the skiff is wrecked. Breadon blames Malcolm for the crash, and Malcolm leaves the situation alone, which Hannigan discourages. After inspection, Malcolm determines that the team has crashed on the planet Titan.",
"The story starts with Hannigan trying to tell Greg that the atmospherics don’t need to be worried, these are not worth reporting to the boss. However, Greg has studied astrogation and is sure that they are in a vortex. He knows that they have been in the vortex for more than eight hours, but he has no idea how much longer nor how far the ship will go. Agreeing not to tell the boss, Greg goes upstairs to the dining room. Right after he arrives by the door, J. Foster Andrews of Galactic Metals Corporation, starts calling him. He comes in and is asked about the transmission, which he says that there is none. Before he has time to finish explaining himself, Bert Andrews, one of J. Foster Andrews’ son, came in and told everyone that they have been in the vortex for a long time, and they could crash at any moment. J. Foster then turns to confirm with Greg, who explains that it is indeed true, only a bit exaggerated. However, Hannigan comes in and rushes everyone to get on Number Four life-skiff. They are about to crash. \n\nThey all rush to the life-skiff. And Breadon, the person that J. Foster Andrew daughter’s engaged to, tries to get the control from Greg. And in the middle of this, someone hit the control-keys and the motor is killed. Then all of a sudden, Greg, Breadon, and Hannigan all try to reach the control. However, in the end, it is the Breadon that performed the miracle in saving all of them. Later Greg and Hannigan goes to check the ship while others are all doing their own things. Looking around, Greg realizes that they are on Titan, one of Saturn’s satellites. Then Breadon orders Hannigan to send an SOS message to the nearest space cruiser. Hannigan asks Breadon, mockingly, what he should use, and if he knows where they are at. Breadon got stuck with so many questions coming at once, then it is Greg who said: they are on the northern hemisphere of the satellite. ",
"The story begins with Sparks and Malcolm discussing their predicament on the ship Carefree. The ship is trapped in a vortex that has blown it off course. Malcolm goes to the rotunda where food is being served to the Andrews family. The Andrews family is surrounding the table, including Crystal, who Malcolm fancies. After some loud talking from the family, eventually, Greg informs them that they are in an ionized field and the transmission does not work. The family becomes quite concerned at the news. The son of Andrews, Bert, walks into the doorway in a drunken manner. He tells everyone that they should be concerned. While Malcolm is trying to calm the family down, Sparks runs into the room yelling at everyone to head towards the life skiff. There is a mad rush towards the life skiff that caused a lot of confusion. The Carefree bursts into flames and Malcolm says that he is unsure if the other skiffs were able to escape in time. \n\nMalcolm is piloting the ship when Breadon commands him to hand over the controls. When he does, Breadon’s sleeve brushes against the control keys causing the motors to be turned off. Many people rush to fix the skiff, but Breadon is ultimately the person who guides the skiff to the ground. Breadon yells at Malcolm for interfering, but the cabin boy, Tommy, defends Malcolm. Breadon continues to belittle Malcolm. Sparks tells Malcolm that he is strange and he needs to defend himself against Breadon. \n\nEveryone disembarks from the ship. Bert tries to give orders, but the orders seem to be nonsensical. Malcolm is the first person to realize where the group has crash-landed. Breadon then commands Sparks to send an SOS message. Sparks mocks him by questioning how he should send a message and where he should say they are located, knowing that Breadon does not have the answer. Breadon is not able to specify exactly where they are located. Malcolm completes an experiment that is able to narrow down which hemisphere of the satellite they are located in, displaying a skill that Breadon does not possess. Maud Andrews is inquisitive of how Malcolm could have possibly been able to know where they crash-landed. \n"
] |
63048
|
Wanderers of the Wolf Moon
By NELSON S. BOND
They were marooned on Titan, their ship wrecked, the radio smashed. Yet they had to exist, had to build a new life on a hostile world. And the man who assumed command was Gregory Malcolm, the bespectacled secretary—whose only adventures had come through the pages of a book.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Sparks snapped off the switches and followed him to the door of the radio turret. Sparks was a stunted, usually-grinning, little redhead named Hannigan. But he wasn't grinning now. He laid an anxious hand on Greg's arm. "If I was you," he said, "if I was you, Malcolm, I don't think I'd say nothing to the boss about this. Not just yet, anyhow."
Greg said, "Why not?"
Sparks spluttered and fussed and made heavy weather of answering.
"Well, for one thing, it ain't important. It would only worry him. And then there's the womenfolks, they scare easy. Which of course they ain't no cause to. Atmospherics don't mean nothing. I've rode out worse storms than this—plenty of times. And in worse crates than the Carefree ."
Greg studied him carefully from behind trim plasta-rimmed spectacles. He drew a deep breath. He said levelly, "So it's that bad, eh, Sparks?"
"What bad? I just told you—"
"I know. Sparks, I'm not a professional spaceman. But I've studied astrogation as few Earthlubbers have. It's been my hobby for years. And I think I know what we're up against.
"We hit a warp-eddy last night. We've been trapped in a vortex for more than eight hours. Lord only knows how many hundreds of thousands of miles we've been borne off our course. And now we've blasted into a super-ionized belt of atmospherics. Your radio signals are blanketed. You can't get signals in or out. We're a deaf-mute speck of metal being whirled headlong through space. Isn't that it?"
"I don't know what—" began Sparks hotly. Then he stopped, studied his companion thoughtfully, nodded. "O.Q.," he confessed, "that's it. But we ain't licked yet. We got three good men on the bridge. Townsend ... Graves ... Langhorn. They'll pull out of this if anybody can. And they ain't no sense in scaring the Old Man and his family."
"I won't tell them," said Greg. "I won't tell them unless I have to. But between you and me, what are the odds against us, Sparks?"
The radioman shrugged.
"Who knows? Vortices are unpredictable. Maybe the damn thing will toss us out on the very spot it picked us up. Maybe it will give us the old chuckeroo a million miles the other side of Pluto. Maybe it will crack us up on an asteroid or satellite. No way of telling till it happens."
"And the controls?"
"As useless," said Sparks, "as a cow in a cyclone."
"So?"
"We sit tight," said Sparks succinctly, "and hope."
Malcolm nodded quietly. He took off his spectacles, breathed on them, wiped them, replaced them. He was tall and fair; in his neat, crisply pressed business suit he appeared even slimmer than he was. But there was no nervousness in his movements. He moved measuredly. "Well," he said, "that appears to be that. I'm going up to the dining dome."
Sparks stared at him querulously.
"You're a queer duck, Malcolm. I don't think you've got a nerve in your body."
"Nerves are a luxury I can't afford," replied Greg. "If anything happens—and if there's time to do so—let me know." He paused at the door. "Good luck," he said.
"Clear ether!" said Sparks mechanically. He stared after the other man wonderingly for a long moment, then went back to his control banks, shaking his head and muttering.
Gregory Malcolm climbed down the Jacob's-ladder and strode briskly through the labyrinthine corridors that were the entrails of the space yacht Carefree . He paused once to peer through a perilens set into the ship's port plates. It was a weird sight that met his gaze. Not space, ebony-black and bejewelled with a myriad flaming splotches of color; not the old, familiar constellations treading their ever-lasting, inexorable paths about the perimeter of Sol's tiny universe, but a shimmering webwork of light, so tortured-violet that the eyes ached to look upon it. This was the mad typhoon of space-atmospherics through which the Carefree was now being twisted, topsy-turvy, toward a nameless goal.
He moved on, approaching at last the quartzite-paned observation rotunda which was the dining dome of the ship.
His footsteps slowed as he composed himself to face those within. As he hesitated in the dimly-lighted passage, a trick of lights on glass mirrored to him the room beyond. He could see the others while they were as yet unaware of his presence. Their voices reached him clearly.
J. Foster Andrews, his employer and the employer of the ten thousand or more men and women who worked for Galactic Metals Corporation, dominated the head of the table. He was a plump, impatient little Napoleon. Opposite him, calm, graceful, serene, tastefully garbed and elaborately coiffured even here in deep space, three weeks from the nearest beauty shop, sat his wife, Enid.
On Andrews' right sat his sister, Maud. Not young, features plain as a mud fence, but charming despite her age and homeliness simply because of her eyes; puckish, shrewdly intelligent eyes, constantly aglint with suppressed humor at—guessed Greg—the amusing foibles and frailties of those about her.
She gave her breakfast the enthusiastic attention of one too old and shapeless to be concerned with such folderol as calories and dietetics, pausing only from time to time to share smidgeons of food with a watery-eyed scrap of white, curly fluff beside her chair. Her pet poodle, whom she called by the opprobrious title of "Cuddles."
On J. Foster's left sat his daughter, Crystal. She it was who caused Gregory Malcolm's staid, respectable heart to give a little lurch as he glimpsed her reflected vision—all gold and crimson and cream—in the glistening walls. If Crystal was her name, so, too, was crystal her loveliness.
But—Greg shook his head—but she was not for him. She was already pledged to the young man seated beside her. Ralph Breadon. He turned to murmur something to her as Greg watched; Greg saw and admired and disliked his rangy height, his sturdy, well-knit strength, the rich brownness of his skin, his hair, his eyes.
The sound of his own name startled Greg.
"Malcolm!" called the man at the head of the table. "Malcolm! Now where in blazes is he, anyhow?" he demanded of no one in particular, everyone in general. He spooned a dab of liquid gold from a Limoges preserve jar, tongued it suspiciously, frowned. "Bitter!" he complained.
"It's the very best Martian honey," said his wife.
"Drylands clover," added Crystal.
"It's still bitter," said J. Foster petulantly.
His sister sniffed. "Nonsense! It's delightful."
"I say it's bitter," repeated Andrews sulkily. And lifted his voice again. " Malcolm! Where are you?"
"You called me, sir?" said Malcolm, moving into the room. He nodded politely to the others. "Good morning, Mrs. Andrews ... Miss Andrews ... Mr. Breadon...."
"Oh, sit down!" snapped J. Foster. "Sit down here and stop bobbing your head like a teetotum! Had your breakfast? The honey's no good; it's bitter." He glared at his sister challengingly. "Where have you been, anyway? What kind of secretary are you? Have you been up to the radio turret? How's the market today? Is Galactic up or down?"
Malcolm said, "I don't know, sir."
"Fine! Fine!" Andrews rattled on automatically before the words registered. Then he started, his face turning red. "Eh? What's that? Don't know! What do you mean, you don't know? I pay you to—"
"There's no transmission, sir," said Greg quietly.
"No trans—nonsense! Of course there's transmission! I put a million credits into this ship. Finest space-yacht ever built. Latest equipment throughout. Sparks is drunk, that's what you mean! Well, you hop right up there and—"
Maud Andrews put down her fork with a clatter. "Oh, for goodness sakes, Jonathan, shut up and give the boy time to explain! He's standing there with his mouth gaping like a rain-spout, trying to get a word in edgewise! What's the trouble, Gregory?" She turned to Greg, as Jonathan Foster Andrews wheezed into startled silence. " That? "
She glanced at the quartzite dome, beyond which the veil of iridescence wove and cross-wove and shimmered like a pallid aurora.
Greg nodded. "Yes, Miss Andrews."
Enid Andrews spoke languidly from the other end of the table.
"But what is it, Gregory? A local phenomenon?"
"You might call it that," said Greg, selecting his words cautiously.
"It's an ionized field into which we've blasted. It—it—shouldn't stay with us long. But while it persists, our radio will be blanketed out."
Breadon's chestnut head came up suddenly, sharply.
"Ionization! That means atmosphere!"
Greg said, "Yes."
"And an atmosphere means a body in space somewhere near—" Breadon stopped, bit his lip before the appeal in Malcolm's eyes, tried to pass it off easily. "Oh, well—a change of scenery, what?"
But the moment of alarm in his voice had not passed unnoticed. Crystal Andrews spoke for all of them, her voice preternaturally quiet.
"You're hiding something, Malcolm. What is it? Is there—danger?"
But Greg didn't have to answer that question. From the doorway a harsh, defiantly strident voice answered for him. The voice of Bert Andrews, Crystal's older brother.
"Danger? You're damn right there's danger! What's the matter with you folks—are you all deaf, dumb and blind? We've been caught in a space-vortex for hours. Now we're in the H-layer of a planet we can't even see—and in fifteen minutes or fifteen seconds we may all be smashed as flat as pancakes!"
The proclamation brought them out of their chairs. Greg's heart sank; his vain plea, "Mr. Andrews—" was lost in the medley of Crystal's sudden gasp, Enid Andrews' short, choking scream, J. Foster's bellowing roar at his only son.
"Bert—you're drunk!"
Bert weaved precariously from the doorway, laughed in his father's face.
"Sure I'm drunk! Why not? If you're smart you'll get drunk, too. The whole damn lot of you!" He flicked a derisive hand toward Greg. "You too, Boy Scout! What were you trying to do—hide the bad news from them? Well, it's no use. Everybody might as well know the worst. We're gone gooses ... geeses ... aw, what the hell! Dead ducks!" He fell into a chair, sprawled there laughing mirthlessly with fear riding the too-high notes of his laughter.
J. Foster turned to his secretary slowly. His ire had faded; there was only deep concern in his voice.
"Is he telling the truth, Malcolm?"
Greg said soberly, "Partly, sir. He's overstating the danger—but there is danger. We are caught in a space-vortex, and as Mr. Breadon realized, the presence of these ionics means we're in the Heaviside-layer of some heavenly body. But we may not crack up."
Maud Andrews glanced at him shrewdly.
"Is there anything we can do?"
"Not a thing. The officers on the bridge are doing everything possible."
"In that case," said the older woman, "we might as well finish our breakfast. Here, Cuddles! Come to momsy!" She sat down again. Greg looked at her admiringly. Ralph Breadon stroked his brown jaw. He said,
"The life-skiffs?"
"A last resort," said Greg. "Sparks promised he'd let me know if it were necessary. We'll hope it's not—"
But it was a vain hope, vainly spoken in the last, vain moment. For even as he phrased the hopeful words, came the sound of swift, racing footsteps up the corridor. Into the dining dome burst Hannigan, eyes hot with excitement. And his cry dispelled Greg's final hopes for safety.
"Everybody—the Number Four life-skiff— quick ! We've been caught in a grav-drag and we're going to crash!"
II
Those next hectic moments were never afterward very clear in Greg Malcolm's memory. He had a confused recollection of hearing Sparks' warning punctuated by a loud, shrill scream which he vaguely identified as emanating from Mrs. Andrews' throat ... he was conscious of feeling, suddenly, beneath his feet the sickening, quickening lurch of a ship out of control, gripped by gravitational forces beyond its power to allay ... he recalled his own voice dinning in his ears as, incredibly, with Sparks, he took command of the hasty flight from the dining dome down the corridor to the aft ramp, up the ramp, across girdered beams in the super-structure to the small, independently motored rocket-skiff cradled there.
He was aware, too, of strangely disconnected incidents happening around him, he being a part of them but seeming to be only a disinterested spectator to their strangeness. Of his forcing Maud Andrews toward the door of the dome ... of her pushing back against him with all the weight of her body ... of her irate voice, "Cuddles! I forgot him!" Then the shrill excited yapping of the poodle cradled against her as they charged on down the corridor.
J. Foster waddling beside him, tugging at his arm, panting, "The officers?" and his own unfelt assurance. "They can take care of themselves. It's a general 'bandon ship." Enid Andrews stumbling over the hem of a filmy peignoir ... himself bending to lift her boldly and bodily, sweating palms feeling the warm animal heat of her excited body hot beneath them ... Crystal Andrews stopping suddenly, crying,
"'Tina!" ... and Hannigan's reply, "Your maid? I woke her. She's in the life-skiff." Bert Andrews stopping suddenly, being sick in the middle of the corridor, his drunkenness losing itself in the thick, sure nausea of the ever-increasing unsteadiness beneath their feet.
Then the life-skiff, the clang of metal as Hannigan slammed the port behind the last of them, the fumbling for a lock-stud, the quick, grateful pant of the miniature hypos, and a weird feeling of weightlessness, rushingness, hurtlingness as his eardrums throbbed and his mouth tasted brassy and bloody with the fierce velocity of their escape.
Sense and meaning returned only when all this ended. As one waking from a nightmare dream, Greg Malcolm returned to a world he could recognize. A tiny world, encased within the walls of a forty-foot life-skiff. A world peopled too scantily. Andrews, his wife and sister, his son and daughter; 'Tina Laney, the maid; Breadon, Hannigan, young Tommy O'Doul, the cabin-boy (though where he had come from, or when, Greg did not know). And himself. In a life-skiff. In space.
Somewhere in space. He looked through the perilens . What he saw then he might better never have seen. For that shimmering pink-ochre veil had wisped away, now, and in the clean, cold, bitter-clear light of a distant sun he watched the death-dive of the yacht Carefree .
Like a vast silver top, spinning heedlessly, wildly, it streaked toward a mottled gray and green, brown and dun, hard and crushing-brutal terrain below. Still at its helm stood someone, for even in that last dreadful moment burst from its nose-jets a ruddy mushroom of flame that tried to, but could not, brake the dizzy fall.
For an instant Greg's eyes, stingingly blinded and wet, thought they glimpsed a wee black mote dancing from the bowels of the Carefree ; a mote that might be another skiff like their own. But he could not be sure, and then the Carefree was accelerating with such violence and speed that the eye could see it only as a flaming silver lance against the ugly earth-carcase beneath, and then it struck and a carmine bud of flame burst and flowered for an instant, and that was all....
And Greg Malcolm turned from the perilens , shaken.
Hannigan said, "It's over?" and Greg nodded.
Hannigan said, "The other skiffs? Did they break free, or were they caught?"
"I don't know. I couldn't see for sure."
"You must have seen. Are we the only ones?"
"I couldn't see for sure. Maybe. Maybe not."
Then a body scrambled forward, pressing through the tightness of other huddled bodies, and there was a hand upon his elbow. "I'll take over now, Malcolm."
It was Ralph Breadon. Gregory looked at him slowly, uncomprehendingly at first. His hand was reluctant to leave the guiding-gear of the small ship which was, now, all that remained to them of civilization and civilization's wondrous accomplishments. He had not realized until this moment that for a while ... for a short, eager, pulse-quickening while ... on his alertness, in his hands, had depended the destinies of ten men and women. But he knew, suddenly and completely, that it was for this single moment his whole lifetime had waited. It was for this brief moment of command that some intuition, some instinct greater than knowledge, had prepared him. This was why he, an Earthlubber, had studied astrogation, made a hobby of the empire of the stars. That he might be fitted to command when all others failed. And now—
And now the moment was past, and he was once again Gregory Malcolm, mild, lean, pale, bespectacled secretary to J. Foster Andrews. And the man at his side was Ralph Breadon, socialite and gentleman sportsman, trained pilot. And in Malcolm the habit of obedience was strong....
"Very well, sir," he said. And he turned over the controls.
What happened then was unfortunate. It might just as well have happened to Malcolm, though afterward no one could ever say with certainty. However that was, either by carelessness or malfortune or inefficiency, once-thwarted disaster struck again at the little party on the life-skiff. At the instant Breadon's hand seized the controls the skiff jerked suddenly as though struck with a ponderous fist, its throbbing motors choked and snarled in a high, rising crescendo of torment that lost itself in supersonic heights, and the ship that had been drifting easily and under control to the planet beneath now dipped viciously.
The misfortune was that too many huddled in the tiny space understood the operation of the life-skiff, and what must be done instantly. And that neither pilot was as yet in control of the ship. Breadon's hand leaped for the Dixie rod, so, too, did Malcolm's—and across both their bodies came the arm of Sparks Hannigan, searching the controls.
In the scramble someone's sleeve brushed the banks of control-keys. The motors, killed, soughed into silence. The ship rocked into a spin. Greg cried out, his voice a strange harshness in his ears; Breadon cursed; one of the women bleated fearfully.
Then Breadon, still cursing, fought all hands from the controls but his own. And the man was not without courage. For all could see plainly, in the illumined perilens , how near to swift death that moment of uncertainty had led them. The skiff, which an instant before had been high in the stratosphere of this unknown planet ... or satellite or whatever it might be ... was now flashing toward hard ground at lightning speed.
Only a miracle, Greg knew, could save them now. An impulse spun his head, he looked at Crystal Andrews. There was no fear in her eyes. Just a hotness and an inexplicable anger. Beside her was the other girl, the maid, 'Tina; she was frankly afraid. Her teeth were clenched in her nether lip, and her eyes were wide and anxious, but she did not cry out.
Only a miracle could save them now. But Breadon's hands performed that miracle; his quick, nerveless, trained hands. A stud here ... a lever there ... a swift wrenching toss of the shoulders. His face twisted back over his shoulder, and his straining lips pulled taut and bloodless away from his teeth. "Hold tight, folks! We're going to bounce—"
Then they struck!
But they struck glancingly, as Breadon had hoped, and planned for, and gambled on. They struck and bounced. The frail craft shivered and groaned in metal agony, jarred across harsh soil, bounced again, settled, nosed over and rocked to a standstill. Somewhere forward something snapped with a shrill, high ping! of stress; somewhere aft was the metallic flap-clanging of broken gear trailing behind them. But they were safe.
Breath, held so long that he could not remember its inhalation, escaped Greg's lungs in a long sigh. "Nice work, Mr. Breadon!" he cried. "Oh, nice work!"
But surprisingly, savagely, Breadon turned on him.
"It would have been better work, Malcolm, if you'd kept your damned hands off the controls! Now see what you've done? Smashed up our skiff! Our only—"
"He didn't do it!" piped the shrill voice of Tommy O'Doul. "You done it yourself, Mr. Breadon. Your sleeve. It caught the switch."
"Quiet!" Breadon, cheeks flushed, reached out smartly, stilled the youngster's defense with a swift, ungentle slap. "And you, Malcolm—after this, do as you're told, and don't try to assume responsibilities too great for you. All right, everybody. Let's get out and see how bad the damage is."
Instinctively Greg had surged a half step forward as Breadon silenced the cabin boy. Now old habit and common-sense halted him. He's overwrought, he reasoned. We're all excited and on edge. We've been to Bedlam. Our nerves are shot. In a little while we'll all be back to normal.
He said quietly, "Very well, Mr. Breadon." And he climbed from the broken skiff.
Hannigan said, "Looks bad, don't it?"
"Very," said Malcolm. He fingered a shard of loose metal flapping like a fin from the stern of the skiff. "Not hopeless, though. There should be an acetylene torch in the tool locker. With that—"
"You ought to of poked him," said Hannigan.
"What? Oh, you mean—?"
"Yeah. The kid was right, you know. He done it."
"His sleeve, you mean. Well, it was an accident," said Greg. "It could have happened to anyone. And he made a good landing. Considering everything. Anyhow—" Again he was Gregory Malcolm, serious-faced, efficient secretary. "Anyhow, we have been thrust into an extremely precarious circumstance. It would be silly to take umbrage at a man's nervous anger. We must have no quarreling, no bickering—"
"Umbrage!" snorted Sparks. "Bickering! They're big words. I ain't sure I know what they mean. I ain't exactly sure they mean anything ." He glanced at Greg oddly. "You're a queer jasper, Malcolm. Back there on the ship, I figured you for a sort of a stuffed-shirt. Yes-man to the boss. And then in the show-down, you come through like a movie hero—for a little while. Then you let that Breadon guy give you the spur without a squawk—"
Malcolm adjusted his plasta-rimmed spectacles. He said, almost stubbornly, "Our situation is grave. There must be no bickering."
"Bickering your Aunt Jenny! What do you call that?"
Sparks jerked a contemptuous thumb toward the group from which they were separated. Upon disembarking, only Greg and Sparks had moved to make a careful examination of their damaged craft. The others, more or less under the direction of Breadon, were making gestures toward removing certain necessaries from the skiff. Their efforts, slight and uncertain as they were, had already embroiled them in argument.
The gist of their argument, so far as Greg Malcolm could determine, was that everyone wanted "something" to be done, but no two could agree as to just what that something was, and no one seemed to have any bursting desire to participate in actual physical labor.
J. Foster Andrews, all traces of his former panic and confusion fled, was planted firmly, Napoleonically, some few yards from the open port of the life-skiff, barking impatient orders at little Tommy O'Doul who—as Greg watched—stumbled from the port bearing a huge armload of edibles.
'Tina, the maid, was in a frenzy of motion, trying to administer to the complaints and demands of Mrs. Andrews (whose immaculate hair-do had suffered in the frenetic minutes of their flight) and Crystal Andrews
(who knew perfectly well there were sweaters in the life-skiff) and Miss Maud (who wanted a can of prepared dog-food and a can-opener immediately, and look at poor Cuddles, momsy's 'ittle pet was so hungry)!
Bert Andrews was sulkily insisting that it was nonsense to leave the warmth and security of the skiff anyway, and he wished he had a drink, while the harassed, self-appointed commander of the refugee corps was shouting at whomever happened, at any given moment, to capture his divided and completely frantic attention. His orders were masterpieces of confusion, developing around one premise that the castaway crew should immediately set up a camp. Where, how, or with what nonexistent equipment, Breadon did not venture to say.
"You see what I mean?" demanded Sparks disgustedly.
Greg Malcolm saw. He also saw other things. That their landing-spot, while excellent for its purpose, was not by any manner of means an ideal campsite. It was a small, flat basin of sandy soil, rimmed by shallow mountains. His gaze sought these hills, looked approvingly on their greenness, upon the multitude of dark pock-marks dotting them. These caves, were they not the habitations of potential enemies, might well become the sanctuaries of spacewrecked men.
He saw, also, a thin ribbon of silver sheering the face of the northern hills. His gaze, rising still skyward, saw other things—
He nodded. He knew, now, where they were. Or approximately. There was but one planet in the solar system which boasted such a phenomenon. The apparent distance of the Sun, judged by its diminished disc, argued his judgment to be correct. The fact that they had surged through an atmospheric belt for some length of time before finally meeting with disaster.
"Titan," he said. "Hyperion possibly. But probably Titan."
Sparks' gaze, following Greg's upward, contracted in an expression of dismay.
"Dirty cow! You mean that's where we are?"
"I believe so. There's Saturn, our mother planet, looming above us as large as a dinner plate. And the grav-drag here is almost Earth norm. Titan has a 3,000 mile diameter. That, combined with the Saturnian tractile constant, would give us a strong pull."
Sparks wailed, "But Titan! Great morning, Malcolm, nobody ever comes to Titan! There ain't no mines here, no colonies, no—" He stopped suddenly, his eyes widening yet farther. "And, hey—this place is dangerous ! There are—"
"I know it," said Greg swiftly, quietly. "Shut up, Sparks. No use telling the others. If they don't guess it themselves, what they don't know won't alarm them. We've got to do something, though. Get ourselves organized into a defensive community. That's the only way—"
Ralph Breadon's sharp, dictatorial voice interrupted him. "Well, Malcolm, stop soldiering and make yourself useful!"
And J. Foster, not to have his authority usurped, supplemented the order. "Yes, Malcolm, let's get going! No time for day-dreaming, my man. We want action!"
Sparks said, "Maybe you'll get it now, fatty!" under his breath, and looked at Malcolm hopefully. But his companion merely nodded, moved forward toward the others, quietly obedient to the command.
"Yes, sir," he said.
Hannigan groaned and followed him.
III
Breadon said, "All right, Tommy, dump them here. I have a few words to say." He glanced about him pompously. "Now, folks, naturally we want to get away from here as soon as possible. Therefore I delegate you, Sparks, to immediately get a message off. An SOS to the nearest space cruiser."
Hannigan grinned. It was not a pleasant grin. He took his time answering. He spat thoughtfully on the ground before him, lifted his head. He said, "A message, huh?"
"That's what I said."
"And what'll I send it with?" drawled Sparks. "Tom-toms?"
Breadon flushed darkly.
"I believe the life-skiff was equipped with a radio? And theoretically you are a radio operator?"
"Finest radio money can buy!" interpolated J. Foster Andrews proudly.
"Put a million credits into the Carefree . Best equipment throughout."
Sparks looked from one to another of them, grinned insolently. "You're both right. I am a radio operator, and there was a radio. But we crashed, remember? On account of some dope's sleeve got caught in the master switch—"
"That will do!" snapped Breadon angrily. He stared at the bandy-legged little redhead. "You mean the radio was broken?"
"It wasn't helped none. The tubes was made out of glass, and glass don't bounce so good."
Greg Malcolm said thoughtfully, "Sparks, can't you fix it?"
"Well, mebbe. But not in five minutes. Maybe not in five years. I won't know till I get going on it."
Breadon frowned.
"I'll handle this, Malcolm," he crisped. Again to the radioman, "Well, you get to work on it immediately. And as soon as you get it fixed, send out an SOS advising the patrol where we are—"
"Speaking of which," insinuated Sparks, "where are we?"
Breadon glared at him wrathfully.
"Why—why on one of the satellites of Saturn, of course. Any fool can see that!"
"O.Q. But does any fool know which one? Or shall I tell you it's Titan? And when you know that, then what? Titan wasn't named that on account of it was a pimple. It's a big place. What'll I tell the Patrol? SOS. Stranded in the middle of we-don't-know-where, somewhere on Titan, maybe. They'll be hunting for us till we've got whiskers down to our knees."
Breadon's irate look vanished. He looked stricken. He said, "I—I don't know. We have a compass—"
Once again it was Gregory Malcolm who entered into the conversation. He had been toying, almost absentmindedly, with a funnel taken from the skiff's stores. Into this he had poured a small portion of water; his right forefinger was pressed to the bottom of the tube, closing it. He said, "I can answer part of that question now. Enough to cut the search in half, anyway. We're in the northern hemisphere of the satellite."
Maud Andrews looked at him sharply as if noticing him for the first time in her life.
"How," she asked, "did you know that, Malcolm?"
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How are people without psi-powers seen in this society?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Jack of No Trades by Evelyn E. Smith.
Relevant chunks:
Jack of No Trades
By EVELYN E. SMITH
Illustrated by CAVAT
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy October 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I was psick of Psi powers, not having any. Or didn't I? Maybe they'd psee otherwise psomeday!
I walked into the dining room and collided with a floating mass of fabric, which promptly draped itself over me like a sentient shroud.
"Oh, for God's sake, Kevin!" my middle brother's voice came muffled through the folds. "If you can't help, at least don't hinder!"
I managed to struggle out of the tablecloth, even though it seemed to be trying to wrap itself around me. When Danny got excited, he lost his mental grip.
"I could help," I yelled as soon as I got my head free, "if anybody would let me and, what's more, I could set the table a damn sight faster by hand than you do with 'kinesis."
Just then Father appeared at the head of the table. He could as easily have walked downstairs as teleported, but I belonged to a family of exhibitionists. And Father tended to show off as if he were still a kid. Not that he looked his age—he was big and blond, like Danny and Tim and me, and could have passed for our older brother.
"Boys, boys!" he reproved us. "Danny, you ought to be ashamed of yourself—picking on poor Kev."
Even if it hadn't been Danny's fault, he would still have been blamed.
Nobody was ever supposed to raise a voice or a hand or a thought to poor afflicted Kev, because nature had picked on me enough. And the nicer everybody was to me, the nastier I became, since only when they lost their tempers could I get—or so I believed—their true attitude toward me.
How else could I tell?
"Sorry, fella," Dan apologized to me. The tablecloth spread itself out on the table. "Wrinkles," he grumbled to himself. "Wrinkles. And I had it so nice and smooth before. Mother will be furious."
"If she were going to be furious, she'd be furious already," Father reminded him sadly. It must be tough to be married to a deep-probe telepath, I thought, and I felt a sudden wave of sympathy for him. It was so seldom I got the chance to feel sorry for anyone except myself.
"But I think you'll find she understands."
"She knows, all right," Danny remarked as he went on into the kitchen,
"but I'm not sure she always understands."
I was surprised to find him so perceptive on the abstract level, because he wasn't what you might call an understanding person, either.
"There are tensions in this room," my sister announced as she slouched in, not quite awake yet, "and hatred. I could feel them all the way upstairs. And today I'm working on the Sleepsweet Mattress copy, so I must feel absolutely tranquil. Everyone will think beautiful thoughts, please."
She sat down just as a glass of orange juice was arriving at her place; Danny apparently didn't know she'd come in already. The glass bumped into the back of her neck, tilted and poured its contents over her shoulder and down her very considerable decolletage. Being a mere primitive, I couldn't help laughing.
"Danny, you fumbler!" she screamed.
Danny erupted from the kitchen. "How many times have I asked all of you not to sit down until I've got everything on the table? Always a lot of interfering busybodies getting in the way."
"I don't see why you have to set the table at all," she retorted. "A robot could do it better and faster than you. Even Kev could." She turned quickly toward me. "Oh, I am sorry, Kevin."
I didn't say anything; I was too busy pressing my hands down on the back of the chair to make my knuckles turn white.
Sylvia's face turned even whiter. "Father, stop him— stop him! He's hating again! I can't stand it!"
Father looked at me, then at her. "I don't think he can help it, Sylvia."
I grinned. "That's right—I'm just a poor atavism with no control over myself a-tall."
Finally my mother came in from the kitchen; she was an old-fashioned woman and didn't hold with robocooks. One quick glance at me gave her the complete details, even though I quickly protested, "It's illegal to probe anyone without permission."
"I used to probe you to find out when you needed your diapers changed," she said tartly, "and I'll probe you now. You should watch yourself, Sylvia—poor Kevin isn't responsible."
She didn't need to probe to get the blast of naked emotion that spurted out from me. My sister screamed and even Father looked uncomfortable. Danny stomped back into the kitchen, muttering to himself.
Mother's lips tightened. "Sylvia, go upstairs and change your dress. Kevin, do I have to make an appointment for you at the clinic again?" A psychiatrist never diagnosed members of his own family—that is, not officially; they couldn't help offering thumbnail diagnoses any more than they could help having thumbnails.
"No use," I said, deciding it was safe to drop into my chair. "Who can adjust me to an environment to which I'm fundamentally unsuited?"
"Maybe there is something physically wrong with him, Amy," my father suggested hopefully. "Maybe you should make an appointment for him at the cure-all?"
Mother shook her neatly coiffed head. "He's been to it dozens of times and he always checks out in splendid shape. None of us can spare the time to go with him again, just on an off-chance, and he could hardly be allowed to make such a long trip all by himself. Pity there isn't a machine in every community, but, then, we don't really need them."
Now that the virus diseases had been licked, people hardly ever got sick any more and, when they did, it was mostly psychosomatic. Life was so well organized that there weren't even many accidents these days. It was a safe, orderly existence for those who fitted into it—which accounted for more than ninety-five per cent of the population. The only ones who didn't adjust were those who couldn't, like me—psi-deficients, throwbacks to an earlier era. There were no physical cripples, because anybody could have a new arm or a new leg grafted on, but you couldn't graft psi powers onto an atavism or, if you could, the technique hadn't been developed yet.
"I feel a sense of impending doom brooding over this household," my youngest brother remarked cheerfully as he vaulted into his chair.
"You always do, Timothy," my mother said, unfolding her napkin. "And I must say it's not in good taste, especially at breakfast."
He reached for his juice. "Guess this is a doomed household. And what was all that emotional uproar about?"
"The usual," Sylvia said from the doorway before anyone else could answer. She slid warily into her chair. "Hey, Dan, I'm here!" she called. "If anything else comes in, it comes in manually, understand?"
"Oh, all right." Dan emerged from the kitchen with a tray of food floating ahead of him.
"The usual? Trouble with Kev?" Tim looked at me narrowly. "Somehow my sense of ominousness is connected with him."
"Well, that's perfectly natural—" Sylvia began, then stopped as Mother caught her eye.
"I didn't mean that," Tim said. "I still say Kev's got something we can't figure out."
"You've been saying that for years," Danny protested, "and he's been tested for every faculty under the Sun. He can't telepath or teleport or telekinesthesize or even teletype. He can't precognize or prefix or prepossess. He can't—"
"Strictly a bundle of no-talent, that's me," I interrupted, trying to keep my animal feelings from getting the better of me. That was how my family thought of me, I knew—as an animal, and not a very lovable one, either.
"No," Tim said, "he's just got something we haven't developed a test for. It'll come out some day, you'll see." He smiled at me.
I smiled at him gratefully; he was the only member of my family who really seemed to like me in spite of my handicap. "It won't work, Tim. I know you're trying to be kind, but—"
"He's not saying it just to be kind," my mother put in. "He means it. Not that I want to arouse false hopes, Kevin," she added with grim scrupulousness. "Tim's awfully young yet and I wouldn't trust his extracurricular prognostications too far."
Nonetheless, I couldn't help feeling a feeble renewal of old hopes. After all, young or not, Tim was a hell of a good prognosticator; he wouldn't have risen so rapidly to the position he held in the Weather Bureau if he hadn't been pretty near tops in foreboding.
Mother smiled sadly at my thoughts, but I didn't let that discourage me. As Danny had said, she knew but she didn't really understand . Nobody, for all of his or her psi power, really understood me.
Breakfast was finally over and the rest of my family dispersed to their various jobs. Father simply took his briefcase and disappeared—he was a traveling salesman and he had a morning appointment clear across the continent. The others, not having his particular gift, had to take the helibus to their different destinations. Mother, as I said, was a psychiatrist. Sylvia wrote advertising copy. Tim was a meteorologist. Dan was a junior executive in a furniture moving company and expected a promotion to senior rank as soon as he achieved a better mental grip on pianos.
Only I had no job, no profession, no place in life. Of course there were certain menial tasks a psi-negative could perform, but my parents would have none of them—partly for my sake, but mostly for the sake of their own community standing.
"We don't need what little money Kev could bring in," my father always said. "I can afford to support my family. He can stay home and take care of the house."
And that's what I did. Not that there was much to do except call a techno whenever one of the servomechanisms missed a beat. True enough, those things had to be watched mighty carefully because, if they broke down, it sometimes took days before the repair and/or replacement robots could come. There never were enough of them because ours was a constructive society. Still, being a machine-sitter isn't very much of a career. And every function that wasn't the prerogative of a machine could be done ten times more quickly and efficiently by some member of my family than I could do it. If I went ahead and did something anyway, they would just do it all over again when they got home.
So I had nothing to do all day. I had a special dispensation to take books out of the local Archives, because I was a deficient and couldn't receive the tellie programs. Almost everybody on Earth was telepathic to some degree and could get the amplified projections even if he couldn't transmit or receive with his natural powers. But I got nothing. I had to derive all my recreation from reading, and you can get awfully tired of books, especially when they're all at least a hundred years old and written by primitives. I could borrow sound tapes, but they also bored me after a while.
I thought maybe I could develop a talent for composing or painting, which would classify me as a telesensitive—artistic ability being considered as the oldest, if least important, psi power—but I couldn't even do anything like that.
About all there was left for me was to take long walks. Athletics were out of the question; I couldn't compete with psi-boys and they didn't want to compete with me. All the people in the neighborhood knew me and were nice to me, but I didn't need to be a 'path to tell what they were saying to one another when I hove into sight. "There's that oldest Faraday boy. Pity, such a talented family, to have a defective."
I didn't have a girl, either. Although some of them were sort of attracted to me—I could see that—they could hardly go out with me without exposing themselves to ridicule. In their sandals, I would have done the same thing, but that didn't stop me from hating them.
I wished I had been born a couple of hundred years ago—before people started playing around with nuclear energy and filling the air with radiations that they were afraid would turn human beings into hideous monsters. Instead, they developed the psi powers that had always been latent in the species until we developed into a race of supermen. I don't know why I say we —in 1960 or so, I might have been considered superior, but in 2102 I was just the Faradays' idiot boy.
Exploring space should have been my hope. If there had been anything useful or interesting on any of the other planets, I might have found a niche for myself there. In totally new surroundings, the psi powers geared to another environment might not be an advantage. But by the time I was ten, it was discovered that the other planets were just barren hunks of rock, with pressures and climates and atmospheres drastically unsuited to human life. A year or so before, the hyperdrive had been developed on Earth and ships had been sent out to explore the stars, but I had no hope left in that direction any more.
I was an atavism in a world of peace and plenty. Peace, because people couldn't indulge in war or even crime with so many telepaths running around—not because, I told myself, the capacity for primitive behavior wasn't just as latent in everybody else as the psi talent seemed latent in me. Tim must be right, I thought—I must have some undreamed-of power that only the right circumstances would bring out. But what was that power?
For years I had speculated on what my potential talent might be, explored every wild possibility I could conceive of and found none productive of even an ambiguous result with which I could fool myself. As I approached adulthood, I began to concede that I was probably nothing more than what I seemed to be—a simple psi-negative. Yet, from time to time, hope surged up again, as it had today, in spite of my knowledge that my hope was an impossibility. Who ever heard of latent psi powers showing themselves in an individual as old as twenty-six?
I was almost alone in the parks where I used to walk, because people liked to commune with one another those days rather than with nature. Even gardening had very little popularity. But I found myself most at home in those woodland—or, rather, pseudo-woodland—surroundings, able to identify more readily with the trees and flowers than I could with my own kind. A fallen tree or a broken blossom would excite more sympathy from me than the minor catastrophes that will beset any household, no matter how gifted, and I would shy away from bloody noses or cut fingers, thus giving myself a reputation for callousness as well as extrasensory imbecility.
However, I was no more callous in steering clear of human breakdowns than I was in not shedding tears over the household machines when they broke down, for I felt no more closely akin to my parents and siblings than I did to the mechanisms that served and, sometimes, failed us.
On that day, I walked farther than I had intended and, by the time I got back home, I found the rest of my family had returned before me. They seemed to be excited about something and were surprised to see me so calm.
"Aren't you even interested in anything outside your own immediate concerns, Kev?" Sylvia demanded, despite Father's efforts to shush her.
"Can't you remember that Kev isn't able to receive the tellies?" Tim shot back at her. "He probably doesn't even know what's happened."
"Well, what did happen?" I asked, trying not to snap.
"One starship got back from Alpha Centauri," Danny said excitedly.
"There are two inhabited Earth-type planets there!"
This was for me; this was it at last! I tried not to show my enthusiasm, though I knew that was futile. My relatives could keep their thoughts and emotions from me; I couldn't keep mine from them.
"What kind of life inhabits them? Humanoid?"
"Uh-uh." Danny shook his head. "And hostile. The crew of the starship says they were attacked immediately on landing. When they turned and left, they were followed here by one of the alien ships. Must be a pretty advanced race to have spaceships. Anyhow, the extraterrestrial ship headed back as soon as it got a fix on where ours was going."
"But if they're hostile," I said thoughtfully, "it might mean war."
"Of course. That's why everybody's so wrought up. We hope it's peace, but we'll have to prepare for war just in case."
There hadn't been a war on Earth for well over a hundred years, but we hadn't been so foolish as to obliterate all knowledge of military techniques and weapons. The alien ship wouldn't be able to come back with reinforcements—if such were its intention—in less than six months. This meant time to get together a stockpile of weapons, though we had no idea of how effective our defenses would be against the aliens' armament.
They might have strange and terrible weapons against which we would be powerless. On the other hand, our side would have the benefits of telekinetically guided missiles, teleported saboteurs, telepaths to pick up the alien strategy, and prognosticators to determine the outcome of each battle and see whether it was worth fighting in the first place.
Everybody on Earth hoped for peace. Everybody, that is, except me. I had been unable to achieve any sense of identity with the world in which I lived, and it was almost worth the loss of personal survival to know that my own smug species could look silly against a still more talented race.
"It isn't so much our defense that worries me," my mother muttered, "as lack of adequate medical machinery. War is bound to mean casualties and there aren't enough cure-alls on the planet to take care of them. It's useless to expect the government to build more right now; they'll be too busy producing weapons. Sylvia, you'd better take a leave of absence from your job and come down to Psycho Center to learn first-aid techniques. And you too, Kevin," she added, obviously a little surprised herself at what she was saying. "Probably you'd be even better at it than Sylvia since you aren't sensitive to other people's pain."
I looked at her.
"It is an ill wind," she agreed, smiling wryly, "but don't let me catch you thinking that way, Kevin. Can't you see it would be better that there should be no war and you should remain useless?"
I couldn't see it, of course, and she knew that, with her wretched talent for stripping away my feeble attempts at privacy. Psi-powers usually included some ability to form a mental shield; being without one, I was necessarily devoid of the other.
My attitude didn't matter, though, because it was definitely war. The aliens came back with a fleet clearly bent on our annihilation—even the 'paths couldn't figure out their motives, for the thought pattern was entirely different from ours—and the war was on.
I had enjoyed learning first-aid; it was the first time I had ever worked with people as an equal. And I was good at it because psi-powers aren't much of an advantage there. Telekinesis maybe a little, but I was big enough to lift anybody without needing any superhuman abilities—normal human abilities, rather.
"Gee, Mr. Faraday," one of the other students breathed, "you're so strong. And without 'kinesis or anything."
I looked at her and liked what I saw. She was blonde and pretty. "My name's not Mr. Faraday," I said. "It's Kevin."
"My name's Lucy," she giggled.
No girl had ever giggled at me in that way before. Immediately I started to envision a beautiful future for the two of us, then flushed when I realized that she might be a telepath. But she was winding a tourniquet around the arm of another member of the class with apparent unconcern.
"Hey, quit that!" the windee yelled. "You're making it too tight! I'll be mortified!"
So Lucy was obviously not a telepath. Later I found out she was only a low-grade telesensitive—just a poetess—so I had nothing to worry about as far as having my thoughts read went. I was a little afraid of Sylvia's kidding me about my first romance, but, as it happened, she got interested in one of the guys who was taking the class with us, and she was not only too busy to be bothered with me, but in too vulnerable a position herself.
However, when the actual bombs—or their alien equivalent—struck near our town, I wasn't nearly so happy, especially after they started carrying the wounded into the Psycho Center, which had been turned into a hospital for the duration. I took one look at the gory scene—I had never seen anybody really injured before; few people had, as a matter of fact—and started for the door. But Mother was already blocking the way. It was easy to see from which side of the family Tim had got his talent for prognostication.
"If the telepaths who can pick up all the pain can stand this, Kevin," she said, " you certainly can." And there was no kindness at all in the you .
She gave me a shove toward the nearest stretcher. "Go on—now's your chance to show you're of some use in this world."
Gritting my teeth, I turned to the man on the stretcher. Something had pretty near torn half his face away. It was all there, but not in the right place, and it wasn't pretty. I turned away, caught my mother's eye, and then I didn't even dare to throw up. I looked at that smashed face again and all the first-aid lessons I'd had flew out of my head as if some super-psi had plucked them from me.
The man was bleeding terribly. I had never seen blood pouring out like that before. The first thing to do, I figured sickly, was mop it up. I wet a sponge and dabbed gingerly at the face, but my hands were shaking so hard that the sponge slipped and my fingers were on the raw gaping wound. I could feel the warm viscosity of the blood and nothing, not even my mother, could keep my meal down this time, I thought.
Mother had uttered a sound of exasperation as I dropped the sponge. I could hear her coming toward me. Then I heard her gasp. I looked at my patient and my mouth dropped open. For suddenly there was no wound, no wound at all—just a little blood and the fellow's face was whole again. Not even a scar.
"Wha—wha happened?" he asked. "It doesn't hurt any more!"
He touched his cheek and looked up at me with frightened eyes. And I was frightened, too—too frightened to be sick, too frightened to do anything but stare witlessly at him.
"Touch some of the others, quick!" my mother commanded, pushing astounded attendants away from stretchers.
I touched broken limbs and torn bodies and shattered heads, and they were whole again right away. Everybody in the room was looking at me in the way I had always dreamed of being looked at. Lucy was opening and shutting her beautiful mouth like a beautiful fish. In fact, the whole thing was just like a dream, except that I was awake. I couldn't have imagined all those horrors.
But the horrors soon weren't horrors any more. I began to find them almost pleasing; the worse a wound was, the more I appreciated it. There was so much more satisfaction, virtually an esthetic thrill, in seeing a horrible jagged tear smooth away, heal, not in days, as it would have done under the cure-all, but in seconds.
"Timothy was right," my mother said, her eyes filled with tears, "and I was wrong ever to have doubted. You have a gift, son—" and she said the word son loud and clear so that everybody could hear it—"the greatest gift of all, that of healing." She looked at me proudly. And Lucy and the others looked at me as if I were a god or something.
I felt ... well, good.
"I wonder why we never thought of healing as a potential psi-power," my mother said to me later, when I was catching a snatch of rest and she was lighting cigarettes and offering me cups of coffee in an attempt to make up twenty-six years of indifference, perhaps dislike, all at once.
"The ability to heal is recorded in history, only we never paid much attention to it."
"Recorded?" I asked, a little jealously.
"Of course," she smiled. "Remember the King's Evil?"
I should have known without her reminding me, after all the old books I had read. "Scrofula, wasn't it? They called it that because the touch of certain kings was supposed to cure it ... and other diseases, too, I guess."
She nodded. "Certain people must have had the healing power and that's probably why they originally got to be the rulers."
In a very short time, I became a pretty important person. All the other deficients in the world were tested for the healing power and all of them turned out negative. I proved to be the only human healer alive, and not only that, I could work a thousand times more efficiently and effectively than any of the machines. The government built a hospital just for my work! Wounded people were ferried there from all over the world and I cured them. I could do practically everything except raise the dead and sometimes I wondered whether, with a little practice, I wouldn't be able to do even that.
When I came to my new office, whom did I find waiting there for me but Lucy, her trim figure enhanced by a snug blue and white uniform. "I'm your assistant, Kev," she said shyly.
I looked at her. "You are?"
"I—I hope you want me," she went on, coyness now mixing with apprehension.
I gave her shoulder a squeeze. "I do want you, Lucy. More than I can tell you now. After all this is over, there's something more I want to say. But right now—" I clapped her arm—"there's a job to be done."
"Yes, Kevin," she said, glaring at me for some reason I didn't have time to investigate or interpret at the moment. My patients were waiting for me.
They gave me everything else I could possibly need, except enough sleep, and I myself didn't want that. I wanted to heal. I wanted to show my fellow human beings that, though I couldn't receive or transmit thoughts or foretell the future or move things with my mind, all those powers were useless without life, and that was what I could give.
I took pride in my work. It was good to stop pain and ugliness, to know that, if it weren't for me, these people would be dead or permanently disfigured. In a sense, they were—well, my children; I felt a warm glow of affection toward them.
They felt the same way toward me. I knew because the secret of the hospital soon leaked out—during all those years of peace, the government had lost whatever facility it had for keeping secrets—and people used to come in droves, hoping for a glimpse of me.
The government pointed out that such crowds outside the building might attract the enemy's attention. I was the most important individual on Earth, they told my followers, and my safety couldn't be risked. The human race at this stage was pretty docile. The crowds went away. And it was right that they should; I didn't want to be risked any more than they wanted to risk me.
Plenty of people did come to see me officially—the President, generals, all kinds of big wheels, bringing citations, medals and other obsolete honors they'd revived primarily for me. It was wonderful. I began to love everybody.
"Don't you think you're putting too much of yourself into this, Kev?" Lucy asked me one day.
I gave her an incredulous glance. "You mean I shouldn't help people?"
"Of course you should help them. I didn't mean anything like that. Just ... well, you're getting too bound up in your work."
"Why shouldn't I be?" Then the truth, as I thought, dawned on me. "Are you jealous, Lucy?"
She lowered her eyes. "Not only that, but the war's bound to come to an end, you know, and—"
It was the first part of her sentence that interested me. "Why, do you mean—"
And just then a fresh batch of casualties arrived and I had to tend to them. For the next few days, I was so busy, I didn't get the chance to have the long talk with Lucy I'd wanted....
Then, after only four months, the war suddenly stopped. It seemed that the aliens' weapons, despite their undeniable mysteriousness, were not equal to ours. And they had the added disadvantage of being light-years away from home base. So the remnant of their fleet took off and blew itself up just outside of Mars, which we understood to be the equivalent of unconditional surrender. And it was; we never heard from the Centaurians again.
Peace once more. I had a little mopping up to do at the hospital; then I collected my possessions and went back home after a dignitary—only the Vice President this time—had thanked me on behalf of a grateful country. I wasn't needed any more.
Question:
How are people without psi-powers seen in this society?
Answer:
|
[
"Kevin thinks he is one of the 5% of the population that does not have psi-powers, and we can learn a lot about how society sees this group of people by his interactions with his peers and his family. Before realizing he had powers, Kevin had to stay at home to take care of the house. His family knew that he would not be able to make much money in any kind of job without powers, and it would shame their family for him to be working one of those jobs. Even when he is at home, he's often referred to as slow or useless. He has never had many friends because his peers hated playing sports with him, since they couldn't communicate with their minds, and so Kevin was always at a disadvantage. Similarly, even though he was likeable, girls never wanted to date him. He was also left out of other aspects of society, because a lot of news was delivered via \"tellies\" which is received through psi-powers, so he often has to learn about the goings-on in the society from his family. Kevin learns firsthand how big of a difference it meant for how he was treated once he realized he did have powers after all.",
"People without psi powers are called psi-deficients or classified as psi-negative. They are unique in a society dominated by individuals who developed superpowers over time because of the proliferation of nuclear radiation in Earth's air. Such superpowers include telekinesis, prognostication, teleportation, and most prominently, telepathy. Almost every psi-powered individual has some amount of telepathic ability, and they can also protect themselves from interference by others with the same ability by using a mind shield. Psi-deficient individuals do not have any kind of superpower, so they are susceptible to the whims of those who do have such powers. For example, Kevin cannot read the minds or emotions of his family members, and he cannot protect his own mind or emotions from being probed by his mother and sister. Because of his lack of psi power, most of his family treats him with condescension. They tip-toe around his feelings and fail to really engage with him. Kevin does not feel loved or even liked by most of them, except his brother Tim, who offers him hope by suggesting he will discover his power sometime in the future. This is true for psi-deficients in general. They are viewed as \"throwbacks to an earlier era\" when disease and sickness crippled people in a disorderly society. Because psi-deficients have a harder time adjusting to this new society, they are seen as a kind of burden.",
"People without psi-powers are considered imbeciles and generally little use to society. Before Kev discovers his psi-power, he describes staying at home and “watching the house” as his only real contribution to the family. People with psi-powers can do things so much more quickly and efficiently than those without, that people like Kev have little chance of holding jobs in this society.\nKevin describes how most psi-powers come with the ability to put up mental shields to stop the mind from being probed. Without psi-powers, the mind is completely transparent to mental probing by telepathy, meaning their thoughts are never private. \nThere are television-like telepathic projections in the society called “tellies” that can’t be received by people without psi-powers, isolating them from current events like the discovery of the inhabited alien planets in Alpha Centauri. Kevin only learns about the discovery reported on the tellies from his siblings who have psi-powers.\n",
"Individuals who are born with psi-powers, only five percent of the general population, are truly looked down upon in this society. After radioactive testing and explosions brought out the latent psi-powers in people, society quickly changes to accommodate these superhumans. Therefore, those that don’t fit into this society are outcasts, pitied, and often seen as failures by the rest of their family. Kevin is a perfect example. Before he discovered his powers, he was unable to work a menial job due to the shame it would bring his family. So, instead, he read books the primitive way, took walks around the park since he was unable to play sports thanks to his lack of psi-powers, and managed the machines that did all the housework. He truly served no purpose in society and felt great bitterness because of it. "
] |
49838
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Jack of No Trades
By EVELYN E. SMITH
Illustrated by CAVAT
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy October 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I was psick of Psi powers, not having any. Or didn't I? Maybe they'd psee otherwise psomeday!
I walked into the dining room and collided with a floating mass of fabric, which promptly draped itself over me like a sentient shroud.
"Oh, for God's sake, Kevin!" my middle brother's voice came muffled through the folds. "If you can't help, at least don't hinder!"
I managed to struggle out of the tablecloth, even though it seemed to be trying to wrap itself around me. When Danny got excited, he lost his mental grip.
"I could help," I yelled as soon as I got my head free, "if anybody would let me and, what's more, I could set the table a damn sight faster by hand than you do with 'kinesis."
Just then Father appeared at the head of the table. He could as easily have walked downstairs as teleported, but I belonged to a family of exhibitionists. And Father tended to show off as if he were still a kid. Not that he looked his age—he was big and blond, like Danny and Tim and me, and could have passed for our older brother.
"Boys, boys!" he reproved us. "Danny, you ought to be ashamed of yourself—picking on poor Kev."
Even if it hadn't been Danny's fault, he would still have been blamed.
Nobody was ever supposed to raise a voice or a hand or a thought to poor afflicted Kev, because nature had picked on me enough. And the nicer everybody was to me, the nastier I became, since only when they lost their tempers could I get—or so I believed—their true attitude toward me.
How else could I tell?
"Sorry, fella," Dan apologized to me. The tablecloth spread itself out on the table. "Wrinkles," he grumbled to himself. "Wrinkles. And I had it so nice and smooth before. Mother will be furious."
"If she were going to be furious, she'd be furious already," Father reminded him sadly. It must be tough to be married to a deep-probe telepath, I thought, and I felt a sudden wave of sympathy for him. It was so seldom I got the chance to feel sorry for anyone except myself.
"But I think you'll find she understands."
"She knows, all right," Danny remarked as he went on into the kitchen,
"but I'm not sure she always understands."
I was surprised to find him so perceptive on the abstract level, because he wasn't what you might call an understanding person, either.
"There are tensions in this room," my sister announced as she slouched in, not quite awake yet, "and hatred. I could feel them all the way upstairs. And today I'm working on the Sleepsweet Mattress copy, so I must feel absolutely tranquil. Everyone will think beautiful thoughts, please."
She sat down just as a glass of orange juice was arriving at her place; Danny apparently didn't know she'd come in already. The glass bumped into the back of her neck, tilted and poured its contents over her shoulder and down her very considerable decolletage. Being a mere primitive, I couldn't help laughing.
"Danny, you fumbler!" she screamed.
Danny erupted from the kitchen. "How many times have I asked all of you not to sit down until I've got everything on the table? Always a lot of interfering busybodies getting in the way."
"I don't see why you have to set the table at all," she retorted. "A robot could do it better and faster than you. Even Kev could." She turned quickly toward me. "Oh, I am sorry, Kevin."
I didn't say anything; I was too busy pressing my hands down on the back of the chair to make my knuckles turn white.
Sylvia's face turned even whiter. "Father, stop him— stop him! He's hating again! I can't stand it!"
Father looked at me, then at her. "I don't think he can help it, Sylvia."
I grinned. "That's right—I'm just a poor atavism with no control over myself a-tall."
Finally my mother came in from the kitchen; she was an old-fashioned woman and didn't hold with robocooks. One quick glance at me gave her the complete details, even though I quickly protested, "It's illegal to probe anyone without permission."
"I used to probe you to find out when you needed your diapers changed," she said tartly, "and I'll probe you now. You should watch yourself, Sylvia—poor Kevin isn't responsible."
She didn't need to probe to get the blast of naked emotion that spurted out from me. My sister screamed and even Father looked uncomfortable. Danny stomped back into the kitchen, muttering to himself.
Mother's lips tightened. "Sylvia, go upstairs and change your dress. Kevin, do I have to make an appointment for you at the clinic again?" A psychiatrist never diagnosed members of his own family—that is, not officially; they couldn't help offering thumbnail diagnoses any more than they could help having thumbnails.
"No use," I said, deciding it was safe to drop into my chair. "Who can adjust me to an environment to which I'm fundamentally unsuited?"
"Maybe there is something physically wrong with him, Amy," my father suggested hopefully. "Maybe you should make an appointment for him at the cure-all?"
Mother shook her neatly coiffed head. "He's been to it dozens of times and he always checks out in splendid shape. None of us can spare the time to go with him again, just on an off-chance, and he could hardly be allowed to make such a long trip all by himself. Pity there isn't a machine in every community, but, then, we don't really need them."
Now that the virus diseases had been licked, people hardly ever got sick any more and, when they did, it was mostly psychosomatic. Life was so well organized that there weren't even many accidents these days. It was a safe, orderly existence for those who fitted into it—which accounted for more than ninety-five per cent of the population. The only ones who didn't adjust were those who couldn't, like me—psi-deficients, throwbacks to an earlier era. There were no physical cripples, because anybody could have a new arm or a new leg grafted on, but you couldn't graft psi powers onto an atavism or, if you could, the technique hadn't been developed yet.
"I feel a sense of impending doom brooding over this household," my youngest brother remarked cheerfully as he vaulted into his chair.
"You always do, Timothy," my mother said, unfolding her napkin. "And I must say it's not in good taste, especially at breakfast."
He reached for his juice. "Guess this is a doomed household. And what was all that emotional uproar about?"
"The usual," Sylvia said from the doorway before anyone else could answer. She slid warily into her chair. "Hey, Dan, I'm here!" she called. "If anything else comes in, it comes in manually, understand?"
"Oh, all right." Dan emerged from the kitchen with a tray of food floating ahead of him.
"The usual? Trouble with Kev?" Tim looked at me narrowly. "Somehow my sense of ominousness is connected with him."
"Well, that's perfectly natural—" Sylvia began, then stopped as Mother caught her eye.
"I didn't mean that," Tim said. "I still say Kev's got something we can't figure out."
"You've been saying that for years," Danny protested, "and he's been tested for every faculty under the Sun. He can't telepath or teleport or telekinesthesize or even teletype. He can't precognize or prefix or prepossess. He can't—"
"Strictly a bundle of no-talent, that's me," I interrupted, trying to keep my animal feelings from getting the better of me. That was how my family thought of me, I knew—as an animal, and not a very lovable one, either.
"No," Tim said, "he's just got something we haven't developed a test for. It'll come out some day, you'll see." He smiled at me.
I smiled at him gratefully; he was the only member of my family who really seemed to like me in spite of my handicap. "It won't work, Tim. I know you're trying to be kind, but—"
"He's not saying it just to be kind," my mother put in. "He means it. Not that I want to arouse false hopes, Kevin," she added with grim scrupulousness. "Tim's awfully young yet and I wouldn't trust his extracurricular prognostications too far."
Nonetheless, I couldn't help feeling a feeble renewal of old hopes. After all, young or not, Tim was a hell of a good prognosticator; he wouldn't have risen so rapidly to the position he held in the Weather Bureau if he hadn't been pretty near tops in foreboding.
Mother smiled sadly at my thoughts, but I didn't let that discourage me. As Danny had said, she knew but she didn't really understand . Nobody, for all of his or her psi power, really understood me.
Breakfast was finally over and the rest of my family dispersed to their various jobs. Father simply took his briefcase and disappeared—he was a traveling salesman and he had a morning appointment clear across the continent. The others, not having his particular gift, had to take the helibus to their different destinations. Mother, as I said, was a psychiatrist. Sylvia wrote advertising copy. Tim was a meteorologist. Dan was a junior executive in a furniture moving company and expected a promotion to senior rank as soon as he achieved a better mental grip on pianos.
Only I had no job, no profession, no place in life. Of course there were certain menial tasks a psi-negative could perform, but my parents would have none of them—partly for my sake, but mostly for the sake of their own community standing.
"We don't need what little money Kev could bring in," my father always said. "I can afford to support my family. He can stay home and take care of the house."
And that's what I did. Not that there was much to do except call a techno whenever one of the servomechanisms missed a beat. True enough, those things had to be watched mighty carefully because, if they broke down, it sometimes took days before the repair and/or replacement robots could come. There never were enough of them because ours was a constructive society. Still, being a machine-sitter isn't very much of a career. And every function that wasn't the prerogative of a machine could be done ten times more quickly and efficiently by some member of my family than I could do it. If I went ahead and did something anyway, they would just do it all over again when they got home.
So I had nothing to do all day. I had a special dispensation to take books out of the local Archives, because I was a deficient and couldn't receive the tellie programs. Almost everybody on Earth was telepathic to some degree and could get the amplified projections even if he couldn't transmit or receive with his natural powers. But I got nothing. I had to derive all my recreation from reading, and you can get awfully tired of books, especially when they're all at least a hundred years old and written by primitives. I could borrow sound tapes, but they also bored me after a while.
I thought maybe I could develop a talent for composing or painting, which would classify me as a telesensitive—artistic ability being considered as the oldest, if least important, psi power—but I couldn't even do anything like that.
About all there was left for me was to take long walks. Athletics were out of the question; I couldn't compete with psi-boys and they didn't want to compete with me. All the people in the neighborhood knew me and were nice to me, but I didn't need to be a 'path to tell what they were saying to one another when I hove into sight. "There's that oldest Faraday boy. Pity, such a talented family, to have a defective."
I didn't have a girl, either. Although some of them were sort of attracted to me—I could see that—they could hardly go out with me without exposing themselves to ridicule. In their sandals, I would have done the same thing, but that didn't stop me from hating them.
I wished I had been born a couple of hundred years ago—before people started playing around with nuclear energy and filling the air with radiations that they were afraid would turn human beings into hideous monsters. Instead, they developed the psi powers that had always been latent in the species until we developed into a race of supermen. I don't know why I say we —in 1960 or so, I might have been considered superior, but in 2102 I was just the Faradays' idiot boy.
Exploring space should have been my hope. If there had been anything useful or interesting on any of the other planets, I might have found a niche for myself there. In totally new surroundings, the psi powers geared to another environment might not be an advantage. But by the time I was ten, it was discovered that the other planets were just barren hunks of rock, with pressures and climates and atmospheres drastically unsuited to human life. A year or so before, the hyperdrive had been developed on Earth and ships had been sent out to explore the stars, but I had no hope left in that direction any more.
I was an atavism in a world of peace and plenty. Peace, because people couldn't indulge in war or even crime with so many telepaths running around—not because, I told myself, the capacity for primitive behavior wasn't just as latent in everybody else as the psi talent seemed latent in me. Tim must be right, I thought—I must have some undreamed-of power that only the right circumstances would bring out. But what was that power?
For years I had speculated on what my potential talent might be, explored every wild possibility I could conceive of and found none productive of even an ambiguous result with which I could fool myself. As I approached adulthood, I began to concede that I was probably nothing more than what I seemed to be—a simple psi-negative. Yet, from time to time, hope surged up again, as it had today, in spite of my knowledge that my hope was an impossibility. Who ever heard of latent psi powers showing themselves in an individual as old as twenty-six?
I was almost alone in the parks where I used to walk, because people liked to commune with one another those days rather than with nature. Even gardening had very little popularity. But I found myself most at home in those woodland—or, rather, pseudo-woodland—surroundings, able to identify more readily with the trees and flowers than I could with my own kind. A fallen tree or a broken blossom would excite more sympathy from me than the minor catastrophes that will beset any household, no matter how gifted, and I would shy away from bloody noses or cut fingers, thus giving myself a reputation for callousness as well as extrasensory imbecility.
However, I was no more callous in steering clear of human breakdowns than I was in not shedding tears over the household machines when they broke down, for I felt no more closely akin to my parents and siblings than I did to the mechanisms that served and, sometimes, failed us.
On that day, I walked farther than I had intended and, by the time I got back home, I found the rest of my family had returned before me. They seemed to be excited about something and were surprised to see me so calm.
"Aren't you even interested in anything outside your own immediate concerns, Kev?" Sylvia demanded, despite Father's efforts to shush her.
"Can't you remember that Kev isn't able to receive the tellies?" Tim shot back at her. "He probably doesn't even know what's happened."
"Well, what did happen?" I asked, trying not to snap.
"One starship got back from Alpha Centauri," Danny said excitedly.
"There are two inhabited Earth-type planets there!"
This was for me; this was it at last! I tried not to show my enthusiasm, though I knew that was futile. My relatives could keep their thoughts and emotions from me; I couldn't keep mine from them.
"What kind of life inhabits them? Humanoid?"
"Uh-uh." Danny shook his head. "And hostile. The crew of the starship says they were attacked immediately on landing. When they turned and left, they were followed here by one of the alien ships. Must be a pretty advanced race to have spaceships. Anyhow, the extraterrestrial ship headed back as soon as it got a fix on where ours was going."
"But if they're hostile," I said thoughtfully, "it might mean war."
"Of course. That's why everybody's so wrought up. We hope it's peace, but we'll have to prepare for war just in case."
There hadn't been a war on Earth for well over a hundred years, but we hadn't been so foolish as to obliterate all knowledge of military techniques and weapons. The alien ship wouldn't be able to come back with reinforcements—if such were its intention—in less than six months. This meant time to get together a stockpile of weapons, though we had no idea of how effective our defenses would be against the aliens' armament.
They might have strange and terrible weapons against which we would be powerless. On the other hand, our side would have the benefits of telekinetically guided missiles, teleported saboteurs, telepaths to pick up the alien strategy, and prognosticators to determine the outcome of each battle and see whether it was worth fighting in the first place.
Everybody on Earth hoped for peace. Everybody, that is, except me. I had been unable to achieve any sense of identity with the world in which I lived, and it was almost worth the loss of personal survival to know that my own smug species could look silly against a still more talented race.
"It isn't so much our defense that worries me," my mother muttered, "as lack of adequate medical machinery. War is bound to mean casualties and there aren't enough cure-alls on the planet to take care of them. It's useless to expect the government to build more right now; they'll be too busy producing weapons. Sylvia, you'd better take a leave of absence from your job and come down to Psycho Center to learn first-aid techniques. And you too, Kevin," she added, obviously a little surprised herself at what she was saying. "Probably you'd be even better at it than Sylvia since you aren't sensitive to other people's pain."
I looked at her.
"It is an ill wind," she agreed, smiling wryly, "but don't let me catch you thinking that way, Kevin. Can't you see it would be better that there should be no war and you should remain useless?"
I couldn't see it, of course, and she knew that, with her wretched talent for stripping away my feeble attempts at privacy. Psi-powers usually included some ability to form a mental shield; being without one, I was necessarily devoid of the other.
My attitude didn't matter, though, because it was definitely war. The aliens came back with a fleet clearly bent on our annihilation—even the 'paths couldn't figure out their motives, for the thought pattern was entirely different from ours—and the war was on.
I had enjoyed learning first-aid; it was the first time I had ever worked with people as an equal. And I was good at it because psi-powers aren't much of an advantage there. Telekinesis maybe a little, but I was big enough to lift anybody without needing any superhuman abilities—normal human abilities, rather.
"Gee, Mr. Faraday," one of the other students breathed, "you're so strong. And without 'kinesis or anything."
I looked at her and liked what I saw. She was blonde and pretty. "My name's not Mr. Faraday," I said. "It's Kevin."
"My name's Lucy," she giggled.
No girl had ever giggled at me in that way before. Immediately I started to envision a beautiful future for the two of us, then flushed when I realized that she might be a telepath. But she was winding a tourniquet around the arm of another member of the class with apparent unconcern.
"Hey, quit that!" the windee yelled. "You're making it too tight! I'll be mortified!"
So Lucy was obviously not a telepath. Later I found out she was only a low-grade telesensitive—just a poetess—so I had nothing to worry about as far as having my thoughts read went. I was a little afraid of Sylvia's kidding me about my first romance, but, as it happened, she got interested in one of the guys who was taking the class with us, and she was not only too busy to be bothered with me, but in too vulnerable a position herself.
However, when the actual bombs—or their alien equivalent—struck near our town, I wasn't nearly so happy, especially after they started carrying the wounded into the Psycho Center, which had been turned into a hospital for the duration. I took one look at the gory scene—I had never seen anybody really injured before; few people had, as a matter of fact—and started for the door. But Mother was already blocking the way. It was easy to see from which side of the family Tim had got his talent for prognostication.
"If the telepaths who can pick up all the pain can stand this, Kevin," she said, " you certainly can." And there was no kindness at all in the you .
She gave me a shove toward the nearest stretcher. "Go on—now's your chance to show you're of some use in this world."
Gritting my teeth, I turned to the man on the stretcher. Something had pretty near torn half his face away. It was all there, but not in the right place, and it wasn't pretty. I turned away, caught my mother's eye, and then I didn't even dare to throw up. I looked at that smashed face again and all the first-aid lessons I'd had flew out of my head as if some super-psi had plucked them from me.
The man was bleeding terribly. I had never seen blood pouring out like that before. The first thing to do, I figured sickly, was mop it up. I wet a sponge and dabbed gingerly at the face, but my hands were shaking so hard that the sponge slipped and my fingers were on the raw gaping wound. I could feel the warm viscosity of the blood and nothing, not even my mother, could keep my meal down this time, I thought.
Mother had uttered a sound of exasperation as I dropped the sponge. I could hear her coming toward me. Then I heard her gasp. I looked at my patient and my mouth dropped open. For suddenly there was no wound, no wound at all—just a little blood and the fellow's face was whole again. Not even a scar.
"Wha—wha happened?" he asked. "It doesn't hurt any more!"
He touched his cheek and looked up at me with frightened eyes. And I was frightened, too—too frightened to be sick, too frightened to do anything but stare witlessly at him.
"Touch some of the others, quick!" my mother commanded, pushing astounded attendants away from stretchers.
I touched broken limbs and torn bodies and shattered heads, and they were whole again right away. Everybody in the room was looking at me in the way I had always dreamed of being looked at. Lucy was opening and shutting her beautiful mouth like a beautiful fish. In fact, the whole thing was just like a dream, except that I was awake. I couldn't have imagined all those horrors.
But the horrors soon weren't horrors any more. I began to find them almost pleasing; the worse a wound was, the more I appreciated it. There was so much more satisfaction, virtually an esthetic thrill, in seeing a horrible jagged tear smooth away, heal, not in days, as it would have done under the cure-all, but in seconds.
"Timothy was right," my mother said, her eyes filled with tears, "and I was wrong ever to have doubted. You have a gift, son—" and she said the word son loud and clear so that everybody could hear it—"the greatest gift of all, that of healing." She looked at me proudly. And Lucy and the others looked at me as if I were a god or something.
I felt ... well, good.
"I wonder why we never thought of healing as a potential psi-power," my mother said to me later, when I was catching a snatch of rest and she was lighting cigarettes and offering me cups of coffee in an attempt to make up twenty-six years of indifference, perhaps dislike, all at once.
"The ability to heal is recorded in history, only we never paid much attention to it."
"Recorded?" I asked, a little jealously.
"Of course," she smiled. "Remember the King's Evil?"
I should have known without her reminding me, after all the old books I had read. "Scrofula, wasn't it? They called it that because the touch of certain kings was supposed to cure it ... and other diseases, too, I guess."
She nodded. "Certain people must have had the healing power and that's probably why they originally got to be the rulers."
In a very short time, I became a pretty important person. All the other deficients in the world were tested for the healing power and all of them turned out negative. I proved to be the only human healer alive, and not only that, I could work a thousand times more efficiently and effectively than any of the machines. The government built a hospital just for my work! Wounded people were ferried there from all over the world and I cured them. I could do practically everything except raise the dead and sometimes I wondered whether, with a little practice, I wouldn't be able to do even that.
When I came to my new office, whom did I find waiting there for me but Lucy, her trim figure enhanced by a snug blue and white uniform. "I'm your assistant, Kev," she said shyly.
I looked at her. "You are?"
"I—I hope you want me," she went on, coyness now mixing with apprehension.
I gave her shoulder a squeeze. "I do want you, Lucy. More than I can tell you now. After all this is over, there's something more I want to say. But right now—" I clapped her arm—"there's a job to be done."
"Yes, Kevin," she said, glaring at me for some reason I didn't have time to investigate or interpret at the moment. My patients were waiting for me.
They gave me everything else I could possibly need, except enough sleep, and I myself didn't want that. I wanted to heal. I wanted to show my fellow human beings that, though I couldn't receive or transmit thoughts or foretell the future or move things with my mind, all those powers were useless without life, and that was what I could give.
I took pride in my work. It was good to stop pain and ugliness, to know that, if it weren't for me, these people would be dead or permanently disfigured. In a sense, they were—well, my children; I felt a warm glow of affection toward them.
They felt the same way toward me. I knew because the secret of the hospital soon leaked out—during all those years of peace, the government had lost whatever facility it had for keeping secrets—and people used to come in droves, hoping for a glimpse of me.
The government pointed out that such crowds outside the building might attract the enemy's attention. I was the most important individual on Earth, they told my followers, and my safety couldn't be risked. The human race at this stage was pretty docile. The crowds went away. And it was right that they should; I didn't want to be risked any more than they wanted to risk me.
Plenty of people did come to see me officially—the President, generals, all kinds of big wheels, bringing citations, medals and other obsolete honors they'd revived primarily for me. It was wonderful. I began to love everybody.
"Don't you think you're putting too much of yourself into this, Kev?" Lucy asked me one day.
I gave her an incredulous glance. "You mean I shouldn't help people?"
"Of course you should help them. I didn't mean anything like that. Just ... well, you're getting too bound up in your work."
"Why shouldn't I be?" Then the truth, as I thought, dawned on me. "Are you jealous, Lucy?"
She lowered her eyes. "Not only that, but the war's bound to come to an end, you know, and—"
It was the first part of her sentence that interested me. "Why, do you mean—"
And just then a fresh batch of casualties arrived and I had to tend to them. For the next few days, I was so busy, I didn't get the chance to have the long talk with Lucy I'd wanted....
Then, after only four months, the war suddenly stopped. It seemed that the aliens' weapons, despite their undeniable mysteriousness, were not equal to ours. And they had the added disadvantage of being light-years away from home base. So the remnant of their fleet took off and blew itself up just outside of Mars, which we understood to be the equivalent of unconditional surrender. And it was; we never heard from the Centaurians again.
Peace once more. I had a little mopping up to do at the hospital; then I collected my possessions and went back home after a dignitary—only the Vice President this time—had thanked me on behalf of a grateful country. I wasn't needed any more.
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What is the significance of memories in the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Galactic Ghost by Walter Kubilius.
Relevant chunks:
GALACTIC GHOST
By WALTER KUBILIUS
The Flying Dutchman of space was a harbinger of death. But Willard wasn't superstitions. He had seen the phantom—and lived.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The only friend in space Willard had ever known was dying. Dobbin's lips were parched and his breath came spasmodically. The tips of his fingers that had so many times caressed the control board of the Mary Lou were now black as meteor dust.
"We'll never see Earth again," he whispered feebly, plucked weakly at the cover.
"Nonsense!" Willard broke in hurriedly, hoping that the dying man would not see through the lie. "We've got the sun's gravity helping us drift back to Earth! We'll be there soon! You'll get well soon and we'll start to work again on a new idea of mine...." His voice trailed helplessly away and the words were lost. It was no use.
The sick man did not hear him. Two tears rolled down his cheeks. His face contorted as he tried to withhold a sob.
"To see Earth again!" he said weakly. "To walk on solid ground once more!"
"Four years!" Willard echoed faintly. He knew how his space mate felt. No man can spend four years away from his home planet, and fail to be anguished. A man could live without friends, without fortune, but no man could live without Earth. He was like Anteus, for only the feel of the solid ground under his feet could give him courage to go among the stars.
Willard also knew what he dared not admit to himself. He, too, like Dobbin, would never see Earth again. Perhaps, some thousand years from now, some lonely wanderers would find their battered hulk of a ship in space and bring them home again.
Dobbin motioned to him and, in answer to a last request, Willard lifted him so he faced the port window for a final look at the panorama of the stars.
Dobbin's eyes, dimming and half closed, took in the vast play of the heavens and in his mind he relived the days when in a frail craft he first crossed interstellar space. But for Earth-loneliness Dobbin would die a happy man, knowing that he had lived as much and as deeply as any man could.
Silently the two men watched. Dobbin's eyes opened suddenly and a tremor seized his body. He turned painfully and looked at Willard.
"I saw it!" his voice cracked, trembling.
"Saw what?"
"It's true! It's true! It comes whenever a space man dies! It's there!"
"In heaven's name, Dobbin," Willard demanded, "What do you see? What is it?"
Dobbin lifted his dark bony arm and pointed out into star-studded space.
"The Ghost Ship!"
Something clicked in Willard's memory. He had heard it spoken of in whispers by drunken space men and professional tellers of fairy tales. But he had never put any stock in them. In some forgotten corner of Dobbin's mind the legend of the Ghost Ship must have lain, to come up in this time of delirium.
"There's nothing there," he said firmly.
"It's come—for me!" Dobbin cried. He turned his head slowly toward Willard, tried to say something and then fell back upon the pillow. His mouth was open and his eyes stared unseeing ahead. Dobbin was now one with the vanished pioneers of yesterday. Willard was alone.
For two days, reckoned in Earth time, Willard kept vigil over the body of his friend and space mate. When the time was up he did what was necessary and nothing remained of Harry Dobbin, the best friend he had ever had. The atoms of his body were now pure energy stored away in the useless motors of the Mary Lou .
The weeks that followed were like a blur in Willard's mind. Though the ship was utterly incapable of motion, the chance meteor that damaged it had spared the convertors and assimilators. Through constant care and attention the frail balance that meant life or death could be kept. The substance of waste and refuse was torn down and rebuilt as precious food and air. It was even possible to create more than was needed.
When this was done, Willard immediately regretted it. For it would be then that the days and the weeks would roll by endlessly. Sometimes he thought he would go mad when, sitting at the useless control board, which was his habit, he would stare for hours and hours in the direction of the Sun where he knew the Earth would be. A great loneliness would then seize upon him and an agony that no man had ever known would tear at his heart. He would then turn away, full of despair and hopeless pain.
Two years after Dobbin's death a strange thing happened. Willard was sitting at his accustomed place facing the unmoving vista of the stars. A chance glance at Orion's belt froze him still. A star had flickered! Distinctly, as if a light veil had been placed over it and then lifted, it dimmed and turned bright again. What strange phenomena was this? He watched and then another star faded momentarily in the exact fashion. And then a third! And a fourth! And a fifth!
Willard's heart gave a leap and the lethargy of two years vanished instantly. Here, at last, was something to do. It might be only a few minutes before he would understand what it was, but those few minutes would help while away the maddening long hours. Perhaps it was a mass of fine meteorites or a pocket of gas that did not disperse, or even a moving warp of space-light. Whatever it was, it was a phenomena worth investigating and Willard seized upon it as a dying man seizes upon the last flashing seconds of life.
Willard traced its course by the flickering stars and gradually plotted its semi-circular course. It was not from the solar system but, instead, headed toward it. A rapid check-up on his calculations caused his heart to beat in ever quickening excitement. Whatever it was, it would reach the Mary Lou .
Again he looked out the port. Unquestionably the faint mass was nearing his ship. It was round in shape and almost invisible. The stars, though dimmed, could still be seen through it. There was something about its form that reminded him of an old-fashioned rocket ship. It resembled one of those that had done pioneer service in the lanes forty years ago or more. Resembled one? It was one! Unquestionably, though half-invisible and like a piece of glass immersed in water, it was a rocket ship.
But the instruments on the control board could not lie. The presence of any material body within a hundred thousand miles would be revealed. But the needle on the gauge did not quiver. Nothing indicated the presence of a ship. But the evidence of his eyes was incontestable.
Or was it? Doubt gripped him. Did the loneliness of all these years in space twist his mind till he was imagining the appearance of faint ghost-like rocket ships?
The thought shot through his mind like a thunder bolt. Ghost Ship! Was this the thing that Dobbin had seen before he died? But that was impossible. Ghost Ships existed nowhere but in legends and tall tales told by men drunk with the liquors of Mars.
"There is no ship there. There is no ship there," Willard told himself over and over again as he looked at the vague outline of the ship, now motionless a few hundred miles away.
Deep within him a faint voice cried, " It's come—for me! " but Willard stilled it. This was no fantasy. There was a scientific reason for it. There must be! Or should there be? Throughout all Earth history there had been Ghost Ships sailing the Seven Seas—ships doomed to roam forever because their crew broke some unbreakable law. If this was true for the ships of the seas, why not for the ships of empty space?
He looked again at the strange ship. It was motionless. At least it was not nearing him. Willard could see nothing but its vague outline. A moment later he could discern a faint motion. It was turning! The Ghost Ship was turning back! Unconsciously Willard reached out with his hand as if to hold it back, for when it was gone he would be alone again.
But the Ghost Ship went on. Its outline became smaller and smaller, fainter and fainter.
Trembling, Willard turned away from the window as he saw the rocket recede and vanish into the emptiness of space. Once more the dreaded loneliness of the stars descended upon him.
Seven years passed and back on Earth in a small newspaper that Willard would never see there was published a small item:
" Arden, Rocketport —Thirteen years ago the Space Ship Mary Lou under John Willard and Larry Dobbin left the Rocket Port for the exploration of an alleged planetoid beyond Pluto. The ship has not been seen or heard from since. J. Willard, II, son of the lost explorer, is planning the manufacture of a super-size exploration ship to be called Mary Lou II , in memory of his father."
Memories die hard. A man who is alone in space with nothing but the cold friendship of star-light looks back upon memories as the only things both dear and precious to him.
Willard, master and lone survivor of the Mary Lou , knew this well for he had tried to rip the memories of Earth out of his heart to ease the anguish of solitude within him. But it was a thing that could not be done.
And so it was that each night—for Willard did not give up the Earth-habit of keeping time—Willard dreamed of the days he had known on Earth.
In his mind's eye, he saw himself walking the streets of Arden and feeling the crunch of snow or the soft slap of rainwater under his feet. He heard again, in his mind, the voices of friends he knew. How beautiful and perfect was each voice! How filled with warmth and friendship! There was the voice of his beautiful wife whom he would never see again. There were the gruff and deep voices of his co-workers and scientists.
Above all there were the voices of the cities, and the fields and the shops where he had worked. All these had their individual voices. Odd that he had never realized it before, but things become clearer to a man who is alone.
Clearer? Perhaps not. Perhaps they become more clouded. How could he, for example, explain the phenomena of the Ghost Ship? Was it really only a product of his imagination? What of all the others who had seen it? Was it possible for many different men under many different situations to have the same exact illusion? Reason denied that. But perhaps space itself denies reason.
Grimly he retraced the legend of the Ghost Ship. A chance phrase here and a story there put together all that he knew:
Doomed for all eternity to wander in the empty star-lanes, the Ghost Ship haunts the Solar System that gave it birth. And this is its tragedy, for it is the home of spacemen who can never go home again. When your last measure of fuel is burnt and your ship becomes a lifeless hulk—the Ghost will come—for you!
And this is all there was to the legend. Merely a tale of some fairy ship told to amuse and to while away the days of a star-voyage. Bitterly, Willard dismissed it from his mind.
Another year of loneliness passed. And still another. Willard lost track of the days. It was difficult to keep time for to what purpose could time be kept. Here in space there was no time, nor was there reason for clocks and records. Days and months and years became meaningless words for things that once may have had meaning. About three years must have passed since his last record in the log book of the Mary Lou . At that time, he remembered, he suffered another great disappointment. On the port side there suddenly appeared a full-sized rocket ship. For many minutes Willard was half-mad with joy thinking that a passing ship was ready to rescue him. But the joy was short-lived, for the rocket ship abruptly turned away and slowly disappeared. As Willard watched it go away he saw the light of a distant star through the space ship. A heart-breaking agony fell upon him. It was not a ship from Earth. It was the Ghost Ship, mocking him.
Since then Willard did not look out the window of his craft. A vague fear troubled him that perhaps the Ghost Ship might be here, waiting and watching, and that he would go mad if he saw it.
How many years passed he could not tell. But this he knew. He was no longer a young man. Perhaps fifteen years has disappeared into nothing. Perhaps twenty. He did not know and he did not care.
Willard awoke from a deep sleep and prepared his bed. He did it, not because it was necessary, but because it was a habit that had long been ingrained in him through the years.
He checked and rechecked every part of the still functioning mechanism of the ship. The radio, even though there was no one to call, was in perfect order. The speed-recording dials, even though there was no speed to record, were in perfect order. And so with every machine. All was in perfect order. Perfect useless order, he thought bitterly, when there was no way whatever to get sufficient power to get back to Earth, long forgotten Earth.
He was leaning back in his chair when a vague uneasiness seized him. He arose and slowly walked over to the window, his age already being marked in the ache of his bones. Looking out into the silent theater of the stars, he suddenly froze.
There was a ship, coming toward him!
For a moment the reason in his mind tottered on a balance. Doubt assailed him. Was this the Ghost Ship come to torment him again? But no phantom this! It was a life and blood rocket ship from Earth! Starlight shone on it and not through it! Its lines, window, vents were all solid and had none of the ghost-like quality he remembered seeing in the Ghost Ship in his youth.
For another split second he thought that perhaps he, too, like Dobbin, had gone mad and that the ship would vanish just as it approached him.
The tapping of the space-telegrapher reassured him.
"CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU," the message rapped out, "CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU."
With trembling fingers that he could scarcely control, old Willard sent the answering message.
"SPACE SHIP MARY LOU REPLYING. RECEIVED MESSAGE. THANK GOD!"
He broke off, unable to continue. His heart was ready to burst within him and the tears of joy were already welling in his eyes. He listened to the happiest message he had ever heard:
"NOTICE THAT SPACE SHIP MARY LOU IS DISABLED AND NOT SPACE WORTHY. YOU ARE INVITED TO COME ABOARD. HAVE YOU SPACE SUIT AND—ARE YOU ABLE TO COME?"
Willard, already sobbing with joy, could send only two words.
"YES! COMING!"
The years of waiting were over. At last he was free of the Mary Lou . In a dream like trance, he dressed in his space suit, pathetically glad that he had already checked every detail of it a short time ago. He realized suddenly that everything about the Mary Lou was hateful to him. It was here that his best friend died, and it was here that twenty years of his life were wasted completely in solitude and despair.
He took one last look and stepped into the air-lock.
The Earth-ship, he did not see its name, was only a hundred yards away and a man was already at the air-lock waiting to help him. A rope was tossed to him. He reached for it and made his way to the ship, leaving the Mary Lou behind him forever.
Suddenly the world dropped away from him. Willard could neither see nor say anything. His heart was choked with emotion.
"It's all right," a kindly voice assured him, "You're safe now."
He had the sensation of being carried by several men and then placed in bed. The quiet of deep sleep descended upon him.
He woke many times in the following days, but the privations of the passing years had drained his strength and his mind, had made him so much of a hermit that the presence of other men frightened him to the point of gibbering insanity.
He knew that the food and drink were drugged, for after eating he never remembered seeing the men enter the room to care for him and to remove the dirty dishes. But there was enough sanity in his mind to also realize that, without the gradual reawakening of his senses to the value of human companionship, he might not be able to stand the mental shock of moving about among his people back on Earth.
During those passing days, he savored each new impression, comparing it with what he remembered from that age-long past when he and his friends had walked on Earth's great plains and ridden on the oceans' sleek ships or flown with the wings of birds over the mountain ranges. And each impression was doubly enjoyable, for his memory was hazy and confused.
Gradually, though, his mind cleared; he remembered the past, and he no longer was afraid of the men who visited him from time to time. But there was a strangeness about the men that he could not fathom; they refused to talk about anything, any subject, other than the actual running of the great ship. Always, when he asked his eager questions, they mumbled and drifted away.
And then in his third week on the rescue ship, he went to sleep one night while peering from the port hole at the blue ball of Earth swimming in the blackness of space. He slept and he dreamed of the years he had spent by himself in the drifting, lifeless hulk of the Mary Lou . His dreams were vivid, peopled with men and women he had once known, and were horrible with the fantasies of terror that years of solitary brooding had implanted deep in his mind.
He awoke with a start and a cry of alarm ran through him as he thought that perhaps he might still be in the Mary Lou . The warm, smiling face of a man quickly reassured him.
"I'll call the captain," the space man said. "He said to let him know when you came to."
Willard could only nod in weak and grateful acceptance. It was true! He pressed his head back against the bed's pillows. How soft! How warm! He yawned and stretched his arms as a thrill of happiness shot through his entire body.
He would see Earth again! That single thought ran over and over in his mind without stopping. He would see Earth again! Perhaps not this year and perhaps not the next—for the ship might be on some extra-Plutonian expedition. But even if it would take years before it returned to home base Willard knew that those years would fly quickly if Earth was at the end of the trail.
Though he had aged, he still had many years before him. And those years, he vowed, would be spent on Earth and nowhere else.
The captain, a pleasant old fellow, came into the room as Willard stood up and tried to walk. The gravity here was a bit different from that of his ship, but he would manage.
"How do you feel, Space Man Willard?"
"Oh, you know me?" Willard looked at him in surprise, and then smiled,
"Of course, you looked through the log book of the Mary Lou ."
The captain nodded and Willard noticed with surprise that he was a very old man.
"You don't know how much I suffered there," Willard said slowly, measuring each word. "Years in space—all alone! It's a horrible thing!"
"Yes?" the old captain said.
"Many times I thought I would go completely mad. It was only the thought and hope that some day, somehow, an Earth-ship would find me and help me get back to Earth. If it was not for that, I would have died. I could think of nothing but of Earth, of blue green water, of vast open spaces and the good brown earth. How beautiful it must be now!"
A note of sadness, matched only by that of Willard's, entered the captain's eyes.
"I want to walk on Earth just once—then I can die."
Willard stopped. A happy dreamy smile touched his lips.
"When will we go to Earth?" he asked.
The Captain did not answer. Willard waited and a strange memory tugged at him.
"You don't know," the Captain said. It was not a question or a statement. The Captain found it hard to say it. His lips moved slowly.
Willard stepped back and before the Captain told him, he knew .
"Matter is relative," he said, "the existent under one condition is non-existent under another. The real here is the non-real there. All things that wander alone in space are gradually drained of their mass and energy until nothing is left but mere shells. That is what happened to the Mary Lou . Your ship was real when we passed by twenty years ago. It is now like ours, a vague outline in space. We cannot feel the change ourselves, for change is relative. That is why we became more and more solid to you, as you became more and more faint to any Earth-ship that might have passed. We are real—to ourselves. But to some ship from Earth which has not been in space for more than fifteen years—to that ship, to all intents and purposes, we do not exist.
"Then this ship," Willard said, stunned, "you and I and everything on it..."
"... are doomed," the Captain said. "We cannot go to Earth for the simple reason that we would go through it!"
The vision of Earth and green trees faded. He would never see Earth again. He would never feel the crunch of ground under feet as he walked. Never would listen to the voices of friends and the songs of birds. Never. Never. Never....
"Then this is the Ghost Ship and we are the Ghosts!"
"Yes."
Question:
What is the significance of memories in the story?
Answer:
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"Both Dobbin and Willard have memories of Earth that sadden them and make them lonely. As Dobbin is dying, he remembers his life on Earth, and his greatest regret is that he will never see it again. Dobbin is satisfied with his life and experiences, but his Earth-loneliness prevents him from dying a happy man. Willard is also pained by his memories of Earth and what he has lost and will never have again. Alone in space, Willard considers his memories the only things of value to him. Because his memories cause him so much pain, Willard tries to ignore them or remove them, but they return in his dreams. His memories in his dreams are full of sensory details and other details that he did not notice when he was on Earth. However, when Willard is drugged and sleeping on the Ghost Ship, his dreams are of memories from the years he spent on the Mary Lou, and his dreams about people that he knew are unpleasant. Willard believes that if he could walk on Earth one more time, he would die a happy man.",
"Memories are both joys for Willard as well as his greatest anguish. The memories of his time on Earth, the sound of his friend’s voices, the feel of the ground beneath his feet, and even the sounds of the buildings and the city torture him since it gives him something to hope for. \nHe is not able to let go of his life because he longs to survive and live out the rest of his days on Earth. He spends almost 20 years alone while in space, holding on to his memories to keep him going. Unlike Dobbin, memories became Willard’s constant companion and the only thing that lasted with him throughout his time aboard the Mary Lou. \nIn the end, though, his memories basically haunted and tormented him. He would push them away, only to dream of them at night. His memories broke him and, without anyone beside him, Willard slowly faded away into nothing more than a shell of a man. \n",
"Memories function as a link to reality for Willard. The more he struggles to stay sane during his long periods of isolation, the more he relies on his vivid memories of Earth—walking along the streets of Arden, hearing the voices of his co-workers and scientists he used to know, the voices of his friends and wife–to keep him alive. Even as the “Mary Lou” slowly begins to lose its energy and shape and become a “ghost ship”, Willard is not aware that this process is even happening because his memories keep him grounded in a kind of reality. In this reality, his memories keep Willard alive because Willard believes he is alive and that a real ship has come to save him. The idea of returning to Earth and seeing those memories come to life again keeps Willard going for all those decades.",
"Memories are very significant in the story, because they both sustain Willard’s will to keep going and torment him when he is at his lowest points. He dreams of his Earth days at night and longs to hear the voices of his friends, family, and coworkers, and to see Earth again. When he is rescued by The Ghost Ship, he tells the Captain that the idea of seeing Earth is all that has kept him going. His Earth memories have also made him feel even lonelier as he has floated through space, and now on The Ghost Ship his memories of being stranded on the Mary Lou haunt him in his nightmares. His memories have alternately been a struggle and a lifeline, but are ultimately what have kept him connected to his humanity. \n"
] |
62244
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GALACTIC GHOST
By WALTER KUBILIUS
The Flying Dutchman of space was a harbinger of death. But Willard wasn't superstitions. He had seen the phantom—and lived.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The only friend in space Willard had ever known was dying. Dobbin's lips were parched and his breath came spasmodically. The tips of his fingers that had so many times caressed the control board of the Mary Lou were now black as meteor dust.
"We'll never see Earth again," he whispered feebly, plucked weakly at the cover.
"Nonsense!" Willard broke in hurriedly, hoping that the dying man would not see through the lie. "We've got the sun's gravity helping us drift back to Earth! We'll be there soon! You'll get well soon and we'll start to work again on a new idea of mine...." His voice trailed helplessly away and the words were lost. It was no use.
The sick man did not hear him. Two tears rolled down his cheeks. His face contorted as he tried to withhold a sob.
"To see Earth again!" he said weakly. "To walk on solid ground once more!"
"Four years!" Willard echoed faintly. He knew how his space mate felt. No man can spend four years away from his home planet, and fail to be anguished. A man could live without friends, without fortune, but no man could live without Earth. He was like Anteus, for only the feel of the solid ground under his feet could give him courage to go among the stars.
Willard also knew what he dared not admit to himself. He, too, like Dobbin, would never see Earth again. Perhaps, some thousand years from now, some lonely wanderers would find their battered hulk of a ship in space and bring them home again.
Dobbin motioned to him and, in answer to a last request, Willard lifted him so he faced the port window for a final look at the panorama of the stars.
Dobbin's eyes, dimming and half closed, took in the vast play of the heavens and in his mind he relived the days when in a frail craft he first crossed interstellar space. But for Earth-loneliness Dobbin would die a happy man, knowing that he had lived as much and as deeply as any man could.
Silently the two men watched. Dobbin's eyes opened suddenly and a tremor seized his body. He turned painfully and looked at Willard.
"I saw it!" his voice cracked, trembling.
"Saw what?"
"It's true! It's true! It comes whenever a space man dies! It's there!"
"In heaven's name, Dobbin," Willard demanded, "What do you see? What is it?"
Dobbin lifted his dark bony arm and pointed out into star-studded space.
"The Ghost Ship!"
Something clicked in Willard's memory. He had heard it spoken of in whispers by drunken space men and professional tellers of fairy tales. But he had never put any stock in them. In some forgotten corner of Dobbin's mind the legend of the Ghost Ship must have lain, to come up in this time of delirium.
"There's nothing there," he said firmly.
"It's come—for me!" Dobbin cried. He turned his head slowly toward Willard, tried to say something and then fell back upon the pillow. His mouth was open and his eyes stared unseeing ahead. Dobbin was now one with the vanished pioneers of yesterday. Willard was alone.
For two days, reckoned in Earth time, Willard kept vigil over the body of his friend and space mate. When the time was up he did what was necessary and nothing remained of Harry Dobbin, the best friend he had ever had. The atoms of his body were now pure energy stored away in the useless motors of the Mary Lou .
The weeks that followed were like a blur in Willard's mind. Though the ship was utterly incapable of motion, the chance meteor that damaged it had spared the convertors and assimilators. Through constant care and attention the frail balance that meant life or death could be kept. The substance of waste and refuse was torn down and rebuilt as precious food and air. It was even possible to create more than was needed.
When this was done, Willard immediately regretted it. For it would be then that the days and the weeks would roll by endlessly. Sometimes he thought he would go mad when, sitting at the useless control board, which was his habit, he would stare for hours and hours in the direction of the Sun where he knew the Earth would be. A great loneliness would then seize upon him and an agony that no man had ever known would tear at his heart. He would then turn away, full of despair and hopeless pain.
Two years after Dobbin's death a strange thing happened. Willard was sitting at his accustomed place facing the unmoving vista of the stars. A chance glance at Orion's belt froze him still. A star had flickered! Distinctly, as if a light veil had been placed over it and then lifted, it dimmed and turned bright again. What strange phenomena was this? He watched and then another star faded momentarily in the exact fashion. And then a third! And a fourth! And a fifth!
Willard's heart gave a leap and the lethargy of two years vanished instantly. Here, at last, was something to do. It might be only a few minutes before he would understand what it was, but those few minutes would help while away the maddening long hours. Perhaps it was a mass of fine meteorites or a pocket of gas that did not disperse, or even a moving warp of space-light. Whatever it was, it was a phenomena worth investigating and Willard seized upon it as a dying man seizes upon the last flashing seconds of life.
Willard traced its course by the flickering stars and gradually plotted its semi-circular course. It was not from the solar system but, instead, headed toward it. A rapid check-up on his calculations caused his heart to beat in ever quickening excitement. Whatever it was, it would reach the Mary Lou .
Again he looked out the port. Unquestionably the faint mass was nearing his ship. It was round in shape and almost invisible. The stars, though dimmed, could still be seen through it. There was something about its form that reminded him of an old-fashioned rocket ship. It resembled one of those that had done pioneer service in the lanes forty years ago or more. Resembled one? It was one! Unquestionably, though half-invisible and like a piece of glass immersed in water, it was a rocket ship.
But the instruments on the control board could not lie. The presence of any material body within a hundred thousand miles would be revealed. But the needle on the gauge did not quiver. Nothing indicated the presence of a ship. But the evidence of his eyes was incontestable.
Or was it? Doubt gripped him. Did the loneliness of all these years in space twist his mind till he was imagining the appearance of faint ghost-like rocket ships?
The thought shot through his mind like a thunder bolt. Ghost Ship! Was this the thing that Dobbin had seen before he died? But that was impossible. Ghost Ships existed nowhere but in legends and tall tales told by men drunk with the liquors of Mars.
"There is no ship there. There is no ship there," Willard told himself over and over again as he looked at the vague outline of the ship, now motionless a few hundred miles away.
Deep within him a faint voice cried, " It's come—for me! " but Willard stilled it. This was no fantasy. There was a scientific reason for it. There must be! Or should there be? Throughout all Earth history there had been Ghost Ships sailing the Seven Seas—ships doomed to roam forever because their crew broke some unbreakable law. If this was true for the ships of the seas, why not for the ships of empty space?
He looked again at the strange ship. It was motionless. At least it was not nearing him. Willard could see nothing but its vague outline. A moment later he could discern a faint motion. It was turning! The Ghost Ship was turning back! Unconsciously Willard reached out with his hand as if to hold it back, for when it was gone he would be alone again.
But the Ghost Ship went on. Its outline became smaller and smaller, fainter and fainter.
Trembling, Willard turned away from the window as he saw the rocket recede and vanish into the emptiness of space. Once more the dreaded loneliness of the stars descended upon him.
Seven years passed and back on Earth in a small newspaper that Willard would never see there was published a small item:
" Arden, Rocketport —Thirteen years ago the Space Ship Mary Lou under John Willard and Larry Dobbin left the Rocket Port for the exploration of an alleged planetoid beyond Pluto. The ship has not been seen or heard from since. J. Willard, II, son of the lost explorer, is planning the manufacture of a super-size exploration ship to be called Mary Lou II , in memory of his father."
Memories die hard. A man who is alone in space with nothing but the cold friendship of star-light looks back upon memories as the only things both dear and precious to him.
Willard, master and lone survivor of the Mary Lou , knew this well for he had tried to rip the memories of Earth out of his heart to ease the anguish of solitude within him. But it was a thing that could not be done.
And so it was that each night—for Willard did not give up the Earth-habit of keeping time—Willard dreamed of the days he had known on Earth.
In his mind's eye, he saw himself walking the streets of Arden and feeling the crunch of snow or the soft slap of rainwater under his feet. He heard again, in his mind, the voices of friends he knew. How beautiful and perfect was each voice! How filled with warmth and friendship! There was the voice of his beautiful wife whom he would never see again. There were the gruff and deep voices of his co-workers and scientists.
Above all there were the voices of the cities, and the fields and the shops where he had worked. All these had their individual voices. Odd that he had never realized it before, but things become clearer to a man who is alone.
Clearer? Perhaps not. Perhaps they become more clouded. How could he, for example, explain the phenomena of the Ghost Ship? Was it really only a product of his imagination? What of all the others who had seen it? Was it possible for many different men under many different situations to have the same exact illusion? Reason denied that. But perhaps space itself denies reason.
Grimly he retraced the legend of the Ghost Ship. A chance phrase here and a story there put together all that he knew:
Doomed for all eternity to wander in the empty star-lanes, the Ghost Ship haunts the Solar System that gave it birth. And this is its tragedy, for it is the home of spacemen who can never go home again. When your last measure of fuel is burnt and your ship becomes a lifeless hulk—the Ghost will come—for you!
And this is all there was to the legend. Merely a tale of some fairy ship told to amuse and to while away the days of a star-voyage. Bitterly, Willard dismissed it from his mind.
Another year of loneliness passed. And still another. Willard lost track of the days. It was difficult to keep time for to what purpose could time be kept. Here in space there was no time, nor was there reason for clocks and records. Days and months and years became meaningless words for things that once may have had meaning. About three years must have passed since his last record in the log book of the Mary Lou . At that time, he remembered, he suffered another great disappointment. On the port side there suddenly appeared a full-sized rocket ship. For many minutes Willard was half-mad with joy thinking that a passing ship was ready to rescue him. But the joy was short-lived, for the rocket ship abruptly turned away and slowly disappeared. As Willard watched it go away he saw the light of a distant star through the space ship. A heart-breaking agony fell upon him. It was not a ship from Earth. It was the Ghost Ship, mocking him.
Since then Willard did not look out the window of his craft. A vague fear troubled him that perhaps the Ghost Ship might be here, waiting and watching, and that he would go mad if he saw it.
How many years passed he could not tell. But this he knew. He was no longer a young man. Perhaps fifteen years has disappeared into nothing. Perhaps twenty. He did not know and he did not care.
Willard awoke from a deep sleep and prepared his bed. He did it, not because it was necessary, but because it was a habit that had long been ingrained in him through the years.
He checked and rechecked every part of the still functioning mechanism of the ship. The radio, even though there was no one to call, was in perfect order. The speed-recording dials, even though there was no speed to record, were in perfect order. And so with every machine. All was in perfect order. Perfect useless order, he thought bitterly, when there was no way whatever to get sufficient power to get back to Earth, long forgotten Earth.
He was leaning back in his chair when a vague uneasiness seized him. He arose and slowly walked over to the window, his age already being marked in the ache of his bones. Looking out into the silent theater of the stars, he suddenly froze.
There was a ship, coming toward him!
For a moment the reason in his mind tottered on a balance. Doubt assailed him. Was this the Ghost Ship come to torment him again? But no phantom this! It was a life and blood rocket ship from Earth! Starlight shone on it and not through it! Its lines, window, vents were all solid and had none of the ghost-like quality he remembered seeing in the Ghost Ship in his youth.
For another split second he thought that perhaps he, too, like Dobbin, had gone mad and that the ship would vanish just as it approached him.
The tapping of the space-telegrapher reassured him.
"CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU," the message rapped out, "CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU."
With trembling fingers that he could scarcely control, old Willard sent the answering message.
"SPACE SHIP MARY LOU REPLYING. RECEIVED MESSAGE. THANK GOD!"
He broke off, unable to continue. His heart was ready to burst within him and the tears of joy were already welling in his eyes. He listened to the happiest message he had ever heard:
"NOTICE THAT SPACE SHIP MARY LOU IS DISABLED AND NOT SPACE WORTHY. YOU ARE INVITED TO COME ABOARD. HAVE YOU SPACE SUIT AND—ARE YOU ABLE TO COME?"
Willard, already sobbing with joy, could send only two words.
"YES! COMING!"
The years of waiting were over. At last he was free of the Mary Lou . In a dream like trance, he dressed in his space suit, pathetically glad that he had already checked every detail of it a short time ago. He realized suddenly that everything about the Mary Lou was hateful to him. It was here that his best friend died, and it was here that twenty years of his life were wasted completely in solitude and despair.
He took one last look and stepped into the air-lock.
The Earth-ship, he did not see its name, was only a hundred yards away and a man was already at the air-lock waiting to help him. A rope was tossed to him. He reached for it and made his way to the ship, leaving the Mary Lou behind him forever.
Suddenly the world dropped away from him. Willard could neither see nor say anything. His heart was choked with emotion.
"It's all right," a kindly voice assured him, "You're safe now."
He had the sensation of being carried by several men and then placed in bed. The quiet of deep sleep descended upon him.
He woke many times in the following days, but the privations of the passing years had drained his strength and his mind, had made him so much of a hermit that the presence of other men frightened him to the point of gibbering insanity.
He knew that the food and drink were drugged, for after eating he never remembered seeing the men enter the room to care for him and to remove the dirty dishes. But there was enough sanity in his mind to also realize that, without the gradual reawakening of his senses to the value of human companionship, he might not be able to stand the mental shock of moving about among his people back on Earth.
During those passing days, he savored each new impression, comparing it with what he remembered from that age-long past when he and his friends had walked on Earth's great plains and ridden on the oceans' sleek ships or flown with the wings of birds over the mountain ranges. And each impression was doubly enjoyable, for his memory was hazy and confused.
Gradually, though, his mind cleared; he remembered the past, and he no longer was afraid of the men who visited him from time to time. But there was a strangeness about the men that he could not fathom; they refused to talk about anything, any subject, other than the actual running of the great ship. Always, when he asked his eager questions, they mumbled and drifted away.
And then in his third week on the rescue ship, he went to sleep one night while peering from the port hole at the blue ball of Earth swimming in the blackness of space. He slept and he dreamed of the years he had spent by himself in the drifting, lifeless hulk of the Mary Lou . His dreams were vivid, peopled with men and women he had once known, and were horrible with the fantasies of terror that years of solitary brooding had implanted deep in his mind.
He awoke with a start and a cry of alarm ran through him as he thought that perhaps he might still be in the Mary Lou . The warm, smiling face of a man quickly reassured him.
"I'll call the captain," the space man said. "He said to let him know when you came to."
Willard could only nod in weak and grateful acceptance. It was true! He pressed his head back against the bed's pillows. How soft! How warm! He yawned and stretched his arms as a thrill of happiness shot through his entire body.
He would see Earth again! That single thought ran over and over in his mind without stopping. He would see Earth again! Perhaps not this year and perhaps not the next—for the ship might be on some extra-Plutonian expedition. But even if it would take years before it returned to home base Willard knew that those years would fly quickly if Earth was at the end of the trail.
Though he had aged, he still had many years before him. And those years, he vowed, would be spent on Earth and nowhere else.
The captain, a pleasant old fellow, came into the room as Willard stood up and tried to walk. The gravity here was a bit different from that of his ship, but he would manage.
"How do you feel, Space Man Willard?"
"Oh, you know me?" Willard looked at him in surprise, and then smiled,
"Of course, you looked through the log book of the Mary Lou ."
The captain nodded and Willard noticed with surprise that he was a very old man.
"You don't know how much I suffered there," Willard said slowly, measuring each word. "Years in space—all alone! It's a horrible thing!"
"Yes?" the old captain said.
"Many times I thought I would go completely mad. It was only the thought and hope that some day, somehow, an Earth-ship would find me and help me get back to Earth. If it was not for that, I would have died. I could think of nothing but of Earth, of blue green water, of vast open spaces and the good brown earth. How beautiful it must be now!"
A note of sadness, matched only by that of Willard's, entered the captain's eyes.
"I want to walk on Earth just once—then I can die."
Willard stopped. A happy dreamy smile touched his lips.
"When will we go to Earth?" he asked.
The Captain did not answer. Willard waited and a strange memory tugged at him.
"You don't know," the Captain said. It was not a question or a statement. The Captain found it hard to say it. His lips moved slowly.
Willard stepped back and before the Captain told him, he knew .
"Matter is relative," he said, "the existent under one condition is non-existent under another. The real here is the non-real there. All things that wander alone in space are gradually drained of their mass and energy until nothing is left but mere shells. That is what happened to the Mary Lou . Your ship was real when we passed by twenty years ago. It is now like ours, a vague outline in space. We cannot feel the change ourselves, for change is relative. That is why we became more and more solid to you, as you became more and more faint to any Earth-ship that might have passed. We are real—to ourselves. But to some ship from Earth which has not been in space for more than fifteen years—to that ship, to all intents and purposes, we do not exist.
"Then this ship," Willard said, stunned, "you and I and everything on it..."
"... are doomed," the Captain said. "We cannot go to Earth for the simple reason that we would go through it!"
The vision of Earth and green trees faded. He would never see Earth again. He would never feel the crunch of ground under feet as he walked. Never would listen to the voices of friends and the songs of birds. Never. Never. Never....
"Then this is the Ghost Ship and we are the Ghosts!"
"Yes."
|
What is the cylinder and why is it significant?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about A City Near Centaurus by William R. Doede.
Relevant chunks:
A CITY NEAR CENTAURUS
By BILL DOEDE
Illustrated by WEST
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine October 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The city was sacred, but not to its gods. Michaelson was a god—but far from sacred!
Crouched in the ancient doorway like an animal peering out from his burrow, Mr. Michaelson saw the native.
At first he was startled, thinking it might be someone else from the Earth settlement who had discovered the old city before him. Then he saw the glint of sun against the metallic skirt, and relaxed.
He chuckled to himself, wondering with amusement what a webfooted man was doing in an old dead city so far from his people. Some facts were known about the people of Alpha Centaurus II. They were not actually natives, he recalled. They were a colony from the fifth planet of the system. They were a curious people. Some were highly intelligent, though uneducated.
He decided to ignore the man for the moment. He was far down the ancient street, a mere speck against the sand. There would be plenty of time to wonder about him.
He gazed out from his position at the complex variety of buildings before him. Some were small, obviously homes. Others were huge with tall, frail spires standing against the pale blue sky. Square buildings, ellipsoid, spheroid. Beautiful, dream-stuff bridges connected tall, conical towers, bridges that still swung in the wind after half a million years. Late afternoon sunlight shone against ebony surfaces. The sands of many centuries had blown down the wide streets and filled the doorways. Desert plants grew from roofs of smaller buildings.
Ignoring the native, Mr. Michaelson poked about among the ruins happily, exclaiming to himself about some particular artifact, marveling at its state of preservation, holding it this way and that to catch the late afternoon sun, smiling, clucking gleefully. He crawled over the rubble through old doorways half filled with the accumulation of ages. He dug experimentally in the sand with his hands, like a dog, under a roof that had weathered half a million years of rain and sun. Then he crawled out again, covered with dust and cobwebs.
The native stood in the street less than a hundred feet away, waving his arms madly. "Mr. Earthgod," he cried. "It is sacred ground where you are trespassing!"
The archeologist smiled, watching the man hurry closer. He was short, even for a native. Long gray hair hung to his shoulders, bobbing up and down as he walked. He wore no shoes. The toes of his webbed feet dragged in the sand, making a deep trail behind him. He was an old man.
"You never told us about this old dead city," Michaelson said, chidingly. "Shame on you. But never mind. I've found it now. Isn't it beautiful?"
"Yes, beautiful. You will leave now."
"Leave?" Michaelson asked, acting surprised as if the man were a child. "I just got here a few hours ago."
"You must go."
"Why? Who are you?"
"I am keeper of the city."
"You?" Michaelson laughed. Then, seeing how serious the native was, said, "What makes you think a dead city needs a keeper?"
"The spirits may return."
Michaelson crawled out of the doorway and stood up. He brushed his trousers. He pointed. "See that wall? Built of some metal, I'd say, some alloy impervious to rust and wear."
"The spirits are angry."
"Notice the inscriptions? Wind has blown sand against them for eons, and rain and sleet. But their story is there, once we decipher it."
"Leave!"
The native's lined, weathered old face was working around the mouth in anger. Michaelson was almost sorry he had mocked him. He was deadly serious.
"Look," he said. "No spirits are ever coming back here. Don't you know that? And even if they did, spirits care nothing for old cities half covered with sand and dirt."
He walked away from the old man, heading for another building. The sun had already gone below the horizon, coloring the high clouds. He glanced backward. The webfoot was following.
"Mr. Earthgod!" the webfoot cried, so sharply that Michaelson stopped.
"You must not touch, not walk upon, not handle. Your step may destroy the home of some ancient spirit. Your breath may cause one iota of change and a spirit may lose his way in the darkness. Go quickly now, or be killed."
He turned and walked off, not looking back.
Michaelson stood in the ancient street, tall, gaunt, feet planted wide, hands in pockets, watching the webfoot until he was out of sight beyond a huge circular building. There was a man to watch. There was one of the intelligent ones. One look into the alert old eyes had told him that.
Michaelson shook his head, and went about satisfying his curiosity. He entered buildings without thought of roofs falling in, or decayed floors dropping from under his weight. He began to collect small items, making a pile of them in the street. An ancient bowl, metal untouched by the ages. A statue of a man, one foot high, correct to the minutest detail, showing how identical they had been to Earthmen. He found books still standing on ancient shelves but was afraid to touch them without tools.
Darkness came swiftly and he was forced out into the street.
He stood there alone feeling the age of the place. Even the smell of age was in the air. Silver moonlight from the two moons filtered through clear air down upon the ruins. The city lay now in darkness, dead and still, waiting for morning so it could lie dead and still in the sun.
There was no hurry to be going home, although he was alone, although this was Alpha Centaurus II with many unknowns, many dangers ... although home was a very great distance away. There was no one back there to worry about him.
His wife had died many years ago back on Earth. No children. His friends in the settlement would not look for him for another day at least. Anyway, the tiny cylinder, buried in flesh behind his ear, a thing of mystery and immense power, could take him home instantly, without effort save a flicker of thought.
"You did not leave, as I asked you."
Michaelson whirled around at the sound of the native's voice. Then he relaxed. He said, "You shouldn't sneak up on a man like that."
"You must leave, or I will be forced to kill you. I do not want to kill you, but if I must...." He made a clucking sound deep in the throat.
"The spirits are angry."
"Nonsense. Superstition! But never mind. You have been here longer than I. Tell me, what are those instruments in the rooms? It looks like a clock but I'm certain it had some other function."
"What rooms?"
"Oh, come now. The small rooms back there. Look like they were bedrooms."
"I do not know." The webfoot drew closer. Michaelson decided he was sixty or seventy years old, at least.
"You've been here a long time. You are intelligent, and you must be educated, the way you talk. That gadget looks like a time-piece of some sort. What is it? What does it measure?"
"I insist that you go." The webfoot held something in his hand.
"No." Michaelson looked off down the street, trying to ignore the native, trying to feel the life of the city as it might have been.
"You are sensitive," the native said in his ear. "It takes a sensitive god to feel the spirits moving in the houses and walking in these old streets."
"Say it any way you want to. This is the most fascinating thing I've ever seen. The Inca's treasure, the ruins of Pompeii, Egyptian tombs—none can hold a candle to this."
"Mr. Earthgod...."
"Don't call me that. I'm not a god, and you know it."
The old man shrugged. "It is not an item worthy of dispute. Those names you mention, are they the names of gods?"
He chuckled. "In a way, yes. What is your name?"
"Maota."
"You must help me, Maota. These things must be preserved. We'll build a museum, right here in the street. No, over there on the hill just outside the city. We'll collect all the old writings and perhaps we may decipher them. Think of it, Maota! To read pages written so long ago and think their thoughts. We'll put everything under glass. Build and evacuate chambers to stop the decay. Catalogue, itemize...."
Michaelson was warming up to his subject, but Maota shook his head like a waving palm frond and stamped his feet.
"You will leave now."
"Can't you see? Look at the decay. These things are priceless. They must be preserved. Future generations will thank us."
"Do you mean," the old man asked, aghast, "that you want others to come here? You know the city abhors the sound of alien voices. Those who lived here may return one day! They must not find their city packaged and preserved and laid out on shelves for the curious to breathe their foul breaths upon. You will leave. Now!"
"No." Michaelson was adamant. The rock of Gibraltar.
Maota hit him, quickly, passionately, and dropped the weapon beside his body. He turned swiftly, making a swirling mark in the sand with his heel, and walked off toward the hills outside the city.
The weapon he had used was an ancient book. Its paper-thin pages rustled in the wind as if an unseen hand turned them, reading, while Michaelson's blood trickled out from the head wound upon the ancient street.
When he regained consciousness the two moons, bright sentinel orbs in the night sky, had moved to a new position down their sliding path. Old Maota's absence took some of the weirdness and fantasy away. It seemed a more practical place now.
The gash in his head was painful, throbbing with quick, short hammer-blows synchronized with his heart beats. But there was a new determination in him. If it was a fight that the old webfooted fool wanted, a fight he would get. The cylinder flicked him, at his command, across five hundred miles of desert and rocks to a small creek he remembered. Here he bathed his head in cool water until all the caked blood was dissolved from his hair. Feeling better, he went back.
The wind had turned cool. Michaelson shivered, wishing he had brought a coat. The city was absolutely still except for small gusts of wind sighing through the frail spires. The ancient book still lay in the sand beside the dark spot of blood. He stooped over and picked it up.
It was light, much lighter than most Earth books. He ran a hand over the binding. Smooth it was, untouched by time or climate. He squinted at the pages, tilting the book to catch the bright moonlight, but the writing was alien. He touched the page, ran his forefinger over the writing.
Suddenly he sprang back. The book fell from his hands.
"God in heaven!" he exclaimed.
He had heard a voice. He looked around at the old buildings, down the length of the ancient street. Something strange about the voice. Not Maota. Not his tones. Not his words. Satisfied that no one was near, he stooped and picked up the book again.
"Good God!" he said aloud. It was the book talking. His fingers had touched the writing again. It was not a voice, exactly, but a stirring in his mind, like a strange language heard for the first time.
A talking book. What other surprises were in the city? Tall, fragile buildings laughing at time and weather. A clock measuring God-knows-what. If such wonders remained, what about those already destroyed? One could only guess at the machines, the gadgets, the artistry already decayed and blown away to mix forever with the sand.
I must preserve it, he thought, whether Maota likes it or not. They say these people lived half a million years ago. A long time. Let's see, now. A man lives one hundred years on the average. Five thousand lifetimes.
And all you do is touch a book, and a voice jumps across all those years!
He started off toward the tall building he had examined upon discovery of the city. His left eyelid began to twitch and he laid his forefinger against the eye, pressing until it stopped. Then he stooped and entered the building. He laid the book down and tried to take the "clock" off the wall. It was dark in the building and his fingers felt along the wall, looking for it. Then he touched it. His fingers moved over its smooth surface. Then suddenly he jerked his hand back with an exclamation of amazement. Fear ran up his spine.
The clock was warm.
He felt like running, like flicking back to the settlement where there were people and familiar voices, for here was a thing that should not be. Half a million years—and here was warmth!
He touched it again, curiosity overwhelming his fear. It was warm. No mistake. And there was a faint vibration, a suggestion of power. He stood there in the darkness staring off into the darkness, trembling. Fear built up in him until it was a monstrous thing, drowning reason. He forgot the power of the cylinder behind his ear. He scrambled through the doorway. He got up and ran down the ancient sandy street until he came to the edge of the city. Here he stopped, gasping for air, feeling the pain throb in his head.
Common sense said that he should go home, that nothing worthwhile could be accomplished at night, that he was tired, that he was weak from loss of blood and fright and running. But when Michaelson was on the trail of important discoveries he had no common sense.
He sat down in the darkness, meaning to rest a moment.
When he awoke dawn was red against thin clouds in the east.
Old Maota stood in the street with webbed feet planted far apart in the sand, a weapon in the crook of his arm. It was a long tube affair, familiar to Michaelson.
Michaelson asked, "Did you sleep well?"
"No."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"How do you feel?"
"Fine, but my head aches a little."
"Sorry," Maota said.
"For what?"
"For hitting you. Pain is not for gods like you."
Michaelson relaxed somewhat. "What kind of man are you? First you try to break my skull, then you apologize."
"I abhor pain. I should have killed you outright."
He thought about that for a moment, eyeing the weapon.
It looked in good working order. Slim and shiny and innocent, it looked like a glorified African blowgun. But he was not deceived by its appearance. It was a deadly weapon.
"Well," he said, "before you kill me, tell me about the book." He held it up for Maota to see.
"What about the book?"
"What kind of book is it?"
"What does Mr. Earthgod mean, what kind of book? You have seen it. It is like any other book, except for the material and the fact that it talks."
"No, no. I mean, what's in it?"
"Poetry."
"Poetry? For God's sake, why poetry? Why not mathematics or history? Why not tell how to make the metal of the book itself? Now there is a subject worthy of a book."
Maota shook his head. "One does not study a dead culture to learn how they made things, but how they thought. But we are wasting time. I must kill you now, so I can get some rest."
The old man raised the gun.
"Wait! You forget that I also have a weapon." He pointed to the spot behind his ear where the cylinder was buried. "I can move faster than you can fire the gun."
Maota nodded. "I have heard how you travel. It does not matter. I will kill you anyway."
"I suggest we negotiate."
"No."
"Why not?"
Maota looked off toward the hills, old eyes filmed from years of sand and wind, leather skin lined and pitted. The hills stood immobile, brown-gray, already shimmering with heat, impotent.
"Why not?" Michaelson repeated.
"Why not what?" Maota dragged his eyes back.
"Negotiate."
"No." Maota's eyes grew hard as steel. They stood there in the sun, not twenty feet apart, hating each other. The two moons, very pale and far away on the western horizon, stared like two bottomless eyes.
"All right, then. At least it's a quick death. I hear that thing just disintegrates a man. Pfft! And that's that."
Michaelson prepared himself to move if the old man's finger slid closer toward the firing stud. The old man raised the gun.
"Wait!"
"Now what?"
"At least read some of the book to me before I die, then."
The gun wavered. "I am not an unreasonable man," the webfoot said.
Michaelson stepped forward, extending his arm with the book.
"No, stay where you are. Throw it."
"This book is priceless. You just don't go throwing such valuable items around."
"It won't break. Throw it."
Michaelson threw the book. It landed at Maota's feet, spouting sand against his leg. He shifted the weapon, picked up the book and leafed through it, raising his head in a listening attitude, searching for a suitable passage. Michaelson heard the thin, metallic pages rustle softly. He could have jumped and seized the weapon at that moment, but his desire to hear the book was strong.
Old Maota read, Michaelson listened. The cadence was different, the syntax confusing. But the thoughts were there. It might have been a professor back on Earth reading to his students. Keats, Shelley, Browning. These people were human, with human thoughts and aspirations.
The old man stopped reading. He squatted slowly, keeping Michaelson in sight, and laid the book face up in the sand. Wind moved the pages.
"See?" he said. "The spirits read. They must have been great readers, these people. They drink the book, as if it were an elixir. See how gentle! They lap at the pages like a new kitten tasting milk."
Michaelson laughed. "You certainly have an imagination."
"What difference does it make?" Maota cried, suddenly angry. "You want to close up all these things in boxes for a posterity who may have no slightest feeling or appreciation. I want to leave the city as it is, for spirits whose existence I cannot prove."
The old man's eyes were furious now, deadly. The gun came down directly in line with the Earthman's chest. The gnarled finger moved.
Michaelson, using the power of the cylinder behind his ear, jumped behind the old webfoot. To Maota it seemed that he had flicked out of existence like a match blown out. The next instant Michaelson spun him around and hit him. It was an inexpert fist, belonging to an archeologist, not a fighter. But Maota was an old man.
He dropped in the sand, momentarily stunned. Michaelson bent over to pick up the gun and the old man, feeling it slip from his fingers, hung on and was pulled to his feet.
They struggled for possession of the gun, silently, gasping, kicking sand. Faces grew red. Lips drew back over Michaelson's white teeth, over Maota's pink, toothless gums. The dead city's fragile spires threw impersonal shadows down where they fought.
Then quite suddenly a finger or hand—neither knew whose finger or hand—touched the firing stud.
There was a hollow, whooshing sound. Both stopped still, realizing the total destruction they might have caused.
"It only hit the ground," Michaelson said.
A black, charred hole, two feet in diameter and—they could not see how deep—stared at them.
Maota let go and sprawled in the sand. "The book!" he cried. "The book is gone!"
"No! We probably covered it with sand while we fought."
Both men began scooping sand in their cupped hands, digging frantically for the book. Saliva dripped from Maota's mouth, but he didn't know or care.
Finally they stopped, exhausted. They had covered a substantial area around the hole. They had covered the complete area where they had been.
"We killed it," the old man moaned.
"It was just a book. Not alive, you know."
"How do you know?" The old man's pale eyes were filled with tears. "It talked and it sang. In a way, it had a soul. Sometimes on long nights I used to imagine it loved me, for taking care of it."
"There are other books. We'll get another."
Maota shook his head. "There are no more."
"But I've seen them. Down there in the square building."
"Not poetry. Books, yes, but not poetry. That was the only book with songs."
"I'm sorry."
" You killed it!" Maota suddenly sprang for the weapon, lying forgotten in the sand. Michaelson put his foot on it and Maota was too weak to tear it loose. He could only weep out his rage.
When he could talk again, Maota said, "I am sorry, Mr. Earthgod. I've disgraced myself."
"Don't be sorry." Michaelson helped him to his feet. "We fight for some reasons, cry for others. A priceless book is a good reason for either."
"Not for that. For not winning. I should have killed you last night when I had the chance. The gods give us chances and if we don't take them we lose forever."
"I told you before! We are on the same side. Negotiate. Have you never heard of negotiation?"
"You are a god," Maota said. "One does not negotiate with gods. One either loves them, or kills them."
"That's another thing. I am not a god. Can't you understand?"
"Of course you are." Maota looked up, very sure. "Mortals cannot step from star to star like crossing a shallow brook."
"No, no. I don't step from one star to another. An invention does that. Just an invention. I carry it with me. It's a tiny thing. No one would ever guess it has such power. So you see, I'm human, just like you. Hit me and I hurt. Cut me and I bleed. I love. I hate. I was born. Some day I'll die. See? I'm human. Just a human with a machine. No more than that."
Maota laughed, then sobered quickly. "You lie."
"No."
"If I had this machine, could I travel as you?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll kill you and take yours."
"It would not work for you."
"Why?"
"Each machine is tailored for each person."
The old man hung his head. He looked down into the black, charred hole. He walked all around the hole. He kicked at the sand, looking half-heartedly again for the book.
"Look," Michaelson said. "I'm sure I've convinced you that I'm human. Why not have a try at negotiating our differences?"
He looked up. His expressive eyes, deep, resigned, studied Michaelson's face. Finally he shook his head sadly. "When we first met I hoped we could think the ancient thoughts together. But our paths diverge. We have finished, you and I."
He turned and started off, shoulders slumped dejectedly.
Michaelson caught up to him. "Are you leaving the city?"
"No."
"Where are you going?"
"Away. Far away." Maota looked off toward the hills, eyes distant.
"Don't be stupid, old man. How can you go far away and not leave the city?"
"There are many directions. You would not understand."
"East. West. North. South. Up. Down."
"No, no. There is another direction. Come, if you must see."
Michaelson followed him far down the street. They came to a section of the city he had not seen before. Buildings were smaller, spires dwarfed against larger structures. Here a path was packed in the sand, leading to a particular building.
Michaelson said, "This is where you live?"
"Yes."
Maota went inside. Michaelson stood in the entrance and looked around. The room was clean, furnished with hand made chairs and a bed. Who is this old man, he thought, far from his people, living alone, choosing a life of solitude among ancient ruins but not touching them? Above the bed a "clock" was fastened to the wall, Michaelson remembered his fright—thinking of the warmth where warmth should not be.
Maota pointed to it.
"You asked about this machine," he said. "Now I will tell you." He laid his hand against it. "Here is power to follow another direction."
Michaelson tested one of the chairs to see if it would hold his weight, then sat down. His curiosity about the instrument was colossal, but he forced a short laugh. "Maota, you are complex. Why not stop all this mystery nonsense and tell me about it? You know more about it than I."
"Of course." Maota smiled a toothless, superior smile. "What do you suppose happened to this race?"
"You tell me."
"They took the unknown direction. The books speak of it. I don't know how the instrument works, but one thing is certain. The race did not die out, as a species becomes extinct."
Michaelson was amused, but interested. "Something like a fourth dimension?"
"I don't know. I only know that with this instrument there is no death. I have read the books that speak of this race, this wonderful people who conquered all disease, who explored all the mysteries of science, who devised this machine to cheat death. See this button here on the face of the instrument? Press the button, and...."
"And what?"
"I don't know, exactly. But I have lived many years. I have walked the streets of this city and wondered, and wanted to press the button. Now I will do so."
Quickly the old man, still smiling, pressed the button. A high-pitched whine filled the air, just within audio range. Steady for a moment, it then rose in pitch passing beyond hearing quickly.
The old man's knees buckled. He sank down, fell over the bed, lay still. Michaelson touched him cautiously, then examined him more carefully. No question about it.
The old man was dead.
Feeling depressed and alone, Michaelson found a desert knoll outside the city overlooking the tall spires that shone in the sunlight and gleamed in the moonlight. He made a stretcher, rolled the old man's body on to it and dragged it down the long ancient street and up the knoll.
Here he buried him.
But it seemed a waste of time. Somehow he knew beyond any doubt that the old native and his body were completely disassociated in some sense more complete than death.
In the days that followed he gave much thought to the "clock." He came to the city every day. He spent long hours in the huge square building with the books. He learned the language by sheer bulldog determination. Then he searched the books for information about the instrument.
Finally after many weeks, long after the winds had obliterated all evidence of Maota's grave on the knoll, Michaelson made a decision. He had to know if the machine would work for him.
And so one afternoon when the ancient spires threw long shadows over the sand he walked down the long street and entered the old man's house. He stood before the instrument, trembling, afraid, but determined. He pinched his eyes shut tight like a child and pressed the button.
The high-pitched whine started.
Complete, utter silence. Void. Darkness. Awareness and memory, yes; nothing else. Then Maota's chuckle came. No sound, an impression only like the voice from the ancient book. Where was he? There was no left or right, up or down. Maota was everywhere, nowhere.
"Look!" Maota's thought was directed at him in this place of no direction. "Think of the city and you will see it."
Michaelson did, and he saw the city beyond, as if he were looking through a window. And yet he was in the city looking at his own body.
Maota's chuckle again. "The city will remain as it is. You did not win after all."
"Neither did you."
"But this existence has compensations," Maota said. "You can be anywhere, see anywhere on this planet. Even on your Earth."
Michaelson felt a great sadness, seeing his body lying across the old, home made bed. He looked closer. He sensed a vibration or life force—he didn't stop to define it—in his body. Why was his dead body different from Old Maota's? Could it be that there was some thread stretching from the reality of his body to his present state?
"I don't like your thoughts," Maota said. "No one can go back. I tried. I have discussed it with many who are not presently in communication with you. No one can go back."
Michaelson decided he try.
"No!" Maota's thought was prickled with fear and anger.
Michaelson did not know how to try, but he remembered the cylinder and gathered all the force of his mind in spite of Maota's protests, and gave his most violent command.
At first he thought it didn't work. He got up and looked around, then it struck him. He was standing up!
The cylinder. He knew it was the cylinder. That was the difference between himself and Maota. When he used the cylinder, that was where he went, the place where Maota was now. It was a door of some kind, leading to a path of some kind where distance was non-existent. But the
"clock" was a mechanism to transport only the mind to that place.
To be certain of it, he pressed the button again, with the same result as before. He saw his own body fall down. He felt Maota's presence.
"You devil!" Maota's thought-scream was a sword of hate and anger, irrational suddenly, like a person who knows his loss is irrevocable.
"I said you were a god. I said you were a god. I said you were a god...! "
Question:
What is the cylinder and why is it significant?
Answer:
|
[
"The cylinder is an implement tailored to Mr. Michaelson that is tucked behind his ear and will allow him to go anywhere that he desires when it is pressed. He uses it several times in the story to travel to physical places, disappearing immediately and reappearing in a new location. Once, to travel to a cold stream to wash his bleeding wounds after being hit on the head with a book by Maota, and a second time to avoid being killed by Maota firing a weapon to kill him.\nAfter Maota presses the button of the “clock” in the dead city and appears to drop dead. Mr. Michaelson desperately attempts to gain the knowledge to understand what the clock device does. Rather radically, he decides that he must press the button to fully understand, not completely knowing that he won’t die when he does. When Mr. Michaelson sees his dead body below him in the city and communicates wordlessly with Maota in this spiritual dimension he begins to panic and search for ways to get back into his body. This is how he discovers that he can will the cylinder with his mind, and return into his physical body by doing so. Through this act he can traverse between the physical and spiritual realms, which ultimately makes him considered a god by Maota (greatly angering him).\n",
"The cylinder is a small device inserted under the flesh behind Michaelson’s ear and transports him to other locations instantly, operated by his thoughts. Each cylinder is tailored to the person for whom it is intended and will not work for anyone else. It instantly sends him 500 miles across the desert to a creek where he can wash and cool off after his head injury. The cylinder saves his life twice: first in the fight with Maota when Maota points the tube gun at him. Michaelson uses the cylinder to jump out of Maota’s line of sight and land behind him. The second time it saves his life is when he uses the clock device. Michaelson’s lifeless body is left behind as his mind journey’s to where Maota’s is, a place from which there is no return. However, Michaelson remembers the cylinder and tries to use it to return to his body, and it works. The cylinder, not the clock device, actually sent him to where Maota’s mind went. \n",
"The cylinder is a small, artificial implant that Mr. Michaelson receives behind his ear. The implant allows him to travel any distance, great or small, instantaneously and is triggered by a thought. The implant enables Michaelson to travel from Earth to Alpha Centaurus II, and he uses the implant again to locate the old city that he explores on foot. After Maota injures Michaelson with the poetry book, he uses the implant to transport himself to a small creek where he washes away the caked blood from his hair. Later, Michaelson again triggers the implant to avoid being shot by Maota when he attempts to kill him. Maota indicates he believes Michaelson is a god because of his ability to travel any distance in the blink of an eye. When Maota demonstrates the power of the clock-like device to transfer a person's spirit to another dimension, Michaelson realizes he maintains a connection to his corporeal body via the cylindrical implant. He uses this realization to his advantage by triggering the implant, which allows him to go back and forth between the fourth dimension and his corporeal form.",
"The cylinder is an innovative invention shared among Earthmen. It allows the person wearing it to travel between places in the blink of an eye. Michaelson wears his cylinder above the ear, and it is specifically tailored to his being. This device becomes incredibly important in the story as Michaelson uses it several times throughout his time in the ancient ruins. The first instance of significance was when Maota attempted to kill Michaelson with his weapon, but Michaelson simply disappeared in front of his eyes, only to reappear behind him and knock him out with a well-timed blow. The cylinder saved his life then and elevated him to god-like status in Maota’s eyes. \nAfter Maota travels through the mysterious clock and presumably dies, Michaelson spends several weeks deciding what to do. When he finally hits the button, his body also falls, just like Maota’s, and he regains consciousness in a spirit world where he can see everything on any planet he wants. Maota tells him that no one is able to leave, no matter how hard they try, and that they are stuck in this plane of existence. Michaelson, however, is able to use his cylinder to travel out of that dimension and back onto the planet. He does it again to prove that it truly works, leaving Maota crying out in anger. \n"
] |
50802
|
A CITY NEAR CENTAURUS
By BILL DOEDE
Illustrated by WEST
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine October 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The city was sacred, but not to its gods. Michaelson was a god—but far from sacred!
Crouched in the ancient doorway like an animal peering out from his burrow, Mr. Michaelson saw the native.
At first he was startled, thinking it might be someone else from the Earth settlement who had discovered the old city before him. Then he saw the glint of sun against the metallic skirt, and relaxed.
He chuckled to himself, wondering with amusement what a webfooted man was doing in an old dead city so far from his people. Some facts were known about the people of Alpha Centaurus II. They were not actually natives, he recalled. They were a colony from the fifth planet of the system. They were a curious people. Some were highly intelligent, though uneducated.
He decided to ignore the man for the moment. He was far down the ancient street, a mere speck against the sand. There would be plenty of time to wonder about him.
He gazed out from his position at the complex variety of buildings before him. Some were small, obviously homes. Others were huge with tall, frail spires standing against the pale blue sky. Square buildings, ellipsoid, spheroid. Beautiful, dream-stuff bridges connected tall, conical towers, bridges that still swung in the wind after half a million years. Late afternoon sunlight shone against ebony surfaces. The sands of many centuries had blown down the wide streets and filled the doorways. Desert plants grew from roofs of smaller buildings.
Ignoring the native, Mr. Michaelson poked about among the ruins happily, exclaiming to himself about some particular artifact, marveling at its state of preservation, holding it this way and that to catch the late afternoon sun, smiling, clucking gleefully. He crawled over the rubble through old doorways half filled with the accumulation of ages. He dug experimentally in the sand with his hands, like a dog, under a roof that had weathered half a million years of rain and sun. Then he crawled out again, covered with dust and cobwebs.
The native stood in the street less than a hundred feet away, waving his arms madly. "Mr. Earthgod," he cried. "It is sacred ground where you are trespassing!"
The archeologist smiled, watching the man hurry closer. He was short, even for a native. Long gray hair hung to his shoulders, bobbing up and down as he walked. He wore no shoes. The toes of his webbed feet dragged in the sand, making a deep trail behind him. He was an old man.
"You never told us about this old dead city," Michaelson said, chidingly. "Shame on you. But never mind. I've found it now. Isn't it beautiful?"
"Yes, beautiful. You will leave now."
"Leave?" Michaelson asked, acting surprised as if the man were a child. "I just got here a few hours ago."
"You must go."
"Why? Who are you?"
"I am keeper of the city."
"You?" Michaelson laughed. Then, seeing how serious the native was, said, "What makes you think a dead city needs a keeper?"
"The spirits may return."
Michaelson crawled out of the doorway and stood up. He brushed his trousers. He pointed. "See that wall? Built of some metal, I'd say, some alloy impervious to rust and wear."
"The spirits are angry."
"Notice the inscriptions? Wind has blown sand against them for eons, and rain and sleet. But their story is there, once we decipher it."
"Leave!"
The native's lined, weathered old face was working around the mouth in anger. Michaelson was almost sorry he had mocked him. He was deadly serious.
"Look," he said. "No spirits are ever coming back here. Don't you know that? And even if they did, spirits care nothing for old cities half covered with sand and dirt."
He walked away from the old man, heading for another building. The sun had already gone below the horizon, coloring the high clouds. He glanced backward. The webfoot was following.
"Mr. Earthgod!" the webfoot cried, so sharply that Michaelson stopped.
"You must not touch, not walk upon, not handle. Your step may destroy the home of some ancient spirit. Your breath may cause one iota of change and a spirit may lose his way in the darkness. Go quickly now, or be killed."
He turned and walked off, not looking back.
Michaelson stood in the ancient street, tall, gaunt, feet planted wide, hands in pockets, watching the webfoot until he was out of sight beyond a huge circular building. There was a man to watch. There was one of the intelligent ones. One look into the alert old eyes had told him that.
Michaelson shook his head, and went about satisfying his curiosity. He entered buildings without thought of roofs falling in, or decayed floors dropping from under his weight. He began to collect small items, making a pile of them in the street. An ancient bowl, metal untouched by the ages. A statue of a man, one foot high, correct to the minutest detail, showing how identical they had been to Earthmen. He found books still standing on ancient shelves but was afraid to touch them without tools.
Darkness came swiftly and he was forced out into the street.
He stood there alone feeling the age of the place. Even the smell of age was in the air. Silver moonlight from the two moons filtered through clear air down upon the ruins. The city lay now in darkness, dead and still, waiting for morning so it could lie dead and still in the sun.
There was no hurry to be going home, although he was alone, although this was Alpha Centaurus II with many unknowns, many dangers ... although home was a very great distance away. There was no one back there to worry about him.
His wife had died many years ago back on Earth. No children. His friends in the settlement would not look for him for another day at least. Anyway, the tiny cylinder, buried in flesh behind his ear, a thing of mystery and immense power, could take him home instantly, without effort save a flicker of thought.
"You did not leave, as I asked you."
Michaelson whirled around at the sound of the native's voice. Then he relaxed. He said, "You shouldn't sneak up on a man like that."
"You must leave, or I will be forced to kill you. I do not want to kill you, but if I must...." He made a clucking sound deep in the throat.
"The spirits are angry."
"Nonsense. Superstition! But never mind. You have been here longer than I. Tell me, what are those instruments in the rooms? It looks like a clock but I'm certain it had some other function."
"What rooms?"
"Oh, come now. The small rooms back there. Look like they were bedrooms."
"I do not know." The webfoot drew closer. Michaelson decided he was sixty or seventy years old, at least.
"You've been here a long time. You are intelligent, and you must be educated, the way you talk. That gadget looks like a time-piece of some sort. What is it? What does it measure?"
"I insist that you go." The webfoot held something in his hand.
"No." Michaelson looked off down the street, trying to ignore the native, trying to feel the life of the city as it might have been.
"You are sensitive," the native said in his ear. "It takes a sensitive god to feel the spirits moving in the houses and walking in these old streets."
"Say it any way you want to. This is the most fascinating thing I've ever seen. The Inca's treasure, the ruins of Pompeii, Egyptian tombs—none can hold a candle to this."
"Mr. Earthgod...."
"Don't call me that. I'm not a god, and you know it."
The old man shrugged. "It is not an item worthy of dispute. Those names you mention, are they the names of gods?"
He chuckled. "In a way, yes. What is your name?"
"Maota."
"You must help me, Maota. These things must be preserved. We'll build a museum, right here in the street. No, over there on the hill just outside the city. We'll collect all the old writings and perhaps we may decipher them. Think of it, Maota! To read pages written so long ago and think their thoughts. We'll put everything under glass. Build and evacuate chambers to stop the decay. Catalogue, itemize...."
Michaelson was warming up to his subject, but Maota shook his head like a waving palm frond and stamped his feet.
"You will leave now."
"Can't you see? Look at the decay. These things are priceless. They must be preserved. Future generations will thank us."
"Do you mean," the old man asked, aghast, "that you want others to come here? You know the city abhors the sound of alien voices. Those who lived here may return one day! They must not find their city packaged and preserved and laid out on shelves for the curious to breathe their foul breaths upon. You will leave. Now!"
"No." Michaelson was adamant. The rock of Gibraltar.
Maota hit him, quickly, passionately, and dropped the weapon beside his body. He turned swiftly, making a swirling mark in the sand with his heel, and walked off toward the hills outside the city.
The weapon he had used was an ancient book. Its paper-thin pages rustled in the wind as if an unseen hand turned them, reading, while Michaelson's blood trickled out from the head wound upon the ancient street.
When he regained consciousness the two moons, bright sentinel orbs in the night sky, had moved to a new position down their sliding path. Old Maota's absence took some of the weirdness and fantasy away. It seemed a more practical place now.
The gash in his head was painful, throbbing with quick, short hammer-blows synchronized with his heart beats. But there was a new determination in him. If it was a fight that the old webfooted fool wanted, a fight he would get. The cylinder flicked him, at his command, across five hundred miles of desert and rocks to a small creek he remembered. Here he bathed his head in cool water until all the caked blood was dissolved from his hair. Feeling better, he went back.
The wind had turned cool. Michaelson shivered, wishing he had brought a coat. The city was absolutely still except for small gusts of wind sighing through the frail spires. The ancient book still lay in the sand beside the dark spot of blood. He stooped over and picked it up.
It was light, much lighter than most Earth books. He ran a hand over the binding. Smooth it was, untouched by time or climate. He squinted at the pages, tilting the book to catch the bright moonlight, but the writing was alien. He touched the page, ran his forefinger over the writing.
Suddenly he sprang back. The book fell from his hands.
"God in heaven!" he exclaimed.
He had heard a voice. He looked around at the old buildings, down the length of the ancient street. Something strange about the voice. Not Maota. Not his tones. Not his words. Satisfied that no one was near, he stooped and picked up the book again.
"Good God!" he said aloud. It was the book talking. His fingers had touched the writing again. It was not a voice, exactly, but a stirring in his mind, like a strange language heard for the first time.
A talking book. What other surprises were in the city? Tall, fragile buildings laughing at time and weather. A clock measuring God-knows-what. If such wonders remained, what about those already destroyed? One could only guess at the machines, the gadgets, the artistry already decayed and blown away to mix forever with the sand.
I must preserve it, he thought, whether Maota likes it or not. They say these people lived half a million years ago. A long time. Let's see, now. A man lives one hundred years on the average. Five thousand lifetimes.
And all you do is touch a book, and a voice jumps across all those years!
He started off toward the tall building he had examined upon discovery of the city. His left eyelid began to twitch and he laid his forefinger against the eye, pressing until it stopped. Then he stooped and entered the building. He laid the book down and tried to take the "clock" off the wall. It was dark in the building and his fingers felt along the wall, looking for it. Then he touched it. His fingers moved over its smooth surface. Then suddenly he jerked his hand back with an exclamation of amazement. Fear ran up his spine.
The clock was warm.
He felt like running, like flicking back to the settlement where there were people and familiar voices, for here was a thing that should not be. Half a million years—and here was warmth!
He touched it again, curiosity overwhelming his fear. It was warm. No mistake. And there was a faint vibration, a suggestion of power. He stood there in the darkness staring off into the darkness, trembling. Fear built up in him until it was a monstrous thing, drowning reason. He forgot the power of the cylinder behind his ear. He scrambled through the doorway. He got up and ran down the ancient sandy street until he came to the edge of the city. Here he stopped, gasping for air, feeling the pain throb in his head.
Common sense said that he should go home, that nothing worthwhile could be accomplished at night, that he was tired, that he was weak from loss of blood and fright and running. But when Michaelson was on the trail of important discoveries he had no common sense.
He sat down in the darkness, meaning to rest a moment.
When he awoke dawn was red against thin clouds in the east.
Old Maota stood in the street with webbed feet planted far apart in the sand, a weapon in the crook of his arm. It was a long tube affair, familiar to Michaelson.
Michaelson asked, "Did you sleep well?"
"No."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"How do you feel?"
"Fine, but my head aches a little."
"Sorry," Maota said.
"For what?"
"For hitting you. Pain is not for gods like you."
Michaelson relaxed somewhat. "What kind of man are you? First you try to break my skull, then you apologize."
"I abhor pain. I should have killed you outright."
He thought about that for a moment, eyeing the weapon.
It looked in good working order. Slim and shiny and innocent, it looked like a glorified African blowgun. But he was not deceived by its appearance. It was a deadly weapon.
"Well," he said, "before you kill me, tell me about the book." He held it up for Maota to see.
"What about the book?"
"What kind of book is it?"
"What does Mr. Earthgod mean, what kind of book? You have seen it. It is like any other book, except for the material and the fact that it talks."
"No, no. I mean, what's in it?"
"Poetry."
"Poetry? For God's sake, why poetry? Why not mathematics or history? Why not tell how to make the metal of the book itself? Now there is a subject worthy of a book."
Maota shook his head. "One does not study a dead culture to learn how they made things, but how they thought. But we are wasting time. I must kill you now, so I can get some rest."
The old man raised the gun.
"Wait! You forget that I also have a weapon." He pointed to the spot behind his ear where the cylinder was buried. "I can move faster than you can fire the gun."
Maota nodded. "I have heard how you travel. It does not matter. I will kill you anyway."
"I suggest we negotiate."
"No."
"Why not?"
Maota looked off toward the hills, old eyes filmed from years of sand and wind, leather skin lined and pitted. The hills stood immobile, brown-gray, already shimmering with heat, impotent.
"Why not?" Michaelson repeated.
"Why not what?" Maota dragged his eyes back.
"Negotiate."
"No." Maota's eyes grew hard as steel. They stood there in the sun, not twenty feet apart, hating each other. The two moons, very pale and far away on the western horizon, stared like two bottomless eyes.
"All right, then. At least it's a quick death. I hear that thing just disintegrates a man. Pfft! And that's that."
Michaelson prepared himself to move if the old man's finger slid closer toward the firing stud. The old man raised the gun.
"Wait!"
"Now what?"
"At least read some of the book to me before I die, then."
The gun wavered. "I am not an unreasonable man," the webfoot said.
Michaelson stepped forward, extending his arm with the book.
"No, stay where you are. Throw it."
"This book is priceless. You just don't go throwing such valuable items around."
"It won't break. Throw it."
Michaelson threw the book. It landed at Maota's feet, spouting sand against his leg. He shifted the weapon, picked up the book and leafed through it, raising his head in a listening attitude, searching for a suitable passage. Michaelson heard the thin, metallic pages rustle softly. He could have jumped and seized the weapon at that moment, but his desire to hear the book was strong.
Old Maota read, Michaelson listened. The cadence was different, the syntax confusing. But the thoughts were there. It might have been a professor back on Earth reading to his students. Keats, Shelley, Browning. These people were human, with human thoughts and aspirations.
The old man stopped reading. He squatted slowly, keeping Michaelson in sight, and laid the book face up in the sand. Wind moved the pages.
"See?" he said. "The spirits read. They must have been great readers, these people. They drink the book, as if it were an elixir. See how gentle! They lap at the pages like a new kitten tasting milk."
Michaelson laughed. "You certainly have an imagination."
"What difference does it make?" Maota cried, suddenly angry. "You want to close up all these things in boxes for a posterity who may have no slightest feeling or appreciation. I want to leave the city as it is, for spirits whose existence I cannot prove."
The old man's eyes were furious now, deadly. The gun came down directly in line with the Earthman's chest. The gnarled finger moved.
Michaelson, using the power of the cylinder behind his ear, jumped behind the old webfoot. To Maota it seemed that he had flicked out of existence like a match blown out. The next instant Michaelson spun him around and hit him. It was an inexpert fist, belonging to an archeologist, not a fighter. But Maota was an old man.
He dropped in the sand, momentarily stunned. Michaelson bent over to pick up the gun and the old man, feeling it slip from his fingers, hung on and was pulled to his feet.
They struggled for possession of the gun, silently, gasping, kicking sand. Faces grew red. Lips drew back over Michaelson's white teeth, over Maota's pink, toothless gums. The dead city's fragile spires threw impersonal shadows down where they fought.
Then quite suddenly a finger or hand—neither knew whose finger or hand—touched the firing stud.
There was a hollow, whooshing sound. Both stopped still, realizing the total destruction they might have caused.
"It only hit the ground," Michaelson said.
A black, charred hole, two feet in diameter and—they could not see how deep—stared at them.
Maota let go and sprawled in the sand. "The book!" he cried. "The book is gone!"
"No! We probably covered it with sand while we fought."
Both men began scooping sand in their cupped hands, digging frantically for the book. Saliva dripped from Maota's mouth, but he didn't know or care.
Finally they stopped, exhausted. They had covered a substantial area around the hole. They had covered the complete area where they had been.
"We killed it," the old man moaned.
"It was just a book. Not alive, you know."
"How do you know?" The old man's pale eyes were filled with tears. "It talked and it sang. In a way, it had a soul. Sometimes on long nights I used to imagine it loved me, for taking care of it."
"There are other books. We'll get another."
Maota shook his head. "There are no more."
"But I've seen them. Down there in the square building."
"Not poetry. Books, yes, but not poetry. That was the only book with songs."
"I'm sorry."
" You killed it!" Maota suddenly sprang for the weapon, lying forgotten in the sand. Michaelson put his foot on it and Maota was too weak to tear it loose. He could only weep out his rage.
When he could talk again, Maota said, "I am sorry, Mr. Earthgod. I've disgraced myself."
"Don't be sorry." Michaelson helped him to his feet. "We fight for some reasons, cry for others. A priceless book is a good reason for either."
"Not for that. For not winning. I should have killed you last night when I had the chance. The gods give us chances and if we don't take them we lose forever."
"I told you before! We are on the same side. Negotiate. Have you never heard of negotiation?"
"You are a god," Maota said. "One does not negotiate with gods. One either loves them, or kills them."
"That's another thing. I am not a god. Can't you understand?"
"Of course you are." Maota looked up, very sure. "Mortals cannot step from star to star like crossing a shallow brook."
"No, no. I don't step from one star to another. An invention does that. Just an invention. I carry it with me. It's a tiny thing. No one would ever guess it has such power. So you see, I'm human, just like you. Hit me and I hurt. Cut me and I bleed. I love. I hate. I was born. Some day I'll die. See? I'm human. Just a human with a machine. No more than that."
Maota laughed, then sobered quickly. "You lie."
"No."
"If I had this machine, could I travel as you?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll kill you and take yours."
"It would not work for you."
"Why?"
"Each machine is tailored for each person."
The old man hung his head. He looked down into the black, charred hole. He walked all around the hole. He kicked at the sand, looking half-heartedly again for the book.
"Look," Michaelson said. "I'm sure I've convinced you that I'm human. Why not have a try at negotiating our differences?"
He looked up. His expressive eyes, deep, resigned, studied Michaelson's face. Finally he shook his head sadly. "When we first met I hoped we could think the ancient thoughts together. But our paths diverge. We have finished, you and I."
He turned and started off, shoulders slumped dejectedly.
Michaelson caught up to him. "Are you leaving the city?"
"No."
"Where are you going?"
"Away. Far away." Maota looked off toward the hills, eyes distant.
"Don't be stupid, old man. How can you go far away and not leave the city?"
"There are many directions. You would not understand."
"East. West. North. South. Up. Down."
"No, no. There is another direction. Come, if you must see."
Michaelson followed him far down the street. They came to a section of the city he had not seen before. Buildings were smaller, spires dwarfed against larger structures. Here a path was packed in the sand, leading to a particular building.
Michaelson said, "This is where you live?"
"Yes."
Maota went inside. Michaelson stood in the entrance and looked around. The room was clean, furnished with hand made chairs and a bed. Who is this old man, he thought, far from his people, living alone, choosing a life of solitude among ancient ruins but not touching them? Above the bed a "clock" was fastened to the wall, Michaelson remembered his fright—thinking of the warmth where warmth should not be.
Maota pointed to it.
"You asked about this machine," he said. "Now I will tell you." He laid his hand against it. "Here is power to follow another direction."
Michaelson tested one of the chairs to see if it would hold his weight, then sat down. His curiosity about the instrument was colossal, but he forced a short laugh. "Maota, you are complex. Why not stop all this mystery nonsense and tell me about it? You know more about it than I."
"Of course." Maota smiled a toothless, superior smile. "What do you suppose happened to this race?"
"You tell me."
"They took the unknown direction. The books speak of it. I don't know how the instrument works, but one thing is certain. The race did not die out, as a species becomes extinct."
Michaelson was amused, but interested. "Something like a fourth dimension?"
"I don't know. I only know that with this instrument there is no death. I have read the books that speak of this race, this wonderful people who conquered all disease, who explored all the mysteries of science, who devised this machine to cheat death. See this button here on the face of the instrument? Press the button, and...."
"And what?"
"I don't know, exactly. But I have lived many years. I have walked the streets of this city and wondered, and wanted to press the button. Now I will do so."
Quickly the old man, still smiling, pressed the button. A high-pitched whine filled the air, just within audio range. Steady for a moment, it then rose in pitch passing beyond hearing quickly.
The old man's knees buckled. He sank down, fell over the bed, lay still. Michaelson touched him cautiously, then examined him more carefully. No question about it.
The old man was dead.
Feeling depressed and alone, Michaelson found a desert knoll outside the city overlooking the tall spires that shone in the sunlight and gleamed in the moonlight. He made a stretcher, rolled the old man's body on to it and dragged it down the long ancient street and up the knoll.
Here he buried him.
But it seemed a waste of time. Somehow he knew beyond any doubt that the old native and his body were completely disassociated in some sense more complete than death.
In the days that followed he gave much thought to the "clock." He came to the city every day. He spent long hours in the huge square building with the books. He learned the language by sheer bulldog determination. Then he searched the books for information about the instrument.
Finally after many weeks, long after the winds had obliterated all evidence of Maota's grave on the knoll, Michaelson made a decision. He had to know if the machine would work for him.
And so one afternoon when the ancient spires threw long shadows over the sand he walked down the long street and entered the old man's house. He stood before the instrument, trembling, afraid, but determined. He pinched his eyes shut tight like a child and pressed the button.
The high-pitched whine started.
Complete, utter silence. Void. Darkness. Awareness and memory, yes; nothing else. Then Maota's chuckle came. No sound, an impression only like the voice from the ancient book. Where was he? There was no left or right, up or down. Maota was everywhere, nowhere.
"Look!" Maota's thought was directed at him in this place of no direction. "Think of the city and you will see it."
Michaelson did, and he saw the city beyond, as if he were looking through a window. And yet he was in the city looking at his own body.
Maota's chuckle again. "The city will remain as it is. You did not win after all."
"Neither did you."
"But this existence has compensations," Maota said. "You can be anywhere, see anywhere on this planet. Even on your Earth."
Michaelson felt a great sadness, seeing his body lying across the old, home made bed. He looked closer. He sensed a vibration or life force—he didn't stop to define it—in his body. Why was his dead body different from Old Maota's? Could it be that there was some thread stretching from the reality of his body to his present state?
"I don't like your thoughts," Maota said. "No one can go back. I tried. I have discussed it with many who are not presently in communication with you. No one can go back."
Michaelson decided he try.
"No!" Maota's thought was prickled with fear and anger.
Michaelson did not know how to try, but he remembered the cylinder and gathered all the force of his mind in spite of Maota's protests, and gave his most violent command.
At first he thought it didn't work. He got up and looked around, then it struck him. He was standing up!
The cylinder. He knew it was the cylinder. That was the difference between himself and Maota. When he used the cylinder, that was where he went, the place where Maota was now. It was a door of some kind, leading to a path of some kind where distance was non-existent. But the
"clock" was a mechanism to transport only the mind to that place.
To be certain of it, he pressed the button again, with the same result as before. He saw his own body fall down. He felt Maota's presence.
"You devil!" Maota's thought-scream was a sword of hate and anger, irrational suddenly, like a person who knows his loss is irrevocable.
"I said you were a god. I said you were a god. I said you were a god...! "
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Who is Isobar Jones and what happens to him throughout the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Trouble on Tycho by Nelson S. Bond.
Relevant chunks:
TROUBLE ON TYCHO
By NELSON S. BOND
Isobar and his squeeze-pipes were the bane of the Moon Station's existence. But there came the day when his comrades found that the worth of a man lies sometimes in his nuisance value.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories March 1943. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The audiophone buzzed thrice—one long, followed by two shorts—and Isobar Jones pressed the stud activating its glowing scanner-disc.
"Hummm?" he said absent-mindedly.
The selenoplate glowed faintly, and the image of the Dome Commander appeared.
"Report ready, Jones?"
"Almost," acknowledged Isobar gloomily. "It prob'ly ain't right, though. How anybody can be expected to get anything right on this dagnabbed hunk o' green cheese—"
"Send it up," interrupted Colonel Eagan, "as soon as you can. Sparks is making Terra contact now. That is all."
"That ain't all!" declared Isobar indignantly. "How about my bag—?"
It was all , so far as the D.C. was concerned. Isobar was talking to himself. The plate dulled. Isobar said, "Nuts!" and returned to his duties. He jotted neat ditto marks under the word "Clear" which, six months ago, he had placed beneath the column headed: Cond. of Obs. He noted the proper figures under the headings Sun Spots : Max Freq. — Min. Freq. ; then he sketched careful curves in blue and red ink upon the Mercator projection of Earth which was his daily work sheet.
This done, he drew a clean sheet of paper out of his desk drawer, frowned thoughtfully at the tabulated results of his observations, and began writing.
" Weather forecast for Terra ," he wrote, his pen making scratching sounds.
The audiophone rasped again. Isobar jabbed the stud and answered without looking.
"O.Q.," he said wearily. "O.Q. I told you it would be ready in a couple o' minutes. Keep your pants on!"
"I—er—I beg your pardon, Isobar?" queried a mild voice.
Isobar started. His sallow cheeks achieved a sickly salmon hue. He blinked nervously.
"Oh, jumpin' jimminy!" he gulped. " You , Miss Sally! Golly—'scuse me! I didn't realize—"
The Dome Commander's niece giggled.
"That's all right, Isobar. I just called to ask you about the weather in Oceania Sector 4B next week. I've got a swimming date at Waikiki, but I won't make the shuttle unless the weather's going to be nice."
"It is," promised Isobar. "It'll be swell all weekend, Miss Sally. Fine sunshiny weather. You can go."
"That's wonderful. Thanks so much, Isobar."
"Don't mention it, ma'am," said Isobar, and returned to his work.
South America. Africa. Asia. Pan-Europa. Swiftly he outlined the meteorological prospects for each sector. He enjoyed this part of his job. As he wrote forecasts for each area, in his mind's eye he saw himself enjoying such pastimes as each geographical division's terrain rendered possible.
If home is where the heart is, Horatio Jones—known better as "Isobar" to his associates at the Experimental Dome on Luna—was a long, long way from home. His lean, gangling frame was immured, and had been for six tedious Earth months, beneath the impervite hemisphere of Lunar III—that frontier outpost which served as a rocket refueling station, teleradio transmission point and meteorological base.
"Six solid months! Six sad, dreary months!" thought Isobar, "Locked up in an airtight Dome like—like a goldfish in a glass bowl!" Sunlight? Oh, sure! But filtered through ultraviolet wave-traps so it could not burn, it left the skin pale and lustreless and clammy as the belly of a toad. Fresh air? Pooh! Nothing but that everlasting sickening, scented, reoxygenated stuff gushing from atmo-conditioning units.
Excitement? Adventure? The romance he had been led to expect when he signed on for frontier service? Bah! Only a weary, monotonous, routine existence.
"A pain!" declared Isobar Jones. "That's what it is; a pain in the stummick. Not even allowed to—Yeah?"
It was Sparks, audioing from the Dome's transmission turret. He said,
"Hyah, Jonesy! How comes with the report?"
"Done," said Isobar. "I was just gettin' the sheets together for you."
"O.Q. But just bring it . Nothing else."
Isobar bridled.
"I don't know what you're talkin' about."
"Oh, no? Well, I'm talking about that squawk-filled doodlesack of yours, sonny boy. Don't bring that bag-full of noise up here with you."
Isobar said defiantly, "It ain't a doodlesack. It's a bagpipe. And I guess I can play it if I want to—"
"Not," said Sparks emphatically, "in my cubby! I've got sensitive eardrums. Well, stir your stumps! I've got to get the report rolling quick today. Big doings up here."
"Yeah? What?"
"Well, it's Roberts and Brown—"
"What about 'em?"
"They've gone Outside to make foundation repairs."
"Lucky stiffs!" commented Isobar ruefully.
"Lucky, no. Stiffs, maybe—if they should meet any Grannies. Well, scoot along. I'm on the ether in four point sixteen minutes."
"Be right up," promised Isobar, and, sheets in hand, he ambled from his cloistered cell toward the central section of the Dome.
He didn't leave Sparks' turret after the sheets were delivered. Instead, he hung around, fidgeting so obtrusively that Riley finally turned to him in sheer exasperation.
"Sweet snakes of Saturn, Jonesy, what's the trouble? Bugs in your britches?"
Isobar said, "H-huh? Oh, you mean—Oh, thanks, no! I just thought mebbe you wouldn't mind if I—well—er—"
"I get it!" Sparks grinned. "Want to play peekaboo while the contact's open, eh? Well, O.Q. Watch the birdie!"
He twisted dials, adjusted verniers, fingered a host of incomprehensible keys. Current hummed and howled. Then a plate before him cleared, and the voice of the Earth operator came in, enunciating with painstaking clarity:
"Earth answering Luna. Earth answering Luna's call. Can you hear me, Luna? Can you hear—?"
"I can not only hear you," snorted Riley, "I can see you and smell you, as well. Stop hamming it, stupid! You're lousing up the earth!"
The now-visible face of the Earth radioman drew into a grimace of displeasure.
"Oh, it's you ? Funny man, eh? Funny man Riley?"
"Sure," said Riley agreeably. "I'm a scream. Four-alarm Riley, the cosmic comedian—didn't you know? Flick on your dictacoder, oyster-puss; here's the weather report." He read it. "' Weather forecast for Terra, week of May 15-21 —'"
"Ask him," whispered Isobar eagerly. "Sparks, don't forget to ask him!"
Riley motioned for silence, but nodded. He finished the weather report, entered the Dome Commander's log upon the Home Office records, and dictated a short entry from the Luna Biological Commission. Then:
"That is all," he concluded.
"O.Q.," verified the other radioman. Isobar writhed anxiously, prodded Riley's shoulder.
"Ask him, Sparks! Go on ask him!"
"Oh, cut jets, will you?" snapped Sparks. The Terra operator looked startled.
"How's that? I didn't say a word—"
"Don't be a dope," said Sparks, "you dope! I wasn't talking to you. I'm entertaining a visitor, a refugee from a cuckoo clock. Look, do me a favor, chum? Can you twist your mike around so it's pointing out a window?"
"What? Why—why, yes, but—"
"Without buts," said Sparks grumpily. "Yours not to reason why; yours but to do or don't. Will you do it?"
"Well, sure. But I don't understand—" The silver platter which had mirrored the radioman's face clouded as the Earth operator twirled the inconoscope. Walls and desks of an ordinary broadcasting office spun briefly into view; then the plate reflected a glimpse of an Earthly landscape. Soft blue sky warmed by an atmosphere-shielded sun ... green trees firmly rooted in still-greener grass ... flowers ... birds ... people....
"Enough?" asked Sparks.
Isobar Jones awakened from his trance, eyes dulling. Reluctantly he nodded. Riley stared at him strangely, almost gently. To the other radioman, "O.Q., pal," he said. "Cut!"
"Cut!" agreed the other. The plate blanked out.
"Thanks, Sparks," said Isobar.
"Nothing," shrugged Riley " He twisted the mike; not me. But—how come you always want to take a squint at Earth when the circuit's open, Jonesy? Homesick?"
"Sort of," admitted Isobar guiltily.
"Well, hell, aren't we all? But we can't leave here for another six months at least. Not till our tricks are up. I should think it'd only make you feel worse to see Earth."
"It ain't Earth I'm homesick for," explained Isobar. "It's—well, it's the things that go with it. I mean things like grass and flowers and trees."
Sparks grinned; a mirthless, lopsided grin.
"We've got them right here on Luna. Go look out the tower window, Jonesy. The Dome's nestled smack in the middle of the prettiest, greenest little valley you ever saw."
"I know," complained Isobar. "And that's what makes it even worse. All that pretty, soft, green stuff Outside—and we ain't allowed to go out in it. Sometimes I get so mad I'd like to—"
"To," interrupted a crisp voice, "what?"
Isobar spun, flushing; his eyes dropped before those of Dome Commander Eagan. He squirmed.
"N-nothing, sir. I was only saying—"
"I heard you, Jones. And please let me hear no more of such talk, sir! It is strictly forbidden for anyone to go Outside except in cases of absolute necessity. Such labor as caused Patrolmen Brown and Roberts to go, for example—"
"Any word from them yet, sir?" asked Sparks eagerly.
"Not yet. But we're expecting them to return at any minute now. Jones! Where are you going?"
"Why—why, just back to my quarters, sir."
"That's what I thought. And what did you plan to do there?"
Isobar said stubbornly, "Well, I sort of figured I'd amuse myself for a while—"
"I thought that, too. And with what , pray, Jones?"
"With the only dratted thing," said Isobar, suddenly petulant, "that gives me any fun around this dagnabbed place! With my bagpipe."
Commander Eagan said, "You'd better find some new way of amusing yourself, Jones. Have you read General Order 17?"
Isobar said, "I seen it. But if you think—"
"It says," stated Eagan deliberately, "' In order that work or rest periods of the Dome's staff may not be disturbed, it is hereby ordered that the playing or practicing of all or any musical instruments must be discontinued immediately. By order of the Dome Commander ,' That means you, Jones!"
"But, dingbust it!" keened Isobar, "it don't disturb nobody for me to play my bagpipes! I know these lunks around here don't appreciate good music, so I always go in my office and lock the door after me—"
"But the Dome," pointed out Commander Eagan, "has an air-conditioning system which can't be shut off. The ungodly moans of your—er—so-called musical instrument can be heard through the entire structure."
He suddenly seemed to gain stature.
"No, Jones, this order is final! You cannot disrupt our entire organization for your own—er—amusement."
"But—" said Isobar.
"No!"
Isobar wriggled desperately. Life on Luna was sorry enough already. If now they took from him the last remaining solace he had, the last amusement which lightened his moments of freedom—
"Look, Commander!" he pleaded, "I tell you what I'll do. I won't bother nobody. I'll go Outside and play it—"
"Outside!" Eagan stared at him incredulously. "Are you mad? How about the Grannies?"
Isobar knew all about the Grannies. The only mobile form of life found by space-questing man on Earth's satellite, their name was an abbreviation of the descriptive one applied to them by the first Lunar exployers: Granitebacks. This was no exaggeration; if anything, it was an understatement. For the Grannies, though possessed of certain low intelligence, had quickly proven themselves a deadly, unyielding and implacable foe.
Worse yet, they were an enemy almost indestructible! No man had ever yet brought to Earth laboratories the carcass of a Grannie; science was completely baffled in its endeavors to explain the composition of Graniteback physiology—but it was known, from bitter experience, that the carapace or exoskeleton of the Grannies was formed of something harder than steel, diamond, or battleplate! This flesh could be penetrated by no weapon known to man; neither by steel nor flame, by electronic nor ionic wave, nor by the lethal, newly discovered atomo-needle dispenser.
All this Isobar knew about the Grannies. Yet:
"They ain't been any Grannies seen around the Dome," he said, "for a 'coon's age. Anyhow, if I seen any comin', I could run right back inside—"
"No!" said Commander Eagan flatly. "Absolutely, no ! I have no time for such nonsense. You know the orders—obey them! And now, gentlemen, good afternoon!"
He left. Sparks turned to Isobar, grinning.
"Well," he said, "one man's fish—hey, Jonesy? Too bad you can't play your doodlesack any more, but frankly, I'm just as glad. Of all the awful screeching wails—"
But Isobar Jones, generally mild and gentle, was now in a perfect fury. His pale eyes blazed, he stomped his foot on the floor, and from his lips poured a stream of such angry invective that Riley looked startled. Words that, to Isobar, were the utter dregs of violent profanity.
"Oh, dagnab it!" fumed Isobar Jones. "Oh, tarnation and dingbust! Oh— fiddlesticks !"
II
"And so," chuckled Riley, "he left, bubbling like a kettle on a red-hot oven. But, boy! was he ever mad! Just about ready to bust, he was."
Some minutes had passed since Isobar had left; Riley was talking to Dr. Loesch, head of the Dome's Physics Research Division. The older man nodded commiseratingly.
"It is funny, yes," he agreed, "but at the same time it is not altogether amusing. I feel sorry for him. He is a very unhappy man, our poor Isobar."
"Yeah, I know," said Riley, "but, hell, we all get a little bit homesick now and then. He ought to learn to—"
"Excuse me, my boy," interrupted the aged physicist, his voice gentle,
"it is not mere homesickness that troubles our friend. It is something deeper, much more vital and serious. It is what my people call: weltschmertz . There is no accurate translation in English. It means
'world sickness,' or better, 'world weariness'—something like that but intensified a thousandfold.
"It is a deeply-rooted mental condition, sometimes a dangerous frame of mind. Under its grip, men do wild things. Hating the world on which they find themselves, they rebel in curious ways. Suicide ... mad acts of valor ... deeds of cunning or knavery...."
"You mean," demanded Sparks anxiously, "Isobar ain't got all his buttons?"
"Not that exactly. He is perfectly sane. But he is in a dark morass of despair. He may try anything to retrieve his lost happiness, rid his soul of its dark oppression. His world-sickness is like a crying hunger—By the way, where is he now?"
"Below, I guess. In his quarters."
"Ah, good! Perhaps he is sleeping. Let us hope so. In slumber he will find peace and forgetfulness."
But Dr. Loesch would have been far less sanguine had some power the
"giftie gi'en" him of watching Isobar Jones at that moment.
Isobar was not asleep. Far from it. Wide awake and very much astir, he was acting in a singularly sinister role: that of a slinking, furtive culprit.
Returning to his private cubicle after his conversation with Dome Commander Eagan, he had stalked straightway to the cabinet wherein was encased his precious set of bagpipes. These he had taken from their pegs, gazed upon defiantly, and fondled with almost parental affection.
"So I can't play you, huh?" he muttered darkly. "It disturbs the peace o' the dingfounded, dumblasted Dome staff, does it? Well, we'll see about that!"
And tucking the bag under his arm, he had cautiously slipped from the room, down little-used corridors, and now he stood before the huge impervite gates which were the entrance to the Dome and the doorway to Outside.
On all save those occasions when a spacecraft landed in the cradle adjacent the gateway, these portals were doubly locked and barred. But today they had been unbolted that the two maintenance men might venture out. And since it was quite possible that Brown and Roberts might have to get inside in a hurry, their bolts remained drawn. Sole guardian of the entrance was a very bored Junior Patrolman.
Up to this worthy strode Isobar Jones, confident and assured, exuding an aura of propriety.
"Very well, Wilkins," he said. "I'll take over now. You may go to the meeting."
Wilkins looked at him bewilderedly.
"Huh? Whuzzat, Mr. Jones?"
Isobar's eyebrows arched.
"You mean you haven't been notified?"
"Notified of what ?"
"Why, the general council of all Patrolmen! Weren't you told that I would take your place here while you reported to G.H.Q.?"
"I ain't," puzzled Wilkins, "heard nothing about it. Maybe I ought to call the office, maybe?"
And he moved the wall-audio. But Isobar said swiftly. "That—er—won't be necessary, Wilkins. My orders were plain enough. Now, you just run along. I'll watch this entrance for you."
"We-e-ell," said Wilkins, "if you say so. Orders is orders. But keep a sharp eye out, Mister Jones, in case Roberts and Brown should come back sudden-like."
"I will," promised Isobar, "don't worry."
Wilkins moved away. Isobar waited until the Patrolman was completely out of sight. Then swiftly he pulled open the massive gate, slipped through, and closed it behind him.
A flood of warmth, exhilarating after the constantly regulated temperature of the Dome, descended upon him. Fresh air, thin, but fragrant with the scent of growing things, made his pulses stir with joyous abandon. He was Outside! He was Outside, in good sunlight, at last! After six long and dreary months!
Raptly, blissfully, all thought of caution tossed to the gentle breezes that ruffled his sparse hair, Isobar Jones stepped forward into the lunar valley....
How long he wandered thus, carefree and utterly content, he could not afterward say. It seemed like minutes; it must have been longer. He only knew that the grass was green beneath his feet, the trees were a lacy network through which warm sunlight filtered benevolently, the chirrupings of small insects and the rustling whisper of the breezes formed a tiny symphony of happiness through which he moved as one charmed.
It did not occur to him that he had wandered too far from the Dome's entrance until, strolling through an enchanting flower-decked glade, he was startled to hear—off to his right—the sharp, explosive bark of a Haemholtz ray pistol.
He whirled, staring about him wildly, and discovered that though his meandering had kept him near the Dome, he had unconsciously followed its hemispherical perimeter to a point nearly two miles from the Gateway. By the placement of ports and windows, Isobar was able to judge his location perfectly; he was opposite that portion of the structure which housed Sparks' radio turret.
And the shooting? That could only be—
He did not have to name its reason, even to himself. For at that moment, there came racing around the curve of the Dome a pair of figures, Patrolmen clad in fatigue drab. Roberts and Brown. Roberts was staggering, one foot dragged awkwardly as he ran; Brown's left arm, bloodstained from shoulder to elbow, hung limply at his side, but in his good right fist he held a spitting Haemholtz with which he tried to cover his comrade's sluggish retreat.
And behind these two, grim, grey, gaunt figures that moved with astonishing speed despite their massive bulk, came three ... six ... a dozen of those lunarites whom all men feared. The Grannies!
III
Simultaneously with his recognition of the pair, Joe Roberts saw him. A gasp of relief escaped the wounded man.
"Jones! Thank the Lord! Then you picked up our cry for help? Quick, man—where is it? Theres not a moment to waste!"
"W-where," faltered Isobar feebly, "is what ?"
"The tank, of course! Didn't you hear our telecast? We can't possibly make it back to the gate without an armored car. My foot's broken, and—" Roberts stopped suddenly, an abrupt horror in his eyes. "You don't have one! You're here alone ! Then you didn't pick up our call? But, why—?"
"Never mind that," snapped Isobar, "now!" Placid by nature, he could move when urgency drove. His quick mind saw the immediateness of their peril. Unarmed, he could not help the Patrolmen fight a delaying action against their foes, nor could he hasten their retreat. Anyway, weapons were useless, and time was of the essence. There was but one temporary way of staving off disaster. "Over here ... this tree! Quick! Up you go! Give him a lift, Brown—There! That's the stuff!"
He was the last to scramble up the gnarled bole to a tentative leafy sanctuary. He had barely gained the security of the lowermost bough when a thundering crash resounded, the sturdy trunk trembled beneath his clutch. Stony claws gouged yellow parallels in the bark scant inches beneath one kicking foot, then the Granny fell back with a thud. The Graniteback was not a climber. It was far too ungainly, much too weighty for that.
Roberts said weakly, "Th-thanks, Jonesy! That was a close call."
"That goes for me, too, Jonesy," added Brown from an upper bough.
"But I'm afraid you just delayed matters. This tree's O.Q. as long as it lasts, but—" He stared down upon the gathering knot of Grannies unhappily—"it's not going to last long with that bunch of superdreadnaughts working out on it! Hold tight, fellows! Here they come!"
For the Grannies, who had huddled for a moment as if in telepathic consultation, now joined forces, turned, and as one body charged headlong toward the tree. The unified force of their attack was like the shattering impact of a battering ram. Bark rasped and gritted beneath the besieged men's hands, dry leaves and twigs pelted about them in a tiny rain, tormented fibrous sinews groaned as the aged forest monarch shuddered in agony.
Desperately they clung to their perches. Though the great tree bent, it did not break. But when it stopped trembling, it was canted drunkenly to one side, and the erstwhile solid earth about its base was broken and cracked—revealing fleshy tentacles uprooted from ancient moorings!
Brown stared at this evidence of the Grannies' power with terror-fascinated eyes. His voice was none too firm.
"Lord! Piledrivers! A couple more like that—"
Isobar nodded. He knew what falling into the clutch of the Grannies meant. He had once seen the grisly aftermath of a Graniteback feast. Even now their adversaries had drawn back for a second attack. A sudden idea struck him. A straw of hope at which he grasped feverishly.
"You telecast a message to the Dome? Help should be on the way by now. If we can just hold out—"
But Roberts shook his head.
"We sent a message, Jonesy, but I don't think it got through. I've just been looking at my portable. It seems to be busted. Happened when they first attacked us, I guess. I tripped and fell on it."
Isobar's last hope flickered out.
"Then I—I guess it won't be long now," he mourned. "If we could have only got a message through, they would have sent out an armored car to pick us up. But as it is—"
Brown's shrug displayed a bravado he did not feel.
"Well, that's the way it goes. We knew what we were risking when we volunteered to come Outside. This damn moon! It'll never be worth a plugged credit until men find some way to fight those murderous stones-on-legs!"
Roberts said, "That's right. But what are you doing out here, Isobar? And why, for Pete's sake, the bagpipes?"
"Oh—the pipes?" Isobar flushed painfully. He had almost forgotten his original reason for adventuring Outside, had quite forgotten his instrument, and was now rather amazed to discover that somehow throughout all the excitement he had held onto it. "Why, I just happened to—Oh! the pipes! "
"Hold on!" roared Roberts. His warning came just in time. Once more, the three tree-sitters shook like dried peas in a pod as their leafy refuge trembled before the locomotive onslaught of the lunar beasts. This time the already-exposed roots strained and lifted, several snapped; when the Grannies again withdrew, complacently unaware that the "lethal ray" of Brown's Haemholtz was wasting itself upon their adamant hides in futile fury, the tree was bent at a precarious angle.
Brown sobbed, not with fear but with impotent anger, and in a gesture of enraged desperation, hurled his now-empty weapon at the retreating Grannies.
"No good! Not a damn bit of good! Oh, if there was only some way of fighting those filthy things—"
But Isobar Jones had a one-track mind. "The pipes!" he cried again, excitedly. "That's the answer!" And he drew the instrument into playing position, bag cuddled beneath one arm-pit, drones stiffly erect over his shoulder, blow-pipe at his lips. His cheeks puffed, his breath expelled. The giant lung swelled, the chaunter emitted its distinctive, fearsome, " Kaa-aa-o-o-o-oro-oong! "
Roberts moaned.
"Oh, Lord! A guy can't even die in peace!"
And Brown stared at him hopelessly.
"It's no use, Isobar. You trying to scare them off? They have no sense of hearing. That's been proven—"
Isobar took his lips from the reed to explain.
"It's not that. I'm trying to rouse the boys in the Dome. We're right opposite the atmosphere-conditioning-unit. See that grilled duct over there? That's an inhalation-vent. The portable transmitter's out of order, and our voices ain't strong enough to carry into the Dome—but the sound of these pipes is! And Commander Eagan told me just a short while ago that the sound of the pipes carries all over the building!
"If they hear this, they'll get mad because I'm disobeyin' orders. They'll start lookin' for me. If they can't find me inside, maybe they'll look Outside. See that window? That's Sparks' turret. If we can make him look out here—"
" Stop talking! " roared Roberts. "Stop talking, guy, and start blowing! I think you've got something there. Anyhow, it's our last hope. Blow! "
"And quick!" appended Brown. "For here they come!"
Isobar played, blew with all his might, while the Grannies raged below.
He meant the Grannies. Again they were huddling for attack, once more, a solid phalanx of indestructible, granite flesh, they were smashing down upon the tree.
" Haa-a-roong! " blew Isobar Jones.
IV
And—even he could not have foreseen the astounding results of his piping! What happened next was as astonishing as it was incomprehensible. For as the pipes, filled now and primed to burst into whatever substitute for melody they were prodded into, wailed into action—the Grannies' rush came to an abrupt halt!
As one, they stopped cold in their tracks and turned dull, colorless, questioning eyes upward into the tree whence came this weird and vibrant droning!
So stunned with surprise was Isobar that his grip on the pipes relaxed, his lips almost slipped from the reed. But Brown's delighted bellow lifted his paralysis.
"Sacred rings of Saturn-look! They like it! Keep playing, Jonesy! Play, boy, like you never played before!"
And Roberts roared, above the skirling of the piobaireachd into which Isobar had instinctively swung, "Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast! Then we were wrong. They can hear, after all! See that? They're lying down to listen—like so many lambs! Keep playing, Isobar! For once in my life I'm glad to hear that lovely, wonderful music!"
Isobar needed no urging. He, too, had noted how the Grannies' attack had stopped, how every last one of the gaunt grey beasts had suddenly, quietly, almost happily, dropped to its haunches at the base of the tree.
There was no doubt about it; the Grannies liked this music. Eyes raptly fixed, unblinking, unwavering, they froze into postures of gentle beatitude. One stirred once, dangerously, as for a moment Isobar paused to catch his breath, but Isobar hastily lipped the blow-pipe with redoubled eagerness, and the Granny relapsed into quietude.
Followed then what, under somewhat different circumstances, should have been a piper's dream. For Isobar had an audience which would not—and in two cases dared not—allow him to stop playing. And to this audience he played over and over again his entire repertoire. Marches, flings, dances—the stirring Rhoderik Dhu and the lilting Lassies O'Skye , the mournful Coghiegh nha Shie whose keening is like the sound of a sobbing nation.
The Cock o' the North , he played, and Mironton ... Wee Flow'r o' Dee and MacArthur's March ... La Cucuracha and—
And his lungs were parched, his lips dry as swabs of cotton. Blood pounded through his temples, throbbing in time to the drone of the chaunter, and a dark mist gathered before his eyes. He tore the blow-pipe from his lips, gasped,
"Keep playing!" came the dim, distant howl of Johnny Brown. "Just a few minutes longer, Jonesy! Relief is on the way. Sparks saw us from his turret window five minutes ago!"
And Isobar played on. How, or what, he did not know. The memory of those next few minutes was never afterward clear in his mind. All he knew was that above the skirling drone of his pipes there came another sound, the metallic clanking of a man-made machine ... an armored tank, sent from the Dome to rescue the beleaguered trio.
He was conscious, then, of a friendly voice shouting words of encouragement, of Joe Roberts calling a warning to those below.
"Careful, boys! Drive the tank right up beneath us so we can hop in and get out of here! Watch the Grannies—they'll be after us the minute Isobar stops playing!"
Then the answer from below. The fantastic answer in Sparks' familiar voice. The answer that caused the bagpipes to slip from Isobar's fingers as Isobar Jones passed out in a dead faint:
"After you? Those Grannies? Hell's howling acres— those Grannies are stone dead !"
Question:
Who is Isobar Jones and what happens to him throughout the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Isobar Jones, real name Horatio, has been living on Luna III for six long months now. Working as a meteorologist for Earth and radio operator, he spends his days locked in the Experimental Dome of Luna meant to protect them from the Grannies, the indestructible creatures in the Outside. His only relief comes from playing his bagpipes, but his weariness, homesickness, and blues were catching up to him. \nAfter sending out his forecasts to Earth, Isobar reveals his deep desire to escape the dome and venture Outside. Caught by Colonel Eagon, he is punished by a new commandment stating that no musical instrument can be played as it disturbs the rest of the dome. An ardent player of the bagpipes, he is heartily disappointed and upset by the news. His weariness or weltschmertz as Dr. Loesch called it makes Isobar take his bagpipes Outside the dome so he can play in peace. He tricks the junior station manning the door and slips out once he’s out of sight. After walking for a long time through the beautiful scenery, he hears the sound of a gun firing. Knowing what this means, fear quickly strikes deep inside him. Roberts and Brown come towards him, followed by a dozen Grannies. Isobar helps them climb a tree while explaining that he doesn’t actually have the armored tank they called for. Once there, he explains his idea to them about playing his bagpipes so that the Dome would hear them and come to their rescue. The air conditioning valve was nearby, so the sound would carry. As he begins to play, the Grannies fall to the ground and remain there. Supposedly resting, Isobar keeps playing until backup arrives. They are shocked to find that Isobar’s playing didn’t just put the Grannies to sleep, it actually killed them. Isobar made a huge scientific discovery and rescued his companions. ",
"Horatio \"Isobar\" Jones is a meteorologist working a one-year term in the Experimental Dome at the Lunar III frontier outpost on Earth's moon, Luna. Isobar is lean and gangly and has a good working relationship with others at the outpost. However, Isobar has begun to miss Earth and the feeling of nature, since it is prohibited to leave the Dome due to the existential threat of the Grannies. He asks Sparks Riley to request the radioman show him the view outside when Sparks calls Earth to relay Isobar's weather report; when Sparks tells him Patrolmen Roberts and Brown have left the Dome to conduct routine maintenance Outside, Isobar feels jealous. He begins to loathe the recycled air in the dome and the clammy feeling it creates on his skin. Isobar becomes easily irritated and lashes out with profanities. Dr. Loesch suggests to Sparks that Isobar is the victim of \"weltschmertz\", an intense kind of world-weariness that can drive a person to extreme measures to feel happiness again. The only activity that brings Isobar joy anymore is playing the bagpipes, which disturbs his co-workers so much that Commander Eagan eventually orders him to stop playing it. This command sends Isobar over the edge, and he tricks Junior Patrolman Wilkins into giving up his post at the entrance gate so that he can leave the Dome and go outside to get some fresh air and play his bagpipes in peace. While he is outside, Isobar runs into Roberts and Brown, who are running away from a group of Grannies. After they take refuge up a tree, Isobar plays his bagpipes in order to signal Sparks for help. In the process, he learns that the music of the bagpipes has a powerful sedative effect upon the Grannies--so much so that it actually kills them.",
"Isobar Jones’s real name is Horatio. He joined the Frontier Services six months ago because he was eager to go on an adventure on the moon and do something exciting with his life. He is deeply disappointed in his decision because he gets very little joy out of his job. He enjoys making observations about the meteorological patterns on Earth, but he does not like the constant instructions from the Dome Commander. Most of all, he hates being trapped inside without fresh air and the familiar feeling of sunshine warming his skin. He brought his bagpipes to the Lunar III because playing music is one of his favorite hobbies, but his coworkers become annoyed with his incessant playing. There is nowhere for him to go and play that won’t bother others. The music travels through the air conditioning system, and it’s impossible to turn it off. After the Dome Commander receives several complaints, he decides to make a rule forbidding all instruments. Isobar is devastated. He was already feeling depressed and anxious, but prohibiting music is the final straw for him. He devises a plan to go Outside to play his bagpipes, which is strictly forbidden. He knows that there’s a real possibility that he will run into a Graniteback, but he assumes that he can run away from them quickly. After he tricks a guard into leaving his post, he moseys outside and travels two miles away from the gate to the building. There, he encounters Brown and Roberts, who both believe that Isobar has been sent to help them. Their calls to the station have gone unanswered, and they quickly realize that Isobar does not have an armored vehicle. He’s actually equipped with his bagpipes. Isobar’s idea to climb a nearby tree to escape a pack of Grannies buys the men time, and his next idea, to play his instrument to alert their colleagues that they're in need of help, actually saves their lives. Isobar does not intend to kill the Grannies with his music, but they fall to the ground and die after hearing him play. ",
"Isobar Jones (real name, Horatio Jones, also referred to in the story as Isobar or Jonesy) is a meteorological forecaster stationed on Luna. He has been there for six months, and is developing a kind of stir-craziness from the sterile living environment and being forbidden from his one true joy - playing the bagpipes. Dr. Loesch claims he has a sickness called weltschmertz, which is a dangerous mental condition of “world sickness” that can make a person do wild things.\nIsobar delivers a weather forecast to the transmission tower early in the story where he begs his colleague to have the Earth receiver person turn the video feed around to their window. This demonstrates how much Isobars longs for the outdoors that a video feed out a window on Earth soothes him. He is strictly forbidden from playing the bagpipes or from going “Outside” to the adjacent hemispheric dome that houses a lush valley by the Dome Commander Eagan. Being overcome with his desire for both the bagpipes and to go Outside, Isobar defies orders, tricks a guard into leaving his post, and sets into the lush Outside. It is deeply restorative for him, but he is snapped to reality when he discovers his colleagues, Brown and Roberts, are being attacked by Grannies. \nIsobar is helpless to assist them other than suggesting they all climb a tree. To their luck, the Grannies can’t climb, but they start ramming the tree until it is obvious that they will all die up there soon once they knock it over and devour them. Isobar starts playing the bagpipes to alert the attention of Sparks in the tower above them. He is successful in getting the attention of Sparks who comes with a tank to rescue them, but even more amazingly his bagpipe music has killed all the of the Grannies at the base of the tree. \nIsobar becomes the hero of the story, since his bagpipe music is the first thing known to be capable of killing the Grannies, which will allow humans to now study them and perhaps make advancements to their settlement on Luna. \n"
] |
62260
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TROUBLE ON TYCHO
By NELSON S. BOND
Isobar and his squeeze-pipes were the bane of the Moon Station's existence. But there came the day when his comrades found that the worth of a man lies sometimes in his nuisance value.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories March 1943. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The audiophone buzzed thrice—one long, followed by two shorts—and Isobar Jones pressed the stud activating its glowing scanner-disc.
"Hummm?" he said absent-mindedly.
The selenoplate glowed faintly, and the image of the Dome Commander appeared.
"Report ready, Jones?"
"Almost," acknowledged Isobar gloomily. "It prob'ly ain't right, though. How anybody can be expected to get anything right on this dagnabbed hunk o' green cheese—"
"Send it up," interrupted Colonel Eagan, "as soon as you can. Sparks is making Terra contact now. That is all."
"That ain't all!" declared Isobar indignantly. "How about my bag—?"
It was all , so far as the D.C. was concerned. Isobar was talking to himself. The plate dulled. Isobar said, "Nuts!" and returned to his duties. He jotted neat ditto marks under the word "Clear" which, six months ago, he had placed beneath the column headed: Cond. of Obs. He noted the proper figures under the headings Sun Spots : Max Freq. — Min. Freq. ; then he sketched careful curves in blue and red ink upon the Mercator projection of Earth which was his daily work sheet.
This done, he drew a clean sheet of paper out of his desk drawer, frowned thoughtfully at the tabulated results of his observations, and began writing.
" Weather forecast for Terra ," he wrote, his pen making scratching sounds.
The audiophone rasped again. Isobar jabbed the stud and answered without looking.
"O.Q.," he said wearily. "O.Q. I told you it would be ready in a couple o' minutes. Keep your pants on!"
"I—er—I beg your pardon, Isobar?" queried a mild voice.
Isobar started. His sallow cheeks achieved a sickly salmon hue. He blinked nervously.
"Oh, jumpin' jimminy!" he gulped. " You , Miss Sally! Golly—'scuse me! I didn't realize—"
The Dome Commander's niece giggled.
"That's all right, Isobar. I just called to ask you about the weather in Oceania Sector 4B next week. I've got a swimming date at Waikiki, but I won't make the shuttle unless the weather's going to be nice."
"It is," promised Isobar. "It'll be swell all weekend, Miss Sally. Fine sunshiny weather. You can go."
"That's wonderful. Thanks so much, Isobar."
"Don't mention it, ma'am," said Isobar, and returned to his work.
South America. Africa. Asia. Pan-Europa. Swiftly he outlined the meteorological prospects for each sector. He enjoyed this part of his job. As he wrote forecasts for each area, in his mind's eye he saw himself enjoying such pastimes as each geographical division's terrain rendered possible.
If home is where the heart is, Horatio Jones—known better as "Isobar" to his associates at the Experimental Dome on Luna—was a long, long way from home. His lean, gangling frame was immured, and had been for six tedious Earth months, beneath the impervite hemisphere of Lunar III—that frontier outpost which served as a rocket refueling station, teleradio transmission point and meteorological base.
"Six solid months! Six sad, dreary months!" thought Isobar, "Locked up in an airtight Dome like—like a goldfish in a glass bowl!" Sunlight? Oh, sure! But filtered through ultraviolet wave-traps so it could not burn, it left the skin pale and lustreless and clammy as the belly of a toad. Fresh air? Pooh! Nothing but that everlasting sickening, scented, reoxygenated stuff gushing from atmo-conditioning units.
Excitement? Adventure? The romance he had been led to expect when he signed on for frontier service? Bah! Only a weary, monotonous, routine existence.
"A pain!" declared Isobar Jones. "That's what it is; a pain in the stummick. Not even allowed to—Yeah?"
It was Sparks, audioing from the Dome's transmission turret. He said,
"Hyah, Jonesy! How comes with the report?"
"Done," said Isobar. "I was just gettin' the sheets together for you."
"O.Q. But just bring it . Nothing else."
Isobar bridled.
"I don't know what you're talkin' about."
"Oh, no? Well, I'm talking about that squawk-filled doodlesack of yours, sonny boy. Don't bring that bag-full of noise up here with you."
Isobar said defiantly, "It ain't a doodlesack. It's a bagpipe. And I guess I can play it if I want to—"
"Not," said Sparks emphatically, "in my cubby! I've got sensitive eardrums. Well, stir your stumps! I've got to get the report rolling quick today. Big doings up here."
"Yeah? What?"
"Well, it's Roberts and Brown—"
"What about 'em?"
"They've gone Outside to make foundation repairs."
"Lucky stiffs!" commented Isobar ruefully.
"Lucky, no. Stiffs, maybe—if they should meet any Grannies. Well, scoot along. I'm on the ether in four point sixteen minutes."
"Be right up," promised Isobar, and, sheets in hand, he ambled from his cloistered cell toward the central section of the Dome.
He didn't leave Sparks' turret after the sheets were delivered. Instead, he hung around, fidgeting so obtrusively that Riley finally turned to him in sheer exasperation.
"Sweet snakes of Saturn, Jonesy, what's the trouble? Bugs in your britches?"
Isobar said, "H-huh? Oh, you mean—Oh, thanks, no! I just thought mebbe you wouldn't mind if I—well—er—"
"I get it!" Sparks grinned. "Want to play peekaboo while the contact's open, eh? Well, O.Q. Watch the birdie!"
He twisted dials, adjusted verniers, fingered a host of incomprehensible keys. Current hummed and howled. Then a plate before him cleared, and the voice of the Earth operator came in, enunciating with painstaking clarity:
"Earth answering Luna. Earth answering Luna's call. Can you hear me, Luna? Can you hear—?"
"I can not only hear you," snorted Riley, "I can see you and smell you, as well. Stop hamming it, stupid! You're lousing up the earth!"
The now-visible face of the Earth radioman drew into a grimace of displeasure.
"Oh, it's you ? Funny man, eh? Funny man Riley?"
"Sure," said Riley agreeably. "I'm a scream. Four-alarm Riley, the cosmic comedian—didn't you know? Flick on your dictacoder, oyster-puss; here's the weather report." He read it. "' Weather forecast for Terra, week of May 15-21 —'"
"Ask him," whispered Isobar eagerly. "Sparks, don't forget to ask him!"
Riley motioned for silence, but nodded. He finished the weather report, entered the Dome Commander's log upon the Home Office records, and dictated a short entry from the Luna Biological Commission. Then:
"That is all," he concluded.
"O.Q.," verified the other radioman. Isobar writhed anxiously, prodded Riley's shoulder.
"Ask him, Sparks! Go on ask him!"
"Oh, cut jets, will you?" snapped Sparks. The Terra operator looked startled.
"How's that? I didn't say a word—"
"Don't be a dope," said Sparks, "you dope! I wasn't talking to you. I'm entertaining a visitor, a refugee from a cuckoo clock. Look, do me a favor, chum? Can you twist your mike around so it's pointing out a window?"
"What? Why—why, yes, but—"
"Without buts," said Sparks grumpily. "Yours not to reason why; yours but to do or don't. Will you do it?"
"Well, sure. But I don't understand—" The silver platter which had mirrored the radioman's face clouded as the Earth operator twirled the inconoscope. Walls and desks of an ordinary broadcasting office spun briefly into view; then the plate reflected a glimpse of an Earthly landscape. Soft blue sky warmed by an atmosphere-shielded sun ... green trees firmly rooted in still-greener grass ... flowers ... birds ... people....
"Enough?" asked Sparks.
Isobar Jones awakened from his trance, eyes dulling. Reluctantly he nodded. Riley stared at him strangely, almost gently. To the other radioman, "O.Q., pal," he said. "Cut!"
"Cut!" agreed the other. The plate blanked out.
"Thanks, Sparks," said Isobar.
"Nothing," shrugged Riley " He twisted the mike; not me. But—how come you always want to take a squint at Earth when the circuit's open, Jonesy? Homesick?"
"Sort of," admitted Isobar guiltily.
"Well, hell, aren't we all? But we can't leave here for another six months at least. Not till our tricks are up. I should think it'd only make you feel worse to see Earth."
"It ain't Earth I'm homesick for," explained Isobar. "It's—well, it's the things that go with it. I mean things like grass and flowers and trees."
Sparks grinned; a mirthless, lopsided grin.
"We've got them right here on Luna. Go look out the tower window, Jonesy. The Dome's nestled smack in the middle of the prettiest, greenest little valley you ever saw."
"I know," complained Isobar. "And that's what makes it even worse. All that pretty, soft, green stuff Outside—and we ain't allowed to go out in it. Sometimes I get so mad I'd like to—"
"To," interrupted a crisp voice, "what?"
Isobar spun, flushing; his eyes dropped before those of Dome Commander Eagan. He squirmed.
"N-nothing, sir. I was only saying—"
"I heard you, Jones. And please let me hear no more of such talk, sir! It is strictly forbidden for anyone to go Outside except in cases of absolute necessity. Such labor as caused Patrolmen Brown and Roberts to go, for example—"
"Any word from them yet, sir?" asked Sparks eagerly.
"Not yet. But we're expecting them to return at any minute now. Jones! Where are you going?"
"Why—why, just back to my quarters, sir."
"That's what I thought. And what did you plan to do there?"
Isobar said stubbornly, "Well, I sort of figured I'd amuse myself for a while—"
"I thought that, too. And with what , pray, Jones?"
"With the only dratted thing," said Isobar, suddenly petulant, "that gives me any fun around this dagnabbed place! With my bagpipe."
Commander Eagan said, "You'd better find some new way of amusing yourself, Jones. Have you read General Order 17?"
Isobar said, "I seen it. But if you think—"
"It says," stated Eagan deliberately, "' In order that work or rest periods of the Dome's staff may not be disturbed, it is hereby ordered that the playing or practicing of all or any musical instruments must be discontinued immediately. By order of the Dome Commander ,' That means you, Jones!"
"But, dingbust it!" keened Isobar, "it don't disturb nobody for me to play my bagpipes! I know these lunks around here don't appreciate good music, so I always go in my office and lock the door after me—"
"But the Dome," pointed out Commander Eagan, "has an air-conditioning system which can't be shut off. The ungodly moans of your—er—so-called musical instrument can be heard through the entire structure."
He suddenly seemed to gain stature.
"No, Jones, this order is final! You cannot disrupt our entire organization for your own—er—amusement."
"But—" said Isobar.
"No!"
Isobar wriggled desperately. Life on Luna was sorry enough already. If now they took from him the last remaining solace he had, the last amusement which lightened his moments of freedom—
"Look, Commander!" he pleaded, "I tell you what I'll do. I won't bother nobody. I'll go Outside and play it—"
"Outside!" Eagan stared at him incredulously. "Are you mad? How about the Grannies?"
Isobar knew all about the Grannies. The only mobile form of life found by space-questing man on Earth's satellite, their name was an abbreviation of the descriptive one applied to them by the first Lunar exployers: Granitebacks. This was no exaggeration; if anything, it was an understatement. For the Grannies, though possessed of certain low intelligence, had quickly proven themselves a deadly, unyielding and implacable foe.
Worse yet, they were an enemy almost indestructible! No man had ever yet brought to Earth laboratories the carcass of a Grannie; science was completely baffled in its endeavors to explain the composition of Graniteback physiology—but it was known, from bitter experience, that the carapace or exoskeleton of the Grannies was formed of something harder than steel, diamond, or battleplate! This flesh could be penetrated by no weapon known to man; neither by steel nor flame, by electronic nor ionic wave, nor by the lethal, newly discovered atomo-needle dispenser.
All this Isobar knew about the Grannies. Yet:
"They ain't been any Grannies seen around the Dome," he said, "for a 'coon's age. Anyhow, if I seen any comin', I could run right back inside—"
"No!" said Commander Eagan flatly. "Absolutely, no ! I have no time for such nonsense. You know the orders—obey them! And now, gentlemen, good afternoon!"
He left. Sparks turned to Isobar, grinning.
"Well," he said, "one man's fish—hey, Jonesy? Too bad you can't play your doodlesack any more, but frankly, I'm just as glad. Of all the awful screeching wails—"
But Isobar Jones, generally mild and gentle, was now in a perfect fury. His pale eyes blazed, he stomped his foot on the floor, and from his lips poured a stream of such angry invective that Riley looked startled. Words that, to Isobar, were the utter dregs of violent profanity.
"Oh, dagnab it!" fumed Isobar Jones. "Oh, tarnation and dingbust! Oh— fiddlesticks !"
II
"And so," chuckled Riley, "he left, bubbling like a kettle on a red-hot oven. But, boy! was he ever mad! Just about ready to bust, he was."
Some minutes had passed since Isobar had left; Riley was talking to Dr. Loesch, head of the Dome's Physics Research Division. The older man nodded commiseratingly.
"It is funny, yes," he agreed, "but at the same time it is not altogether amusing. I feel sorry for him. He is a very unhappy man, our poor Isobar."
"Yeah, I know," said Riley, "but, hell, we all get a little bit homesick now and then. He ought to learn to—"
"Excuse me, my boy," interrupted the aged physicist, his voice gentle,
"it is not mere homesickness that troubles our friend. It is something deeper, much more vital and serious. It is what my people call: weltschmertz . There is no accurate translation in English. It means
'world sickness,' or better, 'world weariness'—something like that but intensified a thousandfold.
"It is a deeply-rooted mental condition, sometimes a dangerous frame of mind. Under its grip, men do wild things. Hating the world on which they find themselves, they rebel in curious ways. Suicide ... mad acts of valor ... deeds of cunning or knavery...."
"You mean," demanded Sparks anxiously, "Isobar ain't got all his buttons?"
"Not that exactly. He is perfectly sane. But he is in a dark morass of despair. He may try anything to retrieve his lost happiness, rid his soul of its dark oppression. His world-sickness is like a crying hunger—By the way, where is he now?"
"Below, I guess. In his quarters."
"Ah, good! Perhaps he is sleeping. Let us hope so. In slumber he will find peace and forgetfulness."
But Dr. Loesch would have been far less sanguine had some power the
"giftie gi'en" him of watching Isobar Jones at that moment.
Isobar was not asleep. Far from it. Wide awake and very much astir, he was acting in a singularly sinister role: that of a slinking, furtive culprit.
Returning to his private cubicle after his conversation with Dome Commander Eagan, he had stalked straightway to the cabinet wherein was encased his precious set of bagpipes. These he had taken from their pegs, gazed upon defiantly, and fondled with almost parental affection.
"So I can't play you, huh?" he muttered darkly. "It disturbs the peace o' the dingfounded, dumblasted Dome staff, does it? Well, we'll see about that!"
And tucking the bag under his arm, he had cautiously slipped from the room, down little-used corridors, and now he stood before the huge impervite gates which were the entrance to the Dome and the doorway to Outside.
On all save those occasions when a spacecraft landed in the cradle adjacent the gateway, these portals were doubly locked and barred. But today they had been unbolted that the two maintenance men might venture out. And since it was quite possible that Brown and Roberts might have to get inside in a hurry, their bolts remained drawn. Sole guardian of the entrance was a very bored Junior Patrolman.
Up to this worthy strode Isobar Jones, confident and assured, exuding an aura of propriety.
"Very well, Wilkins," he said. "I'll take over now. You may go to the meeting."
Wilkins looked at him bewilderedly.
"Huh? Whuzzat, Mr. Jones?"
Isobar's eyebrows arched.
"You mean you haven't been notified?"
"Notified of what ?"
"Why, the general council of all Patrolmen! Weren't you told that I would take your place here while you reported to G.H.Q.?"
"I ain't," puzzled Wilkins, "heard nothing about it. Maybe I ought to call the office, maybe?"
And he moved the wall-audio. But Isobar said swiftly. "That—er—won't be necessary, Wilkins. My orders were plain enough. Now, you just run along. I'll watch this entrance for you."
"We-e-ell," said Wilkins, "if you say so. Orders is orders. But keep a sharp eye out, Mister Jones, in case Roberts and Brown should come back sudden-like."
"I will," promised Isobar, "don't worry."
Wilkins moved away. Isobar waited until the Patrolman was completely out of sight. Then swiftly he pulled open the massive gate, slipped through, and closed it behind him.
A flood of warmth, exhilarating after the constantly regulated temperature of the Dome, descended upon him. Fresh air, thin, but fragrant with the scent of growing things, made his pulses stir with joyous abandon. He was Outside! He was Outside, in good sunlight, at last! After six long and dreary months!
Raptly, blissfully, all thought of caution tossed to the gentle breezes that ruffled his sparse hair, Isobar Jones stepped forward into the lunar valley....
How long he wandered thus, carefree and utterly content, he could not afterward say. It seemed like minutes; it must have been longer. He only knew that the grass was green beneath his feet, the trees were a lacy network through which warm sunlight filtered benevolently, the chirrupings of small insects and the rustling whisper of the breezes formed a tiny symphony of happiness through which he moved as one charmed.
It did not occur to him that he had wandered too far from the Dome's entrance until, strolling through an enchanting flower-decked glade, he was startled to hear—off to his right—the sharp, explosive bark of a Haemholtz ray pistol.
He whirled, staring about him wildly, and discovered that though his meandering had kept him near the Dome, he had unconsciously followed its hemispherical perimeter to a point nearly two miles from the Gateway. By the placement of ports and windows, Isobar was able to judge his location perfectly; he was opposite that portion of the structure which housed Sparks' radio turret.
And the shooting? That could only be—
He did not have to name its reason, even to himself. For at that moment, there came racing around the curve of the Dome a pair of figures, Patrolmen clad in fatigue drab. Roberts and Brown. Roberts was staggering, one foot dragged awkwardly as he ran; Brown's left arm, bloodstained from shoulder to elbow, hung limply at his side, but in his good right fist he held a spitting Haemholtz with which he tried to cover his comrade's sluggish retreat.
And behind these two, grim, grey, gaunt figures that moved with astonishing speed despite their massive bulk, came three ... six ... a dozen of those lunarites whom all men feared. The Grannies!
III
Simultaneously with his recognition of the pair, Joe Roberts saw him. A gasp of relief escaped the wounded man.
"Jones! Thank the Lord! Then you picked up our cry for help? Quick, man—where is it? Theres not a moment to waste!"
"W-where," faltered Isobar feebly, "is what ?"
"The tank, of course! Didn't you hear our telecast? We can't possibly make it back to the gate without an armored car. My foot's broken, and—" Roberts stopped suddenly, an abrupt horror in his eyes. "You don't have one! You're here alone ! Then you didn't pick up our call? But, why—?"
"Never mind that," snapped Isobar, "now!" Placid by nature, he could move when urgency drove. His quick mind saw the immediateness of their peril. Unarmed, he could not help the Patrolmen fight a delaying action against their foes, nor could he hasten their retreat. Anyway, weapons were useless, and time was of the essence. There was but one temporary way of staving off disaster. "Over here ... this tree! Quick! Up you go! Give him a lift, Brown—There! That's the stuff!"
He was the last to scramble up the gnarled bole to a tentative leafy sanctuary. He had barely gained the security of the lowermost bough when a thundering crash resounded, the sturdy trunk trembled beneath his clutch. Stony claws gouged yellow parallels in the bark scant inches beneath one kicking foot, then the Granny fell back with a thud. The Graniteback was not a climber. It was far too ungainly, much too weighty for that.
Roberts said weakly, "Th-thanks, Jonesy! That was a close call."
"That goes for me, too, Jonesy," added Brown from an upper bough.
"But I'm afraid you just delayed matters. This tree's O.Q. as long as it lasts, but—" He stared down upon the gathering knot of Grannies unhappily—"it's not going to last long with that bunch of superdreadnaughts working out on it! Hold tight, fellows! Here they come!"
For the Grannies, who had huddled for a moment as if in telepathic consultation, now joined forces, turned, and as one body charged headlong toward the tree. The unified force of their attack was like the shattering impact of a battering ram. Bark rasped and gritted beneath the besieged men's hands, dry leaves and twigs pelted about them in a tiny rain, tormented fibrous sinews groaned as the aged forest monarch shuddered in agony.
Desperately they clung to their perches. Though the great tree bent, it did not break. But when it stopped trembling, it was canted drunkenly to one side, and the erstwhile solid earth about its base was broken and cracked—revealing fleshy tentacles uprooted from ancient moorings!
Brown stared at this evidence of the Grannies' power with terror-fascinated eyes. His voice was none too firm.
"Lord! Piledrivers! A couple more like that—"
Isobar nodded. He knew what falling into the clutch of the Grannies meant. He had once seen the grisly aftermath of a Graniteback feast. Even now their adversaries had drawn back for a second attack. A sudden idea struck him. A straw of hope at which he grasped feverishly.
"You telecast a message to the Dome? Help should be on the way by now. If we can just hold out—"
But Roberts shook his head.
"We sent a message, Jonesy, but I don't think it got through. I've just been looking at my portable. It seems to be busted. Happened when they first attacked us, I guess. I tripped and fell on it."
Isobar's last hope flickered out.
"Then I—I guess it won't be long now," he mourned. "If we could have only got a message through, they would have sent out an armored car to pick us up. But as it is—"
Brown's shrug displayed a bravado he did not feel.
"Well, that's the way it goes. We knew what we were risking when we volunteered to come Outside. This damn moon! It'll never be worth a plugged credit until men find some way to fight those murderous stones-on-legs!"
Roberts said, "That's right. But what are you doing out here, Isobar? And why, for Pete's sake, the bagpipes?"
"Oh—the pipes?" Isobar flushed painfully. He had almost forgotten his original reason for adventuring Outside, had quite forgotten his instrument, and was now rather amazed to discover that somehow throughout all the excitement he had held onto it. "Why, I just happened to—Oh! the pipes! "
"Hold on!" roared Roberts. His warning came just in time. Once more, the three tree-sitters shook like dried peas in a pod as their leafy refuge trembled before the locomotive onslaught of the lunar beasts. This time the already-exposed roots strained and lifted, several snapped; when the Grannies again withdrew, complacently unaware that the "lethal ray" of Brown's Haemholtz was wasting itself upon their adamant hides in futile fury, the tree was bent at a precarious angle.
Brown sobbed, not with fear but with impotent anger, and in a gesture of enraged desperation, hurled his now-empty weapon at the retreating Grannies.
"No good! Not a damn bit of good! Oh, if there was only some way of fighting those filthy things—"
But Isobar Jones had a one-track mind. "The pipes!" he cried again, excitedly. "That's the answer!" And he drew the instrument into playing position, bag cuddled beneath one arm-pit, drones stiffly erect over his shoulder, blow-pipe at his lips. His cheeks puffed, his breath expelled. The giant lung swelled, the chaunter emitted its distinctive, fearsome, " Kaa-aa-o-o-o-oro-oong! "
Roberts moaned.
"Oh, Lord! A guy can't even die in peace!"
And Brown stared at him hopelessly.
"It's no use, Isobar. You trying to scare them off? They have no sense of hearing. That's been proven—"
Isobar took his lips from the reed to explain.
"It's not that. I'm trying to rouse the boys in the Dome. We're right opposite the atmosphere-conditioning-unit. See that grilled duct over there? That's an inhalation-vent. The portable transmitter's out of order, and our voices ain't strong enough to carry into the Dome—but the sound of these pipes is! And Commander Eagan told me just a short while ago that the sound of the pipes carries all over the building!
"If they hear this, they'll get mad because I'm disobeyin' orders. They'll start lookin' for me. If they can't find me inside, maybe they'll look Outside. See that window? That's Sparks' turret. If we can make him look out here—"
" Stop talking! " roared Roberts. "Stop talking, guy, and start blowing! I think you've got something there. Anyhow, it's our last hope. Blow! "
"And quick!" appended Brown. "For here they come!"
Isobar played, blew with all his might, while the Grannies raged below.
He meant the Grannies. Again they were huddling for attack, once more, a solid phalanx of indestructible, granite flesh, they were smashing down upon the tree.
" Haa-a-roong! " blew Isobar Jones.
IV
And—even he could not have foreseen the astounding results of his piping! What happened next was as astonishing as it was incomprehensible. For as the pipes, filled now and primed to burst into whatever substitute for melody they were prodded into, wailed into action—the Grannies' rush came to an abrupt halt!
As one, they stopped cold in their tracks and turned dull, colorless, questioning eyes upward into the tree whence came this weird and vibrant droning!
So stunned with surprise was Isobar that his grip on the pipes relaxed, his lips almost slipped from the reed. But Brown's delighted bellow lifted his paralysis.
"Sacred rings of Saturn-look! They like it! Keep playing, Jonesy! Play, boy, like you never played before!"
And Roberts roared, above the skirling of the piobaireachd into which Isobar had instinctively swung, "Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast! Then we were wrong. They can hear, after all! See that? They're lying down to listen—like so many lambs! Keep playing, Isobar! For once in my life I'm glad to hear that lovely, wonderful music!"
Isobar needed no urging. He, too, had noted how the Grannies' attack had stopped, how every last one of the gaunt grey beasts had suddenly, quietly, almost happily, dropped to its haunches at the base of the tree.
There was no doubt about it; the Grannies liked this music. Eyes raptly fixed, unblinking, unwavering, they froze into postures of gentle beatitude. One stirred once, dangerously, as for a moment Isobar paused to catch his breath, but Isobar hastily lipped the blow-pipe with redoubled eagerness, and the Granny relapsed into quietude.
Followed then what, under somewhat different circumstances, should have been a piper's dream. For Isobar had an audience which would not—and in two cases dared not—allow him to stop playing. And to this audience he played over and over again his entire repertoire. Marches, flings, dances—the stirring Rhoderik Dhu and the lilting Lassies O'Skye , the mournful Coghiegh nha Shie whose keening is like the sound of a sobbing nation.
The Cock o' the North , he played, and Mironton ... Wee Flow'r o' Dee and MacArthur's March ... La Cucuracha and—
And his lungs were parched, his lips dry as swabs of cotton. Blood pounded through his temples, throbbing in time to the drone of the chaunter, and a dark mist gathered before his eyes. He tore the blow-pipe from his lips, gasped,
"Keep playing!" came the dim, distant howl of Johnny Brown. "Just a few minutes longer, Jonesy! Relief is on the way. Sparks saw us from his turret window five minutes ago!"
And Isobar played on. How, or what, he did not know. The memory of those next few minutes was never afterward clear in his mind. All he knew was that above the skirling drone of his pipes there came another sound, the metallic clanking of a man-made machine ... an armored tank, sent from the Dome to rescue the beleaguered trio.
He was conscious, then, of a friendly voice shouting words of encouragement, of Joe Roberts calling a warning to those below.
"Careful, boys! Drive the tank right up beneath us so we can hop in and get out of here! Watch the Grannies—they'll be after us the minute Isobar stops playing!"
Then the answer from below. The fantastic answer in Sparks' familiar voice. The answer that caused the bagpipes to slip from Isobar's fingers as Isobar Jones passed out in a dead faint:
"After you? Those Grannies? Hell's howling acres— those Grannies are stone dead !"
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Describe the setting of the story.
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Delay in Transit by F. L. (Floyd L.) Wallace.
Relevant chunks:
DELAY IN TRANSIT
By F. L. WALLACE
Illustrated by SIBLEY
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
An unprovoked, meaningless night attack is terrifying enough on your own home planet, worse on a world across the Galaxy. But the horror is the offer of help that cannot be accepted!
"Muscles tense," said Dimanche. "Neural index 1.76, unusually high. Adrenalin squirting through his system. In effect, he's stalking you. Intent: probably assault with a deadly weapon."
"Not interested," said Cassal firmly, his subvocalization inaudible to anyone but Dimanche. "I'm not the victim type. He was standing on the walkway near the brink of the thoroughfare. I'm going back to the habitat hotel and sit tight."
"First you have to get there," Dimanche pointed out. "I mean, is it safe for a stranger to walk through the city?"
"Now that you mention it, no," answered Cassal. He looked around apprehensively. "Where is he?"
"Behind you. At the moment he's pretending interest in a merchandise display."
A native stamped by, eyes brown and incurious. Apparently he was accustomed to the sight of an Earthman standing alone, Adam's apple bobbing up and down silently. It was a Godolphian axiom that all travelers were crazy.
Cassal looked up. Not an air taxi in sight; Godolph shut down at dusk. It would be pure luck if he found a taxi before morning. Of course he could walk back to the hotel, but was that such a good idea?
A Godolphian city was peculiar. And, though not intended, it was peculiarly suited to certain kinds of violence. A human pedestrian was at a definite disadvantage.
"Correction," said Dimanche. "Not simple assault. He has murder in mind."
"It still doesn't appeal to me," said Cassal. Striving to look unconcerned, he strolled toward the building side of the walkway and stared into the interior of a small cafe. Warm, bright and dry. Inside, he might find safety for a time.
Damn the man who was following him! It would be easy enough to elude him in a normal city. On Godolph, nothing was normal. In an hour the streets would be brightly lighted—for native eyes. A human would consider it dim.
"Why did he choose me?" asked Cassal plaintively. "There must be something he hopes to gain."
"I'm working on it," said Dimanche. "But remember, I have limitations. At short distances I can scan nervous systems, collect and interpret physiological data. I can't read minds. The best I can do is report what a person says or subvocalizes. If you're really interested in finding out why he wants to kill you, I suggest you turn the problem over to the godawful police."
"Godolph, not godawful," corrected Cassal absently.
That was advice he couldn't follow, good as it seemed. He could give the police no evidence save through Dimanche. There were various reasons, many of them involving the law, for leaving the device called Dimanche out of it. The police would act if they found a body. His own, say, floating face-down on some quiet street. That didn't seem the proper approach, either.
"Weapons?"
"The first thing I searched him for. Nothing very dangerous. A long knife, a hard striking object. Both concealed on his person."
Cassal strangled slightly. Dimanche needed a good stiff course in semantics. A knife was still the most silent of weapons. A man could die from it. His hand strayed toward his pocket. He had a measure of protection himself.
"Report," said Dimanche. "Not necessarily final. Based, perhaps, on tenuous evidence."
"Let's have it anyway."
"His motivation is connected somehow with your being marooned here. For some reason you can't get off this planet."
That was startling information, though not strictly true. A thousand star systems were waiting for him, and a ship to take him to each one.
Of course, the one ship he wanted hadn't come in. Godolph was a transfer point for stars nearer the center of the Galaxy. When he had left Earth, he had known he would have to wait a few days here. He hadn't expected a delay of nearly three weeks. Still, it wasn't unusual. Interstellar schedules over great distances were not as reliable as they might be.
Was this man, whoever and whatever he might be, connected with that delay? According to Dimanche, the man thought he was. He was self-deluded or did he have access to information that Cassal didn't?
Denton Cassal, sales engineer, paused for a mental survey of himself. He was a good engineer and, because he was exceptionally well matched to his instrument, the best salesman that Neuronics, Inc., had. On the basis of these qualifications, he had been selected to make a long journey, the first part of which already lay behind him. He had to go to Tunney 21 to see a man. That man wasn't important to anyone save the company that employed him, and possibly not even to them.
The thug trailing him wouldn't be interested in Cassal himself, his mission, which was a commercial one, nor the man on Tunney. And money wasn't the objective, if Dimanche's analysis was right. What did the thug want?
Secrets? Cassal had none, except, in a sense, Dimanche. And that was too well kept on Earth, where the instrument was invented and made, for anyone this far away to have learned about it.
And yet the thug wanted to kill him. Wanted to? Regarded him as good as dead. It might pay him to investigate the matter further, if it didn't involve too much risk.
"Better start moving." That was Dimanche. "He's getting suspicious."
Cassal went slowly along the narrow walkway that bordered each side of that boulevard, the transport tide. It was raining again. It usually was on Godolph, which was a weather-controlled planet where the natives like rain.
He adjusted the controls of the weak force field that repelled the rain. He widened the angle of the field until water slanted through it unhindered. He narrowed it around him until it approached visibility and the drops bounced away. He swore at the miserable climate and the near amphibians who created it.
A few hundred feet away, a Godolphian girl waded out of the transport tide and climbed to the walkway. It was this sort of thing that made life dangerous for a human—Venice revised, brought up to date in a faster-than-light age.
Water. It was a perfect engineering material. Simple, cheap, infinitely flexible. With a minimum of mechanism and at break-neck speed, the ribbon of the transport tide flowed at different levels throughout the city. The Godolphian merely plunged in and was carried swiftly and noiselessly to his destination. Whereas a human—Cassal shivered. If he were found drowned, it would be considered an accident. No investigation would be made. The thug who was trailing him had certainly picked the right place.
The Godolphian girl passed. She wore a sleek brown fur, her own. Cassal was almost positive she muttered a polite "Arf?" as she sloshed by. What she meant by that, he didn't know and didn't intend to find out.
"Follow her," instructed Dimanche. "We've got to investigate our man at closer range."
Obediently, Cassal turned and began walking after the girl. Attractive in an anthropomorphic, seal-like way, even from behind. Not graceful out of her element, though.
The would-be assassin was still looking at merchandise as Cassal retraced his steps. A man, or at least man type. A big fellow, physically quite capable of violence, if size had anything to do with it. The face, though, was out of character. Mild, almost meek. A scientist or scholar. It didn't fit with murder.
"Nothing," said Dimanche disgustedly. "His mind froze when we got close. I could feel his shoulderblades twitching as we passed. Anticipated guilt, of course. Projecting to you the action he plans. That makes the knife definite."
Well beyond the window at which the thug watched and waited, Cassal stopped. Shakily he produced a cigarette and fumbled for a lighter.
"Excellent thinking," commended Dimanche. "He won't attempt anything on this street. Too dangerous. Turn aside at the next deserted intersection and let him follow the glow of your cigarette."
The lighter flared in his hand. "That's one way of finding out," said Cassal. "But wouldn't I be a lot safer if I just concentrated on getting back to the hotel?"
"I'm curious. Turn here."
"Go to hell," said Cassal nervously. Nevertheless, when he came to that intersection, he turned there.
It was a Godolphian equivalent of an alley, narrow and dark, oily slow-moving water gurgling at one side, high cavernous walls looming on the other.
He would have to adjust the curiosity factor of Dimanche. It was all very well to be interested in the man who trailed him, but there was also the problem of coming out of this adventure alive. Dimanche, an electronic instrument, naturally wouldn't consider that.
"Easy," warned Dimanche. "He's at the entrance to the alley, walking fast. He's surprised and pleased that you took this route."
"I'm surprised, too," remarked Cassal. "But I wouldn't say I'm pleased. Not just now."
"Careful. Even subvocalized conversation is distracting." The mechanism concealed within his body was silent for an instant and then continued:
"His blood pressure is rising, breathing is faster. At a time like this, he may be ready to verbalize why he wants to murder you. This is critical."
"That's no lie," agreed Cassal bitterly. The lighter was in his hand. He clutched it grimly. It was difficult not to look back. The darkness assumed an even more sinister quality.
"Quiet," said Dimanche. "He's verbalizing about you."
"He's decided I'm a nice fellow after all. He's going to stop and ask me for a light."
"I don't think so," answered Dimanche. "He's whispering: 'Poor devil. I hate to do it. But it's really his life or mine'."
"He's more right than he knows. Why all this violence, though? Isn't there any clue?"
"None at all," admitted Dimanche. "He's very close. You'd better turn around."
Cassal turned, pressed the stud on the lighter. It should have made him feel more secure, but it didn't. He could see very little.
A dim shadow rushed at him. He jumped away from the water side of the alley, barely in time. He could feel the rush of air as the assailant shot by.
"Hey!" shouted Cassal.
Echoes answered; nothing else did. He had the uncomfortable feeling that no one was going to come to his assistance.
"He wasn't expecting that reaction," explained Dimanche. "That's why he missed. He's turned around and is coming back."
"I'm armed!" shouted Cassal.
"That won't stop him. He doesn't believe you."
Cassal grasped the lighter. That is, it had been a lighter a few seconds before. Now a needle-thin blade had snapped out and projected stiffly. Originally it had been designed as an emergency surgical instrument. A little imagination and a few changes had altered its function, converting it into a compact, efficient stiletto.
"Twenty feet away," advised Dimanche. "He knows you can't see him, but he can see your silhouette by the light from the main thoroughfare. What he doesn't know is that I can detect every move he makes and keep you posted below the level of his hearing."
"Stay on him," growled Cassal nervously. He flattened himself against the wall.
"To the right," whispered Dimanche. "Lunge forward. About five feet. Low."
Sickly, he did so. He didn't care to consider the possible effects of a miscalculation. In the darkness, how far was five feet? Fortunately, his estimate was correct. The rapier encountered yielding resistance, the soggy kind: flesh. The tough blade bent, but did not break. His opponent gasped and broke away.
"Attack!" howled Dimanche against the bone behind his ear. "You've got him. He can't imagine how you know where he is in the darkness. He's afraid."
Attack he did, slicing about wildly. Some of the thrusts landed; some didn't. The percentage was low, the total amount high. His opponent fell to the ground, gasped and was silent.
Cassal fumbled in his pockets and flipped on a light. The man lay near the water side of the alley. One leg was crumpled under him. He didn't move.
"Heartbeat slow," said Dimanche solemnly. "Breathing barely perceptible."
"Then he's not dead," said Cassal in relief.
Foam flecked from the still lips and ran down the chin. Blood oozed from cuts on the face.
"Respiration none, heartbeat absent," stated Dimanche.
Horrified, Cassal gazed at the body. Self-defense, of course, but would the police believe it? Assuming they did, they'd still have to investigate. The rapier was an illegal concealed weapon. And they would question him until they discovered Dimanche. Regrettable, but what could he do about it?
Suppose he were detained long enough to miss the ship bound for Tunney
21?
Grimly, he laid down the rapier. He might as well get to the bottom of this. Why had the man attacked? What did he want?
"I don't know," replied Dimanche irritably. "I can interpret body data—a live body. I can't work on a piece of meat."
Cassal searched the body thoroughly. Miscellaneous personal articles of no value in identifying the man. A clip with a startling amount of money in it. A small white card with something scribbled on it. A picture of a woman and a small child posed against a background which resembled no world Cassal had ever seen. That was all.
Cassal stood up in bewilderment. Dimanche to the contrary, there seemed to be no connection between this dead man and his own problem of getting to Tunney 21.
Right now, though, he had to dispose of the body. He glanced toward the boulevard. So far no one had been attracted by the violence.
He bent down to retrieve the lighter-rapier. Dimanche shouted at him. Before he could react, someone landed on him. He fell forward, vainly trying to grasp the weapon. Strong fingers felt for his throat as he was forced to the ground.
He threw the attacker off and staggered to his feet. He heard footsteps rushing away. A slight splash followed. Whoever it was, he was escaping by way of water.
Whoever it was. The man he had thought he had slain was no longer in sight.
"Interpret body data, do you?" muttered Cassal. "Liveliest dead man I've ever been strangled by."
"It's just possible there are some breeds of men who can control the basic functions of their body," said Dimanche defensively. "When I checked him, he had no heartbeat."
"Remind me not to accept your next evaluation so completely," grunted Cassal. Nevertheless, he was relieved, in a fashion. He hadn't wanted to kill the man. And now there was nothing he'd have to explain to the police.
He needed the cigarette he stuck between his lips. For the second time he attempted to pick up the rapier-lighter. This time he was successful. Smoke swirled into his lungs and quieted his nerves. He squeezed the weapon into the shape of a lighter and put it away.
Something, however, was missing—his wallet.
The thug had relieved him of it in the second round of the scuffle. Persistent fellow. Damned persistent.
It really didn't matter. He fingered the clip he had taken from the supposedly dead body. He had intended to turn it over to the police. Now he might as well keep it to reimburse him for his loss. It contained more money than his wallet had.
Except for the identification tab he always carried in his wallet, it was more than a fair exchange. The identification, a rectangular piece of plastic, was useful in establishing credit, but with the money he now had, he wouldn't need credit. If he did, he could always send for another tab.
A white card fluttered from the clip. He caught it as it fell. Curiously he examined it. Blank except for one crudely printed word, STAB. His unknown assailant certainly had tried.
The old man stared at the door, an obsolete visual projector wobbling precariously on his head. He closed his eyes and the lettering on the door disappeared. Cassal was too far away to see what it had been. The technician opened his eyes and concentrated. Slowly a new sign formed on the door.
TRAVELERS AID BUREAU Murra Foray, First Counselor
It was a drab sign, but, then, it was a dismal, backward planet. The old technician passed on to the next door and closed his eyes again.
With a sinking feeling, Cassal walked toward the entrance. He needed help and he had to find it in this dingy rathole.
Inside, though, it wasn't dingy and it wasn't a rathole. More like a maze, an approved scientific one. Efficient, though not comfortable. Travelers Aid was busier than he thought it would be. Eventually he managed to squeeze into one of the many small counseling rooms.
A woman appeared on the screen, crisp and cool. "Please answer everything the machine asks. When the tape is complete, I'll be available for consultation."
Cassal wasn't sure he was going to like her. "Is this necessary?" he asked. "It's merely a matter of information."
"We have certain regulations we abide by." The woman smiled frostily.
"I can't give you any information until you comply with them."
"Sometimes regulations are silly," said Cassal firmly. "Let me speak to the first counselor."
"You are speaking to her," she said. Her face disappeared from the screen.
Cassal sighed. So far he hadn't made a good impression.
Travelers Aid Bureau, in addition to regulations, was abundantly supplied with official curiosity. When the machine finished with him, Cassal had the feeling he could be recreated from the record it had of him. His individuality had been capsuled into a series of questions and answers. One thing he drew the line at—why he wanted to go to Tunney
21 was his own business.
The first counselor reappeared. Age, indeterminate. Not, he supposed, that anyone would be curious about it. Slightly taller than average, rather on the slender side. Face was broad at the brow, narrow at the chin and her eyes were enigmatic. A dangerous woman.
She glanced down at the data. "Denton Cassal, native of Earth. Destination, Tunney 21." She looked up at him. "Occupation, sales engineer. Isn't that an odd combination?" Her smile was quite superior.
"Not at all. Scientific training as an engineer. Special knowledge of customer relations."
"Special knowledge of a thousand races? How convenient." Her eyebrows arched.
"I think so," he agreed blandly. "Anything else you'd like to know?"
"Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."
He could believe that or not as he wished. He didn't.
"You refused to answer why you were going to Tunney 21. Perhaps I can guess. They're the best scientists in the Galaxy. You wish to study under them."
Close—but wrong on two counts. They were good scientists, though not necessarily the best. For instance, it was doubtful that they could build Dimanche, even if they had ever thought of it, which was even less likely.
There was, however, one relatively obscure research worker on Tunney 21 that Neuronics wanted on their staff. If the fragments of his studies that had reached Earth across the vast distance meant anything, he could help Neuronics perfect instantaneous radio. The company that could build a radio to span the reaches of the Galaxy with no time lag could set its own price, which could be control of all communications, transport, trade—a galactic monopoly. Cassal's share would be a cut of all that.
His part was simple, on the surface. He was to persuade that researcher to come to Earth, if he could . Literally, he had to guess the Tunnesian's price before the Tunnesian himself knew it. In addition, the reputation of Tunnesian scientists being exceeded only by their arrogance, Cassal had to convince him that he wouldn't be working for ignorant Earth savages. The existence of such an instrument as Dimanche was a key factor.
Her voice broke through his thoughts. "Now, then, what's your problem?"
"I was told on Earth I might have to wait a few days on Godolph. I've been here three weeks. I want information on the ship bound for Tunney
21."
"Just a moment." She glanced at something below the angle of the screen. She looked up and her eyes were grave. " Rickrock C arrived yesterday. Departed for Tunney early this morning."
"Departed?" He got up and sat down again, swallowing hard. "When will the next ship arrive?"
"Do you know how many stars there are in the Galaxy?" she asked.
He didn't answer.
"That's right," she said. "Billions. Tunney, according to the notation, is near the center of the Galaxy, inside the third ring. You've covered about a third of the distance to it. Local traffic, anything within a thousand light-years, is relatively easy to manage. At longer distances, you take a chance. You've had yours and missed it. Frankly, Cassal, I don't know when another ship bound for Tunney will show up on or near Godolph. Within the next five years—maybe."
He blanched. "How long would it take to get there using local transportation, star-hopping?"
"Take my advice: don't try it. Five years, if you're lucky."
"I don't need that kind of luck."
"I suppose not." She hesitated. "You're determined to go on?" At the emphatic nod, she sighed. "If that's your decision, we'll try to help you. To start things moving, we'll need a print of your identification tab."
"There's something funny about her," Dimanche decided. It was the usual speaking voice of the instrument, no louder than the noise the blood made in coursing through arteries and veins. Cassal could hear it plainly, because it was virtually inside his ear.
Cassal ignored his private voice. "Identification tab? I don't have it with me. In fact, I may have lost it."
She smiled in instant disbelief. "We're not trying to pry into any part of your past you may wish concealed. However, it's much easier for us to help you if you have your identification. Now if you can't remember your real name and where you put your identification—" She arose and left the screen. "Just a moment."
He glared uneasily at the spot where the first counselor wasn't. His real name!
"Relax," Dimanche suggested. "She didn't mean it as a personal insult."
Presently she returned.
"I have news for you, whoever you are."
"Cassal," he said firmly. "Denton Cassal, sales engineer, Earth. If you don't believe it, send back to—" He stopped. It had taken him four months to get to Godolph, non-stop, plus a six-month wait on Earth for a ship to show up that was bound in the right direction. Over distances such as these, it just wasn't practical to send back to Earth for anything.
"I see you understand." She glanced at the card in her hand. "The spaceport records indicate that when Rickrock C took off this morning, there was a Denton Cassal on board, bound for Tunney 21."
"It wasn't I," he said dazedly. He knew who it was, though. The man who had tried to kill him last night. The reason for the attack now became clear. The thug had wanted his identification tab. Worse, he had gotten it.
"No doubt it wasn't," she said wearily. "Outsiders don't seem to understand what galactic travel entails."
Outsiders? Evidently what she called those who lived beyond the second transfer ring. Were those who lived at the edge of the Galaxy, beyond the first ring, called Rimmers? Probably.
She was still speaking: "Ten years to cross the Galaxy, without stopping. At present, no ship is capable of that. Real scheduling is impossible. Populations shift and have to be supplied. A ship is taken off a run for repairs and is never put back on. It's more urgently needed elsewhere. The man who depended on it is left waiting; years pass before he learns it's never coming.
"If we had instantaneous radio, that would help. Confusion wouldn't vanish overnight, but it would diminish. We wouldn't have to depend on ships for all the news. Reservations could be made ahead of time, credit established, lost identification replaced—"
"I've traveled before," he interrupted stiffly. "I've never had any trouble."
She seemed to be exaggerating the difficulties. True, the center was more congested. Taking each star as the starting point for a limited number of ships and using statistical probability as a guide—why, no man would arrive at his predetermined destination.
But that wasn't the way it worked. Manifestly, you couldn't compare galactic transportation to the erratic paths of air molecules in a giant room. Or could you?
For the average man, anyone who didn't have his own inter-stellar ship, was the comparison too apt? It might be.
"You've traveled outside, where there are still free planets waiting to be settled. Where a man is welcome, if he's able to work." She paused.
"The center is different. Populations are excessive. Inside the third ring, no man is allowed off a ship without an identification tab. They don't encourage immigration."
In effect, that meant no ship bound for the center would take a passenger without identification. No ship owner would run the risk of having a permanent guest on board, someone who couldn't be rid of when his money was gone.
Cassal held his head in his hands. Tunney 21 was inside the third ring.
"Next time," she said, "don't let anyone take your identification."
"I won't," he promised grimly.
The woman looked directly at him. Her eyes were bright. He revised his estimate of her age drastically downward. She couldn't be as old as he. Nothing outward had happened, but she no longer seemed dowdy. Not that he was interested. Still, it might pay him to be friendly to the first counselor.
"We're a philanthropic agency," said Murra Foray. "Your case is special, though—"
"I understand," he said gruffly. "You accept contributions."
She nodded. "If the donor is able to give. We don't ask so much that you'll have to compromise your standard of living." But she named a sum that would force him to do just that if getting to Tunney 21 took any appreciable time.
He stared at her unhappily. "I suppose it's worth it. I can always work, if I have to."
"As a salesman?" she asked. "I'm afraid you'll find it difficult to do business with Godolphians."
Irony wasn't called for at a time like this, he thought reproachfully.
"Not just another salesman," he answered definitely. "I have special knowledge of customer reactions. I can tell exactly—"
He stopped abruptly. Was she baiting him? For what reason? The instrument he called Dimanche was not known to the Galaxy at large. From the business angle, it would be poor policy to hand out that information at random. Aside from that, he needed every advantage he could get. Dimanche was his special advantage.
"Anyway," he finished lamely, "I'm a first class engineer. I can always find something in that line."
"A scientist, maybe," murmured Murra Foray. "But in this part of the Milky Way, an engineer is regarded as merely a technician who hasn't yet gained practical experience." She shook her head. "You'll do better as a salesman."
He got up, glowering. "If that's all—"
"It is. We'll keep you informed. Drop your contribution in the slot provided for that purpose as you leave."
A door, which he hadn't noticed in entering the counselling cubicle, swung open. The agency was efficient.
"Remember," the counselor called out as he left, "identification is hard to work with. Don't accept a crude forgery."
He didn't answer, but it was an idea worth considering. The agency was also eminently practical.
The exit path guided him firmly to an inconspicuous and yet inescapable contribution station. He began to doubt the philanthropic aspect of the bureau.
"I've got it," said Dimanche as Cassal gloomily counted out the sum the first counselor had named.
"Got what?" asked Cassal. He rolled the currency into a neat bundle, attached his name, and dropped it into the chute.
"The woman, Murra Foray, the first counselor. She's a Huntner."
"What's a Huntner?"
"A sub-race of men on the other side of the Galaxy. She was vocalizing about her home planet when I managed to locate her."
"Any other information?"
"None. Electronic guards were sliding into place as soon as I reached her. I got out as fast as I could."
"I see." The significance of that, if any, escaped him. Nevertheless, it sounded depressing.
"What I want to know is," said Dimanche, "why such precautions as electronic guards? What does Travelers Aid have that's so secret?"
Cassal grunted and didn't answer. Dimanche could be annoyingly inquisitive at times.
Cassal had entered one side of a block-square building. He came out on the other side. The agency was larger than he had thought. The old man was staring at a door as Cassal came out. He had apparently changed every sign in the building. His work finished, the technician was removing the visual projector from his head as Cassal came up to him. He turned and peered.
"You stuck here, too?" he asked in the uneven voice of the aged.
"Stuck?" repeated Cassal. "I suppose you can call it that. I'm waiting for my ship." He frowned. He was the one who wanted to ask questions.
"Why all the redecoration? I thought Travelers Aid was an old agency. Why did you change so many signs? I could understand it if the agency were new."
The old man chuckled. "Re-organization. The previous first counselor resigned suddenly, in the middle of the night, they say. The new one didn't like the name of the agency, so she ordered it changed."
She would do just that, thought Cassal. "What about this Murra Foray?"
The old man winked mysteriously. He opened his mouth and then seemed overcome with senile fright. Hurriedly he shuffled away.
Cassal gazed after him, baffled. The old man was afraid for his job, afraid of the first counselor. Why he should be, Cassal didn't know. He shrugged and went on. The agency was now in motion in his behalf, but he didn't intend to depend on that alone.
Question:
Describe the setting of the story.
Answer:
|
[
"The story takes place in a city on Godolph, a planet that acts as a transfer location in between stars. Godolph is a threatening and violent city, not safe for ordinary humans. A unique feature of Godolph is that its environment is specifically catered to natives, where the weather is controlled, often with heavy rain. The city is compared to Venice, where water is used as a mode of transport and essential to engineering. Additionally, at dusk the city becomes dark for travelers, but bright for its natives. ",
"The story is set on Godolph, in a Godolphian city. Violence occurs in these cities and they typically shut down at dusk. Being a human pedestrian at night is not a safe option. Cassal is on Godolph as it is in between Earth, which he left, and Tunney 21, where he intends to go. He describes Godolph as a backwards planet. As Cassal is walking on the street, there is a tide of water that is used by Godolphian’s as a transportation network. He is walking in the rain as that is the type of weather preferred by Godolphian’s. \n\nCassal heads down an alley at the direction of Dimanche. The alley is narrow and dark with a slow-moving, oily type of water jutting from one side and large walls standing overhead on the other side. \n\nEventually, Cassal finds himself at the Travelers Aid Bureau. The building is shaped like a square block. The Bureau was similar to a maze inside with many small counseling rooms. A\n\nCassal is only 1/3 of the distance to Tunnel 21. \n",
"The story is set at the place called Godolph. Godolph is the place that travelers transfer from a star that is located further from the Galaxy to the stars that are located near the center of the Galaxy. The story follows Cassal as he walk to the deserted intersection to fight with the guy since Dimanche suggests that there is a connection between him and the delay in his ship. After fighting with the guy, he gets the guys wallet but loses his. Without his identification, he comes to the travelers aid bureau. Here he has to answer questions in order to get a consultation. And during the consultation he learns about missing the ship and about someone who boarded the ship using his identity. Then the story ends with him walking out of the bureau building and asking an old man about Murra Foray, but apparently he is too afraid to answer him. ",
"The first scene of the story takes place on the poorly illuminated streets of the planet Godolph. The natives of the planet have sensitive eyes, and as a result the streets appear dimly lit for human eyes. It rains often on Godolph, whose climate is controlled by its amphibian inhabitants who are fond of rain. A means of transportation on Godolph is the transport tide, rapidly moving water which carries Godolphian natives to their destination quickly and quietly. In the scene where Cassal is confronted by an assailant, there is oily water moving on one side of a narrow alley, and high walls on the opposite side. \n\tThe second half of the story is set in the labyrinthine Travelers Aid Bureau, whose busy corridors are pocketed with small counseling rooms. In each counseling room is a small door into which visitors can deposit contributions to the agency. \n"
] |
50998
|
DELAY IN TRANSIT
By F. L. WALLACE
Illustrated by SIBLEY
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
An unprovoked, meaningless night attack is terrifying enough on your own home planet, worse on a world across the Galaxy. But the horror is the offer of help that cannot be accepted!
"Muscles tense," said Dimanche. "Neural index 1.76, unusually high. Adrenalin squirting through his system. In effect, he's stalking you. Intent: probably assault with a deadly weapon."
"Not interested," said Cassal firmly, his subvocalization inaudible to anyone but Dimanche. "I'm not the victim type. He was standing on the walkway near the brink of the thoroughfare. I'm going back to the habitat hotel and sit tight."
"First you have to get there," Dimanche pointed out. "I mean, is it safe for a stranger to walk through the city?"
"Now that you mention it, no," answered Cassal. He looked around apprehensively. "Where is he?"
"Behind you. At the moment he's pretending interest in a merchandise display."
A native stamped by, eyes brown and incurious. Apparently he was accustomed to the sight of an Earthman standing alone, Adam's apple bobbing up and down silently. It was a Godolphian axiom that all travelers were crazy.
Cassal looked up. Not an air taxi in sight; Godolph shut down at dusk. It would be pure luck if he found a taxi before morning. Of course he could walk back to the hotel, but was that such a good idea?
A Godolphian city was peculiar. And, though not intended, it was peculiarly suited to certain kinds of violence. A human pedestrian was at a definite disadvantage.
"Correction," said Dimanche. "Not simple assault. He has murder in mind."
"It still doesn't appeal to me," said Cassal. Striving to look unconcerned, he strolled toward the building side of the walkway and stared into the interior of a small cafe. Warm, bright and dry. Inside, he might find safety for a time.
Damn the man who was following him! It would be easy enough to elude him in a normal city. On Godolph, nothing was normal. In an hour the streets would be brightly lighted—for native eyes. A human would consider it dim.
"Why did he choose me?" asked Cassal plaintively. "There must be something he hopes to gain."
"I'm working on it," said Dimanche. "But remember, I have limitations. At short distances I can scan nervous systems, collect and interpret physiological data. I can't read minds. The best I can do is report what a person says or subvocalizes. If you're really interested in finding out why he wants to kill you, I suggest you turn the problem over to the godawful police."
"Godolph, not godawful," corrected Cassal absently.
That was advice he couldn't follow, good as it seemed. He could give the police no evidence save through Dimanche. There were various reasons, many of them involving the law, for leaving the device called Dimanche out of it. The police would act if they found a body. His own, say, floating face-down on some quiet street. That didn't seem the proper approach, either.
"Weapons?"
"The first thing I searched him for. Nothing very dangerous. A long knife, a hard striking object. Both concealed on his person."
Cassal strangled slightly. Dimanche needed a good stiff course in semantics. A knife was still the most silent of weapons. A man could die from it. His hand strayed toward his pocket. He had a measure of protection himself.
"Report," said Dimanche. "Not necessarily final. Based, perhaps, on tenuous evidence."
"Let's have it anyway."
"His motivation is connected somehow with your being marooned here. For some reason you can't get off this planet."
That was startling information, though not strictly true. A thousand star systems were waiting for him, and a ship to take him to each one.
Of course, the one ship he wanted hadn't come in. Godolph was a transfer point for stars nearer the center of the Galaxy. When he had left Earth, he had known he would have to wait a few days here. He hadn't expected a delay of nearly three weeks. Still, it wasn't unusual. Interstellar schedules over great distances were not as reliable as they might be.
Was this man, whoever and whatever he might be, connected with that delay? According to Dimanche, the man thought he was. He was self-deluded or did he have access to information that Cassal didn't?
Denton Cassal, sales engineer, paused for a mental survey of himself. He was a good engineer and, because he was exceptionally well matched to his instrument, the best salesman that Neuronics, Inc., had. On the basis of these qualifications, he had been selected to make a long journey, the first part of which already lay behind him. He had to go to Tunney 21 to see a man. That man wasn't important to anyone save the company that employed him, and possibly not even to them.
The thug trailing him wouldn't be interested in Cassal himself, his mission, which was a commercial one, nor the man on Tunney. And money wasn't the objective, if Dimanche's analysis was right. What did the thug want?
Secrets? Cassal had none, except, in a sense, Dimanche. And that was too well kept on Earth, where the instrument was invented and made, for anyone this far away to have learned about it.
And yet the thug wanted to kill him. Wanted to? Regarded him as good as dead. It might pay him to investigate the matter further, if it didn't involve too much risk.
"Better start moving." That was Dimanche. "He's getting suspicious."
Cassal went slowly along the narrow walkway that bordered each side of that boulevard, the transport tide. It was raining again. It usually was on Godolph, which was a weather-controlled planet where the natives like rain.
He adjusted the controls of the weak force field that repelled the rain. He widened the angle of the field until water slanted through it unhindered. He narrowed it around him until it approached visibility and the drops bounced away. He swore at the miserable climate and the near amphibians who created it.
A few hundred feet away, a Godolphian girl waded out of the transport tide and climbed to the walkway. It was this sort of thing that made life dangerous for a human—Venice revised, brought up to date in a faster-than-light age.
Water. It was a perfect engineering material. Simple, cheap, infinitely flexible. With a minimum of mechanism and at break-neck speed, the ribbon of the transport tide flowed at different levels throughout the city. The Godolphian merely plunged in and was carried swiftly and noiselessly to his destination. Whereas a human—Cassal shivered. If he were found drowned, it would be considered an accident. No investigation would be made. The thug who was trailing him had certainly picked the right place.
The Godolphian girl passed. She wore a sleek brown fur, her own. Cassal was almost positive she muttered a polite "Arf?" as she sloshed by. What she meant by that, he didn't know and didn't intend to find out.
"Follow her," instructed Dimanche. "We've got to investigate our man at closer range."
Obediently, Cassal turned and began walking after the girl. Attractive in an anthropomorphic, seal-like way, even from behind. Not graceful out of her element, though.
The would-be assassin was still looking at merchandise as Cassal retraced his steps. A man, or at least man type. A big fellow, physically quite capable of violence, if size had anything to do with it. The face, though, was out of character. Mild, almost meek. A scientist or scholar. It didn't fit with murder.
"Nothing," said Dimanche disgustedly. "His mind froze when we got close. I could feel his shoulderblades twitching as we passed. Anticipated guilt, of course. Projecting to you the action he plans. That makes the knife definite."
Well beyond the window at which the thug watched and waited, Cassal stopped. Shakily he produced a cigarette and fumbled for a lighter.
"Excellent thinking," commended Dimanche. "He won't attempt anything on this street. Too dangerous. Turn aside at the next deserted intersection and let him follow the glow of your cigarette."
The lighter flared in his hand. "That's one way of finding out," said Cassal. "But wouldn't I be a lot safer if I just concentrated on getting back to the hotel?"
"I'm curious. Turn here."
"Go to hell," said Cassal nervously. Nevertheless, when he came to that intersection, he turned there.
It was a Godolphian equivalent of an alley, narrow and dark, oily slow-moving water gurgling at one side, high cavernous walls looming on the other.
He would have to adjust the curiosity factor of Dimanche. It was all very well to be interested in the man who trailed him, but there was also the problem of coming out of this adventure alive. Dimanche, an electronic instrument, naturally wouldn't consider that.
"Easy," warned Dimanche. "He's at the entrance to the alley, walking fast. He's surprised and pleased that you took this route."
"I'm surprised, too," remarked Cassal. "But I wouldn't say I'm pleased. Not just now."
"Careful. Even subvocalized conversation is distracting." The mechanism concealed within his body was silent for an instant and then continued:
"His blood pressure is rising, breathing is faster. At a time like this, he may be ready to verbalize why he wants to murder you. This is critical."
"That's no lie," agreed Cassal bitterly. The lighter was in his hand. He clutched it grimly. It was difficult not to look back. The darkness assumed an even more sinister quality.
"Quiet," said Dimanche. "He's verbalizing about you."
"He's decided I'm a nice fellow after all. He's going to stop and ask me for a light."
"I don't think so," answered Dimanche. "He's whispering: 'Poor devil. I hate to do it. But it's really his life or mine'."
"He's more right than he knows. Why all this violence, though? Isn't there any clue?"
"None at all," admitted Dimanche. "He's very close. You'd better turn around."
Cassal turned, pressed the stud on the lighter. It should have made him feel more secure, but it didn't. He could see very little.
A dim shadow rushed at him. He jumped away from the water side of the alley, barely in time. He could feel the rush of air as the assailant shot by.
"Hey!" shouted Cassal.
Echoes answered; nothing else did. He had the uncomfortable feeling that no one was going to come to his assistance.
"He wasn't expecting that reaction," explained Dimanche. "That's why he missed. He's turned around and is coming back."
"I'm armed!" shouted Cassal.
"That won't stop him. He doesn't believe you."
Cassal grasped the lighter. That is, it had been a lighter a few seconds before. Now a needle-thin blade had snapped out and projected stiffly. Originally it had been designed as an emergency surgical instrument. A little imagination and a few changes had altered its function, converting it into a compact, efficient stiletto.
"Twenty feet away," advised Dimanche. "He knows you can't see him, but he can see your silhouette by the light from the main thoroughfare. What he doesn't know is that I can detect every move he makes and keep you posted below the level of his hearing."
"Stay on him," growled Cassal nervously. He flattened himself against the wall.
"To the right," whispered Dimanche. "Lunge forward. About five feet. Low."
Sickly, he did so. He didn't care to consider the possible effects of a miscalculation. In the darkness, how far was five feet? Fortunately, his estimate was correct. The rapier encountered yielding resistance, the soggy kind: flesh. The tough blade bent, but did not break. His opponent gasped and broke away.
"Attack!" howled Dimanche against the bone behind his ear. "You've got him. He can't imagine how you know where he is in the darkness. He's afraid."
Attack he did, slicing about wildly. Some of the thrusts landed; some didn't. The percentage was low, the total amount high. His opponent fell to the ground, gasped and was silent.
Cassal fumbled in his pockets and flipped on a light. The man lay near the water side of the alley. One leg was crumpled under him. He didn't move.
"Heartbeat slow," said Dimanche solemnly. "Breathing barely perceptible."
"Then he's not dead," said Cassal in relief.
Foam flecked from the still lips and ran down the chin. Blood oozed from cuts on the face.
"Respiration none, heartbeat absent," stated Dimanche.
Horrified, Cassal gazed at the body. Self-defense, of course, but would the police believe it? Assuming they did, they'd still have to investigate. The rapier was an illegal concealed weapon. And they would question him until they discovered Dimanche. Regrettable, but what could he do about it?
Suppose he were detained long enough to miss the ship bound for Tunney
21?
Grimly, he laid down the rapier. He might as well get to the bottom of this. Why had the man attacked? What did he want?
"I don't know," replied Dimanche irritably. "I can interpret body data—a live body. I can't work on a piece of meat."
Cassal searched the body thoroughly. Miscellaneous personal articles of no value in identifying the man. A clip with a startling amount of money in it. A small white card with something scribbled on it. A picture of a woman and a small child posed against a background which resembled no world Cassal had ever seen. That was all.
Cassal stood up in bewilderment. Dimanche to the contrary, there seemed to be no connection between this dead man and his own problem of getting to Tunney 21.
Right now, though, he had to dispose of the body. He glanced toward the boulevard. So far no one had been attracted by the violence.
He bent down to retrieve the lighter-rapier. Dimanche shouted at him. Before he could react, someone landed on him. He fell forward, vainly trying to grasp the weapon. Strong fingers felt for his throat as he was forced to the ground.
He threw the attacker off and staggered to his feet. He heard footsteps rushing away. A slight splash followed. Whoever it was, he was escaping by way of water.
Whoever it was. The man he had thought he had slain was no longer in sight.
"Interpret body data, do you?" muttered Cassal. "Liveliest dead man I've ever been strangled by."
"It's just possible there are some breeds of men who can control the basic functions of their body," said Dimanche defensively. "When I checked him, he had no heartbeat."
"Remind me not to accept your next evaluation so completely," grunted Cassal. Nevertheless, he was relieved, in a fashion. He hadn't wanted to kill the man. And now there was nothing he'd have to explain to the police.
He needed the cigarette he stuck between his lips. For the second time he attempted to pick up the rapier-lighter. This time he was successful. Smoke swirled into his lungs and quieted his nerves. He squeezed the weapon into the shape of a lighter and put it away.
Something, however, was missing—his wallet.
The thug had relieved him of it in the second round of the scuffle. Persistent fellow. Damned persistent.
It really didn't matter. He fingered the clip he had taken from the supposedly dead body. He had intended to turn it over to the police. Now he might as well keep it to reimburse him for his loss. It contained more money than his wallet had.
Except for the identification tab he always carried in his wallet, it was more than a fair exchange. The identification, a rectangular piece of plastic, was useful in establishing credit, but with the money he now had, he wouldn't need credit. If he did, he could always send for another tab.
A white card fluttered from the clip. He caught it as it fell. Curiously he examined it. Blank except for one crudely printed word, STAB. His unknown assailant certainly had tried.
The old man stared at the door, an obsolete visual projector wobbling precariously on his head. He closed his eyes and the lettering on the door disappeared. Cassal was too far away to see what it had been. The technician opened his eyes and concentrated. Slowly a new sign formed on the door.
TRAVELERS AID BUREAU Murra Foray, First Counselor
It was a drab sign, but, then, it was a dismal, backward planet. The old technician passed on to the next door and closed his eyes again.
With a sinking feeling, Cassal walked toward the entrance. He needed help and he had to find it in this dingy rathole.
Inside, though, it wasn't dingy and it wasn't a rathole. More like a maze, an approved scientific one. Efficient, though not comfortable. Travelers Aid was busier than he thought it would be. Eventually he managed to squeeze into one of the many small counseling rooms.
A woman appeared on the screen, crisp and cool. "Please answer everything the machine asks. When the tape is complete, I'll be available for consultation."
Cassal wasn't sure he was going to like her. "Is this necessary?" he asked. "It's merely a matter of information."
"We have certain regulations we abide by." The woman smiled frostily.
"I can't give you any information until you comply with them."
"Sometimes regulations are silly," said Cassal firmly. "Let me speak to the first counselor."
"You are speaking to her," she said. Her face disappeared from the screen.
Cassal sighed. So far he hadn't made a good impression.
Travelers Aid Bureau, in addition to regulations, was abundantly supplied with official curiosity. When the machine finished with him, Cassal had the feeling he could be recreated from the record it had of him. His individuality had been capsuled into a series of questions and answers. One thing he drew the line at—why he wanted to go to Tunney
21 was his own business.
The first counselor reappeared. Age, indeterminate. Not, he supposed, that anyone would be curious about it. Slightly taller than average, rather on the slender side. Face was broad at the brow, narrow at the chin and her eyes were enigmatic. A dangerous woman.
She glanced down at the data. "Denton Cassal, native of Earth. Destination, Tunney 21." She looked up at him. "Occupation, sales engineer. Isn't that an odd combination?" Her smile was quite superior.
"Not at all. Scientific training as an engineer. Special knowledge of customer relations."
"Special knowledge of a thousand races? How convenient." Her eyebrows arched.
"I think so," he agreed blandly. "Anything else you'd like to know?"
"Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."
He could believe that or not as he wished. He didn't.
"You refused to answer why you were going to Tunney 21. Perhaps I can guess. They're the best scientists in the Galaxy. You wish to study under them."
Close—but wrong on two counts. They were good scientists, though not necessarily the best. For instance, it was doubtful that they could build Dimanche, even if they had ever thought of it, which was even less likely.
There was, however, one relatively obscure research worker on Tunney 21 that Neuronics wanted on their staff. If the fragments of his studies that had reached Earth across the vast distance meant anything, he could help Neuronics perfect instantaneous radio. The company that could build a radio to span the reaches of the Galaxy with no time lag could set its own price, which could be control of all communications, transport, trade—a galactic monopoly. Cassal's share would be a cut of all that.
His part was simple, on the surface. He was to persuade that researcher to come to Earth, if he could . Literally, he had to guess the Tunnesian's price before the Tunnesian himself knew it. In addition, the reputation of Tunnesian scientists being exceeded only by their arrogance, Cassal had to convince him that he wouldn't be working for ignorant Earth savages. The existence of such an instrument as Dimanche was a key factor.
Her voice broke through his thoughts. "Now, then, what's your problem?"
"I was told on Earth I might have to wait a few days on Godolph. I've been here three weeks. I want information on the ship bound for Tunney
21."
"Just a moment." She glanced at something below the angle of the screen. She looked up and her eyes were grave. " Rickrock C arrived yesterday. Departed for Tunney early this morning."
"Departed?" He got up and sat down again, swallowing hard. "When will the next ship arrive?"
"Do you know how many stars there are in the Galaxy?" she asked.
He didn't answer.
"That's right," she said. "Billions. Tunney, according to the notation, is near the center of the Galaxy, inside the third ring. You've covered about a third of the distance to it. Local traffic, anything within a thousand light-years, is relatively easy to manage. At longer distances, you take a chance. You've had yours and missed it. Frankly, Cassal, I don't know when another ship bound for Tunney will show up on or near Godolph. Within the next five years—maybe."
He blanched. "How long would it take to get there using local transportation, star-hopping?"
"Take my advice: don't try it. Five years, if you're lucky."
"I don't need that kind of luck."
"I suppose not." She hesitated. "You're determined to go on?" At the emphatic nod, she sighed. "If that's your decision, we'll try to help you. To start things moving, we'll need a print of your identification tab."
"There's something funny about her," Dimanche decided. It was the usual speaking voice of the instrument, no louder than the noise the blood made in coursing through arteries and veins. Cassal could hear it plainly, because it was virtually inside his ear.
Cassal ignored his private voice. "Identification tab? I don't have it with me. In fact, I may have lost it."
She smiled in instant disbelief. "We're not trying to pry into any part of your past you may wish concealed. However, it's much easier for us to help you if you have your identification. Now if you can't remember your real name and where you put your identification—" She arose and left the screen. "Just a moment."
He glared uneasily at the spot where the first counselor wasn't. His real name!
"Relax," Dimanche suggested. "She didn't mean it as a personal insult."
Presently she returned.
"I have news for you, whoever you are."
"Cassal," he said firmly. "Denton Cassal, sales engineer, Earth. If you don't believe it, send back to—" He stopped. It had taken him four months to get to Godolph, non-stop, plus a six-month wait on Earth for a ship to show up that was bound in the right direction. Over distances such as these, it just wasn't practical to send back to Earth for anything.
"I see you understand." She glanced at the card in her hand. "The spaceport records indicate that when Rickrock C took off this morning, there was a Denton Cassal on board, bound for Tunney 21."
"It wasn't I," he said dazedly. He knew who it was, though. The man who had tried to kill him last night. The reason for the attack now became clear. The thug had wanted his identification tab. Worse, he had gotten it.
"No doubt it wasn't," she said wearily. "Outsiders don't seem to understand what galactic travel entails."
Outsiders? Evidently what she called those who lived beyond the second transfer ring. Were those who lived at the edge of the Galaxy, beyond the first ring, called Rimmers? Probably.
She was still speaking: "Ten years to cross the Galaxy, without stopping. At present, no ship is capable of that. Real scheduling is impossible. Populations shift and have to be supplied. A ship is taken off a run for repairs and is never put back on. It's more urgently needed elsewhere. The man who depended on it is left waiting; years pass before he learns it's never coming.
"If we had instantaneous radio, that would help. Confusion wouldn't vanish overnight, but it would diminish. We wouldn't have to depend on ships for all the news. Reservations could be made ahead of time, credit established, lost identification replaced—"
"I've traveled before," he interrupted stiffly. "I've never had any trouble."
She seemed to be exaggerating the difficulties. True, the center was more congested. Taking each star as the starting point for a limited number of ships and using statistical probability as a guide—why, no man would arrive at his predetermined destination.
But that wasn't the way it worked. Manifestly, you couldn't compare galactic transportation to the erratic paths of air molecules in a giant room. Or could you?
For the average man, anyone who didn't have his own inter-stellar ship, was the comparison too apt? It might be.
"You've traveled outside, where there are still free planets waiting to be settled. Where a man is welcome, if he's able to work." She paused.
"The center is different. Populations are excessive. Inside the third ring, no man is allowed off a ship without an identification tab. They don't encourage immigration."
In effect, that meant no ship bound for the center would take a passenger without identification. No ship owner would run the risk of having a permanent guest on board, someone who couldn't be rid of when his money was gone.
Cassal held his head in his hands. Tunney 21 was inside the third ring.
"Next time," she said, "don't let anyone take your identification."
"I won't," he promised grimly.
The woman looked directly at him. Her eyes were bright. He revised his estimate of her age drastically downward. She couldn't be as old as he. Nothing outward had happened, but she no longer seemed dowdy. Not that he was interested. Still, it might pay him to be friendly to the first counselor.
"We're a philanthropic agency," said Murra Foray. "Your case is special, though—"
"I understand," he said gruffly. "You accept contributions."
She nodded. "If the donor is able to give. We don't ask so much that you'll have to compromise your standard of living." But she named a sum that would force him to do just that if getting to Tunney 21 took any appreciable time.
He stared at her unhappily. "I suppose it's worth it. I can always work, if I have to."
"As a salesman?" she asked. "I'm afraid you'll find it difficult to do business with Godolphians."
Irony wasn't called for at a time like this, he thought reproachfully.
"Not just another salesman," he answered definitely. "I have special knowledge of customer reactions. I can tell exactly—"
He stopped abruptly. Was she baiting him? For what reason? The instrument he called Dimanche was not known to the Galaxy at large. From the business angle, it would be poor policy to hand out that information at random. Aside from that, he needed every advantage he could get. Dimanche was his special advantage.
"Anyway," he finished lamely, "I'm a first class engineer. I can always find something in that line."
"A scientist, maybe," murmured Murra Foray. "But in this part of the Milky Way, an engineer is regarded as merely a technician who hasn't yet gained practical experience." She shook her head. "You'll do better as a salesman."
He got up, glowering. "If that's all—"
"It is. We'll keep you informed. Drop your contribution in the slot provided for that purpose as you leave."
A door, which he hadn't noticed in entering the counselling cubicle, swung open. The agency was efficient.
"Remember," the counselor called out as he left, "identification is hard to work with. Don't accept a crude forgery."
He didn't answer, but it was an idea worth considering. The agency was also eminently practical.
The exit path guided him firmly to an inconspicuous and yet inescapable contribution station. He began to doubt the philanthropic aspect of the bureau.
"I've got it," said Dimanche as Cassal gloomily counted out the sum the first counselor had named.
"Got what?" asked Cassal. He rolled the currency into a neat bundle, attached his name, and dropped it into the chute.
"The woman, Murra Foray, the first counselor. She's a Huntner."
"What's a Huntner?"
"A sub-race of men on the other side of the Galaxy. She was vocalizing about her home planet when I managed to locate her."
"Any other information?"
"None. Electronic guards were sliding into place as soon as I reached her. I got out as fast as I could."
"I see." The significance of that, if any, escaped him. Nevertheless, it sounded depressing.
"What I want to know is," said Dimanche, "why such precautions as electronic guards? What does Travelers Aid have that's so secret?"
Cassal grunted and didn't answer. Dimanche could be annoyingly inquisitive at times.
Cassal had entered one side of a block-square building. He came out on the other side. The agency was larger than he had thought. The old man was staring at a door as Cassal came out. He had apparently changed every sign in the building. His work finished, the technician was removing the visual projector from his head as Cassal came up to him. He turned and peered.
"You stuck here, too?" he asked in the uneven voice of the aged.
"Stuck?" repeated Cassal. "I suppose you can call it that. I'm waiting for my ship." He frowned. He was the one who wanted to ask questions.
"Why all the redecoration? I thought Travelers Aid was an old agency. Why did you change so many signs? I could understand it if the agency were new."
The old man chuckled. "Re-organization. The previous first counselor resigned suddenly, in the middle of the night, they say. The new one didn't like the name of the agency, so she ordered it changed."
She would do just that, thought Cassal. "What about this Murra Foray?"
The old man winked mysteriously. He opened his mouth and then seemed overcome with senile fright. Hurriedly he shuffled away.
Cassal gazed after him, baffled. The old man was afraid for his job, afraid of the first counselor. Why he should be, Cassal didn't know. He shrugged and went on. The agency was now in motion in his behalf, but he didn't intend to depend on that alone.
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What is the plot of the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Delay in Transit by F. L. (Floyd L.) Wallace.
Relevant chunks:
DELAY IN TRANSIT
By F. L. WALLACE
Illustrated by SIBLEY
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
An unprovoked, meaningless night attack is terrifying enough on your own home planet, worse on a world across the Galaxy. But the horror is the offer of help that cannot be accepted!
"Muscles tense," said Dimanche. "Neural index 1.76, unusually high. Adrenalin squirting through his system. In effect, he's stalking you. Intent: probably assault with a deadly weapon."
"Not interested," said Cassal firmly, his subvocalization inaudible to anyone but Dimanche. "I'm not the victim type. He was standing on the walkway near the brink of the thoroughfare. I'm going back to the habitat hotel and sit tight."
"First you have to get there," Dimanche pointed out. "I mean, is it safe for a stranger to walk through the city?"
"Now that you mention it, no," answered Cassal. He looked around apprehensively. "Where is he?"
"Behind you. At the moment he's pretending interest in a merchandise display."
A native stamped by, eyes brown and incurious. Apparently he was accustomed to the sight of an Earthman standing alone, Adam's apple bobbing up and down silently. It was a Godolphian axiom that all travelers were crazy.
Cassal looked up. Not an air taxi in sight; Godolph shut down at dusk. It would be pure luck if he found a taxi before morning. Of course he could walk back to the hotel, but was that such a good idea?
A Godolphian city was peculiar. And, though not intended, it was peculiarly suited to certain kinds of violence. A human pedestrian was at a definite disadvantage.
"Correction," said Dimanche. "Not simple assault. He has murder in mind."
"It still doesn't appeal to me," said Cassal. Striving to look unconcerned, he strolled toward the building side of the walkway and stared into the interior of a small cafe. Warm, bright and dry. Inside, he might find safety for a time.
Damn the man who was following him! It would be easy enough to elude him in a normal city. On Godolph, nothing was normal. In an hour the streets would be brightly lighted—for native eyes. A human would consider it dim.
"Why did he choose me?" asked Cassal plaintively. "There must be something he hopes to gain."
"I'm working on it," said Dimanche. "But remember, I have limitations. At short distances I can scan nervous systems, collect and interpret physiological data. I can't read minds. The best I can do is report what a person says or subvocalizes. If you're really interested in finding out why he wants to kill you, I suggest you turn the problem over to the godawful police."
"Godolph, not godawful," corrected Cassal absently.
That was advice he couldn't follow, good as it seemed. He could give the police no evidence save through Dimanche. There were various reasons, many of them involving the law, for leaving the device called Dimanche out of it. The police would act if they found a body. His own, say, floating face-down on some quiet street. That didn't seem the proper approach, either.
"Weapons?"
"The first thing I searched him for. Nothing very dangerous. A long knife, a hard striking object. Both concealed on his person."
Cassal strangled slightly. Dimanche needed a good stiff course in semantics. A knife was still the most silent of weapons. A man could die from it. His hand strayed toward his pocket. He had a measure of protection himself.
"Report," said Dimanche. "Not necessarily final. Based, perhaps, on tenuous evidence."
"Let's have it anyway."
"His motivation is connected somehow with your being marooned here. For some reason you can't get off this planet."
That was startling information, though not strictly true. A thousand star systems were waiting for him, and a ship to take him to each one.
Of course, the one ship he wanted hadn't come in. Godolph was a transfer point for stars nearer the center of the Galaxy. When he had left Earth, he had known he would have to wait a few days here. He hadn't expected a delay of nearly three weeks. Still, it wasn't unusual. Interstellar schedules over great distances were not as reliable as they might be.
Was this man, whoever and whatever he might be, connected with that delay? According to Dimanche, the man thought he was. He was self-deluded or did he have access to information that Cassal didn't?
Denton Cassal, sales engineer, paused for a mental survey of himself. He was a good engineer and, because he was exceptionally well matched to his instrument, the best salesman that Neuronics, Inc., had. On the basis of these qualifications, he had been selected to make a long journey, the first part of which already lay behind him. He had to go to Tunney 21 to see a man. That man wasn't important to anyone save the company that employed him, and possibly not even to them.
The thug trailing him wouldn't be interested in Cassal himself, his mission, which was a commercial one, nor the man on Tunney. And money wasn't the objective, if Dimanche's analysis was right. What did the thug want?
Secrets? Cassal had none, except, in a sense, Dimanche. And that was too well kept on Earth, where the instrument was invented and made, for anyone this far away to have learned about it.
And yet the thug wanted to kill him. Wanted to? Regarded him as good as dead. It might pay him to investigate the matter further, if it didn't involve too much risk.
"Better start moving." That was Dimanche. "He's getting suspicious."
Cassal went slowly along the narrow walkway that bordered each side of that boulevard, the transport tide. It was raining again. It usually was on Godolph, which was a weather-controlled planet where the natives like rain.
He adjusted the controls of the weak force field that repelled the rain. He widened the angle of the field until water slanted through it unhindered. He narrowed it around him until it approached visibility and the drops bounced away. He swore at the miserable climate and the near amphibians who created it.
A few hundred feet away, a Godolphian girl waded out of the transport tide and climbed to the walkway. It was this sort of thing that made life dangerous for a human—Venice revised, brought up to date in a faster-than-light age.
Water. It was a perfect engineering material. Simple, cheap, infinitely flexible. With a minimum of mechanism and at break-neck speed, the ribbon of the transport tide flowed at different levels throughout the city. The Godolphian merely plunged in and was carried swiftly and noiselessly to his destination. Whereas a human—Cassal shivered. If he were found drowned, it would be considered an accident. No investigation would be made. The thug who was trailing him had certainly picked the right place.
The Godolphian girl passed. She wore a sleek brown fur, her own. Cassal was almost positive she muttered a polite "Arf?" as she sloshed by. What she meant by that, he didn't know and didn't intend to find out.
"Follow her," instructed Dimanche. "We've got to investigate our man at closer range."
Obediently, Cassal turned and began walking after the girl. Attractive in an anthropomorphic, seal-like way, even from behind. Not graceful out of her element, though.
The would-be assassin was still looking at merchandise as Cassal retraced his steps. A man, or at least man type. A big fellow, physically quite capable of violence, if size had anything to do with it. The face, though, was out of character. Mild, almost meek. A scientist or scholar. It didn't fit with murder.
"Nothing," said Dimanche disgustedly. "His mind froze when we got close. I could feel his shoulderblades twitching as we passed. Anticipated guilt, of course. Projecting to you the action he plans. That makes the knife definite."
Well beyond the window at which the thug watched and waited, Cassal stopped. Shakily he produced a cigarette and fumbled for a lighter.
"Excellent thinking," commended Dimanche. "He won't attempt anything on this street. Too dangerous. Turn aside at the next deserted intersection and let him follow the glow of your cigarette."
The lighter flared in his hand. "That's one way of finding out," said Cassal. "But wouldn't I be a lot safer if I just concentrated on getting back to the hotel?"
"I'm curious. Turn here."
"Go to hell," said Cassal nervously. Nevertheless, when he came to that intersection, he turned there.
It was a Godolphian equivalent of an alley, narrow and dark, oily slow-moving water gurgling at one side, high cavernous walls looming on the other.
He would have to adjust the curiosity factor of Dimanche. It was all very well to be interested in the man who trailed him, but there was also the problem of coming out of this adventure alive. Dimanche, an electronic instrument, naturally wouldn't consider that.
"Easy," warned Dimanche. "He's at the entrance to the alley, walking fast. He's surprised and pleased that you took this route."
"I'm surprised, too," remarked Cassal. "But I wouldn't say I'm pleased. Not just now."
"Careful. Even subvocalized conversation is distracting." The mechanism concealed within his body was silent for an instant and then continued:
"His blood pressure is rising, breathing is faster. At a time like this, he may be ready to verbalize why he wants to murder you. This is critical."
"That's no lie," agreed Cassal bitterly. The lighter was in his hand. He clutched it grimly. It was difficult not to look back. The darkness assumed an even more sinister quality.
"Quiet," said Dimanche. "He's verbalizing about you."
"He's decided I'm a nice fellow after all. He's going to stop and ask me for a light."
"I don't think so," answered Dimanche. "He's whispering: 'Poor devil. I hate to do it. But it's really his life or mine'."
"He's more right than he knows. Why all this violence, though? Isn't there any clue?"
"None at all," admitted Dimanche. "He's very close. You'd better turn around."
Cassal turned, pressed the stud on the lighter. It should have made him feel more secure, but it didn't. He could see very little.
A dim shadow rushed at him. He jumped away from the water side of the alley, barely in time. He could feel the rush of air as the assailant shot by.
"Hey!" shouted Cassal.
Echoes answered; nothing else did. He had the uncomfortable feeling that no one was going to come to his assistance.
"He wasn't expecting that reaction," explained Dimanche. "That's why he missed. He's turned around and is coming back."
"I'm armed!" shouted Cassal.
"That won't stop him. He doesn't believe you."
Cassal grasped the lighter. That is, it had been a lighter a few seconds before. Now a needle-thin blade had snapped out and projected stiffly. Originally it had been designed as an emergency surgical instrument. A little imagination and a few changes had altered its function, converting it into a compact, efficient stiletto.
"Twenty feet away," advised Dimanche. "He knows you can't see him, but he can see your silhouette by the light from the main thoroughfare. What he doesn't know is that I can detect every move he makes and keep you posted below the level of his hearing."
"Stay on him," growled Cassal nervously. He flattened himself against the wall.
"To the right," whispered Dimanche. "Lunge forward. About five feet. Low."
Sickly, he did so. He didn't care to consider the possible effects of a miscalculation. In the darkness, how far was five feet? Fortunately, his estimate was correct. The rapier encountered yielding resistance, the soggy kind: flesh. The tough blade bent, but did not break. His opponent gasped and broke away.
"Attack!" howled Dimanche against the bone behind his ear. "You've got him. He can't imagine how you know where he is in the darkness. He's afraid."
Attack he did, slicing about wildly. Some of the thrusts landed; some didn't. The percentage was low, the total amount high. His opponent fell to the ground, gasped and was silent.
Cassal fumbled in his pockets and flipped on a light. The man lay near the water side of the alley. One leg was crumpled under him. He didn't move.
"Heartbeat slow," said Dimanche solemnly. "Breathing barely perceptible."
"Then he's not dead," said Cassal in relief.
Foam flecked from the still lips and ran down the chin. Blood oozed from cuts on the face.
"Respiration none, heartbeat absent," stated Dimanche.
Horrified, Cassal gazed at the body. Self-defense, of course, but would the police believe it? Assuming they did, they'd still have to investigate. The rapier was an illegal concealed weapon. And they would question him until they discovered Dimanche. Regrettable, but what could he do about it?
Suppose he were detained long enough to miss the ship bound for Tunney
21?
Grimly, he laid down the rapier. He might as well get to the bottom of this. Why had the man attacked? What did he want?
"I don't know," replied Dimanche irritably. "I can interpret body data—a live body. I can't work on a piece of meat."
Cassal searched the body thoroughly. Miscellaneous personal articles of no value in identifying the man. A clip with a startling amount of money in it. A small white card with something scribbled on it. A picture of a woman and a small child posed against a background which resembled no world Cassal had ever seen. That was all.
Cassal stood up in bewilderment. Dimanche to the contrary, there seemed to be no connection between this dead man and his own problem of getting to Tunney 21.
Right now, though, he had to dispose of the body. He glanced toward the boulevard. So far no one had been attracted by the violence.
He bent down to retrieve the lighter-rapier. Dimanche shouted at him. Before he could react, someone landed on him. He fell forward, vainly trying to grasp the weapon. Strong fingers felt for his throat as he was forced to the ground.
He threw the attacker off and staggered to his feet. He heard footsteps rushing away. A slight splash followed. Whoever it was, he was escaping by way of water.
Whoever it was. The man he had thought he had slain was no longer in sight.
"Interpret body data, do you?" muttered Cassal. "Liveliest dead man I've ever been strangled by."
"It's just possible there are some breeds of men who can control the basic functions of their body," said Dimanche defensively. "When I checked him, he had no heartbeat."
"Remind me not to accept your next evaluation so completely," grunted Cassal. Nevertheless, he was relieved, in a fashion. He hadn't wanted to kill the man. And now there was nothing he'd have to explain to the police.
He needed the cigarette he stuck between his lips. For the second time he attempted to pick up the rapier-lighter. This time he was successful. Smoke swirled into his lungs and quieted his nerves. He squeezed the weapon into the shape of a lighter and put it away.
Something, however, was missing—his wallet.
The thug had relieved him of it in the second round of the scuffle. Persistent fellow. Damned persistent.
It really didn't matter. He fingered the clip he had taken from the supposedly dead body. He had intended to turn it over to the police. Now he might as well keep it to reimburse him for his loss. It contained more money than his wallet had.
Except for the identification tab he always carried in his wallet, it was more than a fair exchange. The identification, a rectangular piece of plastic, was useful in establishing credit, but with the money he now had, he wouldn't need credit. If he did, he could always send for another tab.
A white card fluttered from the clip. He caught it as it fell. Curiously he examined it. Blank except for one crudely printed word, STAB. His unknown assailant certainly had tried.
The old man stared at the door, an obsolete visual projector wobbling precariously on his head. He closed his eyes and the lettering on the door disappeared. Cassal was too far away to see what it had been. The technician opened his eyes and concentrated. Slowly a new sign formed on the door.
TRAVELERS AID BUREAU Murra Foray, First Counselor
It was a drab sign, but, then, it was a dismal, backward planet. The old technician passed on to the next door and closed his eyes again.
With a sinking feeling, Cassal walked toward the entrance. He needed help and he had to find it in this dingy rathole.
Inside, though, it wasn't dingy and it wasn't a rathole. More like a maze, an approved scientific one. Efficient, though not comfortable. Travelers Aid was busier than he thought it would be. Eventually he managed to squeeze into one of the many small counseling rooms.
A woman appeared on the screen, crisp and cool. "Please answer everything the machine asks. When the tape is complete, I'll be available for consultation."
Cassal wasn't sure he was going to like her. "Is this necessary?" he asked. "It's merely a matter of information."
"We have certain regulations we abide by." The woman smiled frostily.
"I can't give you any information until you comply with them."
"Sometimes regulations are silly," said Cassal firmly. "Let me speak to the first counselor."
"You are speaking to her," she said. Her face disappeared from the screen.
Cassal sighed. So far he hadn't made a good impression.
Travelers Aid Bureau, in addition to regulations, was abundantly supplied with official curiosity. When the machine finished with him, Cassal had the feeling he could be recreated from the record it had of him. His individuality had been capsuled into a series of questions and answers. One thing he drew the line at—why he wanted to go to Tunney
21 was his own business.
The first counselor reappeared. Age, indeterminate. Not, he supposed, that anyone would be curious about it. Slightly taller than average, rather on the slender side. Face was broad at the brow, narrow at the chin and her eyes were enigmatic. A dangerous woman.
She glanced down at the data. "Denton Cassal, native of Earth. Destination, Tunney 21." She looked up at him. "Occupation, sales engineer. Isn't that an odd combination?" Her smile was quite superior.
"Not at all. Scientific training as an engineer. Special knowledge of customer relations."
"Special knowledge of a thousand races? How convenient." Her eyebrows arched.
"I think so," he agreed blandly. "Anything else you'd like to know?"
"Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."
He could believe that or not as he wished. He didn't.
"You refused to answer why you were going to Tunney 21. Perhaps I can guess. They're the best scientists in the Galaxy. You wish to study under them."
Close—but wrong on two counts. They were good scientists, though not necessarily the best. For instance, it was doubtful that they could build Dimanche, even if they had ever thought of it, which was even less likely.
There was, however, one relatively obscure research worker on Tunney 21 that Neuronics wanted on their staff. If the fragments of his studies that had reached Earth across the vast distance meant anything, he could help Neuronics perfect instantaneous radio. The company that could build a radio to span the reaches of the Galaxy with no time lag could set its own price, which could be control of all communications, transport, trade—a galactic monopoly. Cassal's share would be a cut of all that.
His part was simple, on the surface. He was to persuade that researcher to come to Earth, if he could . Literally, he had to guess the Tunnesian's price before the Tunnesian himself knew it. In addition, the reputation of Tunnesian scientists being exceeded only by their arrogance, Cassal had to convince him that he wouldn't be working for ignorant Earth savages. The existence of such an instrument as Dimanche was a key factor.
Her voice broke through his thoughts. "Now, then, what's your problem?"
"I was told on Earth I might have to wait a few days on Godolph. I've been here three weeks. I want information on the ship bound for Tunney
21."
"Just a moment." She glanced at something below the angle of the screen. She looked up and her eyes were grave. " Rickrock C arrived yesterday. Departed for Tunney early this morning."
"Departed?" He got up and sat down again, swallowing hard. "When will the next ship arrive?"
"Do you know how many stars there are in the Galaxy?" she asked.
He didn't answer.
"That's right," she said. "Billions. Tunney, according to the notation, is near the center of the Galaxy, inside the third ring. You've covered about a third of the distance to it. Local traffic, anything within a thousand light-years, is relatively easy to manage. At longer distances, you take a chance. You've had yours and missed it. Frankly, Cassal, I don't know when another ship bound for Tunney will show up on or near Godolph. Within the next five years—maybe."
He blanched. "How long would it take to get there using local transportation, star-hopping?"
"Take my advice: don't try it. Five years, if you're lucky."
"I don't need that kind of luck."
"I suppose not." She hesitated. "You're determined to go on?" At the emphatic nod, she sighed. "If that's your decision, we'll try to help you. To start things moving, we'll need a print of your identification tab."
"There's something funny about her," Dimanche decided. It was the usual speaking voice of the instrument, no louder than the noise the blood made in coursing through arteries and veins. Cassal could hear it plainly, because it was virtually inside his ear.
Cassal ignored his private voice. "Identification tab? I don't have it with me. In fact, I may have lost it."
She smiled in instant disbelief. "We're not trying to pry into any part of your past you may wish concealed. However, it's much easier for us to help you if you have your identification. Now if you can't remember your real name and where you put your identification—" She arose and left the screen. "Just a moment."
He glared uneasily at the spot where the first counselor wasn't. His real name!
"Relax," Dimanche suggested. "She didn't mean it as a personal insult."
Presently she returned.
"I have news for you, whoever you are."
"Cassal," he said firmly. "Denton Cassal, sales engineer, Earth. If you don't believe it, send back to—" He stopped. It had taken him four months to get to Godolph, non-stop, plus a six-month wait on Earth for a ship to show up that was bound in the right direction. Over distances such as these, it just wasn't practical to send back to Earth for anything.
"I see you understand." She glanced at the card in her hand. "The spaceport records indicate that when Rickrock C took off this morning, there was a Denton Cassal on board, bound for Tunney 21."
"It wasn't I," he said dazedly. He knew who it was, though. The man who had tried to kill him last night. The reason for the attack now became clear. The thug had wanted his identification tab. Worse, he had gotten it.
"No doubt it wasn't," she said wearily. "Outsiders don't seem to understand what galactic travel entails."
Outsiders? Evidently what she called those who lived beyond the second transfer ring. Were those who lived at the edge of the Galaxy, beyond the first ring, called Rimmers? Probably.
She was still speaking: "Ten years to cross the Galaxy, without stopping. At present, no ship is capable of that. Real scheduling is impossible. Populations shift and have to be supplied. A ship is taken off a run for repairs and is never put back on. It's more urgently needed elsewhere. The man who depended on it is left waiting; years pass before he learns it's never coming.
"If we had instantaneous radio, that would help. Confusion wouldn't vanish overnight, but it would diminish. We wouldn't have to depend on ships for all the news. Reservations could be made ahead of time, credit established, lost identification replaced—"
"I've traveled before," he interrupted stiffly. "I've never had any trouble."
She seemed to be exaggerating the difficulties. True, the center was more congested. Taking each star as the starting point for a limited number of ships and using statistical probability as a guide—why, no man would arrive at his predetermined destination.
But that wasn't the way it worked. Manifestly, you couldn't compare galactic transportation to the erratic paths of air molecules in a giant room. Or could you?
For the average man, anyone who didn't have his own inter-stellar ship, was the comparison too apt? It might be.
"You've traveled outside, where there are still free planets waiting to be settled. Where a man is welcome, if he's able to work." She paused.
"The center is different. Populations are excessive. Inside the third ring, no man is allowed off a ship without an identification tab. They don't encourage immigration."
In effect, that meant no ship bound for the center would take a passenger without identification. No ship owner would run the risk of having a permanent guest on board, someone who couldn't be rid of when his money was gone.
Cassal held his head in his hands. Tunney 21 was inside the third ring.
"Next time," she said, "don't let anyone take your identification."
"I won't," he promised grimly.
The woman looked directly at him. Her eyes were bright. He revised his estimate of her age drastically downward. She couldn't be as old as he. Nothing outward had happened, but she no longer seemed dowdy. Not that he was interested. Still, it might pay him to be friendly to the first counselor.
"We're a philanthropic agency," said Murra Foray. "Your case is special, though—"
"I understand," he said gruffly. "You accept contributions."
She nodded. "If the donor is able to give. We don't ask so much that you'll have to compromise your standard of living." But she named a sum that would force him to do just that if getting to Tunney 21 took any appreciable time.
He stared at her unhappily. "I suppose it's worth it. I can always work, if I have to."
"As a salesman?" she asked. "I'm afraid you'll find it difficult to do business with Godolphians."
Irony wasn't called for at a time like this, he thought reproachfully.
"Not just another salesman," he answered definitely. "I have special knowledge of customer reactions. I can tell exactly—"
He stopped abruptly. Was she baiting him? For what reason? The instrument he called Dimanche was not known to the Galaxy at large. From the business angle, it would be poor policy to hand out that information at random. Aside from that, he needed every advantage he could get. Dimanche was his special advantage.
"Anyway," he finished lamely, "I'm a first class engineer. I can always find something in that line."
"A scientist, maybe," murmured Murra Foray. "But in this part of the Milky Way, an engineer is regarded as merely a technician who hasn't yet gained practical experience." She shook her head. "You'll do better as a salesman."
He got up, glowering. "If that's all—"
"It is. We'll keep you informed. Drop your contribution in the slot provided for that purpose as you leave."
A door, which he hadn't noticed in entering the counselling cubicle, swung open. The agency was efficient.
"Remember," the counselor called out as he left, "identification is hard to work with. Don't accept a crude forgery."
He didn't answer, but it was an idea worth considering. The agency was also eminently practical.
The exit path guided him firmly to an inconspicuous and yet inescapable contribution station. He began to doubt the philanthropic aspect of the bureau.
"I've got it," said Dimanche as Cassal gloomily counted out the sum the first counselor had named.
"Got what?" asked Cassal. He rolled the currency into a neat bundle, attached his name, and dropped it into the chute.
"The woman, Murra Foray, the first counselor. She's a Huntner."
"What's a Huntner?"
"A sub-race of men on the other side of the Galaxy. She was vocalizing about her home planet when I managed to locate her."
"Any other information?"
"None. Electronic guards were sliding into place as soon as I reached her. I got out as fast as I could."
"I see." The significance of that, if any, escaped him. Nevertheless, it sounded depressing.
"What I want to know is," said Dimanche, "why such precautions as electronic guards? What does Travelers Aid have that's so secret?"
Cassal grunted and didn't answer. Dimanche could be annoyingly inquisitive at times.
Cassal had entered one side of a block-square building. He came out on the other side. The agency was larger than he had thought. The old man was staring at a door as Cassal came out. He had apparently changed every sign in the building. His work finished, the technician was removing the visual projector from his head as Cassal came up to him. He turned and peered.
"You stuck here, too?" he asked in the uneven voice of the aged.
"Stuck?" repeated Cassal. "I suppose you can call it that. I'm waiting for my ship." He frowned. He was the one who wanted to ask questions.
"Why all the redecoration? I thought Travelers Aid was an old agency. Why did you change so many signs? I could understand it if the agency were new."
The old man chuckled. "Re-organization. The previous first counselor resigned suddenly, in the middle of the night, they say. The new one didn't like the name of the agency, so she ordered it changed."
She would do just that, thought Cassal. "What about this Murra Foray?"
The old man winked mysteriously. He opened his mouth and then seemed overcome with senile fright. Hurriedly he shuffled away.
Cassal gazed after him, baffled. The old man was afraid for his job, afraid of the first counselor. Why he should be, Cassal didn't know. He shrugged and went on. The agency was now in motion in his behalf, but he didn't intend to depend on that alone.
Question:
What is the plot of the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Denton Cassal is a sales engineer of Neuronics, Inc., from Earth. On a business trip to Tunney 21, he awaits his next ship on the planet of Godolph. One evening, Cassal is warned by Dimanche, an informative electronic companion, that he is being stalked by a man. The man's motives are not completely known, but according to Dimanche, the man is intending to murder Cassal. One thing is known, which is that the man's objective is related to Cassal being stranded on Godolph. As it begins to rain heavily, Cassal attempts to evade the man with the help of Dimanche; he follows a Godolphian girl and turns into an alleyway. As they pass by the man, Dimanche notes that he is becoming increasingly suspicious. Cassal leads the man into an alleyway, and as the dusk turns to darkness, Dimanche assists him in dodging and fighting the man. With a lighter-turned-knife, Cassal is able to attack the man and stab him several times. According to Dimanche, the man is presumed dead, although moments later the man strangles Cassal and steals his wallet. The next day, Cassal visits the Travelers Aid Bureau, where Murra Foray, the First Counselor, prods him for information, including why he is on his way to Tunney 21. Avoiding the question, Cassal asks about the status of the next ship to Tunney 21. He learns that the ship departed from Godolph that morning, and that someone named Denton Cassal did board it; he then realizes that the man who attacked him the night before used the identification from his wallet to board that ship. Stranded and uncertain of how long he would have to wait for another ship, Cassal is out of options. He contributes a donation to the bureau as he leaves. Dimanche reports that he tried to gather information on Foray, but only got her home planet, as electronic guards were blocking the rest of the information, which Dimanche finds suspicious. On his way out of the agency, Cassal encounters a man that works for Traveler's Aid, but flees after being asked about Murra Foray. Cassal continues on as he remains stranded on Godolph. ",
"The story begins with Cassal concerned about someone following him. His electronic device alerts him that there is potential danger and directs him to walk down an alley. Cassal acknowledges that an alley is not the best choice to walk down if he is concerned about his safety. The person who was following him attacks him. Cassal is able to fend him off but his wallet is stolen. \n\nCassal begins to grow impatient because his ship has not arrived in weeks. He walks towards the Travel Agency Bureau to get counseling advice for his plan to go to Tunney 21. Marra talks about how unlikely it will be that he gets to planet Tunney 21. The ship that he was meant to be on, he did not make because he did not know when it would arrive. Marra tells him that there might not be another ship headed towards Tunney 21 for another 5 years. Even then, Cassal would not be able to board the ship without identification as the region Tunney 21 requires everyone who steps off the ship to present identification. Cassal becomes upset at this news and realizes why the man had attacked him – the man wanted Casals’s identification. Marra agrees to help Cassal for a price and Cassal agrees to the deal.\n\nWhen Cassal leaves the building, he asks an old man about his boss, Marra. The man becomes scared and does not answer Cassal, instead, he walks away. Cassal finds the old man’s behavior curious. \n",
"Denton Cassal is a sales engineer who was selected to see a man at Tunney 21. The story starts with Dimanche talking to Cassel where Dimanche is warning him that there could be a stalker who is harmful to him. After further analysis, Dimanche believed that the guy stalking him had murder in mind. Dimanche is a device that is designed on Earth and it’s able to analyze people. Then the readers learn that Cassal is on Godolph, a transfer center for the stars that are located near the center of the Galaxy. And Cassel is here to transfer from Earth to Tunney 21. He was supposed to get on the ship after a few days of landing in Godolph, but apparently the ship has not arrived and it has been almost three weeks. Hearing Dimanche’s analysis on the man’s connection to the delay, Cassal gets curious. \n\nThen Cassal is suggested by Dimanche to follow a girl in order to get closer to the stalker. Then he gets to a deserted intersection holding his cigarette so that the guy will follow, which he does. Because Godolphian won’t be seen when it’s dark, but they can see Cassal very well, so Dimanche becomes Cassal’s eyes once they entered the intersection. Cassal listens to him and follows his instructions. Luckily he is able to get the distance correct to injure the guy. Right after that, to Cassal’s surprise, Dimanche detects no heartbeat and the guy is not breathing anymore. Despite that he is horrified by the fact he has just murdered someone, Cassal wants to figure out who wants the man to attack him. So he looks through the man’s wallet and other personal items, but could find no connection. Then suddenly the supposed-to-be-dead man attacks Cassal and then runs away with his wallet. \n\nLater, Cassal found himself inside the travelers aid bureau answering questions in order to get a consultation. During the consultation, he realizes that he just missed the ship. Moreover, someone used his identity to get on to that ship. Then, Murra Foray, the first counselor of the travelers aid bureau offers him help if he donates to them. He is surprised by the amount they wish for, but he donates anyways. Then after he exits from the other side of the building, he sees a man who finishes with putting up the signs. But somehow he would not talk about Murra Foray as if he is afraid of her, which Cassal does not understand at all. ",
"On the planet Godolph, Neronics, Inc., salesman Denton Cassal is being stalked by a mysterious local. An intelligent implanted machine able to detect and interpret physiological data of nearby individuals, which Cassal calls Dimanche, tells him that the man likely intends to murder him. Dimanche gathers that the assassin's motivation is connected to Cassal’s being stranded on Godolph; Cassal had initially meant to stay in Godolph for only a couple days before continuing his journey to Tunney 21, but has been stuck there for several weeks. \nCassal moves closer to the man in order for Dimanche to better analyze him; Dimanche reveals that the man wields a concealed knife. Instructing Cassal to turn into an alley, Dimanche learns that the man expressed regret about having to kill Cassal, saying that one of them had to die. Suddenly, the assailant rushes Cassal, who narrowly dodges and deploys a hidden blade. Dimanche guides Cassal, whose eyes are unable to see in the dim Godolphian light, in a fight against the man, and Cassal seemingly dispatches the man. However, he quickly recovers and tackles Cassal, managing to steal his wallet and identification tab before running off. \n\tNow at the Travelers Aid Bureau, where an old technician is changing signs throughout the building, Cassal waits to enter a counseling room to ask about his onward journey to Tunney 21. Through a screen, he speaks with Murra Foray, who asks that he complete an onboarding questionnaire. He answers all the required questions, except for one which asks for his purpose in traveling to Tunney. We learn that Cassal aims to persuade a Tunnesian scientist to come to Earth in order to develop instantaneous radio, which would make them very wealthy. \n\tMurra reveals that the transport for which Cassal had been waiting had departed that morning, and that a man named Denton Cassal had been aboard it. Cassal concludes that his assailant from the previous night had stolen his identification tab with the intention of traveling to Tunney 21. Murra understands Cassal’s situation, and elicits a contribution from him in exchange for the Travelers Aid Bureau’s assistance. Throughout their conversation, Murra seems to bait Cassal into revealing his secret to success as a salesman; because of his possession of Dimanche, Cassal is able to successfully interpret his customers’ reactions. However, Cassal is wary of Murra’s line of questioning and reveals nothing. \n\tAs Cassal leaves the counseling room, he runs into the old man changing the signs, who reveals that Murra has recently assumed control of the Bureau. Cassal sees that the technician is afraid of Murra, but thinks nothing of it.\n"
] |
50998
|
DELAY IN TRANSIT
By F. L. WALLACE
Illustrated by SIBLEY
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
An unprovoked, meaningless night attack is terrifying enough on your own home planet, worse on a world across the Galaxy. But the horror is the offer of help that cannot be accepted!
"Muscles tense," said Dimanche. "Neural index 1.76, unusually high. Adrenalin squirting through his system. In effect, he's stalking you. Intent: probably assault with a deadly weapon."
"Not interested," said Cassal firmly, his subvocalization inaudible to anyone but Dimanche. "I'm not the victim type. He was standing on the walkway near the brink of the thoroughfare. I'm going back to the habitat hotel and sit tight."
"First you have to get there," Dimanche pointed out. "I mean, is it safe for a stranger to walk through the city?"
"Now that you mention it, no," answered Cassal. He looked around apprehensively. "Where is he?"
"Behind you. At the moment he's pretending interest in a merchandise display."
A native stamped by, eyes brown and incurious. Apparently he was accustomed to the sight of an Earthman standing alone, Adam's apple bobbing up and down silently. It was a Godolphian axiom that all travelers were crazy.
Cassal looked up. Not an air taxi in sight; Godolph shut down at dusk. It would be pure luck if he found a taxi before morning. Of course he could walk back to the hotel, but was that such a good idea?
A Godolphian city was peculiar. And, though not intended, it was peculiarly suited to certain kinds of violence. A human pedestrian was at a definite disadvantage.
"Correction," said Dimanche. "Not simple assault. He has murder in mind."
"It still doesn't appeal to me," said Cassal. Striving to look unconcerned, he strolled toward the building side of the walkway and stared into the interior of a small cafe. Warm, bright and dry. Inside, he might find safety for a time.
Damn the man who was following him! It would be easy enough to elude him in a normal city. On Godolph, nothing was normal. In an hour the streets would be brightly lighted—for native eyes. A human would consider it dim.
"Why did he choose me?" asked Cassal plaintively. "There must be something he hopes to gain."
"I'm working on it," said Dimanche. "But remember, I have limitations. At short distances I can scan nervous systems, collect and interpret physiological data. I can't read minds. The best I can do is report what a person says or subvocalizes. If you're really interested in finding out why he wants to kill you, I suggest you turn the problem over to the godawful police."
"Godolph, not godawful," corrected Cassal absently.
That was advice he couldn't follow, good as it seemed. He could give the police no evidence save through Dimanche. There were various reasons, many of them involving the law, for leaving the device called Dimanche out of it. The police would act if they found a body. His own, say, floating face-down on some quiet street. That didn't seem the proper approach, either.
"Weapons?"
"The first thing I searched him for. Nothing very dangerous. A long knife, a hard striking object. Both concealed on his person."
Cassal strangled slightly. Dimanche needed a good stiff course in semantics. A knife was still the most silent of weapons. A man could die from it. His hand strayed toward his pocket. He had a measure of protection himself.
"Report," said Dimanche. "Not necessarily final. Based, perhaps, on tenuous evidence."
"Let's have it anyway."
"His motivation is connected somehow with your being marooned here. For some reason you can't get off this planet."
That was startling information, though not strictly true. A thousand star systems were waiting for him, and a ship to take him to each one.
Of course, the one ship he wanted hadn't come in. Godolph was a transfer point for stars nearer the center of the Galaxy. When he had left Earth, he had known he would have to wait a few days here. He hadn't expected a delay of nearly three weeks. Still, it wasn't unusual. Interstellar schedules over great distances were not as reliable as they might be.
Was this man, whoever and whatever he might be, connected with that delay? According to Dimanche, the man thought he was. He was self-deluded or did he have access to information that Cassal didn't?
Denton Cassal, sales engineer, paused for a mental survey of himself. He was a good engineer and, because he was exceptionally well matched to his instrument, the best salesman that Neuronics, Inc., had. On the basis of these qualifications, he had been selected to make a long journey, the first part of which already lay behind him. He had to go to Tunney 21 to see a man. That man wasn't important to anyone save the company that employed him, and possibly not even to them.
The thug trailing him wouldn't be interested in Cassal himself, his mission, which was a commercial one, nor the man on Tunney. And money wasn't the objective, if Dimanche's analysis was right. What did the thug want?
Secrets? Cassal had none, except, in a sense, Dimanche. And that was too well kept on Earth, where the instrument was invented and made, for anyone this far away to have learned about it.
And yet the thug wanted to kill him. Wanted to? Regarded him as good as dead. It might pay him to investigate the matter further, if it didn't involve too much risk.
"Better start moving." That was Dimanche. "He's getting suspicious."
Cassal went slowly along the narrow walkway that bordered each side of that boulevard, the transport tide. It was raining again. It usually was on Godolph, which was a weather-controlled planet where the natives like rain.
He adjusted the controls of the weak force field that repelled the rain. He widened the angle of the field until water slanted through it unhindered. He narrowed it around him until it approached visibility and the drops bounced away. He swore at the miserable climate and the near amphibians who created it.
A few hundred feet away, a Godolphian girl waded out of the transport tide and climbed to the walkway. It was this sort of thing that made life dangerous for a human—Venice revised, brought up to date in a faster-than-light age.
Water. It was a perfect engineering material. Simple, cheap, infinitely flexible. With a minimum of mechanism and at break-neck speed, the ribbon of the transport tide flowed at different levels throughout the city. The Godolphian merely plunged in and was carried swiftly and noiselessly to his destination. Whereas a human—Cassal shivered. If he were found drowned, it would be considered an accident. No investigation would be made. The thug who was trailing him had certainly picked the right place.
The Godolphian girl passed. She wore a sleek brown fur, her own. Cassal was almost positive she muttered a polite "Arf?" as she sloshed by. What she meant by that, he didn't know and didn't intend to find out.
"Follow her," instructed Dimanche. "We've got to investigate our man at closer range."
Obediently, Cassal turned and began walking after the girl. Attractive in an anthropomorphic, seal-like way, even from behind. Not graceful out of her element, though.
The would-be assassin was still looking at merchandise as Cassal retraced his steps. A man, or at least man type. A big fellow, physically quite capable of violence, if size had anything to do with it. The face, though, was out of character. Mild, almost meek. A scientist or scholar. It didn't fit with murder.
"Nothing," said Dimanche disgustedly. "His mind froze when we got close. I could feel his shoulderblades twitching as we passed. Anticipated guilt, of course. Projecting to you the action he plans. That makes the knife definite."
Well beyond the window at which the thug watched and waited, Cassal stopped. Shakily he produced a cigarette and fumbled for a lighter.
"Excellent thinking," commended Dimanche. "He won't attempt anything on this street. Too dangerous. Turn aside at the next deserted intersection and let him follow the glow of your cigarette."
The lighter flared in his hand. "That's one way of finding out," said Cassal. "But wouldn't I be a lot safer if I just concentrated on getting back to the hotel?"
"I'm curious. Turn here."
"Go to hell," said Cassal nervously. Nevertheless, when he came to that intersection, he turned there.
It was a Godolphian equivalent of an alley, narrow and dark, oily slow-moving water gurgling at one side, high cavernous walls looming on the other.
He would have to adjust the curiosity factor of Dimanche. It was all very well to be interested in the man who trailed him, but there was also the problem of coming out of this adventure alive. Dimanche, an electronic instrument, naturally wouldn't consider that.
"Easy," warned Dimanche. "He's at the entrance to the alley, walking fast. He's surprised and pleased that you took this route."
"I'm surprised, too," remarked Cassal. "But I wouldn't say I'm pleased. Not just now."
"Careful. Even subvocalized conversation is distracting." The mechanism concealed within his body was silent for an instant and then continued:
"His blood pressure is rising, breathing is faster. At a time like this, he may be ready to verbalize why he wants to murder you. This is critical."
"That's no lie," agreed Cassal bitterly. The lighter was in his hand. He clutched it grimly. It was difficult not to look back. The darkness assumed an even more sinister quality.
"Quiet," said Dimanche. "He's verbalizing about you."
"He's decided I'm a nice fellow after all. He's going to stop and ask me for a light."
"I don't think so," answered Dimanche. "He's whispering: 'Poor devil. I hate to do it. But it's really his life or mine'."
"He's more right than he knows. Why all this violence, though? Isn't there any clue?"
"None at all," admitted Dimanche. "He's very close. You'd better turn around."
Cassal turned, pressed the stud on the lighter. It should have made him feel more secure, but it didn't. He could see very little.
A dim shadow rushed at him. He jumped away from the water side of the alley, barely in time. He could feel the rush of air as the assailant shot by.
"Hey!" shouted Cassal.
Echoes answered; nothing else did. He had the uncomfortable feeling that no one was going to come to his assistance.
"He wasn't expecting that reaction," explained Dimanche. "That's why he missed. He's turned around and is coming back."
"I'm armed!" shouted Cassal.
"That won't stop him. He doesn't believe you."
Cassal grasped the lighter. That is, it had been a lighter a few seconds before. Now a needle-thin blade had snapped out and projected stiffly. Originally it had been designed as an emergency surgical instrument. A little imagination and a few changes had altered its function, converting it into a compact, efficient stiletto.
"Twenty feet away," advised Dimanche. "He knows you can't see him, but he can see your silhouette by the light from the main thoroughfare. What he doesn't know is that I can detect every move he makes and keep you posted below the level of his hearing."
"Stay on him," growled Cassal nervously. He flattened himself against the wall.
"To the right," whispered Dimanche. "Lunge forward. About five feet. Low."
Sickly, he did so. He didn't care to consider the possible effects of a miscalculation. In the darkness, how far was five feet? Fortunately, his estimate was correct. The rapier encountered yielding resistance, the soggy kind: flesh. The tough blade bent, but did not break. His opponent gasped and broke away.
"Attack!" howled Dimanche against the bone behind his ear. "You've got him. He can't imagine how you know where he is in the darkness. He's afraid."
Attack he did, slicing about wildly. Some of the thrusts landed; some didn't. The percentage was low, the total amount high. His opponent fell to the ground, gasped and was silent.
Cassal fumbled in his pockets and flipped on a light. The man lay near the water side of the alley. One leg was crumpled under him. He didn't move.
"Heartbeat slow," said Dimanche solemnly. "Breathing barely perceptible."
"Then he's not dead," said Cassal in relief.
Foam flecked from the still lips and ran down the chin. Blood oozed from cuts on the face.
"Respiration none, heartbeat absent," stated Dimanche.
Horrified, Cassal gazed at the body. Self-defense, of course, but would the police believe it? Assuming they did, they'd still have to investigate. The rapier was an illegal concealed weapon. And they would question him until they discovered Dimanche. Regrettable, but what could he do about it?
Suppose he were detained long enough to miss the ship bound for Tunney
21?
Grimly, he laid down the rapier. He might as well get to the bottom of this. Why had the man attacked? What did he want?
"I don't know," replied Dimanche irritably. "I can interpret body data—a live body. I can't work on a piece of meat."
Cassal searched the body thoroughly. Miscellaneous personal articles of no value in identifying the man. A clip with a startling amount of money in it. A small white card with something scribbled on it. A picture of a woman and a small child posed against a background which resembled no world Cassal had ever seen. That was all.
Cassal stood up in bewilderment. Dimanche to the contrary, there seemed to be no connection between this dead man and his own problem of getting to Tunney 21.
Right now, though, he had to dispose of the body. He glanced toward the boulevard. So far no one had been attracted by the violence.
He bent down to retrieve the lighter-rapier. Dimanche shouted at him. Before he could react, someone landed on him. He fell forward, vainly trying to grasp the weapon. Strong fingers felt for his throat as he was forced to the ground.
He threw the attacker off and staggered to his feet. He heard footsteps rushing away. A slight splash followed. Whoever it was, he was escaping by way of water.
Whoever it was. The man he had thought he had slain was no longer in sight.
"Interpret body data, do you?" muttered Cassal. "Liveliest dead man I've ever been strangled by."
"It's just possible there are some breeds of men who can control the basic functions of their body," said Dimanche defensively. "When I checked him, he had no heartbeat."
"Remind me not to accept your next evaluation so completely," grunted Cassal. Nevertheless, he was relieved, in a fashion. He hadn't wanted to kill the man. And now there was nothing he'd have to explain to the police.
He needed the cigarette he stuck between his lips. For the second time he attempted to pick up the rapier-lighter. This time he was successful. Smoke swirled into his lungs and quieted his nerves. He squeezed the weapon into the shape of a lighter and put it away.
Something, however, was missing—his wallet.
The thug had relieved him of it in the second round of the scuffle. Persistent fellow. Damned persistent.
It really didn't matter. He fingered the clip he had taken from the supposedly dead body. He had intended to turn it over to the police. Now he might as well keep it to reimburse him for his loss. It contained more money than his wallet had.
Except for the identification tab he always carried in his wallet, it was more than a fair exchange. The identification, a rectangular piece of plastic, was useful in establishing credit, but with the money he now had, he wouldn't need credit. If he did, he could always send for another tab.
A white card fluttered from the clip. He caught it as it fell. Curiously he examined it. Blank except for one crudely printed word, STAB. His unknown assailant certainly had tried.
The old man stared at the door, an obsolete visual projector wobbling precariously on his head. He closed his eyes and the lettering on the door disappeared. Cassal was too far away to see what it had been. The technician opened his eyes and concentrated. Slowly a new sign formed on the door.
TRAVELERS AID BUREAU Murra Foray, First Counselor
It was a drab sign, but, then, it was a dismal, backward planet. The old technician passed on to the next door and closed his eyes again.
With a sinking feeling, Cassal walked toward the entrance. He needed help and he had to find it in this dingy rathole.
Inside, though, it wasn't dingy and it wasn't a rathole. More like a maze, an approved scientific one. Efficient, though not comfortable. Travelers Aid was busier than he thought it would be. Eventually he managed to squeeze into one of the many small counseling rooms.
A woman appeared on the screen, crisp and cool. "Please answer everything the machine asks. When the tape is complete, I'll be available for consultation."
Cassal wasn't sure he was going to like her. "Is this necessary?" he asked. "It's merely a matter of information."
"We have certain regulations we abide by." The woman smiled frostily.
"I can't give you any information until you comply with them."
"Sometimes regulations are silly," said Cassal firmly. "Let me speak to the first counselor."
"You are speaking to her," she said. Her face disappeared from the screen.
Cassal sighed. So far he hadn't made a good impression.
Travelers Aid Bureau, in addition to regulations, was abundantly supplied with official curiosity. When the machine finished with him, Cassal had the feeling he could be recreated from the record it had of him. His individuality had been capsuled into a series of questions and answers. One thing he drew the line at—why he wanted to go to Tunney
21 was his own business.
The first counselor reappeared. Age, indeterminate. Not, he supposed, that anyone would be curious about it. Slightly taller than average, rather on the slender side. Face was broad at the brow, narrow at the chin and her eyes were enigmatic. A dangerous woman.
She glanced down at the data. "Denton Cassal, native of Earth. Destination, Tunney 21." She looked up at him. "Occupation, sales engineer. Isn't that an odd combination?" Her smile was quite superior.
"Not at all. Scientific training as an engineer. Special knowledge of customer relations."
"Special knowledge of a thousand races? How convenient." Her eyebrows arched.
"I think so," he agreed blandly. "Anything else you'd like to know?"
"Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."
He could believe that or not as he wished. He didn't.
"You refused to answer why you were going to Tunney 21. Perhaps I can guess. They're the best scientists in the Galaxy. You wish to study under them."
Close—but wrong on two counts. They were good scientists, though not necessarily the best. For instance, it was doubtful that they could build Dimanche, even if they had ever thought of it, which was even less likely.
There was, however, one relatively obscure research worker on Tunney 21 that Neuronics wanted on their staff. If the fragments of his studies that had reached Earth across the vast distance meant anything, he could help Neuronics perfect instantaneous radio. The company that could build a radio to span the reaches of the Galaxy with no time lag could set its own price, which could be control of all communications, transport, trade—a galactic monopoly. Cassal's share would be a cut of all that.
His part was simple, on the surface. He was to persuade that researcher to come to Earth, if he could . Literally, he had to guess the Tunnesian's price before the Tunnesian himself knew it. In addition, the reputation of Tunnesian scientists being exceeded only by their arrogance, Cassal had to convince him that he wouldn't be working for ignorant Earth savages. The existence of such an instrument as Dimanche was a key factor.
Her voice broke through his thoughts. "Now, then, what's your problem?"
"I was told on Earth I might have to wait a few days on Godolph. I've been here three weeks. I want information on the ship bound for Tunney
21."
"Just a moment." She glanced at something below the angle of the screen. She looked up and her eyes were grave. " Rickrock C arrived yesterday. Departed for Tunney early this morning."
"Departed?" He got up and sat down again, swallowing hard. "When will the next ship arrive?"
"Do you know how many stars there are in the Galaxy?" she asked.
He didn't answer.
"That's right," she said. "Billions. Tunney, according to the notation, is near the center of the Galaxy, inside the third ring. You've covered about a third of the distance to it. Local traffic, anything within a thousand light-years, is relatively easy to manage. At longer distances, you take a chance. You've had yours and missed it. Frankly, Cassal, I don't know when another ship bound for Tunney will show up on or near Godolph. Within the next five years—maybe."
He blanched. "How long would it take to get there using local transportation, star-hopping?"
"Take my advice: don't try it. Five years, if you're lucky."
"I don't need that kind of luck."
"I suppose not." She hesitated. "You're determined to go on?" At the emphatic nod, she sighed. "If that's your decision, we'll try to help you. To start things moving, we'll need a print of your identification tab."
"There's something funny about her," Dimanche decided. It was the usual speaking voice of the instrument, no louder than the noise the blood made in coursing through arteries and veins. Cassal could hear it plainly, because it was virtually inside his ear.
Cassal ignored his private voice. "Identification tab? I don't have it with me. In fact, I may have lost it."
She smiled in instant disbelief. "We're not trying to pry into any part of your past you may wish concealed. However, it's much easier for us to help you if you have your identification. Now if you can't remember your real name and where you put your identification—" She arose and left the screen. "Just a moment."
He glared uneasily at the spot where the first counselor wasn't. His real name!
"Relax," Dimanche suggested. "She didn't mean it as a personal insult."
Presently she returned.
"I have news for you, whoever you are."
"Cassal," he said firmly. "Denton Cassal, sales engineer, Earth. If you don't believe it, send back to—" He stopped. It had taken him four months to get to Godolph, non-stop, plus a six-month wait on Earth for a ship to show up that was bound in the right direction. Over distances such as these, it just wasn't practical to send back to Earth for anything.
"I see you understand." She glanced at the card in her hand. "The spaceport records indicate that when Rickrock C took off this morning, there was a Denton Cassal on board, bound for Tunney 21."
"It wasn't I," he said dazedly. He knew who it was, though. The man who had tried to kill him last night. The reason for the attack now became clear. The thug had wanted his identification tab. Worse, he had gotten it.
"No doubt it wasn't," she said wearily. "Outsiders don't seem to understand what galactic travel entails."
Outsiders? Evidently what she called those who lived beyond the second transfer ring. Were those who lived at the edge of the Galaxy, beyond the first ring, called Rimmers? Probably.
She was still speaking: "Ten years to cross the Galaxy, without stopping. At present, no ship is capable of that. Real scheduling is impossible. Populations shift and have to be supplied. A ship is taken off a run for repairs and is never put back on. It's more urgently needed elsewhere. The man who depended on it is left waiting; years pass before he learns it's never coming.
"If we had instantaneous radio, that would help. Confusion wouldn't vanish overnight, but it would diminish. We wouldn't have to depend on ships for all the news. Reservations could be made ahead of time, credit established, lost identification replaced—"
"I've traveled before," he interrupted stiffly. "I've never had any trouble."
She seemed to be exaggerating the difficulties. True, the center was more congested. Taking each star as the starting point for a limited number of ships and using statistical probability as a guide—why, no man would arrive at his predetermined destination.
But that wasn't the way it worked. Manifestly, you couldn't compare galactic transportation to the erratic paths of air molecules in a giant room. Or could you?
For the average man, anyone who didn't have his own inter-stellar ship, was the comparison too apt? It might be.
"You've traveled outside, where there are still free planets waiting to be settled. Where a man is welcome, if he's able to work." She paused.
"The center is different. Populations are excessive. Inside the third ring, no man is allowed off a ship without an identification tab. They don't encourage immigration."
In effect, that meant no ship bound for the center would take a passenger without identification. No ship owner would run the risk of having a permanent guest on board, someone who couldn't be rid of when his money was gone.
Cassal held his head in his hands. Tunney 21 was inside the third ring.
"Next time," she said, "don't let anyone take your identification."
"I won't," he promised grimly.
The woman looked directly at him. Her eyes were bright. He revised his estimate of her age drastically downward. She couldn't be as old as he. Nothing outward had happened, but she no longer seemed dowdy. Not that he was interested. Still, it might pay him to be friendly to the first counselor.
"We're a philanthropic agency," said Murra Foray. "Your case is special, though—"
"I understand," he said gruffly. "You accept contributions."
She nodded. "If the donor is able to give. We don't ask so much that you'll have to compromise your standard of living." But she named a sum that would force him to do just that if getting to Tunney 21 took any appreciable time.
He stared at her unhappily. "I suppose it's worth it. I can always work, if I have to."
"As a salesman?" she asked. "I'm afraid you'll find it difficult to do business with Godolphians."
Irony wasn't called for at a time like this, he thought reproachfully.
"Not just another salesman," he answered definitely. "I have special knowledge of customer reactions. I can tell exactly—"
He stopped abruptly. Was she baiting him? For what reason? The instrument he called Dimanche was not known to the Galaxy at large. From the business angle, it would be poor policy to hand out that information at random. Aside from that, he needed every advantage he could get. Dimanche was his special advantage.
"Anyway," he finished lamely, "I'm a first class engineer. I can always find something in that line."
"A scientist, maybe," murmured Murra Foray. "But in this part of the Milky Way, an engineer is regarded as merely a technician who hasn't yet gained practical experience." She shook her head. "You'll do better as a salesman."
He got up, glowering. "If that's all—"
"It is. We'll keep you informed. Drop your contribution in the slot provided for that purpose as you leave."
A door, which he hadn't noticed in entering the counselling cubicle, swung open. The agency was efficient.
"Remember," the counselor called out as he left, "identification is hard to work with. Don't accept a crude forgery."
He didn't answer, but it was an idea worth considering. The agency was also eminently practical.
The exit path guided him firmly to an inconspicuous and yet inescapable contribution station. He began to doubt the philanthropic aspect of the bureau.
"I've got it," said Dimanche as Cassal gloomily counted out the sum the first counselor had named.
"Got what?" asked Cassal. He rolled the currency into a neat bundle, attached his name, and dropped it into the chute.
"The woman, Murra Foray, the first counselor. She's a Huntner."
"What's a Huntner?"
"A sub-race of men on the other side of the Galaxy. She was vocalizing about her home planet when I managed to locate her."
"Any other information?"
"None. Electronic guards were sliding into place as soon as I reached her. I got out as fast as I could."
"I see." The significance of that, if any, escaped him. Nevertheless, it sounded depressing.
"What I want to know is," said Dimanche, "why such precautions as electronic guards? What does Travelers Aid have that's so secret?"
Cassal grunted and didn't answer. Dimanche could be annoyingly inquisitive at times.
Cassal had entered one side of a block-square building. He came out on the other side. The agency was larger than he had thought. The old man was staring at a door as Cassal came out. He had apparently changed every sign in the building. His work finished, the technician was removing the visual projector from his head as Cassal came up to him. He turned and peered.
"You stuck here, too?" he asked in the uneven voice of the aged.
"Stuck?" repeated Cassal. "I suppose you can call it that. I'm waiting for my ship." He frowned. He was the one who wanted to ask questions.
"Why all the redecoration? I thought Travelers Aid was an old agency. Why did you change so many signs? I could understand it if the agency were new."
The old man chuckled. "Re-organization. The previous first counselor resigned suddenly, in the middle of the night, they say. The new one didn't like the name of the agency, so she ordered it changed."
She would do just that, thought Cassal. "What about this Murra Foray?"
The old man winked mysteriously. He opened his mouth and then seemed overcome with senile fright. Hurriedly he shuffled away.
Cassal gazed after him, baffled. The old man was afraid for his job, afraid of the first counselor. Why he should be, Cassal didn't know. He shrugged and went on. The agency was now in motion in his behalf, but he didn't intend to depend on that alone.
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What is the significance of teleporter suits in the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about A BOTTLE OF Old Wine by Richard O. Lewis.
Relevant chunks:
A grim tale of a future in which everyone is desperate to escape reality, and a hero who wants to have his wine and drink it, too.
A BOTTLE OF
Old Wine
By Richard O. Lewis
Illustrated by KELLY FREAS
Herbert Hyrel
settled himself more comfortably in his easy chair, extended his short legs further toward the fireplace, and let his eyes travel cautiously in the general direction of his wife.
She was in her chair as usual, her long legs curled up beneath her, the upper half of her face hidden in the bulk of her personalized, three-dimensional telovis. The telovis, of a stereoscopic nature, seemingly brought the performers with all their tinsel and color directly into the room of the watcher.
Hyrel had no way of seeing into the plastic affair she wore, but he guessed from the expression on the lower half of her face that she was watching one of the newer black-market sex-operas. In any event, there would be no sound, movement, or sign of life from her for the next three hours. To break the thread of the play for even a moment would ruin all the previous emotional build-up.
There had been a time when he hated her for those long and silent evenings, lonely hours during which he was completely ignored. It was different now, however, for those hours furnished him with time for an escape of his own.
His lips curled into a tight smile and his right hand fondled the unobtrusive switch beneath his trouser leg. He did not press the switch. He would wait a few minutes longer. But it was comforting to know that it was there, exhilarating to know that he could escape for a few hours by a mere flick of his finger.
He let his eyes stray to the dim light of the artificial flames in the fireplace. His hate for her was not bounded merely by those lonely hours she had forced upon him. No, it was far more encompassing.
He hated her with a deep, burning savagery that was deadly in its passion. He hated her for her money, the money she kept securely from him. He hated her for the paltry allowance she doled out to him, as if he were an irresponsible child. It was as if she were constantly reminding him in every glance and gesture, "I made a bad bargain when I married you. You wanted me, my money, everything, and had nothing to give in return except your own doltish self. You set a trap for me, baited with lies and a false front. Now you are caught in your own trap and will remain there like a mouse to eat from my hand whatever crumbs I stoop to give you."
But some day his hate would be appeased. Yes, some day soon he would kill her!
He shot a sideways glance at her, wondering if by chance she suspected.... She hadn't moved. Her lips were pouted into a half smile; the sex-opera had probably reached one of its more pleasurable moments.
Hyrel let his eyes shift back to the fireplace again. Yes, he would kill her. Then he would claim a rightful share of her money, be rid of her debasing dominance.
He let the
thought run around through his head, savoring it with mental taste buds. He would not kill her tonight. No, nor the next night. He would wait, wait until he had sucked the last measure of pleasure from the thought.
It was like having a bottle of rare old wine on a shelf where it could be viewed daily. It was like being able to pause again and again before the bottle, hold it up to the light, and say to it, "Some day, when my desire for you has reached the ultimate, I shall unstopper you quietly and sip you slowly to the last soul-satisfying drop." As long as the bottle remained there upon the shelf it was symbolic of that pleasurable moment....
He snapped out of his reverie and realized he had been wasting precious moments. There would be time enough tomorrow for gloating. Tonight, there were other things to do. Pleasurable things. He remembered the girl he had met the night before, and smiled smugly. Perhaps she would be awaiting him even now. If not, there would be another one....
He settled himself deeper into the chair, glanced once more at his wife, then let his head lean comfortably back against the chair's headrest. His hand upon his thigh felt the thin mesh that cloaked his body beneath his clothing like a sheer stocking. His fingers went again to the tiny switch. Again he hesitated.
Herbert Hyrel knew no more about the telporter suit he wore than he did about the radio in the corner, the TV set against the wall, or the personalized telovis his wife was wearing. You pressed one of the buttons on the radio; music came out. You pressed a button and clicked a dial on the TV; music and pictures came out. You pressed a button and made an adjustment on the telovis; three-dimensional, emotion-colored pictures leaped into the room. You pressed a tiny switch on the telporter suit; you were whisked away to a receiving set you had previously set up in secret.
He knew that the music and the images of the performers on the TV and telovis were brought to his room by some form of electrical impulse or wave while the actual musicians and performers remained in the studio. He knew that when he pressed the switch on his thigh something within him—his ectoplasm, higher self, the thing spirits use for materialization, whatever its real name—streamed out of him along an invisible channel, leaving his body behind in the chair in a conscious but dream-like state. His other self materialized in a small cabin in a hidden nook between a highway and a river where he had installed the receiving set a month ago.
He thought once more of the girl who might be waiting for him, smiled, and pressed the switch.
The dank air
of the cabin was chill to Herbert Hyrel's naked flesh. He fumbled through the darkness for the clothing he kept there, found his shorts and trousers, got hurriedly into them, then flicked on a pocket lighter and ignited a stub of candle upon the table. By the wavering light, he finished dressing in the black satin clothing, the white shirt, the flowing necktie and tam. He invoiced the contents of his billfold. Not much. And his monthly pittance was still two weeks away....
He had skimped for six months to salvage enough money from his allowance to make a down payment on the telporter suit. Since then, his expenses—monthly payments for the suit, cabin rent, costly liquor—had forced him to place his nights of escape on strict ration. He could not go on this way, he realized. Not now. Not since he had met the girl. He had to have more money. Perhaps he could not afford the luxury of leaving the wine bottle longer upon the shelf....
Riverside Club, where Hyrel arrived by bus and a hundred yards of walking, was exclusive. It catered to a clientele that had but three things in common: money, a desire for utter self-abandonment, and a sales slip indicating ownership of a telporter suit. The club was of necessity expensive, for self-telportation was strictly illegal, and police protection came high.
Herbert Hyrel adjusted his white, silken mask carefully at the door and shoved his sales slip through a small aperture where it was thoroughly scanned by unseen eyes. A buzzer sounded an instant later, the lock on the door clicked, and Hyrel pushed through into the exhilarating warmth of music and laughter.
The main room was large. Hidden lights along the walls sent slow beams of red, blue, vermillion, green, yellow and pink trailing across the domed ceiling in a heterogeneous pattern. The colored beams mingled, diffused, spread, were caught up by mirrors of various tints which diffused and mingled the lights once more until the whole effect was an ever-changing panorama of softly-melting shades.
The gay and bizarre costumes of the masked revelers on the dance floor and at the tables, unearthly in themselves, were made even more so by the altering light. Music flooded the room from unseen sources. Laughter—hysterical, drunken, filled with utter abandonment—came from the dance floor, the tables, and the private booths and rooms hidden cleverly within the walls.
Hyrel pushed himself to an unoccupied table, sat down and ordered a bottle of cheap whiskey. He would have preferred champagne, but his depleted finances forbade the more discriminate taste.
When his order arrived, he poured a glass tumbler half full and consumed it eagerly while his eyes scanned the room in search of the girl. He couldn't see her in the dim swirl of color. Had she arrived? Perhaps she was wearing a different costume than she had the night before. If so, recognition might prove difficult.
He poured himself another drink, promising himself he would go in search of her when the liquor began to take effect.
A woman clad in the revealing garb of a Persian dancer threw an arm about him from behind and kissed him on the cheek through the veil which covered the lower part of her face.
"Hi, honey," she giggled into his ear. "Havin' a time?"
He reached for the white arm to pull her to him, but she eluded his grasp and reeled away into the waiting arms of a tall toreador. Hyrel gulped his whiskey and watched her nestle into the arms of her partner and begin with him a sinuous, suggestive dance. The whiskey had begun its warming effect, and he laughed.
This was the land of the lotus eaters, the sanctuary of the escapists, the haven of all who wished to cast off their shell of inhibition and become the thing they dreamed themselves to be. Here one could be among his own kind, an actor upon a gay stage, a gaudy butterfly metamorphosed from the slug, a knight of old.
The Persian dancing girl was probably the wife of a boorish oaf whose idea of romance was spending an evening telling his wife how he came to be a successful bank president. But she had found her means of escape. Perhaps she had pleaded a sick headache and had retired to her room. And there upon the bed now reposed her shell of reality while her inner self, the shadowy one, completely materialized, became an exotic thing from the East in this never-never land.
The man, the toreador, had probably closeted himself within his library with a set of account books and had left strict orders not to be disturbed until he had finished with them.
Both would have terrific hangovers in the morning. But that, of course, would be fully compensated for by the memories of the evening.
Hyrel chuckled. The situation struck him as being funny: the shadowy self got drunk and had a good time, and the outer husk suffered the hangover in the morning. Strange. Strange how a device such as the telporter suit could cause the shadow of each bodily cell to leave the body, materialize, and become a reality in its own right. And yet ...
He looked
at the heel of his left hand. There was a long, irregular scar there. It was the result of a cut he had received nearly three weeks ago when he had fallen over this very table and had rammed his hand into a sliver of broken champagne glass. Later that evening, upon re-telporting back home, the pain of the cut had remained in his hand, but there was no sign of the cut itself on the hand of his outer self. The scar was peculiar to the shadowy body only. There was something about the shadowy body that carried the hurts to the outer body, but not the scars....
Sudden laughter broke out near him, and he turned quickly in that direction. A group of gaily costumed revelers was standing in a semi-circle about a small mound of clothing upon the floor. It was the costume of the toreador.
Hyrel laughed, too. It had happened many times before—a costume suddenly left empty as its owner, due to a threat of discovery at home, had had to press the switch in haste to bring his shadowy self—and complete consciousness—back to his outer self in a hurry.
A waiter picked up the clothing. He would put it safely away so that the owner could claim it upon his next visit to the club. Another waiter placed a fresh bottle of whiskey on the table before Hyrel, and Hyrel paid him for it.
The whiskey, reaching his head now in surges of warm cheerfulness, was filling him with abandonment, courage, and a desire for merriment. He pushed himself up from the table, joined the merry throng, threw his arm about the Persian dancer, drew her close.
They began dancing slowly to the throbbing rhythm, dancing and holding on to each other tightly. Hyrel could feel her hot breath through her veil upon his neck, adding to the headiness of the liquor. His feeling of depression and inferiority flowed suddenly from him. Once again he was the all-conquering male.
His arm trembled as it drew her still closer to him and he began dancing directly and purposefully toward the shadows of a clump of artificial palms near one corner of the room. There was an exit to the garden behind the palms.
Half way there they passed a secluded booth from which protruded a long leg clad in black mesh stocking. Hyrel paused as he recognized that part of the costume. It was she! The girl! The one he had met so briefly the night before!
His arm slid away from the Persian dancer, took hold of the mesh-clad leg, and pulled. A female form followed the leg from the booth and fell into his arms. He held her tightly, kissed her white neck, let her perfume send his thoughts reeling.
"Been looking for me, honey?" she whispered, her voice deep and throaty.
"You know it!"
He began whisking her away toward the palms. The Persian girl was pulled into the booth.
Yes, she was wearing the same costume she had worn the night before, that of a can-can dancer of the 90's. The mesh hose that encased her shapely legs were held up by flowered supporters in such a manner as to leave four inches of white leg exposed between hose top and lacy panties. Her skirt, frilled to suggest innumerable petticoats, fell away at each hip, leaving the front open to expose the full length of legs. She wore a wig of platinum hair encrusted with jewels that sparkled in the lights. Her jewel-studded mask was as white as her hair and covered the upper half of her face, except for the large almond slits for her eyes. A white purse, jewel crusted, dangled from one arm.
He stopped once before reaching the palms, drew her closer, kissed her long and ardently. Then he began pulling her on again.
She drew back when they reached the shelter of the fronds.
"Champagne, first," she whispered huskily into his ear.
His heart sank. He had very little money left. Well, it might buy a cheap brand....
She sipped
her champagne slowly and provocatively across the table from him. Her eyes sparkled behind the almond slits of her mask, caught the color changes and cast them back. She was wearing contact lenses of a garish green.
He wished she would hurry with her drink. He had horrible visions of his wife at home taking off her telovis and coming to his chair. He would then have to press the switch that would jerk his shadowy self back along its invisible connecting cord, jerk him back and leave but a small mound of clothes upon the chair at the table.
Deep depression laid hold of him. He would not be able to see her after tonight until he received his monthly dole two weeks hence. She wouldn't wait that long. Someone else would have her.
Unless ...
Yes, he knew now that he was going to kill his wife as soon as the opportunity presented itself. It would be a simple matter. With the aid of the telporter suit, he could establish an iron-clad alibi.
He took a long drink of whiskey and looked at the dancers about him. Sight of their gay costumes heightened his depression. He was wearing a cheap suit of satin, all he could afford. But some day soon he would show them! Some time soon he would be dressed as gaily....
"Something troubling you, honey?"
His gaze shot back to her and she blurred slightly before his eyes.
"No. Nothing at all!" He summoned a sickly smile and clutched her hand in his. "Come on. Let's dance."
He drew her from the chair and into his arms. She melted toward him as if desiring to become a part of him. A tremor of excitement surged through him and threatened to turn his knees into quivering jelly. He could not make his feet conform to the flooding rhythm of the music. He half stumbled, half pushed her along past the booths.
In the shelter of the palms he drew her savagely to him. "Let's—let's go outside." His voice was little more than a croak.
"But, honey!" She pushed herself away, her low voice maddening him. "Don't you have a private room? A girl doesn't like to be taken outside...."
Her words bit into his brain like the blade of a hot knife.
No, he didn't have a private room at the club like the others. A private room for his telporter receiver, a private room where he could take a willing guest. No! He couldn't afford it! No! No! NO! His lot was a cheap suit of satin! Cheap whiskey! Cheap champagne! A cheap shack by the river....
An inarticulate cry escaped his twisted lips. He clutched her roughly to him and dragged her through the door and into the moonlight, whiskey and anger lending him brutal strength.
He pulled her through the deserted garden. All the others had private rooms! He pulled her to the far end, behind a clump of squatty firs. His hands clawed at her. He tried to smother her mouth with kisses.
She eluded him deftly. "But, honey !" Her voice had gone deeper into her throat. "I just want to be sure about things. If you can't afford one of the private rooms—if you can't afford to show me a good time—if you can't come here real often ..."
The whiskey pounded and throbbed at his brain like blows from an unseen club. His ego curled and twisted within him like a headless serpent.
"I'll have money!" he shouted, struggling to hold her. "I'll have plenty of money! After tonight!"
"Then we'll wait," she said.
"We'll wait until tomorrow night."
"No!" he screamed. "You don't believe me! You're like the others! You think I'm no good! But I'll show you! I'll show all of you!"
She had gone
coldly rigid in his arms, unyielding.
Madness added to the pounding in his brain. Tears welled into his eyes.
"I'll show you! I'll kill her! Then I'll have money!" The hands clutching her shoulders shook her drunkenly. "You wait here! I'll go home and kill her now! Then I'll be back!"
"Silly boy!" Her low laughter rang hollowly in his ears. "And just who is it you are going to kill?"
"My wife!" he cried. "My wife! I'll ..."
A sudden sobering thought struck him. He was talking too much. And he wasn't making sense. He shouldn't be telling her this. Anyway, he couldn't get the money tonight even if he did kill his wife.
"And so you are going to kill your wife...."
He blinked the tears from his eyes. His chest was heaving, his heart pounding. He looked at her shimmering form. "Y-yes," he whispered.
Her eyes glinted strangely in the light of the moon. Her handbag glinted as she opened it, and something she took from it glittered coldly in her hand.
"Fool!"
The first shot tore squarely through his heart. And while he stood staring at her, mouth agape, a second shot burned its way through his bewildered brain.
Mrs. Herbert Hyrel
removed the telovis from her head and laid it carefully aside. She uncoiled her long legs from beneath her, walked to her husband's chair, and stood for a long moment looking down at him, her lips drawn back in contempt. Then she bent over him and reached down his thigh until her fingers contacted the small switch.
Seconds later, a slight tremor shook Hyrel's body. His eyes snapped open, air escaped his lungs, his lower jaw sagged inanely, and his head lolled to one side.
She stood a moment longer, watching his eyes become glazed and sightless. Then she walked to the telephone.
"Police?" she said. "This is Mrs. Herbert Hyrel. Something horrible has happened to my husband. Please come over immediately. Bring a doctor."
She hung up, went to her bathroom, stripped off her clothing, and slid carefully out of her telporter suit. This she folded neatly and tucked away into the false back of the medicine cabinet. She found a fresh pair of blue, plastifur pajamas and got into them.
She was just arriving back into the living room, tying the cord of her dressing gown about her slim waist, when she heard the sound of the police siren out front.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science Fiction July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Question:
What is the significance of teleporter suits in the story?
Answer:
|
[
"Teleporter suits play an important role in the relationship of Herbert and his wife, but also in the society that they live in more broadly. In terms of broad significance, the teleporter suits are important to the Riverside Club, as only people who own one are allowed to enter. They are illegal to own, so the club had to be careful about who they let in. Even though they are frowned upon, it seems they are a popular purchase for those who can afford them. Both Herbert and his wife own one, though we don't learn that his wife has one until the end of the story. For Herbert, the teleporter suit is his ticket to spend time outside of the house that he feels trapped in, in a relationship that he is not happy in. It allows him to visit this club and meet other people. At the same time, it is these suits that allowed his wife to follow him to the club and convince him to admit his plans, eventually ending in his death. After she shoots him, she hides her own suit but leaves his on his person. Because the body in the suit and the other copy of the body experience things differently, it was a sneaky way to kill her husband. ",
"Teleporter suits are an illegal yet highly sought-after and expensive tech gadget in this society. With this suit, the wearer can be transported to another realm, while their body remains in place. Their souls can have fun, dance the night away, drink as much as they want, and their partners or families will never know. The next morning, however, when they return to their corporeal body, they will carry last night’s hangover with them to the physical realm. \nThe teleporter suit allows Herbert Hyrel to escape his suffocating household and relish in his manly and sexual fantasies. He wants to prove himself to society and to brand himself as something he is not. In this other world, he can pretend to be a much richer, more powerful man. His rich wife makes him feel insignificant, so he takes his troubles to the shadow realm. \nThe teleporter suits allow the wearer to travel between realms, but a connection between the shadow self and body remains. Whatever happens to the shadow self, will also happen to the corporeal self, only the physical or visual element will not be there. So, if someone were to get hurt in the shadow realm, their physical body would feel the pain but would not bear the scars. \nThis allows Mrs. Herbert Hyrel to murder her husband in the shadow realm, and return to the physical world without blood or any incriminating evidence. \n",
"The telporter suits catalyze the major conflict in the story. In one sense, Herbert's telporter suit represents his ability to escape what he considers to be an emasculating, oppressive marriage. On the other hand, Mrs. Hyrel's secret telporter suit leads to Herbert's eventual demise. The suits are made of a thin mesh that fits the body like a stocking and can be worn underneath one's clothes. The telporter can be engaged by flicking a small switch, and it sends its wearer to a receiver at a previously-set location. Herbert installs his receiver at a small cabin in the woods a short distance away from the Riverside Club since he cannot afford the private rooms there. Herbert does not understand the mechanics behind the suit, but he grasps its basic function--the suits transport a person's \"shadowy self\" from one's body and the body is left in \"a conscious but dream-like state.\" When the shadowy self returns, the body does not retain any scars the shadowy self may have sustained but it does feel the pain of those injuries. Self-telportation is also illegal, although the Riverside Club maintains police protection by charging high prices and paying them off. Mrs. Hyrel uses to her advantage when she foils Herbert's plans to kill her and instead kills him and makes it appear as if he simply died while engaging in illegal activity.",
"\n\tThe teleporter suits provide people with a means of escape from their boring or unpleasant lives. Many people have them and use them to go to the Riverside Club where they can abandon their lives and live for the pleasure of the moment without anyone knowing who they are since everyone there wears costumes and masks. In addition, self-teleportation is illegal, so no one wants anyone else to know they have teleportation suits. When people use their teleporter suits, their real bodies stay where they are in reality while their “shadow” bodies travel to another place. People who teleport to the Riverside Club can do anything they want without their spouses or anyone else knowing what they are doing. Meanwhile, since their real bodies remain in “real life,” it looks as if the person is still there, doing nothing out of the ordinary that can draw suspicion or blame from anyone who knows them. \n"
] |
30004
|
A grim tale of a future in which everyone is desperate to escape reality, and a hero who wants to have his wine and drink it, too.
A BOTTLE OF
Old Wine
By Richard O. Lewis
Illustrated by KELLY FREAS
Herbert Hyrel
settled himself more comfortably in his easy chair, extended his short legs further toward the fireplace, and let his eyes travel cautiously in the general direction of his wife.
She was in her chair as usual, her long legs curled up beneath her, the upper half of her face hidden in the bulk of her personalized, three-dimensional telovis. The telovis, of a stereoscopic nature, seemingly brought the performers with all their tinsel and color directly into the room of the watcher.
Hyrel had no way of seeing into the plastic affair she wore, but he guessed from the expression on the lower half of her face that she was watching one of the newer black-market sex-operas. In any event, there would be no sound, movement, or sign of life from her for the next three hours. To break the thread of the play for even a moment would ruin all the previous emotional build-up.
There had been a time when he hated her for those long and silent evenings, lonely hours during which he was completely ignored. It was different now, however, for those hours furnished him with time for an escape of his own.
His lips curled into a tight smile and his right hand fondled the unobtrusive switch beneath his trouser leg. He did not press the switch. He would wait a few minutes longer. But it was comforting to know that it was there, exhilarating to know that he could escape for a few hours by a mere flick of his finger.
He let his eyes stray to the dim light of the artificial flames in the fireplace. His hate for her was not bounded merely by those lonely hours she had forced upon him. No, it was far more encompassing.
He hated her with a deep, burning savagery that was deadly in its passion. He hated her for her money, the money she kept securely from him. He hated her for the paltry allowance she doled out to him, as if he were an irresponsible child. It was as if she were constantly reminding him in every glance and gesture, "I made a bad bargain when I married you. You wanted me, my money, everything, and had nothing to give in return except your own doltish self. You set a trap for me, baited with lies and a false front. Now you are caught in your own trap and will remain there like a mouse to eat from my hand whatever crumbs I stoop to give you."
But some day his hate would be appeased. Yes, some day soon he would kill her!
He shot a sideways glance at her, wondering if by chance she suspected.... She hadn't moved. Her lips were pouted into a half smile; the sex-opera had probably reached one of its more pleasurable moments.
Hyrel let his eyes shift back to the fireplace again. Yes, he would kill her. Then he would claim a rightful share of her money, be rid of her debasing dominance.
He let the
thought run around through his head, savoring it with mental taste buds. He would not kill her tonight. No, nor the next night. He would wait, wait until he had sucked the last measure of pleasure from the thought.
It was like having a bottle of rare old wine on a shelf where it could be viewed daily. It was like being able to pause again and again before the bottle, hold it up to the light, and say to it, "Some day, when my desire for you has reached the ultimate, I shall unstopper you quietly and sip you slowly to the last soul-satisfying drop." As long as the bottle remained there upon the shelf it was symbolic of that pleasurable moment....
He snapped out of his reverie and realized he had been wasting precious moments. There would be time enough tomorrow for gloating. Tonight, there were other things to do. Pleasurable things. He remembered the girl he had met the night before, and smiled smugly. Perhaps she would be awaiting him even now. If not, there would be another one....
He settled himself deeper into the chair, glanced once more at his wife, then let his head lean comfortably back against the chair's headrest. His hand upon his thigh felt the thin mesh that cloaked his body beneath his clothing like a sheer stocking. His fingers went again to the tiny switch. Again he hesitated.
Herbert Hyrel knew no more about the telporter suit he wore than he did about the radio in the corner, the TV set against the wall, or the personalized telovis his wife was wearing. You pressed one of the buttons on the radio; music came out. You pressed a button and clicked a dial on the TV; music and pictures came out. You pressed a button and made an adjustment on the telovis; three-dimensional, emotion-colored pictures leaped into the room. You pressed a tiny switch on the telporter suit; you were whisked away to a receiving set you had previously set up in secret.
He knew that the music and the images of the performers on the TV and telovis were brought to his room by some form of electrical impulse or wave while the actual musicians and performers remained in the studio. He knew that when he pressed the switch on his thigh something within him—his ectoplasm, higher self, the thing spirits use for materialization, whatever its real name—streamed out of him along an invisible channel, leaving his body behind in the chair in a conscious but dream-like state. His other self materialized in a small cabin in a hidden nook between a highway and a river where he had installed the receiving set a month ago.
He thought once more of the girl who might be waiting for him, smiled, and pressed the switch.
The dank air
of the cabin was chill to Herbert Hyrel's naked flesh. He fumbled through the darkness for the clothing he kept there, found his shorts and trousers, got hurriedly into them, then flicked on a pocket lighter and ignited a stub of candle upon the table. By the wavering light, he finished dressing in the black satin clothing, the white shirt, the flowing necktie and tam. He invoiced the contents of his billfold. Not much. And his monthly pittance was still two weeks away....
He had skimped for six months to salvage enough money from his allowance to make a down payment on the telporter suit. Since then, his expenses—monthly payments for the suit, cabin rent, costly liquor—had forced him to place his nights of escape on strict ration. He could not go on this way, he realized. Not now. Not since he had met the girl. He had to have more money. Perhaps he could not afford the luxury of leaving the wine bottle longer upon the shelf....
Riverside Club, where Hyrel arrived by bus and a hundred yards of walking, was exclusive. It catered to a clientele that had but three things in common: money, a desire for utter self-abandonment, and a sales slip indicating ownership of a telporter suit. The club was of necessity expensive, for self-telportation was strictly illegal, and police protection came high.
Herbert Hyrel adjusted his white, silken mask carefully at the door and shoved his sales slip through a small aperture where it was thoroughly scanned by unseen eyes. A buzzer sounded an instant later, the lock on the door clicked, and Hyrel pushed through into the exhilarating warmth of music and laughter.
The main room was large. Hidden lights along the walls sent slow beams of red, blue, vermillion, green, yellow and pink trailing across the domed ceiling in a heterogeneous pattern. The colored beams mingled, diffused, spread, were caught up by mirrors of various tints which diffused and mingled the lights once more until the whole effect was an ever-changing panorama of softly-melting shades.
The gay and bizarre costumes of the masked revelers on the dance floor and at the tables, unearthly in themselves, were made even more so by the altering light. Music flooded the room from unseen sources. Laughter—hysterical, drunken, filled with utter abandonment—came from the dance floor, the tables, and the private booths and rooms hidden cleverly within the walls.
Hyrel pushed himself to an unoccupied table, sat down and ordered a bottle of cheap whiskey. He would have preferred champagne, but his depleted finances forbade the more discriminate taste.
When his order arrived, he poured a glass tumbler half full and consumed it eagerly while his eyes scanned the room in search of the girl. He couldn't see her in the dim swirl of color. Had she arrived? Perhaps she was wearing a different costume than she had the night before. If so, recognition might prove difficult.
He poured himself another drink, promising himself he would go in search of her when the liquor began to take effect.
A woman clad in the revealing garb of a Persian dancer threw an arm about him from behind and kissed him on the cheek through the veil which covered the lower part of her face.
"Hi, honey," she giggled into his ear. "Havin' a time?"
He reached for the white arm to pull her to him, but she eluded his grasp and reeled away into the waiting arms of a tall toreador. Hyrel gulped his whiskey and watched her nestle into the arms of her partner and begin with him a sinuous, suggestive dance. The whiskey had begun its warming effect, and he laughed.
This was the land of the lotus eaters, the sanctuary of the escapists, the haven of all who wished to cast off their shell of inhibition and become the thing they dreamed themselves to be. Here one could be among his own kind, an actor upon a gay stage, a gaudy butterfly metamorphosed from the slug, a knight of old.
The Persian dancing girl was probably the wife of a boorish oaf whose idea of romance was spending an evening telling his wife how he came to be a successful bank president. But she had found her means of escape. Perhaps she had pleaded a sick headache and had retired to her room. And there upon the bed now reposed her shell of reality while her inner self, the shadowy one, completely materialized, became an exotic thing from the East in this never-never land.
The man, the toreador, had probably closeted himself within his library with a set of account books and had left strict orders not to be disturbed until he had finished with them.
Both would have terrific hangovers in the morning. But that, of course, would be fully compensated for by the memories of the evening.
Hyrel chuckled. The situation struck him as being funny: the shadowy self got drunk and had a good time, and the outer husk suffered the hangover in the morning. Strange. Strange how a device such as the telporter suit could cause the shadow of each bodily cell to leave the body, materialize, and become a reality in its own right. And yet ...
He looked
at the heel of his left hand. There was a long, irregular scar there. It was the result of a cut he had received nearly three weeks ago when he had fallen over this very table and had rammed his hand into a sliver of broken champagne glass. Later that evening, upon re-telporting back home, the pain of the cut had remained in his hand, but there was no sign of the cut itself on the hand of his outer self. The scar was peculiar to the shadowy body only. There was something about the shadowy body that carried the hurts to the outer body, but not the scars....
Sudden laughter broke out near him, and he turned quickly in that direction. A group of gaily costumed revelers was standing in a semi-circle about a small mound of clothing upon the floor. It was the costume of the toreador.
Hyrel laughed, too. It had happened many times before—a costume suddenly left empty as its owner, due to a threat of discovery at home, had had to press the switch in haste to bring his shadowy self—and complete consciousness—back to his outer self in a hurry.
A waiter picked up the clothing. He would put it safely away so that the owner could claim it upon his next visit to the club. Another waiter placed a fresh bottle of whiskey on the table before Hyrel, and Hyrel paid him for it.
The whiskey, reaching his head now in surges of warm cheerfulness, was filling him with abandonment, courage, and a desire for merriment. He pushed himself up from the table, joined the merry throng, threw his arm about the Persian dancer, drew her close.
They began dancing slowly to the throbbing rhythm, dancing and holding on to each other tightly. Hyrel could feel her hot breath through her veil upon his neck, adding to the headiness of the liquor. His feeling of depression and inferiority flowed suddenly from him. Once again he was the all-conquering male.
His arm trembled as it drew her still closer to him and he began dancing directly and purposefully toward the shadows of a clump of artificial palms near one corner of the room. There was an exit to the garden behind the palms.
Half way there they passed a secluded booth from which protruded a long leg clad in black mesh stocking. Hyrel paused as he recognized that part of the costume. It was she! The girl! The one he had met so briefly the night before!
His arm slid away from the Persian dancer, took hold of the mesh-clad leg, and pulled. A female form followed the leg from the booth and fell into his arms. He held her tightly, kissed her white neck, let her perfume send his thoughts reeling.
"Been looking for me, honey?" she whispered, her voice deep and throaty.
"You know it!"
He began whisking her away toward the palms. The Persian girl was pulled into the booth.
Yes, she was wearing the same costume she had worn the night before, that of a can-can dancer of the 90's. The mesh hose that encased her shapely legs were held up by flowered supporters in such a manner as to leave four inches of white leg exposed between hose top and lacy panties. Her skirt, frilled to suggest innumerable petticoats, fell away at each hip, leaving the front open to expose the full length of legs. She wore a wig of platinum hair encrusted with jewels that sparkled in the lights. Her jewel-studded mask was as white as her hair and covered the upper half of her face, except for the large almond slits for her eyes. A white purse, jewel crusted, dangled from one arm.
He stopped once before reaching the palms, drew her closer, kissed her long and ardently. Then he began pulling her on again.
She drew back when they reached the shelter of the fronds.
"Champagne, first," she whispered huskily into his ear.
His heart sank. He had very little money left. Well, it might buy a cheap brand....
She sipped
her champagne slowly and provocatively across the table from him. Her eyes sparkled behind the almond slits of her mask, caught the color changes and cast them back. She was wearing contact lenses of a garish green.
He wished she would hurry with her drink. He had horrible visions of his wife at home taking off her telovis and coming to his chair. He would then have to press the switch that would jerk his shadowy self back along its invisible connecting cord, jerk him back and leave but a small mound of clothes upon the chair at the table.
Deep depression laid hold of him. He would not be able to see her after tonight until he received his monthly dole two weeks hence. She wouldn't wait that long. Someone else would have her.
Unless ...
Yes, he knew now that he was going to kill his wife as soon as the opportunity presented itself. It would be a simple matter. With the aid of the telporter suit, he could establish an iron-clad alibi.
He took a long drink of whiskey and looked at the dancers about him. Sight of their gay costumes heightened his depression. He was wearing a cheap suit of satin, all he could afford. But some day soon he would show them! Some time soon he would be dressed as gaily....
"Something troubling you, honey?"
His gaze shot back to her and she blurred slightly before his eyes.
"No. Nothing at all!" He summoned a sickly smile and clutched her hand in his. "Come on. Let's dance."
He drew her from the chair and into his arms. She melted toward him as if desiring to become a part of him. A tremor of excitement surged through him and threatened to turn his knees into quivering jelly. He could not make his feet conform to the flooding rhythm of the music. He half stumbled, half pushed her along past the booths.
In the shelter of the palms he drew her savagely to him. "Let's—let's go outside." His voice was little more than a croak.
"But, honey!" She pushed herself away, her low voice maddening him. "Don't you have a private room? A girl doesn't like to be taken outside...."
Her words bit into his brain like the blade of a hot knife.
No, he didn't have a private room at the club like the others. A private room for his telporter receiver, a private room where he could take a willing guest. No! He couldn't afford it! No! No! NO! His lot was a cheap suit of satin! Cheap whiskey! Cheap champagne! A cheap shack by the river....
An inarticulate cry escaped his twisted lips. He clutched her roughly to him and dragged her through the door and into the moonlight, whiskey and anger lending him brutal strength.
He pulled her through the deserted garden. All the others had private rooms! He pulled her to the far end, behind a clump of squatty firs. His hands clawed at her. He tried to smother her mouth with kisses.
She eluded him deftly. "But, honey !" Her voice had gone deeper into her throat. "I just want to be sure about things. If you can't afford one of the private rooms—if you can't afford to show me a good time—if you can't come here real often ..."
The whiskey pounded and throbbed at his brain like blows from an unseen club. His ego curled and twisted within him like a headless serpent.
"I'll have money!" he shouted, struggling to hold her. "I'll have plenty of money! After tonight!"
"Then we'll wait," she said.
"We'll wait until tomorrow night."
"No!" he screamed. "You don't believe me! You're like the others! You think I'm no good! But I'll show you! I'll show all of you!"
She had gone
coldly rigid in his arms, unyielding.
Madness added to the pounding in his brain. Tears welled into his eyes.
"I'll show you! I'll kill her! Then I'll have money!" The hands clutching her shoulders shook her drunkenly. "You wait here! I'll go home and kill her now! Then I'll be back!"
"Silly boy!" Her low laughter rang hollowly in his ears. "And just who is it you are going to kill?"
"My wife!" he cried. "My wife! I'll ..."
A sudden sobering thought struck him. He was talking too much. And he wasn't making sense. He shouldn't be telling her this. Anyway, he couldn't get the money tonight even if he did kill his wife.
"And so you are going to kill your wife...."
He blinked the tears from his eyes. His chest was heaving, his heart pounding. He looked at her shimmering form. "Y-yes," he whispered.
Her eyes glinted strangely in the light of the moon. Her handbag glinted as she opened it, and something she took from it glittered coldly in her hand.
"Fool!"
The first shot tore squarely through his heart. And while he stood staring at her, mouth agape, a second shot burned its way through his bewildered brain.
Mrs. Herbert Hyrel
removed the telovis from her head and laid it carefully aside. She uncoiled her long legs from beneath her, walked to her husband's chair, and stood for a long moment looking down at him, her lips drawn back in contempt. Then she bent over him and reached down his thigh until her fingers contacted the small switch.
Seconds later, a slight tremor shook Hyrel's body. His eyes snapped open, air escaped his lungs, his lower jaw sagged inanely, and his head lolled to one side.
She stood a moment longer, watching his eyes become glazed and sightless. Then she walked to the telephone.
"Police?" she said. "This is Mrs. Herbert Hyrel. Something horrible has happened to my husband. Please come over immediately. Bring a doctor."
She hung up, went to her bathroom, stripped off her clothing, and slid carefully out of her telporter suit. This she folded neatly and tucked away into the false back of the medicine cabinet. She found a fresh pair of blue, plastifur pajamas and got into them.
She was just arriving back into the living room, tying the cord of her dressing gown about her slim waist, when she heard the sound of the police siren out front.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science Fiction July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
|
Who is Larry Dobbin, and what happens to him?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Galactic Ghost by Walter Kubilius.
Relevant chunks:
GALACTIC GHOST
By WALTER KUBILIUS
The Flying Dutchman of space was a harbinger of death. But Willard wasn't superstitions. He had seen the phantom—and lived.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The only friend in space Willard had ever known was dying. Dobbin's lips were parched and his breath came spasmodically. The tips of his fingers that had so many times caressed the control board of the Mary Lou were now black as meteor dust.
"We'll never see Earth again," he whispered feebly, plucked weakly at the cover.
"Nonsense!" Willard broke in hurriedly, hoping that the dying man would not see through the lie. "We've got the sun's gravity helping us drift back to Earth! We'll be there soon! You'll get well soon and we'll start to work again on a new idea of mine...." His voice trailed helplessly away and the words were lost. It was no use.
The sick man did not hear him. Two tears rolled down his cheeks. His face contorted as he tried to withhold a sob.
"To see Earth again!" he said weakly. "To walk on solid ground once more!"
"Four years!" Willard echoed faintly. He knew how his space mate felt. No man can spend four years away from his home planet, and fail to be anguished. A man could live without friends, without fortune, but no man could live without Earth. He was like Anteus, for only the feel of the solid ground under his feet could give him courage to go among the stars.
Willard also knew what he dared not admit to himself. He, too, like Dobbin, would never see Earth again. Perhaps, some thousand years from now, some lonely wanderers would find their battered hulk of a ship in space and bring them home again.
Dobbin motioned to him and, in answer to a last request, Willard lifted him so he faced the port window for a final look at the panorama of the stars.
Dobbin's eyes, dimming and half closed, took in the vast play of the heavens and in his mind he relived the days when in a frail craft he first crossed interstellar space. But for Earth-loneliness Dobbin would die a happy man, knowing that he had lived as much and as deeply as any man could.
Silently the two men watched. Dobbin's eyes opened suddenly and a tremor seized his body. He turned painfully and looked at Willard.
"I saw it!" his voice cracked, trembling.
"Saw what?"
"It's true! It's true! It comes whenever a space man dies! It's there!"
"In heaven's name, Dobbin," Willard demanded, "What do you see? What is it?"
Dobbin lifted his dark bony arm and pointed out into star-studded space.
"The Ghost Ship!"
Something clicked in Willard's memory. He had heard it spoken of in whispers by drunken space men and professional tellers of fairy tales. But he had never put any stock in them. In some forgotten corner of Dobbin's mind the legend of the Ghost Ship must have lain, to come up in this time of delirium.
"There's nothing there," he said firmly.
"It's come—for me!" Dobbin cried. He turned his head slowly toward Willard, tried to say something and then fell back upon the pillow. His mouth was open and his eyes stared unseeing ahead. Dobbin was now one with the vanished pioneers of yesterday. Willard was alone.
For two days, reckoned in Earth time, Willard kept vigil over the body of his friend and space mate. When the time was up he did what was necessary and nothing remained of Harry Dobbin, the best friend he had ever had. The atoms of his body were now pure energy stored away in the useless motors of the Mary Lou .
The weeks that followed were like a blur in Willard's mind. Though the ship was utterly incapable of motion, the chance meteor that damaged it had spared the convertors and assimilators. Through constant care and attention the frail balance that meant life or death could be kept. The substance of waste and refuse was torn down and rebuilt as precious food and air. It was even possible to create more than was needed.
When this was done, Willard immediately regretted it. For it would be then that the days and the weeks would roll by endlessly. Sometimes he thought he would go mad when, sitting at the useless control board, which was his habit, he would stare for hours and hours in the direction of the Sun where he knew the Earth would be. A great loneliness would then seize upon him and an agony that no man had ever known would tear at his heart. He would then turn away, full of despair and hopeless pain.
Two years after Dobbin's death a strange thing happened. Willard was sitting at his accustomed place facing the unmoving vista of the stars. A chance glance at Orion's belt froze him still. A star had flickered! Distinctly, as if a light veil had been placed over it and then lifted, it dimmed and turned bright again. What strange phenomena was this? He watched and then another star faded momentarily in the exact fashion. And then a third! And a fourth! And a fifth!
Willard's heart gave a leap and the lethargy of two years vanished instantly. Here, at last, was something to do. It might be only a few minutes before he would understand what it was, but those few minutes would help while away the maddening long hours. Perhaps it was a mass of fine meteorites or a pocket of gas that did not disperse, or even a moving warp of space-light. Whatever it was, it was a phenomena worth investigating and Willard seized upon it as a dying man seizes upon the last flashing seconds of life.
Willard traced its course by the flickering stars and gradually plotted its semi-circular course. It was not from the solar system but, instead, headed toward it. A rapid check-up on his calculations caused his heart to beat in ever quickening excitement. Whatever it was, it would reach the Mary Lou .
Again he looked out the port. Unquestionably the faint mass was nearing his ship. It was round in shape and almost invisible. The stars, though dimmed, could still be seen through it. There was something about its form that reminded him of an old-fashioned rocket ship. It resembled one of those that had done pioneer service in the lanes forty years ago or more. Resembled one? It was one! Unquestionably, though half-invisible and like a piece of glass immersed in water, it was a rocket ship.
But the instruments on the control board could not lie. The presence of any material body within a hundred thousand miles would be revealed. But the needle on the gauge did not quiver. Nothing indicated the presence of a ship. But the evidence of his eyes was incontestable.
Or was it? Doubt gripped him. Did the loneliness of all these years in space twist his mind till he was imagining the appearance of faint ghost-like rocket ships?
The thought shot through his mind like a thunder bolt. Ghost Ship! Was this the thing that Dobbin had seen before he died? But that was impossible. Ghost Ships existed nowhere but in legends and tall tales told by men drunk with the liquors of Mars.
"There is no ship there. There is no ship there," Willard told himself over and over again as he looked at the vague outline of the ship, now motionless a few hundred miles away.
Deep within him a faint voice cried, " It's come—for me! " but Willard stilled it. This was no fantasy. There was a scientific reason for it. There must be! Or should there be? Throughout all Earth history there had been Ghost Ships sailing the Seven Seas—ships doomed to roam forever because their crew broke some unbreakable law. If this was true for the ships of the seas, why not for the ships of empty space?
He looked again at the strange ship. It was motionless. At least it was not nearing him. Willard could see nothing but its vague outline. A moment later he could discern a faint motion. It was turning! The Ghost Ship was turning back! Unconsciously Willard reached out with his hand as if to hold it back, for when it was gone he would be alone again.
But the Ghost Ship went on. Its outline became smaller and smaller, fainter and fainter.
Trembling, Willard turned away from the window as he saw the rocket recede and vanish into the emptiness of space. Once more the dreaded loneliness of the stars descended upon him.
Seven years passed and back on Earth in a small newspaper that Willard would never see there was published a small item:
" Arden, Rocketport —Thirteen years ago the Space Ship Mary Lou under John Willard and Larry Dobbin left the Rocket Port for the exploration of an alleged planetoid beyond Pluto. The ship has not been seen or heard from since. J. Willard, II, son of the lost explorer, is planning the manufacture of a super-size exploration ship to be called Mary Lou II , in memory of his father."
Memories die hard. A man who is alone in space with nothing but the cold friendship of star-light looks back upon memories as the only things both dear and precious to him.
Willard, master and lone survivor of the Mary Lou , knew this well for he had tried to rip the memories of Earth out of his heart to ease the anguish of solitude within him. But it was a thing that could not be done.
And so it was that each night—for Willard did not give up the Earth-habit of keeping time—Willard dreamed of the days he had known on Earth.
In his mind's eye, he saw himself walking the streets of Arden and feeling the crunch of snow or the soft slap of rainwater under his feet. He heard again, in his mind, the voices of friends he knew. How beautiful and perfect was each voice! How filled with warmth and friendship! There was the voice of his beautiful wife whom he would never see again. There were the gruff and deep voices of his co-workers and scientists.
Above all there were the voices of the cities, and the fields and the shops where he had worked. All these had their individual voices. Odd that he had never realized it before, but things become clearer to a man who is alone.
Clearer? Perhaps not. Perhaps they become more clouded. How could he, for example, explain the phenomena of the Ghost Ship? Was it really only a product of his imagination? What of all the others who had seen it? Was it possible for many different men under many different situations to have the same exact illusion? Reason denied that. But perhaps space itself denies reason.
Grimly he retraced the legend of the Ghost Ship. A chance phrase here and a story there put together all that he knew:
Doomed for all eternity to wander in the empty star-lanes, the Ghost Ship haunts the Solar System that gave it birth. And this is its tragedy, for it is the home of spacemen who can never go home again. When your last measure of fuel is burnt and your ship becomes a lifeless hulk—the Ghost will come—for you!
And this is all there was to the legend. Merely a tale of some fairy ship told to amuse and to while away the days of a star-voyage. Bitterly, Willard dismissed it from his mind.
Another year of loneliness passed. And still another. Willard lost track of the days. It was difficult to keep time for to what purpose could time be kept. Here in space there was no time, nor was there reason for clocks and records. Days and months and years became meaningless words for things that once may have had meaning. About three years must have passed since his last record in the log book of the Mary Lou . At that time, he remembered, he suffered another great disappointment. On the port side there suddenly appeared a full-sized rocket ship. For many minutes Willard was half-mad with joy thinking that a passing ship was ready to rescue him. But the joy was short-lived, for the rocket ship abruptly turned away and slowly disappeared. As Willard watched it go away he saw the light of a distant star through the space ship. A heart-breaking agony fell upon him. It was not a ship from Earth. It was the Ghost Ship, mocking him.
Since then Willard did not look out the window of his craft. A vague fear troubled him that perhaps the Ghost Ship might be here, waiting and watching, and that he would go mad if he saw it.
How many years passed he could not tell. But this he knew. He was no longer a young man. Perhaps fifteen years has disappeared into nothing. Perhaps twenty. He did not know and he did not care.
Willard awoke from a deep sleep and prepared his bed. He did it, not because it was necessary, but because it was a habit that had long been ingrained in him through the years.
He checked and rechecked every part of the still functioning mechanism of the ship. The radio, even though there was no one to call, was in perfect order. The speed-recording dials, even though there was no speed to record, were in perfect order. And so with every machine. All was in perfect order. Perfect useless order, he thought bitterly, when there was no way whatever to get sufficient power to get back to Earth, long forgotten Earth.
He was leaning back in his chair when a vague uneasiness seized him. He arose and slowly walked over to the window, his age already being marked in the ache of his bones. Looking out into the silent theater of the stars, he suddenly froze.
There was a ship, coming toward him!
For a moment the reason in his mind tottered on a balance. Doubt assailed him. Was this the Ghost Ship come to torment him again? But no phantom this! It was a life and blood rocket ship from Earth! Starlight shone on it and not through it! Its lines, window, vents were all solid and had none of the ghost-like quality he remembered seeing in the Ghost Ship in his youth.
For another split second he thought that perhaps he, too, like Dobbin, had gone mad and that the ship would vanish just as it approached him.
The tapping of the space-telegrapher reassured him.
"CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU," the message rapped out, "CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU."
With trembling fingers that he could scarcely control, old Willard sent the answering message.
"SPACE SHIP MARY LOU REPLYING. RECEIVED MESSAGE. THANK GOD!"
He broke off, unable to continue. His heart was ready to burst within him and the tears of joy were already welling in his eyes. He listened to the happiest message he had ever heard:
"NOTICE THAT SPACE SHIP MARY LOU IS DISABLED AND NOT SPACE WORTHY. YOU ARE INVITED TO COME ABOARD. HAVE YOU SPACE SUIT AND—ARE YOU ABLE TO COME?"
Willard, already sobbing with joy, could send only two words.
"YES! COMING!"
The years of waiting were over. At last he was free of the Mary Lou . In a dream like trance, he dressed in his space suit, pathetically glad that he had already checked every detail of it a short time ago. He realized suddenly that everything about the Mary Lou was hateful to him. It was here that his best friend died, and it was here that twenty years of his life were wasted completely in solitude and despair.
He took one last look and stepped into the air-lock.
The Earth-ship, he did not see its name, was only a hundred yards away and a man was already at the air-lock waiting to help him. A rope was tossed to him. He reached for it and made his way to the ship, leaving the Mary Lou behind him forever.
Suddenly the world dropped away from him. Willard could neither see nor say anything. His heart was choked with emotion.
"It's all right," a kindly voice assured him, "You're safe now."
He had the sensation of being carried by several men and then placed in bed. The quiet of deep sleep descended upon him.
He woke many times in the following days, but the privations of the passing years had drained his strength and his mind, had made him so much of a hermit that the presence of other men frightened him to the point of gibbering insanity.
He knew that the food and drink were drugged, for after eating he never remembered seeing the men enter the room to care for him and to remove the dirty dishes. But there was enough sanity in his mind to also realize that, without the gradual reawakening of his senses to the value of human companionship, he might not be able to stand the mental shock of moving about among his people back on Earth.
During those passing days, he savored each new impression, comparing it with what he remembered from that age-long past when he and his friends had walked on Earth's great plains and ridden on the oceans' sleek ships or flown with the wings of birds over the mountain ranges. And each impression was doubly enjoyable, for his memory was hazy and confused.
Gradually, though, his mind cleared; he remembered the past, and he no longer was afraid of the men who visited him from time to time. But there was a strangeness about the men that he could not fathom; they refused to talk about anything, any subject, other than the actual running of the great ship. Always, when he asked his eager questions, they mumbled and drifted away.
And then in his third week on the rescue ship, he went to sleep one night while peering from the port hole at the blue ball of Earth swimming in the blackness of space. He slept and he dreamed of the years he had spent by himself in the drifting, lifeless hulk of the Mary Lou . His dreams were vivid, peopled with men and women he had once known, and were horrible with the fantasies of terror that years of solitary brooding had implanted deep in his mind.
He awoke with a start and a cry of alarm ran through him as he thought that perhaps he might still be in the Mary Lou . The warm, smiling face of a man quickly reassured him.
"I'll call the captain," the space man said. "He said to let him know when you came to."
Willard could only nod in weak and grateful acceptance. It was true! He pressed his head back against the bed's pillows. How soft! How warm! He yawned and stretched his arms as a thrill of happiness shot through his entire body.
He would see Earth again! That single thought ran over and over in his mind without stopping. He would see Earth again! Perhaps not this year and perhaps not the next—for the ship might be on some extra-Plutonian expedition. But even if it would take years before it returned to home base Willard knew that those years would fly quickly if Earth was at the end of the trail.
Though he had aged, he still had many years before him. And those years, he vowed, would be spent on Earth and nowhere else.
The captain, a pleasant old fellow, came into the room as Willard stood up and tried to walk. The gravity here was a bit different from that of his ship, but he would manage.
"How do you feel, Space Man Willard?"
"Oh, you know me?" Willard looked at him in surprise, and then smiled,
"Of course, you looked through the log book of the Mary Lou ."
The captain nodded and Willard noticed with surprise that he was a very old man.
"You don't know how much I suffered there," Willard said slowly, measuring each word. "Years in space—all alone! It's a horrible thing!"
"Yes?" the old captain said.
"Many times I thought I would go completely mad. It was only the thought and hope that some day, somehow, an Earth-ship would find me and help me get back to Earth. If it was not for that, I would have died. I could think of nothing but of Earth, of blue green water, of vast open spaces and the good brown earth. How beautiful it must be now!"
A note of sadness, matched only by that of Willard's, entered the captain's eyes.
"I want to walk on Earth just once—then I can die."
Willard stopped. A happy dreamy smile touched his lips.
"When will we go to Earth?" he asked.
The Captain did not answer. Willard waited and a strange memory tugged at him.
"You don't know," the Captain said. It was not a question or a statement. The Captain found it hard to say it. His lips moved slowly.
Willard stepped back and before the Captain told him, he knew .
"Matter is relative," he said, "the existent under one condition is non-existent under another. The real here is the non-real there. All things that wander alone in space are gradually drained of their mass and energy until nothing is left but mere shells. That is what happened to the Mary Lou . Your ship was real when we passed by twenty years ago. It is now like ours, a vague outline in space. We cannot feel the change ourselves, for change is relative. That is why we became more and more solid to you, as you became more and more faint to any Earth-ship that might have passed. We are real—to ourselves. But to some ship from Earth which has not been in space for more than fifteen years—to that ship, to all intents and purposes, we do not exist.
"Then this ship," Willard said, stunned, "you and I and everything on it..."
"... are doomed," the Captain said. "We cannot go to Earth for the simple reason that we would go through it!"
The vision of Earth and green trees faded. He would never see Earth again. He would never feel the crunch of ground under feet as he walked. Never would listen to the voices of friends and the songs of birds. Never. Never. Never....
"Then this is the Ghost Ship and we are the Ghosts!"
"Yes."
Question:
Who is Larry Dobbin, and what happens to him?
Answer:
|
[
"John Willard considers Larry Dobbin his best friend. They are both astronauts in a rocket ship that was on a voyage past Pluto to explore a possible planetoid. Their ship was struck by a meteor and can no longer fly, so they are drifting through space. When the story opens, Dobbin is dying. His breathing is erratic, and his fingertips are black. Dobbin has accepted his impending death, but Willard tries to convince Dobbin that he is not dying and that they will return to Earth. Dobbin longs to return to Earth and regrets that he will not see it again. He remembers his first space flight as Willard raises him to look out the port window at the stars. Before he dies, Dobbin declares that the Ghost Ship has come for him. He points to it out the window, but Willard does not see it. Willard believes that Dobbin has gone mad. Dobbin then dies. Dobbin is mentioned in a newspaper account thirteen years after the men left on their voyage when Willard’s son builds a larger version of their ship called the Mary Lou II. The article indicates they were never heard from again. \n",
"Larry Dobbin is John Willard’s right-hand man abroad the space ship Mary Lou. They blasted off from Rocket Port nine years before the beginning of the story. They went to space to explore the possibility of another planetoid hidden beyond Pluto. \nLarry Dobbin, as Willard’s companion and confidante, operated the Mary Lou from the control board, possibly co-piloting with Willard. \nHowever, less than five years into their adventure, the Mary Lou was struck by a meteor, which damaged the Mary Lou to no repair but only in certain areas. The meteor did not damage the assimilators and convertors, which meant the ship was livable, but not moveable. However, assumedly during the meteor strike, Dobbin was severely injured. At the beginning of the story, he is dying and sees a ship far in the distance. He claims it’s the ghost ship coming to take him away. After spotting the ship, Dobbin quickly passes. Willard mourns respectfully and follows the vigil ritual. Two days later, Willard disposed of Dobbin’s body, and his atoms were converted into pure energy for the Mary Lou. ",
"Larry Dobbin is Willard’s closest friend and fellow explorer who joins Willard on the “Mary Lou.” Their mission is to journey to a small planet that lies beyond Pluto. At some point in their expedition, a meteor hits their ship and damages it, causing the “Mary Lou” to drift through unknown space, unable to return to Earth. Dobbin becomes sick during this period, and Willard realizes he is going to die. Dobbin hopes to return to Earth prior to his death, and Willard entertains this fantasy in order to give him some hope and peace before his passing. Dobbin remembers his first journey into space, and as he peers out into the abyss towards the end of his life, he exclaims that he sees the Ghost Ship—a legend amongst sailors and spacemen who claim people see such a ship in the moments before death. Dobbin dies shortly after announcing his vision, and Willard is left alone.",
"Larry Dobbin (called “Harry Dobbin” by Willard) is the other space explorer on the Mary Lou with Willard. They embarked on a voyage to explore a planetoid beyond Pluto, and were never heard from on Earth again. As the story begins, they are four years into the mission and Dobbin is dying of an unspecified illness that has turned his finger tips black and made it difficult for him to breathe or speak. Willard lifts him to the window of the ship so he can see the stars one last time, and Dobbin says he sees The Ghost Ship and that it has come for him because he is dying. Willard assures him that isn’t the case as Dobbin passes away. Willard keeps vigil over Dobbin’s remains for two days before disposing of them in the ship’s engine. \n"
] |
62244
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GALACTIC GHOST
By WALTER KUBILIUS
The Flying Dutchman of space was a harbinger of death. But Willard wasn't superstitions. He had seen the phantom—and lived.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The only friend in space Willard had ever known was dying. Dobbin's lips were parched and his breath came spasmodically. The tips of his fingers that had so many times caressed the control board of the Mary Lou were now black as meteor dust.
"We'll never see Earth again," he whispered feebly, plucked weakly at the cover.
"Nonsense!" Willard broke in hurriedly, hoping that the dying man would not see through the lie. "We've got the sun's gravity helping us drift back to Earth! We'll be there soon! You'll get well soon and we'll start to work again on a new idea of mine...." His voice trailed helplessly away and the words were lost. It was no use.
The sick man did not hear him. Two tears rolled down his cheeks. His face contorted as he tried to withhold a sob.
"To see Earth again!" he said weakly. "To walk on solid ground once more!"
"Four years!" Willard echoed faintly. He knew how his space mate felt. No man can spend four years away from his home planet, and fail to be anguished. A man could live without friends, without fortune, but no man could live without Earth. He was like Anteus, for only the feel of the solid ground under his feet could give him courage to go among the stars.
Willard also knew what he dared not admit to himself. He, too, like Dobbin, would never see Earth again. Perhaps, some thousand years from now, some lonely wanderers would find their battered hulk of a ship in space and bring them home again.
Dobbin motioned to him and, in answer to a last request, Willard lifted him so he faced the port window for a final look at the panorama of the stars.
Dobbin's eyes, dimming and half closed, took in the vast play of the heavens and in his mind he relived the days when in a frail craft he first crossed interstellar space. But for Earth-loneliness Dobbin would die a happy man, knowing that he had lived as much and as deeply as any man could.
Silently the two men watched. Dobbin's eyes opened suddenly and a tremor seized his body. He turned painfully and looked at Willard.
"I saw it!" his voice cracked, trembling.
"Saw what?"
"It's true! It's true! It comes whenever a space man dies! It's there!"
"In heaven's name, Dobbin," Willard demanded, "What do you see? What is it?"
Dobbin lifted his dark bony arm and pointed out into star-studded space.
"The Ghost Ship!"
Something clicked in Willard's memory. He had heard it spoken of in whispers by drunken space men and professional tellers of fairy tales. But he had never put any stock in them. In some forgotten corner of Dobbin's mind the legend of the Ghost Ship must have lain, to come up in this time of delirium.
"There's nothing there," he said firmly.
"It's come—for me!" Dobbin cried. He turned his head slowly toward Willard, tried to say something and then fell back upon the pillow. His mouth was open and his eyes stared unseeing ahead. Dobbin was now one with the vanished pioneers of yesterday. Willard was alone.
For two days, reckoned in Earth time, Willard kept vigil over the body of his friend and space mate. When the time was up he did what was necessary and nothing remained of Harry Dobbin, the best friend he had ever had. The atoms of his body were now pure energy stored away in the useless motors of the Mary Lou .
The weeks that followed were like a blur in Willard's mind. Though the ship was utterly incapable of motion, the chance meteor that damaged it had spared the convertors and assimilators. Through constant care and attention the frail balance that meant life or death could be kept. The substance of waste and refuse was torn down and rebuilt as precious food and air. It was even possible to create more than was needed.
When this was done, Willard immediately regretted it. For it would be then that the days and the weeks would roll by endlessly. Sometimes he thought he would go mad when, sitting at the useless control board, which was his habit, he would stare for hours and hours in the direction of the Sun where he knew the Earth would be. A great loneliness would then seize upon him and an agony that no man had ever known would tear at his heart. He would then turn away, full of despair and hopeless pain.
Two years after Dobbin's death a strange thing happened. Willard was sitting at his accustomed place facing the unmoving vista of the stars. A chance glance at Orion's belt froze him still. A star had flickered! Distinctly, as if a light veil had been placed over it and then lifted, it dimmed and turned bright again. What strange phenomena was this? He watched and then another star faded momentarily in the exact fashion. And then a third! And a fourth! And a fifth!
Willard's heart gave a leap and the lethargy of two years vanished instantly. Here, at last, was something to do. It might be only a few minutes before he would understand what it was, but those few minutes would help while away the maddening long hours. Perhaps it was a mass of fine meteorites or a pocket of gas that did not disperse, or even a moving warp of space-light. Whatever it was, it was a phenomena worth investigating and Willard seized upon it as a dying man seizes upon the last flashing seconds of life.
Willard traced its course by the flickering stars and gradually plotted its semi-circular course. It was not from the solar system but, instead, headed toward it. A rapid check-up on his calculations caused his heart to beat in ever quickening excitement. Whatever it was, it would reach the Mary Lou .
Again he looked out the port. Unquestionably the faint mass was nearing his ship. It was round in shape and almost invisible. The stars, though dimmed, could still be seen through it. There was something about its form that reminded him of an old-fashioned rocket ship. It resembled one of those that had done pioneer service in the lanes forty years ago or more. Resembled one? It was one! Unquestionably, though half-invisible and like a piece of glass immersed in water, it was a rocket ship.
But the instruments on the control board could not lie. The presence of any material body within a hundred thousand miles would be revealed. But the needle on the gauge did not quiver. Nothing indicated the presence of a ship. But the evidence of his eyes was incontestable.
Or was it? Doubt gripped him. Did the loneliness of all these years in space twist his mind till he was imagining the appearance of faint ghost-like rocket ships?
The thought shot through his mind like a thunder bolt. Ghost Ship! Was this the thing that Dobbin had seen before he died? But that was impossible. Ghost Ships existed nowhere but in legends and tall tales told by men drunk with the liquors of Mars.
"There is no ship there. There is no ship there," Willard told himself over and over again as he looked at the vague outline of the ship, now motionless a few hundred miles away.
Deep within him a faint voice cried, " It's come—for me! " but Willard stilled it. This was no fantasy. There was a scientific reason for it. There must be! Or should there be? Throughout all Earth history there had been Ghost Ships sailing the Seven Seas—ships doomed to roam forever because their crew broke some unbreakable law. If this was true for the ships of the seas, why not for the ships of empty space?
He looked again at the strange ship. It was motionless. At least it was not nearing him. Willard could see nothing but its vague outline. A moment later he could discern a faint motion. It was turning! The Ghost Ship was turning back! Unconsciously Willard reached out with his hand as if to hold it back, for when it was gone he would be alone again.
But the Ghost Ship went on. Its outline became smaller and smaller, fainter and fainter.
Trembling, Willard turned away from the window as he saw the rocket recede and vanish into the emptiness of space. Once more the dreaded loneliness of the stars descended upon him.
Seven years passed and back on Earth in a small newspaper that Willard would never see there was published a small item:
" Arden, Rocketport —Thirteen years ago the Space Ship Mary Lou under John Willard and Larry Dobbin left the Rocket Port for the exploration of an alleged planetoid beyond Pluto. The ship has not been seen or heard from since. J. Willard, II, son of the lost explorer, is planning the manufacture of a super-size exploration ship to be called Mary Lou II , in memory of his father."
Memories die hard. A man who is alone in space with nothing but the cold friendship of star-light looks back upon memories as the only things both dear and precious to him.
Willard, master and lone survivor of the Mary Lou , knew this well for he had tried to rip the memories of Earth out of his heart to ease the anguish of solitude within him. But it was a thing that could not be done.
And so it was that each night—for Willard did not give up the Earth-habit of keeping time—Willard dreamed of the days he had known on Earth.
In his mind's eye, he saw himself walking the streets of Arden and feeling the crunch of snow or the soft slap of rainwater under his feet. He heard again, in his mind, the voices of friends he knew. How beautiful and perfect was each voice! How filled with warmth and friendship! There was the voice of his beautiful wife whom he would never see again. There were the gruff and deep voices of his co-workers and scientists.
Above all there were the voices of the cities, and the fields and the shops where he had worked. All these had their individual voices. Odd that he had never realized it before, but things become clearer to a man who is alone.
Clearer? Perhaps not. Perhaps they become more clouded. How could he, for example, explain the phenomena of the Ghost Ship? Was it really only a product of his imagination? What of all the others who had seen it? Was it possible for many different men under many different situations to have the same exact illusion? Reason denied that. But perhaps space itself denies reason.
Grimly he retraced the legend of the Ghost Ship. A chance phrase here and a story there put together all that he knew:
Doomed for all eternity to wander in the empty star-lanes, the Ghost Ship haunts the Solar System that gave it birth. And this is its tragedy, for it is the home of spacemen who can never go home again. When your last measure of fuel is burnt and your ship becomes a lifeless hulk—the Ghost will come—for you!
And this is all there was to the legend. Merely a tale of some fairy ship told to amuse and to while away the days of a star-voyage. Bitterly, Willard dismissed it from his mind.
Another year of loneliness passed. And still another. Willard lost track of the days. It was difficult to keep time for to what purpose could time be kept. Here in space there was no time, nor was there reason for clocks and records. Days and months and years became meaningless words for things that once may have had meaning. About three years must have passed since his last record in the log book of the Mary Lou . At that time, he remembered, he suffered another great disappointment. On the port side there suddenly appeared a full-sized rocket ship. For many minutes Willard was half-mad with joy thinking that a passing ship was ready to rescue him. But the joy was short-lived, for the rocket ship abruptly turned away and slowly disappeared. As Willard watched it go away he saw the light of a distant star through the space ship. A heart-breaking agony fell upon him. It was not a ship from Earth. It was the Ghost Ship, mocking him.
Since then Willard did not look out the window of his craft. A vague fear troubled him that perhaps the Ghost Ship might be here, waiting and watching, and that he would go mad if he saw it.
How many years passed he could not tell. But this he knew. He was no longer a young man. Perhaps fifteen years has disappeared into nothing. Perhaps twenty. He did not know and he did not care.
Willard awoke from a deep sleep and prepared his bed. He did it, not because it was necessary, but because it was a habit that had long been ingrained in him through the years.
He checked and rechecked every part of the still functioning mechanism of the ship. The radio, even though there was no one to call, was in perfect order. The speed-recording dials, even though there was no speed to record, were in perfect order. And so with every machine. All was in perfect order. Perfect useless order, he thought bitterly, when there was no way whatever to get sufficient power to get back to Earth, long forgotten Earth.
He was leaning back in his chair when a vague uneasiness seized him. He arose and slowly walked over to the window, his age already being marked in the ache of his bones. Looking out into the silent theater of the stars, he suddenly froze.
There was a ship, coming toward him!
For a moment the reason in his mind tottered on a balance. Doubt assailed him. Was this the Ghost Ship come to torment him again? But no phantom this! It was a life and blood rocket ship from Earth! Starlight shone on it and not through it! Its lines, window, vents were all solid and had none of the ghost-like quality he remembered seeing in the Ghost Ship in his youth.
For another split second he thought that perhaps he, too, like Dobbin, had gone mad and that the ship would vanish just as it approached him.
The tapping of the space-telegrapher reassured him.
"CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU," the message rapped out, "CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU."
With trembling fingers that he could scarcely control, old Willard sent the answering message.
"SPACE SHIP MARY LOU REPLYING. RECEIVED MESSAGE. THANK GOD!"
He broke off, unable to continue. His heart was ready to burst within him and the tears of joy were already welling in his eyes. He listened to the happiest message he had ever heard:
"NOTICE THAT SPACE SHIP MARY LOU IS DISABLED AND NOT SPACE WORTHY. YOU ARE INVITED TO COME ABOARD. HAVE YOU SPACE SUIT AND—ARE YOU ABLE TO COME?"
Willard, already sobbing with joy, could send only two words.
"YES! COMING!"
The years of waiting were over. At last he was free of the Mary Lou . In a dream like trance, he dressed in his space suit, pathetically glad that he had already checked every detail of it a short time ago. He realized suddenly that everything about the Mary Lou was hateful to him. It was here that his best friend died, and it was here that twenty years of his life were wasted completely in solitude and despair.
He took one last look and stepped into the air-lock.
The Earth-ship, he did not see its name, was only a hundred yards away and a man was already at the air-lock waiting to help him. A rope was tossed to him. He reached for it and made his way to the ship, leaving the Mary Lou behind him forever.
Suddenly the world dropped away from him. Willard could neither see nor say anything. His heart was choked with emotion.
"It's all right," a kindly voice assured him, "You're safe now."
He had the sensation of being carried by several men and then placed in bed. The quiet of deep sleep descended upon him.
He woke many times in the following days, but the privations of the passing years had drained his strength and his mind, had made him so much of a hermit that the presence of other men frightened him to the point of gibbering insanity.
He knew that the food and drink were drugged, for after eating he never remembered seeing the men enter the room to care for him and to remove the dirty dishes. But there was enough sanity in his mind to also realize that, without the gradual reawakening of his senses to the value of human companionship, he might not be able to stand the mental shock of moving about among his people back on Earth.
During those passing days, he savored each new impression, comparing it with what he remembered from that age-long past when he and his friends had walked on Earth's great plains and ridden on the oceans' sleek ships or flown with the wings of birds over the mountain ranges. And each impression was doubly enjoyable, for his memory was hazy and confused.
Gradually, though, his mind cleared; he remembered the past, and he no longer was afraid of the men who visited him from time to time. But there was a strangeness about the men that he could not fathom; they refused to talk about anything, any subject, other than the actual running of the great ship. Always, when he asked his eager questions, they mumbled and drifted away.
And then in his third week on the rescue ship, he went to sleep one night while peering from the port hole at the blue ball of Earth swimming in the blackness of space. He slept and he dreamed of the years he had spent by himself in the drifting, lifeless hulk of the Mary Lou . His dreams were vivid, peopled with men and women he had once known, and were horrible with the fantasies of terror that years of solitary brooding had implanted deep in his mind.
He awoke with a start and a cry of alarm ran through him as he thought that perhaps he might still be in the Mary Lou . The warm, smiling face of a man quickly reassured him.
"I'll call the captain," the space man said. "He said to let him know when you came to."
Willard could only nod in weak and grateful acceptance. It was true! He pressed his head back against the bed's pillows. How soft! How warm! He yawned and stretched his arms as a thrill of happiness shot through his entire body.
He would see Earth again! That single thought ran over and over in his mind without stopping. He would see Earth again! Perhaps not this year and perhaps not the next—for the ship might be on some extra-Plutonian expedition. But even if it would take years before it returned to home base Willard knew that those years would fly quickly if Earth was at the end of the trail.
Though he had aged, he still had many years before him. And those years, he vowed, would be spent on Earth and nowhere else.
The captain, a pleasant old fellow, came into the room as Willard stood up and tried to walk. The gravity here was a bit different from that of his ship, but he would manage.
"How do you feel, Space Man Willard?"
"Oh, you know me?" Willard looked at him in surprise, and then smiled,
"Of course, you looked through the log book of the Mary Lou ."
The captain nodded and Willard noticed with surprise that he was a very old man.
"You don't know how much I suffered there," Willard said slowly, measuring each word. "Years in space—all alone! It's a horrible thing!"
"Yes?" the old captain said.
"Many times I thought I would go completely mad. It was only the thought and hope that some day, somehow, an Earth-ship would find me and help me get back to Earth. If it was not for that, I would have died. I could think of nothing but of Earth, of blue green water, of vast open spaces and the good brown earth. How beautiful it must be now!"
A note of sadness, matched only by that of Willard's, entered the captain's eyes.
"I want to walk on Earth just once—then I can die."
Willard stopped. A happy dreamy smile touched his lips.
"When will we go to Earth?" he asked.
The Captain did not answer. Willard waited and a strange memory tugged at him.
"You don't know," the Captain said. It was not a question or a statement. The Captain found it hard to say it. His lips moved slowly.
Willard stepped back and before the Captain told him, he knew .
"Matter is relative," he said, "the existent under one condition is non-existent under another. The real here is the non-real there. All things that wander alone in space are gradually drained of their mass and energy until nothing is left but mere shells. That is what happened to the Mary Lou . Your ship was real when we passed by twenty years ago. It is now like ours, a vague outline in space. We cannot feel the change ourselves, for change is relative. That is why we became more and more solid to you, as you became more and more faint to any Earth-ship that might have passed. We are real—to ourselves. But to some ship from Earth which has not been in space for more than fifteen years—to that ship, to all intents and purposes, we do not exist.
"Then this ship," Willard said, stunned, "you and I and everything on it..."
"... are doomed," the Captain said. "We cannot go to Earth for the simple reason that we would go through it!"
The vision of Earth and green trees faded. He would never see Earth again. He would never feel the crunch of ground under feet as he walked. Never would listen to the voices of friends and the songs of birds. Never. Never. Never....
"Then this is the Ghost Ship and we are the Ghosts!"
"Yes."
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What is the significance of Ghost Ships in the story?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Galactic Ghost by Walter Kubilius.
Relevant chunks:
GALACTIC GHOST
By WALTER KUBILIUS
The Flying Dutchman of space was a harbinger of death. But Willard wasn't superstitions. He had seen the phantom—and lived.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The only friend in space Willard had ever known was dying. Dobbin's lips were parched and his breath came spasmodically. The tips of his fingers that had so many times caressed the control board of the Mary Lou were now black as meteor dust.
"We'll never see Earth again," he whispered feebly, plucked weakly at the cover.
"Nonsense!" Willard broke in hurriedly, hoping that the dying man would not see through the lie. "We've got the sun's gravity helping us drift back to Earth! We'll be there soon! You'll get well soon and we'll start to work again on a new idea of mine...." His voice trailed helplessly away and the words were lost. It was no use.
The sick man did not hear him. Two tears rolled down his cheeks. His face contorted as he tried to withhold a sob.
"To see Earth again!" he said weakly. "To walk on solid ground once more!"
"Four years!" Willard echoed faintly. He knew how his space mate felt. No man can spend four years away from his home planet, and fail to be anguished. A man could live without friends, without fortune, but no man could live without Earth. He was like Anteus, for only the feel of the solid ground under his feet could give him courage to go among the stars.
Willard also knew what he dared not admit to himself. He, too, like Dobbin, would never see Earth again. Perhaps, some thousand years from now, some lonely wanderers would find their battered hulk of a ship in space and bring them home again.
Dobbin motioned to him and, in answer to a last request, Willard lifted him so he faced the port window for a final look at the panorama of the stars.
Dobbin's eyes, dimming and half closed, took in the vast play of the heavens and in his mind he relived the days when in a frail craft he first crossed interstellar space. But for Earth-loneliness Dobbin would die a happy man, knowing that he had lived as much and as deeply as any man could.
Silently the two men watched. Dobbin's eyes opened suddenly and a tremor seized his body. He turned painfully and looked at Willard.
"I saw it!" his voice cracked, trembling.
"Saw what?"
"It's true! It's true! It comes whenever a space man dies! It's there!"
"In heaven's name, Dobbin," Willard demanded, "What do you see? What is it?"
Dobbin lifted his dark bony arm and pointed out into star-studded space.
"The Ghost Ship!"
Something clicked in Willard's memory. He had heard it spoken of in whispers by drunken space men and professional tellers of fairy tales. But he had never put any stock in them. In some forgotten corner of Dobbin's mind the legend of the Ghost Ship must have lain, to come up in this time of delirium.
"There's nothing there," he said firmly.
"It's come—for me!" Dobbin cried. He turned his head slowly toward Willard, tried to say something and then fell back upon the pillow. His mouth was open and his eyes stared unseeing ahead. Dobbin was now one with the vanished pioneers of yesterday. Willard was alone.
For two days, reckoned in Earth time, Willard kept vigil over the body of his friend and space mate. When the time was up he did what was necessary and nothing remained of Harry Dobbin, the best friend he had ever had. The atoms of his body were now pure energy stored away in the useless motors of the Mary Lou .
The weeks that followed were like a blur in Willard's mind. Though the ship was utterly incapable of motion, the chance meteor that damaged it had spared the convertors and assimilators. Through constant care and attention the frail balance that meant life or death could be kept. The substance of waste and refuse was torn down and rebuilt as precious food and air. It was even possible to create more than was needed.
When this was done, Willard immediately regretted it. For it would be then that the days and the weeks would roll by endlessly. Sometimes he thought he would go mad when, sitting at the useless control board, which was his habit, he would stare for hours and hours in the direction of the Sun where he knew the Earth would be. A great loneliness would then seize upon him and an agony that no man had ever known would tear at his heart. He would then turn away, full of despair and hopeless pain.
Two years after Dobbin's death a strange thing happened. Willard was sitting at his accustomed place facing the unmoving vista of the stars. A chance glance at Orion's belt froze him still. A star had flickered! Distinctly, as if a light veil had been placed over it and then lifted, it dimmed and turned bright again. What strange phenomena was this? He watched and then another star faded momentarily in the exact fashion. And then a third! And a fourth! And a fifth!
Willard's heart gave a leap and the lethargy of two years vanished instantly. Here, at last, was something to do. It might be only a few minutes before he would understand what it was, but those few minutes would help while away the maddening long hours. Perhaps it was a mass of fine meteorites or a pocket of gas that did not disperse, or even a moving warp of space-light. Whatever it was, it was a phenomena worth investigating and Willard seized upon it as a dying man seizes upon the last flashing seconds of life.
Willard traced its course by the flickering stars and gradually plotted its semi-circular course. It was not from the solar system but, instead, headed toward it. A rapid check-up on his calculations caused his heart to beat in ever quickening excitement. Whatever it was, it would reach the Mary Lou .
Again he looked out the port. Unquestionably the faint mass was nearing his ship. It was round in shape and almost invisible. The stars, though dimmed, could still be seen through it. There was something about its form that reminded him of an old-fashioned rocket ship. It resembled one of those that had done pioneer service in the lanes forty years ago or more. Resembled one? It was one! Unquestionably, though half-invisible and like a piece of glass immersed in water, it was a rocket ship.
But the instruments on the control board could not lie. The presence of any material body within a hundred thousand miles would be revealed. But the needle on the gauge did not quiver. Nothing indicated the presence of a ship. But the evidence of his eyes was incontestable.
Or was it? Doubt gripped him. Did the loneliness of all these years in space twist his mind till he was imagining the appearance of faint ghost-like rocket ships?
The thought shot through his mind like a thunder bolt. Ghost Ship! Was this the thing that Dobbin had seen before he died? But that was impossible. Ghost Ships existed nowhere but in legends and tall tales told by men drunk with the liquors of Mars.
"There is no ship there. There is no ship there," Willard told himself over and over again as he looked at the vague outline of the ship, now motionless a few hundred miles away.
Deep within him a faint voice cried, " It's come—for me! " but Willard stilled it. This was no fantasy. There was a scientific reason for it. There must be! Or should there be? Throughout all Earth history there had been Ghost Ships sailing the Seven Seas—ships doomed to roam forever because their crew broke some unbreakable law. If this was true for the ships of the seas, why not for the ships of empty space?
He looked again at the strange ship. It was motionless. At least it was not nearing him. Willard could see nothing but its vague outline. A moment later he could discern a faint motion. It was turning! The Ghost Ship was turning back! Unconsciously Willard reached out with his hand as if to hold it back, for when it was gone he would be alone again.
But the Ghost Ship went on. Its outline became smaller and smaller, fainter and fainter.
Trembling, Willard turned away from the window as he saw the rocket recede and vanish into the emptiness of space. Once more the dreaded loneliness of the stars descended upon him.
Seven years passed and back on Earth in a small newspaper that Willard would never see there was published a small item:
" Arden, Rocketport —Thirteen years ago the Space Ship Mary Lou under John Willard and Larry Dobbin left the Rocket Port for the exploration of an alleged planetoid beyond Pluto. The ship has not been seen or heard from since. J. Willard, II, son of the lost explorer, is planning the manufacture of a super-size exploration ship to be called Mary Lou II , in memory of his father."
Memories die hard. A man who is alone in space with nothing but the cold friendship of star-light looks back upon memories as the only things both dear and precious to him.
Willard, master and lone survivor of the Mary Lou , knew this well for he had tried to rip the memories of Earth out of his heart to ease the anguish of solitude within him. But it was a thing that could not be done.
And so it was that each night—for Willard did not give up the Earth-habit of keeping time—Willard dreamed of the days he had known on Earth.
In his mind's eye, he saw himself walking the streets of Arden and feeling the crunch of snow or the soft slap of rainwater under his feet. He heard again, in his mind, the voices of friends he knew. How beautiful and perfect was each voice! How filled with warmth and friendship! There was the voice of his beautiful wife whom he would never see again. There were the gruff and deep voices of his co-workers and scientists.
Above all there were the voices of the cities, and the fields and the shops where he had worked. All these had their individual voices. Odd that he had never realized it before, but things become clearer to a man who is alone.
Clearer? Perhaps not. Perhaps they become more clouded. How could he, for example, explain the phenomena of the Ghost Ship? Was it really only a product of his imagination? What of all the others who had seen it? Was it possible for many different men under many different situations to have the same exact illusion? Reason denied that. But perhaps space itself denies reason.
Grimly he retraced the legend of the Ghost Ship. A chance phrase here and a story there put together all that he knew:
Doomed for all eternity to wander in the empty star-lanes, the Ghost Ship haunts the Solar System that gave it birth. And this is its tragedy, for it is the home of spacemen who can never go home again. When your last measure of fuel is burnt and your ship becomes a lifeless hulk—the Ghost will come—for you!
And this is all there was to the legend. Merely a tale of some fairy ship told to amuse and to while away the days of a star-voyage. Bitterly, Willard dismissed it from his mind.
Another year of loneliness passed. And still another. Willard lost track of the days. It was difficult to keep time for to what purpose could time be kept. Here in space there was no time, nor was there reason for clocks and records. Days and months and years became meaningless words for things that once may have had meaning. About three years must have passed since his last record in the log book of the Mary Lou . At that time, he remembered, he suffered another great disappointment. On the port side there suddenly appeared a full-sized rocket ship. For many minutes Willard was half-mad with joy thinking that a passing ship was ready to rescue him. But the joy was short-lived, for the rocket ship abruptly turned away and slowly disappeared. As Willard watched it go away he saw the light of a distant star through the space ship. A heart-breaking agony fell upon him. It was not a ship from Earth. It was the Ghost Ship, mocking him.
Since then Willard did not look out the window of his craft. A vague fear troubled him that perhaps the Ghost Ship might be here, waiting and watching, and that he would go mad if he saw it.
How many years passed he could not tell. But this he knew. He was no longer a young man. Perhaps fifteen years has disappeared into nothing. Perhaps twenty. He did not know and he did not care.
Willard awoke from a deep sleep and prepared his bed. He did it, not because it was necessary, but because it was a habit that had long been ingrained in him through the years.
He checked and rechecked every part of the still functioning mechanism of the ship. The radio, even though there was no one to call, was in perfect order. The speed-recording dials, even though there was no speed to record, were in perfect order. And so with every machine. All was in perfect order. Perfect useless order, he thought bitterly, when there was no way whatever to get sufficient power to get back to Earth, long forgotten Earth.
He was leaning back in his chair when a vague uneasiness seized him. He arose and slowly walked over to the window, his age already being marked in the ache of his bones. Looking out into the silent theater of the stars, he suddenly froze.
There was a ship, coming toward him!
For a moment the reason in his mind tottered on a balance. Doubt assailed him. Was this the Ghost Ship come to torment him again? But no phantom this! It was a life and blood rocket ship from Earth! Starlight shone on it and not through it! Its lines, window, vents were all solid and had none of the ghost-like quality he remembered seeing in the Ghost Ship in his youth.
For another split second he thought that perhaps he, too, like Dobbin, had gone mad and that the ship would vanish just as it approached him.
The tapping of the space-telegrapher reassured him.
"CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU," the message rapped out, "CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU."
With trembling fingers that he could scarcely control, old Willard sent the answering message.
"SPACE SHIP MARY LOU REPLYING. RECEIVED MESSAGE. THANK GOD!"
He broke off, unable to continue. His heart was ready to burst within him and the tears of joy were already welling in his eyes. He listened to the happiest message he had ever heard:
"NOTICE THAT SPACE SHIP MARY LOU IS DISABLED AND NOT SPACE WORTHY. YOU ARE INVITED TO COME ABOARD. HAVE YOU SPACE SUIT AND—ARE YOU ABLE TO COME?"
Willard, already sobbing with joy, could send only two words.
"YES! COMING!"
The years of waiting were over. At last he was free of the Mary Lou . In a dream like trance, he dressed in his space suit, pathetically glad that he had already checked every detail of it a short time ago. He realized suddenly that everything about the Mary Lou was hateful to him. It was here that his best friend died, and it was here that twenty years of his life were wasted completely in solitude and despair.
He took one last look and stepped into the air-lock.
The Earth-ship, he did not see its name, was only a hundred yards away and a man was already at the air-lock waiting to help him. A rope was tossed to him. He reached for it and made his way to the ship, leaving the Mary Lou behind him forever.
Suddenly the world dropped away from him. Willard could neither see nor say anything. His heart was choked with emotion.
"It's all right," a kindly voice assured him, "You're safe now."
He had the sensation of being carried by several men and then placed in bed. The quiet of deep sleep descended upon him.
He woke many times in the following days, but the privations of the passing years had drained his strength and his mind, had made him so much of a hermit that the presence of other men frightened him to the point of gibbering insanity.
He knew that the food and drink were drugged, for after eating he never remembered seeing the men enter the room to care for him and to remove the dirty dishes. But there was enough sanity in his mind to also realize that, without the gradual reawakening of his senses to the value of human companionship, he might not be able to stand the mental shock of moving about among his people back on Earth.
During those passing days, he savored each new impression, comparing it with what he remembered from that age-long past when he and his friends had walked on Earth's great plains and ridden on the oceans' sleek ships or flown with the wings of birds over the mountain ranges. And each impression was doubly enjoyable, for his memory was hazy and confused.
Gradually, though, his mind cleared; he remembered the past, and he no longer was afraid of the men who visited him from time to time. But there was a strangeness about the men that he could not fathom; they refused to talk about anything, any subject, other than the actual running of the great ship. Always, when he asked his eager questions, they mumbled and drifted away.
And then in his third week on the rescue ship, he went to sleep one night while peering from the port hole at the blue ball of Earth swimming in the blackness of space. He slept and he dreamed of the years he had spent by himself in the drifting, lifeless hulk of the Mary Lou . His dreams were vivid, peopled with men and women he had once known, and were horrible with the fantasies of terror that years of solitary brooding had implanted deep in his mind.
He awoke with a start and a cry of alarm ran through him as he thought that perhaps he might still be in the Mary Lou . The warm, smiling face of a man quickly reassured him.
"I'll call the captain," the space man said. "He said to let him know when you came to."
Willard could only nod in weak and grateful acceptance. It was true! He pressed his head back against the bed's pillows. How soft! How warm! He yawned and stretched his arms as a thrill of happiness shot through his entire body.
He would see Earth again! That single thought ran over and over in his mind without stopping. He would see Earth again! Perhaps not this year and perhaps not the next—for the ship might be on some extra-Plutonian expedition. But even if it would take years before it returned to home base Willard knew that those years would fly quickly if Earth was at the end of the trail.
Though he had aged, he still had many years before him. And those years, he vowed, would be spent on Earth and nowhere else.
The captain, a pleasant old fellow, came into the room as Willard stood up and tried to walk. The gravity here was a bit different from that of his ship, but he would manage.
"How do you feel, Space Man Willard?"
"Oh, you know me?" Willard looked at him in surprise, and then smiled,
"Of course, you looked through the log book of the Mary Lou ."
The captain nodded and Willard noticed with surprise that he was a very old man.
"You don't know how much I suffered there," Willard said slowly, measuring each word. "Years in space—all alone! It's a horrible thing!"
"Yes?" the old captain said.
"Many times I thought I would go completely mad. It was only the thought and hope that some day, somehow, an Earth-ship would find me and help me get back to Earth. If it was not for that, I would have died. I could think of nothing but of Earth, of blue green water, of vast open spaces and the good brown earth. How beautiful it must be now!"
A note of sadness, matched only by that of Willard's, entered the captain's eyes.
"I want to walk on Earth just once—then I can die."
Willard stopped. A happy dreamy smile touched his lips.
"When will we go to Earth?" he asked.
The Captain did not answer. Willard waited and a strange memory tugged at him.
"You don't know," the Captain said. It was not a question or a statement. The Captain found it hard to say it. His lips moved slowly.
Willard stepped back and before the Captain told him, he knew .
"Matter is relative," he said, "the existent under one condition is non-existent under another. The real here is the non-real there. All things that wander alone in space are gradually drained of their mass and energy until nothing is left but mere shells. That is what happened to the Mary Lou . Your ship was real when we passed by twenty years ago. It is now like ours, a vague outline in space. We cannot feel the change ourselves, for change is relative. That is why we became more and more solid to you, as you became more and more faint to any Earth-ship that might have passed. We are real—to ourselves. But to some ship from Earth which has not been in space for more than fifteen years—to that ship, to all intents and purposes, we do not exist.
"Then this ship," Willard said, stunned, "you and I and everything on it..."
"... are doomed," the Captain said. "We cannot go to Earth for the simple reason that we would go through it!"
The vision of Earth and green trees faded. He would never see Earth again. He would never feel the crunch of ground under feet as he walked. Never would listen to the voices of friends and the songs of birds. Never. Never. Never....
"Then this is the Ghost Ship and we are the Ghosts!"
"Yes."
Question:
What is the significance of Ghost Ships in the story?
Answer:
|
[
"There are legends and tall tales about the Ghost Ships, told mainly by drunken men and professional storytellers. Willard remembers that there are stories on Earth about Ghost Ships that sail the Seven Seas. The story goes that the crews of Ghost Ships have broken a particular law, and their punishment is to roam forever. The Ghost Ship in space is said to be the home of spacemen who could not return to Earth. When Dobbin is dying, he claims to see the Ghost Ship and that it has come for him, but when Willard looks for the ship, he does not see it. Later, when Willard sees the Ghost Ship for himself for the first time, he tries to convince himself it is not really there. He remembers the stories about oceangoing Ghost Ships and reasons that there could also be Ghost Ships in space. When the Ghost Ship turns to leave, Willard is almost sorry to see it go because he has been so lonely. When the Ghost Ship appears to Willard for the second time, it has pulled alongside the Mary Lou, and Willard thinks it is a real ship. Only when the Ghost Ship abruptly speeds away and Willard sees stars shining through it does Willard realize it was the Ghost Ship, and he believes it is mocking him. With his third sighting of the Ghost Ship, Willard immediately thinks it is the Ghost Ship but then convinces himself it is not when it messages him. After he is on the ship, he realizes it is indeed the Ghost Ship and that he is now a Ghost. \n",
"The Ghost Ship is a tale told by spacemen to frighten each other or warn them of this grave possibility. Many of those that came close to death in space, or those who witnessed others dying with no hope of a return to earth, mentioned seeing a ghost ship. A faint outline of a ship that had come to take them away forever. Before Dobbin’s death at the story of the story, he tells Willard that he sees the ghost ship. \nThis ghost ship serves as another form of torture for Willard during his many years of solitude. The ghost ship would essentially check up on him, float by and see if he was still alive or not. This gave Willard false hope as he would dream that the ghost ship was a real rocket ship that was coming to rescue him. In the end, Willard is taken away by a ghost ship, though he thinks it’s a rescue ship initially, and he is doomed to forever fly through the solar system as a ghost and nothing more. There is no hope for his return to Earth. The men of the ghost ship are truly ghosts, invisible to the naked eye and only visible to those on their deathbeds. \n",
"The Ghost Ship is a legend that sailors and space travelers alike have claimed people see in the moments before they die at sea or in space. In the seconds before Dobbin dies in Willard’s arms, he looks out the window of the “Mary Lou” and claims to see the Ghost Ship himself. Throughout Willard’s long periods of solitude aboard the “Mary Lou”, he thinks he sees the Ghost Ship several times. First, from a distance, as a blinking light advancing closer and closer before turning back and sailing off into dark space; later, he thinks he sees the ship return, only this time it passes nearer before turning back and leaving again. With each return of the Ghost Ship, Willard believes he sees it clearer than he had before. After decades adrift in space, Willard believes a ship has finally come to rescue him. He does not think it is the Ghost Ship because it is solid, and he is greeted by a crew of people. However, the captain explains that the longer a vessel spends lost in space, the more it loses itself and slips into a kind of un-reality, along with those aboard. The more the “Mary Lou” drifted into this space, the more real the Ghost Ship became to Willard. Willard realizes that the “Mary Lou” has become a “ghost ship” herself.",
"Ghost Ships frame the story and the idea of them haunts Willard on and off throughout it. At the beginning, when Dobbin exclaims that he sees a Ghost Ship prior to his death, Willard tells himself that it was a hallucination from somewhere deep in his dying friend’s subconscious, just the result of the memory of an old legend. However, the idea of a Ghost Ship never really leaves Willard’s mind throughout the rest of the story. When he sees a partially transparent rocket ship that turns away and disappears, he wonders if it could be a Ghost Ship but talks himself out of it. Later he wonders if it was a ghost ship that was “mocking him”. When he is rescued by a ship that looks more real, the thought still crosses his mind that it could be a Ghost Ship and he again shuts the idea down. Ultimately, Ghost Ships are incredibly significant in the story, because it turns out that both the Mary Lou, and his rescue ship/new home, while not exactly like the tall tale, are, in effect, Ghost Ships. \n"
] |
62244
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GALACTIC GHOST
By WALTER KUBILIUS
The Flying Dutchman of space was a harbinger of death. But Willard wasn't superstitions. He had seen the phantom—and lived.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The only friend in space Willard had ever known was dying. Dobbin's lips were parched and his breath came spasmodically. The tips of his fingers that had so many times caressed the control board of the Mary Lou were now black as meteor dust.
"We'll never see Earth again," he whispered feebly, plucked weakly at the cover.
"Nonsense!" Willard broke in hurriedly, hoping that the dying man would not see through the lie. "We've got the sun's gravity helping us drift back to Earth! We'll be there soon! You'll get well soon and we'll start to work again on a new idea of mine...." His voice trailed helplessly away and the words were lost. It was no use.
The sick man did not hear him. Two tears rolled down his cheeks. His face contorted as he tried to withhold a sob.
"To see Earth again!" he said weakly. "To walk on solid ground once more!"
"Four years!" Willard echoed faintly. He knew how his space mate felt. No man can spend four years away from his home planet, and fail to be anguished. A man could live without friends, without fortune, but no man could live without Earth. He was like Anteus, for only the feel of the solid ground under his feet could give him courage to go among the stars.
Willard also knew what he dared not admit to himself. He, too, like Dobbin, would never see Earth again. Perhaps, some thousand years from now, some lonely wanderers would find their battered hulk of a ship in space and bring them home again.
Dobbin motioned to him and, in answer to a last request, Willard lifted him so he faced the port window for a final look at the panorama of the stars.
Dobbin's eyes, dimming and half closed, took in the vast play of the heavens and in his mind he relived the days when in a frail craft he first crossed interstellar space. But for Earth-loneliness Dobbin would die a happy man, knowing that he had lived as much and as deeply as any man could.
Silently the two men watched. Dobbin's eyes opened suddenly and a tremor seized his body. He turned painfully and looked at Willard.
"I saw it!" his voice cracked, trembling.
"Saw what?"
"It's true! It's true! It comes whenever a space man dies! It's there!"
"In heaven's name, Dobbin," Willard demanded, "What do you see? What is it?"
Dobbin lifted his dark bony arm and pointed out into star-studded space.
"The Ghost Ship!"
Something clicked in Willard's memory. He had heard it spoken of in whispers by drunken space men and professional tellers of fairy tales. But he had never put any stock in them. In some forgotten corner of Dobbin's mind the legend of the Ghost Ship must have lain, to come up in this time of delirium.
"There's nothing there," he said firmly.
"It's come—for me!" Dobbin cried. He turned his head slowly toward Willard, tried to say something and then fell back upon the pillow. His mouth was open and his eyes stared unseeing ahead. Dobbin was now one with the vanished pioneers of yesterday. Willard was alone.
For two days, reckoned in Earth time, Willard kept vigil over the body of his friend and space mate. When the time was up he did what was necessary and nothing remained of Harry Dobbin, the best friend he had ever had. The atoms of his body were now pure energy stored away in the useless motors of the Mary Lou .
The weeks that followed were like a blur in Willard's mind. Though the ship was utterly incapable of motion, the chance meteor that damaged it had spared the convertors and assimilators. Through constant care and attention the frail balance that meant life or death could be kept. The substance of waste and refuse was torn down and rebuilt as precious food and air. It was even possible to create more than was needed.
When this was done, Willard immediately regretted it. For it would be then that the days and the weeks would roll by endlessly. Sometimes he thought he would go mad when, sitting at the useless control board, which was his habit, he would stare for hours and hours in the direction of the Sun where he knew the Earth would be. A great loneliness would then seize upon him and an agony that no man had ever known would tear at his heart. He would then turn away, full of despair and hopeless pain.
Two years after Dobbin's death a strange thing happened. Willard was sitting at his accustomed place facing the unmoving vista of the stars. A chance glance at Orion's belt froze him still. A star had flickered! Distinctly, as if a light veil had been placed over it and then lifted, it dimmed and turned bright again. What strange phenomena was this? He watched and then another star faded momentarily in the exact fashion. And then a third! And a fourth! And a fifth!
Willard's heart gave a leap and the lethargy of two years vanished instantly. Here, at last, was something to do. It might be only a few minutes before he would understand what it was, but those few minutes would help while away the maddening long hours. Perhaps it was a mass of fine meteorites or a pocket of gas that did not disperse, or even a moving warp of space-light. Whatever it was, it was a phenomena worth investigating and Willard seized upon it as a dying man seizes upon the last flashing seconds of life.
Willard traced its course by the flickering stars and gradually plotted its semi-circular course. It was not from the solar system but, instead, headed toward it. A rapid check-up on his calculations caused his heart to beat in ever quickening excitement. Whatever it was, it would reach the Mary Lou .
Again he looked out the port. Unquestionably the faint mass was nearing his ship. It was round in shape and almost invisible. The stars, though dimmed, could still be seen through it. There was something about its form that reminded him of an old-fashioned rocket ship. It resembled one of those that had done pioneer service in the lanes forty years ago or more. Resembled one? It was one! Unquestionably, though half-invisible and like a piece of glass immersed in water, it was a rocket ship.
But the instruments on the control board could not lie. The presence of any material body within a hundred thousand miles would be revealed. But the needle on the gauge did not quiver. Nothing indicated the presence of a ship. But the evidence of his eyes was incontestable.
Or was it? Doubt gripped him. Did the loneliness of all these years in space twist his mind till he was imagining the appearance of faint ghost-like rocket ships?
The thought shot through his mind like a thunder bolt. Ghost Ship! Was this the thing that Dobbin had seen before he died? But that was impossible. Ghost Ships existed nowhere but in legends and tall tales told by men drunk with the liquors of Mars.
"There is no ship there. There is no ship there," Willard told himself over and over again as he looked at the vague outline of the ship, now motionless a few hundred miles away.
Deep within him a faint voice cried, " It's come—for me! " but Willard stilled it. This was no fantasy. There was a scientific reason for it. There must be! Or should there be? Throughout all Earth history there had been Ghost Ships sailing the Seven Seas—ships doomed to roam forever because their crew broke some unbreakable law. If this was true for the ships of the seas, why not for the ships of empty space?
He looked again at the strange ship. It was motionless. At least it was not nearing him. Willard could see nothing but its vague outline. A moment later he could discern a faint motion. It was turning! The Ghost Ship was turning back! Unconsciously Willard reached out with his hand as if to hold it back, for when it was gone he would be alone again.
But the Ghost Ship went on. Its outline became smaller and smaller, fainter and fainter.
Trembling, Willard turned away from the window as he saw the rocket recede and vanish into the emptiness of space. Once more the dreaded loneliness of the stars descended upon him.
Seven years passed and back on Earth in a small newspaper that Willard would never see there was published a small item:
" Arden, Rocketport —Thirteen years ago the Space Ship Mary Lou under John Willard and Larry Dobbin left the Rocket Port for the exploration of an alleged planetoid beyond Pluto. The ship has not been seen or heard from since. J. Willard, II, son of the lost explorer, is planning the manufacture of a super-size exploration ship to be called Mary Lou II , in memory of his father."
Memories die hard. A man who is alone in space with nothing but the cold friendship of star-light looks back upon memories as the only things both dear and precious to him.
Willard, master and lone survivor of the Mary Lou , knew this well for he had tried to rip the memories of Earth out of his heart to ease the anguish of solitude within him. But it was a thing that could not be done.
And so it was that each night—for Willard did not give up the Earth-habit of keeping time—Willard dreamed of the days he had known on Earth.
In his mind's eye, he saw himself walking the streets of Arden and feeling the crunch of snow or the soft slap of rainwater under his feet. He heard again, in his mind, the voices of friends he knew. How beautiful and perfect was each voice! How filled with warmth and friendship! There was the voice of his beautiful wife whom he would never see again. There were the gruff and deep voices of his co-workers and scientists.
Above all there were the voices of the cities, and the fields and the shops where he had worked. All these had their individual voices. Odd that he had never realized it before, but things become clearer to a man who is alone.
Clearer? Perhaps not. Perhaps they become more clouded. How could he, for example, explain the phenomena of the Ghost Ship? Was it really only a product of his imagination? What of all the others who had seen it? Was it possible for many different men under many different situations to have the same exact illusion? Reason denied that. But perhaps space itself denies reason.
Grimly he retraced the legend of the Ghost Ship. A chance phrase here and a story there put together all that he knew:
Doomed for all eternity to wander in the empty star-lanes, the Ghost Ship haunts the Solar System that gave it birth. And this is its tragedy, for it is the home of spacemen who can never go home again. When your last measure of fuel is burnt and your ship becomes a lifeless hulk—the Ghost will come—for you!
And this is all there was to the legend. Merely a tale of some fairy ship told to amuse and to while away the days of a star-voyage. Bitterly, Willard dismissed it from his mind.
Another year of loneliness passed. And still another. Willard lost track of the days. It was difficult to keep time for to what purpose could time be kept. Here in space there was no time, nor was there reason for clocks and records. Days and months and years became meaningless words for things that once may have had meaning. About three years must have passed since his last record in the log book of the Mary Lou . At that time, he remembered, he suffered another great disappointment. On the port side there suddenly appeared a full-sized rocket ship. For many minutes Willard was half-mad with joy thinking that a passing ship was ready to rescue him. But the joy was short-lived, for the rocket ship abruptly turned away and slowly disappeared. As Willard watched it go away he saw the light of a distant star through the space ship. A heart-breaking agony fell upon him. It was not a ship from Earth. It was the Ghost Ship, mocking him.
Since then Willard did not look out the window of his craft. A vague fear troubled him that perhaps the Ghost Ship might be here, waiting and watching, and that he would go mad if he saw it.
How many years passed he could not tell. But this he knew. He was no longer a young man. Perhaps fifteen years has disappeared into nothing. Perhaps twenty. He did not know and he did not care.
Willard awoke from a deep sleep and prepared his bed. He did it, not because it was necessary, but because it was a habit that had long been ingrained in him through the years.
He checked and rechecked every part of the still functioning mechanism of the ship. The radio, even though there was no one to call, was in perfect order. The speed-recording dials, even though there was no speed to record, were in perfect order. And so with every machine. All was in perfect order. Perfect useless order, he thought bitterly, when there was no way whatever to get sufficient power to get back to Earth, long forgotten Earth.
He was leaning back in his chair when a vague uneasiness seized him. He arose and slowly walked over to the window, his age already being marked in the ache of his bones. Looking out into the silent theater of the stars, he suddenly froze.
There was a ship, coming toward him!
For a moment the reason in his mind tottered on a balance. Doubt assailed him. Was this the Ghost Ship come to torment him again? But no phantom this! It was a life and blood rocket ship from Earth! Starlight shone on it and not through it! Its lines, window, vents were all solid and had none of the ghost-like quality he remembered seeing in the Ghost Ship in his youth.
For another split second he thought that perhaps he, too, like Dobbin, had gone mad and that the ship would vanish just as it approached him.
The tapping of the space-telegrapher reassured him.
"CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU," the message rapped out, "CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU."
With trembling fingers that he could scarcely control, old Willard sent the answering message.
"SPACE SHIP MARY LOU REPLYING. RECEIVED MESSAGE. THANK GOD!"
He broke off, unable to continue. His heart was ready to burst within him and the tears of joy were already welling in his eyes. He listened to the happiest message he had ever heard:
"NOTICE THAT SPACE SHIP MARY LOU IS DISABLED AND NOT SPACE WORTHY. YOU ARE INVITED TO COME ABOARD. HAVE YOU SPACE SUIT AND—ARE YOU ABLE TO COME?"
Willard, already sobbing with joy, could send only two words.
"YES! COMING!"
The years of waiting were over. At last he was free of the Mary Lou . In a dream like trance, he dressed in his space suit, pathetically glad that he had already checked every detail of it a short time ago. He realized suddenly that everything about the Mary Lou was hateful to him. It was here that his best friend died, and it was here that twenty years of his life were wasted completely in solitude and despair.
He took one last look and stepped into the air-lock.
The Earth-ship, he did not see its name, was only a hundred yards away and a man was already at the air-lock waiting to help him. A rope was tossed to him. He reached for it and made his way to the ship, leaving the Mary Lou behind him forever.
Suddenly the world dropped away from him. Willard could neither see nor say anything. His heart was choked with emotion.
"It's all right," a kindly voice assured him, "You're safe now."
He had the sensation of being carried by several men and then placed in bed. The quiet of deep sleep descended upon him.
He woke many times in the following days, but the privations of the passing years had drained his strength and his mind, had made him so much of a hermit that the presence of other men frightened him to the point of gibbering insanity.
He knew that the food and drink were drugged, for after eating he never remembered seeing the men enter the room to care for him and to remove the dirty dishes. But there was enough sanity in his mind to also realize that, without the gradual reawakening of his senses to the value of human companionship, he might not be able to stand the mental shock of moving about among his people back on Earth.
During those passing days, he savored each new impression, comparing it with what he remembered from that age-long past when he and his friends had walked on Earth's great plains and ridden on the oceans' sleek ships or flown with the wings of birds over the mountain ranges. And each impression was doubly enjoyable, for his memory was hazy and confused.
Gradually, though, his mind cleared; he remembered the past, and he no longer was afraid of the men who visited him from time to time. But there was a strangeness about the men that he could not fathom; they refused to talk about anything, any subject, other than the actual running of the great ship. Always, when he asked his eager questions, they mumbled and drifted away.
And then in his third week on the rescue ship, he went to sleep one night while peering from the port hole at the blue ball of Earth swimming in the blackness of space. He slept and he dreamed of the years he had spent by himself in the drifting, lifeless hulk of the Mary Lou . His dreams were vivid, peopled with men and women he had once known, and were horrible with the fantasies of terror that years of solitary brooding had implanted deep in his mind.
He awoke with a start and a cry of alarm ran through him as he thought that perhaps he might still be in the Mary Lou . The warm, smiling face of a man quickly reassured him.
"I'll call the captain," the space man said. "He said to let him know when you came to."
Willard could only nod in weak and grateful acceptance. It was true! He pressed his head back against the bed's pillows. How soft! How warm! He yawned and stretched his arms as a thrill of happiness shot through his entire body.
He would see Earth again! That single thought ran over and over in his mind without stopping. He would see Earth again! Perhaps not this year and perhaps not the next—for the ship might be on some extra-Plutonian expedition. But even if it would take years before it returned to home base Willard knew that those years would fly quickly if Earth was at the end of the trail.
Though he had aged, he still had many years before him. And those years, he vowed, would be spent on Earth and nowhere else.
The captain, a pleasant old fellow, came into the room as Willard stood up and tried to walk. The gravity here was a bit different from that of his ship, but he would manage.
"How do you feel, Space Man Willard?"
"Oh, you know me?" Willard looked at him in surprise, and then smiled,
"Of course, you looked through the log book of the Mary Lou ."
The captain nodded and Willard noticed with surprise that he was a very old man.
"You don't know how much I suffered there," Willard said slowly, measuring each word. "Years in space—all alone! It's a horrible thing!"
"Yes?" the old captain said.
"Many times I thought I would go completely mad. It was only the thought and hope that some day, somehow, an Earth-ship would find me and help me get back to Earth. If it was not for that, I would have died. I could think of nothing but of Earth, of blue green water, of vast open spaces and the good brown earth. How beautiful it must be now!"
A note of sadness, matched only by that of Willard's, entered the captain's eyes.
"I want to walk on Earth just once—then I can die."
Willard stopped. A happy dreamy smile touched his lips.
"When will we go to Earth?" he asked.
The Captain did not answer. Willard waited and a strange memory tugged at him.
"You don't know," the Captain said. It was not a question or a statement. The Captain found it hard to say it. His lips moved slowly.
Willard stepped back and before the Captain told him, he knew .
"Matter is relative," he said, "the existent under one condition is non-existent under another. The real here is the non-real there. All things that wander alone in space are gradually drained of their mass and energy until nothing is left but mere shells. That is what happened to the Mary Lou . Your ship was real when we passed by twenty years ago. It is now like ours, a vague outline in space. We cannot feel the change ourselves, for change is relative. That is why we became more and more solid to you, as you became more and more faint to any Earth-ship that might have passed. We are real—to ourselves. But to some ship from Earth which has not been in space for more than fifteen years—to that ship, to all intents and purposes, we do not exist.
"Then this ship," Willard said, stunned, "you and I and everything on it..."
"... are doomed," the Captain said. "We cannot go to Earth for the simple reason that we would go through it!"
The vision of Earth and green trees faded. He would never see Earth again. He would never feel the crunch of ground under feet as he walked. Never would listen to the voices of friends and the songs of birds. Never. Never. Never....
"Then this is the Ghost Ship and we are the Ghosts!"
"Yes."
|
What is the importance of the crashing of the ship of Judith's father?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Prison Planet by Wilson Tucker.
Relevant chunks:
PRISON PLANET
By BOB TUCKER
To remain on Mars meant death from agonizing space-sickness, but Earth-surgery lay days of flight away. And there was only a surface rocket in which to escape—with a traitorous Ganymedean for its pilot.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"Listen, Rat!" Roberds said, "what I say goes around here. It doesn't happen to be any of your business. I'm still in possession of my wits, and I know Peterson can't handle that ship. Furthermore Gladney will be in it too, right along side of that sick girl in there! And Rat, get this: I'm going to pilot that ship. Understand? Consulate or no Consulate, job or no job, I'm wheeling that crate to Earth because this is an emergency. And the emergency happens to be bigger than my position, to me at any rate." His tone dropped to a deadly softness.
"Now will you kindly remove your stinking carcass from this office?"
Unheeding, Rat swung his eyes around in the gloom and discovered the woman, a nurse in uniform. He blinked at her and she returned the look, wavering. She bit her lip and determination flowed back. She met the stare of his boring, off-colored eyes. Rat grinned suddenly. Nurse Gray almost smiled back, stopped before the others could see it.
"Won't go!" The Centaurian resumed his fight. "You not go, lose job, black-listed. Never get another. Look at me. I know." He retreated a precious step to escape a rolled up fist. "Little ship carry four nice. Rip out lockers and bunks. Swing hammocks. Put fuel in water tanks. Live on concentrates. Earth hospital fix bellyache afterwards, allright. I pilot ship. Yes?"
"No!" Roberds screamed.
Almost in answer, a moan issued from a small side room. The men in the office froze as Nurse Gray ran across the room. She disappeared through the narrow door.
"Peterson," the field manager ordered, "come over here and help me throw this rat out...." He went for Rat. Peterson swung up out of his chair with balled fist. The outlander backed rapidly.
"No need, no need, no need!" he said quickly. "I go." Still backing, he blindly kicked at the door and stepped into the night.
When the door slammed shut Roberds locked it. Peterson slumped in the chair.
"Do you mean that, Chief? About taking the ship yourself?"
"True enough." Roberds cast an anxious glance at the partly closed door, lowered his voice. "It'll cost me my job, but that girl in there has to be taken to a hospital quickly! And it's her luck to be landed on a planet that doesn't boast even one! So it's Earth ... or she dies. I'd feel a lot better too if we could get Gladney to a hospital, I'm not too confident of that patching job." He pulled a pipe from a jacket pocket. "So, might as well kill two birds with one stone ... and that wasn't meant to be funny!"
Peterson said nothing, sat watching the door.
"Rat has the right idea," Roberds continued, "but I had already thought of it. About the bunks and lockers. Greaseball has been out there all night tearing them out. We just might be able to hop by dawn ... and hell of a long, grinding hop it will be!"
The nurse came out of the door.
"How is she?" Roberds asked.
"Sleeping," Gray whispered. "But sinking...."
"We can take off at dawn, I think." He filled the pipe and didn't look at her. "You'll have to spend most of the trip in a hammock."
"I can take it." Suddenly she smiled, wanly. "I was with the Fleet. How long will it take?"
"Eight days, in that ship."
Roberds lit his pipe, and carefully hid his emotions. He knew Peterson was harboring the same thoughts. Eight days in space, in a small ship meant for two, and built for planetary surface flights. Eight days in that untrustworthy crate, hurtling to save the lives of that girl and Gladney.
"Who was that ... man? The one you put out?" Gray asked.
"We call him Rat," Roberds said.
She didn't ask why. She said: "Why couldn't he pilot the ship, I mean? What is his record?"
Peterson opened his mouth.
"Shut up, Peterson!" the Chief snapped. "We don't talk about his record around here, Miss Gray. It's not a pretty thing to tell."
"Stow it, Chief," said Peterson. "Miss Gray is no pantywaist." He turned to the nurse. "Ever hear of the Sansan massacre?"
Patti Gray paled. "Yes," she whispered. "Was Rat in that?"
Roberds shook his head. "He didn't take part in it. But Rat was attached to a very important office at the time, the outpost watch. And when Mad Barry Sansan and his gang of thugs swooped down on the Ganymedean colony, there was no warning. Our friend Rat was AWOL.
"As to who he is ... well, just one of those freaks from up around Centauria somewhere. He's been hanging around all the fields and dumps on Mars a long time, finally landed up here."
"But," protested Miss Gray, "I don't understand? I always thought that leaving one's post under such circumstances meant execution."
The Chief Consul nodded. "It does, usually. But this was a freak case. It would take hours to explain. However, I'll just sum it up in one word: politics. Politics, with which Rat had no connection saved him."
The girl shook her head, more in sympathy than condemnation.
"Are you expecting the others in soon?" she asked. "It wouldn't be right to leave Peterson."
"They will be in, in a day or two. Peterson will beat it over to Base station for repairs, and to notify Earth we're coming. He'll be all right."
Abruptly she stood up. "Goodnight gentlemen. Call me if I'm needed."
Roberds nodded acknowledgement. The door to the side room closed behind her. Peterson hauled his chair over to the desk. He sniffed the air.
"Damned rat!" he whispered harshly. "They ought to make a law forcing him to wear dark glasses!"
Roberds smiled wearily. "His eyes do get a man, don't they?"
"I'd like to burn 'em out!" Peterson snarled.
Rat helped Greaseball fill the water tanks to capacity with fuel, checked the concentrated rations and grunted.
Greaseball looked over the interior and chuckled. "The boss said strip her, and strip her I did. All right, Rat, outside." He followed the Centaurian out, and pulled the ladder away from the lip of the lock. The two walked across the strip of sandy soil to the office building. On tiptoes, Greaseball poked his head through the door panel. "All set."
Roberds nodded at him. "Stick with it!" and jerked a thumb at Rat outside. Grease nodded understanding.
"Okay, Rat, you can go to bed now." He dropped the ladder against the wall and sat on it. "Good night." He watched Rat walk slowly away.
Swinging down the path towards his own rambling shack, Rat caught a sibilant whisper. Pausing, undecided, he heard it again.
"Here ... can you see me?" A white clad arm waved in the gloom. Rat regarded the arm in the window. Another impatient gesture, and he stepped to the sill.
"Yes?"—in the softest of whispers. The voices of the men in droning conversation drifted in. "What you want?"
Nothing but silence for a few hanging seconds, and then: "Can you pilot that ship?" Her voice was shaky.
He didn't answer, stared at her confused. He felt her fear as clearly as he detected it in her words.
"Well, can you?" she demanded.
"Damn yes!" he stated simply. "It now necessary?"
"Very! She is becoming worse. I'm afraid to wait until daylight. And ... well, we want you to pilot it! She refuses to risk Mr. Roberds' job. She favors you."
Rat stepped back, astonished. "She?"
Nurse Gray moved from the window and Rat saw the second form in the room, a slight, quiet figure on a small cot. "My patient," Nurse Gray explained. "She overheard our conversation awhile ago. Quick, please, can you?"
Rat looked at her and then at the girl on the cot. He vanished from the window. Almost immediately, he was back again.
"When?" he whispered.
"As soon as possible. Yes. Do you know...?" but he had gone again. Nurse Gray found herself addressing blackness. On the point of turning, she saw him back again.
"Blankets," he instructed. "Wrap in blankets. Cold—hot too. Wrap good!" And he was gone again. Gray blinked away the illusion he disappeared upwards.
She ran over to the girl. "Judith, if you want to back down, now is the time. He'll be back in a moment."
"No!" Judith moaned. "No!" Gray smiled in the darkness and began wrapping the blankets around her. A light tapping at the window announced the return of Rat. The nurse pushed open the window wide, saw him out there with arms upstretched.
"Grit your teeth and hold on! Here we go." She picked up the blanketed girl in both arms and walked to the window. Rat took the girl easily as she was swung out, the blackness hid them both. But he appeared again instantly.
"Better lock window," he cautioned. "Stall, if Boss call. Back soon...." and he was gone.
To Nurse Gray the fifteen minute wait seemed like hours, impatient agonizing hours of tight-lipped anxiety.
Feet first, she swung through the window, clutching a small bag in her hands. She never touched ground. Rat whispered "Hold tight!" in her ear and the wind was abruptly yanked from her! The ground fell away in a dizzy rush, unseen but felt, in the night! Her feet scraped on some projection, and she felt herself being lifted still higher. Wind returned to her throat, and she breathed again.
"I'm sorry," she managed to get out, gaspingly. "I wasn't expecting that. I had forgotten you—"
"—had wings," he finished and chuckled. "So likewise Greaseball." The pale office lights dropped away as they sped over the field. On the far horizon, a tinge of dawn crept along the uneven terrain.
"Oh, the bag!" she gasped. "I've dropped it."
He chuckled again. "Have got. You scare, I catch."
She didn't see the ship because of the wind in her eyes, but without warning she plummeted down and her feet jarred on the lip of the lock.
"Inside. No noise, no light. Easy." But in spite of his warning she tripped in the darkness. He helped her from the floor and guided her to the hammocks.
"Judith?" she asked.
"Here. Beside you, trussed up so tight I can hardly breathe."
"No talk!" Rat insisted. "Much hush-hush needed. Other girl shipshape. You make likewise." Forcibly he shoved her into a hammock. "Wrap up tight. Straps tight. When we go, we go fast. Bang!" And he left her.
"Hey! Where are you going now?"
"To get Gladney. He sick too. Hush hush!" His voice floated back.
"Where has he gone?" Judith called.
"Back for another man. Remember the two miners who found us when we crashed? The burly one fell off a rock-bank as they were bringing us in. Stove in his ribs pretty badly. The other has a broken arm ... happened once while you were out. They wouldn't let me say anything for fear of worrying you."
The girl did not answer then and a hushed expectancy fell over the ship. Somewhere aft a small motor was running. Wind whistled past the open lock.
"I've caused plenty of trouble haven't I?" she asked aloud, finally.
"This was certainly a fool stunt, and I'm guilty of a lot of fool stunts! I just didn't realize until now the why of that law."
"Don't talk so much," the nurse admonished. "A lot of people have found out the why of that law the hard way, just as you are doing, and lived to remember it. Until hospitals are built on this forlorn world, humans like you who haven't been properly conditioned will have to stay right at home."
"How about these men that live and work here?"
"They never get here until they've been through the mill first. Adenoids, appendix', all the extra parts they can get along without."
"Well," Judith said. "I've certainly learned my lesson!"
Gray didn't answer, but from out of the darkness surrounding her came a sound remarkably resembling a snort.
"Gray?" Judith asked fearfully.
"Yes?"
"Hasn't the pilot been gone an awfully long time?"
Rat himself provided the answer by alighting at the lip with a jar that shook the ship. He was breathing heavily and lugging something in his arms. The burden groaned.
"Gladney!" Nurse Gray exclaimed.
"I got." Rat confirmed. "Yes, Gladney. Damn heavy, Gladney."
"But how?" she demanded. "What of Roberds and Peterson?"
"Trick," he sniggered. "I burn down my shack. Boss run out. I run in. Very simple." He packed Gladney into the remaining hammock and snapped buckles.
"And Peterson?" she prompted.
"Oh yes. Peterson. So sorry about Peterson. Had to fan him."
" Fan him? I don't understand."
"Fan. With chair. Everything all right. I apologized." Rat finished up and was walking back to the lock. They heard a slight rustling of wings as he padded away.
He was back instantly, duplicating his feat of a short time ago. Cursing shouts were slung on the night air, and the deadly spang of bullets bounced on the hull! Some entered the lock. The Centaurian snapped it shut. Chunks of lead continued to pound the ship. Rat leaped for the pilot's chair, heavily, a wing drooping.
"You've been hurt!" Gray cried. A small panel light outlined his features. She tried to struggle up.
"Lie still! We go. Boss get wise." With lightning fingers he flicked several switches on the panel, turned to her. "Hold belly. Zoom!"
Gray folded her hands across her stomach and closed her eyes.
Rat unlocked the master level and shoved!
"Whew!" Nurse Gray came back to throbbing awareness, the all too familiar feeling of a misplaced stomach attempting to force its crowded way into her boots plaguing her. Rockets roared in the rear. She loosened a few straps and twisted over. Judith was still out, her face tensed in pain. Gray bit her lip and twisted the other way. The Centaurian was grinning at her.
"Do you always leave in a hurry?" she demanded, and instantly wished she hadn't said it. He gave no outward sign.
"Long-time sleep," he announced. "Four, five hours maybe." The chest strap was lying loose at his side.
"That long!" she was incredulous. "I'm never out more than three hours!" Unloosening more straps, she sat up, glanced at the control panel.
"Not taking time," he stated simply and pointed to a dial. Gray shook her head and looked at the others.
"That isn't doing either of them any good!"
Rat nodded unhappily. "What's her matter—?" pointing.
"Appendix. Something about this atmosphere sends it haywire. The thing itself isn't diseased, but it starts manufacturing poison. Patient dies in a week unless it is taken out."
"Don't know it," he said briefly.
"Do you mean to say you don't have an appendix?" she demanded.
Rat folded his arms and considered this. "Don't know. Maybe yes, maybe no. Where's it hurt?"
Gray pointed out the location. The Centaurian considered this further and drifted into long contemplation. Watching him, Gray remembered his eyes that night ... only last night ... in the office. Peterson had refused to meet them. After awhile Rat came out of it.
"No," he waved. "No appendix. Never nowhere appendix."
"Then Mother Nature has finally woke up!" she exclaimed. "But why do Centaurians rate it exclusively?"
Rat ignored this and asked one of her. "What you and her doing up there?" He pointed back and up, to where Mars obliterated the stars.
"You might call it a pleasure jaunt. She's only seventeen. We came over in a cruiser belonging to her father; it was rather large and easy to handle. But the cruise ended when she lost control of the ship because of an attack of space-appendicitis. The rest you know."
"So you?"
"So I'm a combination nurse, governess, guard and what have you. Or will be until we get back. After this, I'll probably be looking for work." She shivered.
"Cold?" he inquired concernedly.
"On the contrary, I'm too warm." She started to remove the blanket. Rat threw up a hand to stop her.
"Leave on! Hot out here."
"But I'm too hot now. I want to take it off!"
"No. Leave on. Wool blanket. Keep in body heat, yes. Keep out cold, yes. Keep in, keep out, likewise. See?"
Gray stared at him. "I never thought of it that way before. Why of course! If it protects from one temperature, it will protect from another. Isn't it silly of me not to know that?" Heat pressing on her face accented the fact.
"What is your name?" she asked. "Your real one I mean."
He grinned. "Big. You couldn't say it. Sound like Christmas and bottlenose together real fast. Just say Rat. Everybody does." His eyes swept the panel and flashed back to her. "Your name Gray. Have a front name?"
"Patti."
"Pretty, Patti."
"No, just Patti. Say, what's the matter with the cooling system?"
"Damn punk," he said. "This crate for surface work. No space. Cooling system groan, damn punk. Won't keep cool here."
"And ..." she followed up, "it will get warmer as we go out?"
Rat turned back to his board in a brown study and carefully ignored her. Gray grasped an inkling of what the coming week could bring.
"But how about water?" she demanded next. "Is there enough?"
He faced about. "For her—" nodding to Judith, "and him—" to Gladney,
"yes. Sparingly. Four hours every time, maybe." Back to Gray. "You, me ... twice a day. Too bad." His eyes drifted aft to the tank of water. She followed. "One tank water. All the rest fuel. Too bad, too bad. We get thirsty I think."
They did get thirsty, soon. A damnable hot thirst accented by the knowledge that water was precious, a thirst increased by a dried-up-in-the-mouth sensation. Their first drink was strangely bitter; tragically disappointing. Patti Gray suddenly swung upright in the hammock and kicked her legs. She massaged her throat with a nervous hand, wiped damp hair from about her face.
"I have to have a drink."
Rat stared at her without answer.
"I said, I have to have a drink!"
"Heard you."
"Well...?"
"Well, nothing. Stall. Keep water longer."
She swung a vicious boot and missed by inches. Rat grinned, and made his way aft, hand over hand. He treaded cautiously along the deck. "Do like this," he called over his shoulder. "Gravity punk too. Back and under, gravity." He waited until she joined him at the water tap.
They stood there glaring idiotically at each other.
She burst out laughing. "They even threw the drinking cups out!" Rat inched the handle grudgingly and she applied lips to the faucet.
"Faugh!" Gray sprang back, forgot herself and lost her balance, sat down on the deck and spat out the water. "It's hot! It tastes like hell and it's hot! It must be fuel!"
Rat applied his lips to the tap and sampled. Coming up with a mouthful he swished it around on his tongue like mouthwash. Abruptly he contrived a facial contortion between a grin and a grimace, and let some of the water trickle from the edges of his mouth. He swallowed and it cost him something.
"No. I mean yes, I think. Water, no doubt. Yes. Fuel out, water in. Swish-swush. Dammit, Greaseball forget to wash tank!"
"But what makes it so hot?" She worked her mouth to dry-rinse the taste of the fuel.
"Ship get hot. Water on sun side. H-m-m-m-m-m-m."
"H-m-m-m-m-m-m-m what?"
"Flip-flop." He could talk with his hands as well. "Hot side over like pancake." Rat hobbled over to the board and sat down. An experimental flick on a lever produced nothing. Another flick, this time followed by a quivering jar. He contemplated the panel board while fastening his belt.
"H-m-m-m-m-m-m," the lower lip protruded.
Gray protested. "Oh, stop humming and do something! That wa—" the word was queerly torn from her throat, and a scream magically filled the vacancy. Nurse Gray sat up and rubbed a painful spot that had suddenly appeared on her arm. She found her nose bleeding and another new, swelling bruise on the side of her head. Around her the place was empty. Bare.
No, not quite. A wispy something was hanging just out of sight in the corner of the eye; the water tap was now moulded upward , beads glistening on its handle. The wispy thing caught her attention again and she looked up.
Two people, tightly wrapped and bound in hammocks, were staring down at her, amazed, swinging on their stomachs. Craning further, she saw Rat. He was hanging upside down in the chair, grinning at her in reverse.
"Flip-flop," he laconically explained.
"For cripes sakes, Jehosaphat!" Gladney groaned. "Turn me over on my back! Do something!" Gray stood on tiptoes and just could pivot the hammocks on their rope-axis.
"And now, please, just how do I get into mine?" she bit at Rat.
Existence dragged. Paradoxically, time dropped away like a cloak as the sense of individual hours and minutes vanished, and into its place crept a slow-torturing substitute. As the ship revolved, monotonously, first the ceiling and then the floor took on dullish, maddening aspects, eyes ached continuously from staring at them time and again without surcease. The steady, drumming rockets crashed into the mind and the walls shrieked malevolently on the eyeballs. Dull, throbbing sameness of the poorly filtered air, a growing taint in the nostrils. Damp warm skin, reeking blankets. The taste of fuel in the mouth for refreshment. Slowly mounting mental duress. And above all the drumming of the rockets.
Once, a sudden, frightening change of pitch in the rockets and a wild, sickening lurch. Meteor rain. Maddening, plunging swings to the far right and left, made without warning. A torn lip as a sudden lurch tears the faucet from her mouth. A shattered tooth.
"Sorry!" Rat whispered.
"Shut up and drive!" she cried.
"Patti ..." Judith called out, in pain.
Peace of mind followed peace of body into a forgotten limbo of lost things, a slyly climbing madness directed at one another. Waspish words uttered in pain, fatigue and temper. Fractiousness. A hot, confined, stale hell. Sleep became a hollow mockery, as bad water and concentrated tablets brought on stomach pains to plague them. Consciousness punctured only by spasms of lethargy, shared to some extent by the invalids. Above all, crawling lassitude and incalescent tempers.
Rat watched the white, drawn face swing in the hammock beside him. And his hands never faltered on the controls.
Never a slackening of the terrific pace; abnormal speed, gruelling drive ... drive ... drive. Fear. Tantalizing fear made worse because Rat couldn't understand. Smothered moaning that ate at his nerves. Grim-faced, sleep-wracked, belted to the chair, driving!
"How many days? How many days!" Gray begged of him thousands of times until the very repetition grated on her eardrums. "How many days?" His only answer was an inhuman snarl, and the cruel blazing of those inhuman eyes.
She fell face first to the floor. "I can't keep it up!" she cried. The sound of her voice rolled along the hot steel deck. "I cant! I cant!"
A double handful of tepid water was thrown in her face. "Get up!" Rat stood over her, face twisted, his body hunched. "Get up!" She stared at him, dazed. He kicked her. "Get up!" The tepid water ran off her face and far away she heard Judith calling.... She forced herself up. Rat was back in the chair.
Gladney unexpectedly exploded. He had been awake for a long time, watching Rat at the board. Wrenching loose a chest strap he attempted to sit up.
"Rat! Damn you Rat, listen to me! When're you going to start braking , Rat?"
"I hear you." He turned on Gladney with dulled eyes. "Lie down. You sick."
"I'll be damned if I'm going to lie here and let you drive us to Orion! We must be near the half-way line! When are you going to start braking?"
"Not brake," Rat answered sullenly. "No, not brake."
" Not brake? " Gladney screamed and sat bolt upright. Nurse Gray jumped for him. "Are you crazy, you skinny rat?" Gray secured a hold on his shoulders and forced him down. "You gotta brake! Don't you understand that? You have to, you vacuum-skull!" Gray was pleading with him to shut-up like a good fellow. He appealed to her. "He's gotta brake! Make him!"
"He has a good point there, Rat," she spoke up. "What about this half-way line?"
He turned to her with a weary ghost of the old smile on his face. "We passed line. Three days ago, maybe." A shrug of shoulders.
"Passed!" Gray and Gladney exclaimed in unison.
"You catch on quick," Rat nodded. "This six day, don't you know?"
Gladney sank back, exhausted. The nurse crept over to the pilot.
"Getting your figures mixed, aren't you?"
Rat shook his head and said nothing.
"But Roberds said eight days, and he—"
"—he on Mars. I here. Boss nuts, too sad. He drive, it be eight days. Now only six." He cast a glance at Judith and found her eyes closed.
"Six days, no brake. No."
"I see your point, and appreciate it," Gray cut in. "But now what? This deceleration business ... there is a whole lot I don't know, but some things I do!"
Rat refused the expected answer. "Land tonight, I think. Never been to Earth before. Somebody meet us, I think."
"You can bet your leather boots somebody will meet us!" Gladney cried. Gray turned to him. "The Chief'll have the whole planet waiting for you !" He laughed with real satisfaction. "Oh yes, Rat, they'll be somebody waiting for us all right." And then he added: "If we land."
"Oh, we land." Rat confided, glad to share a secret.
"Yeah," Gladney grated. "But in how many little pieces?"
"I've never been to Earth before. Nice, I think." Patti Gray caught something new in the tone and stared at him. Gladney must have noticed it, too.
The Centaurian moved sideways and pointed. Gray placed her eyes in the vacated position.
"Earth!" she shouted.
"Quite. Nice. Do me a favor?"
"Just name it!"
"Not drink long time. Some water?"
Gray nodded and went to the faucet. The drumming seemed remote, the tension vanished. She was an uncommonly long time in returning, at last she appeared beside him, outstretched hands dry.
"There isn't any left, Rat."
Rat batted his tired eyes expressively. "Tasted punk," he grinned at her.
She sat down on the floor suddenly and buried her face.
"Rat," she said presently, "I want to ask you something, rather personal? Your ... name. 'Rat'? Roberds told me something about your record. But ... please tell me, Rat. You didn't know the attack was coming, did you?"
He grinned again and waggled his head at her. "No. Who tell Rat?" Suddenly he was deadly serious as he spoke to her. "Rat a.w.o.l., go out to help sick man alone in desert. Rat leave post. Not time send call through. Come back with man, find horrible thing happen."
"But why didn't you explain?"
He grinned again. "Who believe? Sick man die soon after."
Gladney sat up. He had heard the conversation between the two. "You're right, Rat. No one would have believed you then, and no one will now. You've been safe enough on Mars, but the police will nab you as soon as you get out of the ship."
"They can't!" cried Patti Gray. "They can't hurt him after what he's done now."
The Centaurian grinned in a cynical way.
"Police not get me, Gladney. Gladney's memory damn punk, I think. Earth pretty nice place, maybe. But not for Rat."
Gladney stared at him for minutes. Then: "Say, I get it ... you're—"
"Shut up!" Rat cut him off sharply. "You talk too much." He cast a glance at Nurse Gray and then threw a meaning look at Gladney.
Question:
What is the importance of the crashing of the ship of Judith's father?
Answer:
|
[
"The crashing of the ship brings Judith and Patti to Mars where they meet two miners and then the whole crew of the spaceship including Rat. Judith wouldn't get that sick and lose the means to return to Earth if the ship didn't crash. The miners wouldn't suffer after helping the girls. Therefore, Judith wouldn't learn the lesson of breaking the law and leaving Earth. The crashing also leads to the necessity of Rat piloting the ship and all the party suffering from heat and thirst. The whole situation of danger and limitless occurs because the ship crashed and the girl gets sick on Mars, so she needs to get to Earth immediately. ",
"The ship crashed because Judith was piloting the ship and began to experience the symptoms of her appendicitis. It is unknown whether Judith’s father survived the crash. It is implied that the man that Rat helped in the desert is perhaps Judith’s father. Rat helping that man is what caused him to be declared AWOL and why he might have authorities after him for his failure to report to duty. If the ship had not crashed then Judith’s father would not have been alone and injured in the desert, and Rat would not have been AWOL trying to help the man. ",
"The crashing of the ship of Judith’s father is what sets up the story. Nurse Gray explains that Judith took her father’s cruiser as a pleasure jaunt and came over. Although the ship is supposed to be large and easy to handle, the journey ended after Judith lost control of the ship because of an attack of space-appendicitis. The ship's crashing is what leads her to be on Mars, and it is also the cause of her illness because she has not gone through the same mill that the men who live and work there have gone through. This past event also sets up the current events of Rat speed-driving the ship back to Earth to save her life. ",
"Judith's father's ship crashing leaves Judith and Patti Gray stranded on Mars. She initially wanted to recklessly travel to Mars, Gray coming along with her, and used her father's ship because it was easy to navigate. However, she was soon attacked by space-appendicitis and lost control of the ship, causing it to crash. This is significant because Judith and Patti Gray no longer have a way home, with Judith's illness becoming worse. They are desperate to return to Earth and thus resort to taking the ship with Rat as their pilot. "
] |
62212
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PRISON PLANET
By BOB TUCKER
To remain on Mars meant death from agonizing space-sickness, but Earth-surgery lay days of flight away. And there was only a surface rocket in which to escape—with a traitorous Ganymedean for its pilot.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"Listen, Rat!" Roberds said, "what I say goes around here. It doesn't happen to be any of your business. I'm still in possession of my wits, and I know Peterson can't handle that ship. Furthermore Gladney will be in it too, right along side of that sick girl in there! And Rat, get this: I'm going to pilot that ship. Understand? Consulate or no Consulate, job or no job, I'm wheeling that crate to Earth because this is an emergency. And the emergency happens to be bigger than my position, to me at any rate." His tone dropped to a deadly softness.
"Now will you kindly remove your stinking carcass from this office?"
Unheeding, Rat swung his eyes around in the gloom and discovered the woman, a nurse in uniform. He blinked at her and she returned the look, wavering. She bit her lip and determination flowed back. She met the stare of his boring, off-colored eyes. Rat grinned suddenly. Nurse Gray almost smiled back, stopped before the others could see it.
"Won't go!" The Centaurian resumed his fight. "You not go, lose job, black-listed. Never get another. Look at me. I know." He retreated a precious step to escape a rolled up fist. "Little ship carry four nice. Rip out lockers and bunks. Swing hammocks. Put fuel in water tanks. Live on concentrates. Earth hospital fix bellyache afterwards, allright. I pilot ship. Yes?"
"No!" Roberds screamed.
Almost in answer, a moan issued from a small side room. The men in the office froze as Nurse Gray ran across the room. She disappeared through the narrow door.
"Peterson," the field manager ordered, "come over here and help me throw this rat out...." He went for Rat. Peterson swung up out of his chair with balled fist. The outlander backed rapidly.
"No need, no need, no need!" he said quickly. "I go." Still backing, he blindly kicked at the door and stepped into the night.
When the door slammed shut Roberds locked it. Peterson slumped in the chair.
"Do you mean that, Chief? About taking the ship yourself?"
"True enough." Roberds cast an anxious glance at the partly closed door, lowered his voice. "It'll cost me my job, but that girl in there has to be taken to a hospital quickly! And it's her luck to be landed on a planet that doesn't boast even one! So it's Earth ... or she dies. I'd feel a lot better too if we could get Gladney to a hospital, I'm not too confident of that patching job." He pulled a pipe from a jacket pocket. "So, might as well kill two birds with one stone ... and that wasn't meant to be funny!"
Peterson said nothing, sat watching the door.
"Rat has the right idea," Roberds continued, "but I had already thought of it. About the bunks and lockers. Greaseball has been out there all night tearing them out. We just might be able to hop by dawn ... and hell of a long, grinding hop it will be!"
The nurse came out of the door.
"How is she?" Roberds asked.
"Sleeping," Gray whispered. "But sinking...."
"We can take off at dawn, I think." He filled the pipe and didn't look at her. "You'll have to spend most of the trip in a hammock."
"I can take it." Suddenly she smiled, wanly. "I was with the Fleet. How long will it take?"
"Eight days, in that ship."
Roberds lit his pipe, and carefully hid his emotions. He knew Peterson was harboring the same thoughts. Eight days in space, in a small ship meant for two, and built for planetary surface flights. Eight days in that untrustworthy crate, hurtling to save the lives of that girl and Gladney.
"Who was that ... man? The one you put out?" Gray asked.
"We call him Rat," Roberds said.
She didn't ask why. She said: "Why couldn't he pilot the ship, I mean? What is his record?"
Peterson opened his mouth.
"Shut up, Peterson!" the Chief snapped. "We don't talk about his record around here, Miss Gray. It's not a pretty thing to tell."
"Stow it, Chief," said Peterson. "Miss Gray is no pantywaist." He turned to the nurse. "Ever hear of the Sansan massacre?"
Patti Gray paled. "Yes," she whispered. "Was Rat in that?"
Roberds shook his head. "He didn't take part in it. But Rat was attached to a very important office at the time, the outpost watch. And when Mad Barry Sansan and his gang of thugs swooped down on the Ganymedean colony, there was no warning. Our friend Rat was AWOL.
"As to who he is ... well, just one of those freaks from up around Centauria somewhere. He's been hanging around all the fields and dumps on Mars a long time, finally landed up here."
"But," protested Miss Gray, "I don't understand? I always thought that leaving one's post under such circumstances meant execution."
The Chief Consul nodded. "It does, usually. But this was a freak case. It would take hours to explain. However, I'll just sum it up in one word: politics. Politics, with which Rat had no connection saved him."
The girl shook her head, more in sympathy than condemnation.
"Are you expecting the others in soon?" she asked. "It wouldn't be right to leave Peterson."
"They will be in, in a day or two. Peterson will beat it over to Base station for repairs, and to notify Earth we're coming. He'll be all right."
Abruptly she stood up. "Goodnight gentlemen. Call me if I'm needed."
Roberds nodded acknowledgement. The door to the side room closed behind her. Peterson hauled his chair over to the desk. He sniffed the air.
"Damned rat!" he whispered harshly. "They ought to make a law forcing him to wear dark glasses!"
Roberds smiled wearily. "His eyes do get a man, don't they?"
"I'd like to burn 'em out!" Peterson snarled.
Rat helped Greaseball fill the water tanks to capacity with fuel, checked the concentrated rations and grunted.
Greaseball looked over the interior and chuckled. "The boss said strip her, and strip her I did. All right, Rat, outside." He followed the Centaurian out, and pulled the ladder away from the lip of the lock. The two walked across the strip of sandy soil to the office building. On tiptoes, Greaseball poked his head through the door panel. "All set."
Roberds nodded at him. "Stick with it!" and jerked a thumb at Rat outside. Grease nodded understanding.
"Okay, Rat, you can go to bed now." He dropped the ladder against the wall and sat on it. "Good night." He watched Rat walk slowly away.
Swinging down the path towards his own rambling shack, Rat caught a sibilant whisper. Pausing, undecided, he heard it again.
"Here ... can you see me?" A white clad arm waved in the gloom. Rat regarded the arm in the window. Another impatient gesture, and he stepped to the sill.
"Yes?"—in the softest of whispers. The voices of the men in droning conversation drifted in. "What you want?"
Nothing but silence for a few hanging seconds, and then: "Can you pilot that ship?" Her voice was shaky.
He didn't answer, stared at her confused. He felt her fear as clearly as he detected it in her words.
"Well, can you?" she demanded.
"Damn yes!" he stated simply. "It now necessary?"
"Very! She is becoming worse. I'm afraid to wait until daylight. And ... well, we want you to pilot it! She refuses to risk Mr. Roberds' job. She favors you."
Rat stepped back, astonished. "She?"
Nurse Gray moved from the window and Rat saw the second form in the room, a slight, quiet figure on a small cot. "My patient," Nurse Gray explained. "She overheard our conversation awhile ago. Quick, please, can you?"
Rat looked at her and then at the girl on the cot. He vanished from the window. Almost immediately, he was back again.
"When?" he whispered.
"As soon as possible. Yes. Do you know...?" but he had gone again. Nurse Gray found herself addressing blackness. On the point of turning, she saw him back again.
"Blankets," he instructed. "Wrap in blankets. Cold—hot too. Wrap good!" And he was gone again. Gray blinked away the illusion he disappeared upwards.
She ran over to the girl. "Judith, if you want to back down, now is the time. He'll be back in a moment."
"No!" Judith moaned. "No!" Gray smiled in the darkness and began wrapping the blankets around her. A light tapping at the window announced the return of Rat. The nurse pushed open the window wide, saw him out there with arms upstretched.
"Grit your teeth and hold on! Here we go." She picked up the blanketed girl in both arms and walked to the window. Rat took the girl easily as she was swung out, the blackness hid them both. But he appeared again instantly.
"Better lock window," he cautioned. "Stall, if Boss call. Back soon...." and he was gone.
To Nurse Gray the fifteen minute wait seemed like hours, impatient agonizing hours of tight-lipped anxiety.
Feet first, she swung through the window, clutching a small bag in her hands. She never touched ground. Rat whispered "Hold tight!" in her ear and the wind was abruptly yanked from her! The ground fell away in a dizzy rush, unseen but felt, in the night! Her feet scraped on some projection, and she felt herself being lifted still higher. Wind returned to her throat, and she breathed again.
"I'm sorry," she managed to get out, gaspingly. "I wasn't expecting that. I had forgotten you—"
"—had wings," he finished and chuckled. "So likewise Greaseball." The pale office lights dropped away as they sped over the field. On the far horizon, a tinge of dawn crept along the uneven terrain.
"Oh, the bag!" she gasped. "I've dropped it."
He chuckled again. "Have got. You scare, I catch."
She didn't see the ship because of the wind in her eyes, but without warning she plummeted down and her feet jarred on the lip of the lock.
"Inside. No noise, no light. Easy." But in spite of his warning she tripped in the darkness. He helped her from the floor and guided her to the hammocks.
"Judith?" she asked.
"Here. Beside you, trussed up so tight I can hardly breathe."
"No talk!" Rat insisted. "Much hush-hush needed. Other girl shipshape. You make likewise." Forcibly he shoved her into a hammock. "Wrap up tight. Straps tight. When we go, we go fast. Bang!" And he left her.
"Hey! Where are you going now?"
"To get Gladney. He sick too. Hush hush!" His voice floated back.
"Where has he gone?" Judith called.
"Back for another man. Remember the two miners who found us when we crashed? The burly one fell off a rock-bank as they were bringing us in. Stove in his ribs pretty badly. The other has a broken arm ... happened once while you were out. They wouldn't let me say anything for fear of worrying you."
The girl did not answer then and a hushed expectancy fell over the ship. Somewhere aft a small motor was running. Wind whistled past the open lock.
"I've caused plenty of trouble haven't I?" she asked aloud, finally.
"This was certainly a fool stunt, and I'm guilty of a lot of fool stunts! I just didn't realize until now the why of that law."
"Don't talk so much," the nurse admonished. "A lot of people have found out the why of that law the hard way, just as you are doing, and lived to remember it. Until hospitals are built on this forlorn world, humans like you who haven't been properly conditioned will have to stay right at home."
"How about these men that live and work here?"
"They never get here until they've been through the mill first. Adenoids, appendix', all the extra parts they can get along without."
"Well," Judith said. "I've certainly learned my lesson!"
Gray didn't answer, but from out of the darkness surrounding her came a sound remarkably resembling a snort.
"Gray?" Judith asked fearfully.
"Yes?"
"Hasn't the pilot been gone an awfully long time?"
Rat himself provided the answer by alighting at the lip with a jar that shook the ship. He was breathing heavily and lugging something in his arms. The burden groaned.
"Gladney!" Nurse Gray exclaimed.
"I got." Rat confirmed. "Yes, Gladney. Damn heavy, Gladney."
"But how?" she demanded. "What of Roberds and Peterson?"
"Trick," he sniggered. "I burn down my shack. Boss run out. I run in. Very simple." He packed Gladney into the remaining hammock and snapped buckles.
"And Peterson?" she prompted.
"Oh yes. Peterson. So sorry about Peterson. Had to fan him."
" Fan him? I don't understand."
"Fan. With chair. Everything all right. I apologized." Rat finished up and was walking back to the lock. They heard a slight rustling of wings as he padded away.
He was back instantly, duplicating his feat of a short time ago. Cursing shouts were slung on the night air, and the deadly spang of bullets bounced on the hull! Some entered the lock. The Centaurian snapped it shut. Chunks of lead continued to pound the ship. Rat leaped for the pilot's chair, heavily, a wing drooping.
"You've been hurt!" Gray cried. A small panel light outlined his features. She tried to struggle up.
"Lie still! We go. Boss get wise." With lightning fingers he flicked several switches on the panel, turned to her. "Hold belly. Zoom!"
Gray folded her hands across her stomach and closed her eyes.
Rat unlocked the master level and shoved!
"Whew!" Nurse Gray came back to throbbing awareness, the all too familiar feeling of a misplaced stomach attempting to force its crowded way into her boots plaguing her. Rockets roared in the rear. She loosened a few straps and twisted over. Judith was still out, her face tensed in pain. Gray bit her lip and twisted the other way. The Centaurian was grinning at her.
"Do you always leave in a hurry?" she demanded, and instantly wished she hadn't said it. He gave no outward sign.
"Long-time sleep," he announced. "Four, five hours maybe." The chest strap was lying loose at his side.
"That long!" she was incredulous. "I'm never out more than three hours!" Unloosening more straps, she sat up, glanced at the control panel.
"Not taking time," he stated simply and pointed to a dial. Gray shook her head and looked at the others.
"That isn't doing either of them any good!"
Rat nodded unhappily. "What's her matter—?" pointing.
"Appendix. Something about this atmosphere sends it haywire. The thing itself isn't diseased, but it starts manufacturing poison. Patient dies in a week unless it is taken out."
"Don't know it," he said briefly.
"Do you mean to say you don't have an appendix?" she demanded.
Rat folded his arms and considered this. "Don't know. Maybe yes, maybe no. Where's it hurt?"
Gray pointed out the location. The Centaurian considered this further and drifted into long contemplation. Watching him, Gray remembered his eyes that night ... only last night ... in the office. Peterson had refused to meet them. After awhile Rat came out of it.
"No," he waved. "No appendix. Never nowhere appendix."
"Then Mother Nature has finally woke up!" she exclaimed. "But why do Centaurians rate it exclusively?"
Rat ignored this and asked one of her. "What you and her doing up there?" He pointed back and up, to where Mars obliterated the stars.
"You might call it a pleasure jaunt. She's only seventeen. We came over in a cruiser belonging to her father; it was rather large and easy to handle. But the cruise ended when she lost control of the ship because of an attack of space-appendicitis. The rest you know."
"So you?"
"So I'm a combination nurse, governess, guard and what have you. Or will be until we get back. After this, I'll probably be looking for work." She shivered.
"Cold?" he inquired concernedly.
"On the contrary, I'm too warm." She started to remove the blanket. Rat threw up a hand to stop her.
"Leave on! Hot out here."
"But I'm too hot now. I want to take it off!"
"No. Leave on. Wool blanket. Keep in body heat, yes. Keep out cold, yes. Keep in, keep out, likewise. See?"
Gray stared at him. "I never thought of it that way before. Why of course! If it protects from one temperature, it will protect from another. Isn't it silly of me not to know that?" Heat pressing on her face accented the fact.
"What is your name?" she asked. "Your real one I mean."
He grinned. "Big. You couldn't say it. Sound like Christmas and bottlenose together real fast. Just say Rat. Everybody does." His eyes swept the panel and flashed back to her. "Your name Gray. Have a front name?"
"Patti."
"Pretty, Patti."
"No, just Patti. Say, what's the matter with the cooling system?"
"Damn punk," he said. "This crate for surface work. No space. Cooling system groan, damn punk. Won't keep cool here."
"And ..." she followed up, "it will get warmer as we go out?"
Rat turned back to his board in a brown study and carefully ignored her. Gray grasped an inkling of what the coming week could bring.
"But how about water?" she demanded next. "Is there enough?"
He faced about. "For her—" nodding to Judith, "and him—" to Gladney,
"yes. Sparingly. Four hours every time, maybe." Back to Gray. "You, me ... twice a day. Too bad." His eyes drifted aft to the tank of water. She followed. "One tank water. All the rest fuel. Too bad, too bad. We get thirsty I think."
They did get thirsty, soon. A damnable hot thirst accented by the knowledge that water was precious, a thirst increased by a dried-up-in-the-mouth sensation. Their first drink was strangely bitter; tragically disappointing. Patti Gray suddenly swung upright in the hammock and kicked her legs. She massaged her throat with a nervous hand, wiped damp hair from about her face.
"I have to have a drink."
Rat stared at her without answer.
"I said, I have to have a drink!"
"Heard you."
"Well...?"
"Well, nothing. Stall. Keep water longer."
She swung a vicious boot and missed by inches. Rat grinned, and made his way aft, hand over hand. He treaded cautiously along the deck. "Do like this," he called over his shoulder. "Gravity punk too. Back and under, gravity." He waited until she joined him at the water tap.
They stood there glaring idiotically at each other.
She burst out laughing. "They even threw the drinking cups out!" Rat inched the handle grudgingly and she applied lips to the faucet.
"Faugh!" Gray sprang back, forgot herself and lost her balance, sat down on the deck and spat out the water. "It's hot! It tastes like hell and it's hot! It must be fuel!"
Rat applied his lips to the tap and sampled. Coming up with a mouthful he swished it around on his tongue like mouthwash. Abruptly he contrived a facial contortion between a grin and a grimace, and let some of the water trickle from the edges of his mouth. He swallowed and it cost him something.
"No. I mean yes, I think. Water, no doubt. Yes. Fuel out, water in. Swish-swush. Dammit, Greaseball forget to wash tank!"
"But what makes it so hot?" She worked her mouth to dry-rinse the taste of the fuel.
"Ship get hot. Water on sun side. H-m-m-m-m-m-m."
"H-m-m-m-m-m-m-m what?"
"Flip-flop." He could talk with his hands as well. "Hot side over like pancake." Rat hobbled over to the board and sat down. An experimental flick on a lever produced nothing. Another flick, this time followed by a quivering jar. He contemplated the panel board while fastening his belt.
"H-m-m-m-m-m-m," the lower lip protruded.
Gray protested. "Oh, stop humming and do something! That wa—" the word was queerly torn from her throat, and a scream magically filled the vacancy. Nurse Gray sat up and rubbed a painful spot that had suddenly appeared on her arm. She found her nose bleeding and another new, swelling bruise on the side of her head. Around her the place was empty. Bare.
No, not quite. A wispy something was hanging just out of sight in the corner of the eye; the water tap was now moulded upward , beads glistening on its handle. The wispy thing caught her attention again and she looked up.
Two people, tightly wrapped and bound in hammocks, were staring down at her, amazed, swinging on their stomachs. Craning further, she saw Rat. He was hanging upside down in the chair, grinning at her in reverse.
"Flip-flop," he laconically explained.
"For cripes sakes, Jehosaphat!" Gladney groaned. "Turn me over on my back! Do something!" Gray stood on tiptoes and just could pivot the hammocks on their rope-axis.
"And now, please, just how do I get into mine?" she bit at Rat.
Existence dragged. Paradoxically, time dropped away like a cloak as the sense of individual hours and minutes vanished, and into its place crept a slow-torturing substitute. As the ship revolved, monotonously, first the ceiling and then the floor took on dullish, maddening aspects, eyes ached continuously from staring at them time and again without surcease. The steady, drumming rockets crashed into the mind and the walls shrieked malevolently on the eyeballs. Dull, throbbing sameness of the poorly filtered air, a growing taint in the nostrils. Damp warm skin, reeking blankets. The taste of fuel in the mouth for refreshment. Slowly mounting mental duress. And above all the drumming of the rockets.
Once, a sudden, frightening change of pitch in the rockets and a wild, sickening lurch. Meteor rain. Maddening, plunging swings to the far right and left, made without warning. A torn lip as a sudden lurch tears the faucet from her mouth. A shattered tooth.
"Sorry!" Rat whispered.
"Shut up and drive!" she cried.
"Patti ..." Judith called out, in pain.
Peace of mind followed peace of body into a forgotten limbo of lost things, a slyly climbing madness directed at one another. Waspish words uttered in pain, fatigue and temper. Fractiousness. A hot, confined, stale hell. Sleep became a hollow mockery, as bad water and concentrated tablets brought on stomach pains to plague them. Consciousness punctured only by spasms of lethargy, shared to some extent by the invalids. Above all, crawling lassitude and incalescent tempers.
Rat watched the white, drawn face swing in the hammock beside him. And his hands never faltered on the controls.
Never a slackening of the terrific pace; abnormal speed, gruelling drive ... drive ... drive. Fear. Tantalizing fear made worse because Rat couldn't understand. Smothered moaning that ate at his nerves. Grim-faced, sleep-wracked, belted to the chair, driving!
"How many days? How many days!" Gray begged of him thousands of times until the very repetition grated on her eardrums. "How many days?" His only answer was an inhuman snarl, and the cruel blazing of those inhuman eyes.
She fell face first to the floor. "I can't keep it up!" she cried. The sound of her voice rolled along the hot steel deck. "I cant! I cant!"
A double handful of tepid water was thrown in her face. "Get up!" Rat stood over her, face twisted, his body hunched. "Get up!" She stared at him, dazed. He kicked her. "Get up!" The tepid water ran off her face and far away she heard Judith calling.... She forced herself up. Rat was back in the chair.
Gladney unexpectedly exploded. He had been awake for a long time, watching Rat at the board. Wrenching loose a chest strap he attempted to sit up.
"Rat! Damn you Rat, listen to me! When're you going to start braking , Rat?"
"I hear you." He turned on Gladney with dulled eyes. "Lie down. You sick."
"I'll be damned if I'm going to lie here and let you drive us to Orion! We must be near the half-way line! When are you going to start braking?"
"Not brake," Rat answered sullenly. "No, not brake."
" Not brake? " Gladney screamed and sat bolt upright. Nurse Gray jumped for him. "Are you crazy, you skinny rat?" Gray secured a hold on his shoulders and forced him down. "You gotta brake! Don't you understand that? You have to, you vacuum-skull!" Gray was pleading with him to shut-up like a good fellow. He appealed to her. "He's gotta brake! Make him!"
"He has a good point there, Rat," she spoke up. "What about this half-way line?"
He turned to her with a weary ghost of the old smile on his face. "We passed line. Three days ago, maybe." A shrug of shoulders.
"Passed!" Gray and Gladney exclaimed in unison.
"You catch on quick," Rat nodded. "This six day, don't you know?"
Gladney sank back, exhausted. The nurse crept over to the pilot.
"Getting your figures mixed, aren't you?"
Rat shook his head and said nothing.
"But Roberds said eight days, and he—"
"—he on Mars. I here. Boss nuts, too sad. He drive, it be eight days. Now only six." He cast a glance at Judith and found her eyes closed.
"Six days, no brake. No."
"I see your point, and appreciate it," Gray cut in. "But now what? This deceleration business ... there is a whole lot I don't know, but some things I do!"
Rat refused the expected answer. "Land tonight, I think. Never been to Earth before. Somebody meet us, I think."
"You can bet your leather boots somebody will meet us!" Gladney cried. Gray turned to him. "The Chief'll have the whole planet waiting for you !" He laughed with real satisfaction. "Oh yes, Rat, they'll be somebody waiting for us all right." And then he added: "If we land."
"Oh, we land." Rat confided, glad to share a secret.
"Yeah," Gladney grated. "But in how many little pieces?"
"I've never been to Earth before. Nice, I think." Patti Gray caught something new in the tone and stared at him. Gladney must have noticed it, too.
The Centaurian moved sideways and pointed. Gray placed her eyes in the vacated position.
"Earth!" she shouted.
"Quite. Nice. Do me a favor?"
"Just name it!"
"Not drink long time. Some water?"
Gray nodded and went to the faucet. The drumming seemed remote, the tension vanished. She was an uncommonly long time in returning, at last she appeared beside him, outstretched hands dry.
"There isn't any left, Rat."
Rat batted his tired eyes expressively. "Tasted punk," he grinned at her.
She sat down on the floor suddenly and buried her face.
"Rat," she said presently, "I want to ask you something, rather personal? Your ... name. 'Rat'? Roberds told me something about your record. But ... please tell me, Rat. You didn't know the attack was coming, did you?"
He grinned again and waggled his head at her. "No. Who tell Rat?" Suddenly he was deadly serious as he spoke to her. "Rat a.w.o.l., go out to help sick man alone in desert. Rat leave post. Not time send call through. Come back with man, find horrible thing happen."
"But why didn't you explain?"
He grinned again. "Who believe? Sick man die soon after."
Gladney sat up. He had heard the conversation between the two. "You're right, Rat. No one would have believed you then, and no one will now. You've been safe enough on Mars, but the police will nab you as soon as you get out of the ship."
"They can't!" cried Patti Gray. "They can't hurt him after what he's done now."
The Centaurian grinned in a cynical way.
"Police not get me, Gladney. Gladney's memory damn punk, I think. Earth pretty nice place, maybe. But not for Rat."
Gladney stared at him for minutes. Then: "Say, I get it ... you're—"
"Shut up!" Rat cut him off sharply. "You talk too much." He cast a glance at Nurse Gray and then threw a meaning look at Gladney.
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Describe the setting of the story.
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about A City Near Centaurus by William R. Doede.
Relevant chunks:
A CITY NEAR CENTAURUS
By BILL DOEDE
Illustrated by WEST
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine October 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The city was sacred, but not to its gods. Michaelson was a god—but far from sacred!
Crouched in the ancient doorway like an animal peering out from his burrow, Mr. Michaelson saw the native.
At first he was startled, thinking it might be someone else from the Earth settlement who had discovered the old city before him. Then he saw the glint of sun against the metallic skirt, and relaxed.
He chuckled to himself, wondering with amusement what a webfooted man was doing in an old dead city so far from his people. Some facts were known about the people of Alpha Centaurus II. They were not actually natives, he recalled. They were a colony from the fifth planet of the system. They were a curious people. Some were highly intelligent, though uneducated.
He decided to ignore the man for the moment. He was far down the ancient street, a mere speck against the sand. There would be plenty of time to wonder about him.
He gazed out from his position at the complex variety of buildings before him. Some were small, obviously homes. Others were huge with tall, frail spires standing against the pale blue sky. Square buildings, ellipsoid, spheroid. Beautiful, dream-stuff bridges connected tall, conical towers, bridges that still swung in the wind after half a million years. Late afternoon sunlight shone against ebony surfaces. The sands of many centuries had blown down the wide streets and filled the doorways. Desert plants grew from roofs of smaller buildings.
Ignoring the native, Mr. Michaelson poked about among the ruins happily, exclaiming to himself about some particular artifact, marveling at its state of preservation, holding it this way and that to catch the late afternoon sun, smiling, clucking gleefully. He crawled over the rubble through old doorways half filled with the accumulation of ages. He dug experimentally in the sand with his hands, like a dog, under a roof that had weathered half a million years of rain and sun. Then he crawled out again, covered with dust and cobwebs.
The native stood in the street less than a hundred feet away, waving his arms madly. "Mr. Earthgod," he cried. "It is sacred ground where you are trespassing!"
The archeologist smiled, watching the man hurry closer. He was short, even for a native. Long gray hair hung to his shoulders, bobbing up and down as he walked. He wore no shoes. The toes of his webbed feet dragged in the sand, making a deep trail behind him. He was an old man.
"You never told us about this old dead city," Michaelson said, chidingly. "Shame on you. But never mind. I've found it now. Isn't it beautiful?"
"Yes, beautiful. You will leave now."
"Leave?" Michaelson asked, acting surprised as if the man were a child. "I just got here a few hours ago."
"You must go."
"Why? Who are you?"
"I am keeper of the city."
"You?" Michaelson laughed. Then, seeing how serious the native was, said, "What makes you think a dead city needs a keeper?"
"The spirits may return."
Michaelson crawled out of the doorway and stood up. He brushed his trousers. He pointed. "See that wall? Built of some metal, I'd say, some alloy impervious to rust and wear."
"The spirits are angry."
"Notice the inscriptions? Wind has blown sand against them for eons, and rain and sleet. But their story is there, once we decipher it."
"Leave!"
The native's lined, weathered old face was working around the mouth in anger. Michaelson was almost sorry he had mocked him. He was deadly serious.
"Look," he said. "No spirits are ever coming back here. Don't you know that? And even if they did, spirits care nothing for old cities half covered with sand and dirt."
He walked away from the old man, heading for another building. The sun had already gone below the horizon, coloring the high clouds. He glanced backward. The webfoot was following.
"Mr. Earthgod!" the webfoot cried, so sharply that Michaelson stopped.
"You must not touch, not walk upon, not handle. Your step may destroy the home of some ancient spirit. Your breath may cause one iota of change and a spirit may lose his way in the darkness. Go quickly now, or be killed."
He turned and walked off, not looking back.
Michaelson stood in the ancient street, tall, gaunt, feet planted wide, hands in pockets, watching the webfoot until he was out of sight beyond a huge circular building. There was a man to watch. There was one of the intelligent ones. One look into the alert old eyes had told him that.
Michaelson shook his head, and went about satisfying his curiosity. He entered buildings without thought of roofs falling in, or decayed floors dropping from under his weight. He began to collect small items, making a pile of them in the street. An ancient bowl, metal untouched by the ages. A statue of a man, one foot high, correct to the minutest detail, showing how identical they had been to Earthmen. He found books still standing on ancient shelves but was afraid to touch them without tools.
Darkness came swiftly and he was forced out into the street.
He stood there alone feeling the age of the place. Even the smell of age was in the air. Silver moonlight from the two moons filtered through clear air down upon the ruins. The city lay now in darkness, dead and still, waiting for morning so it could lie dead and still in the sun.
There was no hurry to be going home, although he was alone, although this was Alpha Centaurus II with many unknowns, many dangers ... although home was a very great distance away. There was no one back there to worry about him.
His wife had died many years ago back on Earth. No children. His friends in the settlement would not look for him for another day at least. Anyway, the tiny cylinder, buried in flesh behind his ear, a thing of mystery and immense power, could take him home instantly, without effort save a flicker of thought.
"You did not leave, as I asked you."
Michaelson whirled around at the sound of the native's voice. Then he relaxed. He said, "You shouldn't sneak up on a man like that."
"You must leave, or I will be forced to kill you. I do not want to kill you, but if I must...." He made a clucking sound deep in the throat.
"The spirits are angry."
"Nonsense. Superstition! But never mind. You have been here longer than I. Tell me, what are those instruments in the rooms? It looks like a clock but I'm certain it had some other function."
"What rooms?"
"Oh, come now. The small rooms back there. Look like they were bedrooms."
"I do not know." The webfoot drew closer. Michaelson decided he was sixty or seventy years old, at least.
"You've been here a long time. You are intelligent, and you must be educated, the way you talk. That gadget looks like a time-piece of some sort. What is it? What does it measure?"
"I insist that you go." The webfoot held something in his hand.
"No." Michaelson looked off down the street, trying to ignore the native, trying to feel the life of the city as it might have been.
"You are sensitive," the native said in his ear. "It takes a sensitive god to feel the spirits moving in the houses and walking in these old streets."
"Say it any way you want to. This is the most fascinating thing I've ever seen. The Inca's treasure, the ruins of Pompeii, Egyptian tombs—none can hold a candle to this."
"Mr. Earthgod...."
"Don't call me that. I'm not a god, and you know it."
The old man shrugged. "It is not an item worthy of dispute. Those names you mention, are they the names of gods?"
He chuckled. "In a way, yes. What is your name?"
"Maota."
"You must help me, Maota. These things must be preserved. We'll build a museum, right here in the street. No, over there on the hill just outside the city. We'll collect all the old writings and perhaps we may decipher them. Think of it, Maota! To read pages written so long ago and think their thoughts. We'll put everything under glass. Build and evacuate chambers to stop the decay. Catalogue, itemize...."
Michaelson was warming up to his subject, but Maota shook his head like a waving palm frond and stamped his feet.
"You will leave now."
"Can't you see? Look at the decay. These things are priceless. They must be preserved. Future generations will thank us."
"Do you mean," the old man asked, aghast, "that you want others to come here? You know the city abhors the sound of alien voices. Those who lived here may return one day! They must not find their city packaged and preserved and laid out on shelves for the curious to breathe their foul breaths upon. You will leave. Now!"
"No." Michaelson was adamant. The rock of Gibraltar.
Maota hit him, quickly, passionately, and dropped the weapon beside his body. He turned swiftly, making a swirling mark in the sand with his heel, and walked off toward the hills outside the city.
The weapon he had used was an ancient book. Its paper-thin pages rustled in the wind as if an unseen hand turned them, reading, while Michaelson's blood trickled out from the head wound upon the ancient street.
When he regained consciousness the two moons, bright sentinel orbs in the night sky, had moved to a new position down their sliding path. Old Maota's absence took some of the weirdness and fantasy away. It seemed a more practical place now.
The gash in his head was painful, throbbing with quick, short hammer-blows synchronized with his heart beats. But there was a new determination in him. If it was a fight that the old webfooted fool wanted, a fight he would get. The cylinder flicked him, at his command, across five hundred miles of desert and rocks to a small creek he remembered. Here he bathed his head in cool water until all the caked blood was dissolved from his hair. Feeling better, he went back.
The wind had turned cool. Michaelson shivered, wishing he had brought a coat. The city was absolutely still except for small gusts of wind sighing through the frail spires. The ancient book still lay in the sand beside the dark spot of blood. He stooped over and picked it up.
It was light, much lighter than most Earth books. He ran a hand over the binding. Smooth it was, untouched by time or climate. He squinted at the pages, tilting the book to catch the bright moonlight, but the writing was alien. He touched the page, ran his forefinger over the writing.
Suddenly he sprang back. The book fell from his hands.
"God in heaven!" he exclaimed.
He had heard a voice. He looked around at the old buildings, down the length of the ancient street. Something strange about the voice. Not Maota. Not his tones. Not his words. Satisfied that no one was near, he stooped and picked up the book again.
"Good God!" he said aloud. It was the book talking. His fingers had touched the writing again. It was not a voice, exactly, but a stirring in his mind, like a strange language heard for the first time.
A talking book. What other surprises were in the city? Tall, fragile buildings laughing at time and weather. A clock measuring God-knows-what. If such wonders remained, what about those already destroyed? One could only guess at the machines, the gadgets, the artistry already decayed and blown away to mix forever with the sand.
I must preserve it, he thought, whether Maota likes it or not. They say these people lived half a million years ago. A long time. Let's see, now. A man lives one hundred years on the average. Five thousand lifetimes.
And all you do is touch a book, and a voice jumps across all those years!
He started off toward the tall building he had examined upon discovery of the city. His left eyelid began to twitch and he laid his forefinger against the eye, pressing until it stopped. Then he stooped and entered the building. He laid the book down and tried to take the "clock" off the wall. It was dark in the building and his fingers felt along the wall, looking for it. Then he touched it. His fingers moved over its smooth surface. Then suddenly he jerked his hand back with an exclamation of amazement. Fear ran up his spine.
The clock was warm.
He felt like running, like flicking back to the settlement where there were people and familiar voices, for here was a thing that should not be. Half a million years—and here was warmth!
He touched it again, curiosity overwhelming his fear. It was warm. No mistake. And there was a faint vibration, a suggestion of power. He stood there in the darkness staring off into the darkness, trembling. Fear built up in him until it was a monstrous thing, drowning reason. He forgot the power of the cylinder behind his ear. He scrambled through the doorway. He got up and ran down the ancient sandy street until he came to the edge of the city. Here he stopped, gasping for air, feeling the pain throb in his head.
Common sense said that he should go home, that nothing worthwhile could be accomplished at night, that he was tired, that he was weak from loss of blood and fright and running. But when Michaelson was on the trail of important discoveries he had no common sense.
He sat down in the darkness, meaning to rest a moment.
When he awoke dawn was red against thin clouds in the east.
Old Maota stood in the street with webbed feet planted far apart in the sand, a weapon in the crook of his arm. It was a long tube affair, familiar to Michaelson.
Michaelson asked, "Did you sleep well?"
"No."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"How do you feel?"
"Fine, but my head aches a little."
"Sorry," Maota said.
"For what?"
"For hitting you. Pain is not for gods like you."
Michaelson relaxed somewhat. "What kind of man are you? First you try to break my skull, then you apologize."
"I abhor pain. I should have killed you outright."
He thought about that for a moment, eyeing the weapon.
It looked in good working order. Slim and shiny and innocent, it looked like a glorified African blowgun. But he was not deceived by its appearance. It was a deadly weapon.
"Well," he said, "before you kill me, tell me about the book." He held it up for Maota to see.
"What about the book?"
"What kind of book is it?"
"What does Mr. Earthgod mean, what kind of book? You have seen it. It is like any other book, except for the material and the fact that it talks."
"No, no. I mean, what's in it?"
"Poetry."
"Poetry? For God's sake, why poetry? Why not mathematics or history? Why not tell how to make the metal of the book itself? Now there is a subject worthy of a book."
Maota shook his head. "One does not study a dead culture to learn how they made things, but how they thought. But we are wasting time. I must kill you now, so I can get some rest."
The old man raised the gun.
"Wait! You forget that I also have a weapon." He pointed to the spot behind his ear where the cylinder was buried. "I can move faster than you can fire the gun."
Maota nodded. "I have heard how you travel. It does not matter. I will kill you anyway."
"I suggest we negotiate."
"No."
"Why not?"
Maota looked off toward the hills, old eyes filmed from years of sand and wind, leather skin lined and pitted. The hills stood immobile, brown-gray, already shimmering with heat, impotent.
"Why not?" Michaelson repeated.
"Why not what?" Maota dragged his eyes back.
"Negotiate."
"No." Maota's eyes grew hard as steel. They stood there in the sun, not twenty feet apart, hating each other. The two moons, very pale and far away on the western horizon, stared like two bottomless eyes.
"All right, then. At least it's a quick death. I hear that thing just disintegrates a man. Pfft! And that's that."
Michaelson prepared himself to move if the old man's finger slid closer toward the firing stud. The old man raised the gun.
"Wait!"
"Now what?"
"At least read some of the book to me before I die, then."
The gun wavered. "I am not an unreasonable man," the webfoot said.
Michaelson stepped forward, extending his arm with the book.
"No, stay where you are. Throw it."
"This book is priceless. You just don't go throwing such valuable items around."
"It won't break. Throw it."
Michaelson threw the book. It landed at Maota's feet, spouting sand against his leg. He shifted the weapon, picked up the book and leafed through it, raising his head in a listening attitude, searching for a suitable passage. Michaelson heard the thin, metallic pages rustle softly. He could have jumped and seized the weapon at that moment, but his desire to hear the book was strong.
Old Maota read, Michaelson listened. The cadence was different, the syntax confusing. But the thoughts were there. It might have been a professor back on Earth reading to his students. Keats, Shelley, Browning. These people were human, with human thoughts and aspirations.
The old man stopped reading. He squatted slowly, keeping Michaelson in sight, and laid the book face up in the sand. Wind moved the pages.
"See?" he said. "The spirits read. They must have been great readers, these people. They drink the book, as if it were an elixir. See how gentle! They lap at the pages like a new kitten tasting milk."
Michaelson laughed. "You certainly have an imagination."
"What difference does it make?" Maota cried, suddenly angry. "You want to close up all these things in boxes for a posterity who may have no slightest feeling or appreciation. I want to leave the city as it is, for spirits whose existence I cannot prove."
The old man's eyes were furious now, deadly. The gun came down directly in line with the Earthman's chest. The gnarled finger moved.
Michaelson, using the power of the cylinder behind his ear, jumped behind the old webfoot. To Maota it seemed that he had flicked out of existence like a match blown out. The next instant Michaelson spun him around and hit him. It was an inexpert fist, belonging to an archeologist, not a fighter. But Maota was an old man.
He dropped in the sand, momentarily stunned. Michaelson bent over to pick up the gun and the old man, feeling it slip from his fingers, hung on and was pulled to his feet.
They struggled for possession of the gun, silently, gasping, kicking sand. Faces grew red. Lips drew back over Michaelson's white teeth, over Maota's pink, toothless gums. The dead city's fragile spires threw impersonal shadows down where they fought.
Then quite suddenly a finger or hand—neither knew whose finger or hand—touched the firing stud.
There was a hollow, whooshing sound. Both stopped still, realizing the total destruction they might have caused.
"It only hit the ground," Michaelson said.
A black, charred hole, two feet in diameter and—they could not see how deep—stared at them.
Maota let go and sprawled in the sand. "The book!" he cried. "The book is gone!"
"No! We probably covered it with sand while we fought."
Both men began scooping sand in their cupped hands, digging frantically for the book. Saliva dripped from Maota's mouth, but he didn't know or care.
Finally they stopped, exhausted. They had covered a substantial area around the hole. They had covered the complete area where they had been.
"We killed it," the old man moaned.
"It was just a book. Not alive, you know."
"How do you know?" The old man's pale eyes were filled with tears. "It talked and it sang. In a way, it had a soul. Sometimes on long nights I used to imagine it loved me, for taking care of it."
"There are other books. We'll get another."
Maota shook his head. "There are no more."
"But I've seen them. Down there in the square building."
"Not poetry. Books, yes, but not poetry. That was the only book with songs."
"I'm sorry."
" You killed it!" Maota suddenly sprang for the weapon, lying forgotten in the sand. Michaelson put his foot on it and Maota was too weak to tear it loose. He could only weep out his rage.
When he could talk again, Maota said, "I am sorry, Mr. Earthgod. I've disgraced myself."
"Don't be sorry." Michaelson helped him to his feet. "We fight for some reasons, cry for others. A priceless book is a good reason for either."
"Not for that. For not winning. I should have killed you last night when I had the chance. The gods give us chances and if we don't take them we lose forever."
"I told you before! We are on the same side. Negotiate. Have you never heard of negotiation?"
"You are a god," Maota said. "One does not negotiate with gods. One either loves them, or kills them."
"That's another thing. I am not a god. Can't you understand?"
"Of course you are." Maota looked up, very sure. "Mortals cannot step from star to star like crossing a shallow brook."
"No, no. I don't step from one star to another. An invention does that. Just an invention. I carry it with me. It's a tiny thing. No one would ever guess it has such power. So you see, I'm human, just like you. Hit me and I hurt. Cut me and I bleed. I love. I hate. I was born. Some day I'll die. See? I'm human. Just a human with a machine. No more than that."
Maota laughed, then sobered quickly. "You lie."
"No."
"If I had this machine, could I travel as you?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll kill you and take yours."
"It would not work for you."
"Why?"
"Each machine is tailored for each person."
The old man hung his head. He looked down into the black, charred hole. He walked all around the hole. He kicked at the sand, looking half-heartedly again for the book.
"Look," Michaelson said. "I'm sure I've convinced you that I'm human. Why not have a try at negotiating our differences?"
He looked up. His expressive eyes, deep, resigned, studied Michaelson's face. Finally he shook his head sadly. "When we first met I hoped we could think the ancient thoughts together. But our paths diverge. We have finished, you and I."
He turned and started off, shoulders slumped dejectedly.
Michaelson caught up to him. "Are you leaving the city?"
"No."
"Where are you going?"
"Away. Far away." Maota looked off toward the hills, eyes distant.
"Don't be stupid, old man. How can you go far away and not leave the city?"
"There are many directions. You would not understand."
"East. West. North. South. Up. Down."
"No, no. There is another direction. Come, if you must see."
Michaelson followed him far down the street. They came to a section of the city he had not seen before. Buildings were smaller, spires dwarfed against larger structures. Here a path was packed in the sand, leading to a particular building.
Michaelson said, "This is where you live?"
"Yes."
Maota went inside. Michaelson stood in the entrance and looked around. The room was clean, furnished with hand made chairs and a bed. Who is this old man, he thought, far from his people, living alone, choosing a life of solitude among ancient ruins but not touching them? Above the bed a "clock" was fastened to the wall, Michaelson remembered his fright—thinking of the warmth where warmth should not be.
Maota pointed to it.
"You asked about this machine," he said. "Now I will tell you." He laid his hand against it. "Here is power to follow another direction."
Michaelson tested one of the chairs to see if it would hold his weight, then sat down. His curiosity about the instrument was colossal, but he forced a short laugh. "Maota, you are complex. Why not stop all this mystery nonsense and tell me about it? You know more about it than I."
"Of course." Maota smiled a toothless, superior smile. "What do you suppose happened to this race?"
"You tell me."
"They took the unknown direction. The books speak of it. I don't know how the instrument works, but one thing is certain. The race did not die out, as a species becomes extinct."
Michaelson was amused, but interested. "Something like a fourth dimension?"
"I don't know. I only know that with this instrument there is no death. I have read the books that speak of this race, this wonderful people who conquered all disease, who explored all the mysteries of science, who devised this machine to cheat death. See this button here on the face of the instrument? Press the button, and...."
"And what?"
"I don't know, exactly. But I have lived many years. I have walked the streets of this city and wondered, and wanted to press the button. Now I will do so."
Quickly the old man, still smiling, pressed the button. A high-pitched whine filled the air, just within audio range. Steady for a moment, it then rose in pitch passing beyond hearing quickly.
The old man's knees buckled. He sank down, fell over the bed, lay still. Michaelson touched him cautiously, then examined him more carefully. No question about it.
The old man was dead.
Feeling depressed and alone, Michaelson found a desert knoll outside the city overlooking the tall spires that shone in the sunlight and gleamed in the moonlight. He made a stretcher, rolled the old man's body on to it and dragged it down the long ancient street and up the knoll.
Here he buried him.
But it seemed a waste of time. Somehow he knew beyond any doubt that the old native and his body were completely disassociated in some sense more complete than death.
In the days that followed he gave much thought to the "clock." He came to the city every day. He spent long hours in the huge square building with the books. He learned the language by sheer bulldog determination. Then he searched the books for information about the instrument.
Finally after many weeks, long after the winds had obliterated all evidence of Maota's grave on the knoll, Michaelson made a decision. He had to know if the machine would work for him.
And so one afternoon when the ancient spires threw long shadows over the sand he walked down the long street and entered the old man's house. He stood before the instrument, trembling, afraid, but determined. He pinched his eyes shut tight like a child and pressed the button.
The high-pitched whine started.
Complete, utter silence. Void. Darkness. Awareness and memory, yes; nothing else. Then Maota's chuckle came. No sound, an impression only like the voice from the ancient book. Where was he? There was no left or right, up or down. Maota was everywhere, nowhere.
"Look!" Maota's thought was directed at him in this place of no direction. "Think of the city and you will see it."
Michaelson did, and he saw the city beyond, as if he were looking through a window. And yet he was in the city looking at his own body.
Maota's chuckle again. "The city will remain as it is. You did not win after all."
"Neither did you."
"But this existence has compensations," Maota said. "You can be anywhere, see anywhere on this planet. Even on your Earth."
Michaelson felt a great sadness, seeing his body lying across the old, home made bed. He looked closer. He sensed a vibration or life force—he didn't stop to define it—in his body. Why was his dead body different from Old Maota's? Could it be that there was some thread stretching from the reality of his body to his present state?
"I don't like your thoughts," Maota said. "No one can go back. I tried. I have discussed it with many who are not presently in communication with you. No one can go back."
Michaelson decided he try.
"No!" Maota's thought was prickled with fear and anger.
Michaelson did not know how to try, but he remembered the cylinder and gathered all the force of his mind in spite of Maota's protests, and gave his most violent command.
At first he thought it didn't work. He got up and looked around, then it struck him. He was standing up!
The cylinder. He knew it was the cylinder. That was the difference between himself and Maota. When he used the cylinder, that was where he went, the place where Maota was now. It was a door of some kind, leading to a path of some kind where distance was non-existent. But the
"clock" was a mechanism to transport only the mind to that place.
To be certain of it, he pressed the button again, with the same result as before. He saw his own body fall down. He felt Maota's presence.
"You devil!" Maota's thought-scream was a sword of hate and anger, irrational suddenly, like a person who knows his loss is irrevocable.
"I said you were a god. I said you were a god. I said you were a god...! "
Question:
Describe the setting of the story.
Answer:
|
[
"The story is set on Alpha Centaurus II, a planet with two moons and many unknowns and dangers. There is an Earth settlement on the planet, and the archeologist, Mr. Michaelson traverses around a sandy, desert-like area under a pale blue sky come to be referred to as the dead city which was last populated half a million years ago.\nThe dead city is a complex variety of buildings, including small homes, huge ones with spires, and all varieties of square and spherical shapes. Suspension bridges connected conical towers. Desert plants grew from rooftops and sand had blown down the streets and filled the doorways. Despite not believing in the spiritual, Mr. Michaelson experiences waves of energy communicating with him from the artifacts he finds in the dead city, giving it the feel of not being deserted at all.\nThrough the discovery of an important artifact (the “clock) that is radiating heat. The two characters Maota and Mr. Michaelson also discover that they can travel into a spiritual dimension setting where they look down on the planet, or anywhere in the universe, and communicate with their thoughts.\n",
"The story takes place on Alpha Centaurus II in the ancient remains of a city heretofore unknown by humans and where there are twin moons. The half a million year old city consists of both small and large buildings, with the smaller ones presumably houses. Some of the tall buildings have spires; some are square, while others are ellipsoid or spheroid. Elegant bridges connect tall towers. The structures are well preserved, although any inscriptions that were made have long since worn away. Piles of sand fill the doorways, and desert plants grow on rooftops. Artifacts are everywhere, some buried in the sand, including bowls, statues, and even books. A clock-like object is particularly fascinating, especially after Michaelson touches it to find it warm and vibrating—meaning that it is still operational. Many of the structures and objects are made of metal which has helped preserve them for such a long time. The book that Maota throws are Michaelson has metal pages and, surprisingly, speaks when Michaelson runs his fingers along the lines of text. \n\tHumans at this time have advanced technology for travel. They have invented personalized devices in the shape of a cylinder implanted behind a person's ear. With this device, the person can think of a place he wants to travel to, and the device instantly whisks him there. \n",
"The story takes place in an old city on Alpha Centaurus II. Not much is revealed about the planet itself except for the fact that it has a small population of webfooted humanoids who are not actually natives but come from a colony from the fifth planet of the system. They are curious and many are quite intelligent, including Maota, whom Michaelson meets when he arrives in the city. White clouds float in a pale blue sky, and at night silver moonlight from the two moons illuminates the ruins. Five hundred miles from the city is a small creek where Michaelson washes his head wound. The city itself is covered in sand and desert plants after hundreds of thousands of years of disuse. However, the buildings remain intact and include a complex variety of small homes, spire-topped, square, ellipsoid, and spheroid buildings. There are also conical towers with beautiful bridges connecting them. The ruins of the city are well-preserved and include a large number of fascinating archeological artifacts including bowls, metal, a small statue of a man, ancient books (including Maota's favorite book of poetry), and a clock-like device that can transport a person to another dimension. Just outside of the city is a sandy hill, where Michaelson eventually buries Maota's body. The final setting of the story is the fourth dimension where Maota and Michaelson transfer their spirits using the clock device. This dimension is characterized by utter silence and darkness. The only presence there is awareness and memory.",
"A City Near Centaurus by Bill Doede takes place on the planet Alpha Centaurus II sometime in the future. Mr. Michaelson comes across the ruins of an ancient city and walks through the sand-covered streets to discover more. Tall spires cast shadows across the roads, while wild plants grow out of the roofs of small buildings. Two moons shine light down on Alpha Centaurus II partially lighting up the night. Soaring towers are connected by swaying bridges, and smaller buildings clearly used to be houses. Each building has a slightly different shape whether that be spherical or square. The infrastructure is built of dark metal impervious to rust and general wear. The buildings themselves are full of various artifacts: talking books, transporting clocks, and silver bowls. "
] |
50802
|
A CITY NEAR CENTAURUS
By BILL DOEDE
Illustrated by WEST
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine October 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The city was sacred, but not to its gods. Michaelson was a god—but far from sacred!
Crouched in the ancient doorway like an animal peering out from his burrow, Mr. Michaelson saw the native.
At first he was startled, thinking it might be someone else from the Earth settlement who had discovered the old city before him. Then he saw the glint of sun against the metallic skirt, and relaxed.
He chuckled to himself, wondering with amusement what a webfooted man was doing in an old dead city so far from his people. Some facts were known about the people of Alpha Centaurus II. They were not actually natives, he recalled. They were a colony from the fifth planet of the system. They were a curious people. Some were highly intelligent, though uneducated.
He decided to ignore the man for the moment. He was far down the ancient street, a mere speck against the sand. There would be plenty of time to wonder about him.
He gazed out from his position at the complex variety of buildings before him. Some were small, obviously homes. Others were huge with tall, frail spires standing against the pale blue sky. Square buildings, ellipsoid, spheroid. Beautiful, dream-stuff bridges connected tall, conical towers, bridges that still swung in the wind after half a million years. Late afternoon sunlight shone against ebony surfaces. The sands of many centuries had blown down the wide streets and filled the doorways. Desert plants grew from roofs of smaller buildings.
Ignoring the native, Mr. Michaelson poked about among the ruins happily, exclaiming to himself about some particular artifact, marveling at its state of preservation, holding it this way and that to catch the late afternoon sun, smiling, clucking gleefully. He crawled over the rubble through old doorways half filled with the accumulation of ages. He dug experimentally in the sand with his hands, like a dog, under a roof that had weathered half a million years of rain and sun. Then he crawled out again, covered with dust and cobwebs.
The native stood in the street less than a hundred feet away, waving his arms madly. "Mr. Earthgod," he cried. "It is sacred ground where you are trespassing!"
The archeologist smiled, watching the man hurry closer. He was short, even for a native. Long gray hair hung to his shoulders, bobbing up and down as he walked. He wore no shoes. The toes of his webbed feet dragged in the sand, making a deep trail behind him. He was an old man.
"You never told us about this old dead city," Michaelson said, chidingly. "Shame on you. But never mind. I've found it now. Isn't it beautiful?"
"Yes, beautiful. You will leave now."
"Leave?" Michaelson asked, acting surprised as if the man were a child. "I just got here a few hours ago."
"You must go."
"Why? Who are you?"
"I am keeper of the city."
"You?" Michaelson laughed. Then, seeing how serious the native was, said, "What makes you think a dead city needs a keeper?"
"The spirits may return."
Michaelson crawled out of the doorway and stood up. He brushed his trousers. He pointed. "See that wall? Built of some metal, I'd say, some alloy impervious to rust and wear."
"The spirits are angry."
"Notice the inscriptions? Wind has blown sand against them for eons, and rain and sleet. But their story is there, once we decipher it."
"Leave!"
The native's lined, weathered old face was working around the mouth in anger. Michaelson was almost sorry he had mocked him. He was deadly serious.
"Look," he said. "No spirits are ever coming back here. Don't you know that? And even if they did, spirits care nothing for old cities half covered with sand and dirt."
He walked away from the old man, heading for another building. The sun had already gone below the horizon, coloring the high clouds. He glanced backward. The webfoot was following.
"Mr. Earthgod!" the webfoot cried, so sharply that Michaelson stopped.
"You must not touch, not walk upon, not handle. Your step may destroy the home of some ancient spirit. Your breath may cause one iota of change and a spirit may lose his way in the darkness. Go quickly now, or be killed."
He turned and walked off, not looking back.
Michaelson stood in the ancient street, tall, gaunt, feet planted wide, hands in pockets, watching the webfoot until he was out of sight beyond a huge circular building. There was a man to watch. There was one of the intelligent ones. One look into the alert old eyes had told him that.
Michaelson shook his head, and went about satisfying his curiosity. He entered buildings without thought of roofs falling in, or decayed floors dropping from under his weight. He began to collect small items, making a pile of them in the street. An ancient bowl, metal untouched by the ages. A statue of a man, one foot high, correct to the minutest detail, showing how identical they had been to Earthmen. He found books still standing on ancient shelves but was afraid to touch them without tools.
Darkness came swiftly and he was forced out into the street.
He stood there alone feeling the age of the place. Even the smell of age was in the air. Silver moonlight from the two moons filtered through clear air down upon the ruins. The city lay now in darkness, dead and still, waiting for morning so it could lie dead and still in the sun.
There was no hurry to be going home, although he was alone, although this was Alpha Centaurus II with many unknowns, many dangers ... although home was a very great distance away. There was no one back there to worry about him.
His wife had died many years ago back on Earth. No children. His friends in the settlement would not look for him for another day at least. Anyway, the tiny cylinder, buried in flesh behind his ear, a thing of mystery and immense power, could take him home instantly, without effort save a flicker of thought.
"You did not leave, as I asked you."
Michaelson whirled around at the sound of the native's voice. Then he relaxed. He said, "You shouldn't sneak up on a man like that."
"You must leave, or I will be forced to kill you. I do not want to kill you, but if I must...." He made a clucking sound deep in the throat.
"The spirits are angry."
"Nonsense. Superstition! But never mind. You have been here longer than I. Tell me, what are those instruments in the rooms? It looks like a clock but I'm certain it had some other function."
"What rooms?"
"Oh, come now. The small rooms back there. Look like they were bedrooms."
"I do not know." The webfoot drew closer. Michaelson decided he was sixty or seventy years old, at least.
"You've been here a long time. You are intelligent, and you must be educated, the way you talk. That gadget looks like a time-piece of some sort. What is it? What does it measure?"
"I insist that you go." The webfoot held something in his hand.
"No." Michaelson looked off down the street, trying to ignore the native, trying to feel the life of the city as it might have been.
"You are sensitive," the native said in his ear. "It takes a sensitive god to feel the spirits moving in the houses and walking in these old streets."
"Say it any way you want to. This is the most fascinating thing I've ever seen. The Inca's treasure, the ruins of Pompeii, Egyptian tombs—none can hold a candle to this."
"Mr. Earthgod...."
"Don't call me that. I'm not a god, and you know it."
The old man shrugged. "It is not an item worthy of dispute. Those names you mention, are they the names of gods?"
He chuckled. "In a way, yes. What is your name?"
"Maota."
"You must help me, Maota. These things must be preserved. We'll build a museum, right here in the street. No, over there on the hill just outside the city. We'll collect all the old writings and perhaps we may decipher them. Think of it, Maota! To read pages written so long ago and think their thoughts. We'll put everything under glass. Build and evacuate chambers to stop the decay. Catalogue, itemize...."
Michaelson was warming up to his subject, but Maota shook his head like a waving palm frond and stamped his feet.
"You will leave now."
"Can't you see? Look at the decay. These things are priceless. They must be preserved. Future generations will thank us."
"Do you mean," the old man asked, aghast, "that you want others to come here? You know the city abhors the sound of alien voices. Those who lived here may return one day! They must not find their city packaged and preserved and laid out on shelves for the curious to breathe their foul breaths upon. You will leave. Now!"
"No." Michaelson was adamant. The rock of Gibraltar.
Maota hit him, quickly, passionately, and dropped the weapon beside his body. He turned swiftly, making a swirling mark in the sand with his heel, and walked off toward the hills outside the city.
The weapon he had used was an ancient book. Its paper-thin pages rustled in the wind as if an unseen hand turned them, reading, while Michaelson's blood trickled out from the head wound upon the ancient street.
When he regained consciousness the two moons, bright sentinel orbs in the night sky, had moved to a new position down their sliding path. Old Maota's absence took some of the weirdness and fantasy away. It seemed a more practical place now.
The gash in his head was painful, throbbing with quick, short hammer-blows synchronized with his heart beats. But there was a new determination in him. If it was a fight that the old webfooted fool wanted, a fight he would get. The cylinder flicked him, at his command, across five hundred miles of desert and rocks to a small creek he remembered. Here he bathed his head in cool water until all the caked blood was dissolved from his hair. Feeling better, he went back.
The wind had turned cool. Michaelson shivered, wishing he had brought a coat. The city was absolutely still except for small gusts of wind sighing through the frail spires. The ancient book still lay in the sand beside the dark spot of blood. He stooped over and picked it up.
It was light, much lighter than most Earth books. He ran a hand over the binding. Smooth it was, untouched by time or climate. He squinted at the pages, tilting the book to catch the bright moonlight, but the writing was alien. He touched the page, ran his forefinger over the writing.
Suddenly he sprang back. The book fell from his hands.
"God in heaven!" he exclaimed.
He had heard a voice. He looked around at the old buildings, down the length of the ancient street. Something strange about the voice. Not Maota. Not his tones. Not his words. Satisfied that no one was near, he stooped and picked up the book again.
"Good God!" he said aloud. It was the book talking. His fingers had touched the writing again. It was not a voice, exactly, but a stirring in his mind, like a strange language heard for the first time.
A talking book. What other surprises were in the city? Tall, fragile buildings laughing at time and weather. A clock measuring God-knows-what. If such wonders remained, what about those already destroyed? One could only guess at the machines, the gadgets, the artistry already decayed and blown away to mix forever with the sand.
I must preserve it, he thought, whether Maota likes it or not. They say these people lived half a million years ago. A long time. Let's see, now. A man lives one hundred years on the average. Five thousand lifetimes.
And all you do is touch a book, and a voice jumps across all those years!
He started off toward the tall building he had examined upon discovery of the city. His left eyelid began to twitch and he laid his forefinger against the eye, pressing until it stopped. Then he stooped and entered the building. He laid the book down and tried to take the "clock" off the wall. It was dark in the building and his fingers felt along the wall, looking for it. Then he touched it. His fingers moved over its smooth surface. Then suddenly he jerked his hand back with an exclamation of amazement. Fear ran up his spine.
The clock was warm.
He felt like running, like flicking back to the settlement where there were people and familiar voices, for here was a thing that should not be. Half a million years—and here was warmth!
He touched it again, curiosity overwhelming his fear. It was warm. No mistake. And there was a faint vibration, a suggestion of power. He stood there in the darkness staring off into the darkness, trembling. Fear built up in him until it was a monstrous thing, drowning reason. He forgot the power of the cylinder behind his ear. He scrambled through the doorway. He got up and ran down the ancient sandy street until he came to the edge of the city. Here he stopped, gasping for air, feeling the pain throb in his head.
Common sense said that he should go home, that nothing worthwhile could be accomplished at night, that he was tired, that he was weak from loss of blood and fright and running. But when Michaelson was on the trail of important discoveries he had no common sense.
He sat down in the darkness, meaning to rest a moment.
When he awoke dawn was red against thin clouds in the east.
Old Maota stood in the street with webbed feet planted far apart in the sand, a weapon in the crook of his arm. It was a long tube affair, familiar to Michaelson.
Michaelson asked, "Did you sleep well?"
"No."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"How do you feel?"
"Fine, but my head aches a little."
"Sorry," Maota said.
"For what?"
"For hitting you. Pain is not for gods like you."
Michaelson relaxed somewhat. "What kind of man are you? First you try to break my skull, then you apologize."
"I abhor pain. I should have killed you outright."
He thought about that for a moment, eyeing the weapon.
It looked in good working order. Slim and shiny and innocent, it looked like a glorified African blowgun. But he was not deceived by its appearance. It was a deadly weapon.
"Well," he said, "before you kill me, tell me about the book." He held it up for Maota to see.
"What about the book?"
"What kind of book is it?"
"What does Mr. Earthgod mean, what kind of book? You have seen it. It is like any other book, except for the material and the fact that it talks."
"No, no. I mean, what's in it?"
"Poetry."
"Poetry? For God's sake, why poetry? Why not mathematics or history? Why not tell how to make the metal of the book itself? Now there is a subject worthy of a book."
Maota shook his head. "One does not study a dead culture to learn how they made things, but how they thought. But we are wasting time. I must kill you now, so I can get some rest."
The old man raised the gun.
"Wait! You forget that I also have a weapon." He pointed to the spot behind his ear where the cylinder was buried. "I can move faster than you can fire the gun."
Maota nodded. "I have heard how you travel. It does not matter. I will kill you anyway."
"I suggest we negotiate."
"No."
"Why not?"
Maota looked off toward the hills, old eyes filmed from years of sand and wind, leather skin lined and pitted. The hills stood immobile, brown-gray, already shimmering with heat, impotent.
"Why not?" Michaelson repeated.
"Why not what?" Maota dragged his eyes back.
"Negotiate."
"No." Maota's eyes grew hard as steel. They stood there in the sun, not twenty feet apart, hating each other. The two moons, very pale and far away on the western horizon, stared like two bottomless eyes.
"All right, then. At least it's a quick death. I hear that thing just disintegrates a man. Pfft! And that's that."
Michaelson prepared himself to move if the old man's finger slid closer toward the firing stud. The old man raised the gun.
"Wait!"
"Now what?"
"At least read some of the book to me before I die, then."
The gun wavered. "I am not an unreasonable man," the webfoot said.
Michaelson stepped forward, extending his arm with the book.
"No, stay where you are. Throw it."
"This book is priceless. You just don't go throwing such valuable items around."
"It won't break. Throw it."
Michaelson threw the book. It landed at Maota's feet, spouting sand against his leg. He shifted the weapon, picked up the book and leafed through it, raising his head in a listening attitude, searching for a suitable passage. Michaelson heard the thin, metallic pages rustle softly. He could have jumped and seized the weapon at that moment, but his desire to hear the book was strong.
Old Maota read, Michaelson listened. The cadence was different, the syntax confusing. But the thoughts were there. It might have been a professor back on Earth reading to his students. Keats, Shelley, Browning. These people were human, with human thoughts and aspirations.
The old man stopped reading. He squatted slowly, keeping Michaelson in sight, and laid the book face up in the sand. Wind moved the pages.
"See?" he said. "The spirits read. They must have been great readers, these people. They drink the book, as if it were an elixir. See how gentle! They lap at the pages like a new kitten tasting milk."
Michaelson laughed. "You certainly have an imagination."
"What difference does it make?" Maota cried, suddenly angry. "You want to close up all these things in boxes for a posterity who may have no slightest feeling or appreciation. I want to leave the city as it is, for spirits whose existence I cannot prove."
The old man's eyes were furious now, deadly. The gun came down directly in line with the Earthman's chest. The gnarled finger moved.
Michaelson, using the power of the cylinder behind his ear, jumped behind the old webfoot. To Maota it seemed that he had flicked out of existence like a match blown out. The next instant Michaelson spun him around and hit him. It was an inexpert fist, belonging to an archeologist, not a fighter. But Maota was an old man.
He dropped in the sand, momentarily stunned. Michaelson bent over to pick up the gun and the old man, feeling it slip from his fingers, hung on and was pulled to his feet.
They struggled for possession of the gun, silently, gasping, kicking sand. Faces grew red. Lips drew back over Michaelson's white teeth, over Maota's pink, toothless gums. The dead city's fragile spires threw impersonal shadows down where they fought.
Then quite suddenly a finger or hand—neither knew whose finger or hand—touched the firing stud.
There was a hollow, whooshing sound. Both stopped still, realizing the total destruction they might have caused.
"It only hit the ground," Michaelson said.
A black, charred hole, two feet in diameter and—they could not see how deep—stared at them.
Maota let go and sprawled in the sand. "The book!" he cried. "The book is gone!"
"No! We probably covered it with sand while we fought."
Both men began scooping sand in their cupped hands, digging frantically for the book. Saliva dripped from Maota's mouth, but he didn't know or care.
Finally they stopped, exhausted. They had covered a substantial area around the hole. They had covered the complete area where they had been.
"We killed it," the old man moaned.
"It was just a book. Not alive, you know."
"How do you know?" The old man's pale eyes were filled with tears. "It talked and it sang. In a way, it had a soul. Sometimes on long nights I used to imagine it loved me, for taking care of it."
"There are other books. We'll get another."
Maota shook his head. "There are no more."
"But I've seen them. Down there in the square building."
"Not poetry. Books, yes, but not poetry. That was the only book with songs."
"I'm sorry."
" You killed it!" Maota suddenly sprang for the weapon, lying forgotten in the sand. Michaelson put his foot on it and Maota was too weak to tear it loose. He could only weep out his rage.
When he could talk again, Maota said, "I am sorry, Mr. Earthgod. I've disgraced myself."
"Don't be sorry." Michaelson helped him to his feet. "We fight for some reasons, cry for others. A priceless book is a good reason for either."
"Not for that. For not winning. I should have killed you last night when I had the chance. The gods give us chances and if we don't take them we lose forever."
"I told you before! We are on the same side. Negotiate. Have you never heard of negotiation?"
"You are a god," Maota said. "One does not negotiate with gods. One either loves them, or kills them."
"That's another thing. I am not a god. Can't you understand?"
"Of course you are." Maota looked up, very sure. "Mortals cannot step from star to star like crossing a shallow brook."
"No, no. I don't step from one star to another. An invention does that. Just an invention. I carry it with me. It's a tiny thing. No one would ever guess it has such power. So you see, I'm human, just like you. Hit me and I hurt. Cut me and I bleed. I love. I hate. I was born. Some day I'll die. See? I'm human. Just a human with a machine. No more than that."
Maota laughed, then sobered quickly. "You lie."
"No."
"If I had this machine, could I travel as you?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll kill you and take yours."
"It would not work for you."
"Why?"
"Each machine is tailored for each person."
The old man hung his head. He looked down into the black, charred hole. He walked all around the hole. He kicked at the sand, looking half-heartedly again for the book.
"Look," Michaelson said. "I'm sure I've convinced you that I'm human. Why not have a try at negotiating our differences?"
He looked up. His expressive eyes, deep, resigned, studied Michaelson's face. Finally he shook his head sadly. "When we first met I hoped we could think the ancient thoughts together. But our paths diverge. We have finished, you and I."
He turned and started off, shoulders slumped dejectedly.
Michaelson caught up to him. "Are you leaving the city?"
"No."
"Where are you going?"
"Away. Far away." Maota looked off toward the hills, eyes distant.
"Don't be stupid, old man. How can you go far away and not leave the city?"
"There are many directions. You would not understand."
"East. West. North. South. Up. Down."
"No, no. There is another direction. Come, if you must see."
Michaelson followed him far down the street. They came to a section of the city he had not seen before. Buildings were smaller, spires dwarfed against larger structures. Here a path was packed in the sand, leading to a particular building.
Michaelson said, "This is where you live?"
"Yes."
Maota went inside. Michaelson stood in the entrance and looked around. The room was clean, furnished with hand made chairs and a bed. Who is this old man, he thought, far from his people, living alone, choosing a life of solitude among ancient ruins but not touching them? Above the bed a "clock" was fastened to the wall, Michaelson remembered his fright—thinking of the warmth where warmth should not be.
Maota pointed to it.
"You asked about this machine," he said. "Now I will tell you." He laid his hand against it. "Here is power to follow another direction."
Michaelson tested one of the chairs to see if it would hold his weight, then sat down. His curiosity about the instrument was colossal, but he forced a short laugh. "Maota, you are complex. Why not stop all this mystery nonsense and tell me about it? You know more about it than I."
"Of course." Maota smiled a toothless, superior smile. "What do you suppose happened to this race?"
"You tell me."
"They took the unknown direction. The books speak of it. I don't know how the instrument works, but one thing is certain. The race did not die out, as a species becomes extinct."
Michaelson was amused, but interested. "Something like a fourth dimension?"
"I don't know. I only know that with this instrument there is no death. I have read the books that speak of this race, this wonderful people who conquered all disease, who explored all the mysteries of science, who devised this machine to cheat death. See this button here on the face of the instrument? Press the button, and...."
"And what?"
"I don't know, exactly. But I have lived many years. I have walked the streets of this city and wondered, and wanted to press the button. Now I will do so."
Quickly the old man, still smiling, pressed the button. A high-pitched whine filled the air, just within audio range. Steady for a moment, it then rose in pitch passing beyond hearing quickly.
The old man's knees buckled. He sank down, fell over the bed, lay still. Michaelson touched him cautiously, then examined him more carefully. No question about it.
The old man was dead.
Feeling depressed and alone, Michaelson found a desert knoll outside the city overlooking the tall spires that shone in the sunlight and gleamed in the moonlight. He made a stretcher, rolled the old man's body on to it and dragged it down the long ancient street and up the knoll.
Here he buried him.
But it seemed a waste of time. Somehow he knew beyond any doubt that the old native and his body were completely disassociated in some sense more complete than death.
In the days that followed he gave much thought to the "clock." He came to the city every day. He spent long hours in the huge square building with the books. He learned the language by sheer bulldog determination. Then he searched the books for information about the instrument.
Finally after many weeks, long after the winds had obliterated all evidence of Maota's grave on the knoll, Michaelson made a decision. He had to know if the machine would work for him.
And so one afternoon when the ancient spires threw long shadows over the sand he walked down the long street and entered the old man's house. He stood before the instrument, trembling, afraid, but determined. He pinched his eyes shut tight like a child and pressed the button.
The high-pitched whine started.
Complete, utter silence. Void. Darkness. Awareness and memory, yes; nothing else. Then Maota's chuckle came. No sound, an impression only like the voice from the ancient book. Where was he? There was no left or right, up or down. Maota was everywhere, nowhere.
"Look!" Maota's thought was directed at him in this place of no direction. "Think of the city and you will see it."
Michaelson did, and he saw the city beyond, as if he were looking through a window. And yet he was in the city looking at his own body.
Maota's chuckle again. "The city will remain as it is. You did not win after all."
"Neither did you."
"But this existence has compensations," Maota said. "You can be anywhere, see anywhere on this planet. Even on your Earth."
Michaelson felt a great sadness, seeing his body lying across the old, home made bed. He looked closer. He sensed a vibration or life force—he didn't stop to define it—in his body. Why was his dead body different from Old Maota's? Could it be that there was some thread stretching from the reality of his body to his present state?
"I don't like your thoughts," Maota said. "No one can go back. I tried. I have discussed it with many who are not presently in communication with you. No one can go back."
Michaelson decided he try.
"No!" Maota's thought was prickled with fear and anger.
Michaelson did not know how to try, but he remembered the cylinder and gathered all the force of his mind in spite of Maota's protests, and gave his most violent command.
At first he thought it didn't work. He got up and looked around, then it struck him. He was standing up!
The cylinder. He knew it was the cylinder. That was the difference between himself and Maota. When he used the cylinder, that was where he went, the place where Maota was now. It was a door of some kind, leading to a path of some kind where distance was non-existent. But the
"clock" was a mechanism to transport only the mind to that place.
To be certain of it, he pressed the button again, with the same result as before. He saw his own body fall down. He felt Maota's presence.
"You devil!" Maota's thought-scream was a sword of hate and anger, irrational suddenly, like a person who knows his loss is irrevocable.
"I said you were a god. I said you were a god. I said you were a god...! "
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Describe the dynamic between Herbert and his wife
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about A BOTTLE OF Old Wine by Richard O. Lewis.
Relevant chunks:
A grim tale of a future in which everyone is desperate to escape reality, and a hero who wants to have his wine and drink it, too.
A BOTTLE OF
Old Wine
By Richard O. Lewis
Illustrated by KELLY FREAS
Herbert Hyrel
settled himself more comfortably in his easy chair, extended his short legs further toward the fireplace, and let his eyes travel cautiously in the general direction of his wife.
She was in her chair as usual, her long legs curled up beneath her, the upper half of her face hidden in the bulk of her personalized, three-dimensional telovis. The telovis, of a stereoscopic nature, seemingly brought the performers with all their tinsel and color directly into the room of the watcher.
Hyrel had no way of seeing into the plastic affair she wore, but he guessed from the expression on the lower half of her face that she was watching one of the newer black-market sex-operas. In any event, there would be no sound, movement, or sign of life from her for the next three hours. To break the thread of the play for even a moment would ruin all the previous emotional build-up.
There had been a time when he hated her for those long and silent evenings, lonely hours during which he was completely ignored. It was different now, however, for those hours furnished him with time for an escape of his own.
His lips curled into a tight smile and his right hand fondled the unobtrusive switch beneath his trouser leg. He did not press the switch. He would wait a few minutes longer. But it was comforting to know that it was there, exhilarating to know that he could escape for a few hours by a mere flick of his finger.
He let his eyes stray to the dim light of the artificial flames in the fireplace. His hate for her was not bounded merely by those lonely hours she had forced upon him. No, it was far more encompassing.
He hated her with a deep, burning savagery that was deadly in its passion. He hated her for her money, the money she kept securely from him. He hated her for the paltry allowance she doled out to him, as if he were an irresponsible child. It was as if she were constantly reminding him in every glance and gesture, "I made a bad bargain when I married you. You wanted me, my money, everything, and had nothing to give in return except your own doltish self. You set a trap for me, baited with lies and a false front. Now you are caught in your own trap and will remain there like a mouse to eat from my hand whatever crumbs I stoop to give you."
But some day his hate would be appeased. Yes, some day soon he would kill her!
He shot a sideways glance at her, wondering if by chance she suspected.... She hadn't moved. Her lips were pouted into a half smile; the sex-opera had probably reached one of its more pleasurable moments.
Hyrel let his eyes shift back to the fireplace again. Yes, he would kill her. Then he would claim a rightful share of her money, be rid of her debasing dominance.
He let the
thought run around through his head, savoring it with mental taste buds. He would not kill her tonight. No, nor the next night. He would wait, wait until he had sucked the last measure of pleasure from the thought.
It was like having a bottle of rare old wine on a shelf where it could be viewed daily. It was like being able to pause again and again before the bottle, hold it up to the light, and say to it, "Some day, when my desire for you has reached the ultimate, I shall unstopper you quietly and sip you slowly to the last soul-satisfying drop." As long as the bottle remained there upon the shelf it was symbolic of that pleasurable moment....
He snapped out of his reverie and realized he had been wasting precious moments. There would be time enough tomorrow for gloating. Tonight, there were other things to do. Pleasurable things. He remembered the girl he had met the night before, and smiled smugly. Perhaps she would be awaiting him even now. If not, there would be another one....
He settled himself deeper into the chair, glanced once more at his wife, then let his head lean comfortably back against the chair's headrest. His hand upon his thigh felt the thin mesh that cloaked his body beneath his clothing like a sheer stocking. His fingers went again to the tiny switch. Again he hesitated.
Herbert Hyrel knew no more about the telporter suit he wore than he did about the radio in the corner, the TV set against the wall, or the personalized telovis his wife was wearing. You pressed one of the buttons on the radio; music came out. You pressed a button and clicked a dial on the TV; music and pictures came out. You pressed a button and made an adjustment on the telovis; three-dimensional, emotion-colored pictures leaped into the room. You pressed a tiny switch on the telporter suit; you were whisked away to a receiving set you had previously set up in secret.
He knew that the music and the images of the performers on the TV and telovis were brought to his room by some form of electrical impulse or wave while the actual musicians and performers remained in the studio. He knew that when he pressed the switch on his thigh something within him—his ectoplasm, higher self, the thing spirits use for materialization, whatever its real name—streamed out of him along an invisible channel, leaving his body behind in the chair in a conscious but dream-like state. His other self materialized in a small cabin in a hidden nook between a highway and a river where he had installed the receiving set a month ago.
He thought once more of the girl who might be waiting for him, smiled, and pressed the switch.
The dank air
of the cabin was chill to Herbert Hyrel's naked flesh. He fumbled through the darkness for the clothing he kept there, found his shorts and trousers, got hurriedly into them, then flicked on a pocket lighter and ignited a stub of candle upon the table. By the wavering light, he finished dressing in the black satin clothing, the white shirt, the flowing necktie and tam. He invoiced the contents of his billfold. Not much. And his monthly pittance was still two weeks away....
He had skimped for six months to salvage enough money from his allowance to make a down payment on the telporter suit. Since then, his expenses—monthly payments for the suit, cabin rent, costly liquor—had forced him to place his nights of escape on strict ration. He could not go on this way, he realized. Not now. Not since he had met the girl. He had to have more money. Perhaps he could not afford the luxury of leaving the wine bottle longer upon the shelf....
Riverside Club, where Hyrel arrived by bus and a hundred yards of walking, was exclusive. It catered to a clientele that had but three things in common: money, a desire for utter self-abandonment, and a sales slip indicating ownership of a telporter suit. The club was of necessity expensive, for self-telportation was strictly illegal, and police protection came high.
Herbert Hyrel adjusted his white, silken mask carefully at the door and shoved his sales slip through a small aperture where it was thoroughly scanned by unseen eyes. A buzzer sounded an instant later, the lock on the door clicked, and Hyrel pushed through into the exhilarating warmth of music and laughter.
The main room was large. Hidden lights along the walls sent slow beams of red, blue, vermillion, green, yellow and pink trailing across the domed ceiling in a heterogeneous pattern. The colored beams mingled, diffused, spread, were caught up by mirrors of various tints which diffused and mingled the lights once more until the whole effect was an ever-changing panorama of softly-melting shades.
The gay and bizarre costumes of the masked revelers on the dance floor and at the tables, unearthly in themselves, were made even more so by the altering light. Music flooded the room from unseen sources. Laughter—hysterical, drunken, filled with utter abandonment—came from the dance floor, the tables, and the private booths and rooms hidden cleverly within the walls.
Hyrel pushed himself to an unoccupied table, sat down and ordered a bottle of cheap whiskey. He would have preferred champagne, but his depleted finances forbade the more discriminate taste.
When his order arrived, he poured a glass tumbler half full and consumed it eagerly while his eyes scanned the room in search of the girl. He couldn't see her in the dim swirl of color. Had she arrived? Perhaps she was wearing a different costume than she had the night before. If so, recognition might prove difficult.
He poured himself another drink, promising himself he would go in search of her when the liquor began to take effect.
A woman clad in the revealing garb of a Persian dancer threw an arm about him from behind and kissed him on the cheek through the veil which covered the lower part of her face.
"Hi, honey," she giggled into his ear. "Havin' a time?"
He reached for the white arm to pull her to him, but she eluded his grasp and reeled away into the waiting arms of a tall toreador. Hyrel gulped his whiskey and watched her nestle into the arms of her partner and begin with him a sinuous, suggestive dance. The whiskey had begun its warming effect, and he laughed.
This was the land of the lotus eaters, the sanctuary of the escapists, the haven of all who wished to cast off their shell of inhibition and become the thing they dreamed themselves to be. Here one could be among his own kind, an actor upon a gay stage, a gaudy butterfly metamorphosed from the slug, a knight of old.
The Persian dancing girl was probably the wife of a boorish oaf whose idea of romance was spending an evening telling his wife how he came to be a successful bank president. But she had found her means of escape. Perhaps she had pleaded a sick headache and had retired to her room. And there upon the bed now reposed her shell of reality while her inner self, the shadowy one, completely materialized, became an exotic thing from the East in this never-never land.
The man, the toreador, had probably closeted himself within his library with a set of account books and had left strict orders not to be disturbed until he had finished with them.
Both would have terrific hangovers in the morning. But that, of course, would be fully compensated for by the memories of the evening.
Hyrel chuckled. The situation struck him as being funny: the shadowy self got drunk and had a good time, and the outer husk suffered the hangover in the morning. Strange. Strange how a device such as the telporter suit could cause the shadow of each bodily cell to leave the body, materialize, and become a reality in its own right. And yet ...
He looked
at the heel of his left hand. There was a long, irregular scar there. It was the result of a cut he had received nearly three weeks ago when he had fallen over this very table and had rammed his hand into a sliver of broken champagne glass. Later that evening, upon re-telporting back home, the pain of the cut had remained in his hand, but there was no sign of the cut itself on the hand of his outer self. The scar was peculiar to the shadowy body only. There was something about the shadowy body that carried the hurts to the outer body, but not the scars....
Sudden laughter broke out near him, and he turned quickly in that direction. A group of gaily costumed revelers was standing in a semi-circle about a small mound of clothing upon the floor. It was the costume of the toreador.
Hyrel laughed, too. It had happened many times before—a costume suddenly left empty as its owner, due to a threat of discovery at home, had had to press the switch in haste to bring his shadowy self—and complete consciousness—back to his outer self in a hurry.
A waiter picked up the clothing. He would put it safely away so that the owner could claim it upon his next visit to the club. Another waiter placed a fresh bottle of whiskey on the table before Hyrel, and Hyrel paid him for it.
The whiskey, reaching his head now in surges of warm cheerfulness, was filling him with abandonment, courage, and a desire for merriment. He pushed himself up from the table, joined the merry throng, threw his arm about the Persian dancer, drew her close.
They began dancing slowly to the throbbing rhythm, dancing and holding on to each other tightly. Hyrel could feel her hot breath through her veil upon his neck, adding to the headiness of the liquor. His feeling of depression and inferiority flowed suddenly from him. Once again he was the all-conquering male.
His arm trembled as it drew her still closer to him and he began dancing directly and purposefully toward the shadows of a clump of artificial palms near one corner of the room. There was an exit to the garden behind the palms.
Half way there they passed a secluded booth from which protruded a long leg clad in black mesh stocking. Hyrel paused as he recognized that part of the costume. It was she! The girl! The one he had met so briefly the night before!
His arm slid away from the Persian dancer, took hold of the mesh-clad leg, and pulled. A female form followed the leg from the booth and fell into his arms. He held her tightly, kissed her white neck, let her perfume send his thoughts reeling.
"Been looking for me, honey?" she whispered, her voice deep and throaty.
"You know it!"
He began whisking her away toward the palms. The Persian girl was pulled into the booth.
Yes, she was wearing the same costume she had worn the night before, that of a can-can dancer of the 90's. The mesh hose that encased her shapely legs were held up by flowered supporters in such a manner as to leave four inches of white leg exposed between hose top and lacy panties. Her skirt, frilled to suggest innumerable petticoats, fell away at each hip, leaving the front open to expose the full length of legs. She wore a wig of platinum hair encrusted with jewels that sparkled in the lights. Her jewel-studded mask was as white as her hair and covered the upper half of her face, except for the large almond slits for her eyes. A white purse, jewel crusted, dangled from one arm.
He stopped once before reaching the palms, drew her closer, kissed her long and ardently. Then he began pulling her on again.
She drew back when they reached the shelter of the fronds.
"Champagne, first," she whispered huskily into his ear.
His heart sank. He had very little money left. Well, it might buy a cheap brand....
She sipped
her champagne slowly and provocatively across the table from him. Her eyes sparkled behind the almond slits of her mask, caught the color changes and cast them back. She was wearing contact lenses of a garish green.
He wished she would hurry with her drink. He had horrible visions of his wife at home taking off her telovis and coming to his chair. He would then have to press the switch that would jerk his shadowy self back along its invisible connecting cord, jerk him back and leave but a small mound of clothes upon the chair at the table.
Deep depression laid hold of him. He would not be able to see her after tonight until he received his monthly dole two weeks hence. She wouldn't wait that long. Someone else would have her.
Unless ...
Yes, he knew now that he was going to kill his wife as soon as the opportunity presented itself. It would be a simple matter. With the aid of the telporter suit, he could establish an iron-clad alibi.
He took a long drink of whiskey and looked at the dancers about him. Sight of their gay costumes heightened his depression. He was wearing a cheap suit of satin, all he could afford. But some day soon he would show them! Some time soon he would be dressed as gaily....
"Something troubling you, honey?"
His gaze shot back to her and she blurred slightly before his eyes.
"No. Nothing at all!" He summoned a sickly smile and clutched her hand in his. "Come on. Let's dance."
He drew her from the chair and into his arms. She melted toward him as if desiring to become a part of him. A tremor of excitement surged through him and threatened to turn his knees into quivering jelly. He could not make his feet conform to the flooding rhythm of the music. He half stumbled, half pushed her along past the booths.
In the shelter of the palms he drew her savagely to him. "Let's—let's go outside." His voice was little more than a croak.
"But, honey!" She pushed herself away, her low voice maddening him. "Don't you have a private room? A girl doesn't like to be taken outside...."
Her words bit into his brain like the blade of a hot knife.
No, he didn't have a private room at the club like the others. A private room for his telporter receiver, a private room where he could take a willing guest. No! He couldn't afford it! No! No! NO! His lot was a cheap suit of satin! Cheap whiskey! Cheap champagne! A cheap shack by the river....
An inarticulate cry escaped his twisted lips. He clutched her roughly to him and dragged her through the door and into the moonlight, whiskey and anger lending him brutal strength.
He pulled her through the deserted garden. All the others had private rooms! He pulled her to the far end, behind a clump of squatty firs. His hands clawed at her. He tried to smother her mouth with kisses.
She eluded him deftly. "But, honey !" Her voice had gone deeper into her throat. "I just want to be sure about things. If you can't afford one of the private rooms—if you can't afford to show me a good time—if you can't come here real often ..."
The whiskey pounded and throbbed at his brain like blows from an unseen club. His ego curled and twisted within him like a headless serpent.
"I'll have money!" he shouted, struggling to hold her. "I'll have plenty of money! After tonight!"
"Then we'll wait," she said.
"We'll wait until tomorrow night."
"No!" he screamed. "You don't believe me! You're like the others! You think I'm no good! But I'll show you! I'll show all of you!"
She had gone
coldly rigid in his arms, unyielding.
Madness added to the pounding in his brain. Tears welled into his eyes.
"I'll show you! I'll kill her! Then I'll have money!" The hands clutching her shoulders shook her drunkenly. "You wait here! I'll go home and kill her now! Then I'll be back!"
"Silly boy!" Her low laughter rang hollowly in his ears. "And just who is it you are going to kill?"
"My wife!" he cried. "My wife! I'll ..."
A sudden sobering thought struck him. He was talking too much. And he wasn't making sense. He shouldn't be telling her this. Anyway, he couldn't get the money tonight even if he did kill his wife.
"And so you are going to kill your wife...."
He blinked the tears from his eyes. His chest was heaving, his heart pounding. He looked at her shimmering form. "Y-yes," he whispered.
Her eyes glinted strangely in the light of the moon. Her handbag glinted as she opened it, and something she took from it glittered coldly in her hand.
"Fool!"
The first shot tore squarely through his heart. And while he stood staring at her, mouth agape, a second shot burned its way through his bewildered brain.
Mrs. Herbert Hyrel
removed the telovis from her head and laid it carefully aside. She uncoiled her long legs from beneath her, walked to her husband's chair, and stood for a long moment looking down at him, her lips drawn back in contempt. Then she bent over him and reached down his thigh until her fingers contacted the small switch.
Seconds later, a slight tremor shook Hyrel's body. His eyes snapped open, air escaped his lungs, his lower jaw sagged inanely, and his head lolled to one side.
She stood a moment longer, watching his eyes become glazed and sightless. Then she walked to the telephone.
"Police?" she said. "This is Mrs. Herbert Hyrel. Something horrible has happened to my husband. Please come over immediately. Bring a doctor."
She hung up, went to her bathroom, stripped off her clothing, and slid carefully out of her telporter suit. This she folded neatly and tucked away into the false back of the medicine cabinet. She found a fresh pair of blue, plastifur pajamas and got into them.
She was just arriving back into the living room, tying the cord of her dressing gown about her slim waist, when she heard the sound of the police siren out front.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science Fiction July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Question:
Describe the dynamic between Herbert and his wife
Answer:
|
[
"The relationship Herbert and his wife have seems to have an infantilizing or patronizing tone to it. His wife seems to be fairly cold towards him, at least from the way she interacts with his death in the last scene of the story, but Herbert is harboring a large amount of hate and anger. A lot of this dynamic is driven by the control of money in the household, as Herbert's wife is in charge of these decisions, and Herbert does not agree with her on how much money he should have access to. His anger increases as he works on a plan to get away from her, as he spends what little he has to maintain access to the Riverside Club, paying rent on a cabin, buying a teleporter suit, and similar expenses. He is finally pushed to make the choice to finally want to kill her when he finds he does not have the spending money to be able to buy nice drinks or private rooms for himself and the woman he meets at the club, who turns out to be his wife. ",
"Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Hyrel have a constant struggle for power within their domestic relationship. Mrs. Hyrel’s family wealth insults Herbert, seeing as he has none. When she comes to the realization that he may only be with her because of her money, she starts to hide it from him and only gives him a monthly allowance. At that moment, Mrs. Hyrel took control and took most of Herbert’s power away from him. \nIt’s clear that Hyrel wants to be the man of the relationship or the one that wears the pants. So this action made him feel weak and unimportant. This further aggravated their marriage and led to a build-up of long-term resentment. \nMrs. Hyrel practically ignores Herbert, spending her evenings watching the televois. She doesn’t want to be bothered during this time either, since it would ruin the show. It’s later revealed that she also has a teleporter suit, so she may have been in the Riverside Club in other instances, not just watching the televois. This power struggle and wealth inequity led to Herbert’s murderous fantasies and his eventual murder. \n",
"The story never shows the Hyrels communicating outside of their shadowy selves; this emphasizes their dysfunction as a couple and highlights their mutual disdain. Herbert thinks his wife hates him because she believes he married her for her money, and he lives off the allowances she gives him. In turn, Herbert feels emasculated, and blames this on her, despite the fact that he does nothing but take her money and use it to attempt to seduce women at the Riverside Club. Herbert compares the thought of killing his wife to a bottle of old wine; the longer one marvels at a nice, expensive bottle of wine, the better it tastes when one finally drinks it. In the same way, he relishes his scheme, almost becoming intoxicated by it. When Herbert reunites with the woman at the Riverside Club, he cannot stop worrying that his wife will remove her telovis and discover him, and he continuously obsesses over his plan with increasing urgency. Herbert is so blinded by his rage and insecurities, that he fails to realize the woman is actually Mrs. Hyrel in disguise. ",
"The Hyrels have an unhappy marriage. In the evenings, they escape from each other, Mrs. Hyrel to her telovis shows and he to the Riverside Club. Herbert first resented Mrs. Hyrel’s hours-long escape each night that left him lonely in the evenings, but then he gets his teleporter suit and can’t wait for her to get wrapped up in her shows so that he can escape to the club. His resentment of his wife grew into hatred. Herbert does not have money of his own; his wife has money and gives him a “paltry” allowance as if he were a child. She seems to resent him, too, because he thinks she feels like she got a bad deal in marrying him and that she was trapped into marrying him without knowing what he was really like. Herbert has been thinking of killing his wife for some time, but he doesn’t want to do it right away because thinking about it is like the anticipation of enjoying an old bottle of wine. As long as the bottle is there, he can enjoy the hope of drinking it just as he can enjoy the hope of killing his wife. Even in her altered identity as the can-can dancer at the club, Mrs. Hyrel treats Herbert as inferior. She refuses to let him take her outside until he has bought her a glass of champagne; then she makes him wait a long time while she sips it. When he finally does take her outside, she refuses to do what he wants unless he can show her he has the money for a private room and to entertain her properly. Mrs. Hyrel knows that this will frustrate him even more and probably suspected that he wanted to kill her. In any case, she has planned to kill him because she brought her gun with her. When he states that he will kill his wife to have the money to entertain the girl, Mrs. Hyrel promptly shoots him. Her plan is well-thought-out because she has a hidden back to her medicine cabinet where she hides her teleporter suit before the police come. This hidden compartment has allowed her to keep her visits to the Riverside Club from Herbert and will prevent the police from suspecting her role in Herbert’s death.\n\n"
] |
30004
|
A grim tale of a future in which everyone is desperate to escape reality, and a hero who wants to have his wine and drink it, too.
A BOTTLE OF
Old Wine
By Richard O. Lewis
Illustrated by KELLY FREAS
Herbert Hyrel
settled himself more comfortably in his easy chair, extended his short legs further toward the fireplace, and let his eyes travel cautiously in the general direction of his wife.
She was in her chair as usual, her long legs curled up beneath her, the upper half of her face hidden in the bulk of her personalized, three-dimensional telovis. The telovis, of a stereoscopic nature, seemingly brought the performers with all their tinsel and color directly into the room of the watcher.
Hyrel had no way of seeing into the plastic affair she wore, but he guessed from the expression on the lower half of her face that she was watching one of the newer black-market sex-operas. In any event, there would be no sound, movement, or sign of life from her for the next three hours. To break the thread of the play for even a moment would ruin all the previous emotional build-up.
There had been a time when he hated her for those long and silent evenings, lonely hours during which he was completely ignored. It was different now, however, for those hours furnished him with time for an escape of his own.
His lips curled into a tight smile and his right hand fondled the unobtrusive switch beneath his trouser leg. He did not press the switch. He would wait a few minutes longer. But it was comforting to know that it was there, exhilarating to know that he could escape for a few hours by a mere flick of his finger.
He let his eyes stray to the dim light of the artificial flames in the fireplace. His hate for her was not bounded merely by those lonely hours she had forced upon him. No, it was far more encompassing.
He hated her with a deep, burning savagery that was deadly in its passion. He hated her for her money, the money she kept securely from him. He hated her for the paltry allowance she doled out to him, as if he were an irresponsible child. It was as if she were constantly reminding him in every glance and gesture, "I made a bad bargain when I married you. You wanted me, my money, everything, and had nothing to give in return except your own doltish self. You set a trap for me, baited with lies and a false front. Now you are caught in your own trap and will remain there like a mouse to eat from my hand whatever crumbs I stoop to give you."
But some day his hate would be appeased. Yes, some day soon he would kill her!
He shot a sideways glance at her, wondering if by chance she suspected.... She hadn't moved. Her lips were pouted into a half smile; the sex-opera had probably reached one of its more pleasurable moments.
Hyrel let his eyes shift back to the fireplace again. Yes, he would kill her. Then he would claim a rightful share of her money, be rid of her debasing dominance.
He let the
thought run around through his head, savoring it with mental taste buds. He would not kill her tonight. No, nor the next night. He would wait, wait until he had sucked the last measure of pleasure from the thought.
It was like having a bottle of rare old wine on a shelf where it could be viewed daily. It was like being able to pause again and again before the bottle, hold it up to the light, and say to it, "Some day, when my desire for you has reached the ultimate, I shall unstopper you quietly and sip you slowly to the last soul-satisfying drop." As long as the bottle remained there upon the shelf it was symbolic of that pleasurable moment....
He snapped out of his reverie and realized he had been wasting precious moments. There would be time enough tomorrow for gloating. Tonight, there were other things to do. Pleasurable things. He remembered the girl he had met the night before, and smiled smugly. Perhaps she would be awaiting him even now. If not, there would be another one....
He settled himself deeper into the chair, glanced once more at his wife, then let his head lean comfortably back against the chair's headrest. His hand upon his thigh felt the thin mesh that cloaked his body beneath his clothing like a sheer stocking. His fingers went again to the tiny switch. Again he hesitated.
Herbert Hyrel knew no more about the telporter suit he wore than he did about the radio in the corner, the TV set against the wall, or the personalized telovis his wife was wearing. You pressed one of the buttons on the radio; music came out. You pressed a button and clicked a dial on the TV; music and pictures came out. You pressed a button and made an adjustment on the telovis; three-dimensional, emotion-colored pictures leaped into the room. You pressed a tiny switch on the telporter suit; you were whisked away to a receiving set you had previously set up in secret.
He knew that the music and the images of the performers on the TV and telovis were brought to his room by some form of electrical impulse or wave while the actual musicians and performers remained in the studio. He knew that when he pressed the switch on his thigh something within him—his ectoplasm, higher self, the thing spirits use for materialization, whatever its real name—streamed out of him along an invisible channel, leaving his body behind in the chair in a conscious but dream-like state. His other self materialized in a small cabin in a hidden nook between a highway and a river where he had installed the receiving set a month ago.
He thought once more of the girl who might be waiting for him, smiled, and pressed the switch.
The dank air
of the cabin was chill to Herbert Hyrel's naked flesh. He fumbled through the darkness for the clothing he kept there, found his shorts and trousers, got hurriedly into them, then flicked on a pocket lighter and ignited a stub of candle upon the table. By the wavering light, he finished dressing in the black satin clothing, the white shirt, the flowing necktie and tam. He invoiced the contents of his billfold. Not much. And his monthly pittance was still two weeks away....
He had skimped for six months to salvage enough money from his allowance to make a down payment on the telporter suit. Since then, his expenses—monthly payments for the suit, cabin rent, costly liquor—had forced him to place his nights of escape on strict ration. He could not go on this way, he realized. Not now. Not since he had met the girl. He had to have more money. Perhaps he could not afford the luxury of leaving the wine bottle longer upon the shelf....
Riverside Club, where Hyrel arrived by bus and a hundred yards of walking, was exclusive. It catered to a clientele that had but three things in common: money, a desire for utter self-abandonment, and a sales slip indicating ownership of a telporter suit. The club was of necessity expensive, for self-telportation was strictly illegal, and police protection came high.
Herbert Hyrel adjusted his white, silken mask carefully at the door and shoved his sales slip through a small aperture where it was thoroughly scanned by unseen eyes. A buzzer sounded an instant later, the lock on the door clicked, and Hyrel pushed through into the exhilarating warmth of music and laughter.
The main room was large. Hidden lights along the walls sent slow beams of red, blue, vermillion, green, yellow and pink trailing across the domed ceiling in a heterogeneous pattern. The colored beams mingled, diffused, spread, were caught up by mirrors of various tints which diffused and mingled the lights once more until the whole effect was an ever-changing panorama of softly-melting shades.
The gay and bizarre costumes of the masked revelers on the dance floor and at the tables, unearthly in themselves, were made even more so by the altering light. Music flooded the room from unseen sources. Laughter—hysterical, drunken, filled with utter abandonment—came from the dance floor, the tables, and the private booths and rooms hidden cleverly within the walls.
Hyrel pushed himself to an unoccupied table, sat down and ordered a bottle of cheap whiskey. He would have preferred champagne, but his depleted finances forbade the more discriminate taste.
When his order arrived, he poured a glass tumbler half full and consumed it eagerly while his eyes scanned the room in search of the girl. He couldn't see her in the dim swirl of color. Had she arrived? Perhaps she was wearing a different costume than she had the night before. If so, recognition might prove difficult.
He poured himself another drink, promising himself he would go in search of her when the liquor began to take effect.
A woman clad in the revealing garb of a Persian dancer threw an arm about him from behind and kissed him on the cheek through the veil which covered the lower part of her face.
"Hi, honey," she giggled into his ear. "Havin' a time?"
He reached for the white arm to pull her to him, but she eluded his grasp and reeled away into the waiting arms of a tall toreador. Hyrel gulped his whiskey and watched her nestle into the arms of her partner and begin with him a sinuous, suggestive dance. The whiskey had begun its warming effect, and he laughed.
This was the land of the lotus eaters, the sanctuary of the escapists, the haven of all who wished to cast off their shell of inhibition and become the thing they dreamed themselves to be. Here one could be among his own kind, an actor upon a gay stage, a gaudy butterfly metamorphosed from the slug, a knight of old.
The Persian dancing girl was probably the wife of a boorish oaf whose idea of romance was spending an evening telling his wife how he came to be a successful bank president. But she had found her means of escape. Perhaps she had pleaded a sick headache and had retired to her room. And there upon the bed now reposed her shell of reality while her inner self, the shadowy one, completely materialized, became an exotic thing from the East in this never-never land.
The man, the toreador, had probably closeted himself within his library with a set of account books and had left strict orders not to be disturbed until he had finished with them.
Both would have terrific hangovers in the morning. But that, of course, would be fully compensated for by the memories of the evening.
Hyrel chuckled. The situation struck him as being funny: the shadowy self got drunk and had a good time, and the outer husk suffered the hangover in the morning. Strange. Strange how a device such as the telporter suit could cause the shadow of each bodily cell to leave the body, materialize, and become a reality in its own right. And yet ...
He looked
at the heel of his left hand. There was a long, irregular scar there. It was the result of a cut he had received nearly three weeks ago when he had fallen over this very table and had rammed his hand into a sliver of broken champagne glass. Later that evening, upon re-telporting back home, the pain of the cut had remained in his hand, but there was no sign of the cut itself on the hand of his outer self. The scar was peculiar to the shadowy body only. There was something about the shadowy body that carried the hurts to the outer body, but not the scars....
Sudden laughter broke out near him, and he turned quickly in that direction. A group of gaily costumed revelers was standing in a semi-circle about a small mound of clothing upon the floor. It was the costume of the toreador.
Hyrel laughed, too. It had happened many times before—a costume suddenly left empty as its owner, due to a threat of discovery at home, had had to press the switch in haste to bring his shadowy self—and complete consciousness—back to his outer self in a hurry.
A waiter picked up the clothing. He would put it safely away so that the owner could claim it upon his next visit to the club. Another waiter placed a fresh bottle of whiskey on the table before Hyrel, and Hyrel paid him for it.
The whiskey, reaching his head now in surges of warm cheerfulness, was filling him with abandonment, courage, and a desire for merriment. He pushed himself up from the table, joined the merry throng, threw his arm about the Persian dancer, drew her close.
They began dancing slowly to the throbbing rhythm, dancing and holding on to each other tightly. Hyrel could feel her hot breath through her veil upon his neck, adding to the headiness of the liquor. His feeling of depression and inferiority flowed suddenly from him. Once again he was the all-conquering male.
His arm trembled as it drew her still closer to him and he began dancing directly and purposefully toward the shadows of a clump of artificial palms near one corner of the room. There was an exit to the garden behind the palms.
Half way there they passed a secluded booth from which protruded a long leg clad in black mesh stocking. Hyrel paused as he recognized that part of the costume. It was she! The girl! The one he had met so briefly the night before!
His arm slid away from the Persian dancer, took hold of the mesh-clad leg, and pulled. A female form followed the leg from the booth and fell into his arms. He held her tightly, kissed her white neck, let her perfume send his thoughts reeling.
"Been looking for me, honey?" she whispered, her voice deep and throaty.
"You know it!"
He began whisking her away toward the palms. The Persian girl was pulled into the booth.
Yes, she was wearing the same costume she had worn the night before, that of a can-can dancer of the 90's. The mesh hose that encased her shapely legs were held up by flowered supporters in such a manner as to leave four inches of white leg exposed between hose top and lacy panties. Her skirt, frilled to suggest innumerable petticoats, fell away at each hip, leaving the front open to expose the full length of legs. She wore a wig of platinum hair encrusted with jewels that sparkled in the lights. Her jewel-studded mask was as white as her hair and covered the upper half of her face, except for the large almond slits for her eyes. A white purse, jewel crusted, dangled from one arm.
He stopped once before reaching the palms, drew her closer, kissed her long and ardently. Then he began pulling her on again.
She drew back when they reached the shelter of the fronds.
"Champagne, first," she whispered huskily into his ear.
His heart sank. He had very little money left. Well, it might buy a cheap brand....
She sipped
her champagne slowly and provocatively across the table from him. Her eyes sparkled behind the almond slits of her mask, caught the color changes and cast them back. She was wearing contact lenses of a garish green.
He wished she would hurry with her drink. He had horrible visions of his wife at home taking off her telovis and coming to his chair. He would then have to press the switch that would jerk his shadowy self back along its invisible connecting cord, jerk him back and leave but a small mound of clothes upon the chair at the table.
Deep depression laid hold of him. He would not be able to see her after tonight until he received his monthly dole two weeks hence. She wouldn't wait that long. Someone else would have her.
Unless ...
Yes, he knew now that he was going to kill his wife as soon as the opportunity presented itself. It would be a simple matter. With the aid of the telporter suit, he could establish an iron-clad alibi.
He took a long drink of whiskey and looked at the dancers about him. Sight of their gay costumes heightened his depression. He was wearing a cheap suit of satin, all he could afford. But some day soon he would show them! Some time soon he would be dressed as gaily....
"Something troubling you, honey?"
His gaze shot back to her and she blurred slightly before his eyes.
"No. Nothing at all!" He summoned a sickly smile and clutched her hand in his. "Come on. Let's dance."
He drew her from the chair and into his arms. She melted toward him as if desiring to become a part of him. A tremor of excitement surged through him and threatened to turn his knees into quivering jelly. He could not make his feet conform to the flooding rhythm of the music. He half stumbled, half pushed her along past the booths.
In the shelter of the palms he drew her savagely to him. "Let's—let's go outside." His voice was little more than a croak.
"But, honey!" She pushed herself away, her low voice maddening him. "Don't you have a private room? A girl doesn't like to be taken outside...."
Her words bit into his brain like the blade of a hot knife.
No, he didn't have a private room at the club like the others. A private room for his telporter receiver, a private room where he could take a willing guest. No! He couldn't afford it! No! No! NO! His lot was a cheap suit of satin! Cheap whiskey! Cheap champagne! A cheap shack by the river....
An inarticulate cry escaped his twisted lips. He clutched her roughly to him and dragged her through the door and into the moonlight, whiskey and anger lending him brutal strength.
He pulled her through the deserted garden. All the others had private rooms! He pulled her to the far end, behind a clump of squatty firs. His hands clawed at her. He tried to smother her mouth with kisses.
She eluded him deftly. "But, honey !" Her voice had gone deeper into her throat. "I just want to be sure about things. If you can't afford one of the private rooms—if you can't afford to show me a good time—if you can't come here real often ..."
The whiskey pounded and throbbed at his brain like blows from an unseen club. His ego curled and twisted within him like a headless serpent.
"I'll have money!" he shouted, struggling to hold her. "I'll have plenty of money! After tonight!"
"Then we'll wait," she said.
"We'll wait until tomorrow night."
"No!" he screamed. "You don't believe me! You're like the others! You think I'm no good! But I'll show you! I'll show all of you!"
She had gone
coldly rigid in his arms, unyielding.
Madness added to the pounding in his brain. Tears welled into his eyes.
"I'll show you! I'll kill her! Then I'll have money!" The hands clutching her shoulders shook her drunkenly. "You wait here! I'll go home and kill her now! Then I'll be back!"
"Silly boy!" Her low laughter rang hollowly in his ears. "And just who is it you are going to kill?"
"My wife!" he cried. "My wife! I'll ..."
A sudden sobering thought struck him. He was talking too much. And he wasn't making sense. He shouldn't be telling her this. Anyway, he couldn't get the money tonight even if he did kill his wife.
"And so you are going to kill your wife...."
He blinked the tears from his eyes. His chest was heaving, his heart pounding. He looked at her shimmering form. "Y-yes," he whispered.
Her eyes glinted strangely in the light of the moon. Her handbag glinted as she opened it, and something she took from it glittered coldly in her hand.
"Fool!"
The first shot tore squarely through his heart. And while he stood staring at her, mouth agape, a second shot burned its way through his bewildered brain.
Mrs. Herbert Hyrel
removed the telovis from her head and laid it carefully aside. She uncoiled her long legs from beneath her, walked to her husband's chair, and stood for a long moment looking down at him, her lips drawn back in contempt. Then she bent over him and reached down his thigh until her fingers contacted the small switch.
Seconds later, a slight tremor shook Hyrel's body. His eyes snapped open, air escaped his lungs, his lower jaw sagged inanely, and his head lolled to one side.
She stood a moment longer, watching his eyes become glazed and sightless. Then she walked to the telephone.
"Police?" she said. "This is Mrs. Herbert Hyrel. Something horrible has happened to my husband. Please come over immediately. Bring a doctor."
She hung up, went to her bathroom, stripped off her clothing, and slid carefully out of her telporter suit. This she folded neatly and tucked away into the false back of the medicine cabinet. She found a fresh pair of blue, plastifur pajamas and got into them.
She was just arriving back into the living room, tying the cord of her dressing gown about her slim waist, when she heard the sound of the police siren out front.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science Fiction July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
|
What is the role of the lockets in the story and how do they connect to the various societies
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Valley by Richard Stockham.
Relevant chunks:
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science Fiction June 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
THE VALLEY
By Richard Stockham
Illustrated by Ed Emsh
If you can't find it countless millions of miles in space, come back to Earth. You might find it just on the other side of the fence—where the grass is always greener.
The Ship dove into Earth's sea of atmosphere like a great, silver fish.
Inside the ship, a man and woman stood looking down at the expanse of land that curved away to a growing horizon. They saw the yellow ground cracked like a dried skin; and the polished stone of the mountains and the seas that were shrunken away in the dust. And they saw how the city circled the sea, as a circle of men surround a water hole in a desert under a blazing sun.
The ship's radio cried out. "You've made it! Thank God! You've made it!"
Another voice, shaking, said, "President—Davis is—overwhelmed. He can't go on. On his behalf and on behalf of all the people—with our hope that was almost dead, we greet you." A pause. "Please come in!"
The voice was silent. The air screamed against the hull of the ship.
"I can't tell them," said the man.
"Please come in!" said the radio. "Do you hear me?"
The woman looked up at the man. "You've got to Michael!"
"Two thousand years. From one end of the galaxy to the other. Not one grain of dust we can live on. Just Earth. And it's burned to a cinder."
A note of hysteria stabbed into the radio voice. "Are you all right? Stand by! We're sending a rescue ship."
"They've got a right to know what we've found," said the woman. "They sent us out. They've waited so long—."
He stared into space. "It's hopeless. If we'd found another planet they could live on, they'd do the same as they've done here."
He touched the tiny golden locket that hung around his neck. "Right now, I could press this and scratch myself and the whole farce would be over."
"No. A thousand of us died. You've got to think of them."
"We'll go back out into space," he said. "It's clean out there. I'm tired. Two thousand years of reincarnation."
She spoke softly. "We've been together for a long time. I've loved you. I've asked very little. But I need to stay on Earth. Please, Michael."
He looked at her for a moment. Then he flipped a switch. "Milky Way to Earth. Never mind the rescue ship. We're all right. We're coming in."
The great, white ship settled to Earth that was like a plain after flood waters have drained away.
The man and woman came out into the blazing sunlight.
A shout, like the crashing of a thousand surfs, rose and broke over them. The man and woman descended the gang-plank toward the officials gathered on the platform. They glanced around at the massed field of white faces beneath them; saw those same faces that had been turned toward them two thousand years past; remembered the cheers and the cries that had crashed around them then, as they and the thousand had stood before the towering spires of the ships, before the takeoff.
And, as then, there were no children among the milling, grasping throng. Only the same clutching hands and voices and arms, asking for an answer, a salvation, a happy end.
Now the officials gathered around the man and the woman, and spoke to them in voices of reverence.
A microphone was thrust into Michael's hand with the whispered admonition to tell the people of the great new life waiting for them, open and green and moist, on a virgin planet.
The cries of the people were slipping away and a stillness growing like an ocean calm and, within it, the sound of the pumps, throbbing, sucking the water from the seas.
And then Michael's voice, "The thousand who left with us are dead. For some time we've known the other planets in our solar system were uninhabitable. Now we've been from one end of the galaxy to the other. And this is what we've found.... We were given Earth. There's no place else for us. The rest of the planets in the galaxy were given to others. There's no place else for them. We've all had a chance to make the best of Earth. Instead we've made the worst of it. So we're here to stay—and die." He handed the microphone back.
The silence did not change.
The President grasped Michael's arm. "What're you saying?"
A buzzing rose up from the people like that of a swarm of frightened bees. The sea of white faces swayed and their voices began to cry. The din and motion held, long and drawn out, with a wail now and a fluttering beneath it.
Michael and the woman stood above them in the center of the pale, hovering faces of the officials.
"Good God," said the President. "You've got to tell them what you said isn't true!"
"We've been searching two thousand years for a truth," said Michael.
"A thousand of us have died finding it. I've told it. That's the way it's got to be."
The President swayed, took the microphone in his hands.
"There's been some mistake!" he cried. "Go back to the pumps and the distilleries! Go back to the water vats and the gardens and the flocks! Go back! Work and wait! We'll get the full truth to you. Everything's going to be all right !"
Obediently the mass of faces separated, as though they were being spun away on a whirling disk. Michael and the woman were swallowed up, like pebbles inside a closing hand, and carried away from the great, white ship.
They ushered the man and woman into the beamed and paneled council chambers and sat them in thick chairs before the wall of polished wood desks across which stared the line of faces, silent and waiting. And on a far wall, facing them all, hung a silver screen, fifty feet square.
The President stood. "Members of the council." He paused. "As you heard, they report—complete failure." He turned to Michael. "And now, the proof."
Michael stood beside the motion picture projector, close to his chair. The lights dimmed. There was only the sound of the pumps throbbing in the darkness close and far away, above and beneath and all around. Suddenly on the screen appeared an endless depth of blackness filled with a mass of glowing white, which extended into the room around the watching people, seeming to touch them and then spreading, like an ocean, farther away and out and out into an endless distance.
Now streaks of yellow fire shot into the picture, like a swarm of lightning bugs, the thin sharp nosed shadows of space ships, hurtling, like comets, toward the clustered star smear. And then silent thoughts flashed from the screen into the minds of the spectators; of time passing in months, years and centuries, passing and passing until they themselves seemed to be rushing and rushing into the blackness toward blinding balls of white light, the size of moons.
The dark shapes of smaller spheres circling the blinding ones moved forward into the picture; red, blue, green, yellow, purple and many mixtures of all these, and then one planet filled the screen, seeming to be inflated, like a balloon, into a shining red ball. There was a razor edge of horizon then and pink sky and an expanse of crimson. Flat, yellow creatures lay all around, expanding and contracting. A roaring rose and fell like the roaring of a million winds. Then fear flowed out of the picture into the minds of the watchers so that they gasped and cringed, and a silent voice told them that the atmosphere of this planet would disintegrate a human being.
Now the red ball seemed to pull away from them into the blackness and the blinding balls of light, and all around could be seen the streaks of rocket flame shooting away in all directions.
Suddenly a flash cut the blackness, like the flare of a match, and died, and the watchers caught from the screen the awareness of the death of a ship.
They were also aware of the rushing of time through centuries and they saw the streaking rocket flames and planets rushing at them; saw creatures in squares and circles, in threads wriggling, in lumps and blobs, rolling jumping and crawling; saw them in cloud forms whisking about, changing their shapes, and in flowing wavelets of water. They saw creatures hopping about on one leg and others crawling at incredible speeds on a thousand; saw some with all the numbers of legs and arms in between; and were aware of creatures that were there but invisible.
And those watching the screen on which time and distance were a compressed and distilled kaleidoscope, saw planet after planet and thousands at a time; heard strange noises; rasping and roaring, clinks and whistles, screams and crying, sighing and moaning. And they were aware through all this of atmosphere and ground inimical to man, some that would evaporate at the touch of a human body, or would burst into flame, or swallow, or turn from liquid to solid or solid to liquid. They saw and heard chemical analyses, were aware of this ocean of blackness and clouds of white through which man might move, and must ever move, because he could live only upon this floating dust speck that was Earth.
The picture faded in, close to one of the long, needle nosed crafts, showing inside, a man and a woman. Time was telescoped again while the man cut a tiny piece of scar tissue from his arm and that of the woman, put them in bottles and set them into compartments where solutions dripped rhythmically into the bottles, the temperature was held at that of the human body, and synthetic sunlight focused upon them from many pencil like tubes.
The watchers in the council chamber saw the bits of tissue swell into human embryos in a few seconds, and grow arms and legs and faces and extend themselves into babies. Saw them taken from the bottles and cared for, and become replicas of the man and woman controlling the ship, who, all this time were aging, until life went out of their bodies. Then the ones who had been the scar tissue disintegrated them in the coffin-like tubes and let their dust be sucked out into space—all this through millions of miles and a hundred years, compressed for the watchers into sixty seconds and a few feet of space.
Instantly there was black space on the screen again, with the fingers of flame pointing out behind the dark bodies of the ships.
And then the spectators saw one ship shudder and swerve into a blazing, bluish white star, like a gnat flying into a white hot poker; saw another drop away and away, out and out into the blackness past the swirling white rim of the galaxy, and sink into a dark nothingness.
Great balls of rock showered like hail onto other ships, smashing them into grotesque tin cans. The stream of fire at the tail of another ship suddenly died and the ship floated into an orbit around a great, yellow planet, ten times the size of Jupiter, then was sucked into it. Another burst like a bomb, flinging a man and woman out into the darkness, where they hung suspended, frozen into statues, like bodies drowned in the depths of an Arctic sea.
At this instant from the watching council, there were screams of horror and voices crying out, "Shut it off! Shut it off!" There was a moving about in the darkness. Murmurs and harsh cries of disapproval grew in volume.
Another ship in the picture was split down the side by a meteor and the bodies inside were impaled on jagged blades of steel, the contorted, bloody faces lighted by bursts of flame. And the screams and cries of the spectators rose higher, "Shut it off.... Oh Lord...."
Lights flashed through the room and the picture died.
Michael and Mary, both staring, saw, along the line of desks, the agonized faces, some staring like white stones, others hidden in clutching fingers, as though they had been confronted by a Medusa. There was the sound of heavy breathing that mixed with the throbbing of the pumps. The President held tightly to the edges of his desk to quiet his trembling.
"There—there've been changes," he said, "since you've been out in space. There isn't a person on Earth who's seen a violent death for hundreds of years."
Michael faced him, frowning. "I don't follow you."
"Dying violently happened so seldom on Earth that, after a long time, the sight of it began to drive some people mad. And then one day a man was struck by one of the ground cars and everyone who saw it went insane. Since then we've eliminated accidents, even the idea. Now, no one is aware that death by violence is even a possibility."
"I'm sorry," said Michael, "we've been so close to violent death for so long.... What you've seen is part of the proof you asked for."
"What you showed us was a picture," said the President. "If it had been real, we'd all be insane by now. If it were shown to the people there'd be mass hysteria."
"But even if we'd found another habitable planet, getting to it would involve just what we've shown you. Maybe only a tenth of the people who left Earth, or a hundredth, would ever reach a destination out in space."
"We couldn't tolerate such a possibility," said the President gravely. "We'd have to find a way around it."
The pumps throbbed like giant hearts all through the stillness in the council chambers. The faces along the line of desks were smoothing out; the terror in them was fading away.
"And yet the Earth is almost dead," said Michael quietly, "and you can't bring it back to life."
"The sins of our past, Mr. Nelson," said the President. "The Atomic wars five thousand years ago. And the greed. It was too late a long time ago. That, of course, is why the expedition was sent out. And now you've come back to us with this terrible news." He looked around, slowly, then back to Michael. "Can you give us any hope at all?"
"None."
"Another expedition? To Andromeda perhaps? With you the leader?"
Michael shook his head. "We're finished with expeditions, Mr. President."
There were mutterings in the council, and hastily whispered consultations. Now they were watching the man and woman again.
"We feel," said the President, "it would be dangerous to allow you to go out among the people. They've been informed that your statement wasn't entirely true. This was necessary, to avoid a panic. The people simply must not know the whole truth." He paused. "Now we ask you to keep in mind that whatever we decide about the two of you will be for the good of the people."
Michael and Mary were silent.
"You'll wait outside the council chambers," the President went on,
"until we have reached our decision."
As the man and woman were led away, the pumps beat in the stillness, and at the edge of the shrinking seas the salt thick waters were being pulled into the distilleries, and from them into the tier upon tier of artificial gardens that sat like giant bee hives all around the shoreline; and the mounds of salt glistening in the sunlight behind the gardens were growing into mountains.
In their rooms, Michael and Mary were talking through the hours, and waiting. All around them were fragile, form-fitting chairs and translucent walls and a ceiling that, holding the light of the sun when they had first seen it, was now filled with moonlight.
Standing at a circular window, ten feet in diameter, Michael saw, far below, the lights of the city extending into the darkness along the shoreline of the sea.
"We should have delivered our message by radio," he said, "and gone back into space."
"You could probably still go," she said quietly.
He came and stood beside her. "I couldn't stand being out in space, or anywhere, without you."
She looked up at him. "We could go out into the wilderness, Michael, outside the force walls. We could go far away."
He turned from her. "It's all dead. What would be the use?"
"I came from the Earth," she said quietly. "And I've got to go back to it. Space is so cold and frightening. Steel walls and blackness and the rockets and the little pinpoints of light. It's a prison."
"But to die out there in the desert, in that dust." Then he paused and looked away from her. "We're crazy—talking as though we had a choice."
"Maybe they'll have to give us a choice."
"What're you talking about?"
"They went into hysterics at the sight of those bodies in the picture. Those young bodies that didn't die of old age."
He waited.
"They can't stand the sight of people dying violently."
Her hand went to her throat and touched the tiny locket.
"These lockets were given to us so we'd have a choice between suffering or quick painless death.... We still have a choice."
He touched the locket at his own throat and was very still for a long moment. "So we threaten to kill ourselves, before their eyes. What would it do to them?"
He was still for a long time. "Sometimes, Mary, I think I don't know you at all." A pause. "And so now you and I are back where we started. Which'll it be, space or Earth?"
"Michael." Her voice trembled. "I—I don't know how to say this."
He waited, frowning, watching her intently.
"I'm—going to have a child."
His face went blank.
Then he stepped forward and took her by the shoulders. He saw the softness there in her face; saw her eyes bright as though the sun were shining in them; saw a flush in her cheeks, as though she had been running. And suddenly his throat was full.
"No," he said thickly. "I can't believe it."
"It's true."
He held her for a long time, then he turned his eyes aside.
"Yes, I can see it is."
"I—I can't put into words why I let it happen, Michael."
He shook his head. "I don't know—what to—to say. It's so incredible."
"Maybe—I got so—tired—just seeing the two of us over and over again and the culturing of the scar tissue, for twenty centuries. Maybe that was it. It was just—something I felt I had to do. Some— real life again. Something new. I felt a need to produce something out of myself. It all started way out in space, while we were getting close to the solar system. I began to wonder if we'd ever get out of the ship alive or if we'd ever see a sunset again or a dawn or the night or morning like we'd seen on Earth—so—so long ago. And then I had to let it happen. It was a vague and strange thing. There was something forcing me. But at the same time I wanted it, too. I seemed to be willing it, seemed to be feeling it was a necessary thing." She paused, frowning. "I didn't stop to think—it would be like this."
"Such a thing," he said, smiling grimly, "hasn't happened on Earth for three thousand years. I can remember in school, reading in the history books, how the whole Earth was overcrowded and how the food and water had to be rationed and then how the laws were passed forbidding birth and after that how the people died and there weren't any more babies born, until at last there was plenty of what the Earth had to give, for everyone. And then the news was broken to everyone about the culturing of the scar tissue, and there were a few dissenters but they were soon conditioned out of their dissension and the population was stabilized." He paused. "After all this past history, I don't think the council could endure what you've done."
"No," she said quietly. "I don't think they could."
"And so this will be just for us ." He took her in his arms. "If I remember rightly, this is a traditional action." A pause. "Now I'll go with you out onto the Earth—if we can swing it. When we get outside the city, or if we do—Well, we'll see."
They were very still together and then he turned and stood by the window and looked down upon the city and she came and stood beside him.
They both saw it at the same time. And they watched, without speaking, both knowing what was in the other's mind and heart. They watched the giant four dimensional screens all through the city. A green, lush planet showed bright and clear on them and there were ships standing among the trees and men walking through the grass, that moved gently like the swells on a calm ocean, while into their minds came the thoughts projected from the screen:
"This will be your new home. It was found and then lost. But another expedition will be sent out to find it again. Be of good hope. Everything will be all right."
Michael turned from the window. "So there's our evidence. Two thousand years. All the others killed getting it. And with a simple twist, it becomes a lie."
Mary sat down and buried her face in her hands.
"What a terrible failure there's been here," said Michael. "The neglect and destruction of a whole planet. It's like a family letting their home decay all around them, and living in smaller and smaller rooms of it, until at last the rooms are all gone, and since they can't find another home, they all die in the ruins of the last room."
"I can't face dying," Mary said quietly, "squeezed in with all these people, in this tomb they've made around the seas. I want to have the open sky and the quiet away from those awful pounding pumps when I die. I want the spread of the Earth all around and the clean air. I want to be a real part of the Earth again."
Michael barely nodded in agreement. He was standing very still now.
And then there was the sound of the door opening.
They both rose, like mourners at a funeral, and went into the council chambers.
Again they sat in the thick chairs before the wall of desks with the faces of the council looking across it like defenders.
The pumps were beating, beating all through the room and the quiet.
The President was standing. He faced Michael and Mary, and seemed to set himself as though to deliver a blow, or to receive one.
"Michael and Mary," he said, his voice struggling against a tightness,
"we've considered a long time concerning what is to be done with you and the report you brought back to us from the galaxy." He took another swallow of water. "To protect the sanity of the people, we've changed your report. We've also decided that the people must be protected from the possibility of your spreading the truth, as you did at the landing field. So, for the good of the people, you'll be isolated. All comforts will be given you. After all, in a sense, you are heroes and martyrs. Your scar tissue will be cultured as it has been in the past, and you will stay in solitary confinement until the time when, perhaps, we can migrate to another planet. We feel that hope must not be destroyed. And so another expedition is being sent out. It may be that, in time, on another planet, you'll be able to take your place in our society."
He paused. "Is there anything you wish to say?"
"Yes, there is."
"Proceed."
Michael stared straight at the President. After a long moment, he raised his hand to the tiny locket at his throat.
"Perhaps you remember," he said, "the lockets given to every member of the expedition the night before we left. I still have mine." He raised it. "So does my wife. They were designed to kill the wearer instantly and painlessly if he were ever faced with pain or a terror he couldn't endure."
The President was standing again. A stir ran along the barricade of desks.
"We can't endure the city," went on Michael, "or its life and the ways of the people." He glanced along the line of staring faces.
"If what I think you're about to say is true," said the President in a shaking voice, "it would have been better if you'd never been born."
"Let's face facts, Mr. President. We were born and haven't died—yet." A pause. "And we can kill ourselves right here before your eyes. It'd be painless to us. We'd be unconscious. But there would be horrible convulsions and grimaces. Our bodies would be twisted and torn. They'd thresh about. The deaths you saw in the picture happened a long time ago, in outer space. You all went into hysterics at the sight of them. Our deaths now would be close and terrible to see."
The President staggered as though about to faint. There was a stirring and muttering and a jumping up along the desks. Voices cried out, in anger and fear. Arms waved and fists pounded. Hands clasped and unclasped and clawed at collars, and there was a pell mell rushing around the President. They yelled at each other and clasped each other by the shoulders, turned away and back again, and then suddenly became very still.
Now they began to step down from the raised line of desks, the President leading them, and came close to the man and woman, gathering around them in a wide half circle.
Michael and Mary were holding the lockets close to their throats. The half circle of people, with the President at its center was moving closer and closer. They were sweaty faces and red ones and dry white ones and hands were raised to seize them.
Michael put his arm around Mary's waist. He felt the trembling in her body and the waiting for death.
"Stop!" he said quietly.
They halted, in slight confusion, barely drawing back.
"If you want to see us die—just come a step closer.... And remember what'll happen to you."
The faces began turning to each other and there was an undertone of muttering and whispering. "A ghastly thing.... Instant.... Nothing to do.... Space's broken their minds.... They'll do it.... Eyes're mad.... What can we do?... What?..." The sweaty faces, the cold white ones, the flushed hot ones: all began to turn to the President, who was staring at the two before him like a man watching himself die in a mirror.
"I command you," he suddenly said, in a choked voice, "to—to give me those—lockets! It's your—duty!"
"We've only one duty, Mr. President," said Michael sharply. "To ourselves."
"You're sick. Give yourselves over to us. We'll help you."
"We've made our choice. We want an answer. Quickly! Now!"
The President's body sagged. "What—what is it you want?"
Michael threw the words. "To go beyond the force fields of the city. To go far out onto the Earth and live as long as we can, and then to die a natural death."
The half circle of faces turned to each other and muttered and whispered again. "In the name of God.... Let them go.... Contaminate us.... Like animals.... Get them out of here.... Let them be finished.... Best for us all.... And them...."
There was a turning to the President again and hands thrusting him forward to within one step of Michael and Mary, who were standing there close together, as though attached.
Haltingly he said, "Go. Please go. Out onto the Earth—to die. You will die. The Earth is dead out there. You'll never see the city or your people again."
"We want a ground car," said Michael. "And supplies."
"A ground car," repeated the President. "And—supplies.... Yes."
"You can give us an escort, if you want to, out beyond the first range of mountains."
"There will be no escort," said the President firmly. "No one has been allowed to go out upon the Earth or to fly above it for many hundreds of years. We know it's there. That's enough. We couldn't bear the sight of it." He took a step back. "And we can't bear the sight of you any longer. Go now. Quickly!"
Michael and Mary did not let go of the lockets as they watched the half circle of faces move backward, staring, as though at corpses that should sink to the floor.
It was night. The city had been lost beyond the dead mounds of Earth that rolled away behind them, like a thousand ancient tombs. The ground car sat still on a crumbling road.
Looking up through the car's driving blister, they saw the stars sunk into the blue black ocean of space; saw the path of the Milky Way along which they had rushed, while they had been searching frantically for the place of salvation.
"If any one of the other couples had made it back," said Mary, "do you think they'd be with us?"
"I think they'd either be with us," he said, "or out in space again—or in prison."
She stared ahead along the beam of headlight that stabbed out into the night over the decaying road.
"How sorry are you," she said quietly, "coming with me?"
"All I know is, if I were out in space for long without you, I'd kill myself."
"Are we going to die out here, Michael?" she said, gesturing toward the wall of night that stood at the end of the headlight, "with the land?"
He turned from her, frowning, and drove the ground car forward, watching the headlights push back the darkness.
They followed the crumbling highway all night until light crept across the bald and cracked hills. The morning sun looked down upon the desolation ten feet above the horizon when the car stopped. They sat for a long time then, looking out upon the Earth's parched and inflamed skin. In the distance a wall of mountains rose like a great pile of bleached bones. Close ahead the rolling plains were motionless waves of dead Earth with a slight breeze stirring up little swirls of dust.
"I'm getting out," she said.
"I haven't the slightest idea how much farther to go, or why," said Michael shrugging. "It's all the same. Dirt and hills and mountains and sun and dust. It's really not much different from being out in space. We live in the car just like in a space ship. We've enough concentrated supplies to last for a year. How far do we go? Why? When?"
They stepped upon the Earth and felt the warmth of the sun and strolled toward the top of the hill.
"The air smells clean," he said.
"The ground feels good. I think I'll take off my shoes." She did.
"Take off your boots, Michael. Try it."
Wearily he pulled off his boots, stood in his bare feet. "It takes me back."
"Yes," she said and began walking toward the hilltop.
He followed, his boots slung around his neck. "There was a road somewhere, with the dust between my toes. Or was it a dream?"
"I guess when the past is old enough," she said, "it becomes a dream."
He watched her footprints in the dust. "God, listen to the quiet."
"I can't seem to remember so much quiet around me. There's always been the sound of a space ship, or the pumps back in the cities."
He did not answer but continued to watch her footsteps and to feel the dust squishing up between his toes. Then suddenly:
"Mary!"
She stopped, whirling around.
He was staring down at her feet.
She followed his gaze.
"It's grass!" He bent down. "Three blades."
She knelt beside him. They touched the green blades.
"They're new," he said.
They stared, like religious devotees concentrating upon some sacred object.
He rose, pulling her up with him. They hurried to the top of the hill and stood very still, looking down into a valley. There were tiny patches of green and little trees sprouting, and here and there, a pale flower. The green was in a cluster, in the center of the valley and there was a tiny glint of sunlight in its center.
"Oh!"
Her hand found his.
They ran down the gentle slope, feeling the patches of green touch their feet, smelling a new freshness in the air. And coming to the little spring, they stood beside it and watched the crystal water that trickled along the valley floor and lost itself around a bend. They saw a furry, little animal scurry away and heard the twitter of a bird and saw it resting on a slim, bending branch. They heard the buzz of a bee, saw it light on a pale flower at their feet and work at the sweetness inside.
Mary knelt down and drank from the spring.
"It's so cool. It must come from deep down."
"It does," he said. There were tears in his eyes and a tightness in his throat. "From deep down."
"We can live here, Michael!"
Slowly he looked all around until his sight stopped at the bottom of a hill. "We'll build our house just beyond those rocks. We'll dig and plant and you'll have the child."
"Yes!" she said. "Oh yes!"
"And the ones back in the city will know the Earth again. Sometime we'll lead them back here and show them the Earth is coming alive." He paused. "By following what we had to do for ourselves, we've found a way to save them."
They remained kneeling in the silence beside the pool for a long time. They felt the sun on their backs and looked into the clean depth of the water deeply aware of the new life breathing all around them and of themselves absorbing it, and at the same time giving back to it the life that was their own.
There was only this quiet and breathing and warmth until Michael stood and picked up a rock and walked toward the base of the hill where he had decided to build the house.
... THE END
Question:
What is the role of the lockets in the story and how do they connect to the various societies
Answer:
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[
"Michael and Mary, who have both just returned from a long expedition in a spacecraft, each keep a small golden locket around their neck. They were given these when they left on their mission, as a sort of escape hatch: if they were ever caught in a dangerous situation where they would have to die painful deaths, they could scratch themselves with the locket and they would die a quick and painless death instead of suffering. This is the first hint we see at the society's growing avoidance of painful deaths. For the people on the expedition, they were a tool to be used in case of emergency for the sake of the person wearing them. In the context of the society on Earth, however, they were a tool to negotiate the terms of how Michael and Mary would live. They considered threatening using these lockets to kill themselves, which they eventually did in a discussion with the President and his council. After they used the lockets, although they would die painless deaths, it would look very painful to the witnesses as the bodies experienced shock, so President Davis didn't want his people to see this. ",
"The lockets were given to all of the many members of the expedition into space to find a new, untainted home planet. These necklaces were outfitted with a device that would kill the wearer, presumably when held up to their throats as is demonstrated in the story, painlessly and quickly. In the 2,000 years since Michael, Mary, and the rest of the expedition left Earth, humans grew unaccustomed to violence. In fact, the sight of a man being killed by a ground car on accident sent all witnesses into a state of utter insanity. This incapacity for violence turns out to be of great use to Michael and Mary, who saw the rest of their team die horrible, bloody deaths over the course of their two-thousand-year-long journey. \nAfter the President condemns Michael and Mary to isolation due to their findings and unwillingness to return to space or lie to the public, the two threaten to kill themselves in front of his whole congregation, which would send the room into shock and panic. People begin to freak out, whispering about how crazy they are, but the President and his colleagues see the real danger in this. They don’t believe Mary and Michael will actually do it, so they step closer to them, which only causes them to bring the lockets closer to their necks. The President and his people’s unfamiliarity with violence saves Michael and Mary from isolation, as the President grants all their wishes in return for their lives. \n",
"The lockets were given to the original cohort of space explorers, including Michael and Mary, that went out on a two thousand year mission to find other planets suitable for human colonization in the Milky Way galaxy. The function of the locket is to provide a quick and painless death to the wearer should they be in a situation where they are going to have a painful death. The wearer simply presses the locket and scratches themselves with it to kill themselves. Although painless to them, their bodies appear to writhe and convulse until they go lifeless. \nMichael and Mary use the threat of killing themselves with their lockets in front of the President and the council to demand they be allowed to leave the city in a ground car with supplies instead of being put into solitary confinement for the foreseen future. They cause an uproar in the council chambers when they hold the lockets to their necks, with onlookers shocked and frightened by the thought of their own horrible fate if they witness their death. This is effective, because the death from the locket appears violent to those watching and they fear going insane if they see it.\nLockets are a method for the explorers to kill themselves, which is an interesting juxtaposition to the society remaining on Earth. Their main objective is perpetuating themselves through scar tissue regeneration technology that essentially provides them with immortality, and strict avoidance of death. \n",
"Prior to leaving for the mission to find a habitable planet for humans to relocate to, Michael and Mary are both given lockets that can be triggered to cause immediate death. The purpose is to avoid a potentially violent and painful death from whatever threat might be encountered out in unknown space. When they return to Earth 2,000 years later, Michael wants to press the locket rather than return to inform the people of their failure. Mary insists they return, however, presumably because she misses home (in reality, it is because she is pregnant). After President Davis and the council meet privately to determine the couple's fate, Mary reminds Michael that they have a bargaining chip available to them that will allow them to determine their own fate: the lockets. Because humans have not seen violent death in hundreds of years, Mary knows that the council will yield to whatever they demand in exchange for not having to witness their suicides in person. In this way, Michael and Mary negotiate their release from the city and are effectively banished outside the force walls."
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32744
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Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science Fiction June 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
THE VALLEY
By Richard Stockham
Illustrated by Ed Emsh
If you can't find it countless millions of miles in space, come back to Earth. You might find it just on the other side of the fence—where the grass is always greener.
The Ship dove into Earth's sea of atmosphere like a great, silver fish.
Inside the ship, a man and woman stood looking down at the expanse of land that curved away to a growing horizon. They saw the yellow ground cracked like a dried skin; and the polished stone of the mountains and the seas that were shrunken away in the dust. And they saw how the city circled the sea, as a circle of men surround a water hole in a desert under a blazing sun.
The ship's radio cried out. "You've made it! Thank God! You've made it!"
Another voice, shaking, said, "President—Davis is—overwhelmed. He can't go on. On his behalf and on behalf of all the people—with our hope that was almost dead, we greet you." A pause. "Please come in!"
The voice was silent. The air screamed against the hull of the ship.
"I can't tell them," said the man.
"Please come in!" said the radio. "Do you hear me?"
The woman looked up at the man. "You've got to Michael!"
"Two thousand years. From one end of the galaxy to the other. Not one grain of dust we can live on. Just Earth. And it's burned to a cinder."
A note of hysteria stabbed into the radio voice. "Are you all right? Stand by! We're sending a rescue ship."
"They've got a right to know what we've found," said the woman. "They sent us out. They've waited so long—."
He stared into space. "It's hopeless. If we'd found another planet they could live on, they'd do the same as they've done here."
He touched the tiny golden locket that hung around his neck. "Right now, I could press this and scratch myself and the whole farce would be over."
"No. A thousand of us died. You've got to think of them."
"We'll go back out into space," he said. "It's clean out there. I'm tired. Two thousand years of reincarnation."
She spoke softly. "We've been together for a long time. I've loved you. I've asked very little. But I need to stay on Earth. Please, Michael."
He looked at her for a moment. Then he flipped a switch. "Milky Way to Earth. Never mind the rescue ship. We're all right. We're coming in."
The great, white ship settled to Earth that was like a plain after flood waters have drained away.
The man and woman came out into the blazing sunlight.
A shout, like the crashing of a thousand surfs, rose and broke over them. The man and woman descended the gang-plank toward the officials gathered on the platform. They glanced around at the massed field of white faces beneath them; saw those same faces that had been turned toward them two thousand years past; remembered the cheers and the cries that had crashed around them then, as they and the thousand had stood before the towering spires of the ships, before the takeoff.
And, as then, there were no children among the milling, grasping throng. Only the same clutching hands and voices and arms, asking for an answer, a salvation, a happy end.
Now the officials gathered around the man and the woman, and spoke to them in voices of reverence.
A microphone was thrust into Michael's hand with the whispered admonition to tell the people of the great new life waiting for them, open and green and moist, on a virgin planet.
The cries of the people were slipping away and a stillness growing like an ocean calm and, within it, the sound of the pumps, throbbing, sucking the water from the seas.
And then Michael's voice, "The thousand who left with us are dead. For some time we've known the other planets in our solar system were uninhabitable. Now we've been from one end of the galaxy to the other. And this is what we've found.... We were given Earth. There's no place else for us. The rest of the planets in the galaxy were given to others. There's no place else for them. We've all had a chance to make the best of Earth. Instead we've made the worst of it. So we're here to stay—and die." He handed the microphone back.
The silence did not change.
The President grasped Michael's arm. "What're you saying?"
A buzzing rose up from the people like that of a swarm of frightened bees. The sea of white faces swayed and their voices began to cry. The din and motion held, long and drawn out, with a wail now and a fluttering beneath it.
Michael and the woman stood above them in the center of the pale, hovering faces of the officials.
"Good God," said the President. "You've got to tell them what you said isn't true!"
"We've been searching two thousand years for a truth," said Michael.
"A thousand of us have died finding it. I've told it. That's the way it's got to be."
The President swayed, took the microphone in his hands.
"There's been some mistake!" he cried. "Go back to the pumps and the distilleries! Go back to the water vats and the gardens and the flocks! Go back! Work and wait! We'll get the full truth to you. Everything's going to be all right !"
Obediently the mass of faces separated, as though they were being spun away on a whirling disk. Michael and the woman were swallowed up, like pebbles inside a closing hand, and carried away from the great, white ship.
They ushered the man and woman into the beamed and paneled council chambers and sat them in thick chairs before the wall of polished wood desks across which stared the line of faces, silent and waiting. And on a far wall, facing them all, hung a silver screen, fifty feet square.
The President stood. "Members of the council." He paused. "As you heard, they report—complete failure." He turned to Michael. "And now, the proof."
Michael stood beside the motion picture projector, close to his chair. The lights dimmed. There was only the sound of the pumps throbbing in the darkness close and far away, above and beneath and all around. Suddenly on the screen appeared an endless depth of blackness filled with a mass of glowing white, which extended into the room around the watching people, seeming to touch them and then spreading, like an ocean, farther away and out and out into an endless distance.
Now streaks of yellow fire shot into the picture, like a swarm of lightning bugs, the thin sharp nosed shadows of space ships, hurtling, like comets, toward the clustered star smear. And then silent thoughts flashed from the screen into the minds of the spectators; of time passing in months, years and centuries, passing and passing until they themselves seemed to be rushing and rushing into the blackness toward blinding balls of white light, the size of moons.
The dark shapes of smaller spheres circling the blinding ones moved forward into the picture; red, blue, green, yellow, purple and many mixtures of all these, and then one planet filled the screen, seeming to be inflated, like a balloon, into a shining red ball. There was a razor edge of horizon then and pink sky and an expanse of crimson. Flat, yellow creatures lay all around, expanding and contracting. A roaring rose and fell like the roaring of a million winds. Then fear flowed out of the picture into the minds of the watchers so that they gasped and cringed, and a silent voice told them that the atmosphere of this planet would disintegrate a human being.
Now the red ball seemed to pull away from them into the blackness and the blinding balls of light, and all around could be seen the streaks of rocket flame shooting away in all directions.
Suddenly a flash cut the blackness, like the flare of a match, and died, and the watchers caught from the screen the awareness of the death of a ship.
They were also aware of the rushing of time through centuries and they saw the streaking rocket flames and planets rushing at them; saw creatures in squares and circles, in threads wriggling, in lumps and blobs, rolling jumping and crawling; saw them in cloud forms whisking about, changing their shapes, and in flowing wavelets of water. They saw creatures hopping about on one leg and others crawling at incredible speeds on a thousand; saw some with all the numbers of legs and arms in between; and were aware of creatures that were there but invisible.
And those watching the screen on which time and distance were a compressed and distilled kaleidoscope, saw planet after planet and thousands at a time; heard strange noises; rasping and roaring, clinks and whistles, screams and crying, sighing and moaning. And they were aware through all this of atmosphere and ground inimical to man, some that would evaporate at the touch of a human body, or would burst into flame, or swallow, or turn from liquid to solid or solid to liquid. They saw and heard chemical analyses, were aware of this ocean of blackness and clouds of white through which man might move, and must ever move, because he could live only upon this floating dust speck that was Earth.
The picture faded in, close to one of the long, needle nosed crafts, showing inside, a man and a woman. Time was telescoped again while the man cut a tiny piece of scar tissue from his arm and that of the woman, put them in bottles and set them into compartments where solutions dripped rhythmically into the bottles, the temperature was held at that of the human body, and synthetic sunlight focused upon them from many pencil like tubes.
The watchers in the council chamber saw the bits of tissue swell into human embryos in a few seconds, and grow arms and legs and faces and extend themselves into babies. Saw them taken from the bottles and cared for, and become replicas of the man and woman controlling the ship, who, all this time were aging, until life went out of their bodies. Then the ones who had been the scar tissue disintegrated them in the coffin-like tubes and let their dust be sucked out into space—all this through millions of miles and a hundred years, compressed for the watchers into sixty seconds and a few feet of space.
Instantly there was black space on the screen again, with the fingers of flame pointing out behind the dark bodies of the ships.
And then the spectators saw one ship shudder and swerve into a blazing, bluish white star, like a gnat flying into a white hot poker; saw another drop away and away, out and out into the blackness past the swirling white rim of the galaxy, and sink into a dark nothingness.
Great balls of rock showered like hail onto other ships, smashing them into grotesque tin cans. The stream of fire at the tail of another ship suddenly died and the ship floated into an orbit around a great, yellow planet, ten times the size of Jupiter, then was sucked into it. Another burst like a bomb, flinging a man and woman out into the darkness, where they hung suspended, frozen into statues, like bodies drowned in the depths of an Arctic sea.
At this instant from the watching council, there were screams of horror and voices crying out, "Shut it off! Shut it off!" There was a moving about in the darkness. Murmurs and harsh cries of disapproval grew in volume.
Another ship in the picture was split down the side by a meteor and the bodies inside were impaled on jagged blades of steel, the contorted, bloody faces lighted by bursts of flame. And the screams and cries of the spectators rose higher, "Shut it off.... Oh Lord...."
Lights flashed through the room and the picture died.
Michael and Mary, both staring, saw, along the line of desks, the agonized faces, some staring like white stones, others hidden in clutching fingers, as though they had been confronted by a Medusa. There was the sound of heavy breathing that mixed with the throbbing of the pumps. The President held tightly to the edges of his desk to quiet his trembling.
"There—there've been changes," he said, "since you've been out in space. There isn't a person on Earth who's seen a violent death for hundreds of years."
Michael faced him, frowning. "I don't follow you."
"Dying violently happened so seldom on Earth that, after a long time, the sight of it began to drive some people mad. And then one day a man was struck by one of the ground cars and everyone who saw it went insane. Since then we've eliminated accidents, even the idea. Now, no one is aware that death by violence is even a possibility."
"I'm sorry," said Michael, "we've been so close to violent death for so long.... What you've seen is part of the proof you asked for."
"What you showed us was a picture," said the President. "If it had been real, we'd all be insane by now. If it were shown to the people there'd be mass hysteria."
"But even if we'd found another habitable planet, getting to it would involve just what we've shown you. Maybe only a tenth of the people who left Earth, or a hundredth, would ever reach a destination out in space."
"We couldn't tolerate such a possibility," said the President gravely. "We'd have to find a way around it."
The pumps throbbed like giant hearts all through the stillness in the council chambers. The faces along the line of desks were smoothing out; the terror in them was fading away.
"And yet the Earth is almost dead," said Michael quietly, "and you can't bring it back to life."
"The sins of our past, Mr. Nelson," said the President. "The Atomic wars five thousand years ago. And the greed. It was too late a long time ago. That, of course, is why the expedition was sent out. And now you've come back to us with this terrible news." He looked around, slowly, then back to Michael. "Can you give us any hope at all?"
"None."
"Another expedition? To Andromeda perhaps? With you the leader?"
Michael shook his head. "We're finished with expeditions, Mr. President."
There were mutterings in the council, and hastily whispered consultations. Now they were watching the man and woman again.
"We feel," said the President, "it would be dangerous to allow you to go out among the people. They've been informed that your statement wasn't entirely true. This was necessary, to avoid a panic. The people simply must not know the whole truth." He paused. "Now we ask you to keep in mind that whatever we decide about the two of you will be for the good of the people."
Michael and Mary were silent.
"You'll wait outside the council chambers," the President went on,
"until we have reached our decision."
As the man and woman were led away, the pumps beat in the stillness, and at the edge of the shrinking seas the salt thick waters were being pulled into the distilleries, and from them into the tier upon tier of artificial gardens that sat like giant bee hives all around the shoreline; and the mounds of salt glistening in the sunlight behind the gardens were growing into mountains.
In their rooms, Michael and Mary were talking through the hours, and waiting. All around them were fragile, form-fitting chairs and translucent walls and a ceiling that, holding the light of the sun when they had first seen it, was now filled with moonlight.
Standing at a circular window, ten feet in diameter, Michael saw, far below, the lights of the city extending into the darkness along the shoreline of the sea.
"We should have delivered our message by radio," he said, "and gone back into space."
"You could probably still go," she said quietly.
He came and stood beside her. "I couldn't stand being out in space, or anywhere, without you."
She looked up at him. "We could go out into the wilderness, Michael, outside the force walls. We could go far away."
He turned from her. "It's all dead. What would be the use?"
"I came from the Earth," she said quietly. "And I've got to go back to it. Space is so cold and frightening. Steel walls and blackness and the rockets and the little pinpoints of light. It's a prison."
"But to die out there in the desert, in that dust." Then he paused and looked away from her. "We're crazy—talking as though we had a choice."
"Maybe they'll have to give us a choice."
"What're you talking about?"
"They went into hysterics at the sight of those bodies in the picture. Those young bodies that didn't die of old age."
He waited.
"They can't stand the sight of people dying violently."
Her hand went to her throat and touched the tiny locket.
"These lockets were given to us so we'd have a choice between suffering or quick painless death.... We still have a choice."
He touched the locket at his own throat and was very still for a long moment. "So we threaten to kill ourselves, before their eyes. What would it do to them?"
He was still for a long time. "Sometimes, Mary, I think I don't know you at all." A pause. "And so now you and I are back where we started. Which'll it be, space or Earth?"
"Michael." Her voice trembled. "I—I don't know how to say this."
He waited, frowning, watching her intently.
"I'm—going to have a child."
His face went blank.
Then he stepped forward and took her by the shoulders. He saw the softness there in her face; saw her eyes bright as though the sun were shining in them; saw a flush in her cheeks, as though she had been running. And suddenly his throat was full.
"No," he said thickly. "I can't believe it."
"It's true."
He held her for a long time, then he turned his eyes aside.
"Yes, I can see it is."
"I—I can't put into words why I let it happen, Michael."
He shook his head. "I don't know—what to—to say. It's so incredible."
"Maybe—I got so—tired—just seeing the two of us over and over again and the culturing of the scar tissue, for twenty centuries. Maybe that was it. It was just—something I felt I had to do. Some— real life again. Something new. I felt a need to produce something out of myself. It all started way out in space, while we were getting close to the solar system. I began to wonder if we'd ever get out of the ship alive or if we'd ever see a sunset again or a dawn or the night or morning like we'd seen on Earth—so—so long ago. And then I had to let it happen. It was a vague and strange thing. There was something forcing me. But at the same time I wanted it, too. I seemed to be willing it, seemed to be feeling it was a necessary thing." She paused, frowning. "I didn't stop to think—it would be like this."
"Such a thing," he said, smiling grimly, "hasn't happened on Earth for three thousand years. I can remember in school, reading in the history books, how the whole Earth was overcrowded and how the food and water had to be rationed and then how the laws were passed forbidding birth and after that how the people died and there weren't any more babies born, until at last there was plenty of what the Earth had to give, for everyone. And then the news was broken to everyone about the culturing of the scar tissue, and there were a few dissenters but they were soon conditioned out of their dissension and the population was stabilized." He paused. "After all this past history, I don't think the council could endure what you've done."
"No," she said quietly. "I don't think they could."
"And so this will be just for us ." He took her in his arms. "If I remember rightly, this is a traditional action." A pause. "Now I'll go with you out onto the Earth—if we can swing it. When we get outside the city, or if we do—Well, we'll see."
They were very still together and then he turned and stood by the window and looked down upon the city and she came and stood beside him.
They both saw it at the same time. And they watched, without speaking, both knowing what was in the other's mind and heart. They watched the giant four dimensional screens all through the city. A green, lush planet showed bright and clear on them and there were ships standing among the trees and men walking through the grass, that moved gently like the swells on a calm ocean, while into their minds came the thoughts projected from the screen:
"This will be your new home. It was found and then lost. But another expedition will be sent out to find it again. Be of good hope. Everything will be all right."
Michael turned from the window. "So there's our evidence. Two thousand years. All the others killed getting it. And with a simple twist, it becomes a lie."
Mary sat down and buried her face in her hands.
"What a terrible failure there's been here," said Michael. "The neglect and destruction of a whole planet. It's like a family letting their home decay all around them, and living in smaller and smaller rooms of it, until at last the rooms are all gone, and since they can't find another home, they all die in the ruins of the last room."
"I can't face dying," Mary said quietly, "squeezed in with all these people, in this tomb they've made around the seas. I want to have the open sky and the quiet away from those awful pounding pumps when I die. I want the spread of the Earth all around and the clean air. I want to be a real part of the Earth again."
Michael barely nodded in agreement. He was standing very still now.
And then there was the sound of the door opening.
They both rose, like mourners at a funeral, and went into the council chambers.
Again they sat in the thick chairs before the wall of desks with the faces of the council looking across it like defenders.
The pumps were beating, beating all through the room and the quiet.
The President was standing. He faced Michael and Mary, and seemed to set himself as though to deliver a blow, or to receive one.
"Michael and Mary," he said, his voice struggling against a tightness,
"we've considered a long time concerning what is to be done with you and the report you brought back to us from the galaxy." He took another swallow of water. "To protect the sanity of the people, we've changed your report. We've also decided that the people must be protected from the possibility of your spreading the truth, as you did at the landing field. So, for the good of the people, you'll be isolated. All comforts will be given you. After all, in a sense, you are heroes and martyrs. Your scar tissue will be cultured as it has been in the past, and you will stay in solitary confinement until the time when, perhaps, we can migrate to another planet. We feel that hope must not be destroyed. And so another expedition is being sent out. It may be that, in time, on another planet, you'll be able to take your place in our society."
He paused. "Is there anything you wish to say?"
"Yes, there is."
"Proceed."
Michael stared straight at the President. After a long moment, he raised his hand to the tiny locket at his throat.
"Perhaps you remember," he said, "the lockets given to every member of the expedition the night before we left. I still have mine." He raised it. "So does my wife. They were designed to kill the wearer instantly and painlessly if he were ever faced with pain or a terror he couldn't endure."
The President was standing again. A stir ran along the barricade of desks.
"We can't endure the city," went on Michael, "or its life and the ways of the people." He glanced along the line of staring faces.
"If what I think you're about to say is true," said the President in a shaking voice, "it would have been better if you'd never been born."
"Let's face facts, Mr. President. We were born and haven't died—yet." A pause. "And we can kill ourselves right here before your eyes. It'd be painless to us. We'd be unconscious. But there would be horrible convulsions and grimaces. Our bodies would be twisted and torn. They'd thresh about. The deaths you saw in the picture happened a long time ago, in outer space. You all went into hysterics at the sight of them. Our deaths now would be close and terrible to see."
The President staggered as though about to faint. There was a stirring and muttering and a jumping up along the desks. Voices cried out, in anger and fear. Arms waved and fists pounded. Hands clasped and unclasped and clawed at collars, and there was a pell mell rushing around the President. They yelled at each other and clasped each other by the shoulders, turned away and back again, and then suddenly became very still.
Now they began to step down from the raised line of desks, the President leading them, and came close to the man and woman, gathering around them in a wide half circle.
Michael and Mary were holding the lockets close to their throats. The half circle of people, with the President at its center was moving closer and closer. They were sweaty faces and red ones and dry white ones and hands were raised to seize them.
Michael put his arm around Mary's waist. He felt the trembling in her body and the waiting for death.
"Stop!" he said quietly.
They halted, in slight confusion, barely drawing back.
"If you want to see us die—just come a step closer.... And remember what'll happen to you."
The faces began turning to each other and there was an undertone of muttering and whispering. "A ghastly thing.... Instant.... Nothing to do.... Space's broken their minds.... They'll do it.... Eyes're mad.... What can we do?... What?..." The sweaty faces, the cold white ones, the flushed hot ones: all began to turn to the President, who was staring at the two before him like a man watching himself die in a mirror.
"I command you," he suddenly said, in a choked voice, "to—to give me those—lockets! It's your—duty!"
"We've only one duty, Mr. President," said Michael sharply. "To ourselves."
"You're sick. Give yourselves over to us. We'll help you."
"We've made our choice. We want an answer. Quickly! Now!"
The President's body sagged. "What—what is it you want?"
Michael threw the words. "To go beyond the force fields of the city. To go far out onto the Earth and live as long as we can, and then to die a natural death."
The half circle of faces turned to each other and muttered and whispered again. "In the name of God.... Let them go.... Contaminate us.... Like animals.... Get them out of here.... Let them be finished.... Best for us all.... And them...."
There was a turning to the President again and hands thrusting him forward to within one step of Michael and Mary, who were standing there close together, as though attached.
Haltingly he said, "Go. Please go. Out onto the Earth—to die. You will die. The Earth is dead out there. You'll never see the city or your people again."
"We want a ground car," said Michael. "And supplies."
"A ground car," repeated the President. "And—supplies.... Yes."
"You can give us an escort, if you want to, out beyond the first range of mountains."
"There will be no escort," said the President firmly. "No one has been allowed to go out upon the Earth or to fly above it for many hundreds of years. We know it's there. That's enough. We couldn't bear the sight of it." He took a step back. "And we can't bear the sight of you any longer. Go now. Quickly!"
Michael and Mary did not let go of the lockets as they watched the half circle of faces move backward, staring, as though at corpses that should sink to the floor.
It was night. The city had been lost beyond the dead mounds of Earth that rolled away behind them, like a thousand ancient tombs. The ground car sat still on a crumbling road.
Looking up through the car's driving blister, they saw the stars sunk into the blue black ocean of space; saw the path of the Milky Way along which they had rushed, while they had been searching frantically for the place of salvation.
"If any one of the other couples had made it back," said Mary, "do you think they'd be with us?"
"I think they'd either be with us," he said, "or out in space again—or in prison."
She stared ahead along the beam of headlight that stabbed out into the night over the decaying road.
"How sorry are you," she said quietly, "coming with me?"
"All I know is, if I were out in space for long without you, I'd kill myself."
"Are we going to die out here, Michael?" she said, gesturing toward the wall of night that stood at the end of the headlight, "with the land?"
He turned from her, frowning, and drove the ground car forward, watching the headlights push back the darkness.
They followed the crumbling highway all night until light crept across the bald and cracked hills. The morning sun looked down upon the desolation ten feet above the horizon when the car stopped. They sat for a long time then, looking out upon the Earth's parched and inflamed skin. In the distance a wall of mountains rose like a great pile of bleached bones. Close ahead the rolling plains were motionless waves of dead Earth with a slight breeze stirring up little swirls of dust.
"I'm getting out," she said.
"I haven't the slightest idea how much farther to go, or why," said Michael shrugging. "It's all the same. Dirt and hills and mountains and sun and dust. It's really not much different from being out in space. We live in the car just like in a space ship. We've enough concentrated supplies to last for a year. How far do we go? Why? When?"
They stepped upon the Earth and felt the warmth of the sun and strolled toward the top of the hill.
"The air smells clean," he said.
"The ground feels good. I think I'll take off my shoes." She did.
"Take off your boots, Michael. Try it."
Wearily he pulled off his boots, stood in his bare feet. "It takes me back."
"Yes," she said and began walking toward the hilltop.
He followed, his boots slung around his neck. "There was a road somewhere, with the dust between my toes. Or was it a dream?"
"I guess when the past is old enough," she said, "it becomes a dream."
He watched her footprints in the dust. "God, listen to the quiet."
"I can't seem to remember so much quiet around me. There's always been the sound of a space ship, or the pumps back in the cities."
He did not answer but continued to watch her footsteps and to feel the dust squishing up between his toes. Then suddenly:
"Mary!"
She stopped, whirling around.
He was staring down at her feet.
She followed his gaze.
"It's grass!" He bent down. "Three blades."
She knelt beside him. They touched the green blades.
"They're new," he said.
They stared, like religious devotees concentrating upon some sacred object.
He rose, pulling her up with him. They hurried to the top of the hill and stood very still, looking down into a valley. There were tiny patches of green and little trees sprouting, and here and there, a pale flower. The green was in a cluster, in the center of the valley and there was a tiny glint of sunlight in its center.
"Oh!"
Her hand found his.
They ran down the gentle slope, feeling the patches of green touch their feet, smelling a new freshness in the air. And coming to the little spring, they stood beside it and watched the crystal water that trickled along the valley floor and lost itself around a bend. They saw a furry, little animal scurry away and heard the twitter of a bird and saw it resting on a slim, bending branch. They heard the buzz of a bee, saw it light on a pale flower at their feet and work at the sweetness inside.
Mary knelt down and drank from the spring.
"It's so cool. It must come from deep down."
"It does," he said. There were tears in his eyes and a tightness in his throat. "From deep down."
"We can live here, Michael!"
Slowly he looked all around until his sight stopped at the bottom of a hill. "We'll build our house just beyond those rocks. We'll dig and plant and you'll have the child."
"Yes!" she said. "Oh yes!"
"And the ones back in the city will know the Earth again. Sometime we'll lead them back here and show them the Earth is coming alive." He paused. "By following what we had to do for ourselves, we've found a way to save them."
They remained kneeling in the silence beside the pool for a long time. They felt the sun on their backs and looked into the clean depth of the water deeply aware of the new life breathing all around them and of themselves absorbing it, and at the same time giving back to it the life that was their own.
There was only this quiet and breathing and warmth until Michael stood and picked up a rock and walked toward the base of the hill where he had decided to build the house.
... THE END
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What are the alien flies, and what are their characteristics?
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After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Hanging Stranger by Philip K. Dick.
Relevant chunks:
THE HANGING STRANGER
BY PHILIP K. DICK
ILLUSTRATED BY SMITH
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Science Fiction Adventures Magazine December 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Ed had always been a practical man, when he saw something was wrong he tried to correct it. Then one day he saw
it
hanging in the town square.
Five o'clock Ed Loyce washed up, tossed on his hat and coat, got his car out and headed across town toward his TV sales store. He was tired. His back and shoulders ached from digging dirt out of the basement and wheeling it into the back yard. But for a forty-year-old man he had done okay. Janet could get a new vase with the money he had saved; and he liked the idea of repairing the foundations himself!
It was getting dark. The setting sun cast long rays over the scurrying commuters, tired and grim-faced, women loaded down with bundles and packages, students swarming home from the university, mixing with clerks and businessmen and drab secretaries. He stopped his Packard for a red light and then started it up again. The store had been open without him; he'd arrive just in time to spell the help for dinner, go over the records of the day, maybe even close a couple of sales himself. He drove slowly past the small square of green in the center of the street, the town park. There were no parking places in front of LOYCE TV SALES AND SERVICE. He cursed under his breath and swung the car in a U-turn. Again he passed the little square of green with its lonely drinking fountain and bench and single lamppost.
From the lamppost something was hanging. A shapeless dark bundle, swinging a little with the wind. Like a dummy of some sort. Loyce rolled down his window and peered out. What the hell was it? A display of some kind? Sometimes the Chamber of Commerce put up displays in the square.
Again he made a U-turn and brought his car around. He passed the park and concentrated on the dark bundle. It wasn't a dummy. And if it was a display it was a strange kind. The hackles on his neck rose and he swallowed uneasily. Sweat slid out on his face and hands.
It was a body. A human body.
"Look at it!" Loyce snapped. "Come on out here!"
Don Fergusson came slowly out of the store, buttoning his pin-stripe coat with dignity. "This is a big deal, Ed. I can't just leave the guy standing there."
"See it?" Ed pointed into the gathering gloom. The lamppost jutted up against the sky—the post and the bundle swinging from it. "There it is. How the hell long has it been there?" His voice rose excitedly. "What's wrong with everybody? They just walk on past!"
Don Fergusson lit a cigarette slowly. "Take it easy, old man. There must be a good reason, or it wouldn't be there."
"A reason! What kind of a reason?"
Fergusson shrugged. "Like the time the Traffic Safety Council put that wrecked Buick there. Some sort of civic thing. How would I know?"
Jack Potter from the shoe shop joined them. "What's up, boys?"
"There's a body hanging from the lamppost," Loyce said. "I'm going to call the cops."
"They must know about it," Potter said. "Or otherwise it wouldn't be there."
"I got to get back in." Fergusson headed back into the store. "Business before pleasure."
Loyce began to get hysterical. "You see it? You see it hanging there? A man's body! A dead man!"
"Sure, Ed. I saw it this afternoon when I went out for coffee."
"You mean it's been there all afternoon?"
"Sure. What's the matter?" Potter glanced at his watch. "Have to run. See you later, Ed."
Potter hurried off, joining the flow of people moving along the sidewalk. Men and women, passing by the park. A few glanced up curiously at the dark bundle—and then went on. Nobody stopped. Nobody paid any attention.
"I'm going nuts," Loyce whispered. He made his way to the curb and crossed out into traffic, among the cars. Horns honked angrily at him. He gained the curb and stepped up onto the little square of green.
The man had been middle-aged. His clothing was ripped and torn, a gray suit, splashed and caked with dried mud. A stranger. Loyce had never seen him before. Not a local man. His face was partly turned, away, and in the evening wind he spun a little, turning gently, silently. His skin was gouged and cut. Red gashes, deep scratches of congealed blood. A pair of steel-rimmed glasses hung from one ear, dangling foolishly. His eyes bulged. His mouth was open, tongue thick and ugly blue.
"For Heaven's sake," Loyce muttered, sickened. He pushed down his nausea and made his way back to the sidewalk. He was shaking all over, with revulsion—and fear.
Why? Who was the man? Why was he hanging there? What did it mean?
And—why didn't anybody notice?
He bumped into a small man hurrying along the sidewalk. "Watch it!" the man grated, "Oh, it's you, Ed."
Ed nodded dazedly. "Hello, Jenkins."
"What's the matter?" The stationery clerk caught Ed's arm. "You look sick."
"The body. There in the park."
"Sure, Ed." Jenkins led him into the alcove of LOYCE TV SALES AND SERVICE. "Take it easy."
Margaret Henderson from the jewelry store joined them. "Something wrong?"
"Ed's not feeling well."
Loyce yanked himself free. "How can you stand here? Don't you see it? For God's sake—"
"What's he talking about?" Margaret asked nervously.
"The body!" Ed shouted. "The body hanging there!"
More people collected. "Is he sick? It's Ed Loyce. You okay, Ed?"
"The body!" Loyce screamed, struggling to get past them. Hands caught at him. He tore loose. "Let me go! The police! Get the police!"
"Ed—"
"Better get a doctor!"
"He must be sick."
"Or drunk."
Loyce fought his way through the people. He stumbled and half fell. Through a blur he saw rows of faces, curious, concerned, anxious. Men and women halting to see what the disturbance was. He fought past them toward his store. He could see Fergusson inside talking to a man, showing him an Emerson TV set. Pete Foley in the back at the service counter, setting up a new Philco. Loyce shouted at them frantically. His voice was lost in the roar of traffic and the murmur around him.
"Do something!" he screamed. "Don't stand there! Do something! Something's wrong! Something's happened! Things are going on!"
The crowd melted respectfully for the two heavy-set cops moving efficiently toward Loyce.
"Name?" the cop with the notebook murmured.
"Loyce." He mopped his forehead wearily. "Edward C. Loyce. Listen to me. Back there—"
"Address?" the cop demanded. The police car moved swiftly through traffic, shooting among the cars and buses. Loyce sagged against the seat, exhausted and confused. He took a deep shuddering breath.
"1368 Hurst Road."
"That's here in Pikeville?"
"That's right." Loyce pulled himself up with a violent effort. "Listen to me. Back there. In the square. Hanging from the lamppost—"
"Where were you today?" the cop behind the wheel demanded.
"Where?" Loyce echoed.
"You weren't in your shop, were you?"
"No." He shook his head. "No, I was home. Down in the basement."
"In the basement ?"
"Digging. A new foundation. Getting out the dirt to pour a cement frame. Why? What has that to do with—"
"Was anybody else down there with you?"
"No. My wife was downtown. My kids were at school." Loyce looked from one heavy-set cop to the other. Hope flicked across his face, wild hope.
"You mean because I was down there I missed—the explanation? I didn't get in on it? Like everybody else?"
After a pause the cop with the notebook said: "That's right. You missed the explanation."
"Then it's official? The body—it's supposed to be hanging there?"
"It's supposed to be hanging there. For everybody to see."
Ed Loyce grinned weakly. "Good Lord. I guess I sort of went off the deep end. I thought maybe something had happened. You know, something like the Ku Klux Klan. Some kind of violence. Communists or Fascists taking over." He wiped his face with his breast-pocket handkerchief, his hands shaking. "I'm glad to know it's on the level."
"It's on the level." The police car was getting near the Hall of Justice. The sun had set. The streets were gloomy and dark. The lights had not yet come on.
"I feel better," Loyce said. "I was pretty excited there, for a minute. I guess I got all stirred up. Now that I understand, there's no need to take me in, is there?"
The two cops said nothing.
"I should be back at my store. The boys haven't had dinner. I'm all right, now. No more trouble. Is there any need of—"
"This won't take long," the cop behind the wheel interrupted. "A short process. Only a few minutes."
"I hope it's short," Loyce muttered. The car slowed down for a stoplight. "I guess I sort of disturbed the peace. Funny, getting excited like that and—"
Loyce yanked the door open. He sprawled out into the street and rolled to his feet. Cars were moving all around him, gaining speed as the light changed. Loyce leaped onto the curb and raced among the people, burrowing into the swarming crowds. Behind him he heard sounds, shouts, people running.
They weren't cops. He had realized that right away. He knew every cop in Pikeville. A man couldn't own a store, operate a business in a small town for twenty-five years without getting to know all the cops.
They weren't cops—and there hadn't been any explanation. Potter, Fergusson, Jenkins, none of them knew why it was there. They didn't know—and they didn't care. That was the strange part.
Loyce ducked into a hardware store. He raced toward the back, past the startled clerks and customers, into the shipping room and through the back door. He tripped over a garbage can and ran up a flight of concrete steps. He climbed over a fence and jumped down on the other side, gasping and panting.
There was no sound behind him. He had got away.
He was at the entrance of an alley, dark and strewn with boards and ruined boxes and tires. He could see the street at the far end. A street light wavered and came on. Men and women. Stores. Neon signs. Cars.
And to his right—the police station.
He was close, terribly close. Past the loading platform of a grocery store rose the white concrete side of the Hall of Justice. Barred windows. The police antenna. A great concrete wall rising up in the darkness. A bad place for him to be near. He was too close. He had to keep moving, get farther away from them.
Them?
Loyce moved cautiously down the alley. Beyond the police station was the City Hall, the old-fashioned yellow structure of wood and gilded brass and broad cement steps. He could see the endless rows of offices, dark windows, the cedars and beds of flowers on each side of the entrance.
And—something else.
Above the City Hall was a patch of darkness, a cone of gloom denser than the surrounding night. A prism of black that spread out and was lost into the sky.
He listened. Good God, he could hear something. Something that made him struggle frantically to close his ears, his mind, to shut out the sound. A buzzing. A distant, muted hum like a great swarm of bees.
Loyce gazed up, rigid with horror. The splotch of darkness, hanging over the City Hall. Darkness so thick it seemed almost solid. In the vortex something moved. Flickering shapes. Things, descending from the sky, pausing momentarily above the City Hall, fluttering over it in a dense swarm and then dropping silently onto the roof.
Shapes. Fluttering shapes from the sky. From the crack of darkness that hung above him.
He was seeing—them.
For a long time Loyce watched, crouched behind a sagging fence in a pool of scummy water.
They were landing. Coming down in groups, landing on the roof of the City Hall and disappearing inside. They had wings. Like giant insects of some kind. They flew and fluttered and came to rest—and then crawled crab-fashion, sideways, across the roof and into the building.
He was sickened. And fascinated. Cold night wind blew around him and he shuddered. He was tired, dazed with shock. On the front steps of the City Hall were men, standing here and there. Groups of men coming out of the building and halting for a moment before going on.
Were there more of them?
It didn't seem possible. What he saw descending from the black chasm weren't men. They were alien—from some other world, some other dimension. Sliding through this slit, this break in the shell of the universe. Entering through this gap, winged insects from another realm of being.
On the steps of the City Hall a group of men broke up. A few moved toward a waiting car. One of the remaining shapes started to re-enter the City Hall. It changed its mind and turned to follow the others.
Loyce closed his eyes in horror. His senses reeled. He hung on tight, clutching at the sagging fence. The shape, the man-shape, had abruptly fluttered up and flapped after the others. It flew to the sidewalk and came to rest among them.
Pseudo-men. Imitation men. Insects with ability to disguise themselves as men. Like other insects familiar to Earth. Protective coloration. Mimicry.
Loyce pulled himself away. He got slowly to his feet. It was night. The alley was totally dark. But maybe they could see in the dark. Maybe darkness made no difference to them.
He left the alley cautiously and moved out onto the street. Men and women flowed past, but not so many, now. At the bus-stops stood waiting groups. A huge bus lumbered along the street, its lights flashing in the evening gloom.
Loyce moved forward. He pushed his way among those waiting and when the bus halted he boarded it and took a seat in the rear, by the door. A moment later the bus moved into life and rumbled down the street.
Loyce relaxed a little. He studied the people around him. Dulled, tired faces. People going home from work. Quite ordinary faces. None of them paid any attention to him. All sat quietly, sunk down in their seats, jiggling with the motion of the bus.
The man sitting next to him unfolded a newspaper. He began to read the sports section, his lips moving. An ordinary man. Blue suit. Tie. A businessman, or a salesman. On his way home to his wife and family.
Across the aisle a young woman, perhaps twenty. Dark eyes and hair, a package on her lap. Nylons and heels. Red coat and white angora sweater. Gazing absently ahead of her.
A high school boy in jeans and black jacket.
A great triple-chinned woman with an immense shopping bag loaded with packages and parcels. Her thick face dim with weariness.
Ordinary people. The kind that rode the bus every evening. Going home to their families. To dinner.
Going home—with their minds dead. Controlled, filmed over with the mask of an alien being that had appeared and taken possession of them, their town, their lives. Himself, too. Except that he happened to be deep in his cellar instead of in the store. Somehow, he had been overlooked. They had missed him. Their control wasn't perfect, foolproof.
Maybe there were others.
Hope flickered in Loyce. They weren't omnipotent. They had made a mistake, not got control of him. Their net, their field of control, had passed over him. He had emerged from his cellar as he had gone down. Apparently their power-zone was limited.
A few seats down the aisle a man was watching him. Loyce broke off his chain of thought. A slender man, with dark hair and a small mustache. Well-dressed, brown suit and shiny shoes. A book between his small hands. He was watching Loyce, studying him intently. He turned quickly away.
Loyce tensed. One of them ? Or—another they had missed?
The man was watching him again. Small dark eyes, alive and clever. Shrewd. A man too shrewd for them—or one of the things itself, an alien insect from beyond.
The bus halted. An elderly man got on slowly and dropped his token into the box. He moved down the aisle and took a seat opposite Loyce.
The elderly man caught the sharp-eyed man's gaze. For a split second something passed between them.
A look rich with meaning.
Loyce got to his feet. The bus was moving. He ran to the door. One step down into the well. He yanked the emergency door release. The rubber door swung open.
"Hey!" the driver shouted, jamming on the brakes. "What the hell—"
Loyce squirmed through. The bus was slowing down. Houses on all sides. A residential district, lawns and tall apartment buildings. Behind him, the bright-eyed man had leaped up. The elderly man was also on his feet. They were coming after him.
Loyce leaped. He hit the pavement with terrific force and rolled against the curb. Pain lapped over him. Pain and a vast tide of blackness. Desperately, he fought it off. He struggled to his knees and then slid down again. The bus had stopped. People were getting off.
Loyce groped around. His fingers closed over something. A rock, lying in the gutter. He crawled to his feet, grunting with pain. A shape loomed before him. A man, the bright-eyed man with the book.
Loyce kicked. The man gasped and fell. Loyce brought the rock down. The man screamed and tried to roll away. " Stop! For God's sake listen—"
He struck again. A hideous crunching sound. The man's voice cut off and dissolved in a bubbling wail. Loyce scrambled up and back. The others were there, now. All around him. He ran, awkwardly, down the sidewalk, up a driveway. None of them followed him. They had stopped and were bending over the inert body of the man with the book, the bright-eyed man who had come after him.
Had he made a mistake?
But it was too late to worry about that. He had to get out—away from them. Out of Pikeville, beyond the crack of darkness, the rent between their world and his.
"Ed!" Janet Loyce backed away nervously. "What is it? What—"
Ed Loyce slammed the door behind him and came into the living room.
"Pull down the shades. Quick."
Janet moved toward the window. "But—"
"Do as I say. Who else is here besides you?"
"Nobody. Just the twins. They're upstairs in their room. What's happened? You look so strange. Why are you home?"
Ed locked the front door. He prowled around the house, into the kitchen. From the drawer under the sink he slid out the big butcher knife and ran his finger along it. Sharp. Plenty sharp. He returned to the living room.
"Listen to me," he said. "I don't have much time. They know I escaped and they'll be looking for me."
"Escaped?" Janet's face twisted with bewilderment and fear. "Who?"
"The town has been taken over. They're in control. I've got it pretty well figured out. They started at the top, at the City Hall and police department. What they did with the real humans they—"
"What are you talking about?"
"We've been invaded. From some other universe, some other dimension. They're insects. Mimicry. And more. Power to control minds. Your mind."
"My mind?"
"Their entrance is here , in Pikeville. They've taken over all of you. The whole town—except me. We're up against an incredibly powerful enemy, but they have their limitations. That's our hope. They're limited! They can make mistakes!"
Janet shook her head. "I don't understand, Ed. You must be insane."
"Insane? No. Just lucky. If I hadn't been down in the basement I'd be like all the rest of you." Loyce peered out the window. "But I can't stand here talking. Get your coat."
"My coat?"
"We're getting out of here. Out of Pikeville. We've got to get help. Fight this thing. They can be beaten. They're not infallible. It's going to be close—but we may make it if we hurry. Come on!" He grabbed her arm roughly. "Get your coat and call the twins. We're all leaving. Don't stop to pack. There's no time for that."
White-faced, his wife moved toward the closet and got down her coat.
"Where are we going?"
Ed pulled open the desk drawer and spilled the contents out onto the floor. He grabbed up a road map and spread it open. "They'll have the highway covered, of course. But there's a back road. To Oak Grove. I got onto it once. It's practically abandoned. Maybe they'll forget about it."
"The old Ranch Road? Good Lord—it's completely closed. Nobody's supposed to drive over it."
"I know." Ed thrust the map grimly into his coat. "That's our best chance. Now call down the twins and let's get going. Your car is full of gas, isn't it?"
Janet was dazed.
"The Chevy? I had it filled up yesterday afternoon." Janet moved toward the stairs. "Ed, I—"
"Call the twins!" Ed unlocked the front door and peered out. Nothing stirred. No sign of life. All right so far.
"Come on downstairs," Janet called in a wavering voice. "We're—going out for awhile."
"Now?" Tommy's voice came.
"Hurry up," Ed barked. "Get down here, both of you."
Tommy appeared at the top of the stairs. "I was doing my home work. We're starting fractions. Miss Parker says if we don't get this done—"
"You can forget about fractions." Ed grabbed his son as he came down the stairs and propelled him toward the door. "Where's Jim?"
"He's coming."
Jim started slowly down the stairs. "What's up, Dad?"
"We're going for a ride."
"A ride? Where?"
Ed turned to Janet. "We'll leave the lights on. And the TV set. Go turn it on." He pushed her toward the set. "So they'll think we're still—"
He heard the buzz. And dropped instantly, the long butcher knife out. Sickened, he saw it coming down the stairs at him, wings a blur of motion as it aimed itself. It still bore a vague resemblance to Jimmy. It was small, a baby one. A brief glimpse—the thing hurtling at him, cold, multi-lensed inhuman eyes. Wings, body still clothed in yellow T-shirt and jeans, the mimic outline still stamped on it. A strange half-turn of its body as it reached him. What was it doing?
A stinger.
Loyce stabbed wildly at it. It retreated, buzzing frantically. Loyce rolled and crawled toward the door. Tommy and Janet stood still as statues, faces blank. Watching without expression. Loyce stabbed again. This time the knife connected. The thing shrieked and faltered. It bounced against the wall and fluttered down.
Something lapped through his mind. A wall of force, energy, an alien mind probing into him. He was suddenly paralyzed. The mind entered his own, touched against him briefly, shockingly. An utterly alien presence, settling over him—and then it flickered out as the thing collapsed in a broken heap on the rug.
It was dead. He turned it over with his foot. It was an insect, a fly of some kind. Yellow T-shirt, jeans. His son Jimmy.... He closed his mind tight. It was too late to think about that. Savagely he scooped up his knife and headed toward the door. Janet and Tommy stood stone-still, neither of them moving.
The car was out. He'd never get through. They'd be waiting for him. It was ten miles on foot. Ten long miles over rough ground, gulleys and open fields and hills of uncut forest. He'd have to go alone.
Loyce opened the door. For a brief second he looked back at his wife and son. Then he slammed the door behind him and raced down the porch steps.
A moment later he was on his way, hurrying swiftly through the darkness toward the edge of town.
The early morning sunlight was blinding. Loyce halted, gasping for breath, swaying back and forth. Sweat ran down in his eyes. His clothing was torn, shredded by the brush and thorns through which he had crawled. Ten miles—on his hands and knees. Crawling, creeping through the night. His shoes were mud-caked. He was scratched and limping, utterly exhausted.
But ahead of him lay Oak Grove.
He took a deep breath and started down the hill. Twice he stumbled and fell, picking himself up and trudging on. His ears rang. Everything receded and wavered. But he was there. He had got out, away from Pikeville.
A farmer in a field gaped at him. From a house a young woman watched in wonder. Loyce reached the road and turned onto it. Ahead of him was a gasoline station and a drive-in. A couple of trucks, some chickens pecking in the dirt, a dog tied with a string.
The white-clad attendant watched suspiciously as he dragged himself up to the station. "Thank God." He caught hold of the wall. "I didn't think I was going to make it. They followed me most of the way. I could hear them buzzing. Buzzing and flitting around behind me."
"What happened?" the attendant demanded. "You in a wreck? A hold-up?"
Loyce shook his head wearily. "They have the whole town. The City Hall and the police station. They hung a man from the lamppost. That was the first thing I saw. They've got all the roads blocked. I saw them hovering over the cars coming in. About four this morning I got beyond them. I knew it right away. I could feel them leave. And then the sun came up."
The attendant licked his lip nervously. "You're out of your head. I better get a doctor."
"Get me into Oak Grove," Loyce gasped. He sank down on the gravel.
"We've got to get started—cleaning them out. Got to get started right away."
They kept a tape recorder going all the time he talked. When he had finished the Commissioner snapped off the recorder and got to his feet. He stood for a moment, deep in thought. Finally he got out his cigarettes and lit up slowly, a frown on his beefy face.
"You don't believe me," Loyce said.
The Commissioner offered him a cigarette. Loyce pushed it impatiently away. "Suit yourself." The Commissioner moved over to the window and stood for a time looking out at the town of Oak Grove. "I believe you," he said abruptly.
Loyce sagged. "Thank God."
"So you got away." The Commissioner shook his head. "You were down in your cellar instead of at work. A freak chance. One in a million."
Loyce sipped some of the black coffee they had brought him. "I have a theory," he murmured.
"What is it?"
"About them. Who they are. They take over one area at a time. Starting at the top—the highest level of authority. Working down from there in a widening circle. When they're firmly in control they go on to the next town. They spread, slowly, very gradually. I think it's been going on for a long time."
"A long time?"
"Thousands of years. I don't think it's new."
"Why do you say that?"
"When I was a kid.... A picture they showed us in Bible League. A religious picture—an old print. The enemy gods, defeated by Jehovah. Moloch, Beelzebub, Moab, Baalin, Ashtaroth—"
"So?"
"They were all represented by figures." Loyce looked up at the Commissioner. "Beelzebub was represented as—a giant fly."
The Commissioner grunted. "An old struggle."
"They've been defeated. The Bible is an account of their defeats. They make gains—but finally they're defeated."
"Why defeated?"
"They can't get everyone. They didn't get me. And they never got the Hebrews. The Hebrews carried the message to the whole world. The realization of the danger. The two men on the bus. I think they understood. Had escaped, like I did." He clenched his fists. "I killed one of them. I made a mistake. I was afraid to take a chance."
The Commissioner nodded. "Yes, they undoubtedly had escaped, as you did. Freak accidents. But the rest of the town was firmly in control." He turned from the window. "Well, Mr. Loyce. You seem to have figured everything out."
"Not everything. The hanging man. The dead man hanging from the lamppost. I don't understand that. Why? Why did they deliberately hang him there?"
"That would seem simple." The Commissioner smiled faintly. " Bait. "
Loyce stiffened. His heart stopped beating. "Bait? What do you mean?"
"To draw you out. Make you declare yourself. So they'd know who was under control—and who had escaped."
Loyce recoiled with horror. "Then they expected failures! They anticipated—" He broke off. "They were ready with a trap."
"And you showed yourself. You reacted. You made yourself known." The Commissioner abruptly moved toward the door. "Come along, Loyce. There's a lot to do. We must get moving. There's no time to waste."
Loyce started slowly to his feet, numbed. "And the man. Who was the man? I never saw him before. He wasn't a local man. He was a stranger. All muddy and dirty, his face cut, slashed—"
There was a strange look on the Commissioner's face as he answered.
"Maybe," he said softly, "you'll understand that, too. Come along with me, Mr. Loyce." He held the door open, his eyes gleaming. Loyce caught a glimpse of the street in front of the police station. Policemen, a platform of some sort. A telephone pole—and a rope! "Right this way," the Commissioner said, smiling coldly.
As the sun set, the vice-president of the Oak Grove Merchants' Bank came up out of the vault, threw the heavy time locks, put on his hat and coat, and hurried outside onto the sidewalk. Only a few people were there, hurrying home to dinner.
"Good night," the guard said, locking the door after him.
"Good night," Clarence Mason murmured. He started along the street toward his car. He was tired. He had been working all day down in the vault, examining the lay-out of the safety deposit boxes to see if there was room for another tier. He was glad to be finished.
At the corner he halted. The street lights had not yet come on. The street was dim. Everything was vague. He looked around—and froze.
From the telephone pole in front of the police station, something large and shapeless hung. It moved a little with the wind.
What the hell was it?
Mason approached it warily. He wanted to get home. He was tired and hungry. He thought of his wife, his kids, a hot meal on the dinner table. But there was something about the dark bundle, something ominous and ugly. The light was bad; he couldn't tell what it was. Yet it drew him on, made him move closer for a better look. The shapeless thing made him uneasy. He was frightened by it. Frightened—and fascinated.
And the strange part was that nobody else seemed to notice it.
Question:
What are the alien flies, and what are their characteristics?
Answer:
|
[
"The alien flies have multi-lensed inhuman eyes, wings, and a stinger. They are dark, coming from another dimension. They look like giant insects in their original form. When they move, they will produce a buzzing sound. They can mimic the appearance of humans, and they can control human minds. However, their mind control ability has its limit that they can control one area at one time, starting from the highest authority and widening down the control in a circle. When they control the whole town, they move to another area to continue. Their power flaw makes them unable to control everyone that someone may be overlooked. When that is the case, they set up a trap, using people who escape from the controlled town as bait to hang them in public, to lure people who are not under control to come to them by themselves. They anticipate their failures and are smart enough to make up for their flaws.",
"The alien flies are the creatures that invaded Ed’s town and started to control everyone. They entered the town above town hall through a portal-like chasm in swarms. They were described as large bugs, with human characteristics. They could easily imitate humans, which is why it was hard at first for Ed to distinguish who was who. They are described as violent and fearless, but they weren’t omnipotent. They made mistakes when controlling people, which is what allowed Ed to initially be free of their control. ",
"The alien flies are a strange type of species that have come in hopes of controlling the entire town. The Commissioner says that he has a theory of who they are. Most of the alien flies try to take over one area at a time, starting from the highest level and working down to widen the circle. Eventually, they move to a different town once the one they are currently controlling is firmly in their grasp. This has also been happening for thousands of years. Physically, they are giant insects with wings, capable of blending in as pseudo-men. When the one that resembles Jimmy attacks Loyce, he notes that it has wings and cold in-human eyes. There is also a stinger when it turns its body. The alien flies are dedicated to carrying out their mission of controlling the entire town. They do not have any personal emotions, but they are willing to get rid of any obstacle that stands in their way. The flies are very intelligent too, capable of mimicking humans almost perfectly and using bait to draw out the escaped ones. ",
"The alien flies are some unknown creatures that came to Pikeville through a slit in the shell of the universe and occupied the town’s citizens’ minds and bodies. They have been doing this for thousands of years - Ed remembered their image was in the Bible. They are smart and can disguise themselves as humans. They also can anticipate their own mistakes and create certain mechanisms to locate people whose minds they haven’t yet invaded. For example, they hang dead bodies in the central part of a town. This image can disturb only ones who are not aware of the aliens. \n\n"
] |
41562
|
THE HANGING STRANGER
BY PHILIP K. DICK
ILLUSTRATED BY SMITH
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Science Fiction Adventures Magazine December 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Ed had always been a practical man, when he saw something was wrong he tried to correct it. Then one day he saw
it
hanging in the town square.
Five o'clock Ed Loyce washed up, tossed on his hat and coat, got his car out and headed across town toward his TV sales store. He was tired. His back and shoulders ached from digging dirt out of the basement and wheeling it into the back yard. But for a forty-year-old man he had done okay. Janet could get a new vase with the money he had saved; and he liked the idea of repairing the foundations himself!
It was getting dark. The setting sun cast long rays over the scurrying commuters, tired and grim-faced, women loaded down with bundles and packages, students swarming home from the university, mixing with clerks and businessmen and drab secretaries. He stopped his Packard for a red light and then started it up again. The store had been open without him; he'd arrive just in time to spell the help for dinner, go over the records of the day, maybe even close a couple of sales himself. He drove slowly past the small square of green in the center of the street, the town park. There were no parking places in front of LOYCE TV SALES AND SERVICE. He cursed under his breath and swung the car in a U-turn. Again he passed the little square of green with its lonely drinking fountain and bench and single lamppost.
From the lamppost something was hanging. A shapeless dark bundle, swinging a little with the wind. Like a dummy of some sort. Loyce rolled down his window and peered out. What the hell was it? A display of some kind? Sometimes the Chamber of Commerce put up displays in the square.
Again he made a U-turn and brought his car around. He passed the park and concentrated on the dark bundle. It wasn't a dummy. And if it was a display it was a strange kind. The hackles on his neck rose and he swallowed uneasily. Sweat slid out on his face and hands.
It was a body. A human body.
"Look at it!" Loyce snapped. "Come on out here!"
Don Fergusson came slowly out of the store, buttoning his pin-stripe coat with dignity. "This is a big deal, Ed. I can't just leave the guy standing there."
"See it?" Ed pointed into the gathering gloom. The lamppost jutted up against the sky—the post and the bundle swinging from it. "There it is. How the hell long has it been there?" His voice rose excitedly. "What's wrong with everybody? They just walk on past!"
Don Fergusson lit a cigarette slowly. "Take it easy, old man. There must be a good reason, or it wouldn't be there."
"A reason! What kind of a reason?"
Fergusson shrugged. "Like the time the Traffic Safety Council put that wrecked Buick there. Some sort of civic thing. How would I know?"
Jack Potter from the shoe shop joined them. "What's up, boys?"
"There's a body hanging from the lamppost," Loyce said. "I'm going to call the cops."
"They must know about it," Potter said. "Or otherwise it wouldn't be there."
"I got to get back in." Fergusson headed back into the store. "Business before pleasure."
Loyce began to get hysterical. "You see it? You see it hanging there? A man's body! A dead man!"
"Sure, Ed. I saw it this afternoon when I went out for coffee."
"You mean it's been there all afternoon?"
"Sure. What's the matter?" Potter glanced at his watch. "Have to run. See you later, Ed."
Potter hurried off, joining the flow of people moving along the sidewalk. Men and women, passing by the park. A few glanced up curiously at the dark bundle—and then went on. Nobody stopped. Nobody paid any attention.
"I'm going nuts," Loyce whispered. He made his way to the curb and crossed out into traffic, among the cars. Horns honked angrily at him. He gained the curb and stepped up onto the little square of green.
The man had been middle-aged. His clothing was ripped and torn, a gray suit, splashed and caked with dried mud. A stranger. Loyce had never seen him before. Not a local man. His face was partly turned, away, and in the evening wind he spun a little, turning gently, silently. His skin was gouged and cut. Red gashes, deep scratches of congealed blood. A pair of steel-rimmed glasses hung from one ear, dangling foolishly. His eyes bulged. His mouth was open, tongue thick and ugly blue.
"For Heaven's sake," Loyce muttered, sickened. He pushed down his nausea and made his way back to the sidewalk. He was shaking all over, with revulsion—and fear.
Why? Who was the man? Why was he hanging there? What did it mean?
And—why didn't anybody notice?
He bumped into a small man hurrying along the sidewalk. "Watch it!" the man grated, "Oh, it's you, Ed."
Ed nodded dazedly. "Hello, Jenkins."
"What's the matter?" The stationery clerk caught Ed's arm. "You look sick."
"The body. There in the park."
"Sure, Ed." Jenkins led him into the alcove of LOYCE TV SALES AND SERVICE. "Take it easy."
Margaret Henderson from the jewelry store joined them. "Something wrong?"
"Ed's not feeling well."
Loyce yanked himself free. "How can you stand here? Don't you see it? For God's sake—"
"What's he talking about?" Margaret asked nervously.
"The body!" Ed shouted. "The body hanging there!"
More people collected. "Is he sick? It's Ed Loyce. You okay, Ed?"
"The body!" Loyce screamed, struggling to get past them. Hands caught at him. He tore loose. "Let me go! The police! Get the police!"
"Ed—"
"Better get a doctor!"
"He must be sick."
"Or drunk."
Loyce fought his way through the people. He stumbled and half fell. Through a blur he saw rows of faces, curious, concerned, anxious. Men and women halting to see what the disturbance was. He fought past them toward his store. He could see Fergusson inside talking to a man, showing him an Emerson TV set. Pete Foley in the back at the service counter, setting up a new Philco. Loyce shouted at them frantically. His voice was lost in the roar of traffic and the murmur around him.
"Do something!" he screamed. "Don't stand there! Do something! Something's wrong! Something's happened! Things are going on!"
The crowd melted respectfully for the two heavy-set cops moving efficiently toward Loyce.
"Name?" the cop with the notebook murmured.
"Loyce." He mopped his forehead wearily. "Edward C. Loyce. Listen to me. Back there—"
"Address?" the cop demanded. The police car moved swiftly through traffic, shooting among the cars and buses. Loyce sagged against the seat, exhausted and confused. He took a deep shuddering breath.
"1368 Hurst Road."
"That's here in Pikeville?"
"That's right." Loyce pulled himself up with a violent effort. "Listen to me. Back there. In the square. Hanging from the lamppost—"
"Where were you today?" the cop behind the wheel demanded.
"Where?" Loyce echoed.
"You weren't in your shop, were you?"
"No." He shook his head. "No, I was home. Down in the basement."
"In the basement ?"
"Digging. A new foundation. Getting out the dirt to pour a cement frame. Why? What has that to do with—"
"Was anybody else down there with you?"
"No. My wife was downtown. My kids were at school." Loyce looked from one heavy-set cop to the other. Hope flicked across his face, wild hope.
"You mean because I was down there I missed—the explanation? I didn't get in on it? Like everybody else?"
After a pause the cop with the notebook said: "That's right. You missed the explanation."
"Then it's official? The body—it's supposed to be hanging there?"
"It's supposed to be hanging there. For everybody to see."
Ed Loyce grinned weakly. "Good Lord. I guess I sort of went off the deep end. I thought maybe something had happened. You know, something like the Ku Klux Klan. Some kind of violence. Communists or Fascists taking over." He wiped his face with his breast-pocket handkerchief, his hands shaking. "I'm glad to know it's on the level."
"It's on the level." The police car was getting near the Hall of Justice. The sun had set. The streets were gloomy and dark. The lights had not yet come on.
"I feel better," Loyce said. "I was pretty excited there, for a minute. I guess I got all stirred up. Now that I understand, there's no need to take me in, is there?"
The two cops said nothing.
"I should be back at my store. The boys haven't had dinner. I'm all right, now. No more trouble. Is there any need of—"
"This won't take long," the cop behind the wheel interrupted. "A short process. Only a few minutes."
"I hope it's short," Loyce muttered. The car slowed down for a stoplight. "I guess I sort of disturbed the peace. Funny, getting excited like that and—"
Loyce yanked the door open. He sprawled out into the street and rolled to his feet. Cars were moving all around him, gaining speed as the light changed. Loyce leaped onto the curb and raced among the people, burrowing into the swarming crowds. Behind him he heard sounds, shouts, people running.
They weren't cops. He had realized that right away. He knew every cop in Pikeville. A man couldn't own a store, operate a business in a small town for twenty-five years without getting to know all the cops.
They weren't cops—and there hadn't been any explanation. Potter, Fergusson, Jenkins, none of them knew why it was there. They didn't know—and they didn't care. That was the strange part.
Loyce ducked into a hardware store. He raced toward the back, past the startled clerks and customers, into the shipping room and through the back door. He tripped over a garbage can and ran up a flight of concrete steps. He climbed over a fence and jumped down on the other side, gasping and panting.
There was no sound behind him. He had got away.
He was at the entrance of an alley, dark and strewn with boards and ruined boxes and tires. He could see the street at the far end. A street light wavered and came on. Men and women. Stores. Neon signs. Cars.
And to his right—the police station.
He was close, terribly close. Past the loading platform of a grocery store rose the white concrete side of the Hall of Justice. Barred windows. The police antenna. A great concrete wall rising up in the darkness. A bad place for him to be near. He was too close. He had to keep moving, get farther away from them.
Them?
Loyce moved cautiously down the alley. Beyond the police station was the City Hall, the old-fashioned yellow structure of wood and gilded brass and broad cement steps. He could see the endless rows of offices, dark windows, the cedars and beds of flowers on each side of the entrance.
And—something else.
Above the City Hall was a patch of darkness, a cone of gloom denser than the surrounding night. A prism of black that spread out and was lost into the sky.
He listened. Good God, he could hear something. Something that made him struggle frantically to close his ears, his mind, to shut out the sound. A buzzing. A distant, muted hum like a great swarm of bees.
Loyce gazed up, rigid with horror. The splotch of darkness, hanging over the City Hall. Darkness so thick it seemed almost solid. In the vortex something moved. Flickering shapes. Things, descending from the sky, pausing momentarily above the City Hall, fluttering over it in a dense swarm and then dropping silently onto the roof.
Shapes. Fluttering shapes from the sky. From the crack of darkness that hung above him.
He was seeing—them.
For a long time Loyce watched, crouched behind a sagging fence in a pool of scummy water.
They were landing. Coming down in groups, landing on the roof of the City Hall and disappearing inside. They had wings. Like giant insects of some kind. They flew and fluttered and came to rest—and then crawled crab-fashion, sideways, across the roof and into the building.
He was sickened. And fascinated. Cold night wind blew around him and he shuddered. He was tired, dazed with shock. On the front steps of the City Hall were men, standing here and there. Groups of men coming out of the building and halting for a moment before going on.
Were there more of them?
It didn't seem possible. What he saw descending from the black chasm weren't men. They were alien—from some other world, some other dimension. Sliding through this slit, this break in the shell of the universe. Entering through this gap, winged insects from another realm of being.
On the steps of the City Hall a group of men broke up. A few moved toward a waiting car. One of the remaining shapes started to re-enter the City Hall. It changed its mind and turned to follow the others.
Loyce closed his eyes in horror. His senses reeled. He hung on tight, clutching at the sagging fence. The shape, the man-shape, had abruptly fluttered up and flapped after the others. It flew to the sidewalk and came to rest among them.
Pseudo-men. Imitation men. Insects with ability to disguise themselves as men. Like other insects familiar to Earth. Protective coloration. Mimicry.
Loyce pulled himself away. He got slowly to his feet. It was night. The alley was totally dark. But maybe they could see in the dark. Maybe darkness made no difference to them.
He left the alley cautiously and moved out onto the street. Men and women flowed past, but not so many, now. At the bus-stops stood waiting groups. A huge bus lumbered along the street, its lights flashing in the evening gloom.
Loyce moved forward. He pushed his way among those waiting and when the bus halted he boarded it and took a seat in the rear, by the door. A moment later the bus moved into life and rumbled down the street.
Loyce relaxed a little. He studied the people around him. Dulled, tired faces. People going home from work. Quite ordinary faces. None of them paid any attention to him. All sat quietly, sunk down in their seats, jiggling with the motion of the bus.
The man sitting next to him unfolded a newspaper. He began to read the sports section, his lips moving. An ordinary man. Blue suit. Tie. A businessman, or a salesman. On his way home to his wife and family.
Across the aisle a young woman, perhaps twenty. Dark eyes and hair, a package on her lap. Nylons and heels. Red coat and white angora sweater. Gazing absently ahead of her.
A high school boy in jeans and black jacket.
A great triple-chinned woman with an immense shopping bag loaded with packages and parcels. Her thick face dim with weariness.
Ordinary people. The kind that rode the bus every evening. Going home to their families. To dinner.
Going home—with their minds dead. Controlled, filmed over with the mask of an alien being that had appeared and taken possession of them, their town, their lives. Himself, too. Except that he happened to be deep in his cellar instead of in the store. Somehow, he had been overlooked. They had missed him. Their control wasn't perfect, foolproof.
Maybe there were others.
Hope flickered in Loyce. They weren't omnipotent. They had made a mistake, not got control of him. Their net, their field of control, had passed over him. He had emerged from his cellar as he had gone down. Apparently their power-zone was limited.
A few seats down the aisle a man was watching him. Loyce broke off his chain of thought. A slender man, with dark hair and a small mustache. Well-dressed, brown suit and shiny shoes. A book between his small hands. He was watching Loyce, studying him intently. He turned quickly away.
Loyce tensed. One of them ? Or—another they had missed?
The man was watching him again. Small dark eyes, alive and clever. Shrewd. A man too shrewd for them—or one of the things itself, an alien insect from beyond.
The bus halted. An elderly man got on slowly and dropped his token into the box. He moved down the aisle and took a seat opposite Loyce.
The elderly man caught the sharp-eyed man's gaze. For a split second something passed between them.
A look rich with meaning.
Loyce got to his feet. The bus was moving. He ran to the door. One step down into the well. He yanked the emergency door release. The rubber door swung open.
"Hey!" the driver shouted, jamming on the brakes. "What the hell—"
Loyce squirmed through. The bus was slowing down. Houses on all sides. A residential district, lawns and tall apartment buildings. Behind him, the bright-eyed man had leaped up. The elderly man was also on his feet. They were coming after him.
Loyce leaped. He hit the pavement with terrific force and rolled against the curb. Pain lapped over him. Pain and a vast tide of blackness. Desperately, he fought it off. He struggled to his knees and then slid down again. The bus had stopped. People were getting off.
Loyce groped around. His fingers closed over something. A rock, lying in the gutter. He crawled to his feet, grunting with pain. A shape loomed before him. A man, the bright-eyed man with the book.
Loyce kicked. The man gasped and fell. Loyce brought the rock down. The man screamed and tried to roll away. " Stop! For God's sake listen—"
He struck again. A hideous crunching sound. The man's voice cut off and dissolved in a bubbling wail. Loyce scrambled up and back. The others were there, now. All around him. He ran, awkwardly, down the sidewalk, up a driveway. None of them followed him. They had stopped and were bending over the inert body of the man with the book, the bright-eyed man who had come after him.
Had he made a mistake?
But it was too late to worry about that. He had to get out—away from them. Out of Pikeville, beyond the crack of darkness, the rent between their world and his.
"Ed!" Janet Loyce backed away nervously. "What is it? What—"
Ed Loyce slammed the door behind him and came into the living room.
"Pull down the shades. Quick."
Janet moved toward the window. "But—"
"Do as I say. Who else is here besides you?"
"Nobody. Just the twins. They're upstairs in their room. What's happened? You look so strange. Why are you home?"
Ed locked the front door. He prowled around the house, into the kitchen. From the drawer under the sink he slid out the big butcher knife and ran his finger along it. Sharp. Plenty sharp. He returned to the living room.
"Listen to me," he said. "I don't have much time. They know I escaped and they'll be looking for me."
"Escaped?" Janet's face twisted with bewilderment and fear. "Who?"
"The town has been taken over. They're in control. I've got it pretty well figured out. They started at the top, at the City Hall and police department. What they did with the real humans they—"
"What are you talking about?"
"We've been invaded. From some other universe, some other dimension. They're insects. Mimicry. And more. Power to control minds. Your mind."
"My mind?"
"Their entrance is here , in Pikeville. They've taken over all of you. The whole town—except me. We're up against an incredibly powerful enemy, but they have their limitations. That's our hope. They're limited! They can make mistakes!"
Janet shook her head. "I don't understand, Ed. You must be insane."
"Insane? No. Just lucky. If I hadn't been down in the basement I'd be like all the rest of you." Loyce peered out the window. "But I can't stand here talking. Get your coat."
"My coat?"
"We're getting out of here. Out of Pikeville. We've got to get help. Fight this thing. They can be beaten. They're not infallible. It's going to be close—but we may make it if we hurry. Come on!" He grabbed her arm roughly. "Get your coat and call the twins. We're all leaving. Don't stop to pack. There's no time for that."
White-faced, his wife moved toward the closet and got down her coat.
"Where are we going?"
Ed pulled open the desk drawer and spilled the contents out onto the floor. He grabbed up a road map and spread it open. "They'll have the highway covered, of course. But there's a back road. To Oak Grove. I got onto it once. It's practically abandoned. Maybe they'll forget about it."
"The old Ranch Road? Good Lord—it's completely closed. Nobody's supposed to drive over it."
"I know." Ed thrust the map grimly into his coat. "That's our best chance. Now call down the twins and let's get going. Your car is full of gas, isn't it?"
Janet was dazed.
"The Chevy? I had it filled up yesterday afternoon." Janet moved toward the stairs. "Ed, I—"
"Call the twins!" Ed unlocked the front door and peered out. Nothing stirred. No sign of life. All right so far.
"Come on downstairs," Janet called in a wavering voice. "We're—going out for awhile."
"Now?" Tommy's voice came.
"Hurry up," Ed barked. "Get down here, both of you."
Tommy appeared at the top of the stairs. "I was doing my home work. We're starting fractions. Miss Parker says if we don't get this done—"
"You can forget about fractions." Ed grabbed his son as he came down the stairs and propelled him toward the door. "Where's Jim?"
"He's coming."
Jim started slowly down the stairs. "What's up, Dad?"
"We're going for a ride."
"A ride? Where?"
Ed turned to Janet. "We'll leave the lights on. And the TV set. Go turn it on." He pushed her toward the set. "So they'll think we're still—"
He heard the buzz. And dropped instantly, the long butcher knife out. Sickened, he saw it coming down the stairs at him, wings a blur of motion as it aimed itself. It still bore a vague resemblance to Jimmy. It was small, a baby one. A brief glimpse—the thing hurtling at him, cold, multi-lensed inhuman eyes. Wings, body still clothed in yellow T-shirt and jeans, the mimic outline still stamped on it. A strange half-turn of its body as it reached him. What was it doing?
A stinger.
Loyce stabbed wildly at it. It retreated, buzzing frantically. Loyce rolled and crawled toward the door. Tommy and Janet stood still as statues, faces blank. Watching without expression. Loyce stabbed again. This time the knife connected. The thing shrieked and faltered. It bounced against the wall and fluttered down.
Something lapped through his mind. A wall of force, energy, an alien mind probing into him. He was suddenly paralyzed. The mind entered his own, touched against him briefly, shockingly. An utterly alien presence, settling over him—and then it flickered out as the thing collapsed in a broken heap on the rug.
It was dead. He turned it over with his foot. It was an insect, a fly of some kind. Yellow T-shirt, jeans. His son Jimmy.... He closed his mind tight. It was too late to think about that. Savagely he scooped up his knife and headed toward the door. Janet and Tommy stood stone-still, neither of them moving.
The car was out. He'd never get through. They'd be waiting for him. It was ten miles on foot. Ten long miles over rough ground, gulleys and open fields and hills of uncut forest. He'd have to go alone.
Loyce opened the door. For a brief second he looked back at his wife and son. Then he slammed the door behind him and raced down the porch steps.
A moment later he was on his way, hurrying swiftly through the darkness toward the edge of town.
The early morning sunlight was blinding. Loyce halted, gasping for breath, swaying back and forth. Sweat ran down in his eyes. His clothing was torn, shredded by the brush and thorns through which he had crawled. Ten miles—on his hands and knees. Crawling, creeping through the night. His shoes were mud-caked. He was scratched and limping, utterly exhausted.
But ahead of him lay Oak Grove.
He took a deep breath and started down the hill. Twice he stumbled and fell, picking himself up and trudging on. His ears rang. Everything receded and wavered. But he was there. He had got out, away from Pikeville.
A farmer in a field gaped at him. From a house a young woman watched in wonder. Loyce reached the road and turned onto it. Ahead of him was a gasoline station and a drive-in. A couple of trucks, some chickens pecking in the dirt, a dog tied with a string.
The white-clad attendant watched suspiciously as he dragged himself up to the station. "Thank God." He caught hold of the wall. "I didn't think I was going to make it. They followed me most of the way. I could hear them buzzing. Buzzing and flitting around behind me."
"What happened?" the attendant demanded. "You in a wreck? A hold-up?"
Loyce shook his head wearily. "They have the whole town. The City Hall and the police station. They hung a man from the lamppost. That was the first thing I saw. They've got all the roads blocked. I saw them hovering over the cars coming in. About four this morning I got beyond them. I knew it right away. I could feel them leave. And then the sun came up."
The attendant licked his lip nervously. "You're out of your head. I better get a doctor."
"Get me into Oak Grove," Loyce gasped. He sank down on the gravel.
"We've got to get started—cleaning them out. Got to get started right away."
They kept a tape recorder going all the time he talked. When he had finished the Commissioner snapped off the recorder and got to his feet. He stood for a moment, deep in thought. Finally he got out his cigarettes and lit up slowly, a frown on his beefy face.
"You don't believe me," Loyce said.
The Commissioner offered him a cigarette. Loyce pushed it impatiently away. "Suit yourself." The Commissioner moved over to the window and stood for a time looking out at the town of Oak Grove. "I believe you," he said abruptly.
Loyce sagged. "Thank God."
"So you got away." The Commissioner shook his head. "You were down in your cellar instead of at work. A freak chance. One in a million."
Loyce sipped some of the black coffee they had brought him. "I have a theory," he murmured.
"What is it?"
"About them. Who they are. They take over one area at a time. Starting at the top—the highest level of authority. Working down from there in a widening circle. When they're firmly in control they go on to the next town. They spread, slowly, very gradually. I think it's been going on for a long time."
"A long time?"
"Thousands of years. I don't think it's new."
"Why do you say that?"
"When I was a kid.... A picture they showed us in Bible League. A religious picture—an old print. The enemy gods, defeated by Jehovah. Moloch, Beelzebub, Moab, Baalin, Ashtaroth—"
"So?"
"They were all represented by figures." Loyce looked up at the Commissioner. "Beelzebub was represented as—a giant fly."
The Commissioner grunted. "An old struggle."
"They've been defeated. The Bible is an account of their defeats. They make gains—but finally they're defeated."
"Why defeated?"
"They can't get everyone. They didn't get me. And they never got the Hebrews. The Hebrews carried the message to the whole world. The realization of the danger. The two men on the bus. I think they understood. Had escaped, like I did." He clenched his fists. "I killed one of them. I made a mistake. I was afraid to take a chance."
The Commissioner nodded. "Yes, they undoubtedly had escaped, as you did. Freak accidents. But the rest of the town was firmly in control." He turned from the window. "Well, Mr. Loyce. You seem to have figured everything out."
"Not everything. The hanging man. The dead man hanging from the lamppost. I don't understand that. Why? Why did they deliberately hang him there?"
"That would seem simple." The Commissioner smiled faintly. " Bait. "
Loyce stiffened. His heart stopped beating. "Bait? What do you mean?"
"To draw you out. Make you declare yourself. So they'd know who was under control—and who had escaped."
Loyce recoiled with horror. "Then they expected failures! They anticipated—" He broke off. "They were ready with a trap."
"And you showed yourself. You reacted. You made yourself known." The Commissioner abruptly moved toward the door. "Come along, Loyce. There's a lot to do. We must get moving. There's no time to waste."
Loyce started slowly to his feet, numbed. "And the man. Who was the man? I never saw him before. He wasn't a local man. He was a stranger. All muddy and dirty, his face cut, slashed—"
There was a strange look on the Commissioner's face as he answered.
"Maybe," he said softly, "you'll understand that, too. Come along with me, Mr. Loyce." He held the door open, his eyes gleaming. Loyce caught a glimpse of the street in front of the police station. Policemen, a platform of some sort. A telephone pole—and a rope! "Right this way," the Commissioner said, smiling coldly.
As the sun set, the vice-president of the Oak Grove Merchants' Bank came up out of the vault, threw the heavy time locks, put on his hat and coat, and hurried outside onto the sidewalk. Only a few people were there, hurrying home to dinner.
"Good night," the guard said, locking the door after him.
"Good night," Clarence Mason murmured. He started along the street toward his car. He was tired. He had been working all day down in the vault, examining the lay-out of the safety deposit boxes to see if there was room for another tier. He was glad to be finished.
At the corner he halted. The street lights had not yet come on. The street was dim. Everything was vague. He looked around—and froze.
From the telephone pole in front of the police station, something large and shapeless hung. It moved a little with the wind.
What the hell was it?
Mason approached it warily. He wanted to get home. He was tired and hungry. He thought of his wife, his kids, a hot meal on the dinner table. But there was something about the dark bundle, something ominous and ugly. The light was bad; he couldn't tell what it was. Yet it drew him on, made him move closer for a better look. The shapeless thing made him uneasy. He was frightened by it. Frightened—and fascinated.
And the strange part was that nobody else seemed to notice it.
|
What is the significance of the dream of townspeople?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Dream Town by Henry Slesar.
Relevant chunks:
Henry Slesar, young New York advertising executive and by now no
longer a new-comer to either this magazine or to this field, describes
a strange little town that you, yourself, may blunder into one of these
evenings. But, if you do, beware—beware of the Knights!
dream town
by ... HENRY SLESAR
The woman in the doorway looked so harmless. Who
was to tell she had some rather startling interests?
The
woman in the
doorway looked like Mom in
the homier political cartoons.
She was plump, apple-cheeked,
white-haired. She
wore a fussy, old-fashioned
nightgown, and was busily
clutching a worn house-robe
around her expansive middle.
She blinked at Sol Becker's
rain-flattened hair and hang-dog
expression, and said:
"What is it? What do you
want?"
"I'm sorry—" Sol's voice
was pained. "The man in the
diner said you might put me
up. I had my car stolen: a
hitchhiker; going to Salinas ..."
He was puffing.
"Hitchhiker? I don't understand."
She clucked at the
sight of the pool of water he
was creating in her foyer.
"Well, come inside, for heaven's
sake. You're soaking!"
"Thanks," Sol said gratefully.
With the door firmly shut
behind him, the warm interior
of the little house covered
him like a blanket. He
shivered, and let the warmth
seep over him. "I'm terribly
sorry. I know how late it is."
He looked at his watch, but
the face was too misty to
make out the hour.
"Must be nearly three," the
woman sniffed. "You couldn't
have come at a worse time. I
was just on my way to
court—"
The words slid by him. "If
I could just stay overnight.
Until the morning. I could
call some friends in San Fernando.
I'm very susceptible to
head colds," he added inanely.
"Well, take those shoes off,
first," the woman grumbled.
"You can undress in the parlor,
if you'll keep off the rug.
You won't mind using the
sofa?"
"No, of course not. I'd be
happy to pay—"
"Oh, tush, nobody's asking
you to pay. This isn't a hotel.
You mind if I go back upstairs?
They're gonna miss
me at the palace."
"No, of course not," Sol
said. He followed her into
the darkened parlor, and
watched as she turned the
screw on a hurricane-style
lamp, shedding a yellow pool
of light over half a flowery
sofa and a doily-covered wing
chair. "You go on up. I'll be
perfectly fine."
"Guess you can use a towel,
though. I'll get you one,
then I'm going up. We wake
pretty early in this house.
Breakfast's at seven; you'll
have to be up if you want
any."
"I really can't thank you
enough—"
"Tush," the woman said.
She scurried out, and returned
a moment later with a
thick bath towel. "Sorry I
can't give you any bedding.
But you'll find it nice and
warm in here." She squinted
at the dim face of a ship's-wheel
clock on the mantle,
and made a noise with her
tongue. "Three-thirty!" she
exclaimed. "I'll miss the
whole execution ..."
"The what?"
"Goodnight, young man,"
Mom said firmly.
She padded off, leaving Sol
holding the towel. He patted
his face, and then scrubbed
the wet tangle of brown hair.
Carefully, he stepped off the
carpet and onto the stone
floor in front of the fireplace.
He removed his
drenched coat and suit jacket,
and squeezed water out
over the ashes.
He stripped down to his
underwear, wondering about
next morning's possible embarrassment,
and decided to
use the damp bath towel as a
blanket. The sofa was downy
and comfortable. He curled
up under the towel, shivered
once, and closed his eyes.
He
was tired and very
sleepy, and his customary
nightly review was limited to
a few detached thoughts
about the wedding he was
supposed to attend in Salinas
that weekend ... the hoodlum
who had responded to his
good-nature by dumping him
out of his own car ... the slogging
walk to the village ...
the little round woman who
was hurrying off, like the
White Rabbit, to some mysterious
appointment on the
upper floor ...
Then he went to sleep.
A voice awoke him, shrill
and questioning.
"Are you nakkid ?"
His eyes flew open, and he
pulled the towel protectively
around his body and glared
at the little girl with the rust-red
pigtails.
"Huh, mister?" she said,
pushing a finger against her
freckled nose. "Are you?"
"No," he said angrily. "I'm
not naked. Will you please
go away?"
"Sally!" It was Mom, appearing
in the doorway of the
parlor. "You leave the gentleman
alone." She went off
again.
"Yes," Sol said. "Please let
me get dressed. If you don't
mind." The girl didn't move.
"What time is it?"
"Dunno," Sally shrugged.
"I like poached eggs. They're
my favorite eggs in the whole
world."
"That's good," Sol said desperately.
"Now why don't you
be a good girl and eat your
poached eggs. In the kitchen."
"Ain't ready yet. You going
to stay for breakfast?"
"I'm not going to do anything
until you get out of
here."
She put the end of a pigtail
in her mouth and sat down on
the chair opposite. "I went to
the palace last night. They
had an exelution."
"Please," Sol groaned. "Be
a good girl, Sally. If you let
me get dressed, I'll show you
how to take your thumb off."
"Oh, that's an old trick. Did
you ever see an exelution?"
"No. Did you ever see a little
girl with her hide
tanned?"
"Huh?"
" Sally! " Mom again, sterner.
"You get out of there, or
you-know-what ..."
"Okay," the girl said
blithely. "I'm goin' to the palace
again. If I brush my
teeth. Aren't you ever gonna
get up?" She skipped out of
the room, and Sol hastily sat
up and reached for his
trousers.
When he had dressed, the
clothes still damp and unpleasant
against his skin, he
went out of the parlor and
found the kitchen. Mom was
busy at the stove. He said:
"Good morning."
"Breakfast in ten minutes,"
she said cheerfully. "You like
poached eggs?"
"Sure. Do you have a telephone?"
"In the hallway. Party line,
so you may have to wait."
He tried for fifteen minutes
to get through, but there
was a woman on the line who
was terribly upset about a
cotton dress she had ordered
from Sears, and was telling
the world about it.
Finally, he got his call
through to Salinas, and a
sleepy-voiced Fred, his old
Army buddy, listened somewhat
indifferently to his tale
of woe. "I might miss the
wedding," Sol said unhappily.
"I'm awfully sorry." Fred
didn't seem to be half as sorry
as he was. When Sol hung
up, he was feeling more despondent
than ever.
A man, tall and rangy, with
a bobbing Adam's apple and
a lined face, came into the
hallway. "Hullo?" he said inquiringly.
"You the fella had
the car stolen?"
"Yes."
The man scratched his ear.
"Take you over to Sheriff
Coogan after breakfast. He'll
let the Stateys know about it.
My name's Dawes."
Sol accepted a careful
handshake.
"Don't get many people
comin' into town," Dawes
said, looking at him curiously.
"Ain't seen a stranger in
years. But you look like the
rest of us." He chuckled.
Mom called out: "Breakfast!"
At
the table, Dawes
asked his destination.
"Wedding in Salinas," he
explained. "Old Army friend
of mine. I picked this hitchhiker
up about two miles from
here. He seemed okay."
"Never can tell," Dawes
said placidly, munching egg.
"Hey, Ma. That why you
were so late comin' to court
last night?"
"That's right, Pa." She
poured the blackest coffee
Sol had ever seen. "Didn't
miss much, though."
"What court is that?" Sol
asked politely, his mouth full.
"Umagum," Sally said, a
piece of toast sticking out
from the side of her mouth.
"Don't you know nothin' ?"
" Arma gon," Dawes corrected.
He looked sheepishly at
the stranger. "Don't expect
Mister—" He cocked an eyebrow.
"What's the name?"
"Becker."
"Don't expect Mr. Becker
knows anything about Armagon.
It's just a dream, you
know." He smiled apologetically.
"Dream? You mean this—Armagon
is a place you dream
about?"
"Yep," Dawes said. He lifted
cup to lip. "Great coffee,
Ma." He leaned back with a
contented sigh. "Dream about
it every night. Got so used to
the place, I get all confused
in the daytime."
Mom said: "I get muddle-headed
too, sometimes."
"You mean—" Sol put his
napkin in his lap. "You mean you dream about the same
place?"
"Sure," Sally piped. "We
all go there at night. I'm goin'
to the palace again, too."
"If you brush your teeth,"
Mom said primly.
"If I brush my teeth. Boy,
you shoulda seen the exelution!"
"Execution," her father
said.
"Oh, my goodness!" Mom
got up hastily. "That reminds
me. I gotta call poor Mrs.
Brundage. It's the least I
could do."
"Good idea," Dawes nodded.
"And I'll have to round
up some folks and get old
Brundage out of there."
Sol was staring. He opened
his mouth, but couldn't think
of the right question to ask.
Then he blurted out: "What
execution?"
"None of your business,"
the man said coldly. "You eat
up, young man. If you want
me to get Sheriff Coogan
lookin' for your car."
The rest of the meal went
silently, except for Sally's insistence
upon singing her
school song between mouthfuls.
When Dawes was
through, he pushed back his
plate and ordered Sol to get
ready.
Sol grabbed his topcoat and
followed the man out the
door.
"Have to stop someplace
first," Dawes said. "But we'll
be pickin' up the Sheriff on
the way. Okay with you?"
"Fine," Sol said uneasily.
The rain had stopped, but
the heavy clouds seemed reluctant
to leave the skies over
the small town. There was a
skittish breeze blowing, and
Sol Becker tightened the collar
of his coat around his
neck as he tried to keep up
with the fast-stepping Dawes.
They
crossed the
street diagonally, and entered
a two-story wooden building.
Dawes took the stairs at a
brisk pace, and pushed open
the door on the second floor.
A fat man looked up from
behind a desk.
"Hi, Charlie. Thought I'd
see if you wanted to help
move Brundage."
The man batted his eyes.
"Oh, Brundage!" he said.
"You know, I clean forgot
about him?" He laughed.
"Imagine me forgetting
that?"
"Yeah." Dawes wasn't
amused. "And you Prince Regent."
"Aw, Willie—"
"Well, come on. Stir that
fat carcass. Gotta pick up
Sheriff Coogan, too. This
here gentleman has to see him
about somethin' else."
The man regarded Sol suspiciously.
"Never seen you
before. Night or day. Stranger?"
"Come on !" Dawes said.
The fat man grunted and
hoisted himself out of the
swivel chair. He followed
lamely behind the two men
as they went out into the
street again.
A woman, with an empty
market basket, nodded casually
to them. "Mornin', folks.
Enjoyed it last night.
Thought you made a right
nice speech, Mr. Dawes."
"Thanks," Dawes answered
gruffly, but obviously flattered.
"We were just goin'
over to Brundage's to pick up
the body. Ma's gonna pay a
call on Mrs. Brundage around
ten o'clock. You care to visit?"
"Why, I think that's very
nice," the woman said. "I'll
be sure and do that." She
smiled at the fat man. "Mornin',
Prince."
Sol's head was spinning. As
they left the woman and continued
their determined
march down the quiet street,
he tried to find answers.
"Look, Mr. Dawes." He was
panting; the pace was fast.
"Does she dream about this—Armagon,
too? That woman
back there?"
"Yep."
Charlie chuckled. "He's a
stranger, all right."
"And you, Mr.—" Sol
turned to the fat man. "You
also know about this palace
and everything?"
"I told you," Dawes said
testily. "Charlie here's Prince
Regent. But don't let the fancy
title fool you. He got no
more power than any Knight
of the Realm. He's just too
dern fat to do much more'n
sit on a throne and eat grapes.
That right, Charlie?"
The fat man giggled.
"Here's the Sheriff," Dawes
said.
The Sheriff, a sleepy-eyed
citizen with a long, sad face,
was rocking on a porch as
they approached his house,
trying to puff a half-lit pipe.
He lifted one hand wearily
when he saw them.
"Hi, Cookie," Dawes
grinned. "Thought you, me,
and Charlie would get Brundage's
body outa the house.
This here's Mr. Becker; he
got another problem. Mr.
Becker, meet Cookie Coogan."
The Sheriff joined the procession,
pausing only once to
inquire into Sol's predicament.
He described the hitchhiker
incident, but Coogan
listened stoically. He murmured
something about the
Troopers, and shuffled alongside
the puffing fat man.
Sol soon realized that their
destination was a barber shop.
Dawes cupped his hands
over the plate glass and
peered inside. Gold letters on
the glass advertised: HAIRCUT
SHAVE & MASSAGE
PARLOR. He reported: "Nobody
in the shop. Must be
upstairs."
The
fat man rang the
bell. It was a while before an
answer came.
It was a reedy woman in a
housecoat, her hair in curlers,
her eyes red and swollen.
"Now, now," Dawes said
gently. "Don't you take on
like that, Mrs. Brundage. You
heard the charges. It hadda
be this way."
"My poor Vincent," she
sobbed.
"Better let us up," the
Sheriff said kindly. "No use
just lettin' him lay there,
Mrs. Brundage."
"He didn't mean no harm,"
the woman snuffled. "He was
just purely ornery, Vincent
was. Just plain mean stubborn."
"The law's the law," the
fat man sighed.
Sol couldn't hold himself
in.
"What law? Who's dead?
How did it happen?"
Dawes looked at him disgustedly.
"Now is it any of your business? I mean, is it?"
"I don't know," Sol said
miserably.
"You better stay out of
this," the Sheriff warned.
"This is a local matter, young
man. You better stay in the
shop while we go up."
They filed past him and the
crying Mrs. Brundage.
When they were out of
sight, Sol pleaded with her.
"What happened? How did
your husband die?"
"Please ..."
"You must tell me! Was it
something to do with Armagon?
Do you dream about the
place, too?"
She was shocked at the
question. "Of course!"
"And your husband? Did
he have the same dream?"
Fresh tears resulted. "Can't
you leave me alone?" She
turned her back. "I got things
to do. You can make yourself
comfortable—" She indicated
the barber chairs, and left
through the back door.
Sol looked after her, and
then ambled over to the first
chair and slipped into the
high seat. His reflection in
the mirror, strangely gray in
the dim light, made him
groan. His clothes were a
mess, and he needed a shave.
If only Brundage had been
alive ...
He leaped out of the chair
as voices sounded behind the
door. Dawes was kicking it
open with his foot, his arms
laden with two rather large
feet, still encased in bedroom
slippers. Charlie was at the
other end of the burden,
which appeared to be a middle-aged
man in pajamas. The
Sheriff followed the trio up
with a sad, undertaker expression.
Behind him came Mrs.
Brundage, properly weeping.
"We'll take him to the funeral
parlor," Dawes said,
breathing hard. "Weighs a
ton, don't he?"
"What killed him?" Sol
said.
"Heart attack."
The fat man chuckled.
The tableau was grisly. Sol
looked away, towards the
comfortingly mundane atmosphere
of the barber shop. But
even the sight of the thick-padded
chairs, the shaving
mugs on the wall, the neat
rows of cutting instruments,
seemed grotesque and morbid.
"Listen," Sol said, as they
went through the doorway.
"About my car—"
The Sheriff turned and regarded
him lugubriously.
"Your car ? Young man, ain't
you got no respect ?"
Sol swallowed hard and fell
silent. He went outside with
them, the woman slamming
the barber-shop door behind
him. He waited in front of
the building while the men
toted away the corpse to some
new destination.
He
took a walk.
The town was just coming
to life. People were strolling
out of their houses, commenting
on the weather, chuckling
amiably about local affairs.
Kids on bicycles were beginning
to appear, jangling the
little bells and hooting to
each other. A woman, hanging
wash in the back yard,
called out to him, thinking
he was somebody else.
He found a little park, no
more than twenty yards in
circumference, centered
around a weatherbeaten monument
of some unrecognizable
military figure. Three
old men took their places on
the bench that circled the
General, and leaned on their
canes.
Sol was a civil engineer.
But he made like a reporter.
"Pardon me, sir." The old
man, leathery-faced, with a
fine yellow moustache, looked
at him dumbly. "Have you
ever heard of Armagon?"
"You a stranger?"
"Yes."
"Thought so."
Sol repeated the question.
"Course I did. Been goin'
there ever since I was a kid.
Night-times, that is."
"How—I mean, what kind
of place is it?"
"Said you're a stranger?"
"Yes."
"Then 'tain't your business."
That was that.
He left the park, and wandered
into a thriving luncheonette.
He tried questioning
the man behind the counter,
who merely snickered and
said: "You stayin' with the
Dawes, ain't you? Better ask
Willie, then. He knows the
place better than anybody."
He asked about the execution,
and the man stiffened.
"Don't think I can talk
about that. Fella broke one of
the Laws; that's about it.
Don't see where you come
into it."
At eleven o'clock, he returned
to the Dawes residence,
and found Mom in the
kitchen, surrounded by the
warm nostalgic odor of home-baked
bread. She told him
that her husband had left a
message for the stranger, informing
him that the State
Police would be around to get
his story.
He waited in the house,
gloomily turning the pages of
the local newspaper, searching
for references to Armagon.
He found nothing.
At eleven-thirty, a brown-faced
State Trooper came to
call, and Sol told his story.
He was promised nothing,
and told to stay in town until
he was contacted again by
the authorities.
Mom fixed him a light
lunch, the greatest feature of
which was some hot biscuits
she plucked out of the oven.
It made him feel almost normal.
He wandered around the
town some more after lunch,
trying to spark conversation
with the residents.
He learned little.
At
five-thirty, he returned
to the Dawes house, and was
promptly leaped upon by
little Sally.
"Hi! Hi! Hi!" she said,
clutching his right leg and
almost toppling him over.
"We had a party in school. I
had chocolate cake. You goin'
to stay with us?"
"Just another night," Sol
told her, trying to shake the
girl off. "If it's okay with
your folks. They haven't
found my car yet."
"Sally!" Mom was peering
out of the screen door. "You
let Mr. Becker alone and go
wash. Your Pa will be home
soon."
"Oh, pooh," the girl said,
her pigtails swinging. "Do
you got a girlfriend, mister?"
"No." Sol struggled towards
the house with her
dead weight on his leg.
"Would you mind? I can't
walk."
"Would you be my boyfriend?"
"Well, we'll talk about it.
If you let go my leg."
Inside the house, she said:
"We're having pot roast. You
stayin'?"
"Of course Mr. Becker's
stayin'," Mom said. "He's our
guest."
"That's very kind of you,"
Sol said. "I really wish you'd
let me pay something—"
"Don't want to hear another
word about pay."
Mr. Dawes
came home an
hour later, looking tired.
Mom pecked him lightly on
the forehead. He glanced at
the evening paper, and then
spoke to Sol.
"Hear you been asking
questions, Mr. Becker."
Sol nodded, embarrassed.
"Guess I have. I'm awfully
curious about this Armagon
place. Never heard of anything
like it before."
Dawes grunted. "You ain't
a reporter?"
"Oh, no. I'm an engineer. I
was just satisfying my own
curiosity."
"Uh-huh." Dawes looked
reflective. "You wouldn't be
thinkin' about writing us up
or anything. I mean, this is a
pretty private affair."
"Writing it up?" Sol
blinked. "I hadn't thought of
it. But you'll have to admit—it's
sure interesting."
"Yeah," Dawes said narrowly.
"I guess it would be."
"Supper!" Mom called.
After the meal, they spent
a quiet evening at home. Sally
went to bed, screaming her
reluctance, at eight-thirty.
Mom, dozing in the big chair
near the fireplace, padded upstairs
at nine. Then Dawes
yawned widely, stood up, and
said goodnight at quarter-of-ten.
He paused in the doorway
before leaving.
"I'd think about that," he
said. "Writing it up, I mean.
A lot of folks would think
you were just plum crazy."
Sol laughed feebly. "I
guess they would at that."
"Goodnight," Dawes said.
"Goodnight."
He read Sally's copy of Treasure Island for about
half an hour. Then he undressed,
made himself comfortable
on the sofa, snuggled
under the soft blanket
that Mom had provided, and
shut his eyes.
He reviewed the events of
the day before dropping off
to sleep. The troublesome
Sally. The strange dream
world of Armagon. The visit
to the barber shop. The removal
of Brundage's body.
The conversations with the
townspeople. Dawes' suspicious
attitude ...
Then sleep came.
He
was flanked by marble
pillars, thrusting towards
a high-domed ceiling.
The room stretched long
and wide before him, the
walls bedecked in stunning
purple draperies.
He whirled at the sound of
footsteps, echoing stridently
on the stone floor. Someone
was running towards him.
It was Sally, pigtails
streaming out behind her, the
small body wearing a flowing
white toga. She was shrieking,
laughing as she skittered
past him, clutching a gleaming
gold helmet.
He called out to her, but
she was too busy outdistancing
her pursuer. It was Sheriff
Coogan, puffing and huffing,
the metal-and-gold cloth
uniform ludicrous on his
lanky frame.
"Consarn kid!" he wheezed.
"Gimme my hat!"
Mom was following him,
her stout body regal in scarlet
robes. "Sally! You give
Sir Coogan his helmet! You
hear?"
"Mrs. Dawes!" Sol said.
"Why, Mr. Becker! How
nice to see you again! Pa! Pa! Look who's here!"
Willie Dawes appeared. No! Sol thought. This was King Dawes; nothing else
could explain the magnificence
of his attire.
"Yes," Dawes said craftily.
"So I see. Welcome to Armagon,
Mr. Becker."
"Armagon?" Sol gaped.
"Then this is the place
you've been dreaming about?"
"Yep," the King said. "And
now you're in it, too."
"Then I'm only dreaming!"
Charlie, the fat man,
clumsy as ever in his robes of
State, said: "So that's the
snooper, eh?"
"Yep," Dawes chuckled.
"Think you better round up
the Knights."
Sol said: "The Knights?"
"Exelution! Exelution!"
Sally shrieked.
"Now wait a minute—"
Charlie shouted.
Running feet, clanking of
armor. Sol backed up against
a pillar. "Now look here.
You've gone far enough—"
"Not quite," said the King.
The Knights stepped forward.
"Wait!" Sol screamed.
Familiar faces, under shining
helmets, moved towards
him; the tips of sharp-pointed
spears gleaming wickedly.
And Sol Becker wondered—would
he ever awake?
Question:
What is the significance of the dream of townspeople?
Answer:
|
[
"The dream of the townspeople is what makes the town unique, and what puts Sol in danger. At the beginning Sol thought that the Dawes family shared a dream, but then he learned that everyone in the town had the same dream every night together. Also, the dream is a courtroom style, where Dawes is the king and can execute people. Charlie, the fat man that helps Dawes, is one of the knights in the Armagon. At the end, Sol attends this shared dream and it is implied that he is going to be killed by Dawes and the others. ",
"The dream of the townspeople is significant because it transports all of them to Armagon. Whenever they dream, they can go to an alternate reality that is completely different from the town. It is also worth noting that people, such as Dawes or Sally, suddenly become royalty whenever they dream. The townspeople also dream of the town every night, and it is considered to be a town secret that should not be easily told to anybody else. Since Armagon is their world, the townspeople all fulfill their roles in it. Some of the faces become knights, while others are in positions of power and have control over these forces. Anything that does not happen in the daytime, such as trials or executions, are also held in Armagon which is part of the dream. It is also important to note that anything that happens in the dream, even death, can possibly happen in real life as well. ",
"The dream of Armagon connects all the townspeople. They all go there every night, every time they fall asleep. It’s another reality with marble pillars, purple draperies, and a new hierarchical system in which Dawes is the king. This place has another set of rules and is as significant for people as their daily life. They value this dream and protect it from strangers, like Sol. It seems to be interconnected with reality because Vincent, who committed a crime in Armagon and got executed, also dies in real life, though from a heart attack. It interests Sol who tries to learn more but always faces passive aggression from those who are not eager to share the secrets of Armagon. At the end, he is being surrounded by the knights of Armagon and we don’t know what’s going to happen to Sol later. ",
"The dream of the townspeople is Armagon, a palace with marble pillars supporting a high-domed ceiling. The wall is decorated with purple draperies, and the room is wide and long. Townspeople seem to be the Knights of the Realm in the palace, and the Dawes family appears to be the royal family. Every night, townspeople dream of going to this same palace, which confuses Sol Becker, an outsider who lost his car. Sol tries to find out what this dream place is throughout the story, but the townspeople do not tell him a lot. Sol learns on the first morning of his stay at the Dawes' house that there was an execution the night before, in which the executed person seems to be the owner of the barbershop, Mr. Brundage, who died of a heart attack. Sol questions around the town, where he learns little about the place. In the end, Sol also gets into the dream place, where he is about to be executed, too. The dream of the townspeople is a secret that the protagonist tries to find out throughout the story, but when he finally gets there, it seems that he may also lose the ability to live in the future."
] |
29193
|
Henry Slesar, young New York advertising executive and by now no
longer a new-comer to either this magazine or to this field, describes
a strange little town that you, yourself, may blunder into one of these
evenings. But, if you do, beware—beware of the Knights!
dream town
by ... HENRY SLESAR
The woman in the doorway looked so harmless. Who
was to tell she had some rather startling interests?
The
woman in the
doorway looked like Mom in
the homier political cartoons.
She was plump, apple-cheeked,
white-haired. She
wore a fussy, old-fashioned
nightgown, and was busily
clutching a worn house-robe
around her expansive middle.
She blinked at Sol Becker's
rain-flattened hair and hang-dog
expression, and said:
"What is it? What do you
want?"
"I'm sorry—" Sol's voice
was pained. "The man in the
diner said you might put me
up. I had my car stolen: a
hitchhiker; going to Salinas ..."
He was puffing.
"Hitchhiker? I don't understand."
She clucked at the
sight of the pool of water he
was creating in her foyer.
"Well, come inside, for heaven's
sake. You're soaking!"
"Thanks," Sol said gratefully.
With the door firmly shut
behind him, the warm interior
of the little house covered
him like a blanket. He
shivered, and let the warmth
seep over him. "I'm terribly
sorry. I know how late it is."
He looked at his watch, but
the face was too misty to
make out the hour.
"Must be nearly three," the
woman sniffed. "You couldn't
have come at a worse time. I
was just on my way to
court—"
The words slid by him. "If
I could just stay overnight.
Until the morning. I could
call some friends in San Fernando.
I'm very susceptible to
head colds," he added inanely.
"Well, take those shoes off,
first," the woman grumbled.
"You can undress in the parlor,
if you'll keep off the rug.
You won't mind using the
sofa?"
"No, of course not. I'd be
happy to pay—"
"Oh, tush, nobody's asking
you to pay. This isn't a hotel.
You mind if I go back upstairs?
They're gonna miss
me at the palace."
"No, of course not," Sol
said. He followed her into
the darkened parlor, and
watched as she turned the
screw on a hurricane-style
lamp, shedding a yellow pool
of light over half a flowery
sofa and a doily-covered wing
chair. "You go on up. I'll be
perfectly fine."
"Guess you can use a towel,
though. I'll get you one,
then I'm going up. We wake
pretty early in this house.
Breakfast's at seven; you'll
have to be up if you want
any."
"I really can't thank you
enough—"
"Tush," the woman said.
She scurried out, and returned
a moment later with a
thick bath towel. "Sorry I
can't give you any bedding.
But you'll find it nice and
warm in here." She squinted
at the dim face of a ship's-wheel
clock on the mantle,
and made a noise with her
tongue. "Three-thirty!" she
exclaimed. "I'll miss the
whole execution ..."
"The what?"
"Goodnight, young man,"
Mom said firmly.
She padded off, leaving Sol
holding the towel. He patted
his face, and then scrubbed
the wet tangle of brown hair.
Carefully, he stepped off the
carpet and onto the stone
floor in front of the fireplace.
He removed his
drenched coat and suit jacket,
and squeezed water out
over the ashes.
He stripped down to his
underwear, wondering about
next morning's possible embarrassment,
and decided to
use the damp bath towel as a
blanket. The sofa was downy
and comfortable. He curled
up under the towel, shivered
once, and closed his eyes.
He
was tired and very
sleepy, and his customary
nightly review was limited to
a few detached thoughts
about the wedding he was
supposed to attend in Salinas
that weekend ... the hoodlum
who had responded to his
good-nature by dumping him
out of his own car ... the slogging
walk to the village ...
the little round woman who
was hurrying off, like the
White Rabbit, to some mysterious
appointment on the
upper floor ...
Then he went to sleep.
A voice awoke him, shrill
and questioning.
"Are you nakkid ?"
His eyes flew open, and he
pulled the towel protectively
around his body and glared
at the little girl with the rust-red
pigtails.
"Huh, mister?" she said,
pushing a finger against her
freckled nose. "Are you?"
"No," he said angrily. "I'm
not naked. Will you please
go away?"
"Sally!" It was Mom, appearing
in the doorway of the
parlor. "You leave the gentleman
alone." She went off
again.
"Yes," Sol said. "Please let
me get dressed. If you don't
mind." The girl didn't move.
"What time is it?"
"Dunno," Sally shrugged.
"I like poached eggs. They're
my favorite eggs in the whole
world."
"That's good," Sol said desperately.
"Now why don't you
be a good girl and eat your
poached eggs. In the kitchen."
"Ain't ready yet. You going
to stay for breakfast?"
"I'm not going to do anything
until you get out of
here."
She put the end of a pigtail
in her mouth and sat down on
the chair opposite. "I went to
the palace last night. They
had an exelution."
"Please," Sol groaned. "Be
a good girl, Sally. If you let
me get dressed, I'll show you
how to take your thumb off."
"Oh, that's an old trick. Did
you ever see an exelution?"
"No. Did you ever see a little
girl with her hide
tanned?"
"Huh?"
" Sally! " Mom again, sterner.
"You get out of there, or
you-know-what ..."
"Okay," the girl said
blithely. "I'm goin' to the palace
again. If I brush my
teeth. Aren't you ever gonna
get up?" She skipped out of
the room, and Sol hastily sat
up and reached for his
trousers.
When he had dressed, the
clothes still damp and unpleasant
against his skin, he
went out of the parlor and
found the kitchen. Mom was
busy at the stove. He said:
"Good morning."
"Breakfast in ten minutes,"
she said cheerfully. "You like
poached eggs?"
"Sure. Do you have a telephone?"
"In the hallway. Party line,
so you may have to wait."
He tried for fifteen minutes
to get through, but there
was a woman on the line who
was terribly upset about a
cotton dress she had ordered
from Sears, and was telling
the world about it.
Finally, he got his call
through to Salinas, and a
sleepy-voiced Fred, his old
Army buddy, listened somewhat
indifferently to his tale
of woe. "I might miss the
wedding," Sol said unhappily.
"I'm awfully sorry." Fred
didn't seem to be half as sorry
as he was. When Sol hung
up, he was feeling more despondent
than ever.
A man, tall and rangy, with
a bobbing Adam's apple and
a lined face, came into the
hallway. "Hullo?" he said inquiringly.
"You the fella had
the car stolen?"
"Yes."
The man scratched his ear.
"Take you over to Sheriff
Coogan after breakfast. He'll
let the Stateys know about it.
My name's Dawes."
Sol accepted a careful
handshake.
"Don't get many people
comin' into town," Dawes
said, looking at him curiously.
"Ain't seen a stranger in
years. But you look like the
rest of us." He chuckled.
Mom called out: "Breakfast!"
At
the table, Dawes
asked his destination.
"Wedding in Salinas," he
explained. "Old Army friend
of mine. I picked this hitchhiker
up about two miles from
here. He seemed okay."
"Never can tell," Dawes
said placidly, munching egg.
"Hey, Ma. That why you
were so late comin' to court
last night?"
"That's right, Pa." She
poured the blackest coffee
Sol had ever seen. "Didn't
miss much, though."
"What court is that?" Sol
asked politely, his mouth full.
"Umagum," Sally said, a
piece of toast sticking out
from the side of her mouth.
"Don't you know nothin' ?"
" Arma gon," Dawes corrected.
He looked sheepishly at
the stranger. "Don't expect
Mister—" He cocked an eyebrow.
"What's the name?"
"Becker."
"Don't expect Mr. Becker
knows anything about Armagon.
It's just a dream, you
know." He smiled apologetically.
"Dream? You mean this—Armagon
is a place you dream
about?"
"Yep," Dawes said. He lifted
cup to lip. "Great coffee,
Ma." He leaned back with a
contented sigh. "Dream about
it every night. Got so used to
the place, I get all confused
in the daytime."
Mom said: "I get muddle-headed
too, sometimes."
"You mean—" Sol put his
napkin in his lap. "You mean you dream about the same
place?"
"Sure," Sally piped. "We
all go there at night. I'm goin'
to the palace again, too."
"If you brush your teeth,"
Mom said primly.
"If I brush my teeth. Boy,
you shoulda seen the exelution!"
"Execution," her father
said.
"Oh, my goodness!" Mom
got up hastily. "That reminds
me. I gotta call poor Mrs.
Brundage. It's the least I
could do."
"Good idea," Dawes nodded.
"And I'll have to round
up some folks and get old
Brundage out of there."
Sol was staring. He opened
his mouth, but couldn't think
of the right question to ask.
Then he blurted out: "What
execution?"
"None of your business,"
the man said coldly. "You eat
up, young man. If you want
me to get Sheriff Coogan
lookin' for your car."
The rest of the meal went
silently, except for Sally's insistence
upon singing her
school song between mouthfuls.
When Dawes was
through, he pushed back his
plate and ordered Sol to get
ready.
Sol grabbed his topcoat and
followed the man out the
door.
"Have to stop someplace
first," Dawes said. "But we'll
be pickin' up the Sheriff on
the way. Okay with you?"
"Fine," Sol said uneasily.
The rain had stopped, but
the heavy clouds seemed reluctant
to leave the skies over
the small town. There was a
skittish breeze blowing, and
Sol Becker tightened the collar
of his coat around his
neck as he tried to keep up
with the fast-stepping Dawes.
They
crossed the
street diagonally, and entered
a two-story wooden building.
Dawes took the stairs at a
brisk pace, and pushed open
the door on the second floor.
A fat man looked up from
behind a desk.
"Hi, Charlie. Thought I'd
see if you wanted to help
move Brundage."
The man batted his eyes.
"Oh, Brundage!" he said.
"You know, I clean forgot
about him?" He laughed.
"Imagine me forgetting
that?"
"Yeah." Dawes wasn't
amused. "And you Prince Regent."
"Aw, Willie—"
"Well, come on. Stir that
fat carcass. Gotta pick up
Sheriff Coogan, too. This
here gentleman has to see him
about somethin' else."
The man regarded Sol suspiciously.
"Never seen you
before. Night or day. Stranger?"
"Come on !" Dawes said.
The fat man grunted and
hoisted himself out of the
swivel chair. He followed
lamely behind the two men
as they went out into the
street again.
A woman, with an empty
market basket, nodded casually
to them. "Mornin', folks.
Enjoyed it last night.
Thought you made a right
nice speech, Mr. Dawes."
"Thanks," Dawes answered
gruffly, but obviously flattered.
"We were just goin'
over to Brundage's to pick up
the body. Ma's gonna pay a
call on Mrs. Brundage around
ten o'clock. You care to visit?"
"Why, I think that's very
nice," the woman said. "I'll
be sure and do that." She
smiled at the fat man. "Mornin',
Prince."
Sol's head was spinning. As
they left the woman and continued
their determined
march down the quiet street,
he tried to find answers.
"Look, Mr. Dawes." He was
panting; the pace was fast.
"Does she dream about this—Armagon,
too? That woman
back there?"
"Yep."
Charlie chuckled. "He's a
stranger, all right."
"And you, Mr.—" Sol
turned to the fat man. "You
also know about this palace
and everything?"
"I told you," Dawes said
testily. "Charlie here's Prince
Regent. But don't let the fancy
title fool you. He got no
more power than any Knight
of the Realm. He's just too
dern fat to do much more'n
sit on a throne and eat grapes.
That right, Charlie?"
The fat man giggled.
"Here's the Sheriff," Dawes
said.
The Sheriff, a sleepy-eyed
citizen with a long, sad face,
was rocking on a porch as
they approached his house,
trying to puff a half-lit pipe.
He lifted one hand wearily
when he saw them.
"Hi, Cookie," Dawes
grinned. "Thought you, me,
and Charlie would get Brundage's
body outa the house.
This here's Mr. Becker; he
got another problem. Mr.
Becker, meet Cookie Coogan."
The Sheriff joined the procession,
pausing only once to
inquire into Sol's predicament.
He described the hitchhiker
incident, but Coogan
listened stoically. He murmured
something about the
Troopers, and shuffled alongside
the puffing fat man.
Sol soon realized that their
destination was a barber shop.
Dawes cupped his hands
over the plate glass and
peered inside. Gold letters on
the glass advertised: HAIRCUT
SHAVE & MASSAGE
PARLOR. He reported: "Nobody
in the shop. Must be
upstairs."
The
fat man rang the
bell. It was a while before an
answer came.
It was a reedy woman in a
housecoat, her hair in curlers,
her eyes red and swollen.
"Now, now," Dawes said
gently. "Don't you take on
like that, Mrs. Brundage. You
heard the charges. It hadda
be this way."
"My poor Vincent," she
sobbed.
"Better let us up," the
Sheriff said kindly. "No use
just lettin' him lay there,
Mrs. Brundage."
"He didn't mean no harm,"
the woman snuffled. "He was
just purely ornery, Vincent
was. Just plain mean stubborn."
"The law's the law," the
fat man sighed.
Sol couldn't hold himself
in.
"What law? Who's dead?
How did it happen?"
Dawes looked at him disgustedly.
"Now is it any of your business? I mean, is it?"
"I don't know," Sol said
miserably.
"You better stay out of
this," the Sheriff warned.
"This is a local matter, young
man. You better stay in the
shop while we go up."
They filed past him and the
crying Mrs. Brundage.
When they were out of
sight, Sol pleaded with her.
"What happened? How did
your husband die?"
"Please ..."
"You must tell me! Was it
something to do with Armagon?
Do you dream about the
place, too?"
She was shocked at the
question. "Of course!"
"And your husband? Did
he have the same dream?"
Fresh tears resulted. "Can't
you leave me alone?" She
turned her back. "I got things
to do. You can make yourself
comfortable—" She indicated
the barber chairs, and left
through the back door.
Sol looked after her, and
then ambled over to the first
chair and slipped into the
high seat. His reflection in
the mirror, strangely gray in
the dim light, made him
groan. His clothes were a
mess, and he needed a shave.
If only Brundage had been
alive ...
He leaped out of the chair
as voices sounded behind the
door. Dawes was kicking it
open with his foot, his arms
laden with two rather large
feet, still encased in bedroom
slippers. Charlie was at the
other end of the burden,
which appeared to be a middle-aged
man in pajamas. The
Sheriff followed the trio up
with a sad, undertaker expression.
Behind him came Mrs.
Brundage, properly weeping.
"We'll take him to the funeral
parlor," Dawes said,
breathing hard. "Weighs a
ton, don't he?"
"What killed him?" Sol
said.
"Heart attack."
The fat man chuckled.
The tableau was grisly. Sol
looked away, towards the
comfortingly mundane atmosphere
of the barber shop. But
even the sight of the thick-padded
chairs, the shaving
mugs on the wall, the neat
rows of cutting instruments,
seemed grotesque and morbid.
"Listen," Sol said, as they
went through the doorway.
"About my car—"
The Sheriff turned and regarded
him lugubriously.
"Your car ? Young man, ain't
you got no respect ?"
Sol swallowed hard and fell
silent. He went outside with
them, the woman slamming
the barber-shop door behind
him. He waited in front of
the building while the men
toted away the corpse to some
new destination.
He
took a walk.
The town was just coming
to life. People were strolling
out of their houses, commenting
on the weather, chuckling
amiably about local affairs.
Kids on bicycles were beginning
to appear, jangling the
little bells and hooting to
each other. A woman, hanging
wash in the back yard,
called out to him, thinking
he was somebody else.
He found a little park, no
more than twenty yards in
circumference, centered
around a weatherbeaten monument
of some unrecognizable
military figure. Three
old men took their places on
the bench that circled the
General, and leaned on their
canes.
Sol was a civil engineer.
But he made like a reporter.
"Pardon me, sir." The old
man, leathery-faced, with a
fine yellow moustache, looked
at him dumbly. "Have you
ever heard of Armagon?"
"You a stranger?"
"Yes."
"Thought so."
Sol repeated the question.
"Course I did. Been goin'
there ever since I was a kid.
Night-times, that is."
"How—I mean, what kind
of place is it?"
"Said you're a stranger?"
"Yes."
"Then 'tain't your business."
That was that.
He left the park, and wandered
into a thriving luncheonette.
He tried questioning
the man behind the counter,
who merely snickered and
said: "You stayin' with the
Dawes, ain't you? Better ask
Willie, then. He knows the
place better than anybody."
He asked about the execution,
and the man stiffened.
"Don't think I can talk
about that. Fella broke one of
the Laws; that's about it.
Don't see where you come
into it."
At eleven o'clock, he returned
to the Dawes residence,
and found Mom in the
kitchen, surrounded by the
warm nostalgic odor of home-baked
bread. She told him
that her husband had left a
message for the stranger, informing
him that the State
Police would be around to get
his story.
He waited in the house,
gloomily turning the pages of
the local newspaper, searching
for references to Armagon.
He found nothing.
At eleven-thirty, a brown-faced
State Trooper came to
call, and Sol told his story.
He was promised nothing,
and told to stay in town until
he was contacted again by
the authorities.
Mom fixed him a light
lunch, the greatest feature of
which was some hot biscuits
she plucked out of the oven.
It made him feel almost normal.
He wandered around the
town some more after lunch,
trying to spark conversation
with the residents.
He learned little.
At
five-thirty, he returned
to the Dawes house, and was
promptly leaped upon by
little Sally.
"Hi! Hi! Hi!" she said,
clutching his right leg and
almost toppling him over.
"We had a party in school. I
had chocolate cake. You goin'
to stay with us?"
"Just another night," Sol
told her, trying to shake the
girl off. "If it's okay with
your folks. They haven't
found my car yet."
"Sally!" Mom was peering
out of the screen door. "You
let Mr. Becker alone and go
wash. Your Pa will be home
soon."
"Oh, pooh," the girl said,
her pigtails swinging. "Do
you got a girlfriend, mister?"
"No." Sol struggled towards
the house with her
dead weight on his leg.
"Would you mind? I can't
walk."
"Would you be my boyfriend?"
"Well, we'll talk about it.
If you let go my leg."
Inside the house, she said:
"We're having pot roast. You
stayin'?"
"Of course Mr. Becker's
stayin'," Mom said. "He's our
guest."
"That's very kind of you,"
Sol said. "I really wish you'd
let me pay something—"
"Don't want to hear another
word about pay."
Mr. Dawes
came home an
hour later, looking tired.
Mom pecked him lightly on
the forehead. He glanced at
the evening paper, and then
spoke to Sol.
"Hear you been asking
questions, Mr. Becker."
Sol nodded, embarrassed.
"Guess I have. I'm awfully
curious about this Armagon
place. Never heard of anything
like it before."
Dawes grunted. "You ain't
a reporter?"
"Oh, no. I'm an engineer. I
was just satisfying my own
curiosity."
"Uh-huh." Dawes looked
reflective. "You wouldn't be
thinkin' about writing us up
or anything. I mean, this is a
pretty private affair."
"Writing it up?" Sol
blinked. "I hadn't thought of
it. But you'll have to admit—it's
sure interesting."
"Yeah," Dawes said narrowly.
"I guess it would be."
"Supper!" Mom called.
After the meal, they spent
a quiet evening at home. Sally
went to bed, screaming her
reluctance, at eight-thirty.
Mom, dozing in the big chair
near the fireplace, padded upstairs
at nine. Then Dawes
yawned widely, stood up, and
said goodnight at quarter-of-ten.
He paused in the doorway
before leaving.
"I'd think about that," he
said. "Writing it up, I mean.
A lot of folks would think
you were just plum crazy."
Sol laughed feebly. "I
guess they would at that."
"Goodnight," Dawes said.
"Goodnight."
He read Sally's copy of Treasure Island for about
half an hour. Then he undressed,
made himself comfortable
on the sofa, snuggled
under the soft blanket
that Mom had provided, and
shut his eyes.
He reviewed the events of
the day before dropping off
to sleep. The troublesome
Sally. The strange dream
world of Armagon. The visit
to the barber shop. The removal
of Brundage's body.
The conversations with the
townspeople. Dawes' suspicious
attitude ...
Then sleep came.
He
was flanked by marble
pillars, thrusting towards
a high-domed ceiling.
The room stretched long
and wide before him, the
walls bedecked in stunning
purple draperies.
He whirled at the sound of
footsteps, echoing stridently
on the stone floor. Someone
was running towards him.
It was Sally, pigtails
streaming out behind her, the
small body wearing a flowing
white toga. She was shrieking,
laughing as she skittered
past him, clutching a gleaming
gold helmet.
He called out to her, but
she was too busy outdistancing
her pursuer. It was Sheriff
Coogan, puffing and huffing,
the metal-and-gold cloth
uniform ludicrous on his
lanky frame.
"Consarn kid!" he wheezed.
"Gimme my hat!"
Mom was following him,
her stout body regal in scarlet
robes. "Sally! You give
Sir Coogan his helmet! You
hear?"
"Mrs. Dawes!" Sol said.
"Why, Mr. Becker! How
nice to see you again! Pa! Pa! Look who's here!"
Willie Dawes appeared. No! Sol thought. This was King Dawes; nothing else
could explain the magnificence
of his attire.
"Yes," Dawes said craftily.
"So I see. Welcome to Armagon,
Mr. Becker."
"Armagon?" Sol gaped.
"Then this is the place
you've been dreaming about?"
"Yep," the King said. "And
now you're in it, too."
"Then I'm only dreaming!"
Charlie, the fat man,
clumsy as ever in his robes of
State, said: "So that's the
snooper, eh?"
"Yep," Dawes chuckled.
"Think you better round up
the Knights."
Sol said: "The Knights?"
"Exelution! Exelution!"
Sally shrieked.
"Now wait a minute—"
Charlie shouted.
Running feet, clanking of
armor. Sol backed up against
a pillar. "Now look here.
You've gone far enough—"
"Not quite," said the King.
The Knights stepped forward.
"Wait!" Sol screamed.
Familiar faces, under shining
helmets, moved towards
him; the tips of sharp-pointed
spears gleaming wickedly.
And Sol Becker wondered—would
he ever awake?
|
What criteria for health safety do the members of the Explorer follow?
|
After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Contagion by Katherine MacLean.
Relevant chunks:
CONTAGION
By KATHERINE MacLEAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction October 1950. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Minos was such a lovely planet. Not a thing seemed wrong with it. Excepting the food, perhaps. And a disease that wasn't really.
It was like an Earth forest in the fall, but it was not fall. The forest leaves were green and copper and purple and fiery red, and a wind sent patches of bright greenish sunlight dancing among the leaf shadows.
The hunt party of the Explorer filed along the narrow trail, guns ready, walking carefully, listening to the distant, half familiar cries of strange birds.
A faint crackle of static in their earphones indicated that a gun had been fired.
"Got anything?" asked June Walton. The helmet intercom carried her voice to the ears of the others without breaking the stillness of the forest.
"Took a shot at something," explained George Barton's cheerful voice in her earphones. She rounded a bend of the trail and came upon Barton standing peering up into the trees, his gun still raised. "It looked like a duck."
"This isn't Central Park," said Hal Barton, his brother, coming into sight. His green spacesuit struck an incongruous note against the bronze and red forest. "They won't all look like ducks," he said soberly.
"Maybe some will look like dragons. Don't get eaten by a dragon, June," came Max's voice quietly into her earphones. "Not while I still love you." He came out of the trees carrying the blood sample kit, and touched her glove with his, the grin on his ugly beloved face barely visible in the mingled light and shade. A patch of sunlight struck a greenish glint from his fishbowl helmet.
They walked on. A quarter of a mile back, the space ship Explorer towered over the forest like a tapering skyscraper, and the people of the ship looked out of the viewplates at fresh winds and sunlight and clouds, and they longed to be outside.
But the likeness to Earth was danger, and the cool wind might be death, for if the animals were like Earth animals, their diseases might be like Earth diseases, alike enough to be contagious, different enough to be impossible to treat. There was warning enough in the past. Colonies had vanished, and traveled spaceways drifted with the corpses of ships which had touched on some plague planet.
The people of the ship waited while their doctors, in airtight spacesuits, hunted animals to test them for contagion.
The four medicos, for June Walton was also a doctor, filed through the alien homelike forest, walking softly, watching for motion among the copper and purple shadows.
They saw it suddenly, a lighter moving copper patch among the darker browns. Reflex action swung June's gun into line, and behind her someone's gun went off with a faint crackle of static, and made a hole in the leaves beside the specimen. Then for a while no one moved.
This one looked like a man, a magnificently muscled, leanly graceful, humanlike animal. Even in its callused bare feet, it was a head taller than any of them. Red-haired, hawk-faced and darkly tanned, it stood breathing heavily, looking at them without expression. At its side hung a sheath knife, and a crossbow was slung across one wide shoulder.
They lowered their guns.
"It needs a shave," Max said reasonably in their earphones, and he reached up to his helmet and flipped the switch that let his voice be heard. "Something we could do for you, Mac?"
The friendly drawl was the first voice that had broken the forest sounds. June smiled suddenly. He was right. The strict logic of evolution did not demand beards; therefore a non-human would not be wearing a three day growth of red stubble.
Still panting, the tall figure licked dry lips and spoke. "Welcome to Minos. The Mayor sends greetings from Alexandria."
"English?" gasped June.
"We were afraid you would take off again before I could bring word to you.... It's three hundred miles.... We saw your scout plane pass twice, but we couldn't attract its attention."
June looked in stunned silence at the stranger leaning against the tree. Thirty-six light years—thirty-six times six trillion miles of monotonous space travel—to be told that the planet was already settled! "We didn't know there was a colony here," she said. "It is not on the map."
"We were afraid of that," the tall bronze man answered soberly. "We have been here three generations and yet no traders have come."
Max shifted the kit strap on his shoulder and offered a hand. "My name is Max Stark, M.D. This is June Walton, M.D., Hal Barton, M.D., and George Barton, Hal's brother, also M.D."
"Patrick Mead is the name," smiled the man, shaking hands casually.
"Just a hunter and bridge carpenter myself. Never met any medicos before."
The grip was effortless but even through her airproofed glove June could feel that the fingers that touched hers were as hard as padded steel.
"What—what is the population of Minos?" she asked.
He looked down at her curiously for a moment before answering. "Only one hundred and fifty." He smiled. "Don't worry, this isn't a city planet yet. There's room for a few more people." He shook hands with the Bartons quickly. "That is—you are people, aren't you?" he asked startlingly.
"Why not?" said Max with a poise that June admired.
"Well, you are all so—so—" Patrick Mead's eyes roamed across the faces of the group. "So varied."
They could find no meaning in that, and stood puzzled.
"I mean," Patrick Mead said into the silence, "all these—interesting different hair colors and face shapes and so forth—" He made a vague wave with one hand as if he had run out of words or was anxious not to insult them.
"Joke?" Max asked, bewildered.
June laid a hand on his arm. "No harm meant," she said to him over the intercom. "We're just as much of a shock to him as he is to us."
She addressed a question to the tall colonist on outside sound. "What should a person look like, Mr. Mead?"
He indicated her with a smile. "Like you."
June stepped closer and stood looking up at him, considering her own description. She was tall and tanned, like him; had a few freckles, like him; and wavy red hair, like his. She ignored the brightly humorous blue eyes.
"In other words," she said, "everyone on the planet looks like you and me?"
Patrick Mead took another look at their four faces and began to grin.
"Like me, I guess. But I hadn't thought of it before. I did not think that people could have different colored hair or that noses could fit so many ways onto faces. I was judging by my own appearance, but I suppose any fool can walk on his hands and say the world is upside down!" He laughed and sobered. "But then why wear spacesuits? The air is breathable."
"For safety," June told him. "We can't take any chances on plague."
Pat Mead was wearing nothing but a loin cloth and his weapons, and the wind ruffled his hair. He looked comfortable, and they longed to take off the stuffy spacesuits and feel the wind against their own skins. Minos was like home, like Earth.... But they were strangers.
"Plague," Pat Mead said thoughtfully. "We had one here. It came two years after the colony arrived and killed everyone except the Mead families. They were immune. I guess we look alike because we're all related, and that's why I grew up thinking that it is the only way people can look."
Plague. "What was the disease?" Hal Barton asked.
"Pretty gruesome, according to my father. They called it the melting sickness. The doctors died too soon to find out what it was or what to do about it."
"You should have trained for more doctors, or sent to civilization for some." A trace of impatience was in George Barton's voice.
Pat Mead explained patiently, "Our ship, with the power plant and all the books we needed, went off into the sky to avoid the contagion, and never came back. The crew must have died." Long years of hardship were indicated by that statement, a colony with electric power gone and machinery stilled, with key technicians dead and no way to replace them. June realized then the full meaning of the primitive sheath knife and bow.
"Any recurrence of melting sickness?" asked Hal Barton.
"No."
"Any other diseases?"
"Not a one."
Max was eyeing the bronze red-headed figure with something approaching awe. "Do you think all the Meads look like that?" he said to June on the intercom. "I wouldn't mind being a Mead myself!"
Their job had been made easy by the coming of Pat. They went back to the ship laughing, exchanging anecdotes with him. There was nothing now to keep Minos from being the home they wanted, except the melting sickness, and, forewarned against it, they could take precautions.
The polished silver and black column of the Explorer seemed to rise higher and higher over the trees as they neared it. Then its symmetry blurred all sense of specific size as they stepped out from among the trees and stood on the edge of the meadow, looking up.
"Nice!" said Pat. "Beautiful!" The admiration in his voice was warming.
"It was a yacht," Max said, still looking up, "second hand, an old-time beauty without a sign of wear. Synthetic diamond-studded control board and murals on the walls. It doesn't have the new speed drives, but it brought us thirty-six light years in one and a half subjective years. Plenty good enough."
The tall tanned man looked faintly wistful, and June realized that he had never had access to a full library, never seen a movie, never experienced luxury. He had been born and raised on Minos.
"May I go aboard?" Pat asked hopefully.
Max unslung the specimen kit from his shoulder, laid it on the carpet of plants that covered the ground and began to open it.
"Tests first," Hal Barton said. "We have to find out if you people still carry this so-called melting sickness. We'll have to de-microbe you and take specimens before we let you on board. Once on, you'll be no good as a check for what the other Meads might have."
Max was taking out a rack and a stand of preservative bottles and hypodermics.
"Are you going to jab me with those?" Pat asked with interest.
"You're just a specimen animal to me, bud!" Max grinned at Pat Mead, and Pat grinned back. June saw that they were friends already, the tall pantherish colonist, and the wry, black-haired doctor. She felt a stab of guilt because she loved Max and yet could pity him for being smaller and frailer than Pat Mead.
"Lie down," Max told him, "and hold still. We need two spinal fluid samples from the back, a body cavity one in front, and another from the arm."
Pat lay down obediently. Max knelt, and, as he spoke, expertly swabbed and inserted needles with the smooth speed that had made him a fine nerve surgeon on Earth.
High above them the scout helioplane came out of an opening in the ship and angled off toward the west, its buzz diminishing. Then, suddenly, it veered and headed back, and Reno Unrich's voice came tinnily from their earphones:
"What's that you've got? Hey, what are you docs doing down there?" He banked again and came to a stop, hovering fifty feet away. June could see his startled face looking through the glass at Pat.
Hal Barton switched to a narrow radio beam, explained rapidly and pointed in the direction of Alexandria. Reno's plane lifted and flew away over the odd-colored forest.
"The plane will drop a note on your town, telling them you got through to us," Hal Barton told Pat, who was sitting up watching Max dexterously put the blood and spinal fluids into the right bottles without exposing them to air.
"We won't be free to contact your people until we know if they still carry melting sickness," Max added. "You might be immune so it doesn't show on you, but still carry enough germs—if that's what caused it—to wipe out a planet."
"If you do carry melting sickness," said Hal Barton, "we won't be able to mingle with your people until we've cleared them of the disease."
"Starting with me?" Pat asked.
"Starting with you," Max told him ruefully, "as soon as you step on board."
"More needles?"
"Yes, and a few little extras thrown in."
"Rough?"
"It isn't easy."
A few minutes later, standing in the stalls for spacesuit decontamination, being buffeted by jets of hot disinfectant, bathed in glares of sterilizing ultraviolet radiation, June remembered that and compared Pat Mead's treatment to theirs.
In the Explorer , stored carefully in sealed tanks and containers, was the ultimate, multi-purpose cureall. It was a solution of enzymes so like the key catalysts of the human cell nucleus that it caused chemical derangement and disintegration in any non-human cell. Nothing could live in contact with it but human cells; any alien intruder to the body would die. Nucleocat Cureall was its trade name.
But the cureall alone was not enough for complete safety. Plagues had been known to slay too rapidly and universally to be checked by human treatment. Doctors are not reliable; they die. Therefore spaceways and interplanetary health law demanded that ship equipment for guarding against disease be totally mechanical in operation, rapid and efficient.
Somewhere near them, in a series of stalls which led around and around like a rabbit maze, Pat was being herded from stall to stall by peremptory mechanical voices, directed to soap and shower, ordered to insert his arm into a slot which took a sample of his blood, given solutions to drink, bathed in germicidal ultraviolet, shaken by sonic blasts, breathing air thick with sprays of germicidal mists, being directed to put his arms into other slots where they were anesthesized and injected with various immunizing solutions.
Finally, he would be put in a room of high temperature and extreme dryness, and instructed to sit for half an hour while more fluids were dripped into his veins through long thin tubes.
All legal spaceships were built for safety. No chance was taken of allowing a suspected carrier to bring an infection on board with him.
June stepped from the last shower stall into the locker room, zipped off her spacesuit with a sigh of relief, and contemplated herself in a wall mirror. Red hair, dark blue eyes, tall....
"I've got a good figure," she said thoughtfully.
Max turned at the door. "Why this sudden interest in your looks?" he asked suspiciously. "Do we stand here and admire you, or do we finally get something to eat?"
"Wait a minute." She went to a wall phone and dialed it carefully, using a combination from the ship's directory. "How're you doing, Pat?"
The phone picked up a hissing of water or spray. There was a startled chuckle. "Voices, too! Hello, June. How do you tell a machine to go jump in the lake?"
"Are you hungry?"
"No food since yesterday."
"We'll have a banquet ready for you when you get out," she told Pat and hung up, smiling. Pat Mead's voice had a vitality and enjoyment which made shipboard talk sound like sad artificial gaiety in contrast.
They looked into the nearby small laboratory where twelve squealing hamsters were protestingly submitting to a small injection each of Pat's blood. In most of them the injection was followed by one of antihistaminics and adaptives. Otherwise the hamster defense system would treat all non-hamster cells as enemies, even the harmless human blood cells, and fight back against them violently.
One hamster, the twelfth, was given an extra large dose of adaptive, so that if there were a disease, he would not fight it or the human cells, and thus succumb more rapidly.
"How ya doing, George?" Max asked.
"Routine," George Barton grunted absently.
On the way up the long spiral ramps to the dining hall, they passed a viewplate. It showed a long scene of mountains in the distance on the horizon, and between them, rising step by step as they grew farther away, the low rolling hills, bronze and red with patches of clear green where there were fields.
Someone was looking out, standing very still, as if she had been there a long time—Bess St. Clair, a Canadian woman. "It looks like Winnipeg," she told them as they paused. "When are you doctors going to let us out of this blithering barberpole? Look," she pointed. "See that patch of field on the south hillside, with the brook winding through it? I've staked that hillside for our house. When do we get out?"
Reno Ulrich's tiny scout plane buzzed slowly in from the distance and began circling lazily.
"Sooner than you think," Max told her. "We've discovered a castaway colony on the planet. They've done our tests for us by just living here. If there's anything here to catch, they've caught it."
"People on Minos?" Bess's handsome ruddy face grew alive with excitement.
"One of them is down in the medical department," June said. "He'll be out in twenty minutes."
"May I go see him?"
"Sure," said Max. "Show him the way to the dining hall when he gets out. Tell him we sent you."
"Right!" She turned and ran down the ramp like a small girl going to a fire. Max grinned at June and she grinned back. After a year and a half of isolation in space, everyone was hungry for the sight of new faces, the sound of unfamiliar voices.
They climbed the last two turns to the cafeteria, and entered to a rich subdued blend of soft music and quiet conversations. The cafeteria was a section of the old dining room, left when the rest of the ship had been converted to living and working quarters, and it still had the original finely grained wood of the ceiling and walls, the sound absorbency, the soft music spools and the intimate small light at each table where people leisurely ate and talked.
They stood in line at the hot foods counter, and behind her June could hear a girl's voice talking excitedly through the murmur of conversation.
"—new man, honest! I saw him through the viewplate when they came in. He's down in the medical department. A real frontiersman."
The line drew abreast of the counters, and she and Max chose three heaping trays, starting with hydroponic mushroom steak, raised in the growing trays of water and chemicals; sharp salad bowl with rose tomatoes and aromatic peppers; tank-grown fish with special sauce; four different desserts, and assorted beverages.
Presently they had three tottering trays successfully maneuvered to a table. Brant St. Clair came over. "I beg your pardon, Max, but they are saying something about Reno carrying messages to a colony of savages, for the medical department. Will he be back soon, do you know?"
Max smiled up at him, his square face affectionate. Everyone liked the shy Canadian. "He's back already. We just saw him come in."
"Oh, fine." St. Clair beamed. "I had an appointment with him to go out and confirm what looks like a nice vein of iron to the northeast. Have you seen Bess? Oh—there she is." He turned swiftly and hurried away.
A very tall man with fiery red hair came in surrounded by an eagerly talking crowd of ship people. It was Pat Mead. He stood in the doorway, alertly scanning the dining room. Sheer vitality made him seem even larger than he was. Sighting June, he smiled and began to thread toward their table.
"Look!" said someone. "There's the colonist!" Shelia, a pretty, jeweled woman, followed and caught his arm. "Did you really swim across a river to come here?"
Overflowing with good-will and curiosity, people approached from all directions. "Did you actually walk three hundred miles? Come, eat with us. Let me help choose your tray."
Everyone wanted him to eat at their table, everyone was a specialist and wanted data about Minos. They all wanted anecdotes about hunting wild animals with a bow and arrow.
"He needs to be rescued," Max said. "He won't have a chance to eat."
June and Max got up firmly, edged through the crowd, captured Pat and escorted him back to their table. June found herself pleased to be claiming the hero of the hour.
Pat sat in the simple, subtly designed chair and leaned back almost voluptuously, testing the way it gave and fitted itself to him. He ran his eyes over the bright tableware and heaped plates. He looked around at the rich grained walls and soft lights at each table. He said nothing, just looking and feeling and experiencing.
"When we build our town and leave the ship," June explained, "we will turn all the staterooms back into the lounges and ballrooms and cocktail bars that used to be inside."
"Oh, I'm not complaining," Pat said negligently. He cocked his head to the music, and tried to locate its source.
"That's big of you," said Max with gentle irony.
They fell to, Pat beginning the first meal he had had in more than a day.
Most of the other diners finished when they were halfway through, and began walking over, diffidently at first, then in another wave of smiling faces, handshakes, and introductions. Pat was asked about crops, about farming methods, about rainfall and floods, about farm animals and plant breeding, about the compatibility of imported Earth seeds with local ground, about mines and strata.
There was no need to protect him. He leaned back in his chair and drawled answers with the lazy ease of a panther; where he could think of no statistic, he would fill the gap with an anecdote. It developed that he enjoyed spinning campfire yarns and especially being the center of interest.
Between bouts of questions, he ate with undiminished and glowing relish.
June noticed that the female specialists were prolonging the questions more than they needed, clustering around the table laughing at his jokes, until presently Pat was almost surrounded by pretty faces, eager questions, and chiming laughs. Shelia the beautiful laughed most chimingly of all.
June nudged Max, and Max shrugged indifferently. It wasn't anything a man would pay attention to, perhaps. But June watched Pat for a moment more, then glanced uneasily back to Max. He was eating and listening to Pat's answers and did not feel her gaze. For some reason Max looked almost shrunken to her. He was shorter than she had realized; she had forgotten that he was only the same height as herself. She was dimly aware of the clear lilting chatter of female voices increasing at Pat's end of the table.
"That guy's a menace," Max said, and laughed to himself, cutting another slice of hydroponic mushroom steak. "What's eating you?" he added, glancing aside at her when he noticed her sudden stillness.
"Nothing," she said hastily, but she did not turn back to watching Pat Mead. She felt disloyal. Pat was only a superb animal. Max was the man she loved. Or—was he? Of course he was, she told herself angrily. They had gone colonizing together because they wanted to spend their lives together; she had never thought of marrying any other man. Yet the sense of dissatisfaction persisted, and along with it a feeling of guilt.
Len Marlow, the protein tank-culture technician responsible for the mushroom steaks, had wormed his way into the group and asked Pat a question. Now he was saying, "I don't dig you, Pat. It sounds like you're putting the people into the tanks instead of the vegetables!" He glanced at them, looking puzzled. "See if you two can make anything of this. It sounds medical to me."
Pat leaned back and smiled, sipping a glass of hydroponic burgundy.
"Wonderful stuff. You'll have to show us how to make it."
Len turned back to him. "You people live off the country, right? You hunt and bring in steaks and eat them, right? Well, say I have one of those steaks right here and I want to eat it, what happens?"
"Go ahead and eat it. It just wouldn't digest. You'd stay hungry."
"Why?" Len was aggrieved.
"Chemical differences in the basic protoplasm of Minos. Different amino linkages, left-handed instead of right-handed molecules in the carbohydrates, things like that. Nothing will be digestible here until you are adapted chemically by a little test-tube evolution. Till then you'd starve to death on a full stomach."
Pat's side of the table had been loaded with the dishes from two trays, but it was almost clear now and the dishes were stacked neatly to one side. He started on three desserts, thoughtfully tasting each in turn.
"Test-tube evolution?" Max repeated. "What's that? I thought you people had no doctors."
"It's a story." Pat leaned back again. "Alexander P. Mead, the head of the Mead clan, was a plant geneticist, a very determined personality and no man to argue with. He didn't want us to go through the struggle of killing off all Minos plants and putting in our own, spoiling the face of the planet and upsetting the balance of its ecology. He decided that he would adapt our genes to this planet or kill us trying. He did it all right.'"
"Did which?" asked June, suddenly feeling a sourceless prickle of fear.
"Adapted us to Minos. He took human cells—"
She listened intently, trying to find a reason for fear in the explanation. It would have taken many human generations to adapt to Minos by ordinary evolution, and that only at a heavy toll of death and hunger which evolution exacts. There was a shorter way: Human cells have the ability to return to their primeval condition of independence, hunting, eating and reproducing alone.
Alexander P. Mead took human cells and made them into phagocytes. He put them through the hard savage school of evolution—a thousand generations of multiplication, hardship and hunger, with the alien indigestible food always present, offering its reward of plenty to the cell that reluctantly learned to absorb it.
"Leucocytes can run through several thousand generations of evolution in six months," Pat Mead finished. "When they reached to a point where they would absorb Minos food, he planted them back in the people he had taken them from."
"What was supposed to happen then?" Max asked, leaning forward.
"I don't know exactly how it worked. He never told anybody much about it, and when I was a little boy he had gone loco and was wandering ha-ha-ing around waving a test tube. Fell down a ravine and broke his neck at the age of eighty."
"A character," Max said.
Why was she afraid? "It worked then?"
"Yes. He tried it on all the Meads the first year. The other settlers didn't want to be experimented on until they saw how it worked out. It worked. The Meads could hunt, and plant while the other settlers were still eating out of hydroponics tanks."
"It worked," said Max to Len. "You're a plant geneticist and a tank culture expert. There's a job for you."
"Uh- uh !" Len backed away. "It sounds like a medical problem to me. Human cell control—right up your alley."
"It is a one-way street," Pat warned. "Once it is done, you won't be able to digest ship food. I'll get no good from this protein. I ate it just for the taste."
Hal Barton appeared quietly beside the table. "Three of the twelve test hamsters have died," he reported, and turned to Pat. "Your people carry the germs of melting sickness, as you call it. The dead hamsters were injected with blood taken from you before you were de-infected. We can't settle here unless we de-infect everybody on Minos. Would they object?"
"We wouldn't want to give you folks germs," Pat smiled. "Anything for safety. But there'll have to be a vote on it first."
The doctors went to Reno Ulrich's table and walked with him to the hangar, explaining. He was to carry the proposal to Alexandria, mingle with the people, be persuasive and wait for them to vote before returning. He was to give himself shots of cureall every two hours on the hour or run the risk of disease.
Reno was pleased. He had dabbled in sociology before retraining as a mechanic for the expedition. "This gives me a chance to study their mores." He winked wickedly. "I may not be back for several nights." They watched through the viewplate as he took off, and then went over to the laboratory for a look at the hamsters.
Three were alive and healthy, munching lettuce. One was the control; the other two had been given shots of Pat's blood from before he entered the ship, but with no additional treatment. Apparently a hamster could fight off melting sickness easily if left alone. Three were still feverish and ruffled, with a low red blood count, but recovering. The three dead ones had been given strong shots of adaptive and counter histamine, so their bodies had not fought back against the attack.
June glanced at the dead animals hastily and looked away again. They lay twisted with a strange semi-fluid limpness, as if ready to dissolve. The last hamster, which had been given the heaviest dose of adaptive, had apparently lost all its hair before death. It was hairless and pink, like a still-born baby.
"We can find no micro-organisms," George Barton said. "None at all. Nothing in the body that should not be there. Leucosis and anemia. Fever only for the ones that fought it off." He handed Max some temperature charts and graphs of blood counts.
June wandered out into the hall. Pediatrics and obstetrics were her field; she left the cellular research to Max, and just helped him with laboratory routine. The strange mood followed her out into the hall, then abruptly lightened.
Coming toward her, busily telling a tale of adventure to the gorgeous Shelia Davenport, was a tall, red-headed, magnificently handsome man. It was his handsomeness which made Pat such a pleasure to look upon and talk with, she guiltily told herself, and it was his tremendous vitality.... It was like meeting a movie hero in the flesh, or a hero out of the pages of a book—Deer-slayer, John Clayton, Lord Greystoke.
She waited in the doorway to the laboratory and made no move to join them, merely acknowledged the two with a nod and a smile and a casual lift of the hand. They nodded and smiled back.
"Hello, June," said Pat and continued telling his tale, but as they passed he lightly touched her arm.
"Oh, pioneer!" she said mockingly and softly to his passing profile, and knew that he had heard.
Question:
What criteria for health safety do the members of the Explorer follow?
Answer:
|
[
"Potential pathogens are of grave concern to the members of the Explorer. To ensure their safety, they send out a hunting party of medical doctors to gather data on the diseases present on the planet Minos. The doctors wear protective gear during this trip. \n\nWhen they bring Pat back to their ship, they require him to go through tests before he is allowed onto the ship. They include needing to de-microbe him and taking specimens from him. Max takes spinal fluid samples from Pat during this process. Pat then went through a long process where he was guided by mechanical voices to go through many different stages of decontamination. \n\nWhile the group of doctors do not have to go through the same process as Pat to board the ship, they go through their own decontamination process. There is a stall for spacesuit decontamination that shoots out disinfectants and baths of ultraviolet radiation for sterilization. \n\nThe ship was also governed by interplanetary health laws. These laws demanded that ship equipment protecting against diseases had to be completely mechanical in operation and efficient. \n",
"There is a protocol developed to prevent any danger. The ship has been to various planets and faced plague, so they are very cautious. The doctors exit the ship in spacesuits to explore the planet, while common people have to stay inside. The animals are tested on diseases. There are many laboratories and tools on the ship, even hamsters for experiments. There is a cureall stored aboard - a cure from any alien illness. All the procedures are done mechanically to avoid contact. There are different rooms for conducting all the possible testings and experiments. No contact is allowed before the test results. ",
"In order to avoid any risk of contracting disease, people on The Explorer do not interact with foreign people or environments unless they are sure that there is no present disease that can be spread. Because of this, people on The Explorer have been in isolation. When the medical crew first encounters Pat, they are wearing spacesuits outside to protect themselves from the atmosphere, and before he boards the ship, they run several tests on him and make him go through several cleansing procedures. In order to find out if Pat has any diseases, they draw his blood and inject it into hamsters, running an experiment to see if there is cause for concern.",
"The criteria for safety that all members of the Explorer follow involves many tests and disinfecting. Before Pat can enter, they must first check if he carries the germs of melting sickness. Even when the doctors go on, they must stand in stalls for spacesuit decontamination. This decontamination involves being buffeted by jets of hot disinfectant and being bathed in glares of sterilizing ultraviolet radiation. The Explorer also houses the Nucleocat Cureall, a solution of enzymes that disintegrates any non-human cell. However, as an extra precaution, there are stalls that loop similar to a rabbit maze. There is an area for soap and shower, a blood test, solutions to drink, a germicidal ultraviolet bath, sonic blast shaking, germicidal mists, and immunizing solutions. After all of this, there is also a room with high temperature and extreme dryness; more fluids are also dripped into the disinfecting person’s veins during this time. These are all necessary measures to ensure absolute cleanliness and destroy any chance of anyone being a suspected carrier of infection."
] |
50774
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CONTAGION
By KATHERINE MacLEAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction October 1950. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Minos was such a lovely planet. Not a thing seemed wrong with it. Excepting the food, perhaps. And a disease that wasn't really.
It was like an Earth forest in the fall, but it was not fall. The forest leaves were green and copper and purple and fiery red, and a wind sent patches of bright greenish sunlight dancing among the leaf shadows.
The hunt party of the Explorer filed along the narrow trail, guns ready, walking carefully, listening to the distant, half familiar cries of strange birds.
A faint crackle of static in their earphones indicated that a gun had been fired.
"Got anything?" asked June Walton. The helmet intercom carried her voice to the ears of the others without breaking the stillness of the forest.
"Took a shot at something," explained George Barton's cheerful voice in her earphones. She rounded a bend of the trail and came upon Barton standing peering up into the trees, his gun still raised. "It looked like a duck."
"This isn't Central Park," said Hal Barton, his brother, coming into sight. His green spacesuit struck an incongruous note against the bronze and red forest. "They won't all look like ducks," he said soberly.
"Maybe some will look like dragons. Don't get eaten by a dragon, June," came Max's voice quietly into her earphones. "Not while I still love you." He came out of the trees carrying the blood sample kit, and touched her glove with his, the grin on his ugly beloved face barely visible in the mingled light and shade. A patch of sunlight struck a greenish glint from his fishbowl helmet.
They walked on. A quarter of a mile back, the space ship Explorer towered over the forest like a tapering skyscraper, and the people of the ship looked out of the viewplates at fresh winds and sunlight and clouds, and they longed to be outside.
But the likeness to Earth was danger, and the cool wind might be death, for if the animals were like Earth animals, their diseases might be like Earth diseases, alike enough to be contagious, different enough to be impossible to treat. There was warning enough in the past. Colonies had vanished, and traveled spaceways drifted with the corpses of ships which had touched on some plague planet.
The people of the ship waited while their doctors, in airtight spacesuits, hunted animals to test them for contagion.
The four medicos, for June Walton was also a doctor, filed through the alien homelike forest, walking softly, watching for motion among the copper and purple shadows.
They saw it suddenly, a lighter moving copper patch among the darker browns. Reflex action swung June's gun into line, and behind her someone's gun went off with a faint crackle of static, and made a hole in the leaves beside the specimen. Then for a while no one moved.
This one looked like a man, a magnificently muscled, leanly graceful, humanlike animal. Even in its callused bare feet, it was a head taller than any of them. Red-haired, hawk-faced and darkly tanned, it stood breathing heavily, looking at them without expression. At its side hung a sheath knife, and a crossbow was slung across one wide shoulder.
They lowered their guns.
"It needs a shave," Max said reasonably in their earphones, and he reached up to his helmet and flipped the switch that let his voice be heard. "Something we could do for you, Mac?"
The friendly drawl was the first voice that had broken the forest sounds. June smiled suddenly. He was right. The strict logic of evolution did not demand beards; therefore a non-human would not be wearing a three day growth of red stubble.
Still panting, the tall figure licked dry lips and spoke. "Welcome to Minos. The Mayor sends greetings from Alexandria."
"English?" gasped June.
"We were afraid you would take off again before I could bring word to you.... It's three hundred miles.... We saw your scout plane pass twice, but we couldn't attract its attention."
June looked in stunned silence at the stranger leaning against the tree. Thirty-six light years—thirty-six times six trillion miles of monotonous space travel—to be told that the planet was already settled! "We didn't know there was a colony here," she said. "It is not on the map."
"We were afraid of that," the tall bronze man answered soberly. "We have been here three generations and yet no traders have come."
Max shifted the kit strap on his shoulder and offered a hand. "My name is Max Stark, M.D. This is June Walton, M.D., Hal Barton, M.D., and George Barton, Hal's brother, also M.D."
"Patrick Mead is the name," smiled the man, shaking hands casually.
"Just a hunter and bridge carpenter myself. Never met any medicos before."
The grip was effortless but even through her airproofed glove June could feel that the fingers that touched hers were as hard as padded steel.
"What—what is the population of Minos?" she asked.
He looked down at her curiously for a moment before answering. "Only one hundred and fifty." He smiled. "Don't worry, this isn't a city planet yet. There's room for a few more people." He shook hands with the Bartons quickly. "That is—you are people, aren't you?" he asked startlingly.
"Why not?" said Max with a poise that June admired.
"Well, you are all so—so—" Patrick Mead's eyes roamed across the faces of the group. "So varied."
They could find no meaning in that, and stood puzzled.
"I mean," Patrick Mead said into the silence, "all these—interesting different hair colors and face shapes and so forth—" He made a vague wave with one hand as if he had run out of words or was anxious not to insult them.
"Joke?" Max asked, bewildered.
June laid a hand on his arm. "No harm meant," she said to him over the intercom. "We're just as much of a shock to him as he is to us."
She addressed a question to the tall colonist on outside sound. "What should a person look like, Mr. Mead?"
He indicated her with a smile. "Like you."
June stepped closer and stood looking up at him, considering her own description. She was tall and tanned, like him; had a few freckles, like him; and wavy red hair, like his. She ignored the brightly humorous blue eyes.
"In other words," she said, "everyone on the planet looks like you and me?"
Patrick Mead took another look at their four faces and began to grin.
"Like me, I guess. But I hadn't thought of it before. I did not think that people could have different colored hair or that noses could fit so many ways onto faces. I was judging by my own appearance, but I suppose any fool can walk on his hands and say the world is upside down!" He laughed and sobered. "But then why wear spacesuits? The air is breathable."
"For safety," June told him. "We can't take any chances on plague."
Pat Mead was wearing nothing but a loin cloth and his weapons, and the wind ruffled his hair. He looked comfortable, and they longed to take off the stuffy spacesuits and feel the wind against their own skins. Minos was like home, like Earth.... But they were strangers.
"Plague," Pat Mead said thoughtfully. "We had one here. It came two years after the colony arrived and killed everyone except the Mead families. They were immune. I guess we look alike because we're all related, and that's why I grew up thinking that it is the only way people can look."
Plague. "What was the disease?" Hal Barton asked.
"Pretty gruesome, according to my father. They called it the melting sickness. The doctors died too soon to find out what it was or what to do about it."
"You should have trained for more doctors, or sent to civilization for some." A trace of impatience was in George Barton's voice.
Pat Mead explained patiently, "Our ship, with the power plant and all the books we needed, went off into the sky to avoid the contagion, and never came back. The crew must have died." Long years of hardship were indicated by that statement, a colony with electric power gone and machinery stilled, with key technicians dead and no way to replace them. June realized then the full meaning of the primitive sheath knife and bow.
"Any recurrence of melting sickness?" asked Hal Barton.
"No."
"Any other diseases?"
"Not a one."
Max was eyeing the bronze red-headed figure with something approaching awe. "Do you think all the Meads look like that?" he said to June on the intercom. "I wouldn't mind being a Mead myself!"
Their job had been made easy by the coming of Pat. They went back to the ship laughing, exchanging anecdotes with him. There was nothing now to keep Minos from being the home they wanted, except the melting sickness, and, forewarned against it, they could take precautions.
The polished silver and black column of the Explorer seemed to rise higher and higher over the trees as they neared it. Then its symmetry blurred all sense of specific size as they stepped out from among the trees and stood on the edge of the meadow, looking up.
"Nice!" said Pat. "Beautiful!" The admiration in his voice was warming.
"It was a yacht," Max said, still looking up, "second hand, an old-time beauty without a sign of wear. Synthetic diamond-studded control board and murals on the walls. It doesn't have the new speed drives, but it brought us thirty-six light years in one and a half subjective years. Plenty good enough."
The tall tanned man looked faintly wistful, and June realized that he had never had access to a full library, never seen a movie, never experienced luxury. He had been born and raised on Minos.
"May I go aboard?" Pat asked hopefully.
Max unslung the specimen kit from his shoulder, laid it on the carpet of plants that covered the ground and began to open it.
"Tests first," Hal Barton said. "We have to find out if you people still carry this so-called melting sickness. We'll have to de-microbe you and take specimens before we let you on board. Once on, you'll be no good as a check for what the other Meads might have."
Max was taking out a rack and a stand of preservative bottles and hypodermics.
"Are you going to jab me with those?" Pat asked with interest.
"You're just a specimen animal to me, bud!" Max grinned at Pat Mead, and Pat grinned back. June saw that they were friends already, the tall pantherish colonist, and the wry, black-haired doctor. She felt a stab of guilt because she loved Max and yet could pity him for being smaller and frailer than Pat Mead.
"Lie down," Max told him, "and hold still. We need two spinal fluid samples from the back, a body cavity one in front, and another from the arm."
Pat lay down obediently. Max knelt, and, as he spoke, expertly swabbed and inserted needles with the smooth speed that had made him a fine nerve surgeon on Earth.
High above them the scout helioplane came out of an opening in the ship and angled off toward the west, its buzz diminishing. Then, suddenly, it veered and headed back, and Reno Unrich's voice came tinnily from their earphones:
"What's that you've got? Hey, what are you docs doing down there?" He banked again and came to a stop, hovering fifty feet away. June could see his startled face looking through the glass at Pat.
Hal Barton switched to a narrow radio beam, explained rapidly and pointed in the direction of Alexandria. Reno's plane lifted and flew away over the odd-colored forest.
"The plane will drop a note on your town, telling them you got through to us," Hal Barton told Pat, who was sitting up watching Max dexterously put the blood and spinal fluids into the right bottles without exposing them to air.
"We won't be free to contact your people until we know if they still carry melting sickness," Max added. "You might be immune so it doesn't show on you, but still carry enough germs—if that's what caused it—to wipe out a planet."
"If you do carry melting sickness," said Hal Barton, "we won't be able to mingle with your people until we've cleared them of the disease."
"Starting with me?" Pat asked.
"Starting with you," Max told him ruefully, "as soon as you step on board."
"More needles?"
"Yes, and a few little extras thrown in."
"Rough?"
"It isn't easy."
A few minutes later, standing in the stalls for spacesuit decontamination, being buffeted by jets of hot disinfectant, bathed in glares of sterilizing ultraviolet radiation, June remembered that and compared Pat Mead's treatment to theirs.
In the Explorer , stored carefully in sealed tanks and containers, was the ultimate, multi-purpose cureall. It was a solution of enzymes so like the key catalysts of the human cell nucleus that it caused chemical derangement and disintegration in any non-human cell. Nothing could live in contact with it but human cells; any alien intruder to the body would die. Nucleocat Cureall was its trade name.
But the cureall alone was not enough for complete safety. Plagues had been known to slay too rapidly and universally to be checked by human treatment. Doctors are not reliable; they die. Therefore spaceways and interplanetary health law demanded that ship equipment for guarding against disease be totally mechanical in operation, rapid and efficient.
Somewhere near them, in a series of stalls which led around and around like a rabbit maze, Pat was being herded from stall to stall by peremptory mechanical voices, directed to soap and shower, ordered to insert his arm into a slot which took a sample of his blood, given solutions to drink, bathed in germicidal ultraviolet, shaken by sonic blasts, breathing air thick with sprays of germicidal mists, being directed to put his arms into other slots where they were anesthesized and injected with various immunizing solutions.
Finally, he would be put in a room of high temperature and extreme dryness, and instructed to sit for half an hour while more fluids were dripped into his veins through long thin tubes.
All legal spaceships were built for safety. No chance was taken of allowing a suspected carrier to bring an infection on board with him.
June stepped from the last shower stall into the locker room, zipped off her spacesuit with a sigh of relief, and contemplated herself in a wall mirror. Red hair, dark blue eyes, tall....
"I've got a good figure," she said thoughtfully.
Max turned at the door. "Why this sudden interest in your looks?" he asked suspiciously. "Do we stand here and admire you, or do we finally get something to eat?"
"Wait a minute." She went to a wall phone and dialed it carefully, using a combination from the ship's directory. "How're you doing, Pat?"
The phone picked up a hissing of water or spray. There was a startled chuckle. "Voices, too! Hello, June. How do you tell a machine to go jump in the lake?"
"Are you hungry?"
"No food since yesterday."
"We'll have a banquet ready for you when you get out," she told Pat and hung up, smiling. Pat Mead's voice had a vitality and enjoyment which made shipboard talk sound like sad artificial gaiety in contrast.
They looked into the nearby small laboratory where twelve squealing hamsters were protestingly submitting to a small injection each of Pat's blood. In most of them the injection was followed by one of antihistaminics and adaptives. Otherwise the hamster defense system would treat all non-hamster cells as enemies, even the harmless human blood cells, and fight back against them violently.
One hamster, the twelfth, was given an extra large dose of adaptive, so that if there were a disease, he would not fight it or the human cells, and thus succumb more rapidly.
"How ya doing, George?" Max asked.
"Routine," George Barton grunted absently.
On the way up the long spiral ramps to the dining hall, they passed a viewplate. It showed a long scene of mountains in the distance on the horizon, and between them, rising step by step as they grew farther away, the low rolling hills, bronze and red with patches of clear green where there were fields.
Someone was looking out, standing very still, as if she had been there a long time—Bess St. Clair, a Canadian woman. "It looks like Winnipeg," she told them as they paused. "When are you doctors going to let us out of this blithering barberpole? Look," she pointed. "See that patch of field on the south hillside, with the brook winding through it? I've staked that hillside for our house. When do we get out?"
Reno Ulrich's tiny scout plane buzzed slowly in from the distance and began circling lazily.
"Sooner than you think," Max told her. "We've discovered a castaway colony on the planet. They've done our tests for us by just living here. If there's anything here to catch, they've caught it."
"People on Minos?" Bess's handsome ruddy face grew alive with excitement.
"One of them is down in the medical department," June said. "He'll be out in twenty minutes."
"May I go see him?"
"Sure," said Max. "Show him the way to the dining hall when he gets out. Tell him we sent you."
"Right!" She turned and ran down the ramp like a small girl going to a fire. Max grinned at June and she grinned back. After a year and a half of isolation in space, everyone was hungry for the sight of new faces, the sound of unfamiliar voices.
They climbed the last two turns to the cafeteria, and entered to a rich subdued blend of soft music and quiet conversations. The cafeteria was a section of the old dining room, left when the rest of the ship had been converted to living and working quarters, and it still had the original finely grained wood of the ceiling and walls, the sound absorbency, the soft music spools and the intimate small light at each table where people leisurely ate and talked.
They stood in line at the hot foods counter, and behind her June could hear a girl's voice talking excitedly through the murmur of conversation.
"—new man, honest! I saw him through the viewplate when they came in. He's down in the medical department. A real frontiersman."
The line drew abreast of the counters, and she and Max chose three heaping trays, starting with hydroponic mushroom steak, raised in the growing trays of water and chemicals; sharp salad bowl with rose tomatoes and aromatic peppers; tank-grown fish with special sauce; four different desserts, and assorted beverages.
Presently they had three tottering trays successfully maneuvered to a table. Brant St. Clair came over. "I beg your pardon, Max, but they are saying something about Reno carrying messages to a colony of savages, for the medical department. Will he be back soon, do you know?"
Max smiled up at him, his square face affectionate. Everyone liked the shy Canadian. "He's back already. We just saw him come in."
"Oh, fine." St. Clair beamed. "I had an appointment with him to go out and confirm what looks like a nice vein of iron to the northeast. Have you seen Bess? Oh—there she is." He turned swiftly and hurried away.
A very tall man with fiery red hair came in surrounded by an eagerly talking crowd of ship people. It was Pat Mead. He stood in the doorway, alertly scanning the dining room. Sheer vitality made him seem even larger than he was. Sighting June, he smiled and began to thread toward their table.
"Look!" said someone. "There's the colonist!" Shelia, a pretty, jeweled woman, followed and caught his arm. "Did you really swim across a river to come here?"
Overflowing with good-will and curiosity, people approached from all directions. "Did you actually walk three hundred miles? Come, eat with us. Let me help choose your tray."
Everyone wanted him to eat at their table, everyone was a specialist and wanted data about Minos. They all wanted anecdotes about hunting wild animals with a bow and arrow.
"He needs to be rescued," Max said. "He won't have a chance to eat."
June and Max got up firmly, edged through the crowd, captured Pat and escorted him back to their table. June found herself pleased to be claiming the hero of the hour.
Pat sat in the simple, subtly designed chair and leaned back almost voluptuously, testing the way it gave and fitted itself to him. He ran his eyes over the bright tableware and heaped plates. He looked around at the rich grained walls and soft lights at each table. He said nothing, just looking and feeling and experiencing.
"When we build our town and leave the ship," June explained, "we will turn all the staterooms back into the lounges and ballrooms and cocktail bars that used to be inside."
"Oh, I'm not complaining," Pat said negligently. He cocked his head to the music, and tried to locate its source.
"That's big of you," said Max with gentle irony.
They fell to, Pat beginning the first meal he had had in more than a day.
Most of the other diners finished when they were halfway through, and began walking over, diffidently at first, then in another wave of smiling faces, handshakes, and introductions. Pat was asked about crops, about farming methods, about rainfall and floods, about farm animals and plant breeding, about the compatibility of imported Earth seeds with local ground, about mines and strata.
There was no need to protect him. He leaned back in his chair and drawled answers with the lazy ease of a panther; where he could think of no statistic, he would fill the gap with an anecdote. It developed that he enjoyed spinning campfire yarns and especially being the center of interest.
Between bouts of questions, he ate with undiminished and glowing relish.
June noticed that the female specialists were prolonging the questions more than they needed, clustering around the table laughing at his jokes, until presently Pat was almost surrounded by pretty faces, eager questions, and chiming laughs. Shelia the beautiful laughed most chimingly of all.
June nudged Max, and Max shrugged indifferently. It wasn't anything a man would pay attention to, perhaps. But June watched Pat for a moment more, then glanced uneasily back to Max. He was eating and listening to Pat's answers and did not feel her gaze. For some reason Max looked almost shrunken to her. He was shorter than she had realized; she had forgotten that he was only the same height as herself. She was dimly aware of the clear lilting chatter of female voices increasing at Pat's end of the table.
"That guy's a menace," Max said, and laughed to himself, cutting another slice of hydroponic mushroom steak. "What's eating you?" he added, glancing aside at her when he noticed her sudden stillness.
"Nothing," she said hastily, but she did not turn back to watching Pat Mead. She felt disloyal. Pat was only a superb animal. Max was the man she loved. Or—was he? Of course he was, she told herself angrily. They had gone colonizing together because they wanted to spend their lives together; she had never thought of marrying any other man. Yet the sense of dissatisfaction persisted, and along with it a feeling of guilt.
Len Marlow, the protein tank-culture technician responsible for the mushroom steaks, had wormed his way into the group and asked Pat a question. Now he was saying, "I don't dig you, Pat. It sounds like you're putting the people into the tanks instead of the vegetables!" He glanced at them, looking puzzled. "See if you two can make anything of this. It sounds medical to me."
Pat leaned back and smiled, sipping a glass of hydroponic burgundy.
"Wonderful stuff. You'll have to show us how to make it."
Len turned back to him. "You people live off the country, right? You hunt and bring in steaks and eat them, right? Well, say I have one of those steaks right here and I want to eat it, what happens?"
"Go ahead and eat it. It just wouldn't digest. You'd stay hungry."
"Why?" Len was aggrieved.
"Chemical differences in the basic protoplasm of Minos. Different amino linkages, left-handed instead of right-handed molecules in the carbohydrates, things like that. Nothing will be digestible here until you are adapted chemically by a little test-tube evolution. Till then you'd starve to death on a full stomach."
Pat's side of the table had been loaded with the dishes from two trays, but it was almost clear now and the dishes were stacked neatly to one side. He started on three desserts, thoughtfully tasting each in turn.
"Test-tube evolution?" Max repeated. "What's that? I thought you people had no doctors."
"It's a story." Pat leaned back again. "Alexander P. Mead, the head of the Mead clan, was a plant geneticist, a very determined personality and no man to argue with. He didn't want us to go through the struggle of killing off all Minos plants and putting in our own, spoiling the face of the planet and upsetting the balance of its ecology. He decided that he would adapt our genes to this planet or kill us trying. He did it all right.'"
"Did which?" asked June, suddenly feeling a sourceless prickle of fear.
"Adapted us to Minos. He took human cells—"
She listened intently, trying to find a reason for fear in the explanation. It would have taken many human generations to adapt to Minos by ordinary evolution, and that only at a heavy toll of death and hunger which evolution exacts. There was a shorter way: Human cells have the ability to return to their primeval condition of independence, hunting, eating and reproducing alone.
Alexander P. Mead took human cells and made them into phagocytes. He put them through the hard savage school of evolution—a thousand generations of multiplication, hardship and hunger, with the alien indigestible food always present, offering its reward of plenty to the cell that reluctantly learned to absorb it.
"Leucocytes can run through several thousand generations of evolution in six months," Pat Mead finished. "When they reached to a point where they would absorb Minos food, he planted them back in the people he had taken them from."
"What was supposed to happen then?" Max asked, leaning forward.
"I don't know exactly how it worked. He never told anybody much about it, and when I was a little boy he had gone loco and was wandering ha-ha-ing around waving a test tube. Fell down a ravine and broke his neck at the age of eighty."
"A character," Max said.
Why was she afraid? "It worked then?"
"Yes. He tried it on all the Meads the first year. The other settlers didn't want to be experimented on until they saw how it worked out. It worked. The Meads could hunt, and plant while the other settlers were still eating out of hydroponics tanks."
"It worked," said Max to Len. "You're a plant geneticist and a tank culture expert. There's a job for you."
"Uh- uh !" Len backed away. "It sounds like a medical problem to me. Human cell control—right up your alley."
"It is a one-way street," Pat warned. "Once it is done, you won't be able to digest ship food. I'll get no good from this protein. I ate it just for the taste."
Hal Barton appeared quietly beside the table. "Three of the twelve test hamsters have died," he reported, and turned to Pat. "Your people carry the germs of melting sickness, as you call it. The dead hamsters were injected with blood taken from you before you were de-infected. We can't settle here unless we de-infect everybody on Minos. Would they object?"
"We wouldn't want to give you folks germs," Pat smiled. "Anything for safety. But there'll have to be a vote on it first."
The doctors went to Reno Ulrich's table and walked with him to the hangar, explaining. He was to carry the proposal to Alexandria, mingle with the people, be persuasive and wait for them to vote before returning. He was to give himself shots of cureall every two hours on the hour or run the risk of disease.
Reno was pleased. He had dabbled in sociology before retraining as a mechanic for the expedition. "This gives me a chance to study their mores." He winked wickedly. "I may not be back for several nights." They watched through the viewplate as he took off, and then went over to the laboratory for a look at the hamsters.
Three were alive and healthy, munching lettuce. One was the control; the other two had been given shots of Pat's blood from before he entered the ship, but with no additional treatment. Apparently a hamster could fight off melting sickness easily if left alone. Three were still feverish and ruffled, with a low red blood count, but recovering. The three dead ones had been given strong shots of adaptive and counter histamine, so their bodies had not fought back against the attack.
June glanced at the dead animals hastily and looked away again. They lay twisted with a strange semi-fluid limpness, as if ready to dissolve. The last hamster, which had been given the heaviest dose of adaptive, had apparently lost all its hair before death. It was hairless and pink, like a still-born baby.
"We can find no micro-organisms," George Barton said. "None at all. Nothing in the body that should not be there. Leucosis and anemia. Fever only for the ones that fought it off." He handed Max some temperature charts and graphs of blood counts.
June wandered out into the hall. Pediatrics and obstetrics were her field; she left the cellular research to Max, and just helped him with laboratory routine. The strange mood followed her out into the hall, then abruptly lightened.
Coming toward her, busily telling a tale of adventure to the gorgeous Shelia Davenport, was a tall, red-headed, magnificently handsome man. It was his handsomeness which made Pat such a pleasure to look upon and talk with, she guiltily told herself, and it was his tremendous vitality.... It was like meeting a movie hero in the flesh, or a hero out of the pages of a book—Deer-slayer, John Clayton, Lord Greystoke.
She waited in the doorway to the laboratory and made no move to join them, merely acknowledged the two with a nod and a smile and a casual lift of the hand. They nodded and smiled back.
"Hello, June," said Pat and continued telling his tale, but as they passed he lightly touched her arm.
"Oh, pioneer!" she said mockingly and softly to his passing profile, and knew that he had heard.
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